New Edition: Iconic Characters

[Username17]

What. The. Fuck.

Seriously:

The amrita at that time found itself in the possession of the gods, who guarded it jealously, since it was the source of their immortality. They had ringed the elixir with a massive fire that covered the sky. They had blocked the way to the elixir with a fierce mechanical contraption of sharp rotating blades.

Yeah. Giant robots with rotary saws for hands. That's ancient literature, not recent anime.

insane death-cult Yuan-ti that worship huge fuck-off reptillian monsters from beyond and want them to come down and OM NOM NOM NOM everyone else

That's a definite. Since the Naga are the actual source material for the Yuan Ti, we can basically fold any Yuan Ti stuff we want into the Naga faction. Seriously, they are a tribe of poisonous snakes who live deep under ground and some of them can take partially or fully human form, and some of them have multiple heads, and they are plotting to destroy the world for senseless wickedness. The Yuan Ti are the Naga of Indian legend. The only reason that they are called something different is because Gygax had already used the name for specifically giant snakes with human heads.

sahuagin

That would put the shark people in as the monstrous humanoid of Asuraloka, and probably kick Trolls into Pretaloka, at which point they would be the mechanically inclined trolls from Dungeon Keeper rather than the aquatic atavist trolls of D&D.

And if we can slot Mephits in

Do you want mephits as little impy things that dragons summon? Give some combat summoning to the spellcasters of Asuraloka?

Kuo Toa

A dying race of swamp dwelling frog men? Like across between Kuo-Toa and Slaad?

aboleths, beholders, and mind flayers

Could all be part of the wild world of Legendary Races. Putting these bad boys in the 11th-20th level range.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Oh, it'd be an insult to have them as early challenges, yeah.

"Let's see, do we want to fight seven bandits and a crocodile, or a mind flayer and any thralls it is bound to have?"

Mecha in ancient writings is strange, but it really shouldn't surprise me. Needs more Dakka though.

I am pleased that so many things will be making it in. And yeah, Mephits should basically be elemental imps that can be summoned in huge swarms.

Dungeon Keeper trolls are pretty funny. Then again, Dungeon Keeper anything is pretty funny.

For Kuo-Toa I was thinking "Just like in Dungeonomicon, where we learn how pathetic they are." But I see no problem with crossing them with Slaad a bit.

[Username17]

Anyway, recent discussions about class "roles" have gotten me thinking about how completely stupid the four-way split that D&D 4e is going to be using. A "Defender" is at best just another name for Leader, Controller, or Striker. To the extent that it doesn't step on those toes it is because it isn't good.

Now imagine for a moment that a character has to fulfill two crucial tasks:

• Fight single challenges with reasonable facility.
  
• Add to the progress of the rest of the team.

So concepts like "I take twice as long to drop and do twice as much damage" are bullshit, because while in a duel scenario they are actually equal they are counter synergistic with the rest of the team. They take longer to drop, but they aren't dropping enemies either and their DPS is low so rational enemies preferentially target the other player characters. It's super not cool.

So anyway, regardless of what roles things have, there are a couple of modifiers that can be put on them:

• Melee is Dangerous Using melee range abilities can come with defensive bonuses or it can do more damage or it can have better effects. Whatever, since melee is more dangerous and doesn't go as far as ranged attacks, it needs to be compensated.
  
• Now is better than Later Combats last a variable amount of time, and some of the shorter ones are short. So an "ammunition" power that one would normally expect to be used right at the beginning of combat shouldn't be nearly as good as a "build-up" power that will be used later in the combat.

That being said, there are a number of D&D style combat strategies which are good (at least in theory).

• Face Stabbing If your enemies drop before you do, you win! If you inflict more damage than average, you are a contributor automatically.
  
• Buffing If your team gets bonuses, then your team will outperform the other team. You can contribute by raising the status of your team.
  
• Debuffing If the other team gets penalties, then your team will outperform the other team. You can contribute by reducing the status of the enemy.
  
• Controlling If you can prevent the enemy from doing what they want, your team can eventually win. You contribute if your walls and clouds prevent a noticable number of enemies from doing their thing at any given time.
  
• Healing If you can use your actions to negate actions of the other side, then your team doesn't lose! Keep that up long enough and eventually you win. If your healing is comparable in effect to retroactive controlling, then you are contributing.

