Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Popesixtus Jun 28, 2011 2:28:17	The directive on EoE articles is minimal mechanics, if any. I would like to do more with dragonmarks (and have pitched the idea), but it would be a separate thing.
#2 AvonRekaes Jun 28, 2011 9:11:35	I'm not sure about providing extra benefits to mark-appropriat races. It sounds nice at first, but the implications for Eberron would be that if you wanted to play an off-mark race for a legitimate reason (i.e. you actually had a backstory and character rooted in the world of Eberron that made use of the unprecedented nature of your Mark), you have to deal with sporting a "lesser" version of the Mark. Honestly? I would've much rathered they placed the racial limitatons on it, and then had a sidebar saying "if you need to, houserule off-race marks" instead of the reverse. I feel like the decision to un-tie them to races was made solely to appeal to the "make everything Core" mentality. And while I have no problem with making things interchangeable between settings, I DO have a problem with stripping them of their unique, setting-specific flavor, as the base assumption, to do it. (For example, Genasi don't exist as presented in Eberron. To make them fit, you'd maybe reflavor them. But you wouldn't change their racial and cultural history in the FR book to appease the Eberron players. This is what happened to Dragonmarks.) But, well, the cat's out of the bag. No amount of griping will fix the damage of me having to explain to every single new player why they might be biting off more than they can chew, roleplay-wise, when they build a human fighter with the Mark of Warding. The only thing I could think of would be to turn each Dragonmarked feat into a feat-chain, and have each feat be indicative of training in how to use the mark. Therefore the prequeisites for each feat will be "Mark of X, member of House Y". When someone sees that prerequisite, they are going to wonder what House Y is if they don't already know. They're going to read up on it or ask their DM how to become a part of it. And if they aren't the right race, they've learned something about this organization that only exists in Eberron. Perhaps then they'd work with their DM on how their characters can prove themselves of joining the House despite being the wrong race. At least then they're on the path to tying themselves to the setting. Plus these feats might bring back some of the more esoteric or iconic things marks could do. I could see them being treated as Power Swap feats, or maybe even like the Skill Power feat that just gives you a skill power. That way we might actually have Half-Elves with the Mark of Storm producing gusts of wind again.
#3 Alex_ Jun 28, 2011 12:11:36	I very much like the idea of characters with appropriate race get a bonus from Dragonmarks.  I'd expand this to apply to any future Dragonmark themes, feats, or paragon paths.   But this still won't stop people like the above mentioned Goliath and Dwarf from taking the bonuses for their mechanical benefits- as the mechanical benefits will still exist.  The only way to deal with those players is to actually enforce the "Dragonmarks are racially exclusive" option.
#4 Popesixtus Jun 28, 2011 23:37:13	The only thing I could think of would be to turn each Dragonmarked feat into a feat-chain, and have each feat be indicative of training in how to use the mark. Therefore the prequeisites for each feat will be "Mark of X, member of House Y". When someone sees that prerequisite, they are going to wonder what House Y is if they don't already know. They're going to read up on it or ask their DM how to become a part of it. And if they aren't the right race, they've learned something about this organization that only exists in Eberron. Perhaps then they'd work with their DM on how their characters can prove themselves of joining the House despite being the wrong race. At least then they're on the path to tying themselves to the setting. Plus these feats might bring back some of the more esoteric or iconic things marks could do. I could see them being treated as Power Swap feats, or maybe even like the Skill Power feat that just gives you a skill power. That way we might actually have Half-Elves with the Mark of Storm producing gusts of wind again. I'm extremely hesitant to get on board with a feat-chain approach. Feats have become a precious commodity in 4e because the designers like to use them to fix problems with the math of the game (Expertise, Defense feats, patching certain classes damage, etc.). Some RP-heavy groups won't care, but I play with guys who want both good fluff and good crunch in their PCs. Unless a tree of three or more feats was mindblowingly good, it would annoy them more than anything. Maybe themes are the way to go, since they represent new design space for some of the dragonmarks' iconic powers and images (like a good Mark of Storm gust of wind, or a special Mark of Making summon). My fear with themes is the same as it has been with dragonmarks, though - I don't want them to be mechanically cheap. It should be possible to find some kind of middle way between the fluffiness of 3e marks and the raw mechanical nature of 4e marks.
