I've reversed my stance on dragonborn and tieflings

[rounser]

It goes back to my Warlocks are cooler than Paladins theory

An aasimar paladin gives a tiefling warlock a run for it's money in the cool stakes, and they provide the necessary contrast to make each other look cooler. They just need to get the art right. Horns are to tieflings as ? is to aasimar...fill in that blank, yeah?

I'm thinking feathered wings here, there's no other "angel calling card". They can't be full size though, and vestigial wings would look silly. Hmm.

WOTC are already keen on marketing with angels, saw cheesecake Serra Angel on the bus ad on slashdot.org yesterday. Cheesecake aasimar paladin, maybe? Not sure that's necessary, but surely possible.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

An aasimar paladin gives a tiefling warlock a run for it's money in the cool stakes. They just need to get the art right. Horns are to tieflings as ? is to aasimar...fill in that blank, yeah?

In that blank goes "glowing lazer eyes". My original answer was "pretentiousness and righteous indignation", but I figured you were looking for a positive.

-TRRW

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Because you're growing racial features with feats. It kills my suspension of disbelief in the same way that taking puberty as a feat would. Simulation defines what is simulated, ala what they did with Eberron, rather than the other way around as it should be. Regressive, unnecessary introduction of D&Disms purely for design convenience.

Whereas I see it as a ritual unlocking latent powers of the blood. The Dragonborn in question (the one growing wings) has undergone the potent Ritual of Zuma Kalis (or X'uma Kaa'liis, if you like unnecessary vowels and apostrophes and Xs) in order to awaken the dormant parts of his ancient draconic birthright.

-TRRW

 

[rounser]

In that blank goes "glowing lazer eyes".

Not nearly good enough. You think tieflings would sell if they just had glowing red eyes?

My original answer was "pretentiousness and righteous indignation", but I figured you were looking for a positive.

No, the "warlord" already has the pretentious and impudent niche covered in 4E. Now with added hubris. Just watch how they'll get played.

 

[DJCupboard]

<snip>(or X'uma Kaa'liis, if you like unnecessary vowels and apostrophes and Xs) -TRRW

And who doesn't? That's what makes things dragonlike

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah, Tieflings will never be cool. They just try way too hard.
From the clothes to the weapons to the big floppy tails, it all just smacks of effort.
I just picture a typical Tiefling walking into a D&D village with their "cool" horns and "cool" leather trenchcoats tryig to look all hard, as peasants and commoners point and snicker at them.

That was totally me in grade 12. Of course, I was going for more like a casablanca-eque trenchcoat look rather than a "so goth I poop bats" trenchcoat look.

I outgrew it.

 

[rounser]

Whereas I see it as a ritual unlocking latent powers of the blood. The Dragonborn in question (the one growing wings) has undergone the potent Ritual of Zuma Kalis (or X'uma Kaa'liis, if you like unnecessary vowels and apostrophes and Xs) in order to awaken the dormant parts of his ancient draconic birthright.

Your explanation sounds contrived, forced and fabricated, which says it all IMO.

Flavour as afterthought just sticks out like a sore thumb, but it's easy to kid yourself that you've explained it away. Core D&D deserves better.

 

[med stud]

The emo- thing goes back to at least 19th century (with the original goth-types (pale, haired dyed black, "life is suffering"). I don't think they will disappear.

I think both dragonborn and tiefling adds something that is needed in D&D and that is more original races to chose from. If you want to play the standard races, you have elves, dwarves and halflings as before. If you want to play something different you now have full PHB- support for it.

I also think that is one of the reasons why tieflings were added but not aasimar; there already are human-like, fair races in the game. Tieflings are for the misunderstood hero type that is prejudiced against. Before, half orcs filled that role but they were hamstrung in that they were too stupid and uncharismatic to be varied (aside from the rape- angle).

Dragonborn will probably be the strong fighter- race; if the tiefling took the misunderstood role, the dragonborn will have the muscles of the half orc and a distinct culture of their own.

To add to the emo-discussion again: In my experience, lots of role players are kind of outsiders of society and proportionally more of them are goth or lean to that direction than average people. I think it wouldn't make sense not to add a race to identify with for that kind of role.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Your explanation sounds contrived, forced and fabricated, which says it all IMO.

Flavour as afterthought just sticks out like a sore thumb, but it's easy to kid yourself that you've explained it away. Core D&D deserves better.

What if the flavor came first, though? I picked up the idea of Rituals boosting a race's race-ness from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved. I liked the idea that the various races had developed rituals to unlock power from their ancestors, so I worked up a series of feats based around that concept.

What's to say they didn't see a similar idea and decide to run with it? Maybe the "feat that gives a dragonborn wings" feat was made up *after* they decided on having rituals for the different races?

Also, you're talking about a game. A game made up by people. The whole thing is fabricated.

-TRRW

 

[DJCupboard]

Because you're growing racial features with feats. It kills my suspension of disbelief in the same way that taking puberty as a feat would. Simulation defines what is simulated, ala what they did with Eberron, rather than the other way around as it should be. Regressive, unnecessary introduction of D&Disms purely for design convenience.

Do you think it would be better if certain racial abilities "woke up" at certain levels whether you wanted them to or not?

If you think of feats not as things that you add to your character as you level up, but instead, as a mechanical expression of what is naturally happening to your character as he or she grows as a person, I think it will be easier to swallow. The only problem being why some dragonborn end up with breath weapons and wings and others don't, which is where I think the ritual idea fills in nicely. The alternative is to treat it as something that just happens to some dragonborn and not others (like facial hair with male humans), and your character is just one of those people it happened to.