How are you going to fix half-elves?

[Enverxis]

Dilettante isn't actually as weak as people think.

Dilettante - I figure it works like any other ability: you have to meet the level requirements. If the character decides to, they can swap their power out for a higher level power (that still meets the requirement of being an at-will), once they meet the requirements for that power, but that will also use up their "swap" for that level.

Other than that I was thinking of making them either a Half-Elf or Half-Eladrin and giving them a free racial feat from either pools of both halves.

 

[mattdm]

Dilettante isn't actually as weak as people think.

Dilettante - I figure it works like any other ability: you have to meet the level requirements. If the character decides to, they can swap their power out for a higher level power (that still meets the requirement of being an at-will), once they meet the requirements for that power, but that will also use up their "swap" for that level.

I don't think so. The regular-leveling up rules say that at certain levels you "can replace any encounter attack power you know from your class" (emphasis added) — which the Dilettante power wouldn't be. And the power retraining rules specifically say that you swap a power for one of equal or lower level.

Plus, at this point, the higher-level at wills are all utility powers, not attacks. Maybe that'll change in future books, but maybe not.

 

[Fanaelialae]

What about, instead of Group Diplomacy, the Half Elf gets an aura power (Cooperation) that grants +1 to all allies on a skill of the Half Elf's choice for the length of an encounter. You could limit it to skills the Half Elf is trained in. I'm not sure whether it ought to be a daily or encounter though, pretty tired atm.

 

[pukunui]

I don't really like any of the group aura abilities. I'd like to change both the half-elf's and the elf's (although the elf's one at least makes some sense as you could think of it in terms of the elf doing hand signals or bird calls or whatever to keep the rest of the party more alert) but at this point I don't really know what I would use instead.

I think a floating +2 would be good but doesn't it impinge on the human a bit?

What I am planning on doing, though, is making it so you can have half-eladrin and half-drow (one the full drow writeup comes out later this year). There are plenty of other "choose x, y or z at character creation" rules. Why not have another one? "At character creation, choose whether your character's non-human heritage is elven, eladrin, or drow. You gain access to racial feats according to your choice. This choice stays with your character through his/her entire career and cannot be changed." And so on.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Here are my changes:

Half Elves – They get +2 Cha and a +2 to their choice of Dex, Wis, or Con. When choosing their Dilettante power, Half Elves may choose either an Encounter Power from another class and use it as a Daily power or an At Will used as an Encounter. They also receive a +1 bonus to Reflex saves instead of the Group Diplomacy power.


My reasoning: I wanted to give players more choices for the extra +2 than just Con (which makes almost no sense to me), and yet not allow it to be fully free floating (because Str would make even less sense than Con, and I wanted to leave that option to Humans only). So I felt the best compromise was to give 3 choices for the +2:

Con (so that all pre-gen half-elf characters are still legal, and to show their human side)

or Dex or Wis (the 2 stat bonuses that an Elf gets, showing his more elven side).

Next, the at wills are fairly weak and not too exciting, so I felt that the option to choose an Encounter power as a Daily instead of an At Will as an Encounter would allow even more varied choices and add interest to the race.

Finally, for all the reasons mentioned above, the incredibly stupid +1 to allies' Diplomacy had to go. The text talks about half elves being agile and quick, but none of their powers reflected that, so I replaced the aura with a +1 Ref defense. That also echoes the Humans' +1's to defenses, just in a more limited fashion.

I think the race with these rules is now well balanced.

I had pretty much the same line of thought:

Ability Scores: +2 Charisma, and +2 in either Dexterity, Constitution or Wisdom.

Group Diplomacy is replaced with... Nimble: You gain a +1 to Reflex saves.

Full-blood Elves also get Nimble in lieu of Group Awareness.


I really like your expansion to Dilettante, and am very likely to add the Encounter-as-a-Daily selection as well.

 

[malcolm_n]

wow, getting moved to the homebrew board is the same thing as killing the thread.

pfft...

Otherwise, I happen to like the half-elf as written; but any of these suggestions would still fit in to make the half-elf a bard race all the way (shameless plug)

Now, to be constructive, if I did change anything, I think I would agree with the floating ability score. That one thing, alone, could make anybody who plays a half-elf a great multiclasser because they can pick that ability score in which to take the required feat.