#5 Alex_ Jun 29, 2011 0:00:37	To be fair, the 3E Marks didn't do a whole lot without feat investment either.  A bonus to a skill and a spell like ability a couple of times per day. To get anything more, you had to spend two or three more feats.   4E Dragonmarks give you free rituals and are generally moreuseful, but utilitarian in nature and require you to stop whatever you're doing and perform a ritual. You can't just whip them out on the spot like you could a Cure Light Wounds or Identify in the last edition.  To many, that makes them seem less impressive.    Having an optional at-will or encounter power that you get if you take the correct feat with the correct race can help give that "immediate impact" feeling.
#6 kare Jun 29, 2011 4:11:29	Hey, I like the 4e Dragonmarks far more than the 3e Dragonmarks. They're far more useful, which means I or my players are actually likely to take one in play, making the Dragonmarked houses an interactive, player-centric element rather than an interesting part of the background. I only insist, when DMing, that the players have a clear background idea for their Dragonmark (or I'll come up with the hidden mystery of it, that ties them to the Draconic Prophecy, for them). Quite apart from anything else, having an impossible Dragonmark helps to set the PCs apart from the masses, and in Eberron (I feel) that the PCs should be something special, even at first level. That said, if Keith has some interesting ideas and extensions, then I'm eager to hear them - e.g, the Mark of Siberis prestige class was a good addition to the Dragonmarked. Yours, JMH
#7 Juums Jun 29, 2011 8:41:20	Feat chains have always been the enemy, regardless of edition. At my 3.x tables, it was rare that I ever found folks willing to invest in the RAW dragonmarked feats, because so few of them were genuinely worth the investment of your scarce feat slots. The pay-offs for the investment were horribly uneven, with some dragonmarks providing insanely useful utility, the Greater Mark of Passage's overland flight or teleport 1/day, while others provided the kind of stuff that you give as bonus widgets for well-written backstories or cool roleplaying. (I.E. the Least Mark of Hospitality: Seriously, who's going to want to blow a feat on something that grants a choice between prestidigation, purify food and drink, or unseen servant a few times per day?) There was also the fact that, for a feat, you were buying a limited daily use spell-like that would, in a few levels, be obsolete or be capable of being replicated by a fairly easily procured magic item. It finally got to the point where I just homebrewed a single feat, scaling feat to improve the mechanical incentives of bothering with dragonmarks: Dragonmarked [Heritage] You are a blooded member of one of the magical noble houses of Eberron. And you’ve got the glowing birthmark to prove it. Hit Dice: 1: Select a dragonmark which matches your race. You gain a least dragonmark of that house. Choose one of the dragonmark’s least spell-like abilities. You may use it once per day. As well, you gain a +2 bonus to the skill associated with your dragonmark. 6: Your dragonmark becomes a lesser dragonmark. Choose one of the dragonmark’s lesser spell-like abilities. You may use that lesser spell-like ability once per day and your selected least spell-like ability once per encounter. Your skill bonus increases to +4. 11: Your dragonmark becomes a greater dragonmark. Choose one of the dragonmark’s greater spell-like abilities. You may use that greater spell-like ability once per day, your selected lesser spell-like ability once per encounter, and your selected least spell-like ability at-will. Your skill bonus increases to +6. 16: Your dragonmark becomes a Siberys dragonmark. Choose one of the dragonmark’s Siberys spell-like abilites. You may use that Siberys spell-like ability once per day, your greater spell-like ability once per encounter, and your selected lesser and least spell-like abilities at-will. Your skill bonus increases to +8. Ah, but enough about my 3.5e ranting. To return to the subject at hand, I think granting unique bonuses to the races associated with the dragonmark ameliorates, though doesn't fix, the profoundly misguided design choice to decouple them. But as I don't really get a chance to play 4e, I cannot speak on the impact such would have on the mechanics of the system.
