Winning Races: Dromite

Victor (aka The Planeswalker) has created a four-page article featuring the dromite, racial feats, and elocator paragon path. Criticism is welcome, as this is the first race article he’s posted; let him know what you like or don’t like.

Winning Races: Genasi of Athas

If you’re looking for new material on genasi and run Dark Sun, this article has a healthy mix of flavor and crunch material for you.

There’s a little more than four pages of information on history, role-playing, physical qualities, communities, personality traits, and backgrounds. I found it interesting, especially the bits on primordials creating the genasi themselves to help shape the world and fight the gods, before they retreated into a deep slumber. Unfortunately rather than protected the world as the primordials had hoped, they just ended up fighting each other until the other mortal races managed to get a numbers advantage. Then, to make matters worse, the sorcerer-kings managed to drain most of the life out of the world. So…yeah. They’d better hope that the primordials don’t wake up, cause I don’t think they’ll just slap their children on the wrist.

Anyway, I like that it  just comes out and explains some things, which is great for providing a prospecting DM with some solid history to go off of, as keeping the past undefined can be just as limiting for world-building. I also like that genasi aren’t exactly painted in a good light: they don’t seem to particularly like the mortal races, what with the whole killing the planet with life-draining magic, so they could make great villains. Unfortunately, this kind of limits the backstories that would easily allow integration into a party. I suppose since they seem to hate defliers and sorcerer-kings more than about anything else, you could always fall back to that…assuming that’s the aim of your campaign.

On the crunchy side of things, there’s four new elemental manifestations: embersoul, magmasoul, sandsoul, and sunsoul.

• Embersoul: You gain a bonus to Reflex and to saves against ongoing fire damage. You also gain ashfall evasion, which lets you explode into a zone of ashes that removes you from play and deals damage to enemies that end their turn there. 
• Magmasoul: You gain a bonus to Fortitude, and when you take fire damage, you deal bonus fire damage. You gain flowing magma, which turns you into a being of, well, magma. You can’t be subjected to forced movement, are slowed, and deal automatic damage to creatures that end their turn next to you.
• Sandsoul: You gain a bonus to Athletics and Acrobatics and a bonus against conditions that hamper your movement. You also gain sandslide, which makes you insubstantial and lets you move through enemies squares, as well as go through any opening larger than a grain of sand. Very cool.
• Sunsoul: You gain a bonus to saves against ongoing damage based around fire or radiant, and you don’t suffer any problems in the temperature extremes (including sun sickness). Finally, you gain sun flare, which is an AoE that triggers when you’re bloodied, causing you to make an attack that imposes attack penalties to creatures you hit (unless they are bloodied, in which case they are blinded instead). It also deals fire AND radiant damage, limiting resistances. My favorite out of the bunch.

The desert voice paragon path offers a lot of flexibility. The level 11 class features allow you to shift whenever you crit with a totem, gain a new manifestation from the ones in the article, and can deafen and slide creatures close to you when you burn an Action Point. The level 16 one provides a boost to any manifestations that you have, from increasing the range, to preventing creatures from standing up, to dealing automatic damage.

• The level 11 power is a close blast 5 that deals damage, pushes targets you hit, and imposes an attack penalty for a turn.
• The level 12 utility grants temp hps and recharges one of your elemental manifestations.
• The level 20 attack is a nice area burst that creatures a zone and deals automatic damage to creatures caught in it. You can also sustain it and make an attack that slows and deals ongoing damage to creatures inside it. It’s nice that you can maintain it on the off chance that creatures get knocked back in, but you can’t move it at all, so that kinda sucks.

Finally, the four genasi feats are all boosters for the manifestations. Pretty typical stuff, here.

The crunch works in any setting, and is really cool for genasi players. The fluff is intended for Dark Sun, but I could see the creation myth being used in any campaign setting. It’s certainly better than the varied, vague ideas pitched in past Winning/Playing Race articles. It’s also good for DMs looking for a solid Athasian villain.

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: Shifter

Keith, you magnificent bastard. Technically this article is great for shifters in general, but I think that its especially thematic for Eberron players. Eberron has been my prefabbed setting of choice since Planescape, so its both not surprising and a delight that he has written an article on urban shifters.

About half of the article is fluff content on how shifters might adapt to living in the cities, while the rest is devoted to backgrounds and feats. I’m particularly fond of the Urban Shaman background, which reminds me fondly of Shadowrun and also helps drive home the fact that, yes, you can run an urban campaign and still use fucking primal classes.

With only six feats there isnt a lot of crunchy content, which is fine since the first half is actually an interesting read. Of the feats, I like Crow’s Flight the most: ignore difficult terrain when running and get a bonus to Acrobatics and Athletics? Hell yes. Predatory Spirit is also pretty nice, allowing you a free reroll on a single primal attack after using longtooth shifting or razorclaw shifting. Though I doubt I’ll ever personally play an epic-level character, Primal Instincts looks very cool, causing all your primal at-wills to deal miss damage while you are bloodied.

