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Message: <blockquote data-quote="redrover" data-source="post: 4385111" data-attributes="member: 70799">Updates to 7/15/late night:  On Ferocity: Oh. Yes, of course. Losing Ferocity is definitely in line with civilized minotaurs. (*D’oh*). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" />   (At this point I will repeat the request for the “Minotaur, Civilized” heading. I need it to keep the types straight. Others might find it useful as well. My thought is always for conceptual clarity, and format, like form, should bow out to function—which it to keep a casual reader from mistakenly assuming that you’re detailing the savage minotaurs.)     Fierce Reprisal: Cool. Ready for testing, then?     Taladas: One base race write-up is in the Tales of the Lance boxed set (Ansalon). Most of the Time of the Dragon (Taladas) boxed set material is gazetteer-type world info, but interesting. I found the Krynn Minotaur in MC 4 Monstrous Compendium: Dragonlance Appendix a good summary of the basic/culture info. I’m still looking for a couple of the novels (they’re around here somewhere…really).                                                                                                     Maze Intuition: In general, I have no problem with this being part of a feat string (though I generally dislike strings longer than three or so). I would, however, peg your Direction Sense at Heroic level. It really has the effective power of that Tier as written, no higher, IMO.     I would just as soon withdraw Natural Cunning as configured from the table. What it brings is covered by your Racial Trait skill bonuses.      Requiring Skill Focus (Perception) in addition to training might be a little much for Paragon Tier. Perhaps it would be better to keep the Skill Focus something a minotaur might consider sometime at the Epic level.      A feat that requires the character to virtually maximize a skill just to access it stands outside my comfort zone. Fighting “power creep” requires vigilance, and this one trips a warning flag for me.     Epic Tier Minotaur Sense: If there is a string of sense feats, going from Heroic to Epic, it seems to me that the top of the string might well be the GPS ability. The phrase “…never lost” turns up in minotaur-related material consistently. While it would probably be a racial trait or Heroic feat for savage minotaurs, it seems reasonable to me that even a civilized minotaur at the upper Tier of character power might manifest the ability, especially if it is something the player has to work on long-term.     I don’t have a concrete configuration at this point, but this seems an interesting line of inquiry.     Mazes Definition: In a game design, metagame sense, I would characterize a maze/labyrinth as follows:     <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It      has to be a construction. In other words, some intelligent entity created      it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The      intent of the creator was to      create a maze.</li> </ul>     In brief:   intelligent design + intent -> labyrinth     This second point keys off the old AD&D 2e discussions of “what is a trap”, the definition of which was always a little tricky when adjudicating the find traps cleric spell. In that case, the intention of the trap-maker was a major element in the definition in order to exclude natural hazard conditions like a ravine subject to flash floods, etc.     IMO defining a labyrinth as “any dungeon environment” is far too broad.     Battle Lust: Great. Kill the special (like it less every time I see it). Minor action is good, too. Double great.     Why Strength: It one of the two main racial attributes. It slants the feat heavily toward the Defenders/Leaders. The Fortitude defense is based on either Strength or Constitution, so Strength here is not completely out of line. I wanted to reinforce the impression that the cool race benefits flow from the main racial attributes.     Why not Constitution? It is not a main racial attribute for this class build. It slants the feat heavily toward the Warlock class (Defenders/Leaders not supported).     (As always, function over form. In the first AD&D proficiency system (1.5e), Riding was a Wisdom-based proficiency, because Wisdom ruled all animal-related class abilities and skills. The effect, of course, was that the best rider in game was the Cleric, not the Cavalier. Foolish consistency on the small points can make you miss the big points.)      On Penalties: Fair enough. “No penalties” seems to be the order of the day in 4e. I repeat the opinion that throwing away half the palette limits our creativity. (I will admit to a strong role-playing streak and don’t mind eating a few penalties if it makes a more memorable character.)     Someone said once that what makes a hero interesting is his weaknesses, not his strengths, and I do buy into that sentiment.      <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/rant.