Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 isacus Jun 05, 2010 12:29:21	Okay this is one of my few attemts at making a race, criticizm is very welcome. I took these guys from 3.5's MM3 and refluffed them a fair bit to fit my homebrew setting, and I mostly did it because i wanted a playable race at least somewhat related to the Efreets, who are rather important in my setting. Here it is: Harssaf Desert nomads with a heritage of fire. Racial Traits Average Height: 5´6˝-6´2˝ Average Weight: 140-225 lb Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution or +2 Strength Size: Medium Speed: 6 squares Vision: Normal Languages: Common, Primordial Skill Bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Athletics or +2 Intimidate Elemental Origin: Your ancestors were native to the Elemental Chaos, so you are considered an elemental creature for the purpose of effects that relate to creature origin. Fire Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage equal to 5 + one-half your level. Fiery Presence: All enemies adjacent to you gain vulnerable 5 fire. Change this to vulnerable 10 fire at 11th level and vulnerable 15 fire at 21st level. Sand Form: You can use Sand Form as an encounter power. Sand Form                        Harssaf Racial Power You become the very sands you are made of and whirl through your enemies, blinding them. Encounter Move Action     Personal Effect: You shift half your speed over ground and through squares occupied by enemies. You must end your movement in an unoccupied square. All enemies you moved through are blinded until the end of your next turn. During the Dawn War, the Harssafs were created as warriors by a Primordial that embodied the desert sands, but a mighty god of fire struck down their creator and remade them in his image. Unwilling to fulfill their new master's demands, the Harssafs were exiled into the world’s deepest deserts, secluding themselves from the outside world and forming nomadic clans that roam the sands with no destination in mind. Play a Harssaf if you want… to embody both the undying flame and the deadly desert. to bring honor to a race forsaken by its creators. to play a member of a race that favors the monk, fighter, ranger, rogue, druid, sorcerer and seeker classes. Physical qualities: A Harssaf’s appearance confirms its harsh, fiery heritage. Their skin is a fiery red with some dark patches and it looks as if they have burns all over their bodies. Their features are sharp and small, red horns protrude from the side of their heads and down from their jaw. Their noses are flat and their eyes are sickly yellow, lacking any pupils. Playing a Harssaf: Long ago, during the Dawn War, a might Primordial, Chung’durm, who had power over the desert, created a race that would serve it as warriors. These humanoids embodies the sand they lived in, having the ability to join into a mighty sandstorm that could ravage their enemies. As the war progressed and the Primordials began to loose, Chung’durm made a last stand on the material world, against the young efreet god, Badar. Sand and fire clashed in a mighty battle, but the Primordial of sand was defeated and imprisoned beneath the very desert it had created. Badar saw the potential of the early Harssafs and remodeled them to fit his domain of fire, but the race was far too chaotic and disloyal, so he chose to abandon them. His efreeti followers exiled the Harssafs into the desert, where they remain to this day. Most Harssafs spend their entire lives secluded from civilization in their desert camps, rarely laying eyes upon a member of another race. Some, however, are sent out into the world with the goal to obtain more information on how to free their creator, Chung’durm. This subject is a matter of great conflict in Harssaf society, and has actually caused them to split into two main factions, one believing that they must free the Primordial and the other striving to come back into Badar’s favor. Clans often war over the matter, but the Badar worshipping clans are the ones whose forays to the edges of the desert, mainly to the Efreet occupied Crescent, are far more frequent. Harssafs loyal to Badar strive for martial greatness, seeing it as a way for Badar to notice them, thus often becoming monks or fighters, while the ones loyal to Chung’durm prefer raw power, and the majority of Harssaf sorcerers are born in clans loyal to the Primordial. Whether this is simply a coincidence or a sign of Chung’durm’s gratitude is yet to be determined. Harssaf characteristics: driven, reserved, untrusting, tough, self-reliant, practical, perceptive, mysterious Male Names: Magsa, Gengh, Tebtar, Kanghan, Betshag, Samah, Aseemsa, Mugthan Female Names: Taig, Sagin, Buluma, Naimerke, Tarj And that is all. Excuse me it the post is too long, and because i haven't made and feats or paragon paths yet, although I plan to. First I'd like some oppinions and for more experienced homebrewers to tell me if I did anything wrong and how to change it. Thanks in advance!
