Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 fenrir7139 May 14, 2009 0:35:09	So, my school was having a book drive to raise money for our town's swimming pool, and I found a copy of first edition's OA. I read through it, and decided to update it. Right now, I have the races, weapons will come next. I'm not sure if I'll do the classes, though, since most of them can be covered by what we already have, so... Yeah. Please, PEACH my races, I think I overpowered some, and probably underpowered others, so any help at all would be great. EDIT: Due to feedback from Fireclave, I have reformatted how the races are show, so they should be easier to read now. Korobokuru [b]"Wild, rowdy dwarves, at home in the wild regions of the world."[/b] In terms of in-game statistics, Korobokuru are identical to dwarves (PHB, Page 36), with two important exceptions: 1. Korobokuru receive a +2 to Nature (replaces the normal +2 to Dungeoneering). 2. Korobokuru are automatically proficient with the Spear and Javelin (in place of the Warhammer and Throwing Hammer) Because of their close kinship with dwarves, Korobokuru are considered dwarves for the purposes of effects, feats, and other considerations. Playing a Korobokuru Korobokuru are a distant cousin of dwarves. Living in vast jungles, snowy mountain forests, or barren wilderness areas, they seldom come into contact with humans. Korobokuru prefer remote and forbidding sites of great natural beauty. There they live in simple villages or camps, moving only when forced to by the advance of human settlements. In appearance, Korobokuru are about four feet tall, with arms and legs slightly longer in proportion to their bodies than a humans. Most are bow-legged. Their arms and legs are hairy, and the men have sparse beards. They have a wild, unkempt appearance. Culturally, Korobokuru are much less advanced than most of their human neighbors. They hunt and tend small farms in secluded areas, and create simple pieces of art and craft. They normally avoid human contact. Because of this (and the general conceit of humans), humans consider Korobokuru to be backward primitives, and rarely except them as full members of human society. They are typically seen as rude, pugnacious, boastful, and somewhat comical by the rest of the world. Korobokuru Characteristics Tough, Dependable, Rowdy, Rude, Pugnacious, Boastful, Comical, Wild Korobokuru Names Male: Ahkas, Anramasu, Apa, Apto, Arka, Asi, Asir, Ceh, Cep, Cikaye, Cikap, Cip, Cuporo, Ekimne, Eper, Eraman, Erampetek, Goza, Female: Ahun, Anekuroro, Apunno, Arespa, Asikne, Atomte, Cari, Casi, Cipo, Crikinka, Cis, Enere, Epis, Eramisikari, Erampokinu, Hureka Korobokuru Name Resource
#2 fenrir7139 May 15, 2009 2:25:29	Here are the weapons, and the stats that they use. Weapons Bo-Stick: Quarterstaff Boku-Toh (Bokken): Club Chain: Spiked Chain Chijiriki: Double Sword Chopsticks: +0, 1 Damage, [Chopstick-Fighter Feat = Dagger] Chu-Ko-Nu: Repeating Crossbow Daikyu: Greatbow Fang: Club Gunsen: Light Shield Jitte: Parrying Dagger Jo-Stick: Club Kama: Sickle Katana: Scimitar Kawanga: Spiked Chain, Gives +2 to Climbing checks when wielded Kiseru: Mace Kumade: Spear, Gives +2 to climbing checks when wielded Kusari-Gama: Light War Pick Kyoketsuogi: Spiked Chain Lajatang: Double Axe Lasso: (Superior) +3 Bonus, +1 Reach, adds +4 to grab attempt on hit. Man-Catcher (Superior): +2 Bonus, +1 Reach, 1d4 Damage, adds +4 to grab attempt on hit Nagimaki: Spear Naginata: Glaive Needle: +1, 1 Damage [Needle-Master Feat = Dagger] Nekode: Spiked Gauntlet, +1 to Climb checks (Paired = +2) Ninja-To: Short Sword Nunchaku: Club Parang: Kukri Pellet Bow: A shortbow that fires sling bullets Sai: Dagger Sang-Kauw: Same stats as bastard sword Shaken: Shuriken Shakujo-Yari: Quarterstaff; Minor Action changes to Spear Shikome-Zue: Quarterstaff; Minor Action changes to spiked chain (requires Spiked Chain feat) Siangkam: Katar Tetsubo: Greatclub Three-Piece-Rod: Spiked Chain Tui-Fa (Tonfa): Club Uchi-Ne: Dagger Wakizashi: Shortsword Whip: Scourge I figured the +2 to climbing thing was all right, because it's not like you can really use more than one of them. Also, I know the Chopstick-Fighter/Needle-Master feats are ridiculous, but, I figure if a person wants a chopstick-wielding character enough to spend a feat, then why not?
