Wandering Monsters: Celestials

3rd Edition’s angels were summed up as a “race of celestials, beings who live on the good-aligned Outer Planes”. They could be of any good alignment, hailing from similarly aligned planes. It was said that they were blessed with comely looks, though their appearances “vary widely” (which was odd considering that they all basically looked like winged people).

The standard rollout of angel traits included darkvision and low-light vision, immunity to acid, cold and petrification, resistance to electricity and fire, a bonus on poison saves, an aura that–among other things–helped shield both themselves and allies in the form of an AC and save bonus, and an always active tongues effect. Individual angels stacked on additional abilities, which included a laundry list of spell-like abilities.

4th Edition angels were not much different appearance-wise–having a wispy trail instead of feet and almost no facial features–but looked pretty similar to each other. Each embodied a characteristic, I guess, resulting in entries like the angel of valor, angel of protection, and angel of battle. A major difference was that they served any god, good or evil, thereby making them easier to drop into encounters.

Maybe that is why the angels that Wyatt describes bore me; they have already been done twice, and are basically a collection of winged humanoids with different skin colors. I would much prefer the bizarre (and terrifying) variety found in the Christian angelic hierarchy, in particular the cherubim and throne. I am not saying that they should cut and paste directly–they certainly did not with other mythologies–but at the least use it for inspiration and go nuts because, after all, D&D already has some bizarre and confusing contestants.

I both like and dislike angels being unable to be summoned. On one hand it makes sense–especially if they want to avoid angels being conjured and bossed around; kind of downplays the whole awe-inspiring bit–but on the other I really like playing summoners in games where it does not suck. Maybe some kind of ritual that lets you petition a god (or servant of a god) for aid? On a related note, I dig that rather than summon reinforcements, good-aligned critters are drawn to them.

I do not mind angels having abilities that mimic spells (or are spells mimicking them?), so long as they do not have to constantly cast and re-cast them. Rather than have tongues at will, the angel should just be able to inherently understand other creatures, even in an anti-magic field. I think in this regard–and many others–4th Edition handled it better with its Supernal language.

I am not sure how I feel about all the energy resistances and immunities. Are they necessary? I think I would almost prefer them just having flat-out resistance to most anything that was not specifically made to harm an angel; magic, weapons, you name it. It would not only be easier to remember, but would help hammer home that these things are not of the mortal world (and you should probably not be trying to fight them). Maybe not all, but certainly the higher level ones.

Evil angels should not be hard, especially if you go the route of the corrupted or fallen angel. You could even try to have good angels embody virtues, while evil angels embrace sins (or vices). It could link up in some way with paladins. Of course, you could just say that devils are evil angels and be done with it. Personally I like the idea of evil clerics being able to call in celestial support.

Though I rarely saw anyone in my group play a deva, conceptually it was a pretty awesome race and I am happy to see it stick around (though I am iffy on the whole bound/incarnate prefix).

As for archons and guardinals, I think that they need to be consolidated along with angels (though guardinals might work better with other fey). Just how many varieties of celestial good-guys do we need, especially when one archon looks like an angel, and another looks like it could be a guardinal? Parsing archons into two different categories seems kind of cheap; I would just rename one or the other to something else (or just shift archons to angels and call it good).

4th Edition’s eladrin race really does not provide any conflicts with prior material; just slot them at the bottom of the hierarchy and call it a day (which, as Wyatt says, was kind of the idea at the time). The greater issue is the lack of depth concerning the fey and their society, such as it is. As I mentioned the last time I wrote about the fey, I think WotC could stand to elaborate a great deal more about them.

Sword Guard of Astrazalian

Otherwise known as Class Acts: Knights, this article is about allowing an eladrin knight to swap out the usual fare in order to exploit your inherent magical capabilities. In short, you can teleport things. A lot. Before we get into the powers however, I want to mention the flavor of the article. It just breaks about a page, going into the history of the City of Starlight, which shifts between the Feywild and natural world with the seasons, and eladrin knighthood. It provids a solid backstory for why these guys exist, as well as character hooks for why you might seemingly leave the city for adventure (mostly to fight your enemies at the source).