#8 Popesixtus Jun 29, 2011 11:29:58	That's fair. Feat chains were a lot harder on 3e PCs than they are on 4e PCs. They still suck for 4e PCs, though, since there are so many various "must have" feats on people's shopping lists. One feat for a dragonmark works fine, I think. The idea of one feat that scales is a pretty good one, but it runs into the problem of players feeling stuck with the Unseen Servant coal in the stocking spell at low levels, which some groups never get past. I like the idea of a feat that delivers some good bang for the buck right away, has a good enough benefit that it lasts through later levels, then you get paragon paths and epic destinies that give you more good stuff. I guess the real question is, what do we really want dragonmarks to do? To me, they should do two things: help make you the best in the world at something, and affirm your identity either as a direct heir to one of the Eberron houses (traditional marked race) or as a Prophecy-led counterexample and perhaps challenger (non-traditional marked race). The 4e marks care a lot about one, but not too much about the other. I'm wondering if there's a way to sneak the latter back into the equasion. I'm also wondering if it's as big a deal to other Eberron players as it is to me. I might just be crazy.
#9 AvonRekaes Jun 30, 2011 0:06:03	Maybe feat "chain" was the wrong terminology to use. Perhaps I should have said feat "family". My idea is to treat Dragonmarks as a kind of multiclassing set up. The way the multiclass feats work, you have the ability to invest in your multiclass only as much as you want to. You can just take the introductory feat to gain some small splash of mechanics from your multiclass, or you can invest in the introducotry feat, then all three power-swap feats, until you feel like something closer to a Hybrid without sacrificing your main class features. And you can reach gradients inbetween. (Only taking the Utility power swap after the initial multiclass feat for utlity wizard spells, or only the Daily feat for barbarian rages, etc.) Thus, the idea I was forming was to have the existing Dragonmark feats become the "introductory" feat for the "House Training" family of dragonmark-related feats. Perhaps some feats offer an Encounter attack for a power-swap. Perhaps some offer a bonus feat power like the Skill Power feat. Perhaps other "House Training" feats are simply constant benefits above what the existing introductory feat gives. Thus the "chain" of feats could simply be 2 feat slots. One to gain access to the rest of the family, and the other to cherrypick your desired investment. And you have the option to select other feats in the family beyond those, but you don't need, say, the existing intro feat, then another house training feat to qualify for another house training feat. I use the term "House Training" because I still feel that's the best way to re-incorporate the race-specific flavor of the Houses without hard-coding it into the feats. Having the prerequisite of "Must be a halfling" just makes the uninitiated into Eberron go "Why? That's stupid. This dragonmark would work so much better on a race with a bonus to Wisdom because of the synergy with such-and-such class." It's a dry and mechanical prerequisite. Whereas having the prerequsite be "Mark of Healing, must be a member of House Jorasco" makes the uninitiated into Eberron ask "What's House Jorasco?", which I think is a much better state of mind to put them in.
#10 KelvanNailo Jun 30, 2011 11:06:42	I've got no problem with the feats as is. I especially like the support from rituals. As far as trying to keep them more race specific I tend to punish those who take dragonmarks that aren't from their race. My usual response is the house wants them dead, or considers them an aberrant.
#11 skeptical_clown Jul 01, 2011 12:59:20	I think that themes would be a good way to represent them. I don't see much point in trying to mechanically retrict dragonmarks.  It's totally against the spirit and direction that 4e has been going in, and what's the point?  If you want it restricted in your games simply restrict access.
