V0.2
Gibbor
Average Height: 6'-6'10"
Average Weight: 180-265
Ability Scores: +2 Con, +2 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: Six squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Skill bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Religion
Group Survival: You grant non-gibbor allies within 5 squares of you a +1 racial bonus to Endurance checks.
Angelic Endurance: Gibborim gain resist radiant 5 + one half their level.
Radiant Flight: You can use Radiant Flight as an encounter power.
Radiant Flight Gibbor racial power
In a shower of light, wings unfurl from your back, propelling you through the battle
Encounter
Move Action Personal
Effect: Fly a number of squares equal to your speed. If you are 4 squares or less above the ground at the end of your move, you drift to the ground at the end of your turn. Otherwise, you fall, taking full damage.
Descended from angels who dallied with humans at the end of the war against the primordials, gibborim have faced numerous perils in their lengthy history. Often ignored by the gods, enslaved by the empire of Bael Turath, and settling on the edges of harsh deserts, they turn to their old ways and ancestors for guidance. Others, either cast out or choosing to leave their ways behind, settle among the other races. Each group, counting themselves as citizens of fallen Nerath, stand against the darkness that encroaches on civilization, fighting with the fury of their celestial forefathers.
Play a gibbor if you want...
* to draw strength from, or try to escape from, centuries of ancient traditions
* to embody celestial glory in a mortal frame
* to invoke the powers of generations of ancient ancestors
* to be a member of a race that favors the paladin, warlock, and warlord classes
Physical qualities
Gibbor average six and a half feet in height, and tend to be sturdily built, with solid, dense musculature and a low center of gravity. Their skin color is typically dusky, tinted with colors such as deep red, pitch black, and cold silver. Their faces look half-formed compared to those of humans, with a small bump of a nose, small ears, and a wide slit of a mouth, with piercing white eyes standing out from the rest of their features. Their hair colors match the tint of their skin, and they typically have little body hair.
Traditional Gibbor clothing for both genders typically consists of a simple tunic, belted at the waist, and a cloak. Jewelry is typical, and decorations along the edges of the cloak and on the buckle of the belt are a sign of status. Gibbor nobles sometimes adopt the fashions of Nerath, but this is frowned on by society. Male gibbor often keep their hair short, while females wear it long and wrap it in cloth in public, both as a show of modesty and to avoid the heat of the desert sun.
Gibbor reach maturity at the same age as humans, but typically live for nearly a century and a half. However, they are not vital for all of this time, and many become wizened elders while they still have several decades left to live.
Gibbor can breed with humans, and their child will always be another gibbor.
Playing a gibbor
To the gibborim, the old ways are paramount, and trying to negotiate a path between survival in a modern world and honoring the ways of their ancestors concerns many of the great gibbor thinkers. Gibbor society is heavily legalistic, with the writings of the sages of past generations forming the bulk of their laws. Many of the gibborim found outside their great city, or the settlements nearby, have either left or been ejected from gibborim society due to an inability to comply with these laws.
While some scholar still speak and write the old gibbor tongue, a debased form of supernal, most reject it as limited and embrace Common.
Despite the importance of the old ways, however, there has been a recent drive for reinterperting them to allow for greater convenience in the new age. Fortune telling and devilkeeping are both seen as
professions in the grey area, with their benefit to the community outweighing the danger of the practicioner being influenced by dark powers. Many gibbor are suspicious of those who follow these
paths, and even those gibbor who walk the razor's edge are unsure of their own motives and standings.
The gibbor worship the spirits of their ancestors, and believe the gods will often not deal with them as a result of their angelic forefathers' indiscretion. While individual gibbor can forge a relationship with the gods, and this is not specifically forbidden, but many gibbor see it as a way of forsaking those who came before.
Freedom is a strong motivator to the gibborim, and many only grungingly joined the empire of Nerath. Stories are still told about the gibbor heroes who fought the forces of Bael Turath for their freedom during the empire's fall, and even among exile communities which reject the other old teachings, these heroes are idolized. Many gibbor yearn for the chance to honor their ancestors by fighting for freedom, wether for gibborim or members of other races.
Gibbor also hold their great city on the desert as a sign of freedom. With their ancient scrolls in their great library, and the bones of their ancestors they worship in their necropolis, it stands for everything that they have fought for over the years. Every gibbor, even the children of exiles, seek to visit the city once in their life, and many who have seen it aren't impressed by the urban centers of other races.
While they isolate themselves in their own lands, gibborim often welcome the company of other races while abroad, many individual gibborim eventually learning to appreciate the company of tieflings, despite the historical enmity they hold for them. Each gibbor, when they come of age, is sent to visit the settlements of other races and to test their beliefs against those of other races. While some gibbor leave their homes and families behind to settle with those they visit, many return to their own lands with an appreciation of foreign cultures and beliefs, along with a newly strengthened faith in their own ways.
