Races of the Wild - First Impressions

[MerricB]

Well, I bought Races of the Wild yesterday. Today, after the unfortunate death of my cohort in Castle Greyhawk (WGR1-Greyhawk Ruins adventure), I created a new cohort: an Elven Wizard, using feats and substitution levels from RotW.

This is a fun book.

The tactical feats are really great - I'm sure I'll see Woodland Sniper turning up for most of the archer builds from now on in my campaign.

My wizard chose Elf Dilettante (can make all skill checks even untrained, and a +1 on all untrained skill checks); it's a slightly better Jack of All Trades, but it fits the elf longevity really well. He also chose to take the three Elf Wizard substitution levels - the first, which is a form of non-specialisation power-up (an extra spell gained per level and can prepare one more spell of the highest level) actually finally makes elf wizards more magically inclined... though I'm interested in the balance implications.

I don't think they're that bad, actually. Perhaps it is slightly more powerful than the human generalist wizard, but that bonus feat and skill for being human is _so_ nice...

I'm really enjoying the expanded Prestige Class descriptions. Very nice indeed.

Cheers!

 

[Sammael]

Talk about power creep. Yeech.

*Sammael pre-bans the book for his campaigns*

 

[MerricB]

Talk about power creep. Yeech.

*Sammael pre-bans the book for his campaigns*

Here's the thing. Compare the Human Wizard (generalist) against the Elf Wizard (generalist).

Which is better?

Sure, the Elf has low-light vision, the ability to use a bow and sword in combat and bonuses to a couple of cross-class skills, but how useful are these to the core pursuit of actually being a wizard?

Not at all.

How important is an extra feat?

Very.

When you come down to that core business of actually casting spells, the feats you have are very, very important - and most Wizards don't have enough.

So, on the top rung of the power tree with regards to Wizards and the core races is the Human. The elf sits below them, but there is a significant power gap.

If the substitution levels for the Elf Wizard bridge that gap - and don't exceed it - there is no power creep.

So, is their power creep?

Don't know.

I suspect that there might be - but very slight. What also mitigates against that is the specialist wizard is still casting more spells.

Hmm.

Cheers!

 

[Sammael]

Bah. The extra feat at first level makes very little difference for wizards. It makes a much greater difference for fighters, or even rogues, but wizards gain virtually no immediate benefit from it. The only thing it's worth for is qualifying for a PrC faster, and that has nothing to do whatsoever with being a wizard.

 

[Gez]

I prebanned racial substitution levels IMC, because I don't like the way they work, especially for spellcasting classes. As I've set up an unified spellcasting table for all classes, based on a caster level rating (working like BAB, in other words), I just can't use anything that messes with spellcasting progression in unorthodox ways.

Furthermore, IMC, the arcane class of choice for elves is not the bookwormish wizard, but the excentric, elementally-inspired, taboo-following, wu jen.

I'm not sure I like the concept of elven dilletantes. There's already a race that is supposed to be pretty good at everything they do, it's the humans. Individuals may be, or not, specialized, but the race as a whole isn't.

Of course, I don't like elves very much, but with three elven PCs IMC (fortunately, I succeeded in making one of them turn into ogre mage stew) I can't just ignore those critters.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Pre-banning books is just plain silly. Read it first, try running a game using it.

It it then feels broken AFTER using it, then ban it. Dismissing it is not fair to
the book or those who worked on it.

And remember the mantra..."It's just a game, it's just a game"...

 

[Sammael]

Are you serious? I am not about to pay for a book so I can playtest it for WotC. If something looks too good, it usually is - particularly when compared to pre-existing materials. If I made a feat that grants a +4 bonus on all damage rolls with all melee weapons, I think it's pretty clear that it's broken, since we have Weapon Specialization to compare it with. The two abilities Merric mentions are 100% better than existing abilities that do pretty much the same thing, and this makes them broken.

Writing broken rules is not fair to DMs, either, and RPG writers do it all the times.