Since eladrin have a +2 to Intelligence and a floating bonus to either Dexterity or Charisma, they aren’t exactly suited to knights, which are Strength primary and Constitution secondary. To alleviate this, the article recommends the “specialist” array (which lets you go with Strength 18 and Constitution 14). Since they rely largely on melee basic attacks, another suggestion is taking Melee Training to make your attack stat mostly Intelligence. The damage would be a bit lower, but it lets you get away with lighter armor since having an Intelligence of 18 and hide armor is the same as scale.

Ultimately, a Strength of 16 (before modifiers) is good enough for your attacks, which is what people usually buy anyway, especially considering swords have the best proficiency bonus. Yeah, you don’t have a racial, but who fucking cares? I’ve seen players go with halfling fighters (Strength 16) and I’ve played a minotaur rogue and warlord (all with “attack stats” of 16). It’s certainly doable, especially considering that the new Expertise feats scale faster and provide other bonuses. The only reason why you’d want to have a good Intelligence score is if you wanted to multiclass into an arcane class to help push the concept, or best utilize the new paragon path (see below).

Anywho, on to the powers.

• Feywild Guardian (level 1): You swap out battle guardian for the ability to teleport to the triggering target, and then make a basic melee attack. This is pretty cool, because it allows for better positioning.
• Glimmering Blade (level 1): A stance that lets you teleport whenever you hit an enemy. Also very nice.
• Eldritch Tactics (level 2): This is pretty standard as far as low-level teleports are concerned: you swap places with an ally within range. Swordmages, and I think even battleminds and The Simpsons already did it.
• Bewitching Glare (level 6): An immediate interrupt that lets you impose an attack penalty and pull the target if the attack misses. The pull cannot move them into hindering terrain, which sucks.
• Arcane Instincts (level 10): Another immediate interrupt that gives you and all adjacent allies energy resistance against a few types. The good part is that it stops the most common kinds of energy (except for necrotic), but the downside is that allies have to be right next to you.

Not a whole lot, and I’d probably only take the level 1 and 2 stuff. But wait, the article isn’t over yet! There’s still the eldritch knight paragon path, which requires that you be trained in Arcana and have a nice Intelligence score to boot. While eladrin can take Arcana at level 1 without having to burn a feat, personally I’d recommend multiclassing into an arcane class. It’ll help push the concept, as well as give you another nifty ability.

• Eldritch Abduction (level 11): When you teleport, an ally in your defender aura can come with you. Oddly, you cannot teleport the target into hindering terrain…but I can’t see why you would try this, except against an enemy, who probably wouldn’t take kindly to this anyway.
• Far Step Extension (level 11): You can teleport a distance based on your Intelligence whenever you burn an Action Point. Hrmm…normally Intelligence is a dump-stat for knights. There’s no minimum distance, so if your Intelligence isn’t at least 12 or higher, this won’t do shit for you. 
• Diversified Study (level 11): You gain a wizard encounter, and can use any weapon you want as an implement when attacking with the power you pick.
• Eldritch Leap (level 12): Basically another fey step, except that it’s dependent on Intelligence and you have to end up next to an enemy.
• Eldritch Blade (level 16): When you hit something with an opportunity attack, you ignore insubstantial and resistances. Great if you’re fighting ghosts, I guess? To my knowledge, weapons can turn their energy types off anyway, and since it only works on opportunity attacks it just makes this all the more limited.
• Eldritch Isolation (level 20): When you use power strike, you can teleport both you and the target up to a (thankfully) set distance.

Now, I like the concept, and it’s doable without too much work. The problem is that it seems like an armored variation of the swordmage, which has the benefit of being Intelligence-primary from the start. With this, taking Melee Training to prevent spreading your ability scores too thin, as well as Weapon Focus to patch the damage, just makes it a less attractive option considering that as a swordmage I can just take Armor Proficiency (hide) if I want to look the same, and I won’t have to wait 10 levels in the hopes that the game goes on long enough to see if it all pays off.

In the end it’s alright, but is mostly useful to those stuck with a DM who wants to run purely Essentials games that cannot be dissuaded. Otherwise, I’d be hard-pressed to not just roll an eladrin swordmage.

Winning Races: Eladrin

Beyond the Spiral Tower is a four-page article that provides a quartet of feats for unorthodox eladrin that want more support for arcane classes that aren’t wizard–specifically artificers and warlocks–since as it stands they have two feats for artificers and jack shit for warlocks (note that I’m only counting heroic feats since that’s what the article mostly provides). I suppose swordmages should have gotten some props since they have all of one so far, but then I like artificers and warlocks more so, fuck it, I’m happy.

