Anyway I wasjust wondering how the races in the 4th edition PHB measure up to the races in dragonlance. Could the halflings pass for kender? Could the dragonborn pass for draconians(or whatever that dragon race is called?)
And what about gnomes. I know the 4th edition gnomes are more fey inspired than the tinker gnomes of dragonlance, so how could this be addressed?
Most races of Ansalon can simply use the stats given in the PHB. Humans, half-elves, and dwraves already fit perfectly. I'd use Elf stats for Kagonesti, and Eladrin stats for Silvanesti or Qualinesti, but drop the Fey Origin trait. I might also replace Fey Step, and just give all Elves the Elven Accuracy power.
4e halflings make great kender. Agile and likeable, they're especially good at picking pockets. They may not exactly be fearless (immunity to a whole class of effects might be too strong), but given their +5 on saving throws against fear, they'll stay afraid less than half as long as other characters on average, just a temporary queasy sinking in their stomach.
Dragonborns make fine draconians but might need some adjustments. As a race with less than a century of existence, it doesn't make sense for them to have a bonus to History checks. I'd replace that with a bonus to Athletics. Not all draconians had breath weapons, but some did, so the Dragon Breath power isn't very problematic. The Charisma bonus might seem out of place. I'm tempted to change it for a bonus to Constitution, and then give the Draconian a +1 racial bonus to Will. (Like races with a a bonus in two stats related to the same defense, such as Goliaths and Eladrins, do.) Or maybe I'll leave the bonus to Charisma. Draconians sure know how to make a good impression.
Gnomes need more work done. The ability score bonus are fine, but their special abilities (Fade Away, Master Trickster, Reactive Stealth, Trickster's Cunning) don't really fit with the Krynnish gnome.
What else? Minotaur? Wizards made a playest for minotaurs recently. But it's for D&D Insiders subsrcibers only, so I didn't get the chance to read it.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20081103
Cam Banks, who wrote 'Races of Ansalon' for the 3rd Edition Dragonlance setting, has written a conversion for the main races (excluding the Draconians, who were not in the original RoA). Though he felt it needed some work, I think it was overall an excellent conversion. You can find it in Fan Rules over on the Dragonlance Nexus.
Some of his ideas are echoed by Boris - - Kagonesti are elves, Qualinesti/Silvanesti are Eladrin without the connection to the Feywild (though I think he did away with Fey Step as well) and the Tinker Gnomes are not fey creatures at all.
I do think Dragonborn can make a good baseline for 4e Draconians, if you don't want to just convert them, but what do you add to differentiate between the differant types? Kapak have that poison spittle, for instance (or healing saliva for females) while the Sivak can change shape, just for an example.
And unusual or new races can always be blamed on Chaos.
I've mentioned this on other threads, but it bears repeating.
Cam Banks, who wrote 'Races of Ansalon' for the 3rd Edition Dragonlance setting, has written a conversion for the main races (excluding the Draconians, who were not in the original RoA). Though he felt it needed some work, I think it was overall an excellent conversion. You can find it in Fan Rules over on the Dragonlance Nexus.
Some of his ideas are echoed by Boris - - Kagonesti are elves, Qualinesti/Silvanesti are Eladrin without the connection to the Feywil(though I think he did away with Fey Step as well) and the Tinker Gnomes are not fey creatures at all.
So I went to the Dragonlance Nexus and looked up Kagonesti Elves:
Kagonesti Elves are the original and most pure type of elf upon Ansalon, and are the clan from which all other elves hail from. During the Age of Dreams they were simply known as wild elves, and whilst some of their number chose to build great cities and live behind man-made structures (who split from the Kagonesti and became known as the Silvanesti), many stayed true to nature and lived in the wild. During the Age of Dreams, a wild elf known as Kagonos, who was a Pathfinder and nominal leader of the wild elves, led his people away from the council of Sinthal-Elish, and chose to truly separate the wild elves and the civilized elves. At this time, the wild elves begin to wear tribal tattoos and renamed themselves as the Kagonesti.
So how can Qualinesti/Silvanesti be Eladrin if they all came from the same stock? Why not keep elves as elves and Eladrin as Eladrin?
So how can Qualinesti/Silvanesti be Eladrin if they all came from the same stock? Why not keep elves as elves and Eladrin as Eladrin?
Maybe because there are no Eladrin in Dragonlance. Cam said to use the stats of Eladrin because their stats are more like what these elves are in Dragonlance.
So how can Qualinesti/Silvanesti be Eladrin if they all came from the same stock? Why not keep elves as elves and Eladrin as Eladrin?
In core D&D, elves and eladrins also come from the same stock, although it's an ancestor far-removed somewhere on the Feywild. The Forgotten Realms setting does the same thing. There are numerous types of elves in Faerûn but in 4th edition, moon elves and sun elves (classical High elves) use the Eladrin stats, while wood elves and wild elves use the Elf stats. Drow are just Drow.
Kagonesti and Qualinesti are very similar to FR's high elves, living in majestic cities hidden far from human lands, keepers of ancient lore and powerful magic, etc. Kagonesti are almost the same as wild elves, living in the primal forests of the world, a bit more primitive but closer to nature.
I did take a look at Cam Banks' document today. Very nice overall, and I must admit I like that we ended up with the same ideas on many points, but I can see how it needs work. The minotaur and ogre races are a bit unbalanced. I'm not too sure about the kender's taunt either. It's a very bad power to take for a wizard or other similar squishy character (not that we'd see many kender wizards). The gnome is great, though, but I doubt I'll see any gnome characters in the next DragonLance campaign I run.
Link: http://www.dlnexus.com/fan/rules/20555.aspx
Maybe because there are no Eladrin in Dragonlance. Cam said to use the stats of Eladrin because their stats are more like what these elves are in Dragonlance.
That makes sense that the stats should match up.
I recently started running an old Dragonlance adventure that was released a while back for the SAGA game rules. I never liked SAGA so I never really got the chance to run the game, thats why i'km working to convert it to 4th edition.
Anyone whos interested the game is called Rise of the Titans. If anyone else has ever played through it I'd love to hear about your experiances with it.
The kender's taunt should be compared to the new abilities possessed by bards in PHB2. There's some mockery-based powers in there. I don't think pulling a foe toward you is necessarily a bad thing for wizards, though, especially if you've got zones set up or some very dangerous friends you can pull your foe toward.
Cheers,
Cam
Link for Draconian player races: http://www.dlnexus.com/fan/rules/22152.aspx