Gibbor characteristics: Proud, confident, traditionalist, pious, distant, loyal, stolid.
Male Names: Aharon, Boaz, Ehud, Idan, Kapel, Raanan, Tomer, Yoav
Female Names: Avia, Bracha, Fruma, Herut, Kelila, Naamah, Reina, Tehila, Ziva
Gibbor adventurers
Three sample gibbor adventurers are described below.
Boaz is a gibbor paladin who worships Ioun. While he met with the approval of his elders, and his focus and insight into the laws were lauded by those of his tribe, he chose to leave the gibbor settlements
for a time. After all, his people had wandered for ages before finding their lands, and not every ancestor was buried in the necropolis. He seeks out the ancient places of the world, especially the fallen citadels and temples of Bael Turath where his people used to work as slaves, to find clues about the fates of those whose bodies could not be brought back to the great city. His highest ambition is to find a way to communicate with the long-lost souls of the ancient dead, and glean whatever secrets they could not communicate within their lifetimes.
Namaah is a gibbor warlock, though hardly by choice. She had been apprenticed to a gleaner in one of the settlements outside the great city, reading the stars and the entrails of sacrifices to the ancestors to try and divine messages from the ancients. All her readings were inconclusive, until she produced an astrological chart that promised strange and horrible tidings. When she showed her master what she had read, she was accused of crossing a line that must not be crossed, and was declared unclean. Sent away from her tribe and guided by terrible whispers in the back of her mind, Namaah uses her strange new powers to try and prove the the stars themselves wrong.
Yoav is a warlord who grew up among the halflings of Smokey Waters, a settlement outside a much larger community. The son of a gibbor pilgrim who gave up her rite of passage and a human trader, he admires the free nature of the halfling's life, and, when he came of age, decided to serve them in their militia rather than try to join his mother's tribe. Towering above his compatriots, he quickly rose above the rank and file, both due to his natural charisma and skill at leadership and because it was difficult for him to fight as the other militia members did. In the seasons when he does not have to defend the villages from raids as frequently, he often leads detatchments into the wilderness to locate
and assault the ruins the menaces in the dark often hide in.
A note about Gibbor divine characters: While the Gibbor typically do not worship the gods of other races, divine warriors are somewhat common among their heroes. A Gibbor who wants to uphold his people's tradition can worship the Gibbor Ancestors, who count as an Unaligned god. They exhort their followers to uphold the old ways, prove their superiority to devils wherever they can, and to protect and better the Gibborim's lot.
Gibborim racial feats:
Heroic Tier
Child of the Protectors [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Nature, and a +2 bonus to Heal. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of protection.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of Battle [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Insight and a +2 bonus to Intimidate. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of battle.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Keeper of the Law [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to History and Religion, along with the ability to speak the old tongue of the gibbor, which counts as a secret language. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of one of the angels who shaped their laws.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of the Valorous [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain proficiency and +2 damage with the longbow and greatsword.
Additionally, other gibbor will recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of valor.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Radiant Speed [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Your flight speed when using Radiant Flight increases by 3
Paragon:
Aerial Agility [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Movement during the Radiant Flight power no longer provokes opportunity attacks
Radiant Assault [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You may make a single basic melee or ranged attack during the movement provided by Radiant Flight as a standard action.
Epic:
Flight of the Angels [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed.
Though I've removed the setting flavor from the feats to make it more PoL-friendly, the intent to eventually expand them to paragon and epic tiers remains. I'll be waiting until more books with paragon and epic options come out to make it easier to judge, however.
I'm also a little iffy on the balance for the flight power, since looking through the PHB shows that flight is fairly limited. Still, it's one of the two common features of angels I could spot (along with radiant resist), so I'm curious as to whether it's workable, and how to fix it if it's not.
Why don't you have the feat give you more uses of your radiant flight instead of rendering it useless?
I wanted to create a celestial race to make up for the lack of official Aasimar in the setting, since there's a lot of untapped potential in the concept of a celestial race. I'm curious to see if people think if it works in terms of mechanics and flavor.
If the flavor works for you it works for me
Gibbor
Average Height: 6'-6'10"
Average Weight: 180-265
Tallish, and skinny.
Ability Scores: +2 Con, +2 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: Six squares
Vision: Normal
why not low light vision?
Languages: Common
Skill bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Religion
Why religion out of curiosity?
Group Survival: You grant non-gibbor allies within 5 squares of you a +1 racial bonus to Endurance checks.
Seems fine
Angelic Endurance: Gibborim gain resist 5 radiant.
Map it off of tieflings 5+1/ of level.
Radiant Flight: You can use Radiant Flight as an encounter power.
