Totoro: Half-elf isn't wrong, but you're right. The dwarf doesn't work. I suppose it's not my system either.
Volkren makes a good point. +4 Con comes out to 28 points as well as +2 Str, +2 Con, and it fits the dwarven concept better.
As a final thought on "human error," I'd have expected the designers to use their new-fangled, much vaunted electronic character generator to make the sample characters for the Experience. One would assume the machine is incapable of mathematical errors.
Dwarf: This one seems incomplete as it is missing a racial per encounter power. I'm not sure if the omission was intentional or by accident though. I know the human and the Half-Elf are both missing one as well, but they make up for it by gaining and extra @will power and the choice of a non-class power respectively. We know the at least 4 of the PHB races have a free per encounter racial ability, so it seems reasonable that all of them but the half-elf and human get one. Rumor has it that the Dragonborn get a breath weapon as theirs, Elves get to reroll an attack roll, Halflings get to force a reroll when an attack hits, Tieflings get a bonus to hit and damage, and Eladrin get to TP 5 squares.
I tend to think the dwarf was correct. Cast Iron Stomach, Dwarven Resilience and Stand Your Ground all seem to be Dwarven racial abilities. And that gives them three abilities that are useful in combat. None is quite as dramatic as teleport, but the combined effect is probably more useful. Only the Halfling has as many, and unless it has changed radically, small size is more of a disadvantage then advantage.
The designers have mentioned a breath weapon for the Dragonborn, but implied that it isn't a base racial feat but something they can take at high level.
swgeek77 wrote:
I don't think that the Hal-elf gains a bonus @will power as much as they get to choose a power from another class in lieu of a power from their own class. I know a lot of people are saying that the Half-elf warlock has 3 @will powers compared to the 2 that the other characters get, but the first at will power is Eldritch blast, which all warlocks have access to despite which pact they choose. I am tending to think that Eldritch blast is an @will power that all warlocks get as a feature, but it isn't called out as a feature on the sheet for some reason, and is listed as an @will power instead.
The would be a huge mistake by whoever put together the characters sheets. All of the paladin and clerics class abilities are marked as such, 'paladin feature' vs 'paladin attack 1'. Eldritch Blast is marked 'warlock (all) 1', If it was something that every warlock got it would be 'warlock feature' instead. I find it very hard to believe they got something that basic wrong.
swgeek77 wrote:
The human cleric does have a +1 bonus to his Defenses (Fort, Ref, Will, but not AC) that is not accounted for, as well as a +1 to Initiative. The defense bonuses could be attributed to the Human Perseverance Feat, or it could be a racial bonus. The Initiative bonus doesn't seem to have anything to be tied to, except for a quote from the Races and Classes book that said something to the effect that, "Humans are about Dynamic action." Maybe that comment is alluding to the free @will power and a +1 initiative, but I kind of doubt it. My guess is that the Initiative bonus was a typo.
I have not looked at the defense calculations much. But I notice looking at your notes that both of the divine classes seem to have +1 to defenses that can't be otherwise explained. Makes me wonder if that might not be a power source thing, with divine classes getting some sort of divine favor ability that gives them +1 to all defenses.
As for the point buy basis, I don't have a guess. There has been nothing said about the system working like it did in 3e, only that it is point buy. So not only could the point cost be different, but there could be fundamental differences in the system. It might include a penalty cost for multiple high stats, or the cost might differ depending on your races favored stat.
I do think that the character sheets used at the D&D XP don't have any huge errors on them. These sheets would have been checked over by several people at WotC and tested multiple times.
You've given several races negative modifiers, I could have sworn in previous discussions they had stated that they removed all the negative modifiers to racial stats.
A little algebra (in all cases, I assume the sample characters have the same point total and there are no typos):
Assume it costs 1 point to raise from some point (let's say 8) up to 13, and it costs 'a' to raise to 14, 'b' to raise to 15, 'c' to raise to 16, 'd' to raise to 17, and 'e' to raise to 18. We know the Tiefling (+2 INT, +2 CHA) and Eladrin (+2 DEX, +2 INT). So I'll use these first. If you subtract 13 from any score 13 or lower, and take a-e, as appropriate for any scores higher than 13, you can derive the following formulae:
Eladrin: 2a+c-8 Tiefling: a+e-13
Not very interesting, yet.
