4 New Races, 1 New Class - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

4 New Races, 1 New Class

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
lapinknits
Aug 02, 2010 0:08:26 I've created 4 new races and 1 new class from scratch available at my website.
lapinknits.webs.com/dndcustomstuff.htm

Races:

1) Nightfin
An aquatic race with predatory instincts

2) Thennegar
Elemental creatures who love chaos and entropy.

3) Slath
Aberrant creatures who can divide up into a swarm.

4) Calmvoid
Able to excel in any class or hybrid class combo (an alternative to humans).

Class:

1) Wrangler
A martial controller based on the cowboy archetype who uses rope, whips, and bolas as weapons.

On the website, all races and classes are fully complete, like a Dragon article, with feats, build options, full power set, paragon paths, epic destiny, history, etc.

I'd love to hear any feedback about any of these. Feel free to take a look around the rest of the site as well.

lapinknits.webs.com/dndcustomstuff.htm
#2
Crimson_Concerto
Aug 02, 2010 1:04:57 Nightfin:
1) Darkvision is avoided in 4E. Conceptually, I have to wonder why Nightfin have it when Low-Light seems to me as though it would suffice. It's not that you can't give them Darkvision. It's just that I don't see the justification for it. Also, if you're going to give it to them, then you should consider it to be a significant racial feature. In other words, I think that if you really want to keep it, then you should get rid of either Cold Resistance or Slipper Scales, with Slippery Scales seeming somewhat more expendable.
2) I see that you have Aquatic Breath, but why don't you just give them the Aquatic keyword? They need it anyways.
3) Your racial attack power has a couple of issues. First, it's damage is too high. Even if you knock off 1D6 from each tier, it's still too much considering that it also pushes and is also a free action. Second, why does the pushing increase at higher levels? Effects like that shouldn't need to scale up at higher levels. That makes them more powerful at later levels than they were at earlier level, but the intent of power scaling is actually to keep powers just as useful at later levels as they were at earlier levels. Third, +2/+4/+6 is the old attack scaling used in the PHB. The new scaling method for attacks like this that have neither the weapon nor implement keyword is +3/+6/+9. Finally, I think that the trigger is much too restrictive. What if nothing is adjacent to the character when it becomes bloodied? That seems like a waste, and the whole point of racial powers is that they're supposed to give you something to do every encounter evocative of your race. I'd definitely consider changing the trigger to something more broad. Consider something like "Trigger: You become bloodied or you are damaged while you're bloodied."

Thennegar:
1) Elemental Affinity doesn't make for a very good racial feature. Racial features should be useful to a character no matter what class or role it plays. This sort of racial feature is going to be totally useless to quite a lot of characters. A lot of martial classes come to mind, but there are plenty of others as well.
2) Nothing's wrong with Touch of Chaos, and I think that's remarkable. None of the effects are overpowered or underpowered. This looks like the sort of feature that would be really easy for a home-brewer to screw up big time, so I want to congratulate you for not doing so.

Slath:
1) Telepathy 1 means only adjacent spaces. That's not very far. I understand that your racial power is a big deal, and again I must commend you for not overpowering something that would have been very, very easy to overpower, but you can increase this to Telepathy 5 like the Kalashtar or Shardmind without worry. You might even have room for another minor feature.

Calmvoid:
Okay, these are the ones that I actually have some serious issues with. I get that you were trying to break the mold here in a lot of different, new, and interesting ways, but the mechanics of game design can be a very delicate thing, and I hope that you don't take offense, but I honestly think that you waaay overdid this.
1) Blindness and Blindsense 20. I really have no idea how this is expected to work. Blindsense is... incredibly powerful. I mean, it goes through all barriers, it makes you immune to being snuck up on, and especially here where its race is 100 ft. I cannot imagine how it could be balanced.
2) Diverse Abilities has the problem that it goes against the whole point of racial powers. Remember, the whole point of racial powers is to give you something to do every encounter evocative of your race. A racial power that can only be used twice per day gets in the way of that.
3) Calmvoid Protection should not be able to provide a racial AC bonus. There are specific balance reasons that racial AC bonuses have never been done before, and now that it's never been done before, it makes very little sense even conceptually for a race like this to have access to it while a race like Warforged doesn't.
4) Odd ability score adjustments. Yeah, there are massive debates around this and whether or not they work, but with how much they can be abused or how easily they can become useless (and no, the two don't balance out), you should expect to get a lot of objections, and you can also very likely expect this thread to spiral down into that topic again. If you want to be on the safe side, I recommend scrapping this and just giving them two normal ability score boosts like everybody else or giving them the human treatment with a single +2 that they can select. Though, honestly, I'm of the mind that everything else about this race needs to get scrapped too, so I'm not sure if you care.

