What happened to "Race Matters"?

[Slaved]

Am I wrong in thinking that the Racial Abilities could have had Additional Features at Paragon and Epic levels?

Take the Half-Elf Dilettante Ability. At each Tier it could give another Ability usable Once Per Day.

A Dwarf could gain the Ability to use two Second Winds in a Single Encounter except that only One of the Two could be Activated as a Minor Action.

A Human could gain the Ability to take an Extra Multi Class Feat.

And so on.

It would not have taken much Extra Space and would have made Race a Choice of Greater Importance.

 

[Lizard]

A dwarf greatweapon fighter with a maul and an elven gaurdian fighter with sword & shield would be quite different.

Ah, but how different will a dwarf greatweapon/maul fighter and an elf greatweapon/maul fighter be? That's what I was getting at.

 

[FireLance]

Am I wrong in thinking that the Racial Abilities could have had Additional Features at Paragon and Epic levels?

Take the Half-Elf Dilettante Ability. At each Tier it could give another Ability usable Once Per Day.

A Dwarf could gain the Ability to use two Second Winds in a Single Encounter except that only One of the Two could be Activated as a Minor Action.

A Human could gain the Ability to take an Extra Multi Class Feat.

And so on.

It would not have taken much Extra Space and would have made Race a Choice of Greater Importance.

Some of these look like pretty good abilities for racial feats, actually.

I think there's a lot of scope for additional material that makes race matter more:

- More racial feats, especially at Paragon and Epic levels
- Racial paragon paths, and maybe even epic destinies
- Racial multiclass-only classes, and related racial class powers
- Racial alternate class abilities

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, shield specialization has a modestly high DEX preq, so I'd expect elves to gravitate to it much more than dwarves. A dwarven gaurdian fighter would tend more towards Tide of Iron & 'pushy' feats - there's a paragon path suitable to that, IIRC - and would likely still favor the hammer or axe, and quite possibly opt for plate. The elven gaurdian fighter would tend more towards blades and scale/shield specialization, making him more mobile and better defended vs REF.

4e only gives a relatively few 'build' options, and they're heavily prejudiced by stat bonuses. You'll see elves as blade-wielding fighters, archer-rangers, 'lazer' clerics, and rogues; you won't see them so much as greatweapon fighters, warlords, warlocks or paladins.

 

[renau1g]

Unless of course you want to play a greatweapon elf fighter for your own purposes, or an elven paladin of Correllon...

Not all players gravitate towards optimized character combos... at least in my experience.

 

[Aenghus]

There may be racial paragon paths at some stage. I'm not surprised they didn't initially appear in the core books, from the looks of things there was a big squeeze to fit the needed info in, with limited numbers of Paragon and Epic feats at this point.

I think it's tougher to create racial paragon paths that aren't class specific. Making them useful but balanced for more than one class is non-trivial, especially when balancing them with existing class-based paragon paths.

 

[Felon]

It is really true that racial abilities don't matter much at high levels? It seems like a lot of them would.

Well, I can't say that a lot of'em matter at low-level. What does a tiefling get that's all that appealing?

 

[frankthedm]

In a word, 'Marketing'.

You promise big, then you try to deliver what you actually can.

Where I come from that is called "lying".

 

[renau1g]

Well... they get horns and a tail... that's cool. Just think you could wag the tail when you're happy, curl it between your legs when you're scared.... oh sorry...

Tieflings gain fire resistance, low-light vision (only useful if your DM uses light rules), I think infernal wrath is a cool power, especially for a Paladin or Cleric who have a high CHA (better at lower levels as the power bonus won't stack with other power bonus)

 

[renau1g]

Where I come from that is called "lying".

Ah... just tell that to any video game developer. Promise the world, and then the boss comes down and says to get it out the door. It gets cut due to constraints and added in the expansion pack down the road.