If we are right about Halflings getting +2 DEX, +2 CHA,
Halfling: 2a+c-8 Eladrin: 2a+c-8
That doesn't tell us anything more than the Halfling and the Eladrin are going to have the same number of points (no big surprise).
So, we have to make a guess.
I'm pretty sure the Dwarf gets +2 CON (at least). So let's plug in some numbers for the other possibilities:
Since the Eladrin has a point value of 2a+c-8, the Dwarf cannot have +2 STR, +2 CON or +4 CON. (That would mean the point totals of the Eladrin and Dwarf are different.)
If the Dwarf gets DEX, INT, or CHA, we know this:
Eladrin: 2a+c-8 Dwarf: a+2c-11 2a+c-8=a+2c-11 => a=c-3 Solving for c with the Eladrin: 2c-11 (different from the Dwarf and therefore wrong)
If the Dwarf gets +2 CON, +2 WIS:
Eladrin: 2a+c-8 Dwarf: 2c-10 2a+c-8=2c-10 => 2a=c-2 Solving for c with the Eladrin, we then know this: Eladrin costs 2c-10 (i.e., same as the Dwarf).
This proves the Dwarf gets +2 CON, +2 WIS.
We also now know the following point cost formulae are true:
Eladrin 2a+c-8 Dwarf 2c-10 Tiefling a+e-13
I'll throw in the Halfling now. Assuming +2 DEX, +2 CHA: Halfling 2a+c-8 Since this is exactly the same as the Eladrin sample character, it doesn't help any. I should mention, that the Halfling could have +2 CON instead of +2 DEX and +2 WIS instead of +2 CHA without changing the formula. +2 INT is not possible and +2 STR seems unlikely. So I'm pretty comfortable with the formula.
I have proven the point cost ratios of Eladrin and Dwarf, so let's solve for c (using Dwarf and Eladrin): 2c-10=2a+c-8=> c=2a+2 So we can rewrite the Eladring and Dwarf as: Eladrin: 2a+(2a+2)-8=4a-6 Dwarf: 2c-10=2(2a+2)-10=4a-6 Naturally, since these are proven, they are the same. Alternatively: Eladrin: 2(c/2-1)+c-8=2c-10
Now I want to prove how much of a difference there is between a (14), c (16), and e (18).
1) If a=1, c=4 2) If a=2, c=6 3) If a=3, c=8
Case 1: 14 costs 6 (like 3.5e point buy), 16 costs 9 (unlike 3.5e point buy). This proves that it is IMPOSSIBLE that the point buy scheme is the same as in 3.5e. Moreover, this is the only reasonable progression: 13 costs 5 14 costs 6 15 costs 8 (see the asterisked paragraph below for the reason why it cannot be 7) 16 costs 9 I submit that this is unlikely. In fact, I can prove it, but think it is unnecessary.
Case 2: 13 costs 5 14 costs 7 15 costs 9 16 costs 11 I submit that this is likely, and, in fact, I can mathematically prove it.
Case 3: 13 costs 5 14 costs 8 (a 3 point cost jump from 13!) 15 costs 10 16 costs 13 These numbers are getting awfully big, awfully fast. I can also prove this is not correct. Only Case 2 works with the sample characters.
Now it gets tricky because we do not know the Half-Elf and Human ability bonus. I'm going to assume that the Half-Elf gets +2 CHA, then try the other combinations like I did with the Dwarf: +2 STR: 2c+b-12 +2 CON: a+b+c-10 +2 DEX: 2c+b-12 +2 INT: 2c-10 +2 WIS: not possible (sample character has an 8) +2 CHA (+4 total): a+b+c-10
* Any of these combinations are possible until we solve for b. Fortunately, from case 2 above, we know that b=4 (not formally proven at this point, but the alternatives are too strange). That means, +2 STR and +2 DEX do not work. Since +2 INT gives us the same point value as the Dwarf, it is possible, as is a +2 CON (likely a choose any), +2 CHA or a +4 CHA. However, that alone tells us something very interesting: The point cost from raising a score from 13 to 15 and 14 to 16 are the same!!! And the only increase that works is 2 from 13 to 14, 2 from 14 to 15, and 2 from 15 to 16. So, case 2, above, while it was only logical that 15 cost what I said it did, MUST have a 15 that costs that much relative to the 14 and 16.
