Kalashtar: am I missing something?

[Alabast]

Is it me, or does they hose this race for 4th edition?
Kalashtar racial features:

+2 Wis, +2 Cha. Fine, but both bonuses affect the same NAD, and they don't have a class ability to mitigate it, like eladrin do. (On a personal note, it means they don't make particularly good Psions, which seems thematically inconsistent).

+2 Insight, +2 to one other. I like it. Nice to be able to pick a skill to get a bonus in. Adds some "human style" flexibility.

Telepathy 5: Pretty cool, but more of a neat RP thing than any real use in a fight.

Dual mind: Really good at resisting dazed and dominated conditions. Extremely useful for when that comes up, but how often does it come up, really?

Bastion of Mental Clarity. Give your party a bonus to Will for one turn, provided your will is attacked first. Yippee.

Their two main powers are potent, but only in situations that come up in MAYBE 1 in 3 fights most campaigns. It's like they designed this race to excel in psionically-themed anti-dreaming dark campaigns, and nowhere else.

Am I missing something?

 

[Piratecat]

There's a feat that lets you use telepathy 5 for the whole party to silently communicate; I'd use the race for that alone. That's an effect my old group used to blow high level spells on because it was so useful.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Telepathy 5 ignores language barriers.
Intimidate check can force (bloodied) opponents to surrender.

Might take a few feats and/or powers, but kalashtar can potentially end combats very quickly (by intimidating the boss).

The race is more or less meh, tho.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Same here. Telepathy is way underrated.

 

[keterys]

Kalashtar are very good clerics, paladins, ardents, etc. They're good at some Psi stuff, but not the Psion specifically.

I've seen Kalashtar prevent combats via telepathy providing a way to talk to something.

At some point I'll get around to playing a character concept I had for a Kalashtar Cleric Pacifist Cleric who is all sweetness and kindness with spoken words (say Piffany-like), but telepathically intimidates people into not fighting (loud speaker in their brains, not so sweet and cuddly anymore)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Dual mind: Really good at resisting dazed and dominated conditions. Extremely useful for when that comes up, but how often does it come up, really?

More often than you will like.

 

[Alabast]

I like telepathy, but is it really so good as to justify the crap they get for their other powers? Especially when it's generally regarded that the rules to intimidate someone into surrendering are broken and overpowered?

The Kalashtar have some pretty decent feats, but they shouldn't be necessary to take just to make the race desirable.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Cleric ... telepathically intimidates people into not fighting

Remember that hostile targets get +10 to their will save.

Personally, if I were going to build a character to be awesome at intimidate, I'd go with warlock.
Beguiling tongue is made of win.

 

[davethegame]

Dual mind: Really good at resisting dazed and dominated conditions. Extremely useful for when that comes up, but how often does it come up, really?

Almost every frickin' adventure in Paragon and Epic, it seems.

 

[fba827]

Almost every frickin' adventure in Paragon and Epic, it seems.

Agreed - dazed appears occasionally in heroic tier monsters, but in early paragon tier, there are more frequent monsters with abilities that inflict the dazed condition. By mid paragon tier monsters, dominated appears much more frequently (especially in those "big climactic scene type monster" fights).