#2 isacus Jun 05, 2010 12:30:41	Post reserved for feats and racial Paragon path.
#3 Crimson_Concerto Jun 05, 2010 16:05:30	Fiery Presence: All enemies adjacent to you gain vulnerable 5 fire. Change this to vulnerable 10 fire at 11th level and vulnerable 15 fire at 21st level. Something about this bugs me. I think it's that limiting its effect only to adjacent enemies makes it fantastic for melee classes but practically useless for ranged classes. However, I think that the effect would be overpowered if it extended any further, and it may very well be overpowered for melee classes already. Furthermore, the number of classes that can actually makes use of this feature without needing to spend money on a specific weapon are rather limited. Only Arcane and Primal classes have easy access to the benefits of this features, and not even all of them. This is just too unreliable. I'd definitely recommend removing it and replacing it with something else entirely. Sand Form: You can use Sand Form as an encounter power. Sand Form                        Harssaf Racial Power You become the very sands you are made of and whirl through your enemies, blinding them. Encounter Move Action     Personal Effect: You shift half your speed over ground and through squares occupied by enemies. You must end your movement in an unoccupied square. All enemies you moved through are blinded until the end of your next turn. This is definitely overpowered. Blinding until the end of your next turn is a really powerful effect, and even a racial power that requires an attack roll to blind a single target until the end of your next turn is overpowered. This requires no attack roll at all and can blind up to two. The only way to balance this power would be to both add an attack roll and change "blinded until the end of your next turn" to "blinded until the end of your turn".
#4 isacus Jun 05, 2010 16:41:51	Fiery Presence: All enemies adjacent to you gain vulnerable 5 fire. Change this to vulnerable 10 fire at 11th level and vulnerable 15 fire at 21st level. Something about this bugs me. I think it's that limiting its effect only to adjacent enemies makes it fantastic for melee classes but practically useless for ranged classes. However, I think that the effect would be overpowered if it extended any further, and it may very well be overpowered for melee classes already. Furthermore, the number of classes that can actually makes use of this feature without needing to spend money on a specific weapon are rather limited. Only Arcane and Primal classes have easy access to the benefits of this features, and not even all of them. This is just too unreliable. I'd definitely recommend removing it and replacing it with something else entirely. Sand Form: You can use Sand Form as an encounter power. Sand Form                        Harssaf Racial Power You become the very sands you are made of and whirl through your enemies, blinding them. Encounter Move Action     Personal Effect: You shift half your speed over ground and through squares occupied by enemies. You must end your movement in an unoccupied square. All enemies you moved through are blinded until the end of your next turn. This is definitely overpowered. Blinding until the end of your next turn is a really powerful effect, and even a racial power that requires an attack roll to blind a single target until the end of your next turn is overpowered. This requires no attack roll at all and can blind up to two. The only way to balance this power would be to both add an attack roll and change "blinded until the end of your next turn" to "blinded until the end of your turn". I'll think about what I might add for the first one, thanks. Yeah, I figured blinded might be a bit powerful, so how about this. I can limit the speed to 2 squares, meaning that it would only be able to blind one enemy. Adding an attack roll is a great idea, but what ability score do you figure it would use? The defence it would go against would probably be fortitude. After limiting it to one enemy, would extending it to "beginning of it's turn" be viable? Or perhaps it would indeed be "blinded until the end of your turn" but with the ability to extend it using feats? Or is that still much too powerful?
#5 alitain Jun 05, 2010 22:28:26	I don't know that Sand Form is really all that over powered, maybe more because it could hit multiple enemies.  I mean yeah blinded grants combat advantage but thats one round of combat advantage, which isn't overpowered there are plenty of abilities to grant CA and all. I would say maybe the potential to blind all enemies in an encounter would be a tad overpowered, I mean I have an elven shaman with a 9 speed, and even the standard 6 could still cause problems I guess.  I like the ability though. As for the fire resistance I'm with Crimson, as it is now its only suitable for melee, which does kinda suck though not every races' abilities work for both ranged and melee characters.  But making it within a range would be kinda powerful.  Could consider something like "On each success hit, the enemy has vulnerability 5 fire, etc" or something along those lines maybe.  Or have it just be every enemy within 5 squares has vulnerability 5 fire till the end of your turn.  That way enemies can move out of the way...don't know.