And of course, there are lots of ways to combine those. For example Juggling is just a combination of Face Stabbing and Controlling; Vampirism is a combination of Face Stabbing and Healing; and while to the best of my knowledge dual-purpose Buff/Debuff effects (like prayer) don't have generic names, they obviously exist.

Now, I want everyone to have Face Stabbing at least as a secondary, because honestly it'sreally hard to solo on anything if you can't do that.

Narakan classes are for the moment Assassin (Face Stabbing / Controlling), Dark Warrior (Vampirism / [Stab/Debuff]), and Warlock (Juggling/ [Stab/Debuff]).

Does that sound about right?

-Username17

[Username17]

Anyway, Bug People who don't get to stay dead.

For names, how about Hannahannas? That's the name of a Hittite mother goddess and also the magical bees she sends to go find things.

As for looks, we could go with scarab beetles that were kind of like the guys from Fifth Element. Or we could go with fairies with antennae and gossamer wings. Or Thri-Kreen or Bugrom, or Klackons, or Veloxi, or whatever.

Basic choices:

• How many legs?
  
• How many arms?
  
• Wings: Beetliscious clothing-like things, semi-transparent bee/fly things, colorful moth/butterfly things?
  
• Wings: Big, Small, Nonexistant? Functional or not?
  
• How human? Are we talking about a human with bug parts or a bug with a mantis posture? Something in between?
  
• Hive Structure, yes or no? If yes, are the last remaining queens held imprisoned somewhere in Naraka so that the people have to travel to the netherworld to try to get them back before the race dies out for goo?

-Username17

[Cielingcat]

I'd go for 2 legs, 4 arms, and a mix of the butterfly and beetle wings; their wings are large and colorful and pretty, and they can fold them around themselves as clothing or whatever. How human they are... that I can't decide.

The structure though, I'd say a hive structure. But let's go one step further and make it like an actual hive, where the Queen bug isn't an actual ruler but a focus point for the hive mind with no real mind of her own, because the "Queen as ruler" thing is overdone. The bugs themselves have castes based around what they do, and... No.

Better idea, they originally had a hive structure, but broke away from it and are cursed for that. I like this better.

[Orion]

They have to be pretty, ro at least not scary/gross in appearance.

Their transformation to rotting undead should be really tragic and disturbing, which doesn't work if they were already ugly.

Hive structure is alright, if the castes are few in number and loose. Make sure they're not dumb bugs though -- they need philosopher and artist castes.

the queens are all dead and gone, or imprisoned in Naraka.

[JonSetanta]

1199638850[/unixtime]]Hannahannas?

Way too long. I'd never want to see that word in the "Race" section on any character sheet.

I'd sooner call the race "Bzz" than that.

Basic choices:

• How many legs?
  
  2
  
  
• How many arms?
  
  2, with the other 2 becoming avalible for weapon-holding later (at least level 6)
  4 armed Thri-Kreen were a mistake for low levels.
  
  
• Wings: Beetliscious clothing-like things, semi-transparent bee/fly things, colorful moth/butterfly things?
  
  various, either random or by caste
  
  
• Wings: Big, Small, Nonexistant? Functional or not?
  
  functional, folding like beetle but no shell, as wide a wingspan as they are tall
  
  
• How human? Are we talking about a human with bug parts or a bug with a mantis posture? Something in between?
  
  I'd rather see mostly-human, but that's just because I'd also want my character to have sex with the females.
  Evolution, strategy, etc.
  Antennae, wings, solid multi-part eyes with eyelids, coloration of bugs, but endoskeleton (mostly) and limbs of humanoids.
  
  
• Hive Structure, yes or no? If yes, are the last remaining queens held imprisoned somewhere in Naraka so that the people have to travel to the netherworld to try to get them back before the race dies out for goo?
  
  Yes to hive, but moderate to full free will. No PC drones, of course... but also no PC queens.
  Perhaps a special bug-caste of 'thinkers' designed to bring diversity and adaptation to an otherwise homogenous hive; these bugs would then be sent out into the world, and return with stories, odors, bits of meat from exotic things, whatever.
  

[the_taken]

I mostly agree with sigma999, save for the number of arms. I vote 2. Period.
I also believe PCs should have the option of becoming hive queens by taking the entirely optional Leadership ability.

