Introducing Racial Variants (again?)

[Neverfate]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20110715

The Neverwinter book do out next month introduces racial variants to several races. These are kind of like choosing a different Genasi manifestation (though it doesn't look like you can accrue more) and is both an "about time" and "PHB2/3 races will never see this". On one hand it's great that there are more options. I love options. Dwarves however have literally some of the best already.

Also, there is literally no way to translate this to the Shifter race. Last I checked they only have an encounter power they could swap for. They have no racial features other than bonuses to skills. Like I said, we probably won't be seeing PHB2 and 3 races see this any time soon. Oh, well. Let's see what comes of this. Discuss.

 

[Incenjucar]

I would assume shifters getting something like this would just gain different animal breeds to base their encounter power on.

 

[DracoSuave]

Yeah, given the original way shifters were, they're the easiest to do. Change ability scores, change encounter power GO

 

[Mummolus]

They'd already done a certain amount of this with feats (Wood Elves and Sun Elves or whatever it was), wonder if those will be retroactively changed?

 

[Neverfate]

They'd already done a certain amount of this with feats (Wood Elves and Sun Elves or whatever it was), wonder if those will be retroactively changed?

Yeah, this is why I put an "again?" at the end of my thread title. Several races (most PHB1 races) seem to have ended up with various feats that allude to or represent a racial offshoot either via racial feats or bloodline feats. Eladrin are a perfect example of this. They received Sun Elf and Moon Elf from FRCG and the Winterkin Bloodline feat from a Dragon article. Will all of these be revisted? I think in the Neverwinter book will have the Forgotten Realms Moon/Sun Eladrin varients, but I doubt we'll ever see certain offshoots revisited.

 

[Incenjucar]

Honestly, this sort of thing is where a lot of the confusion in 4E comes from: they keep introducing so many different ways to do the same sort of thing that there's no system you can learn. It's not unlike 2E's vast array of tables that had no rhyme or reason to them. Even if both methods are equally good, it makes it that much more difficult to say "this is how we do this."

 

[Scribble]

Honestly, this sort of thing is where a lot of the confusion in 4E comes from: they keep introducing so many different ways to do the same sort of thing that there's no system you can learn. It's not unlike 2E's vast array of tables that had no rhyme or reason to them. Even if both methods are equally good, it makes it that much more difficult to say "this is how we do this."

I honestly don't mind that. The old cliche "More then one way to skin a cat" seems apt here.

 

[Incenjucar]

True enough. But they keep releasing articles about how D&D is just too confusing for people. This is much of why. They keep breaking away from a unified system and into little pockets of rules.

 

[Zaran]

I think this is part of their "Get the player to buy the book" scheme. They have to put a good amount of player options in their books so it wouldn't be just GMs buying them. They really don't understand that GMs will get them players if they just put out useful material.

 

[Zaran]

Also notice how both of these racial options gets rid of the "Dwarves can use any rock and stick combination weapon" option that they denied was broken .