As a final piece of advice, I'd avoid putting more than one thing up for PEACH like this at once. People will spend the time in a thread to critique one race, maybe two, but put up four races and a whole class and people will say "Screw it, I don't have time for all of these". Ironically, putting everything you want critiqued in one conveniant thread makes all of it much less likely for any of its individual parts to get responses.
#3
Crimson_Concerto
Aug 02, 2010 1:06:38
Kind of sad that in 4e there are no penalties used to balance out races, and they're only balanced by having the same number of bonuses.

I have to disagree. Balancing out bonuses with penalties only results in racial pigeon-holing.

If there are half-elves, why not half-dwarves?

Those are called Mul, and they'll be out next month in Dark Sun.
#4
babyj
Aug 04, 2010 1:24:34 I actually did take the time to look at all this, and I must say I have to go with Crimson on almost every point. I do applaud your efforts, but you are missing the point of good racial design in several areas.

Nightfin: 1. racial power: damage on racial is definitely too high, and scaling of the additional effects should not exist.
2. vision and other racials: The darkvision seems like it fits, but make sure to consider it a MAJOR part of the race's features; i.e. curb back one of the racials or vision to compensate. a) idea: give him an angler-like lure dealio to explain how it sees in deep waters. Like: "Vision: Low-light. Nightfin's Lantern: As a free action, you create an area of dim illumination that extends out 10 squares (half this far while underwater). Only you and other nightfin can see this light" (to prevent it from becoming a neon sign saying 'target me'). b) idea: Consider making the cold resist a feat (think Icy Acclimation, or Benthic Skin), and leave the darkvision (which should either be a quality or not).

Thannegar: 1. force ought not be an element. Also my idea for salvaging the elemental affinity feature is: "Select an element (cold, fire, thunder, or lightning, or chaotic). This choice, once made at character creation, cannot be changed later. If you choose no elemental affinity, roll a d4 once per day at the end of each extended rest to determine your elemental affinity; 1: cold, 2: fire, 3: thunder, 4:lightning). You gain resist 5 + 1/2 your level to the selected element."
2. I could see giving it another minor racial feature as well.

Slath: see Crimson's comments, they are spot-on.

Calmvoid: again, Crimson pretty much said what needed to be said; the race's shtick, while neat, is not balanced AT ALL. As much as I would like to play this race, I don't think its really fair to other players on a variety of levels and it is my humble opinion that it needs a full rewrite/rethinking of how to make it all work within reason.

