Average Height: 3' 5" - 4'
Average Weight: 55-80
Ability Scores: +2 int +2 cha
Size: Small
Speed: 6
Vision: Low-Light
Languages: Common, Goblin
Skill Bonuses: +2 Stealth, +2 Arcana
Mad Reflexes: +2 AC against attacks of opportunity
Flame Retardant: You gain resistance 5 + half of your level to fire
Slink: You can use slink as an at-will power
Racial Power
You slink through enemy lines, annoying them greatly
At-will
Immediate reaction
Trigger: You are missed by a melee attack
Effect: You shift 1 square
The Grem are the embodiment of curiosity and invention. This can manifest itself is many ways. The mad scientist, the crazed inventor, the reckless investor, the prolific thief, these are all Gremlin.
Play a Gremlin if you want...
* To be a born inventor and have a clever (or insane) solution to any problem
* To struggle with sterotypes associated with goblins, and perhaps experiment on those who would judge you...
* To be a member of a race that favors the Warlock, Warlord, Bard and Sorcerer classes.
Physical Qualities: Gremlins are comparable in size to Gnomes and Halflings, falling somewhere in between. They resemble gray-blue goblins, but they are slightly larger. Their eyes are bright, unlike their cousins, and vary in color from red to yellow to blue. A Gremlin with blue eyes is considered important and destined for great things, but this is just legend. Their skin color ranges from gray to light blue, most commonly being gray-blue. Grem typically have black hair, but some have red hair or brown hair. Male Grem typically have some stubble, but having a goatee or mustache is a sign of prestige. Female Grem typically wear their hair back in a bun or hood.
Grem have a life-time similar to a humans, but in their natural habitat that is greatly decreased to about 20 because of the mad experiments and inventions of their fellows. Elderly Grem are ridiculed by other Grem and considered failures for not having accidentally killed themselves yet. Grem pregnancy cycles are very short and the only reason Grem don't overrun the world is because of their own mad inventiveness.
Gremlin Characteristics: Inventive, crazy, genius, shifty, reckless, charismatic, mad, inquisitive, curious, unsubtle, slick, energetic
Male names: Argo, Balt, Bleg, Bobo, Calban, Driek, Felko, Gazlow, Gim, Giznat, Keeg, Landro, Mogul, Ogo, Razdunk, Rumpo, Rimp, Snig, Zazu
Female names: Artem, Brel, Ellise, Elva, Gretch, Glix, Irtana, Mersa, Hulu, Vaasa, Yursa
Feats
Heroic feats:
Slick:
Prerequisite: Grem race, Slink racial power
Benefit: When you use your slink racial power, you can shift a number of squares up to your dexterity modifier
Goblin Lineage:
Prequisite: Grem race
Benefit: +2 to reflex defense
Mad Energy:
Prerequisite: Grem
Benefit: Whenever you roll a natural 20 on any power with the fire, lightning, cold, or acid keyword, you may add an additional 10 damage of that damage type to the inflicted damage. You take the same amount of damage of the same type. The damage you take is not lessened by any resistance or immunity that you have. The damage both you and the target receives improves to 20 at 11th level and to 30 at 21st level.
Paragon Feats:
One Shifty Mother Gremlin:
Prerequisite: Grem race, slink racial power
Benefit: When your slink racial power is triggered, you may turn invisible after shifting until your next turn.
Gremlin Tactics:
Prerequisite: Grem race, slink racial power
Benefit: when you activate your slink power, an adjacent ally made also shift, but only half as many spaces as you (round up)
Racial Backgrounds: to come
Racial Paragon Path:
Inventor
"Me? I'm just the next in a long line of Gremlin who would blow up a mountain just to see what would happen. In fact I can. And maybe I have. I can't even remember. Hohohohahahahaha. Ahem, excuse me, just a bad habit."
Prerequisite: Grem
[will finish this later]
PEACH away! (I posted this in the Race and Monster section as well, but I thought I might as well post it here as well.)
On topic, I really like the idea of a Gremlin race, but this one you propose, as it is, seems too much of a combination of halfling, gnome and goblin! I agree Gremlins are pretty much that, but if you want to create a new race, I think you should also pay attention in making it unique right away.
Some suggestions now.
Since the funniest thing I saw was the Mad Energy feat, don't you think you could theme the race around that? After all, they could be magic-tinkerers in the standard world, and as such they would become the ultimate race for blasting-type sorcerers...
You could maintain some kind of "shifty" flavor by attaching shifty effects to the eventually "main" energy damage effects.
I'd also consider making them more like "small crazy dragonborn" to make them different, giving them an odd +Str, + Cha, or +Str +Dex, both of which would be odd for a small race, represent their unusual strength (if you envision gremlins as strong as I do) and good for sorcerers.
If you want them to be tinkerers in the traditional sense, you should consider making them "the best race for alchemy", giving them the feat for alchemical item creation (don't remember the name) for free and a racial power (maybe at-will) that could boost in some way the attack with alchemical weapons. At paragon or epic level, they should be able to throw in alchemical things as minor actions and create improvisated new ones as move actions. That would be original.
My 2 (maybe 4) cents ;)
What some may consider to be the genius second cousins of the goblin, the Grem are much, much more. You are invention and curiosity embodied, with a dash of insanity.