#6 Crimson_Concerto Jun 06, 2010 2:49:26	Yeah, I figured blinded might be a bit powerful, so how about this. I can limit the speed to 2 squares, meaning that it would only be able to blind one enemy. Adding an attack roll is a great idea, but what ability score do you figure it would use? The defence it would go against would probably be fortitude. After limiting it to one enemy, would extending it to "beginning of it's turn" be viable? Or perhaps it would indeed be "blinded until the end of your turn" but with the ability to extend it using feats? Or is that still much too powerful? Okay, so let me get this straight then: - It only lets you shift 2 squares, so it can only affect one enemy. (I would recommend that you allow this shift to ignore difficult terrain, by the way.) - It requires an attack roll vs. Fortitude. For this, I would recommend that you simply let the character use its highest ability score. There's no need to limit it. - The effect only lasts until the end of your current turn. (Yes, until the beginning of the target's turn would still be overpowered also also very inreliable because it relies on initiative count to determine when the effect ends. If the target goes right after you, then the effect could end before anybody else in the party gets to benefit from the effect, but if you go right after the target, then everybody in the party gets to benefit from the effect.) With all of this in mind, I think that it would actually be fine for this power to be a Minor action instead of a Move action. Racial feats to increase duration sound perfectly reasonable, but I do not recommend that a single heroic tier feat allow the effect to extend until the end of your next turn. At heroic tier, I think that an acceptable feat would cause a target hit by the power to grant combat advantage until the end of your next turn. Have this feat as a prerequisite, and I think that you might be okay with a paragon tier feat allowing the blinding effect to extend until the end of your next turn, but I'm not even 100% on that, and it would be on the powerful side for paragon tier feats either way. If you want to play it safe, I might recommend that such a paragon feat instead include an immediate saving throw for the target. If it fails, then it's blinded until the end of its next turn, but if it succeeds, then it only remains blinded until the end of your current turn. An epic tier feat can then remove the allowance of this saving throw. I don't know that Sand Form is really all that over powered, maybe more because it could hit multiple enemies.  I mean yeah blinded grants combat advantage but thats one round of combat advantage, which isn't overpowered there are plenty of abilities to grant CA and all. But combat advantage is not the only thing that blinding provides: (1) A blinded enemy grants combat advantage to all attacks from you and all of your allies. (2) You and all of your allies have total concealment against a blinded enemy, among other things meaning that it takes a -5 penalty to attack you and all of your allies with melee and ranged attacks. (3) A blinded enemy cannot make opportunity attacks against you or any of your allies. (4) A blinded enemy takes a -10 penalty to Perception checks. Because you and all of your allies have total concealment from the enemy, successfully hiding from it becomes somewhat of a joke. (5) A blinded enemy cannot flank you or any of your allies. These are a lot of really awesome benefits. If it were just the combat advantage, then it wouldn't be a problem, but it's not, so it is. Limiting the blinding effect until only the end of your current turn, however, has the following effects: (1) The blinded enemy grants combat advantage to you until the end of your current turn. This benefit does not last long enough to extend to your allies. (2) The blinded enemy cannot take opportunity attacks against you until the end of your current turn. This benefit does not last long enough to extend to your allies. (3) The blinded enemy only takes its -5 penalty to melee and ranged attack rolls against you and your allies if it happens to have a free action, immediate action, or no action power that gets triggered before the end of your current turn. (4) The blinded enemy takes a -10 penalty to Perception checks only until the end of your current turn, meaning that it's only somewhat of a joke for you to successfully hide from it, and if you don't roll well enough, it's Passive Perception shoots back up 10 points, so may find you anyways at the end of your turn when it is no longer blinded. Your allies do not gain such a benefit. (5) The blinded enemy cannot flank you or any of your allies, but this isn't going to come up at all unless it has a free action, immediate action, or no action melee power that gets triggered before the end of your current turn. And that still sounds like a great racial power to me.
#7 xiahouxu Jun 06, 2010 11:10:19	I'd switch it to a move action, allowing you to shift half your speed, through occupied squares, and occupied squares you shift through grant combat advantage. Thats a slightly weaker form of what you're trying to do, and still gets across the same flavour. Instead of fiery presence... Perhaps 'shifting sands' some kind of bonus against opportunity attacks, maybe?