#3 Fireclave May 16, 2009 23:38:41	This is a lot to critique at one time, so critique in parts from top to bottom instead. The Korobokuru no problem there. Hengeyokai need some trimming down. Just going over first impressions, first of all, you gave them effectively three racial powers: Animal Form and two others per race. That's a bit too many in my opinion. One is typically enough, maybe two if you're modeling off the drow. For your Hengeyokai, Animal Shape and one other encounter ability would be plenty enough. Second, Animal Form is basically Wild Shape almost verbatim and even works with wildshape powers. It would be a lot simpler and easier to read if you simply say that they get the Druid's Wildshape power, give the relevant racial powers the Beast keyword, and in each [Animal] Form ability, change the text to "while wildshaped" instead of "while in animal form." Alternatively, you could have Animal Shape mimic Wildshape except for the ability to shift, which is actually a pretty nifty maneuver worth being counted as one of your race's major abilities (and perhaps give it back later with a racial feat, or hengeyokai-specific druid feat). Doing that still reduces redundancy while giving you more room to add interesting mechanics. Carp Encounter – Animal Form, Cold Standard Action – Area Burst 1 within 5 Squares Target: Each Creature in burst Attack: Wisdom, Constitution, or Int vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d6 Cold Damage Level 11: 1d8 Cold Damage Level 21: 2d8 Cold Damage Two problems here. First, the damage scales too slowly. The jump of 1pt average damage at paragon especially is a joke. I suggest 1d6 per tier. Second, this power needs per tier attack scaling. That said, I still hold to my previous suggestion that you should drop one of the encounter powers. Carp Form: In carp form, you lose your land speed; you instead gain fly speed 4 (hover), and swim speed 8. You can still breathe while out of water while in carp form. Drop the fly speed and its not bad. Lord of the Waters: You gain a +2 to your Will defense; you also count as an aquatic creature, and can breathe underwater. Defense bonuses are extremely coveted in 4e. Very few racial abilities or feats give a flat-out, unconditional bonus to a defense (something I need to add to my guide). I suggest you drop the Will bonus. There is no aquatic creature type, but there is an Aquatic ability, which is what I assume you meant (or see DMG pg45 if you didn't). Granting aquatic and the ability to breath underwater is actually a nice touch and none too powerful in a typical campaign. Other than those comments, the Carp seems fine. I'll try to critique some more later.
#4 lord_karsus May 18, 2009 0:23:59	-This is Kara-Tur, or a generic Oriental setting?
#5 fenrir7139 May 18, 2009 11:18:03	-This is Kara-Tur, or a generic Oriental setting? I'm basing this off of the 1st Edition Oriental Adventures Book, which, I believe, first used Kara-Tur; it became a part of the Forgotten Realms later. But, this stuff could easily be used in any oriental setting (I think), or even Occidental ones. I'm just using Kara-Tur here because I don't feel like making up a new name.
#6 lord_karsus May 18, 2009 11:22:16	-Okay, I just wasn't sure. If it was supposed to be specifically for Kara-Tur, it should be in the Forgotten Realms section, as opposed to being more or less about generic Oriental flavor, where it should be here, in the Oriental Adventures section. Carry on, then.
