Revenant up

[alleynbard]

I want to like it. I think the fluff is interesting. The ED is fantastic and I have great ideas for an NPC Free Soul.

But I am not sure how I feel about the mechanics. They seem....solid enough. I don't know. They don't light me on fire. I have some of the same reactions as Rechan. There is a Raven Queen follower in my game who refuses to be raised from the dead. This seemed like it was going to be a good way to give her an out if her character ever died. I think I can re-work the race a bit to fit my vision of the revenant, but I wouldn't suggest the option as it stands right now.

It isn't terrible, but I am not impressed. Especially after all that build-up.

My major complaint in that article is the mass of wasted space in the feat section. We didn't need a friggin' feat for every racial power. As hvg3akaek stated, one feat would have been appropriate. While it won't be difficult to create new feats of this kind when new races are released, why do I need to do that when a simpler method that took future releases into account could have been implemented? The way it is presented right now irritates me.

 

[Asmor]

I don't dislike it...

but after all the build up, I feel it is only OK. I mean really it is cool, but it would have fit in PHB3 as just another race easy...

Sums up my feelings perfectly.

In particular, I thought the racial power was rather disappointing. Not bad at low levels, but practically useless at higher levels. The damage should really scale up.

I also thought the article was very poorly developed, e.g. there's no specific limitation stopping you from taking multiple soul feats. There's also the whole thing with the paragon path's conflicting description of the ability score choice.

That said, there was some cool stuff in there. I like the inclusion of the Warforged soul feat, as that's not something I would have thought of and gives me some inspiration. The flavor for the epic destiny's really cool.

 

[Cadfan]

I think my biggest problem is that I just can't figure out what to do with them. Maybe I'll like them more once Shadow is a power source.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Personally I like it cause it serves as a very good flavour and variety race. I can quite easily see these guys popping up in various different refluff formats in my campaigns, especially given that they can be any race.

 

[Cadfan]

How about this to bring them in line with other races:

1. Chill of the Grave is free. Necrotic is too easily resisted.
2. Death's Blessing is free. Its kind of a lame feat, and mostly serves as a gateway to other choices.

With those changes I'd play it.

I don't think the damage from Dark Reaping necessarily has to scale faster. It does grow less important as you go up in level, but so do powers like Infernal Wrath. And there's certainly enough feat support to let you grow Dark Reaping into something really useful: the temp hit points, the +2 attack, the feat for increased damage, etc.

 

[Grydan]

I also thought the article was very poorly developed, e.g. there's no specific limitation stopping you from taking multiple soul feats.

There's the basic limitation of prereqs: you're only ever going to count as Revenant and one other race, so you can't qualify for multiple soul feats, except where they've intentionally given a race more than one.

As far as the complaint others have made about the soul feats taking up so much room instead of being combined down to one: note that the only race from a PHB that doesn't have a soul feat is Deva, which is consistent with the idea that Devas don't die the same way other races do.

 

[Rechan]

How about this to bring them in line with other races:

1. Chill of the Grave is free. Necrotic is too easily resisted.
2. Death's Blessing is free. Its kind of a lame feat, and mostly serves as a gateway to other choices.

With those changes I'd play it.

I could tolerate it with those adjustments.

Although I do wonder what not being a living person means, rules wise.

 

[RefinedBean]

As far as the complaint others have made about the soul feats taking up so much room instead of being combined down to one: note that the only race from a PHB that doesn't have a soul feat is Deva, which is consistent with the idea that Devas don't die the same way other races do.

Nothing stops a player from choosing Deva as the Rev's Past Life, though...feels to me like it's a stupid omission. Warforged, but no Deva?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Nothing stops a player from choosing Deva as the Rev's Past Life, though...feels to me like it's a stupid omission. Warforged, but no Deva?

Deva souls reincarnate...it should be assumed deva is not ment to be a reverant...although not stopped if the PC wants to

 

[Jack99]

The Half-Dead by One Bad Egg wins hands down IMO. I do not see my self using the revenant, except perhaps transporting some of the fluff.