Average Height: 3' 5" - 4'
Average Weight: 55-80
Ability Scores: +2 int +2 cha
Size: Small
Speed: 6
Vision: Low-Light
Languages: Common, Goblin
Skill Bonuses: +2 Stealth, +2 Arcana
Mad Reflexes: +2 AC against attacks of opportunity
Flame Retardant: You gain resistance 5 + half of your level to fire
Slink: You can use slink as an at-will power
Racial Power
You slink through enemy lines, annoying them greatly
At-will
Immediate reaction
Trigger: You are missed by a melee attack
Effect: You shift 1 square
On the bright side, this looks perfectly balanced and completely appropriate for a PC race.
Unfortunately, I can't help but feel like they seem a little bit bland, unoriginal, and boring. Races generally get something unique that nobody else gets to make them special. This just seems to borrow from a bunch of different sources; Mad Reflexes from the Halfling, Fire Retardant from the Tiefling, and Slink from the Goblin.
Also, Small races generally don't make good Warlords. Unless you're doing Commander's Strike literally all the time, the lack of [W] is going to hurt eventually.
Feats
Heroic feats:
Slick:
Prerequisite: Grem race, Slink racial power
Benefit: When you use your slink racial power, you can shift a number of squares up to your dexterity modifier
Why are you basing an Int based race's feat around Dex?
Goblin Lineage:
Prequisite: Grem race
Benefit: +2 to reflex defense
Um, NO. This is untyped Lightning Reflexes at Heroic tier, which is to say it's overpowered.
Mad Energy:
Prerequisite: Grem
Benefit: Whenever you roll a natural 20 on any power with the fire, lightning, cold, or acid keyword, you may add an additional 10 damage of that damage type to the inflicted damage. You take the same amount of damage of the same type. The damage you take is not lessened by any resistance or immunity that you have. The damage both you and the target receives improves to 20 at 11th level and to 30 at 21st level.
It's flavorful, situational enough to not be overpowered, and you know how to scale. Best part of the race, IMO. Would be even more flavorful (but possibly more frustrating!) if the extra damage was mandatory - resulting in all the Grem in your fluff history unintentionally blowing themselves up.
Paragon Feats:
One Shifty Mother Gremlin:
Prerequisite: Grem race, slink racial power
Benefit: When your slink racial power is triggered, you may turn invisible after shifting until your next turn.
You do a Gnome impression. Mmkay. I suppose it's good for ranged CA, but you are not a rogue. Generally the extra distance should be enough for your tanking buddies to get the monster off you.
Gremlin Tactics:
Prerequisite: Grem race, slink racial power
Benefit: when you activate your slink power, an adjacent ally made also shift, but only half as many spaces as you (round up)
As what sort of action? Also, 4E always rounds down. Just say 1+1/2 if you think Grem won't want Slick.
My advice would be to drop Mad Reflexes and Flame Retardant, and give them class abilities that are unique and reflect their "invention and curiosity embodied, with a dash of insanity."
Going off-topic for a second:
In general, people are going to care more about material they can use in their games, rather than what you can use in yours.
First of all, welcome to the cold wastelands of custom-race-lack-of-feedback. Take a look at number of posts in forums and you'll se everybody is just more interested in thinking about new novas, combos and future releases.
In general, people are going to care more about material they can use in their games, rather than what you can use in yours.
Going off-topic for a second:
In general, people are going to care more about material they can use in their games, rather than what you can use in yours.
First of all, welcome to the cold wastelands of custom-race-lack-of-feedback. Take a look at number of posts in forums and you'll se everybody is just more interested in thinking about new novas, combos and future releases. yeah I noticed :P
On topic, I really like the idea of a Gremlin race, but this one you propose, as it is, seems too much of a combination of halfling, gnome and goblin! I agree Gremlins are pretty much that, but if you want to create a new race, I think you should also pay attention in making it unique right away. That would make sense, I was making this race from what I knew. I thought the fluff was unique enough (although it did bother a bit from the WoW goblins... shhh).
Some suggestions now.
Since the funniest thing I saw was the Mad Energy feat, don't you think you could theme the race around that? After all, they could be magic-tinkerers in the standard world, and as such they would become the ultimate race for blasting-type sorcerers...I did want to do that at first, but I needed the race to have int flavor wise
You could maintain some kind of "shifty" flavor by attaching shifty effects to the eventually "main" energy damage effects. huh? could you elaborate on that
I'd also consider making them more like "small crazy dragonborn" to make them different, giving them an odd +Str, + Cha, or +Str +Dex, both of which would be odd for a small race, represent their unusual strength (if you envision gremlins as strong as I do) and good for sorcerers. that sounds good, however, to fit the race I felt like I needed int.
If you want them to be tinkerers in the traditional sense, you should consider making them "the best race for alchemy", giving them the feat for alchemical item creation (don't remember the name) for free and a racial power (maybe at-will) that could boost in some way the attack with alchemical weapons. At paragon or epic level, they should be able to throw in alchemical things as minor actions and create improvisated new ones as move actions. That would be original.that sounds fun, the paragon I was going for was a mad scientist. is alchemy that useful though?
My 2 (maybe 4) cents ;)
Thanks for the feedback
"My advice would be to drop Mad Reflexes and Flame Retardant, and give them class abilities that are unique and reflect their 'invention and curiosity embodied, with a dash of insanity.'" could flame retardant be retooled to be 2+ half level to a resistance of your choice to reflect their various deaths and evolution over the years?
For the uniqueness, this was a first go-round and I was going with stuff I saw in other races that worked because I'm a noob and not that used to house ruling, but I'll brainstorm some ish