I've made a new race to get into the D&D/DM spirit again, after going without for a long time.
I was wondering if anyone had any comments, so please PEACH
If anyone is interested in playing; feel free and let me know how it turns out.
Findrei
Carefree dancers, lovers of the world and masters of their emotions.
Racial Traits
Average Height: 5'2'' - 5'8''
Average Weight: 120 - 160lb.
Ability Scores: +2 Cha, +2 Wis
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Low-light
Languages: Common, Elven
Skill Bonuses: +2 Acrobatics, +2 Diplomacy
Findrei Reflexes:
+1 bonus on reflex saves
In control of your emotions
You have such control over your emotions, that you can summon any of them on a whim.
You can cry over spilt milk, feel happy at the death of a friend, or outraged over a friendly act.
You gain a +2 racial bonus to defenses against attacks that would make you become dominated.
Music of Great Meaning
You can make Diplomacy checks against creatures whose language you do not speak, and take no penalty for doing so.
You must be playing an instrument or sing and the target(s) must be able to hear you play to use this ability.
The Dance of Life
When an effect forces you to move—through a pull, a push, or a slide—you may slide 1 at the end of the forced movement.
Emotional Lock
You have resistance to Psychic damage equal to 5 + 1/2 level.
Balanced, great flavor, but one nitpick.The "In Control of Your Emotions" racial trait is good, but provides no mechanical boons. You may want to give them something minor, like a +2 against domination effects.
In control of your emotions
You have such control over your emotions, that you can summon any of them on a whim.
You can cry over spilt milk, feel happy at the death of a friend, or outraged over a friendly act.
This ability has no effect on any powers that would alter your emotions, but see Emotional Lock and Emotional Lash Out.
This is not a mechanical racial trait. This is fluff. It doesn't belong with the crunch.
Music of Great Meaning
You can make Diplomacy checks against creatures whose language you do not speak, and take no penalty for doing so.
You must be playing an instrument and the target(s) must be able to hear you play to use this ability.
The instrument limitation sounds really needless. Singing should work just fine.
This looks nice. Balanced, great flavor, but one nitpick.
The "In Control of Your Emotions" racial trait is good, but provides no mechanical boons. You may want to give them something minor, like a +2 against domination effects.
Thanks! I was thinking about a mechanical bonus, but I couldn't find anything, but a bonus against domination does make some sense.
This is not a mechanical racial trait. This is fluff. It doesn't belong with the crunch.
As above, couldn't think of anything
I think I'll go with a +2 against domination effects.The instrument limitation sounds really needless. Singing should work just fine.
That makes sense, yes... I'll just reduce it so something audible, so singing works too.
I have no idea what the power does and does not do. Does it damage? Does it force movement? Does it impose status conditions? What does it do?
All of the above. It functions exactly the same as the power that hit you, so if the power dealt damage, you deal that damage, if the power forces movement, you can force movement, if the power inflicts a status effect, you inflict that status effect back on the opponent.
Also, only allowing one option for the attack roll of this racial power is ridiculously limiting. Check out Dragonborn and Drow and Genasi. They all give you options for the ability score you'll use to attack. For your power, I suggest letting them select between INT, WIS, and CHA.
Furthermore, if you again look at other racial attack powers, you'll notice they scale due to their lack of an accessory keyword (Weapon or Implement). Therefore, this should be INT+2 vs Will, WIS+2 vs Will, or CHA+2 vs Will at 1st level, INT+4 vs Will, WIS+4 vs Will, or CHA+4 vs Will at 11th level, and finally INT+6 vs Will, WIS+6 vs Will, or CHA+6 vs Will at 21st level.
Good point, I'll edit that.
You gain a +2 bonus to resist being dominated.
I have no idea what this does. What is this a +2 bonus to? Defenses? Saves? What?
You may want to give them something minor, like a +2 against domination effects.
I think I'll go with a +2 against domination effects.
There's no such thing as a "domination effect." Effect types are listed on PHB page 55, and "Domination" is not one of them. Domination is a condition, not an effect type. There are effects that cause one to be dominated, but that's not the same thing.
I think what you're looking for is something like:
You gain a +2 racial bonus to saves against effects causing you to be dominated.
All of the above. It functions exactly the same as the power that hit you, so if the power dealt damage, you deal that damage, if the power forces movement, you can force movement, if the power inflicts a status effect, you inflict that status effect back on the opponent.
That... Not only make minimal sense thematically but is also very overpowered. The only thing keeping it from being outright broken is that you can't take immediate reactions if an attack has dazed, dominated, or stunned you or caused you to become unconscious...
I'm going to look at this again tonight, when (if) I have some more time.
Thanks again for your help so far
I see no problem with the +2 against domination. If a power makes you dominated, you have +2 defense against that power. I think Kalashtar have something similar, but I don't have the book yet, just remember from the rumors.
Something I'd change, or better add, is Fey origin. Didn't you picture them as fey after all? They seem pretty much fey-like to me. I think that what best defines fey after all is their focus on emotions. These Findrei would be the "joy fey", or better "emotion fey" altogether.
However, making them fey or not, one thing is sure: they "look" like elves and that's not good IMO! You should try to define their appearance better and differentiate it from elves/eladrin. I suggest something related to colors. I suddenly pictured them with patterns resembling butterfly wings literally printed onto their cheeks or body. Or maybe they have multicolored hair and/or eyes. Something like a "rainbow race". Although I'd pass on explaining why the cheerful nature and the "rainbow" thing could be thought as telling features of their sexual habits... :D
I see no problem with the +2 against domination.