#7 Hebitsuikaza Jul 07, 2009 19:05:50	Instead of having a million different races, boil down to what all the Spiritfolk or Hengeyoukai have in common with one another and write a single Spiritfolk race and a single Hengeyoukai race, allowing the base race to be flexible enough to be whatever sort the player wishes. Look at how flexible the human race is for instance. Make something very flexible and open like that and then let the player plug in whatever random animal they feel like plugging in. Don't worry about specific bonuses for any given animal-- Druids can transform into any animal imaginable and yet it has absolutely no effect whatsoever on their skills, their stats, their abilities, or their movement. Regardless of whether they transform into a snake or a hawk or a owlbear, it doesn't make any difference. So you don't have to write up abilities for every imaginable kind of animal you think could qualify as a Hengeyoukai-- just make 1.
#8 egg_thallid_sandwich Sep 14, 2009 0:01:22	I tend to agree with hebitsuikaza there are way too many hengeyokai and they could do with some simplification. perhaps like the shifters in PHB2 you could create a base hengeyokai, reflecting the things all hengeokai have in common then apply the unique traits each individual animal type has. This approach could also be used for spirit-folk. also shrink the list of animals... I know your basing this off of 1E OA, I'm not actually familiar with that edition it's way before my time. I was into 3.5 and there was an excellent duo of OA books the first providing general OA setting and touching upon the Rokugan setting of L5R and the second book completely focusing on the Rokugan setting. they shaved down the list of hengeyokai to i think 10 (hard to remember i don't own the books anymore) Nezumi and Vanara (monkey-race) became separate from them and always in animal hybrid form. Actually its these two races i want to see homebrewed the most as they were my favs... If i haven't already been beaten to it I intend to use Fireclave's guidelines to do it myself (still searching forums to see if anyone already did)
#9 sirthoreth Nov 24, 2009 20:33:03	Instead of having a million different races, boil down to what all the Spiritfolk or Hengeyoukai have in common with one another and write a single Spiritfolk race and a single Hengeyoukai race, allowing the base race to be flexible enough to be whatever sort the player wishes.   I'm going to have to agree, too: streamlining the two seems to me to be a good idea.   As for weapons, just a couple thoughts:   Jo-Stick: Club That one feels weird to me, given the length of the Jo versus, say, a bokken, but I'm not seeing many alternatives, either. Katana: Scimitar I'm going to disagree on this one, and recommend a bastard sword instead.  It's pretty much how the katana got handled 2nd and 3rd edition D&D, and the katana is definitely a "hand-and-a-half" sword, which the scimitar, in 4th Edition, isn't. Nagimaki: Spear I was thinking the falchion might be a better representation of the nagimaki and no-dachi, with the yari being the spear.
#10 wancow Feb 11, 2010 13:40:05	Instead of having a million different races, boil down to what all the Spiritfolk or Hengeyoukai have in common with one another and write a single Spiritfolk race and a single Hengeyoukai race, allowing the base race to be flexible enough to be whatever sort the player wishes.   I'm going to have to agree, too: streamlining the two seems to me to be a good idea. Actually, the idea of having so many IMHO, tends to fit the whole Japanese theme of perfection... That's not to take away from your points, as they are valid.  But I rather like the idea of having different options for different types... Hengeyokai are very similar to shifters... so I'd be inclined to base it upon them. Katana: Scimitar I'm going to disagree on this one, and recommend a bastard sword instead.  It's pretty much how the katana got handled 2nd and 3rd edition D&D, and the katana is definitely a "hand-and-a-half" sword, which the scimitar, in 4th Edition, isn't. It was pretty much the Bastard Sword from the very beginning...
#11 wancow Feb 11, 2010 13:43:00	I was thinking the falchion might be a better representation of the nagimaki and no-dachi, with the yari being the spear. Actually, I was thinking Falchion for certain versions of the Naginata... The Nodaichi is a bloody long long long blade, and just looks unwieldy as hell... I'd make it a Greatsword.