The synergy here is great. Artificers can take feats that grant them a bonus on a few class skills (effectively Skill Focus doubled), teleport their conjuration effects or summons, grant a free save with bonus when using healing infusion on the target (including yourself), and at 11th-level Feywild Propulsion gives all summoned creatures a teleport speed. At a glance Arcane Repositioning seems weak since it can only teleport one thing within 5 squares, while Redistribute Minions lets you teleport all your shit no matter where they are, but keep in mine that Arcane Repositioning triggers as a free action and can move your conjuration effects: it’s not limited to only creatures.

For warlocks, you can take Eldritch Blade to get an attack bonus when using longswords with eldritch strike, deal Int-based bonus damage on eldritch blasts (all the time), regain fey step instead of the normal pact boon once per encounter, or render yourself invisible to enemies that take curse damage. Very fucking cool.

As an added bonus, there’s also three new familiars, complete with a feat. Fey Familiar lets you teleport your familiar when you use fey step, so long as they aren’t too far away. The new familiars are fiddling grig, faerie dragonling, and coure attendant.

• The grig lets you master and perform bard rituals, acts as a focus for bard rituals that demand an instrument, and when active can immobilize adjacent enemies that you hit with arcane attacks. I think I found a new familiar for Liz. >_>
• The dragonling grants a Bluff bonus, a one-time penalty to saves against charm and illusions, and has a close blast 3 breath attack that it can use when active. Doesn’t deal any damage, but makes them vulnerable to radiant damage.
• Finally, the coure attendant is a pixie-ish eladrin type thing that grants an Arcana bonus, can grab items for you, and makes enemies count the area around you as difficult terrain. When active it can turn into a ball of light that makes it harder to hit, creates light, and causes enemies that end their turns in the light to grant combat advantage (to you only).

Winning Races: Winterkin Eladrin

This is the third Winning Races article that introduces a kind of “race specialization” that I like. The one on elves was kind of meh, but then I’m not exactly an elf fan, so take that for what its worth. I like the tiefling and dwarf one just fine.

Winterkin Eladrin introduces mechanics that help justify a connection to the Winter Court in the form of a racial path and series of bloodline feats. I feel that game mechanics are important in these situations because it helps the dice rolls and rules reinforce your character and the decisions you’ve made.

Anyone can say that they work for those guys, but having cold resistance and the ability to summon wintry gales to conceal their presence just has a lot more…clout, I guess. The path and feats do a fine job, but you dont need to take both and instead opt to spend either a single feat or dive in head first if the path appeals to you.

If you’re really fucking hardcore, do both.

The bralani wintersoul path plays up the concepts of, well, winter. And wind to a point. When you get hit by cold attacks you deal extra cold damage for a turn, and if you burn an action point it creates a zone of flurrying snow with a pretty hefty range. At level 16 you auto-slow any enemy that gets too close. The racial powers are somewhat predictable, dealing cold damage with a slow/immobilizing kicker effect.

Winter’s kiss is a level 11 attack that only hits one critter, while blizzard blast is a level 20 blast 5 attack blinds and immobilizes. You also get to teleport afterwards, which is pretty damned cool. Snowfall is the level 12 reaction utility that creates a zone that obscures the area and makes you insubstantial. All in all these attacks are pretty useful over a broad range of classes, especially given that they use your highest ability mod. I’d certainly pick it up as a feylock, but would also be tempted to do so as even a fighter since it would give me a nifty ranged attack and close blast (the auto-slow effect would also rule).

There arent a lot of feats, and they all focus on Winterkin Hertiage, which is a bloodline/gateway feat to the rest of them. By itself it gives you cold resistance in addition to winter’s shroud, which lets you teleport and gain concealment when hit as a reaction. It doesnt fuck with fey step, so thats two potential teleports per encounter. Since cold damage is fairly common, this is a really awesome feat.

The rest either modify winter’s shroud or just do something else. For example, Winter’s Reach increases the teleport range of winter’s shroud, while Winter’s Heart slows enemies that hit you when you arent bloodied (its a paragon feat, though).

Good for eladrin players, particularly those that have a reason to be tied to Winter Court fey. This is a lot better than making up a bunch of lame-ass subraces like they did in the past. At any rate, I can reskin these feats and present them as additional options for the players in my Songs of Erui game that actually do work for the Winter Court.