Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

"Perception Aura":
I am not sure how often other players will need reminding of that. I think it has one major advantage - it's always on (unlike a Dragon Shamans Aura, which changes around), and its range is long enough that it should usually cover the typical party "cofiguration". For groups searching a room it's an automatic "+1 for everyone".

Age: I don't care much how old they can get, but I really like that they become adults at around the same age as humans. Much better now.

Racial Ability Modifiers: Finally, no need to force balanced ability scores modifiers. I like it a lot better. I wonder what humans will get.

Elven Accuracy: I like reroll abilities. They shouldn't be overdone (we don't want to end up with a nd20 system ), but they are better than just stacking another bonus - they increase the likelyhood of success without forcing modifiers between focused and unfocused characters outside the d20 range.

Elven Precision: It looks a bit less powerful then (the stronger) 3.5 feats, but it doesn't look bad, either. It seems to work good in conjunction with Elven Accuracy.

As a side note, I wonder if there will be ways to make an "per encounter" power an "at will" power.

. Plural.

Bonusiiaeta.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I'm very happy with the write up.

I know that I'm in the minority, but it seems that the 4e designers have been listening to us all. No ability score penalties - yay! Different races have different movements - yay!

Also liking the aura thing - it will mean that players have to pay a bit more attention, but that is their problem. Hopefully each PC will only have one aura running at a time, and they'll all be different.

A great early Xmas present, and now I can't wait to see the rest!

 

[delericho]

Ah, a really solid and crunchy preview. More of these, please!

As for the elves themselves:

- End of stat penalties and two stat bonuses, looks like some significant power creep here. Not sure that's a terrible thing, but it is a thing.

- I really don't like the "Group Awareness" power. Because my buddy is an elf, suddenly I can see better?

- Not keen on the implementation of "Elven Accuracy". I would have preferred a flat +2 (or whatever) bonus with bows. A lot of my opinion of this will depend on how many 'reroll powers' characters acquire. As long as they only ever have one or two, I suppose it's fine, but more than that is likely to become a bookkeeping nightmare.

I like much of the cleaned up terminology in 4e: "combat advantage" instead of "flat-footed", "shift" instead of "five-foot step".

 

[Frostmarrow]

Ah, a really solid and crunchy preview. More of these, please!

As for the elves themselves:

- End of stat penalties and two stat bonuses, looks like some significant power creep here. Not sure that's a terrible thing, but it is a thing.

It's power creep at first level in order to push characters into the sweet spot. Then it will dry up in order to keep characters init.

Sweet is +10 attack against chainmail.

 

[Bagpuss]

It has been strongly hinted that feats will be weaker, but more uniform in power. Some have suggested you will get more feats over time (but nothing definitive that I recall).

Also it's a heroic tier feat. I expect that Paragon and Epic feats are stronger.

 

[Sitara]

Yah maybe an epic level feat allows it to be made into a will power.

However, they did say racial feats only go up to level 10.

ANd are people sure Shift does not refer to some form of teleportation, like the Eladrin's racial ability?

 

[Bagpuss]

- I really don't like the "Group Awareness" power. Because my buddy is an elf, suddenly I can see better?

That and you now need to know where everyone is standing to even make an Perception check are they within 5 squares of the elf or not? So you need to have a map out even if folks are just overhearing a conversation in the street. I can imagine a lot of the time players will forget this bonus as it isn't recorded on their character sheet, but somebody elses.

 

[Bagpuss]

ANd are people sure Shift does not refer to some form of teleportation, like the Eladrin's racial ability?

If it was teleportation.

a) Why would terrain matter normally?
b) Why would it only be one square normally?

 

[Bagpuss]

Not sure about some of the fluff either.

Elves revere the natural world. Their connection to their surroundings enables them to perceive much. They never cut living trees, and when they create permanent communities, they do so by carefully growing or weaving arbors, tree houses, and catwalks from living branches.

Yet they are archers? So what do they make all their bows and arrows out of? I guess bows could be bone, so they respect natural animals less than natural trees? But the arrows, I doubt there is enough dead-fall wood to keep a race of archers stocked?

 

[Pinotage]

That and you now need to know where everyone is standing to even make an Perception check are they within 5 squares of the elf or not? So you need to have a map out even if folks are just overhearing a conversation in the street. I can imagine a lot of the time players will forget this bonus as it isn't recorded on their character sheet, but somebody elses.

I had a quick scan through it, and this was the first thing that bugged me. And, as others have mentioned on this thread, it's going to be a pain to keep track of. Couple this with the seemingly large number of immediate actions in a game, and I can see the Attack of Opportunity being the least of anybody's problems in 4e combat. Is it just me or does 4e seem to have far too many bookkeeping?

Pinotage