January and Beyond!

[Klaus]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (January and Beyond)

A look at more Gamma World, what Fortune Cards look (and play) like and previews of Heroes of Shadow.

I'm proud to say I wrote both the shade and the vryloka races from HoS.

 

[Aegeri]

I really hope the shade get's some racial feat support, because as it is written it is terribly underpowered and has a bizarre penalty to surges (that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever).

I can't say I am enthused whatsoever for fortune cards in the least and I think they are the worst idea ever (just about). It did only occur to me that gamma world is adding vampires and so is DnD through HoS. Do Wizards have vampires on the brain or something?

 

[Drakhar]

I'm liking shades, they may not be the strongest race out there but they're very flavorful and I think people my underestimate the usefulness of guaranteed stealth training and the ability to at-will stealth, even if it does cost a standard action to do.

 

[Aegeri]

A bunch of classes that the shade is actually good at get stealth training anyway, making that racial feature wasted. At-will stealth as a standard action seems good - but gaining CA (for a rogue) isn't difficult anyway and is going to backfire dramatically in some situations (Tremorsense, Blindsight and Truesight). Additionally with the power of bursts and blasts in 4E, losing that healing surge is a massive problem. Especially on classes that are already very squishy as they are.

I don't mean to sound so harsh, but it's going to be a really low ranked race for many of the classes it should actually really suit.

 

[Klaus]

The shade changed a bit from its original incarnation, but I tried to balance one less surge (something that came from before I tackled them) with being hit less often (due to concealment and Stealth). A shade should rarely, if ever, be caught without cover/concealment (and with Twilight Torch, the shade can pretty much guarantee the +2 bonus to defenses from concealment, upgradable to +5 with a simple Stealth check).

And when working on the shade, I made sure to check the 1e MM2, where the shade debuted.

As for classes, of course shades are great for rogues and assassins, but the bonus to Charisma and Int/Dex makes them very good for sorcerers, warlocks (especially dark pact ones), paladins, avengers, bards, none of which get training in Stealth.

 

[renau1g]

Yeah I agree with Aegeri, that penalty to surges was disappointing, but I'll hold jugdement until seeing the final rendition of the race.

Edit: Must spread XP around for Klaus. Regardless of the surge loss, still a great job, as always. As long as the vryloka aren't shiny-chested emo kids then I'll be happy

 

[Dausuul]

I really hope the shade get's some racial feat support, because as it is written it is terribly underpowered and has a bizarre penalty to surges (that just doesn't make any sense whatsoever).

Which goes to show how different people's experiences are. I consider one less surge barely a penalty. The race looks fine to me.

Edit: This post was by Stalker0. Why is it showing up as mine and allowing me to edit it now? --Dausuul

 

[Aegeri]

The shade changed a bit from its original incarnation, but I tried to balance one less surge (something that came from before I tackled them) with being hit less often (due to concealment and Stealth). A shade should rarely, if ever, be caught without cover/concealment (and with Twilight Torch, the shade can pretty much guarantee the +2 bonus to defenses from concealment, upgradable to +5 with a simple Stealth check).

There is a crippling flaw here and it come from the fact 4E has made bursts/blasts absolutely terrifying. Coincidentally these bursts and blasts completely don't care how invisible you are. When the Balor catches you hiding behind the cleric with beheading blade, you notice how much your resilience sucks due to having one less surge than normal - not that your defenses are better due to being hidden. Additionally stealth has numerous hard counters in 4E (Tremorsense, Blindsight and Truesight). If one of my players picked this race in my current Eberron game he would struggle. I've routinely dropped the drow rogue to 0 surges (twice now), so having one surge less and facing enemies with tremorsense (spiders) would be a nightmare.

I'm not trying to be overly critical of you, but I can't fathom why it loses the healing surge for such a lackluster racial power (which takes a standard action too). Bursts and blasts tend to be high damage, they also tend to ignore stealth entirely. Taking a standard action is a massive action sink and is a huge trap: Many PCs will try to remain hidden constantly without realizing tactically it's terrible. It will drop their DPR through the floor for little benefit, especially given that CA is practically easy to autogenerate for many strikers (Thieves for example).

Without seeing the book I can't make a really good determination overall, because this is honestly a race that will entirely live or die on good racial feats. Good racial feats could make this really solid, otherwise why bother with this when the cunning sneak does what this race does and without sacrifice?

 

[Klaus]

There is a crippling flaw here and it come from the fact 4E has made bursts/blasts absolutely terrifying. Coincidentally these bursts and blasts completely don't care how invisible you are.

And that's when the shade's player needs to think more (and shades have more going for them than the racial power alone). And a hidden shade can be far from the point of origin of area and close attacks, without the enemy being any wiser.

why bother with this when the cunning sneak does what this race does and without sacrifice?

Because maybe you want to play something else?

 

[Aegeri]

The problem is the shades stats and racial fit classes that already have superior features or tricks for becoming hidden - none of which will absorb an entire turn of not attacking and the Cunning Sneak is just the best example of it. The problem is that the racial is horribly underpowered and isn't even as useful as other existing options. While it will allow a defender or something to gain access to stealth more easily, the stats ensure it will be suboptimal for such a role and the healing surge penalty *really* sucks in a post MM3 world. So no defender or front line character will want to touch it anyway. The classes it suits you can't get the most benefit out of the shade, the classes it doesn't suit the healing surge penalty is potentially crippling (and just silly). Given the shade has to expend a standard action, which doesn't even give you stealth it just lets you make a stealth check in the first place (so you need a minimum of two actions!) and then move it takes some effort to get far enough way not to be in many bursts.