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":rant:" title="Rant    :rant:" data-shortname=":rant:" /> However, the vogue of the day is “don’t give players penalties, it might hurt their feelings”. Bah! Suck it up and learn to roleplay, wimps! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/rant.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":rant:" title="Rant    :rant:" data-shortname=":rant:" />     <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/angel.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":angel:" title="Angel    :angel:" data-shortname=":angel:" /> (And I’ll quietly put away half my broken palette until the audience gets sick of this vanilla pabulum and decides to go full-spectrum.) <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />      “Beginning Only” Feats: What drives a “beginning only” feat is not balance, but story consistency and world-sculpting. A feat becomes a “beginning only” feat when it doesn’t make sense for it to be developed by a character as part of an adventuring career. Another path is a feat that reinforces a regional origin for a character’s backstory.     For example, the concept of the dimwitted feat is that you’re not very smart, you’ve never been very smart, and that fact will impact your development as an adventurer in ways detailed by the feat.      It would rarely make much story sense to suddenly become dimwitted at, say, 8th level or so.      While it’s true that an individual case can be worked out (eg: someone dropped a rock on your head), that can lead to other problems, both internal (qy: now I have the feat benefit, why can’t I just get a cleric to heal that head injury?) and structural (how many times can you use the old “rock hit you” story before it gets so old the players groan just thinking about it?). But these are story issues, not balance issues.     A properly designed “beginning feat” should be balanced with respect to other feats. I agree with you that a “beginning only” configuration is no license or justification to create an unbalanced feat.     Even though there are no such feats in the core rules, the concept of the “beginning only” feat is too useful not to resurface in future.      Mere line consistency should bring it back into the Forgotten Realms line at least. There, it was used to define a specific regional background—you can only come from one place, and the regional characteristics can’t just appear in the middle of an adventuring career without looking illogical.     Beginning Only vs. 1st Level Feats: Last, one more matter can be sorted with respect to this type of feat. Many early examples were configured as “1st level only” feats. This designation breaks down with respect to the “beginning”-style feat once you have multiclass characters becoming “1st level” in a new class much later in their careers.      An example of a “1st level only” feat that is not a “beginning” feat is a hypothetical “latent psion” feat taken by a nonpsionic character as a prerequisite for a psionic class.      The two types are different and the distinction should be carried forward.      Free Perception Training: Easier, yes; also more inflationary, I think.    From a rules consistency standpoint (ie: have other races been given a free skill?) its no better than Eladrin Training, so no red flag there. Probably worth testing if you want to try it.     Late Note on Ferocity: While previously I have said that Ferocity might not be that useful, I have seen comments elsewhere that indicate differing mileage. So here are a few data points:     While the two Defenders in the local group haven’t gone down much, one squishy of four has been killed, all the others (including the replacement) have dropped at least once, and two have dropped multiple times.     In 9-10 significant combats (Keep adventure), we have been surprised 5 times by enemies within charge range, flanked 6 times, and taken front-and-rear once.     The attacks have seldom been well coordinated, and the party usually had solid tactics with flashes of inspired play, or things may have gone considerably worse for us. (We have an experienced group with a huge time investment in earlier editions.)     We seem to do poorly on both passive and active Perception checks (even with an elf Ranger); but on the other hand, the other skill checks we’ve encountered so far seem disproportionately difficult for the first adventure in a game line.     It is still very hard to tell which effects are from the adventure, which are from the DM, and which are systemic. Although the players don’t read modules before completion, I am really looking forward to the exercise this time.     Oh, and the characters are heavily twinked. No magic other than scavenged, but attribute modifier bonus total for each is around +20, about 2.5 x book. (Not my choice, I just swim in this pool.)     Later!     (PS: Third attempt. Two previous accidentally flushed.) <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/cry.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":.-(" title="Cry    :.-(" data-shortname=":.-(" /></blockquote>

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