Therefore, we know that a=2, b=4, c=6.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to prove mathematically which of these are correct bonuses for the Half-Elf: +2 CON, +2 CHA +2 INT, +2 CHA +2 CHA, +2 any +2 any, +2 any +4 CHA However, it MUST BE one of these. I'm guessing +2 CHA, +2 any.
Last one is the Human. First no +2 bonus at all does not work because that yields a+e-6, which is different from the Tiefling buy value. So let's start with the assumption of +2 in one ability and work up to 2 abilities if it makes sense.
+2 STR: e-7 +2 CON: a+e-8 (different than Tiefling) +2 DEX: a+e-8 (different than Tiefling) +2 INT: a+e-8 (different than Tiefling) +2 WIS: a+c-6 +2 CHA: a+e-8 (different than Tiefling)
We can solve for a using Human (+2 STR) and Tiefling: e-7=a+e-13=> a=6. That is, raising from 13 to 14 costs 6 points. Seems unlikely enough to discount this possibility. Indeed, we already know a=2 (i.e., it costs 2 to raise 13 to 14). Leaving +2 WIS (or as most are guessing, +2 to any).
Therefore, the human gets: +2 WIS +2 to any +2 to any two scores (Impossible because that would reduce the point value of the human sample character, which is already of the same point value of the other sample characters, but with only a +2 to WIS.) +2 to two specific abilities other than WIS. (Impossible because 1) If +2 STR, +2 CON; +2 STR, +2 DEX; +2 STR, +2 INT; or +2 STR, +2 CHA, then the point cost is e-9, which means it costs 1 to go from 16 to 18. I assume it always costs at least one to increase an ability by 1; so this is wrong. 2) Any other remaining combination results in a point cost of a+e-8, which is different than the Tiefling.)
Therefore, I conclude that humans get +2 to any (because a +2 to WIS is unnecessarily limiting).
Before moving on, let's compare all of the formulae that have been proven so far:
Eladrin and Halfling: 2a+c-8=2 Dwarf: 2c-10=2 Tiefling: a+e-13=2 Half-Elf: a+b+c-10=2 OR 2c-10=2 (if they get +2 INT, +2 CHA) Human: a+c-6=2
Finally, we can show the value of e (cost to raise a score from 13 to 18) using a=2 and the Tiefling: 2+e-13=2 => e=13.
In this way, I have PROVEN the following:
Dragonborn +2 STR, +2 WIS [speculation] Dwarf +2 CON, +2 WIS [proven, assuming at least +2 CON] Eladrin +2 DEX, +2 INT [confirmed] Elf +2 DEX, +2 WIS [confirmed] Half-Elf +2 CHA, +2 any [proven, with caveat that any could instead be INT or CON] Halfling +2 DEX, +2 CHA [proven, with caveat that could swap CON for DEX and/or WIS for CHA] Human +2 to any [proven, with caveat that any could instead by WIS] Tiefling +2 INT, +2 CHA [confirmed]
I have also proven the point buy. Note that you could increase or decrease all costs by the same amount and change nothing. (E.g., if you want to start from 10 instead of 8, each of the indicated amounts would be 2 less.)
Gentleman's wager: Bet you cannot come up with an alternative. I'm serious. It isn't possible.
Assumptions: The sample character abilities are correct. The sample characters have the same point values. Cost to raise an ability from 8 to 13 is 5 (1 per increase). Increasing an ability by 1 costs at least 1 point. Half-Elves do not get +4 CHA and do not get +2 to any two abilities.