#12 kopakanuva Jul 02, 2011 0:30:50	Maybe feat "chain" was the wrong terminology to use. Perhaps I should have said feat "family". My idea is to treat Dragonmarks as a kind of multiclassing set up. The way the multiclass feats work, you have the ability to invest in your multiclass only as much as you want to. You can just take the introductory feat to gain some small splash of mechanics from your multiclass, or you can invest in the introducotry feat, then all three power-swap feats, until you feel like something closer to a Hybrid without sacrificing your main class features. And you can reach gradients inbetween. (Only taking the Utility power swap after the initial multiclass feat for utlity wizard spells, or only the Daily feat for barbarian rages, etc.) Thus, the idea I was forming was to have the existing Dragonmark feats become the "introductory" feat for the "House Training" family of dragonmark-related feats. Perhaps some feats offer an Encounter attack for a power-swap. Perhaps some offer a bonus feat power like the Skill Power feat. Perhaps other "House Training" feats are simply constant benefits above what the existing introductory feat gives. Thus the "chain" of feats could simply be 2 feat slots. One to gain access to the rest of the family, and the other to cherrypick your desired investment. And you have the option to select other feats in the family beyond those, but you don't need, say, the existing intro feat, then another house training feat to qualify for another house training feat. I use the term "House Training" because I still feel that's the best way to re-incorporate the race-specific flavor of the Houses without hard-coding it into the feats. Having the prerequisite of "Must be a halfling" just makes the uninitiated into Eberron go "Why? That's stupid. This dragonmark would work so much better on a race with a bonus to Wisdom because of the synergy with such-and-such class." It's a dry and mechanical prerequisite. Whereas having the prerequsite be "Mark of Healing, must be a member of House Jorasco" makes the uninitiated into Eberron ask "What's House Jorasco?", which I think is a much better state of mind to put them in. You mean sort of like the Spellscarred system for FR? I think Hellcow addressed that idea when designing the 4E mechanics for Eberron and turned it down. A theme would probably fit the Marked system better even than a feat list. You could use something like: Scion of House Cannith (totally random, I just happen to know Cannith the best of the houses) (Fluff) {Looking back at the Eberron Campaign Setting [3.5] the Mark of Making gives Make Whole, Mending or Repair Light Damage. Now, in 4E the Mark Of Making feat totally obviates the Alchemist feat (unless you're using Mark Of Storm sliding shenanigens) and gives you some rituals, and the modern equivilent of a CL bump. to reflect this in 4E terms, use the crunch from MoM about Enchant Magic Item and Alchemist, and give a choice of powers at !st level (each of which modifies the users role, like so) You have the choice of: Repair Light Damage (leader; healing power.) Create Obstacles (controller; creates difficulte terrain/rocks/caltrops in burst) Alchemechel Volley (striker; shoots a missile) Mechanical Mark (Defender; works like a defender complete w/ punishment in the form of elemental damage. (Add some power Swaps and BAM, Dragonmarked theme. (possibly make it so someone with this theme can't get the MoM feat))
#13 AvonRekaes Jul 05, 2011 23:01:56	Not completely like Spellscarred. Spellscarred works for an entire suite of related powers. But a multiclassing-like approach, yes. Think of the weapon-training multiclass feats instead. You have the initial feat like Spiked Chain Training and then power swap feats for spike-chain specific powers. What I'm proposing is a more loose structure than that. 3 examples: Say the Mark of Warding doesn't actually have power swap features, per say, but there's a feat that just gives you a low-grade utlity power (Like the Skill Power feat just giving you a Skill Power power that you don't need to swap for). Then perhaps "stronger" marks (with more direct combat options) like the Mark of Healing or Storm actually does swap a power.  And then maybe things like the Mark of Protection having a feat that doesn't actually give a power, but rather a situational benefit, like "When you use the Total Defense Action, you may choose to take half the damage inflicted to any adjacent ally". Perhaps the specifics change. But my concept is to remove the "false symetry" that 4e did such a good job of getting rid of. Just cause multiclass feats give Encounter, Daily, and Utlity power swaps doesn't mean a similar system for Dragonmarks needs to, or that all Dragonmarked feats need to operate the same way. An alternative thought, however. I was hesitant to support the idea of Themes because I thought the idea of a restrictive prerequisite for Themes was not likely something that would see support. However the preview for the Neverwinter campaign setting shows that book will have Themes with racial prerequisites. So I think the idea has merit now. And either way, the key feature of my concept is the prerequisite. I'm much more concerned with that than any other mechanical feature of the marks, be they new feats or themes. I think the listed prerequisite as it shows in the Compendium should be "a member of House SuchandSuch". I feel it's the only way of keeping the 4e decision to make marks more open for the truly special (and not just ignorant) PC, while re-establishing the emphasis of the House's relation and importance to the Marks.