Except that it doesn't do anything and doesn't mean anything at all within the context of the game mechanics. That +2 bonus has to apply to something in order to be of any use. If I have a +2 bonus but can't apply it to anything, it's really not doing anything.
If a power makes you dominated, you have +2 defense against that power.
If the bonus applies to defenses, then the feature should say so, not leave up a completely vague bonus that could apply to anything or nothing.
I think Kalashtar have something similar, but I don't have the book yet, just remember from the rumors.
They get to make saves versus effects causing them to be dazed or dominated at the beginning of their turns instead of the end of their turns. That's it.
Is this balanced? I thought that just a flat bonus to the Will defense for 1 attack might not be enough (doesn't stand up to the Halfling that forces a reroll on ANY hit, after knowing that it did) so I added in free saving throws; it fits the theme I think.
Any more comments?
Like friggin 4 (nearly a FORTH of the 4E races not counting those in the MM!!!) of them wasn't enough?
Well, besides the horrible grammar, two of these abilities are quite badly written.
It is not clear what kind of powers "dominate" a character. There are abilities that stun a character, ones that push or slide a character, ones that daze a character, etc. For instane, Blunder is a basic Bard ability that deals psychic damage and forces a target to move 2 spaces. Is this dominating the character? It's too nebulous and open to interpretation which can either be done widely in which case there is a huge variety of abilities which the bonus applies and it is too strong or it can be interpreted narrowly in which case it will only apply to 1-2 monster powers which the character will probably never be targeted by.
The other one is the music of life-- I do not believe the game assigns a fixed penalty to try to talk to those who do not speak your language and since almost everything speaks common anyway, it is hard to see when it would come into play. However, even more bizzare is your requirement that they be singing or playing an instrument-- which means really you are speaking of the very narrow situation when the Diplomacy is being used straight as a "perform" check and, in that case, almost no character would be recieving a penalty to impress people with their musical talents. So you have an ability here that is written in such a way it presumes a penalty that doesn't exist and since that penalty doesn't exist, the ability has no effect.
I'm doing my best, but it's pretty hard sometimes.
Also sorry you don't seem to like elf-races, but I hoped to at least make them different enough so you don't have to roleplay them like an Elf or Eladrin.
For being Dominated, only the ones that inflict the actual Dominated effect count.
It's in the list of your PHB, page 277:
Listing the power as a +2 bonus on saves to resist the Dominated effect could work then-- although you'd still be dominated for a turn.
The "Mind is a Fotress" power is WAY too powerful for an Encounter power. The way this power reads you immediately pump your willpower so high that you almost may as well put 'ignores the attack with no effect' unless the player purposes undermined their own will save in someway and has almost no bonus on mental stats.
Let's say at 4th level for instance you have a character with a charisma of 18 (which is what this race begs). Presuming you are also a class with a will defense of +1 from the class. So the character's will defense will already by 17. This power allows you to pump it to 21 for 1 attack each encounter. At 4th level you are only looking at a +5 or so bonus to try to hit your will defense in the first place.
And, if by some miracle the attack is successful you make a myriad of immediate saves if that's what is necessary to ignore the attack.
The other problem with this is, of course, that it presumes there is a large enough pause between the DM declaring the attack and rolling a result. Other interupts don't require that, because if the result is already rolled then the player knows before they declare whether or not to use the power whether or not the power would even be successful.
Coupled with the saving throw against dominate (which would probably occur immediately because of this encounter power) and a resistance to psychic damage-- all your powers are entirely geared towards making the character basically immune to Mind Flayers, Psions and Bards without really any good reason for it. I'm not sure why you felt you needed a huge stack of defenses against a single type of monster/character type, but it certainly strikes me as very odd.
Then again, the whole idea of a free, open, light, airy spirit with a locked down, closed, single-tracked mind that cannot be changed in any way shape or form also seems a bit jarring. If this race is so rigidly and unheedingly stuck on its ideals and path to such an even greater extent than a Warforged, Dwarf, Eladrin, Dragonborn, etc. that you have a huge stack of defenses all geared towards making it immune to psychics... then why does it act the exact opposite of someone whose mind is closed down, locked and sealed tight?
Someone who is open to new experiences, open to new idea, loves discovering new things, etc. sounds much more like someone who would be vulnerable to having new ideas implanted in their head because new ideas are what they thrive on. If their minds reject all foreign ideas, then they would go through life rejecting foreign ideas and couldn't really be described as "lovers of the world" or dance or any other free expression.
Certainly I could see a resistance to Dominate based off of the idea that their mind is slippery and hard for someone to keep control of, but not a psychic damage reduction AND an encounter power all about making it virtually immune to attacks that target will power as well.
I'm sure if you break free of making it just another elf race and help it define itself more clearly as something DIFFERENT from just another random elf then ideas for racial powers can arise out of that.
Listing the power as a +2 bonus on saves to resist the Dominated effect could work then
No, it wouldn't. As I've already pointed out, there's no such thing as a domination effect. Domination is a condition that can be imposed by effects. That is not the same thing. What you suggest would only work if worded as:
You gain a +2 racial bonus to saves against effects causing you to be dominated.
Or something similar to that.
Well another fey race might be fine, but you have to really seperate this a lot more from the Elves-- right now they are literally nothing more than an elf that likes to dance and has a high will save and that just doesn't work. Its far too narrow of a niche, it is really more of a character concept than a race concept.
But this I agree with 100%. Really. This isn't a race. This is a single elf character, maybe a specific culture of elves. This concept does not warrant its own race. This kind of thing is the reason that we ended up with fifty or so Elf sub-races back in 3.5.