 

[MerricB]

Are you serious? I am not about to pay for a book so I can playtest it for WotC. If something looks too good, it usually is - particularly when compared to pre-existing materials. If I made a feat that grants a +4 bonus on all damage rolls with all melee weapons, I think it's pretty clear that it's broken, since we have Weapon Specialization to compare it with. The two abilities Merric mentions are 100% better than existing abilities that do pretty much the same thing, and this makes them broken.

Writing broken rules is not fair to DMs, either, and RPG writers do it all the times.

I think you really, really need to revise your definition of broken.

There's no doubt that Elf Dilettante is mildly superior to Jack of all Trades... which is to say, it has no big effect. Having a +2 on your Knowledge (religion) check instead of +1 is not going to cause the terrible destruction of the game. It nicely models the nature of elves without actually causing anything to change in the game.

Elf Dilettante isn't even strictly better than Jack-of-all-Trades, because you need to play an elf.

The Generalist Wizard ability of the elf is interesting. It isn't strictly superior to anything. (Well, it's strictly superior to old Elf Wizard, but that isn't what you need to compare it to; much like you don't compare it to an Orc Wizard).

Consider the Collegiate Wizard feat (CA, pg 181). A human can buy this with their bonus feat, and it gives more bonus spells known than what the Elf Generalist gets. At this point, the Generalist is getting one prepared spell per day more than the Human, but fewer spells known...

Incidentally, you can't look at this ability just at first level and determine the balance from there - you have to look at the overall progression over all levels. Over 20 levels, is the bonus feat the human gains significant? I think it is extremely significant, especially if you use supplemental books.

Cheers!

 

[Psion]

Are you serious? I am not about to pay for a book so I can playtest it for WotC. If something looks too good, it usually is

Based soley on your determination? We don't exactly have a consensus that it "looks too good."

I rather think Merric rather has a point. A bonus feat is pretty much a boost to all classes. If we were talking elves or halflings receiving major boosts as a rogue, for example, I think you would have a point; their racial abilities already play strongly for rogues. But for elven wizards? Nah. There's room for improvement in elven options, especially considering elves' favored class is wizard.

 

[Sammael]

No.

See, this is exactly what led to the mess we had at the end of AD&D second edition. Somebody had a bright idea that elves should be "superior," which resulted in the Complete Book of Elves, which remains one the most horribly broken books published by TSR/WotC to date.

I don't care that you have to be an elf in order to take Elven Dilettante. Being an elf is not a penalty unto itself. Elves get a host of abilities, including having the most racial items and prestige classes of all races.

A bonus feat is a very significant benefit, and it has to be - because if humans didn't have a significant benefit, then nobody would play them. I participated in a large number of campaigns during late AD&D. Nobody ever played a human, unless they wanted to play a paladin or a specialty priest of some sort (and let's not even get started on AD&D specialty priests). So, in 3E, humans get a bonus feat. Big deal. Humans are now merely balanced with other races, and not overshadowed by them.

So, now we get into the manner of racial sterotypes. By your logic, elven wizards need help because "elves favor the wizard class." Even if I am inclined to agree with this (and I may be), the help provided cannot be in a form that messes up already established rules.

The problem with elven mage substitution level is not the extra spells known - that's not a big deal unless the DM is running the kind of game where wizards can't buy scrolls or acquire enemy wizards' spellbooks. No, the problem is that benefit coupled with an ability more powerful than Extra Slot, a rather well-balanced feat. So, elven wizards get to exchange something (probably the quite worthless and hazardous familiar) for the benefit of roughly two and a half extremely useful feats? Nope. Sorry. That's broken. Maybe not as broken as the frenzied berserker, or Karmic Strike, or Divine Metamagic (as written in CD), or 3.0 haste, but broken nonetheless.

Races of X series has been horrible so far. Races of Stone is a mediocre book, particularly when compared to some other d20 books on the same subject. Races of Destiny is horrible book. I haven't bought either one, but I've had the chance to take a long, good look at both. So, if Merric bought Races of the Wild, and his first post indicated that he managed to significantly increase his elf wizard's power by using only two things from the book, guess what impression I am going to have about it?