In Lusternia Tae'dae are slow, really realy slow... not sure why you have such an objection.

I didn't make a mistake. It's just that I felt it was better to add the extra damage die at 11th and not 21st simply because I wasn't sure if they should even have the Bearhug ability, given how many other abilities I gave them, so I figured I would temper it that way. It would be easy enough to simply give them another damage die at 21st as well though, if the ability wasn't borderline breaking them. I'm much more a fan of starting off on the safer side of caution, so that more often than not your balance-tweak will be in the form of a buff rather than a nerf.

And as for the second one, uh, Tae'dae are supposed to be sluggish, as dag already pointed out. That's the whole idea, really, is an immovable mountain of a warrior. They resist movement and physical damage. If they had the movement of every other race, I think it'd make them a bit too much.

Though, I'm not trying to totally discount your input. This was more just playing with the idea. If we did decide to take this further, we'd obviously have to look at all the races side-by-side before making any final decisions on racial balance.

Tae'Dae are sluggish, but they're also pretty big. I'd say that evens out their speed at average - but hey, if you want a race so slow everyone else will make circles around them if in heavy armor, who I am to stop you?

One thing I don't get though. You said you didn't want Bearhug to be too strong, so instead of giving it an extra damage die at 21st, you gave it a die at 11th. You do realise that you actually BUFFED the ability instead of nerfing it, right?
And no, I don't think it should do 3d6 damage on 21st level. It's okay as it is. It may even be too powerful if someone is very anal about the wording:



This could be interpreted that as long as the Tae'dae spends minor actions to sustain the bear hug, the hugged cannot break free from the grab. Of course, we're not rules lawyers here, and if anyone tried that they'd get a smack with a Player's Handbook on their pointy little head.

As far as stats go, I'd sooner give 'em +2 STR than +2 CON. Their toughness is already well-represented by improved healing surges and damage resistance.

The idea was honestly a warrior that people need to run from, because it's going to be very difficult to stand toe-to-toe with tae'dae. Also though, when I was playing with making the Serenguard class, they'd get a class feature that boosts their speed when charging or running, and then if they specialized in Stag, they'd have even more options open to them with speed increases and shifting attacks. But, like I said, if it does prove to be unfeasible, we can add in the feat that prevents them from being slowed by heavy armor. I just wasn't sure about giving them another racial feature when I had already given them so much.

As for Bearhug, I don't think I really buffed it instead of nerfing it. I just took the middle road. One option was a damage die at 11 and 21. The other was only a damage die at 21. Only a damage die at 11 seems to me to be in the middle, giving them the extra damage a bit earlier, while not automatically increasing it again at 21.

As for the wording, you can already sustain a grab as a minor action, and it has the same wording, pretty much. This ability just allows you to deal some more damage with it on the side. Plus, it is only an Encounter power, so if something gets lucky and wriggles free after the first round, it's done and gone and a normal grab by the Tae'dae won't result in the same effects.

And yeah, I wasn't sure about the stats, hence the or. Though could always leave the or in there and allow the player to choose, strength if they want to run a warrior, con if they want to run a druid or bard.

Well, I perused the books last night.

It's worse than I expected. Callia Parayshia was correct, and there's no longer any real good tie to D&D's past. I fear he was correct after all. There not willing to preserve much tradition this time around.

One more chance for WoTC to get my loyalty will be the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. That's the only product right now that I am loyal to now.

come2eberron, FR sux

And I still have mixed feelings with 4th ed. I'll probably rest a little and ignore it for a while.

Of course, 4th ed is nothing like the old editions, and they're hardly trying to hide that. I'm a bit sad that you don't like it, but is the content to your liking, everything being cut off from old editions being an exception?

Now, let me try some brainstorming on what races should get what stat bonuses.
Aslaran: Dex and Cha
Dracnari: Con and Int
Dwarf: Con and Wis, just like in core
Elfen: Dex and Wis. Coore...
Faeling: Dex and Int, or Dex and Cha
Furrikin: Dex and... Wis or Cha. Again.
Human: Yeah, yeah... core
Igasho: Str and Con, or Str and Wis
Illithoid: Dex and Con
Kephera: Dex and Con for men, Cha and Int for women. OMG gender imbalance!
Krokani: Str and Dex
Loboshigaru: Dex and Con
Lucidian: Int and Con. Hmm, maybe Wis and Int?
Merian: Int and Cha
Mugwump: Int and Wis
Orclach: Str and Con
Tae'Dae: Str and Cha
Taurian: Str and Con
Trill: Int and Cha
Viscanti: Con and Int. I know they have only 12 int, but they just strike me as that kind of type. And we have too many Str and Con races already.

I'm just curious.. but what's so bad about removing superfluous stuff? They didn't take out anything that was actually needed.

You want to perform a dance? Acrobatics covers that. Want to sing a song that gets a positive reaction? Diplomacy grants that effect. Need to know how to sail that skiff through dangerous waters? Nature does the trick.

There's no need to have a billion different skills that all aim for the same "goal" that also take away from combat effectiveness. In the old editions, if you wanted your warrior to be able to play an instrument, you had to essentially gimp yourself in other areas. That's not the case any more.

4th Edition moved RP away from convoluted mechanics, which I think is good. Just because there are no defined rules for certain things doesn't mean they aren't supported or doable. It just means that they wanted it to be more streamlined. After all, Phred, Lusternia had no mechanics to make your character into a janitor, but it worked out better that way, really.

4E goes in that same direction.

So far I can't see anything that I'm really going to miss. I can still make my suave, con-artist rogue, and I can do it without gimping myself in every other department. That makes me happy.

