I also agree that the tiefling is not super exciting, but the dragonborn is a perfectly serviceable klingon type character. I would slightly prefer the orc in that role, but I understand they didn't want to totally rehabilitate the orc to the point when you couldn't guiltlessly mow them down willy nilly.
Elves I agree with: too many elves. I personally don't mind the elf/eladrin split, although eladrin should TOTALLY have +2 charisma instead of +2 dex. They are fey, and they should all be beautiful and terrible like an army poised for battle and whatnot. But the biggest disappointment is that half-elves are still in! I don't see why people shouldn't be expected to make up their mind: are they going to play an elf or a human? Also, no half-eladrin? or elfadrin?
Alignment I don't care about. I wouldn't have minded if they got rid of it. Alignment strikes me as a weird joke. In a game I DMed recently, someone was "lawful chaotic".
I like rapiers because I like swash. It's kind of cool that they decided to make them better than most other weapons. Even if they charge you a feat; I don't mind them being the purview of the skilled fencer.
My other pros and cons:
Pros: The per-encounter and daily abilities mean that I often have interesting choices about what to do. Different from in 3e, where, for example, my last character was built to be good at tripping people, and so tripped people every round. Sure, I could have tried to do something suboptimal like stab a guy, but in a well-designed system, the optimal move is also the most fun move.
Cons: There is officially no use for my 10-sided die with the tens place on it. There are no percentile rolls in 4e.
Laura and I just had a further discussion about the intermixing of races: e.g., half halfling half tiefling.... I think any mixing of races should really be up to DM discretion; half elves, along with half orcs, etc, don't really make much sense to me as defined player races. It seems like you should have the basics down, and then the DMs can decide to what extent they can interbreed (quarter dragonborn, quarter human, half tiefling?), and what the benefits and detriments are.
Yeah, they should have scrapped half-elves. Plus (and this is a problem from way way back, but they haven't solved it) once you open the can of worms that is interbreeding you really have to do it all the way or not at all. Can you play a character that is one-sixteenth elf? Half-halfling? Half-halfling half-tiefling?
Anna points out that, officially, the 4e stance on this is "DM's choice." Still. Like you, I would prefer a world without interbreeding if only to force players to make a goddamn choice.
I think I must be the ONLY person in the world who likes Half Elves. Maybe it's from my Everquest days when I played Glororhan Greatsong, Half Elf Bard, and entertained the world, but I like the idea of a cool friendly charismatic race that is a good diplomat and negotiator. I think that makes sense for a half elf, who is from different but agreeable cultures.
Also, they exist in Lord of the Rings. Elrond is a half elf! Oh, and they used to walk the bridge between eternal life and immortality, but now not so much.
Elves and humans also kind of look similar and are both pretty hawt. So it seems reasonable that they could produce children but not, say, a halfling and an orc. And I think the idea with the 1/16th thing is that once you go Half Elf, you never go back, but that's probably up to the DM. Maybe it's like, there's a chance you're a half elf and a chance you're a human?
Oh, Tieflings who mate with humans sometimes spawn Tieflings and sometimes don't, but no half breeds for them!
I don't know Rory. Never underestimate the power of opposites attracting. Some human couples resemble a halfling and an orc.
Semi-unrelatedly, I have the same objection about Elrond being a half-elf that I have about Spock being half Vulcan. Elrond is more elf than any other elf; Spock is more Vulcan than any other Vulcan! If they're not fully embodying elfness/Vulcanity, WHO DOES?
It's true, I sometimes feel about Spock the way I feel about Data: they're both protesting way too much in the "As you know, I have no emotions, and therefore cannot grieve/comfort you/commit to a monogamous relationship/pick you up at the airport" department.
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I also agree that the tiefling is not super exciting, but the dragonborn is a perfectly serviceable klingon type character. I would slightly prefer the orc in that role, but I understand they didn't want to totally rehabilitate the orc to the point when you couldn't guiltlessly mow them down willy nilly.
Elves I agree with: too many elves. I personally don't mind the elf/eladrin split, although eladrin should TOTALLY have +2 charisma instead of +2 dex. They are fey, and they should all be beautiful and terrible like an army poised for battle and whatnot. But the biggest disappointment is that half-elves are still in! I don't see why people shouldn't be expected to make up their mind: are they going to play an elf or a human? Also, no half-eladrin? or elfadrin?
Alignment I don't care about. I wouldn't have minded if they got rid of it. Alignment strikes me as a weird joke. In a game I DMed recently, someone was "lawful chaotic".
I like rapiers because I like swash. It's kind of cool that they decided to make them better than most other weapons. Even if they charge you a feat; I don't mind them being the purview of the skilled fencer.
My other pros and cons:
Pros: The per-encounter and daily abilities mean that I often have interesting choices about what to do. Different from in 3e, where, for example, my last character was built to be good at tripping people, and so tripped people every round. Sure, I could have tried to do something suboptimal like stab a guy, but in a well-designed system, the optimal move is also the most fun move.
Cons: There is officially no use for my 10-sided die with the tens place on it. There are no percentile rolls in 4e.
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Anna
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Anna points out that, officially, the 4e stance on this is "DM's choice." Still. Like you, I would prefer a world without interbreeding if only to force players to make a goddamn choice.
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Also, they exist in Lord of the Rings. Elrond is a half elf! Oh, and they used to walk the bridge between eternal life and immortality, but now not so much.
Elves and humans also kind of look similar and are both pretty hawt. So it seems reasonable that they could produce children but not, say, a halfling and an orc. And I think the idea with the 1/16th thing is that once you go Half Elf, you never go back, but that's probably up to the DM. Maybe it's like, there's a chance you're a half elf and a chance you're a human?
Oh, Tieflings who mate with humans sometimes spawn Tieflings and sometimes don't, but no half breeds for them!
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Semi-unrelatedly, I have the same objection about Elrond being a half-elf that I have about Spock being half Vulcan. Elrond is more elf than any other elf; Spock is more Vulcan than any other Vulcan! If they're not fully embodying elfness/Vulcanity, WHO DOES?
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