How do Shifters and Changelings fit in Eberron?

[GreatLemur]

Several.

Among other things, in Races of Eberron, there's substitution levels for Changeling Transmuters and Changeling Egoists. You could even make the case for a Changeling Telepath, given their ancestors are a race with Detect Thoughts. Changelings have an affinity for this.

How about a changeling who creates (or follows) a fighting style built around morphing the body mid-fight? Lengthening limbs, growing increasingly thin or short to dodge blows, etc. I'd allow a player (or as a player, if my DM would allow) create feats for a monk to develop those feats.

But the way I see it, it's also less about just disguise and infiltration as it is defense mechanism. Imagine two muggers follow someone into an alley. The someone, a changeling, knows he's going to get attacked - so he changes his appearance - before their eyes - into a vampire. These thugs may know about changelings, but are they going to take the risk that he isn't an undead monster about to eat their face?

With proper planning, you can have some really nice psychological tricks up your sleeve.

Yeah, I saw your post in the WotC forums thread you linked, and you're definitely getting me to rethink the Changeling. (Looking them up, though, they really get screwed over in the racial feats department, compared to the other Eberron races. But that Warshaper access might make up for it.)

 

[Asmor]

Luckily the numbers don't rule the game!!

What game are you playing? o_0

 

[Crothian]

What game are you playing? o_0

I was talking about D&D but we're not playing that any more

 

[Spatula]

Given that you're paying for it by taking a race with a net -2 to your starting ability scores all the time, +2 for a brief period once per day is not exactly thrilling in comparison.

It's better than (or at least equivalent to) what the half-orc gets - a core race. And the half-orc doesn't have the extra feat options.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Only 16% of the population of the Eldeen Reaches are shifters. You could replace them with fey and no one would notice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Racial_groups

Only 12.1% of the U.S. Population is Black. Could you replace them with fey without anyone noticing?

(deleted, as discussing "issues" of a political nature is not what we want around here)

 

[GreatLemur]

Only 12.1% of the U.S. Population is Black. Could you replace them with fey without anyone noticing?

That was beautiful.