Winning Races: Revenants

Unfortunately this Winning Races article isnt just for revenants, but revenant assassins, which isnt too strange seeing as both are DDI exclusive content and I can understand Wizards wanting to pimp both as much as possible. While it does provide about a half-page of fluff content for revenants, a few paragraphs are devoted to talking about how iconic the race-class combination is in terms of mechanics and story. Really though its a page of feats and ki foci.

Every feat requires that you be a revenant assassin with the exception of Raven Queen’s Disciple, which also demands that you have bleak disciple (increases temp hp gained by 1, 2 if its bloodied). Most of them mess with shadow form or dark reaping, though a few do some interesting things with one when you trigger the other. 

For example, Quick and Dead increases your shadow step distance after you’ve used dark reaping for the entire encounter, while Death Walk lets you use shadow step as a free action after using dark reaping.

Some of them require specific class features, even if the feat doesnt modify them at all (helps restrict them for multiclassing purposes). Specter of Death requires shade form, and makes you insubstantial when you are unconscious.

Some are just really fucking awesome. Swallowed by Shadow makes you invisible after using dark reaping, while Raven’s Queen Sanction allows you to deal full shroud damage to undead and shadow creatures if you miss with an attack (instead of deducting a shroud first).

The ki focuses are a bit more flexible, though all but one utilize features of the assassin class. There are five, but I’m only going to sum up three of them.

• Cup of death adds to the temp hps gained from bleak disciple and has an encounter power that lets you shift after you hit an unbloodied enemy.
• Death shroud deals standard crit damage, plus extras based on the number of shrouds a target has. It also has an encounter power that lets you auto-shroud a target that you hit.
• Ghost mask deals d8s on a crit and lets you make an attack target Will and deal psychic damage once per encounter. 

Its a lot of interesting and useful options to customize revenants and assassins, with basically nothing in there for anything else. Its not bad, but I’d have rather seen something that supports revenants in general as opposed to on a specific combo. Still, it adds quite a bit, so if you were on the fence about a revenant assassin before this will almost certainly push you over. 

Lot of DDI Updates

I’ve been extremely busy with moving, work, and school. Things should smooth out within the week, but until then I’m going to call out a few DDI articles that I actually give a fuck about (meaning almost anything but Forgotten Realms articles).

First up is Underhanded and Overconfident, an article on playing scoundrel types. Its roughly equal parts fluff and crunch, giving some advice on playing a scoundrel without pissing off the rest of the party: dont fight fair, take lots of risks, be charming (or pretend to be), and if you must be a dick at least do the right thing in the end.

There are only three feats, two of which give kickers to using Bluff as a feint, either by granting the combat advantage mod to all allies or giving you a flat bonus to the check and some extra Sneak Attack damage to boot. The other, Building Camaraderie, gives you a cumulative Diplomacy bonus each time you successfully pull it off in the same encounter.

The article wraps up with a pair of paragon paths. The phantasmagoric scoundrel requires that you are trained in Arcana and either Bluff or Thievery, and emphasizes the use of illusion magic. It mostly seems to be geared towards wizards, which makes sense since the orb of deception implement mastery is also linked to Charisma.

The silver-tongued scoundrel, on the other hand, is for artful dodger rogues. You can grant allies bonuses to Bluff or Diplomacy by successfully using them, use either skill in place of an init bonus, the level 12 utility lets you roll twice and take the better result, and the action point kicker and attacks you get all cause the target to grant combat advantage to you (making it incredibly easy to get Sneak Attack damage whenever you damned well please).

I’m sure a lot of people are going to be pissed that the Winning Races article is on, of all things, changelings. Even in Eberron we never saw many of these guys, so its kind of strange to see it getting the spotlight before a multitude of others. Its not even a crunch-heavy article, focusing on one of several changlings archetypes, the becomer. Unlike most changlings, becomers choose a single identity as another race and stick with it. They dont let anyone know the truth, even close friends or loved ones.

Most of the article is devoted to discovering your character’s reasons for doing so,  and it includes a list of common races to choose from with reasons why you might pick that race. There’re several backgrounds, but only one feat that gives you a bonus language and skill bonus to a skill that that race gets a bonus on. Very cool.

Last on the list is Class Acts: Warlocks. This issue adds a bunch of Charisma-based spells for infernal pact warlocks, including a new at-will that you can swap out for hellish rebuke. While there is only a single encounter attack for each level, its a step in the right direction for tieflings who can get more out of Charisma and still reap the benefits of the very thematic infernal pact. As a tiefling fan, I endorse this move. There are also a pair of new item properties for rods and leather/hide armor. Nothing too fancy, but a nice gesture.

Winning Races: Warforged

This is a very small article that adds an alchemical theme to warforged in the form of a couple feats and four attachable magic items. Its got some interesting-if-brief exposition along with a few backgrounds to provide a foundation as to why you’ve got a bunch of vials and shit sticking out of your body.

Mostly, this article is for players that like warforged and alchemical items, which is kind of like another way of saying warforged artificers. The feats either grant you temp hp when you use an alchemy item, or give you a feat bonus to damage with a specific type of energy attack.

The components let you store alchemy items, grant resistance depending on a stored alchemy item, auto-fire it when you use second wind, gain an attack bonus when using alchemy items. Its certainly a focused article, but I find that alchemy items are pretty damned spendy and I’m not sure that its worth the effort in the long run.

