Remarkable Races I-V
Remarkable Races is a series of 12-13 page (less front and back covers and table of contents) PDFs from Alluria Publishing. Each PDF details a single original PC race for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, although they are published under fair use, not the GSL. This review is based on the first five products in the line: Boggle, Entobian, Mogogol, Oakling and Ubitu.
Each of these races is imaginative, refreshing, and unlike any other PC races I’ve seen for any iteration of Dungeons & Dragons. These are not new types of elves, fodder for furry-lovers or monster races converted directly for PC play. Unfortunately, the mechanical design is not as consistent as the core ideas. Anyone familiar with 4th Edition can fix the small blunders, but other powers drift from the established feel of 4th Edition. While some will think of this as an asset, it can also create headaches for the unsuspecting.
All of the PDFs feature the same basic layout, which is adequate but a bit less than professional. The two columns of text on each page are set in large-ish Ariel with only basic white space. This is not a formula for easy reading on the screen or on paper. I’m not a fan of the font used for section headings, either, but I’m willing to concede that as a matter of individual taste.
Stat blocks and headings are a variant of those used by Wizards of the Coast. All blocks use shades of lavender-purple for the text background, with the category of stat block indicated by mono-color geometric icons. For instance, magic items are designated with an orange pentagon next to their name, while at-will powers feature green circles and encounter powers have red hexagons. Some of them, like the encounter hexagons, blend in with the purple background. These PDFs are not licensed under the GSL, so I understand the need to come up with new stat block layouts, but these are even less usable than Wizards of the Coast’s standard layouts (which have their strong points and weak points).
The art, on the other hand, I like. Each PDF features a full-page front cover piece, plus three or four interior pieces. All of the art is fairly straightforward inked and colored line art, but it is universally well done and exhibits more character and style than most modern RPG art does. It has more soul than “fantasy realist” illustrations do, and does not resort to anime pastiche either.
Oh, but, do PDFs really need covers? Back covers?
The five races I reviewed are:
I. Oaklings – Man-sized woody plants that are sentient and mobile but have a skewed, individualistic moral philosophy.
II. Ubitu – undead that have been stripped of all flesh and restored to true life by a mysterious pathogen.
III. Mogogol – a race of “bog bullies” (GSL-free bullywugs) cursed to do only good and with a tendency toward obsession.
IV. Boggle – tinker goblins forcibly evolved to suit the needs of a master they have managed to escape, with a lingering legacy of drug-controlled rages.
V. Entobians – nearly asexual, charismatic, metamorphosing larvae with sword-like fifth and sixth limbs.
The most conventional of these are the Boggle, which combine a couple of well-established elements, but the others offer genuinely new concepts for PC play and strong personality hooks. I was even caught off guard by the innovation of the Ubitu, who are not run-of-the-mill skeletons; they aren’t even undead.
Such strong hooks are bound to alienate some. They certainly aren’t old school or Tolkein-esque. More substantively, I find the idea of the Mogogol’s rule-enforced goodness troubling. There is potential for player-GM conflict over whether a Mogogol can perform certain morally grey actions, and it diverges from the way 4th Edition downplays the metaphysical power of alignment. Oaklings, in the hands of the wrong player, are ripe for inter-player conflict, as well. Each PDF features a full write-up in the style of chapter 3 of the Player’s Handbook, a range of racial feats for all three tiers of play, some descriptive fluff, monster/NPC stat blocks and notes on how DMs can integrate the race into their campaigns.
Each PDF also has a short section unique to that race. Mogogol offers a collection of stat blocks for frog mounts; Entobians have an extensive selection of paragon metamorphosis feats that change the character’s racial ability bonuses; Oakling contains write-ups for magical mistletoe that can boost the power of sentient plants; Ubitu has a set of “heart slot” magic items, loosely modeled after the attached components system found in the 4th Edition warforged playtest from Dragon Magazine; and Boggle has a handful of tinker items that the goblinoids like to use.
While these unique features add spice to each PDF, they aren’t all balanced well. The magic mistletoe and heart-slot items grant these characters an additional item slot that other races lack, and some of the available items are as strong as any normal magic item. On the other hand, the idea of changing a character’s characteristic bonuses in mid-stream seems unlikely to attract players with any concern for balanced optimization.
Lack of balance is not only a problem in the unique sections, either. Ubitu have a single ability score bonus, +4 to Dexterity, instead of the normal +2 to two abilities. While the writer acknowledges that this will worry some – he even offers an alternative – his assertion that it did not cause problems in playtesting does not reassure me. Min-maxers should have little trouble exploiting its effects within the standard point-buy system for ability score generation. Their resistance to necrotic damage and Alacrity of the Dead (+2 to hit and +1d6 damage/tier on opportunity attacks as an encounter power) racial features add up to a very strong racial package, even without heart-slot items.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Entobians feature an at-will ability that is virtually useless. It deals a flat amount of damage (1d4) as a standard action, which is easily dominated by all class at-wills. As a starting point, I would try switching it to a minor action encounter attack, but even that seems weak. Their ability to spin a certain amount of silk rope each day does little to offset this, and is rather out of character for 4th Edition character powers as well. On a strict rules basis, Entobians seem to be completely inferior to Obitu, and on the weak end of the race spectrum.
Some of the Remarkable Races feature racial penalties, where the core races do not. Oaklings have an understandable vulnerability to fire attacks, Boggles suffer their madness and Mogogol must always be good. No matter how appropriate they are, this change from the normal direction of 4th Edition races bugs me a little. The 4th Edition designers avoided built-in racial disadvantages, and permanent debuffs in general, intentionally and with some justification.
Many of the racial feats are so underpowered that it is funny. Mogogol’s Stinging Tongue, which gives a character an at-will standard action attack with a range of 5 that deal 1d4+stat modifier damage and has another racial feat as a prerequisite. This would be terribly underpowered as a basic racial power, let alone as something you pay two feats to get.
Almost as egregious, Boggle has a heroic tier feat called Monkey Wrench that provides a +2 feat bonus to a subset of thievery actions. This is the same type of bonus provided by the Skill Focus feat from the Player’s Handbook, so it does not stack, yet Skill Focus provides a larger bonus that applies to all applications of the selected skill.
The monsters all seem to be properly balanced, falling within the design guidelines in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, but they do run to the pedestrian. I prefer monsters that have a few extra options so they remain fresh throughout a long fight, and the Remarkable Races creatures all suffer from a limited range of options. Healing powers are also rather common, which could also lead to these creatures overstaying their welcome in combat.
Two of the races, Oaklings and Ubitu, go much further into the details of those races’ alien biology than is necessary to play them. Anatomical details of the changes wrought by the Ubitu pathogen aren’t really necessary (although knowing that they bleed is good color), and the development of Oaklings is unlikely to come up in play.
The descriptions of the new races’ psychology and society are much better, and more practical. While Oaklings and Mogogol have some annoying personality traits, these sections do a lot to help a player get a hook on these unfamiliar, and unusual, races.
Though they all suffer from mechanical problems, any Remarkable Races product that strikes the fancy of a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition fan is probably worth the modest $2.25 price tag. The products need some rules hacking to balance, but their fresh ideas alone warrant the price tag.
February 3rd, 2009 at 20:10
This review is based on the UNREVISED versions of these products. The obitu, the oakling, and the entobian have been revised. The boggle and mogogol revisions will be released very soon. The revisions fix the color issues, and the +4 dexterity issue, among other things. The revisions are available for free to all who downloaded the product. Thanks.
March 22nd, 2009 at 00:20
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