I have also proven the point buy. Note that you could increase or decrease all costs by the same amount and change nothing. (E.g., if you want to start from 10 instead of 8, each of the indicated amounts would be 2 less.)
Gentleman's wager: Bet you cannot come up with an alternative. I'm serious. It isn't possible.
Your numbers are spot on with the exception of the cost of an 18. An 18 using your formula would actually cost 16. I plugged your numbers into a point buy for every character and they worked out, but the Tiefling would cost 34 points if an 18 cost 18 points, but 16 points seems like a reasonable jump in cost from 13 points for a 17.
Originally Posted by swgeek77 View Post Dwarf: This one seems incomplete as it is missing a racial per encounter power. I'm not sure if the omission was intentional or by accident though. I know the human and the Half-Elf are both missing one as well, but they make up for it by gaining and extra @will power and the choice of a non-class power respectively. We know the at least 4 of the PHB races have a free per encounter racial ability, so it seems reasonable that all of them but the half-elf and human get one. Rumor has it that the Dragonborn get a breath weapon as theirs, Elves get to reroll an attack roll, Halflings get to force a reroll when an attack hits, Tieflings get a bonus to hit and damage, and Eladrin get to TP 5 squares. I tend to think the dwarf was correct. Cast Iron Stomach, Dwarven Resilience and Stand Your Ground all seem to be Dwarven racial abilities. And that gives them three abilities that are useful in combat. None is quite as dramatic as teleport, but the combined effect is probably more useful. Only the Halfling has as many, and unless it has changed radically, small size is more of a disadvantage then advantage.
The designers have mentioned a breath weapon for the Dragonborn, but implied that it isn't a base racial feat but something they can take at high level.
I still don't know about the Dwarf being complete. The fact that all of the other races (Eladrin, Elves, Halflings, and Tieflings at the minimum) definitely have a racial per encounter power, and Humans and Half-Elves have bonus @will powers makes it seem odd that the Dwarf would be left out in the cold while everyone else gets to enjoy the free powers party.
I think all of the races have abilities that are useful in combat. The Tiefling's have Bloodhunt (+1 vs. Bloodied), & Fire Resistance (5+1/2 level). The Elves' have Weapon Proficiencies (+2 to hit with Longbows and Short Bows), & they ignore terrain when shifting. The Eladrin are proficient with Longswords (+2 to hit), and Halflings gain a +2 to AC against Opportunity attacks. All of those seem to be pretty good combat abilities on par with being moved one less when being pushed/pulled, and using second winds as a minor action instead of standard actions. That being said the Dwarf seems to be left holding the bag.
As for the Dragonborn's Breath weapon I could have sworn that I read a transcription from a chat by a designer at DDXP that Dragonborn get a breath weapon power to begin with. I know that the R&C preview book mentions Dragonborn with strong ties to their Draconic ancestry can develop wings, which is what I see as being a racial feat for later on.
Found this on EN World
During some of the cross-talk between Sara, Andy, and The Rouse, we learned that the Dragonborn (no sample characters available here) will have a breath weapon, but it won't recharge in the same way as the black dragon's. Sara also inquired whether her PC should get an "interrupt power," prompting Andy to note that the characters were too low level to access them. Apparently, "interrupt powers" will be available to higher level PCs (though we don't know what they'll actually do. I'm guessing they'll, you know, interrupt something).
The fact that it doesn't recharge like the black dragon's makes me think that it is a per encounter ability, so it doesn't have a recharge like a monster would.
Quote: Originally Posted by swgeek77 View Post I don't think that the Half-elf gains a bonus @will power as much as they get to choose a power from another class in lieu of a power from their own class. I know a lot of people are saying that the Half-elf warlock has 3 @will powers compared to the 2 that the other characters get, but the first at will power is Eldritch blast, which all warlocks have access to despite which pact they choose. I am tending to think that Eldritch blast is an @will power that all warlocks get as a feature, but it isn't called out as a feature on the sheet for some reason, and is listed as an @will power instead. The would be a huge mistake by whoever put together the characters sheets. All of the paladin and clerics class abilities are marked as such, 'paladin feature' vs 'paladin attack 1'. Eldritch Blast is marked 'warlock (all) 1', If it was something that every warlock got it would be 'warlock feature' instead. I find it very hard to believe they got something that basic wrong.