Winning Races: Gnomes

I usually envision gnomes as sneaky bastards who prefer to confound you with illusions, shoot you from a distance well outside your Reach, or perhaps sick a shitload of badgers on you (again, staying out of melee range). Hell, if you manage to close with one and slap it upside the head, they can turn invisible for a turn and leg it.

Which makes this Winning Races article very strange and refreshing since its all about pimping out gnome defenders while still maintaining that sneaky element.

There are two paragon paths, one for paladins and one for swordmages. The paladin one is called Gnome Nightcloak, and as a twist requires training in Stealth. Kind of odd for a heavily armored character to be skulking about, but since the level 11 feature lets you add your Cha mod to Stealth it helps alleviate the heavy armor penalty. The concept behind it evokes the image of a 3-foot tall Bat Man archetype…I cant decide if thats cool, creepy, or comical.
The other two class features let you grant resistances to allies when you use fade away, teleport when you spend an action point, and deal bonus damage against a marked target if they also grant you combat advantage (kind of like Sneak Attack by another name).
Shadowstrike rebuke is my favorite prayer in the mix, and as a plus its also your level 11 attack. It lets you teleport and smack a baddy that hits/misses an ally like a swordmage can, but also pushes and sanctions them.
Cover of night lets you render an ally invisible. Simple but useful, and its got good range to boot.
Tumultuous shadowflow deals a crapton of damage and imposes an attack penalty in addition to preventing a target from benefiting from concealment for the entire encounter.

I greatly prefer the Phantasm Guard, which lets you emphasize illusion magic with the standard swordmage fare to get the feel for a decidedly “gnome” approach: you gain concealment against marked targets, regain fade away with action points, and get a Will kicker when you hit things with the psychic keyword (meaning that I can see lots of multiclass swordmage/wizards with illusion attacks).
Wave of dread is a close blast attack that deals psychic damage and dazes, and only hits enemies.
Nightmare landscape makes an area difficult terrain for enemies and grants all allies concealment. It lasts for the whole encounter wihtout requiring a sustain, but you cant move it. Still pretty fucking cool.
Illusory host also creates a zone effect, causing enemies caught within to grant combat advantage and letting you hit enemies that shift or attack allies without hitting you as well. Kind of like a “mark zone”.

There are four feats that let you ignore the Speed penalty from heavy armor (but not plate), cause targets affected by divine challenge damage to grant combat advantage, grant concealment to allies you use lay on hands or virtue’s touch on, and the long overdue Gnome Weapon Training: you can use all light blades and picks, and get a damage bonus to top it off.

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.

Winning Races: Tieflings

I’ve always liked the idea that not all tieflings need share the exact same qualities. After all, there are many types of devils, and it stands to reasons that some tieflings (or tiefling families) might display other benefits from their pacts. I allow this sort of cosmetic adjustment in my games despite the “official” stance being that they all have horns and tails, and I’ve specifically stated that in my Eberron games players can opt to display the cat-like features of a rakshasa instead.

If a player bothered to play a tiefling, I’d probably allow some sort of feat tree to emphasize that…which is what The Broken Mirrors is all about.

Some families made a deal with Levistus, and in doing so can inflict misfortune upon the world. Any tiefling can opt to belong to the broken mirrors by picking up the Mantle of Misfortune feat, which is a tiefling bloodline feat that gives you an encounter feat power of the same name, as well as a bonus to Insight and Perception. The actual mantle of misfortune power is pretty potent, imposing an automatic attack penalty to all enemies within a pretty hefty range. To top it off, if they miss you get to slide them.

Like all bloodline feats, Mantle of Misfortune is a gateway feat to the few others included in the article. There are two that let you mark creatures or get an attack bonus against creatures that you slide due to mantle of misfortune, which is pretty sweet and gives tiefling defenders a nice edge. The last one is kind of wonky in that you get to roll multiple Insight checks against creatures affected by mantle of misfortune, which I guess gives it some interesting social encounter potential. >_>

The article also adds a paragon path called broken mirror, which is only open to tieflings with the Mantle of Misfortune feat. The features let you use mantle of misfortune twice, slide or prone creatures when you burn an action point (automatically), and eventually let you add your Charisma mod to mantle of misfortune damage.

The level 11 attack is interesting in that its an encounter kicker that you trigger with a minor action, and stacks on an attack you make. It adds a nice damage bonus and also prones a target. The level 12 utility lets you generate an area of effect that imposes attack and defense penalties in addition to sliding targets that stop in the area. It can be sustained, which gives you a really nice debuffing power. Finally, the level 20 attack is similar to the level 11 power in that you trigger it and stack it on another attack. It deals more damage, prones, and you can slide it whenever it misses no matter where it is.

Not a bad article despite its incredibly short length. I’m a massive fan of tieflings, and want to see more of these articles expand on specific devil pacts. My next campaign takes place in the ruins of Bael Turath, and I’m going to “encourage” my players to give them a shot. At least the article provides me with an interesting way to implement such specialties. ^_^