#14 kopakanuva Jul 08, 2011 23:06:09	Yeah, I like this, you could keep the feats as they are presented in the EPG and just add a chain coming off that, like ther "Prestige Classes" presented in "Art of the Kill" (DMA 140), but without the "This is your only MC" requirement. - - Speaking of prerequisites, you could add a "Must be a member of X race" to the more advanced feats, leaving the idea of a Dragonmark on other races intact, while keeping a sense of racial restriction to the feats.
#15 AvonRekaes Jul 09, 2011 10:09:52	The reason I sayed away from the race prerequisite is to not rock the boat, so to speak. They decided to untie the feats to specific races, and I have to accept their design decision about it. I feel like presenting options that go against that decision is less likely to actually be considered, and more likely to be viewed as the same old griping that won't change anything. Plus it would make the odd assumption, in-universe, that the really special people with off-race marks, uniquely picked out by the Draconic Prophecy, specifically breaking all previous assumptions about the limitations of Dragonmarks, have inherently weaker marks. Doesn't make much sense from a story perspective.  For example: I've decided to play an intentionally off-race dragonmarked character, a human with the Mark of Healing. I have a well-thought-out philosophy for why my character was specifically picked out by the Draconic Prophecy to break the walls down and start making healing more accessible to everyone. I've made a responsible choice for my character with clear knowledge of how I'm breaking the in-world tradition and how I'm going to be reacted to in-setting. And I will never be able to equal a halfling's Mark of Healing potential without a houserule, something the designers of 4e marks never wanted to happen. With a "must be a member of House Jorasco" prerequisite, however, my character at least has an avenue of approach to gain those feats. Hellcow has mentioned before that the mechanic of having to buy rituals associated with your dragonmark reflects having to undergo training in how to use them. I propose the new feats, or themes, or whatever, reflect the same thing. You'd have to be a member of the House to get that level of training, to learn how to use your mark that way. Now yeah, it does seem a bit counter-intuitive when the people taking off-race marks are just ignorant about the limitations. It does seem like you should "punish" the clueless Half-Orc with the Mark of Protection, by denying him access to "real" mark abilities for the "right" races, but the rules aren't written for the clueless people, and I don't think they should be. Having a story-related prerequisite (like "must be a member of this organization") would make the clueless start asking questions about that organization, thus hopefully leading to them not being so clueless anymore.
#16 kopakanuva Jul 11, 2011 19:53:25	Check out the new Rule-of-Three, looks like someone read this.
#17 bvbpl Aug 04, 2011 15:31:28	Personally, I would rather (and do) play in a game where the racial requirements for each mark are enforced and marks aren’t permitted outside of Eberron.  Popesixtus is right, the marks are more powerful outside of Eberron, but they probably shouldn’t exist there anyway given that they started out as a setting element.  In addition, I think the fact that marks are tied not just to races but to houses should be played up as well.  Barring exceptional circumstances, marked characters are members of the appropriate house, which provides ample roleplay hooks.  Then again, marked character outside of a house should provide a lot of potential story lines as well, provided their players gave good explanations regarding why they exist outside of the house structure (which they should be obliged to provide).  Off-race marks changes the houses.  Allowing for off-race marks that oblige the marked to be within the house (as suggested by Avon) turns the houses from families into some kind of business / fraternal organizations.  In that transition, things are both lost and gained.
#18 CorrinAvatan Aug 05, 2011 10:50:49	Check out the new Rule-of-Three, looks like someone read this. If that Dragonmarked Theme article comes out, I will re-subscribe to DDI.
#19 CorrinAvatan Aug 05, 2011 11:01:53	Off-race marks changes the houses.  Allowing for off-race marks that oblige the marked to be within the house (as suggested by Avon) turns the houses from families into some kind of business / fraternal organizations.  In that transition, things are both lost and gained.  Actually, I ran it differently in my game.  Every time one of my players who had an out-of-race Dragonmark met a "correct-race" Dragonmark holder, I rolled a d100:  Too see what their attitude about it was, ranging from hostile, curious neutral, to absolute fascination. Caused the Storm Minotaur and Healing Drow to think twice about using their powers in front of other Dragonmarked, and led to a plot where they were actually HIRED by the Houses to do a purge on a group of NPCs that had out-of-race-marks.