Radiant Flight Gibbor racial power
In a shower of light, wings unfurl from your back, propelling you through the battle
Encounter
Move Action Personal
Effect: Fly a number of squares equal to your speed. If you are 4 squares or less above the ground at the end of your move, you drift to the ground at the end of your turn. Otherwise, you fall, taking full damage.
Seems fine to me.
Descended from angels who dallied with humans at the dawn of time,
I'm pretty sure by PoL terms this didn't happen as the primordials made the universe in the dawn of time time, then Tharzy put that evil thing in the middle of the elemental chaos and converted Orcus and others to demons. The gods made mortals. then primordial v god war. THEN angels. though really the fluff is fine.
Gibborim racial feats:
Heroic Tier
Scion of the Enachari [Gibbor] [Tribal]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Nature, and a +2 bonus to Heal. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising member of the tribe of Enach, who are renowned healers.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Tribal feat
+3 total to skills, essentially a split up skill focus where you don't get to choose abilities. I don't think making it +2 and +2 would be unbalancing, but that's my opinion. The only thing that might make it odd is the balance with Jack of All Trades
Scion of the Lawkeepers [Gibbor] [Tribal]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to History and Religion, along with the ability to speak the old tongue of the gibbor, which counts as a secret language. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising member of the Saphal or Nashel tribes, who serve as judges and scholars, respectively.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Tribal feat
+2 and 1/3 of a feat, again mostly balanced.
Scion of the Zemoni [Gibbor] [Tribal]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain proficiency and +2 damage with the longbow and greatsword.
Additionally, other gibbor will recognize you as a promising member of the tribe of Zemon, whose prowess at hunting and war protects the livelihood and lives of the other tribes.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Tribal feat
Seems fine
Radiant Speed [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Your flight speed when using Radiant Flight increases by 3
mmm, 9 flight. Or 18 if you allow double move on the flight. Probably still ok, should be tested some though
Paragon:
Aerial Agility [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Movement during the Radiant Flight power no longer provokes opportunity attacks
Essentially 1/2 fly by attack but limited in use. Not bad
Radiant Assault [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You may make a single basic melee or ranged attack during the movement provided by Radiant Flight as a standard action.
The other half of the fly by attack.
Epic:
Flight of the Angels [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed.
I like this, and I don't think its unbalancing.
The main purpose of the tribal feats is to try and give some degree on cultural background, as well as doing a series of background feats like some settings had for 3.X. I want to try and expand the feats to Paragon and Epic tier, with new feats at those tiers giving abilities that improve on the themes of the granted abilities of the Heroic feats, like Zemoni doing Radiant damage once per encounter, or Enachari being able to remove effects that need saves from allies, but I'm not sure about the phrasing or balance for abilities like those, so I left them out for now.
Well, angels are really different now in 4e anyway. Not all angels are Good. I think that's why Assamair were left out. I would drop the tribes and use the types of angels in the 4e MM for the heritage feats. PoL is meant to be mostly befret of background. If this is a race for PoL type setting it shouldn't have tribe backgrounds.
If this is for custom campaign go ahead. Post what you have.
I'm also a little iffy on the balance for the flight power, since looking through the PHB shows that flight is fairly limited. Still, it's one of the two common features of angels I could spot (along with radiant resist), so I'm curious as to whether it's workable, and how to fix it if it's not.
I think its fine as is.
Flight 6 ~ Teleport 4
Teleportation never provokes
Flight provokes
Both let you cross hostile terrain without it being an issue.
Both let you cross enemies without it being an issue.
Don't you think giving a feat that supercedes a racial power might be a little much. It's like saying "Yah you have this power but you can pretty much ignor it after level 20."
Why don't you have the feat give you more uses of your radiant flight instead of rendering it useless?
The intent was so that gibborim who picked up the paragon-tier feats could use their racial power for shifty mid-combat flight, when they needed to escape from being flanked or the like, while flying (and provoking opportunity attacks) as normal otherwise. Maybe I should make the epic feat require Aerial Agility as a prerequisite to ensure that happens, but I imagine that the paragon-level feats are appealing enough in a tactical sense to make it likely for people to have it.
If the flavor works for you it works for me
Tallish, and skinny.
I'm not terribly good with height to weight ratios. I wanted them to be thin (being desert-dwellers and all) but still have some toughness. Thanks for pointing that out!
why not low light vision?
It sort of surprised me, but angels don't have any extraordinary senses. Flavor-wise, I don't want to give them core abilities that aren't shared by angels.
Why religion out of curiosity?
Mostly because it gives them a knowledge of the astral sea and angels, which are part of their heritage, and given their focus on ancestry, it seemed appropriate.
Map it off of tieflings 5+1/ of level.
Good catch, I missed that racial ability.