I agree that Eldritch Blast is a power. I just think that since it was THE key class ability of the 3.5 Warlock, and seems to be quite relevant to the Warlock filling its role of Striker in 4E, that it is something that ALL Warlock's should be able to do. I was thinking that Eldritch blast may actually be a power that all warlocks get for free instead of something that the Half-Elf gets for free. I would love to be wrong and that the Half-Elf gets a free @will power from a class of their choosing above and beyond the 2 @will powers they get at 1st level, but I'm just skeptical.
Having read quite a lot of material from WotC, both novel and game product, I find that I have a lack of faith in their proofreading department. They are human after all, and prone to mistakes just like the rest of us. So I do feel that there is a chance of a typo slipping through from time to time, even on something as important as the first preview characters for the new edition.
Your numbers are spot on with the exception of the cost of an 18. An 18 using your formula would actually cost 16. I plugged your numbers into a point buy for every character and they worked out, but the Tiefling would cost 34 points if an 18 cost 18 points, but 16 points seems like a reasonable jump in cost from 13 points for a 17.
I just checked again, and it seems that 18 cost for an 18 is right. Did you remember the +2 CHA Tieflings get? Check again and let me know what you think.
Honestly, with the amount of effort I put into that proof, I would have been mortified if the numbers didn't line up right!
Wow, I know doing some math could probably figure it out, but I was just too lazy to actually give it a try. Nice work. The only complaint I have is:
Dragonborn +2 STR, +2 WIS [speculation]
Really? I can't help by really want them to have +2 CHA instead of WIS. Are you sure that doesn't work?
Oh, and while I do commend your efforts, I've got to say I think I've heard rumor that the point buy is actually 28, valued as in 3.5, and that there was simply human error that ended up giving a lot of the sample characters 29 points instead... This would of course mean all of your effort was for naught, but in either case, well done sir.
Wow, I know doing some math could probably figure it out, but I was just too lazy to actually give it a try. Nice work. The only complaint I have is:Really? I can't help by really want them to have +2 CHA instead of WIS. Are you sure that doesn't work?
Oh, and while I do commend your efforts, I've got to say I think I've heard rumor that the point buy is actually 28, valued as in 3.5, and that there was simply human error that ended up giving a lot of the sample characters 29 points instead... This would of course mean all of your effort was for naught, but in either case, well done sir.
Dragonborn very well could be +2 STR, +2 CHA. I chose WIS because there are 3 races that get +2 CHA, and only two that get +2 WIS. However, I initially assumed +2 STR, +2 CHA because, as it does with you, it feels right to me. It's just speculation. No facts to back it up.
I've heard the rumor that there were typos, but AFAIK the rumor was started by someone who doesn't know anything. Half the characters have typos, though? That just strains credibility. I imagine these characters were created on spreadsheets that automatically calculate the point costs.
Plus, now that I have had time to play around with the numbers a bit, my point buy (I'm calling it "my" because it hasn't been confirmed WotC), it really gives you more good options than the 3.5e point buy. You might start with a 13 because it costs 2 to get to 14. You might start with a 17 because it costs 5 to get to 18. It is also easier to calculate quickly in your head than 3.5e was (here's the 3 steps):
1) If it is 18, it costs 18 (stop here). 2) If the ability score is 14-17, subtract 13. 3) Then, subtract 8 and add to the value from step 2.
These things make me think that I didn't just stumble onto something random. This point buy seems to have been carefully crafted.
I just checked again, and it seems that 18 cost for an 18 is right. Did you remember the +2 CHA Tieflings get? Check again and let me know what you think.
You are right, I did forget to take the +2 Cha bonus of the Tiefling into account. so an 18 for 18 points does work out. I think a jump from costing a 2 point cost per point to a 5 point cost per point is pretty hefty, but I suppose it helps cut down on the possibility of people grabbing 2 18's and leaving everything else at 8.
