Races of the Dragon

[fbmf]

Is this book worth owning?

Game On,
fbmf

[Neeek]

Not really, no.

EDIT: which is to say I regret having bought it.

[User3]

Its a tough call.

The extra races are strange from a optimization point, because they are far better than normal races. Casters all want to be Spellscales. as they are the best caster race in the game now.

Sorcerers get a relative power up with excellent racial substitution levels, a feat to cast single metamagics in normal time, and a sorcerer-only feat to reduce the cost of a single metamagic by 1(min 1). If you are willing set enough feats on fire, you can become a dangerous metamagic-based caster.

The Dragon Heritage is is also greatly increased in raw power, as you can now use 5K in gold to do a ritual to change your dragon-type, meaning you can use it to shift the class skill it grants. since it specislfically doesn't retoactively re-price your skills or rest them to your new class limits, you can use it to basically spend points in-class and then next level get a new skill in-class at max ranks per level, and your old skill is max rank-1 and can't be advanced. With 30ish new dragon types to be associated with, Draconic Heritage is really awesome now.

The spells are also interesting. For example, Dragon Wings breaks line of effect for magic and attacks for a 2nd level slot and its an immediate action spell, but it allows the attacker to do another action, meaning you are invulnerable to several classes of casters and T-rex style attackers at the cost of setting your slots on fire. Area effect casters and summoners are the only guys you have to worry about. Sorcerers can also use this spell to help adjacent party members, meaning you can force a monster to not directly attack your party.

There is also a neat arcane healing effect where you exhaust yourself in the morning for healing in the afternoon.

They also toss in an item like Pearls of Power, but they work for Sorcerers at +50% the cost.

So if you play Sorcerers, the answer is "yes." If you play casters, the answer is "maybe."

[Neeek]

1139262970[/unixtime]]

Sorcerers get a relative power up with excellent racial substitution levels, a feat to cast single metamagics in normal time, and a sorcerer-only feat to reduce the cost of a single metamagic by 1(min 1). If you are willing set enough feats on fire, you can become a dangerous metamagic-based caster.

This, of course, takes us back to Lago's point here: Lago's anti-feat thread

[PhoneLobster]

lets get this straight. They release the "Races of" compilation box set then continue to release more trashy "Races of" books.

Is there going to be "the other Races of" compilation box set, or a compilation box set of "Races of" compilation box sets?

Damnit. I'm tempted to go back to Paranioa XP again for the next six months.

[Username17]

Well, they released "races of" books that represented all the Player Races (Elves and Halflings in Races of Rabbit Fvcking, Dwarves and Gnomes in Races of Compensation, and Humans and Half-Orcs in Races of Getting Screwed). Then they put all those into a box set. Now they are releasing "Races of" books for races that you are actually not supposed to play.

Races of the Dragon, which details races that are too powerful for the DM to rationally be expected to allow into a game, is only the first. There are planned to be a whole bunch more. Races of Dominance is planned to deal with Races that touch on specifically adult themes, providing extra rules for having the Drow and Nymphs in your games in order to indulge the DM's girlfriend or kid brother. Races of Immersion is going to provide detail to those races that are extremely disruptive to gaming and intrusive into other player characters - mostly the Kender and those guys from the Planar Handbook that can't talk. These will all go into a box set together called "Races of Disruptiveness".

-Username17

[fbmf]

The sad thing is I can't tell if this is sarcasm. Has nothing to do with Frank, but rather WotC's publishing reputation.

Game On,
fbmf

[MrWaeseL]

The sad thing is I can't tell if this is sarcasm.

I was going to say that. I have no idea if Frank is joking, but I think he is since Races of Immersion is a kind of 4th wall breaking name.