I'm pretty sure by PoL terms this didn't happen as the primordials made the universe in the dawn of time time, then Tharzy put that evil thing in the middle of the elemental chaos and converted Orcus and others to demons. The gods made mortals. then primordial v god war. THEN angels. though really the fluff is fine.
I recall the angels being part of the Primordial-God war, which I was considering as the dawn of time. Mostly because, with the world being all chaotic and with no real rules set down, it's hard to say if time properly exists.
mmm, 9 flight. Or 18 if you allow double move on the flight. Probably still ok, should be tested some though
Will do, as soon as I trick a player into playing a Gibbor, or trick a DM into letting me play one.
Essentially 1/2 fly by attack but limited in use. Not bad
Well, angels are really different now in 4e anyway. Not all angels are Good. I think that's why Assamair were left out. I would drop the tribes and use the types of angels in the 4e MM for the heritage feats. PoL is meant to be mostly befret of background. If this is a race for PoL type setting it shouldn't have tribe backgrounds.
If this is for custom campaign go ahead. Post what you have.
I invented them for my campaign world, which has strong roots in the PoL concepts from the PHB and the Worlds and Monsters preview but really, it was kind of a bit of knee-jerk worldbuilding that I have trouble avoiding. Next revision, I'll strip out the tribal stuff and map them to types of angels. I'm not sure what to do for the lawgivers. I really like the idea of the gibbor racial language, but don't want to add it as a core part of the race because that would involve inserting extra, small-time languages into the general pool, which I appreciate 4e avoiding.
I also recall developer commentary to the effect that aasimar were left out largely because they couldn't think of anything cool to do with them, and I honestly agree, which is why I went with more of a morally-neutral race to fit the 4e envisioning of angels, instead of trying to adapt aasimar as written from 3.5.
I think its fine as is.
Flight 6 ~ Teleport 4
Teleportation never provokes
Flight provokes
Both let you cross hostile terrain without it being an issue.
Both let you cross enemies without it being an issue.
That's true. It just seemed off giving an option that was open but limited to a race in such a way. Thanks for your comments, I'll get working on a revised version to edit into the OP to include the suggestions
I'm not terribly good with height to weight ratios. I wanted them to be thin (being desert-dwellers and all) but still have some toughness. Thanks for pointing that out!
Well to be honest I did low end low end comparisions for the tall/skinny bit. Most races six feet is close to their top end so they are tall, and in the real world, 180 while ideal for a six foot male, doesn't account for the extra muscles that would exist n the campaign, imo.
It sort of surprised me, but angels don't have any extraordinary senses. Flavor-wise, I don't want to give them core abilities that aren't shared by angels.
I had to look it up and you are right, that is Quite shocking. And is worthy of me editing in Low Light vision or Darkvision.
Mostly because it gives them a knowledge of the astral sea and angels, which are part of their heritage, and given their focus on ancestry, it seemed appropriate.
Ahhh it makes sense now. It was mostly that tieflings while coming from a similar background didn't get a religion kicker.
I recall the angels being part of the Primordial-God war, which I was considering as the dawn of time. Mostly because, with the world being all chaotic and with no real rules set down, it's hard to say if time properly exists.
If they were, then it would work.
I invented them for my campaign world, which has strong roots in the PoL concepts from the PHB and the Worlds and Monsters preview but really, it was kind of a bit of knee-jerk worldbuilding that I have trouble avoiding. Next revision, I'll strip out the tribal stuff and map them to types of angels. I'm not sure what to do for the lawgivers. I really like the idea of the gibbor racial language, but don't want to add it as a core part of the race because that would involve inserting extra, small-time languages into the general pool, which I appreciate 4e avoiding.
You could give them access Superluminal with the caveat that it doesn't grant them the ability to speak to all sentient creatures
I also recall developer commentary to the effect that aasimar were left out largely because they couldn't think of anything cool to do with them, and I honestly agree, which is why I went with more of a morally-neutral race to fit the 4e envisioning of angels, instead of trying to adapt aasimar as written from 3.5.
Yeah, once you strip Celestials of their good alignment you have to strip assimar of it as well, which I think you are doing a pretty good job of.
You could give them access Superluminal with the caveat that it doesn't grant them the ability to speak to all sentient creatures
I considered that, but I recall the DMG saying that no player race should start with it, since it's meant to be an accomplishment to learn it. I also recall that mortals who learn it don't get the tongues-like ability anyways, though I may be misremembering.
I considered that, but I recall the DMG saying that no player race should start with it, since it's meant to be an accomplishment to learn it. I also recall that mortals who learn it don't get the tongues-like ability anyways, though I may be misremembering.
Its there, but I would specifically state it anyway. While it should be an accomplishment to learn it for a human, if the Gibbor are close to their ancestors (which is reasonable to assume so) it wouldn't be out of line.