The Pixie is up!

[keterys]

It is more on par with the super races like Dwarves and Drow.

Devil's advocating for a moment, depending on the class you're optimizing, the following races are also considered on par with dwarves and drow by the CharOp boards:

Changeling*
Deva
Dragonborn
Eladrin
Elf
Gnome
Genasi
Githzerai
Goliath
Half-Elf
Halfling
Half-Orc
Human**
Kalashtar
Minotaur
Mul
Revenant
Shadar-Kai
Shardmind
Shifter
Thri-Kreen
Tiefling
Vyrloka
Warforged
Wilden

* Less commonly recommended, but very powerful for the right games.
** Cause I know someone will call me on it: Heroic Effort, Pack Outcast, extra at-will for hybrids and some psi-builds, human is sky blue in _most_ CharOp guides.

So, I mean... I don't know that we need a "super" race category, so much that a very few races like the Shade and Gnoll, aren't quite as popular as the amazing variety of good race options available.

I've played alongside some 4e pixies in playtest, and played one myself last night with the posted rules. They weren't more effective than other options that I noticed.

There were a couple questions about how Tiny should work, that I hope are addressed in the published version of HoF.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It has always weirded me that people thing flying is somehow inherently overpowered. As if bows don't exist. As if ground terrain is THE ONLY THING that stands between characters being challenged and characters running roughshod over their enemies.

Part of what made that character fun was that it PLAYED quite differently from a normal character

Well, one of the big (and divisive!) things about 4e is that pretty much everyone plays exactly the same way. They've loosened the bonds quite a bit from the PHB, but the maxim is still there, that everything must fit into the same mold, with only slight variations. The Balance Demands It!

Mark my words, soon size will be as meaningless as the points on Whose Line is it Anyway?

Man, I hope so. To me, there are basically three sizes: About Your Size, Too Small, and Too Big. The "Too Small" creatures can be hazards, minions, and swarms. The "Too Big" creatures are battlefield encounters, body parts, and skill challenges. The "About Your Size" creatures are the only ones that can be reliably shoehorned into the grid combat system, and even then details like opportunity attacks and shifting and moving little pieces of plastic around is hardly the most cinematic experience.

 

[pauljathome]

There are living creatures and machines in the REAL WORLD with altitude limits. .

Please name a living creature that is limited in ANY of the following ways
1) Stays within 5 ft of the ground (what appears to be the case for pixies until one carefully reads the rules) regardless of incentive to get away from the ground (ie, don't confuse "does not like to fly high" with "cannot fly high")
2) Can fly up higher but must return to within 5 feet every 6 seconds
3) If it is blown higher will suddenly dramatically fall

 

[pauljathome]

It has always weirded me that people thing flying is somehow inherently overpowered.

Quite powerful? Yes.
Overpowered ? Depends on far too many factors to make a clear decision. It can break some encounters, it is all but irrelevant in others

Well, one of the big (and divisive!) things about 4e is that pretty much everyone plays exactly the same way.

I admit that this is one of the main reasons that 4e isn't really to my tastes.

But I reserve the right to note where yet another opportunity (a grand one, in this case) to break OUT of this box is lost.

 

[Klaus]

Also note:

The pixie doesn't have "hover", so it must move at least 2 squares in a round while flying or it crashes. It's not a hummingbird.

 

[Shroomy]

Also note:

The pixie doesn't have "hover", so it must move at least 2 squares in a round while flying or it crashes. It's not a hummingbird.

They changed that rule and got rid of it. All hover does now is prevent you from falling when you're stunned.

 

[Obryn]

...The part about the equipment was settled, I had moved on to the fact that they had to create a racial power to make the pixie essentially a small character.
...
They went to the trouble of creating an Encounter racial power to shrink items down so you can use them. The best thing to do was to leave them at small and use that racial for something else.

Yes, mechanically, they are mostly like a Small character.

Pixies are tiny because when someone wants to play a pixie, they want to play a super-small (aka Tiny) character. Making them 4' tall would have, frankly, missed the whole point.

In what way is Shrink a "wasted power"? It lets the Pixie play reasonably at the table without the DM seeding the environment with Tiny objects all over the place.

I mean, what is your objection? That they made them tiny with workarounds?

As I said in my OP, I do wish the Tiny aspect had more teeth to it - in carrying capacity, strength checks, stealth, and so on - but making them completely gimped for equipment and making them unable to work with a weapon-using class isn't what I was looking for.

-O

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

For those of you who think this is overpowered, how hard would it be to have terrain effects in the air?

Fighting outside on a gusty day? All movement through the air is treated as difficult terrain.

Strong winds in one direction? Moving through the air against the current counts as slowed.

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other possibilities, and many of the other "magical" terrain effects from the DMGs may also apply.

 

[Obryn]

For those of you who think this is overpowered, how hard would it be to have terrain effects in the air?

Fighting outside on a gusty day? All movement through the air is treated as difficult terrain.

Strong winds in one direction? Moving through the air against the current counts as slowed.

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other possibilities, and many of the other "magical" terrain effects from the DMGs may also apply.

That's in the DMG already. I've consulted the table a few times for my Dark Sun game. (In which there will be no pixies, seeing as how Wyan of Bodach Blighted all of them.)

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Please name a living creature that is limited in ANY of the following ways
1) Stays within 5 ft of the ground (what appears to be the case for pixies until one carefully reads the rules) regardless of incentive to get away from the ground (ie, don't confuse "does not like to fly high" with "cannot fly high")
2) Can fly up higher but must return to within 5 feet every 6 seconds
3) If it is blown higher will suddenly dramatically fall

Anything that relies on a ground effect to 'fly', this would include your smaller and higher power 'hovercraft' (which actually work remarkably similar to the pixie), as well as any number of other systems like 'wing over ground', etc. Even rotary aircraft operate near the ground in a very similar way, with effects like ring vortex playing a part.

As for all the sniping about 'the size doesn't matter' or 'rules brick' I'd suggest you look at similar efforts in other editions/games. Tiny creatures in 3.x have a whole slew of complex rules for instance. All the implementations I've seen for similar stuff in AD&D were also both complicated and strange if you tried to actually dope out how they fit with the rules.

Size certainly does matter. You people are all so caught up in your flaming hatred of the 4e combat system that you can't even see the forest for the trees. Use your imagination. Outside of a fight the pixie can do a TON of cool stuff with its small size. Slip through cracks and small spaces, hide in all sorts of locations that a normal sized PC wouldn't be able to, etc etc etc. You've all blinded yourselves. This is an RPG, not a tactical skirmish game, or have you forgotten? I know I haven't.

In terms of it being 'overpowered', meh. Stop worrying about it so much. It is FAR from broken. Sure, the player might do various clever things and manage to leverage their tininess to some advantage. Big deal. The character isn't going to steal the show, and it will be fun to play, that's all that matters.