Podcast: Drow Warrior 1 Usefullness

[Michael Silverbane]

For the most part, I'd be more likely to use more specific drow types right out of the book. Drow B-Slapper and Drow Hand-Waver would get used way more than Drow Schmuck, because they'd be more interesting for my players to murder.

I can see why I'd want a Drow Schmuck in there, though, so as to have a good baseline from which to design my own specialist drow. If its not in there, then I have to work down from the specialist critters back to the baseline, and then stack my new specialists up again...

Later
silver

 

[Simm]

Definitely warrior 1. If I'm going to use Drow (they don't exist in my homebrew and likely won't exist in my new one either) then I want a basic unit to work with. If I need advanced Drow to challenge my party I'd probably build them custom to fill the role I need them for. Even if I never use it I want something to represent what the basic soldier of their nation is.

 

[Vempyre]

I think the poll is very biaised, the way the warrior is singled out.

 

[Incenjucar]

Personally, I'd like to see super-compressed "base" stats that aren't tied to anything that define solely what every member of the race should have, and nothing else.

Make every race a mini-template or something.

 

[The Little Raven]

I like the concept of the handful of pre-made monster characters for different monster types, so I have a good chance of having all the different types I'd want if I was using that type of monster. However, it would be nice if they would separate out some of the shared abilities and explicitly point out things like "Every NPC kobold has Shifty and Trap Sense. Every NPC Gnoll has Pack Tactics. Every NPC Hobgoblin has Hobgoblin Resilience." and so on and so forth. It's easy to extrapolate from the entries (since every kobold seen has Shifty and Trap Sense), but an explicit indicator would be nice as well.

 

[arscott]

It's the Level 1 bit that I object to, not the NPC Warrior class. That dude just isn't powerful enough to pose the threat I associate with drow.

And no Drow Scorpion Priestesses please--Eberron drow are cool because they're not just scorpion-themed knockoffs of their Greyhawk counterparts. Unless you think that primitive jungle warriors that worship the god of bestial savagery are the same thing as decadent subterranean cosmopolites that pay fealty to the goddess of political intrigue.

 

[Ipissimus]

Hard poll to answer for me, I'd use all of them for different purposes.

I would find the Drow Warrior 1 less useful, however, and I'd never use a minion Drow. Mainly for reasons of backstory. Firstly, Drow are feared and respected combatants. Secondly, they're scearce. Third, they live in a society that means living on the knife edge of death every day. That sorta weeds out the muppets. The only place I'd use a Drow Warrior 1 or minion would be at a Drow training facility, children and civilians.

The same goes for the other long-lived, low-birth-rate, races. Elves, Eladrin and Dwarves.

 

[MaelStorm]

Drow wizard.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'd like a whole party (eg four drow), of about the same level. Maybe three hero units (cleric, fighter/rogue and mage) plus some lower level flunkies instead, which can also be a challenge.

Either way, a 1st-level drow warrior is pointless. He couldn't survive outside his own city.

 

[Aegir]

Either way, a 1st-level drow warrior is pointless. He couldn't survive outside his own city.

These are Drow: a Lv 1 warrior mook could barely survive inside his own city, let alone outside it.

I realize this is an aspect that 4E is apparently trying to weed out, but Drow are notorious slave-keepers, so its not unreasonable for a group of 3-4 Drow to have a group of goblin/kobold/human/quaggoth/etc minions.