[Username17]

So not looking like this:


But looking like this:


Hmmm... certainly workable. Tempting to just use the name "Bugrom" at that point. In any case, I think the Hobgoblins should be based on the Phantom Tribe, hence their frequency in the Assassin caste. Only instead of having blue skin and metalic irises, they have orange skin and red pupilless eyes. But as Phantom Tribe, it doesn't really matter that much. This would put the hobgoblins in as very much "Rakshasa light" in that all the cool things Rakshasa do are done by Hobgoblins, but to a lesser degree at low level.

Fuck it. Going El-Hazard whole hog. Clockwork Efreet, built by the ancients. They fit into the Preta-Loka scheme pretty well already.

-Username17

[Koumei]

The Bugrom make me think of only one thing:

Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba Uba Zud-zud
A-num num

Hubba hubba zoot zoot
Deba Uba Zud-zud
A-num num

A hoo-reppa hoo-reppa,
A-huh hoo-reppa
Anum num... (anum)

[MagnaSecuris]

I feel that this whole focus on the hive is going too weird. What is the queen? A dominant, breeding female. My proposal goes like this:

The Chzz are a race of people who are, essentially, hive insects. They are related to both ants and bees, though are not visually similar to either. They are naturally divided from birth into three castes with distinct dharmas: queens, workers, and drones.

All males are drones, and it is their dharma to serve a single queen unerringly from birth until death. Queens are the only females that can breed, and it is their dharma to rule over a hive of workers. Workers were stupid and infertile, and had almost no redeeming qualities.

However, many hundreds of generations ago, a deal was made where no Chzz would ever be reincarnated as a worker, since they were so shamefully stupid. Workers went extinct almost immediately. This meant that ever since, all queens inherently fail at their dharma, and they should therefore reincarnate as workers, but cannot. (A successful drone reincarnates as queen, then fails.)

As for appearance:
Chitinous (maybe just shiny-skinned) humanoid. But with a face only an entymologist could love (Mandibles and compound eyes). Wings shouldn't be too butterfly-like.

[Koumei]

Do they get stingers like Q Bee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-Bee

This is less for the debate of ease of sexing them up, and more for the idea of having (possibly poisonous) natural weapons available.

And insects tend to have deadly stingers. It's spiders who kill you by biting you.

[Crissa]

Hives send out breeding males and females - far more than will set up new hives - in order to spread out.

In an intelligent species, that just means you're going to have many 'potential' queens without actually having hives attached to them.

-Crissa

[JonSetanta]

1199915839[/unixtime]]Hives send out breeding males and females - far more than will set up new hives - in order to spread out.

In an intelligent species, that just means you're going to have many 'potential' queens without actually having hives attached to them.

-Crissa

DUNDUNDUNNNN... enter the PC role.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

What is wrong with having the 4-armed, 4-legged insect people with kinda bad wings?

Mentally, I have had the Thranx in mind when this discussion has proceeded. They are independent, like humans, with social tendencies (but not built in telepathy or servitude).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thranx[br] ... ver_lg.jpg[/IMG]

[CatharzGodfoot]

How about a race of mosquito-people, where the men are all ass-faced flower-eating scholars and the women are tragically bloodthirsty winged killing machines? Maybe they still rule the Malarial Queendom, or maybe they've been ghettoized in the middle of the ocean.

Oh wait, Frank hates China Mieville for some reason...

[the_taken]

1199920956[/unixtime]]

1199915839[/unixtime]]Hives send out breeding males and females - far more than will set up new hives - in order to spread out.

In an intelligent species, that just means you're going to have many 'potential' queens without actually having hives attached to them.

-Crissa

DUNDUNDUNNNN... enter the PC role.

Or optional Leadership ability. Yes, I'm repeating myself. I think the concept deserves emphasis.

[JonSetanta]

1199923526[/unixtime]]
Or optional Leadership ability. Yes, I'm repeating myself. I think the concept deserves emphasis.

Yep. My Fey material does too, but you can't force others to PEACH stuff. Give it time.

[Captain_Bleach]

1199837336[/unixtime]]Do they get stingers like Q Bee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-Bee

This is less for the debate of ease of sexing them up, and more for the idea of having (possibly poisonous) natural weapons available.

And insects tend to have deadly stingers. It's spiders who kill you by biting you.

The inevitable invasion of furries into fantasy RPGs is imminent! I can feel that, soon, the face of D&D will change forever...