#5
natural20username
Aug 07, 2010 9:26:31 I'd like to second just about everything crimson said, with the exception of nixing darkvision for the nightfin. Switching Elemental affinity to resistance seems like it has capacity to make Thennagar a viable choice for martial classes, which they really should be with that racial bonus to Str.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 lapinknits Aug 02, 2010 0:08:26	I've created 4 new races and 1 new class from scratch available at my website. lapinknits.webs.com/dndcustomstuff.htm Races: 1) Nightfin An aquatic race with predatory instincts 2) Thennegar Elemental creatures who love chaos and entropy. 3) Slath Aberrant creatures who can divide up into a swarm. 4) Calmvoid Able to excel in any class or hybrid class combo (an alternative to humans). Class: 1) Wrangler A martial controller based on the cowboy archetype who uses rope, whips, and bolas as weapons. On the website, all races and classes are fully complete, like a Dragon article, with feats, build options, full power set, paragon paths, epic destiny, history, etc. I'd love to hear any feedback about any of these. Feel free to take a look around the rest of the site as well. lapinknits.webs.com/dndcustomstuff.htm
#2 Crimson_Concerto Aug 02, 2010 1:04:57	Nightfin: 1) Darkvision is avoided in 4E. Conceptually, I have to wonder why Nightfin have it when Low-Light seems to me as though it would suffice. It's not that you can't give them Darkvision. It's just that I don't see the justification for it. Also, if you're going to give it to them, then you should consider it to be a significant racial feature. In other words, I think that if you really want to keep it, then you should get rid of either Cold Resistance or Slipper Scales, with Slippery Scales seeming somewhat more expendable. 2) I see that you have Aquatic Breath, but why don't you just give them the Aquatic keyword? They need it anyways. 3) Your racial attack power has a couple of issues. First, it's damage is too high. Even if you knock off 1D6 from each tier, it's still too much considering that it also pushes and is also a free action. Second, why does the pushing increase at higher levels? Effects like that shouldn't need to scale up at higher levels. That makes them more powerful at later levels than they were at earlier level, but the intent of power scaling is actually to keep powers just as useful at later levels as they were at earlier levels. Third, +2/+4/+6 is the old attack scaling used in the PHB. The new scaling method for attacks like this that have neither the weapon nor implement keyword is +3/+6/+9. Finally, I think that the trigger is much too restrictive. What if nothing is adjacent to the character when it becomes bloodied? That seems like a waste, and the whole point of racial powers is that they're supposed to give you something to do every encounter evocative of your race. I'd definitely consider changing the trigger to something more broad. Consider something like "Trigger: You become bloodied or you are damaged while you're bloodied." Thennegar: 1) Elemental Affinity doesn't make for a very good racial feature. Racial features should be useful to a character no matter what class or role it plays. This sort of racial feature is going to be totally useless to quite a lot of characters. A lot of martial classes come to mind, but there are plenty of others as well. 2) Nothing's wrong with Touch of Chaos, and I think that's remarkable. None of the effects are overpowered or underpowered. This looks like the sort of feature that would be really easy for a home-brewer to screw up big time, so I want to congratulate you for not doing so. Slath: 1) Telepathy 1 means only adjacent spaces. That's not very far. I understand that your racial power is a big deal, and again I must commend you for not overpowering something that would have been very, very easy to overpower, but you can increase this to Telepathy 5 like the Kalashtar or Shardmind without worry. You might even have room for another minor feature. Calmvoid: Okay, these are the ones that I actually have some serious issues with. I get that you were trying to break the mold here in a lot of different, new, and interesting ways, but the mechanics of game design can be a very delicate thing, and I hope that you don't take offense, but I honestly think that you waaay overdid this. 1) Blindness and Blindsense 20. I really have no idea how this is expected to work. Blindsense is... incredibly powerful. I mean, it goes through all barriers, it makes you immune to being snuck up on, and especially here where its race is 100 ft. I cannot imagine how it could be balanced. 2) Diverse Abilities has the problem that it goes against the whole point of racial powers. Remember, the whole point of racial powers is to give you something to do every encounter evocative of your race. A racial power that can only be used twice per day gets in the way of that. 3) Calmvoid Protection should not be able to provide a racial AC bonus. There are specific balance reasons that racial AC bonuses have never been done before, and now that it's never been done before, it makes very little sense even conceptually for a race like this to have access to it while a race like Warforged doesn't. 4) Odd ability score adjustments. Yeah, there are massive debates around this and whether or not they work, but with how much they can be abused or how easily they can become useless (and no, the two don't balance out), you should expect to get a lot of objections, and you can also very likely expect this thread to spiral down into that topic again. If you want to be on the safe side, I recommend scrapping this and just giving them two normal ability score boosts like everybody else or giving them the human treatment with a single +2 that they can select. Though, honestly, I'm of the mind that everything else about this race needs to get scrapped too, so I'm not sure if you care. As a final piece of advice, I'd avoid putting more than one thing up for PEACH like this at once. People will spend the time in a thread to critique one race, maybe two, but put up four races and a whole class and people will say "Screw it, I don't have time for all of these". Ironically, putting everything you want critiqued in one conveniant thread makes all of it much less likely for any of its individual parts to get responses.
#3 Crimson_Concerto Aug 02, 2010 1:06:38	Kind of sad that in 4e there are no penalties used to balance out races, and they're only balanced by having the same number of bonuses. I have to disagree. Balancing out bonuses with penalties only results in racial pigeon-holing. If there are half-elves, why not half-dwarves? Those are called Mul, and they'll be out next month in Dark Sun.
#4 babyj Aug 04, 2010 1:24:34	I actually did take the time to look at all this, and I must say I have to go with Crimson on almost every point. I do applaud your efforts, but you are missing the point of good racial design in several areas. Nightfin: 1. racial power: damage on racial is definitely too high, and scaling of the additional effects should not exist. 2. vision and other racials: The darkvision seems like it fits, but make sure to consider it a MAJOR part of the race's features; i.e. curb back one of the racials or vision to compensate. a) idea: give him an angler-like lure dealio to explain how it sees in deep waters. Like: "Vision: Low-light. Nightfin's Lantern: As a free action, you create an area of dim illumination that extends out 10 squares (half this far while underwater). Only you and other nightfin can see this light" (to prevent it from becoming a neon sign saying 'target me'). b) idea: Consider making the cold resist a feat (think Icy Acclimation, or Benthic Skin), and leave the darkvision (which should either be a quality or not). Thannegar: 1. force ought not be an element. Also my idea for salvaging the elemental affinity feature is: "Select an element (cold, fire, thunder, or lightning, or chaotic). This choice, once made at character creation, cannot be changed later. If you choose no elemental affinity, roll a d4 once per day at the end of each extended rest to determine your elemental affinity; 1: cold, 2: fire, 3: thunder, 4:lightning). You gain resist 5 + 1/2 your level to the selected element." 2. I could see giving it another minor racial feature as well. Slath: see Crimson's comments, they are spot-on. Calmvoid: again, Crimson pretty much said what needed to be said; the race's shtick, while neat, is not balanced AT ALL. As much as I would like to play this race, I don't think its really fair to other players on a variety of levels and it is my humble opinion that it needs a full rewrite/rethinking of how to make it all work within reason.
#5 natural20username Aug 07, 2010 9:26:31	I'd like to second just about everything crimson said, with the exception of nixing darkvision for the nightfin. Switching Elemental affinity to resistance seems like it has capacity to make Thennagar a viable choice for martial classes, which they really should be with that racial bonus to Str.