Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Fortunately, there's rather few times you're going to be in a position to USE this ability, so it's not really worth caring about unless you're having a back to back buddy combat with your friendly elf against some invisible stalkers.

It's within 5 squares, not within five feet. I made that mistake when I first looked at it.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ah, 5 SQUARES. Okay, then maybe elves create some kind of aura of serenity... or maybe everyone just feels the need to prove themselves for the damned elf. Safe to assume this doesn't stack, I think.

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I'm pretty sure the main point of this power is sniping and such. If you have some kind of long build up, once-per-encounter super deadly trick, you want it to stick. It could be pretty powerful for assassins and such.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I agree the aura is a bit of an irritation: if we have to keep track of something, it should be a significant bonus, not a tiny +1. Little bonuses like that should be a permanent thing on a character sheet.

I think its nice. It allows the elf player to remind the rest of the party of this little bonus every so often. It also serves as a way of saying "You guys remember I'm an elf, don't you?". The game is made up of what you say and this is just a free line.

I interpret it to mean an elf will influence his comrades to be more aware and make less noise by being a good example. If I hang out with graceful people I will emulate that to a certain extent.

 

[JohnSnow]

Okay, great preview!

Two comments:

1) I imagine that Group Awareness requires the elf to be conscious and communicative. Basically, I would assume the elf is helping people to be more observant.

2) Rerolls are statistically the same as granting a +3 bonus to the average score - without raising the maximum result. Less abusive stacking = Good Thing.

More tomorrow, but it's bedtime now.

 

[Beckett]

"Elves mature at about the same rate as humans but show few effects of age past adulthood." This makes me happy.

Oh, yes! No more having to justify why the 126 year old elf has fewer skill points than the 15 year old human

 

[Raduin711]

The re-roll ability sounds cool and useful.

The perception aura sounds kind of annoying, though. Most perception rolls occur without miniatures on the board, so I don't think it will be all THAT bad. You'll have to remember to put everyone down within 5 squares of the elf.

The free weapon proficiency thing does sound annoying though. Pretty soon there will be a phb 2 and they will have some option in it to trade their proficiency for a new ability that gives an additional +1 to their perception aura so long as you roll an even number on the die...

 

[ptolemy18]

I like the entry. It reads well, and I like what they're doing with elves. Too bad they're using "squares" as the measure for movement, rather than "feet" (go simulation-style RPGs! w00t!), but I suppose it'll be easier to parse on the game table.

The feat seems very weak, too. Doesn't get my hopes up about 4E's feat selection.

It does seem a little weak... but I don't know if that's a bad thing... maybe players are going to have zillions of feats but a lot of those feats will be weaker?

 

[Sound of Azure]

Very cool!

I was wondering how they'd implement elves after divorcing the magic flavour from them, and it looks good to me. The "fluff" parts include some welcome changes (lifespan decrease, upsized elves), and I liked the nod to the 3e iconic names.

Now I'm even more curious about what they've done with Dwarves!

 

[Incenjucar]

With the free weapon prof... I'm thinking of replacing it with the ability to choose one non-exotic weapon that the elf was exposed to that they get free proficiency with.

It's much more believable that a species could imprint itself on an object type as a child than it is for them to naturally be able to point two very very very different missile weapons at people.

Also I'm giving every one of them a sammich because they should eat more.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Too bad they're using "squares" as the measure for movement, rather than "feet" (go simulation-style RPGs! w00t!), but I suppose it'll be easier to parse on the game table.

In 40KRP one square equals 1 meter. Metric.