D&D 4E Race Matters more in 4e?

[Nefrast]

A character that has more meanginful options is more powerful than one who doesn't. To put it simply, if the elf has a Really Good at Longswords trait, and dwarves have a Really Good with Axes trait, then an elven axe-fighter is going to, relatively, suck in every comparable way.

There exist different ways to handle this. Like to not make "be really powerful with weapon X" a racial feat or giving the elf other goodies to make up for it. We have to wait for some previews to see how 4e will actual handle these things.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If you are going to reroll if low anyway, why not roll 2d20 and take the better of the two? It might even make sense as a racial characteristic. Elves have excellent senses, so when making Search, Spot, and Listen checks they roll 2d20 and take the better of the two. This also has the advantage that the rest of the players do not know whether he failed because it was not there to be found or because he rolled low on both rolls. If he fails the first time and you ask the elven character to roll again it is more or less a bright light to the other players that there is in fact something to be found there - if they can think of a non-metagame reason for their characters to also take notice. If the elven PC rolls 2 d20s when searching - just as they normally would in such a system - then there is no spot light effect.

Of course, there are likely problems with this that I am overlooking.

The SAGA rules essentially have two variations:
- Roll the check, and (before the DM says anything) decide wether you want to reroll. Take the result of the reroll, even if the first roll was better.
-Roll the check, and (before the DM says anything) reroll. Take the better roll.

So, rerolling will never give you any more information about a situation. It will just give you a better chance to get a good roll or at least compensate a bad one.