Improve Genasi

[ubergish]

All of the genasi have net stats equal to any other race (zero sum) and some marginally useful flavor ability. The one exception is Earth Genasi since it works well for fighter by dumping two mental stats to gain two physical stats.

Tiefling vs Air Genasi [tr][th][/th][th]Tiefling[/th][th]Air Genasi[/th][/tr] [tr][td]ECL[/td][td]+1[/td][td]+1[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Net Ability Adj[/td][td]+2[/td][td]+0[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Darkvision[/td][td]60[/td][td]60[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Total Resistances[/td][td]15[/td][td]5[/td][/tr] [tr][td]Total Skill Bonuses[/td][td]4[/td][td]0[/td][/tr] [tr][td]SLA[/td][td]Darkness[/td][td]Summon Gale[/td][/tr] Suggestion: Remove ECL, or one of the negative ability adjustments from each of the subraces (possibly excluding earth genasi).

[Sun Wukong]

How about you make Fire and Water Genasi ECL 0 races. Earth and Air Genasi are already the strongest genasi to go for, if you are picking the race based on the specific ability bonuses...

[chad878262]

Agree with SW that Air and Earth Genasi are really good enough as is. Fire and Water Genasi could use improvement to make them worthy of their +1 ECL, but I question how that can be handled while not impacting the (admittedly few) players that already make use of those races. Changing the stat distributions would likely result in players asking for full RCR as would giving any free feats. However, some racial skill bonuses could likely be applied and added to existing characters via script (maybe?) Not sure it would be enough to make them any more 'worth' it, but to some extent Genasi should be RP races rather than selected for mechanical benefit. That said, there are a LOT of Tieflings and Aasimar running around too, probably more than should have any right to exist in all of the regions we play in. However, PC's represent the small subset of the regions adventurers which are likely to be made up of the more eccentric and exotic races so either way can be argued to make sense.

[Sun Wukong]

Fire Genasi Racial Ability:

Reach to the Blaze: Once per day, a fire genasi can call upon his elemental nature and radiate flames which damage all those within 5 feet, doing 2d4 points of fire damage per round (Reflex save for half damage). This effect lasts for 5 rounds.

How about you change it to:

Reach to the Blaze: Once per 5 minutes, a fire genasi can call upon his elemental nature and radiate flames which damage all those within 5 feet, doing 2d4 + intelligence modifier points of fire damage per round (Reflex save for half damage). This effect lasts for 5 rounds + intelligence modifier.

Water Genasi Racial Ability:

Shrouding Fog: Once per day, a water genasi can call upon his elemental nature to summon a dense fog that provides concealment. This effect lasts 5 rounds.

How about you change it to:

Shrouding Fog: Once per 5 minutes, a water genasi can call upon his elemental nature to summon a dense fog that provides concealment. This effect lasts 5 rounds + constitution modifier.

Another thing to consider is grant number of uses based the ability modifier.



Edit: At one part of server history they did drop Deep Gnome ECL to +2 from +3. How did that actually work? I've completely forgotten. If you can just edit the base race, remove the ECL, and then the Fire/Water Genasi characters should be able to just level up upon login, right?

[Babuguuscooties]

I like your ideas for Genasi racial abilities, SW.

[Sun Wukong]

Well, since you flattered me...

Air Genasi Racial Ability:

Summon Gale: Once per day, an air genasi can call upon his elemental nature and summon a powerful blast of wind which can knock over foes who fail a Fortitude save as well as disperse any harmful cloud effects in its path. This effect is similar to the Gust of Wind spell.

How about you change it to:

Summon Gale: Once per 5 minutes, an air genasi can call upon his elemental nature and summon a powerful blast of wind which can knock over foes who fail a Fortitude save as well as disperse any harmful cloud effects in its path. This effect is similar to the Gust of Wind spell.

Earth Genasi Racial Ability:

Merge with Stone: Once per day, an earth genasi can call upon his elemental nature to make his skin as hard as stone, gaining damage reduction 5/adamantine. The effect lasts for 5 rounds or until it has absorbed 20 points of damage, whichever comes first.

How about you change it to:

Merge with Stone: Once per five minutes, an earth genasi can call upon his elemental nature to make his skin as hard as stone, gaining damage reduction 5/adamantine. The effect lasts for 5 rounds or until it has absorbed 20 points of damage, whichever comes first.

Also edited the previous ones...

[Babuguuscooties]

So basically you just make the racial abilities have a cooldown instead of a user per day. I like that, to be honest.

As it is I feel like their racial abilities are flavor at best, and pretty useless at worst.

The Air Genasi in particular has a spell-like ability version of what I can only assume is the Gust of Wind spell. My level 4 Air Genasi's has a DC of 10. It doesn't appear to scale at all.

[Sun Wukong]

Yeah, I think it just has that stock DC. Not sure, haven't bothered to test. It is not that many NPC mobs actually throw 'cloud' spells with duration. Some have mindfog, like the Ogre Mages in the Elder Ogre Fortress, but with a 5 minute timer and that lowish DC it could be better for player casters that use those 'cloud' spells more often - if only to clear away Cloudkill for example.

[KhyberKruel]

I like the idea of putting the abilities on cool down, but if that were to happen both darkness and light spells for the most common of the 7 races should get it as well. Also that and Earth genasi should like get a scaling on the amount of dmg it can eat.... 20 is laughable. Something maybe like 20 + 10*(lvl/3). If the rest get dc scaling it should likely be based on level and not a stat unless that race has a caster as a favored class.

[Sun Wukong]

Spell-like abilities, race or class based, often use an ability score to determine their DC though. (Charisma is the most common.)

As for Earth Genasi, it is already one of the strongest melee races you can have. Now, if you are going for something like Barbarian 20, you will have 5/- damage reduction and therefore the racial ability would give you nothing even if you increase the number of damage absorbed. But for classes that do not provided damage reduction, or builds that do not go for Epic Damage Reduction feats, the extra amount of damage absorbed would be a considerable power boost to an already potent race.

Now, 5/Adamantine for 5 rounds or until 20 points have been absorbed is not that laughable if the ability is on a timer to reset. A monster is approaching, you can hit the hotkey to active the ability before you actually fight the monster. But perhaps the duration of the ability could be made little longer. I kind of feel 5 rounds is a bit short after all, so maybe 5 + constitution modifier? Well, I guess you could get your constitution modifer to the number of damage absorbed too. Something like 20 + constitution modifier to a total of 30 points of damage absorbed? It should okay.

But if that is done, maybe the Airgenasi gust of wind should get slight increase in its DC... You get +int modifier? So what would that be? 10 + 10 (Int) for a total of 20? Usable once per 5 minutes? It should be fine, I guess.