Would racial power lists work?

[Morrus]

I was idly musing this the other day. There are ways to in 4E to differentiate the races (ability score adjustments, racial abilities, racial feats, and so on), but I wondered if racial differences could be emphasized more. So I came up with the idea of racial power lists of a similar size to the class power lists - lists of powers which are "quintessentially elfy" or "quintessentially dwarfy".

They'd have to be powers which didn't overlap the class powers - things that are unique to that race. Probably I wouldn't be able to think of enough of 'em to make this work. Examples that occur to me involve taking the race abilities and building on those.

For example, dragonborn would get breath weapon and energy resistance related powers, eladrin would get teleportation related powers (including teleporting others willing and unwilling), dwarves could get magic resistance powers or immobility powers.

Essentially, you'd get, say a dragonborn fighter who decides that this level he'll take a dragonborn power instead of a fighter power.

Dunno. Just a thought.

 

[Mercule]

I'd be all behind it.

Actually, I expected something like that -- or at least more power-granting racial feats -- from some of the Design & Development type articles leading up to 4e. They made some statements about emphasizing racial identities more.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I suspect that when we get the inevitable race splatbooks, we'll see something like this.

Which I'm all for, of course...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the original plan might actually have been to create a racial power list that worked similar to paragon paths and epic destinies at the heroic tier.

It seems they gave up on that, probably because there are just not enough racial powers that work forwevery class or role / race combination.

Dragonborn are very easy to create racial powers for - just to something with breath weapon and so on. But can you do the same for a Halfling or a Dwarf?

 

[Katemare]

I tried to make something like that for a gnoll (source thread), actually a whole gnoll class. These are 1st-level powers (not all selection, just what I did for my PC):

At-wills:

• Ferocious Strike (reflavored fighter's Reaping Strike)
• Mad Bite: non-weapon, Str vs. AC, provokes AoO, 2d6+Str dmg.

Encounter:

• Lockjaw: non-weapon, Str vs. Ref, provokes AoO, 2d6+Str dmg and the target is grabbed; allies have Combat Advantage against the target as long as its grabbed. Recharge on high success (5+ points better result than defense).

Daily:

• Frenzy: Str vs. AC, hits adjacent enemies, 3W+Str dmg; the gnoll is at -2 AC until end of encounter.

A gnoll treats his teeth as a weapon (just natural) and can enchant them via monster-consuming rituals (rare monsters, just like rare magic items, are found in dungeons). That way bite attacks wouldn't fall behind weapon strikes.

 

[Morrus]

Dragonborn are very easy to create racial powers for - just to something with breath weapon and so on. But can you do the same for a Halfling or a Dwarf?

Or, indeed, a human - at least something that isn't just a class power.

Halfings - powers that increase their ability to shift about the battlefield amongst the enemies?

Dwarf - stances that make it even harder to pull/push/slide them, powers which temporarily increase their resistance to magic, poison resistance?

Dragonborn, like you say, are easy. In addition it could have tail-slap powers (knock prone, minor?)

Humans are the hardest, though. Elves are actually quite tricky, too - thematically, people think "nature" and "bows", but those are aready well covered by existing classes.

 

[Klaus]

Or, indeed, a human - at least something that isn't just a class power.

Halfings - powers that increase their ability to shift about the battlefield amongst the enemies?

Dwarf - stances that make it even harder to pull/push/slide them, powers which temporarily increase their resistance to magic, poison resistance?

Dragonborn, like you say, are easy. In addition it could have tail-slap powers (knock prone, minor?)

Humans are the hardest, though. Elves are actually quite tricky, too - thematically, people think "nature" and "bows", but those are aready well covered by existing classes.

Which is why I'm all in favor of these powers being accessible through power-swap feats. I proposed an article for Dragon for the dragonborn, centering about the notion of them developing wings (something players have been clamoring for since that Dragonborn Champion in the MM1).

 

[Sir Brennen]

Well, PHB2 is indeed introducing Racial Paragon Paths.

But another approach might be to give racial powers gained from multi-class feats, like the gladiator and assassin options presented in Dragon.

Racial "specialist" multiclass feat groups could be created which work better with different roles, classes or power sources. In fact, you'd probably have to go this way, as I have trouble imagining a Dwarven multi-class group of feats, for example, with powers which would be equally appealing to a Rogue, Wizard and Paladin dwarven character. If such a group of powers were created, I'd guess they'd be pretty heavy on the utility side.

 

[kenmarable]

I am all for this and even started playing around with some ideas as well.

I wouldn't go so far as to have as many powers as a class, because I think classes should still be primary when it comes to "cool things you can do that others can't", but maybe a dozen or so powers per race would be ideal (in my opinion). Maybe more if you really want to flesh out the race/role matrix.

Racial paragon paths are good, but that's limited to only the paragon tier, while I think there should be racial options at every tier. Plus power swap feats work, but if it's really fleshed out for all of the races, that's a lot of design clutter, as well as I'm doubtful that the cost of feats are worth it.

As long as most all races have fairly fleshed out lists, I'd just allow PCs to take them in place of other powers - no feat cost required. It's not unbalancing if it's available across the board (so balance between PCs), and they are in place of class powers rather than in addition to them (so balance against encounter levels).

Perhaps EN Publishing should start getting some stuff together. I know for one thing, I really looked forward to the idea of "in 4e races matter at all levels" and was disappointed to see that wasn't lived up to. Racial powers would fix that.

 

[Scribble]

Hey Morrus: Any thoughts about maybe not always doing racial powers, but adding aditional effects to the normal powers (almost like the fighter weapon stuff.)

Maybe do it through feats, like if you take a certain halfling feat, it ads an effect to a rogue power maybe that adds more of a halfling "feel" to it?

Just an idea, not a fully thought out one though.