Oh wait, that had nothing to do with furries. It was just 4th Edition.

[Koumei]

I have no interest in making it a furry game, though I hear that's what 4E is, but I think if we have bug-people, we might want to consider the possibility of envenoming people, thus leading to their inevitable death.

Here in Australia, we have some venomous things, you know.

[Bigode]

1199458309[/unixtime]]Anyway, recent discussions about class "roles" have gotten me thinking about how completely stupid the four-way split that D&D 4e is going to be using. A "Defender" is at best just another name for Leader, Controller, or Striker. To the extent that it doesn't step on those toes it is because it isn't good.

Not terribly important, but I'm under the impression that this, despite not being something I personally like, is an actually workable distinction between the roles WotC named.

[Username17]

Doesn't look like it to me.

Defender serves as a bodyguard, shielding vulnerable allies from dangerous foes by physically getting inbetween. The Defender emself becomes a physical barrier to prevent any of multiple foes from bypassing em and reaching the teammates under protection.
...
Melee weapon attack on multiple foes in area

Controller serves as a military engineer, shielding vulnerable allies from dangerous foes by forming barriers and creating escape routes on the battlefield. Thus the Controller targets entire areas in range, so as to maintain control of captured ground on the battlefield, to free up multiple teammates or impede multiple foes.
...
Ranged weapon attack on multiple foes in in range

The Defender is just a controller who happens to personally take damage that would have gone to any wall of stone he makes.

-Username17

[Bigode]

Sorry. I meant specifically this.

[Username17]

Ah. Aside from the fact that this is really obviously not what's going to happen (Ranger = Striker; Wizards have single target attacks), it's still dumb.

An area in melee is extremely not useful compared to an area at range. Heck, it's not even good compared to a single target in melee.

That guy's list had three meaningful characters in it:

[*] The "Leader" who might as well be called the "Assassin" eliminates individual threats as needed.

[*] The "Striker" who might as well be called the "Brawler" is intended to meet opponents head-on and take them down.

[*] And the "Controller" is there to manage the battlefield and clear off groups.

So when the enemy has a minotaur, a group of skeletons, and an evil wizard, the oddly named "Leader" focuses in on and drops the evil wizard; the "Controller" blows down the skelingtons; and the "Striker" takes on the Minotaur at his own game.

The Defender... hopes that the skeletons surround him so that his abilities matter? What the fuck? The guy is useless. He doesn't have a niche.

-Username17

[Bigode]

I need to put 3 things out first of all:

a) I damn know that's not gonna happen - I don't even discuss 4E "as-is" and was going off talk on how stuff should be had around here, no concern over their role blurring ("Striker with controller-ish powers"? WTF? First, "-ish" seems always like lack of a better term, and if you're gonna have mixing, why say each class has exactly one role?);

b) the relevant posts went through some change from my copies, I already saw some differences;

c) I actually hate melee/ranged being a major division between classes - few stuff got me as irritated as the BS about both the ranger and the rogue being martial strikers, but one Legolas and the other Drizzt. More controllers (by I which I mean "having any choice at all" when deciding to have one)? No, we, for example, make a point of not even trying a martial controller because we don't want martials to be good ...

---

As for the defender, let's pick your fairly accurate rendition and add to that that: yes, a "defender" as defined there does have a bad offense chassis, but it can be made to shine against groups. What shares the most space with it is the controller IMO, so let's consider: battlefield control (let's ignore the R&C claim of fireball being an iconic controller power, please) in general (of course we could keep making interesting exceptions until they were the norm, but let's talk about what's commonly seen) is made of proactive effects that restrict mobility and enforce action restrictions, but, except in the most egregious cases, don't shut people down wholly. So, a defender can be a character with above-average mobility (to ease getting in melee) and reactive abilities (being proactive doesn't keep you from getting surprised) versatile enough that there's counters to whatever someone did to another party member that they shouldn't - and remember that's it's perfectly consistent with the definions there that the defender could instead be near the protected members instead of the opposition (though, admittedly, that'd be a (near-)null-offense situation. Ah, I'm still reserving a place for "average single-target offense" in it.

In essence, there's at least one real defender: the RoW fighter. And yes, I'm perfectly fine with calling 18 m "melee range" since I'm perfectly fine with bowshots from 100 m.