Just skimmed over the books, and so far it looks pretty interesting, I can see why people are going, wow rpg, but still, to me it seems playable, the only thing I dont like is that they remove monks, but alas, we cant have everything, the programs that they're advertising seem pretty good as well, I wonder if they'll work as well as they claim.

In other words you get to have your cake and eat it to. Which imo when it comes to DnD is a bad thing.

One of the nice aspects of DnD, well atleast one of the adult aspects, was that you had to choose which you wanted more. You couldn't be amazing at everything you had to pick and choose.

Now, eventually, you will just be amazing at everything and the only "game" will be combat. There no more game to diplomacy and forging or any of the character aspects. The only challenge is in fighting monsters, everything else is just given.

Wow. Even though 4th Ed has its weak points, you can always count on Daganev to write something entirely nonsensical.

Did you even read the books yet? Or even better, do you have anything to back up that claim?

EDIT: I've decided my post needs more substance. First of, I find your line of thinking flawed: if you can't do anything non-class good then it's too limiting, if you can then it's too easy? Pfft. Note, SAW said (which is true) that you can specialise in one area without gimping yourself in others - without being TERRIBLY BAD in them. Because playing an overspecialised character who can only pick its nose when it gets to areas outside its expertise is boring for most people - it wouldn't hurt to be at least decent in several other things, and 4th ed allows you to do that.

Also, Skill Challenges. And Non Combat Encounters. I have a feeling that not only you didn't read the books yet, judging the game only on your prejudice, but you didn't read the officially released excerpts released before the game hit the shelves, too.

I'm just going off what you guys are saying here. Not everybody has time to go searching through rule books on games they won't ever be playing anytime soon.

If you want a warrior to play a music instrumnt, you don't have to become terribly bad at anything, so I assumed that by gimp he meant, you had to sacrifice some other bonus.

Again, you said that in this version you only get bonuses there are no penalties. Which means there are no trade offs, there is only gaining more skills. Much like the way most computer games are set up these days.

If you are saying things about the game that arn't accurate, well, not much I can say in response to that.

Yeah, there are mostly bonuses now, with few penalties. But it doesn't make a difference - you get a +3 to attack with a longsword if you're competent with it, but the usual AC also tends to be ~3 points higher. It's the same with skills and everything else: sure, your skills upgrade automatically, but you need Skill Training (and maybe Focus) to do better than performing basic actions, or (the basis of Skill Challenges) helping the more skilled teammate with your support.

This is an improvement, because now you can perform basic stuff outside your field of interest, while in previous editions you could barely do it, if at all. The 3.5, 3.0 and before characters were a bunch of idiot savants, super-optimized in everything they focused on but helpless and useless like little children outside that. Or alternatively, they could try to reach *normal human* levels in several skills, and therefore be average Joe Shmoes in them while never really excelling in anything. Some hero material, that.

As for race stats - I think having only bonuses is easier to balance than bonuses and penalties, especially when creating new races. Penalties encourage min-maxing: put -2 to a dump stat, and +2 to some other stat you need. It's no longer the case in 4th Ed: you put +2 in two different stats no matter what, unless you're a human and then you get +2 to any one stat and some other bonuses to make up for it. The proof are the races from Monster Manual - all the humanoid ones are playable with little or no imbalance to core races! And that's without level adjustments and monster HD!

Out of curiosity, how many people would be interested in playing a Play by Post or a MSN/AIM/Whatever game of 3.5 or 4.0 based on Lusternia? I've been thinking up some somewhat decent ideas for it, but I just thought I'd throw it out there and see who would be willing to give it a shot.

I would very much be willing to do so.

Daganev- In my experience, the game deals in bonuses. Every race is good, each class is very well balanced, all skills have uses and with skill challenges guided ways to introduce encounters based around skills or replace monsters with skill challenges to count toward exp. (Think the riddle/crushing walls are closing in/snakes pouring in from the ceiling kinda challenges) Not that dms didn't reward for skills before, but now it makes is much easier on the dm to rule appropriate challenges at various levels and they will remain a challenge at all levels of play.

Now, with the player getting so many various bonuses the game also allows monsters to get buffed up as well. ((IE, I had a TPK while I was dming with a small kobold raiding party)) This means monsters aren't usually easy to bring down, they all have particular roles they are suited for, and you are given more leeway when creating your own encounters and monsters since exp says good roughly -5 to +5 levels of the party. Personally, I find the newer addition more fun and easier to dm by far. And while there has been some confusion in my players ((I missed the kobold with a 16!@!?)), it has made for a fun game. The monsters are just... Meaner. They are however very well balanced with the party and it's various potential combinations.

The biggest compliant I've heard from people with regards to the 4th Ed system is that their various concepts for characters can't be done ((Other classes will be coming out, and personally I believe any concept is doable within the current system with a bit of flavour)), or that they feel it is too much like WoW ((Normally when pressed these people admit to feeling they just aren't as "cool" or that they don't like relying on party members. These are normally the munchkins of the group who feel the balance the game brings limits their own abilities)). Personally, I love the fact that I can't just make a 10th level character with above their level caster level and the ability to polymorph into a War Troll ((This means BROKE for those of you who haven't done so. Game over, don't need a party, you win. Lolzz)).

Just thought I'd rez this thread, since it relates to the new post I made. If anyone wants to play DM for this, I'd be interested.

That makes me wonder how well D&D 4e is doing.

It's topped sales charts but how are the rank and file reacting to it? Right now the communities are pretty divided over the rules. Many want to play 3e or some variant instead of 4e. I wonder what other's experiences have been from the actual game playing community.

Rauros, try looking for players on enworld.org, it's the biggest third-party D&D site.

It's too bad Wizards hasn't gotten the DDI working very well yet...