What happened to "Race Matters"?

[Psychic Robot]

IMO this is a good thing. It's much easier to introduce house rules that break a working game than it is to fix a broken one. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but it's not too difficult if you do.

I would have suggested that they delay the release until they figured it out.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I don't know, I think race matters. I agree that more could have been done, but there is only so much room in a core book.

At the most basic level, your character's race determines the classes at which your character will excel. If I play a Halfling, by examining stat bonuses and other racial features, I know right away that Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, and Warlock are all very good class choices for me. That combination of classes is going to look a little different for each race.

Also note that racial feats make a big difference. A Halfling Paladin and a Human Paladin will play pretty differently based on the racial feats each chooses (or does not choose). And I'm sure the lists will expand as more books are released. But if you want to stick with core only, you've got a pretty solid list as it is.

It's not perfect, but I think they've really moved in the right direction with racial design. We've got a lot more options in the core than we had before, and you can customize your race with feats as little or as much as you like.

 

[-Avalon-]

Racial does matter...

A lot more than it used to:

Eladrin can still do a once per encounter 5 square port.
Elves are still unaffected by difficult terrain when shifting.
Tiefling continue to be masters of burn and fear.
Dwarves are pushed/pulled/slid 1 square less.
Dragonborn still kill lots of minions with their breath.
etc etc...

Certain powers are just as good high level as low level.


Better than old editions where all you got was a nice bump at the beginning that was easily overcome with items...

 

[Drkfathr1]

Besides, now they have a good reason to flood us with "Race" splat books.

 

[Lizard]

Besides, now they have a good reason to flood us with "Race" splat books.

Yeah, 'cause they didn't before...

 

[Psychic Robot]

Yeah, 'cause they didn't before...

As long as they're better than Races of Destiny, I'll forgive them.

 

[keterys]

I do think race matters quite a bit more in 4e than it did in 3e. While it would have been interesting to have a racial path similar to the paragon path and epic destiny (and I'd certainly say you could still add that), I do think the stat bonuses are often more relevant in 4e than in 3e and the racial powers - second chance, fey step, minor second wind, elven accuracy, etc are very likely to come up all the time.

 

[renau1g]

Agreed. They matter more now than the previous edition, but not as much as originally intended, at least not yet.

 

[Tony Vargas]

that a 20th level dwarf fighter would be substantially different from a 20th level human fighter.

He probably will be. The Dwarf will be channelled into using hammers, which work well with high CON and benefit from a racial feat, the human will be stronger, but the dwarf will have higher CON & WIS. But, humans are notoriously versatile and could be pretty close to a dwarf. Compare a dwarf fighter to an elven one. The elf will gravitate to blades, which benefit from good dex. A dwarf greatweapon fighter with a maul and an elven gaurdian fighter with sword & shield would be quite different.

Unless I'm missing something, this seems to have been dropped from 4e -- there's a small number of racial feats, which you are quite free not to take, and the initial racial abilities provide, as usual, dwindling benefits as level increases.

4e's 'treadmill' character keeps racial abilities from fading away quite as dramatically as they did in 3e. A +2 to your primary stat means you hit better and harder than the guy who didn't get a +2 to that stat, from level 1 through 30. There's no 'catching up' in 4e: stat boost and attack boosts are few and tightly structured. Many racials simply never go out of style. With something around a 50/50 shot at your best attack hitting throughout your carreer, elven accuracy or tiefling infernal wrath (& hellfire bloodline) never go out of style. As a human, using your action surge will make as must sense to hit with a daily at epic as it did at heroic; and as with attack, the defense 'treadmill effect' means your +1 racial to REF/FORT/WILL never gets overshadowed, either (and an extra at will when you only ever get 2? nothing to sneeze at, especially if you go for paragon multiclassing).

 

[Vayden]

Agreed. They matter more now than the previous edition, but not as much as originally intended, at least not yet.

Which is a shame, but I can live with it. Here's hoping our inevitable future racial splat books are more like Races of Stone and less like Races of Destiny.