Post
by strong yeet » Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:00 am
I think it's very obvious that drow are now the kings of Arelith, doing basically everything better than every other race owing to the copious amounts of free stats they get. The other UD races are still super good.
Let's take duergar, for instance, and ignore the drow-shaped elephant in the room for a second -- they get +2 STR, poison/paralysis immunity, and an invis 1/day little widget, on top of the default dwarf stats. In exchange they take another penalty to a dump stat that was never going to see any use anyway, so they were a pretty strong pick. Previously, they also paid some price in flexibility, where they compared to dwarves also "had to take a STR gift," more or less.
Well, now, that disadvantage is gone. Duergar are just better in every conceivable way than shield dwarves. I don't think this is a healthy model -- and I don't think the answer is "nerf all the other races 2 months from now" as I'm... really hoping it won't be.
Orogs were quite a good race previously for STR based div builds like blackguard, with great racials, and a selection of useful craftables. Now they are THE str-based div build race, far and away outstripping anything else, with a ludicrous stat bonus array of +4 strength and +2 charisma. And a bonus pre-req feat for div might/shield. Compare that to a human, who is feat equivalent, and gets one +2 gift. One skill is not worth that trade-off at all.
Drow are insane now, and need to see some scaling back; the melee-magthere/gift of clergy gifts have got to go, then I think they'll be quite a strong, viable race pick, with the caveat of "as long as the rest of the 0 ECL races keep their 2 gifts." Which, currently, they do not.
I don't know if this was a good move at all. Even non-MAD builds have eaten a really raw deal with this; mages no longer get their CON gift and go from "low-mid 400s" to "high 300s-low 400s" as a HP range, and God knows mages did not need another nerf. Battleclerics lost an AB. Monks have ceased to function, basically, now being forced to choose between whether they want epic dodge or qualifying for their improved ki-strike feats; considering that these are both only recently options for a deep-level monk without lots of multiclassing (or in ki-strike case, it just was never useful prior) this more or less invalidates the most recent monk rework, which I thought actually put them in a fairly satisfying place mechanically for the first time on Arelith, ever.
Also, half-orcs are back in their old spot in the "worst race in the game" gulag. Even half-elves are better. Which makes me very sad, since anyone who knows me knows that I love them.
Ironically, a race which could not really do monk very effectively prior to this update, drow, is now the best choice for a monk.
Now, I by no means think this update is entirely flawed: there is a lot of good in here, but the stuff I disagree with is just so prominent I felt it necessary to address that first.
-I love the blinding speed change.
-The KD buff was great.
-Thank God for the wild elf nerf, I think I would go ballistic if I saw another pale-skinned fair-haired wild elf who was raised by humans.
-Ranger/monk quarterstaff builds needed to feel a bit of pain, so I think scaling that down was a good idea.
-Gift of Humility encourages "rollbait" which is objectively stupid and unhealthy. I am not going to miss it.
-Outcasts & slaves did not need to be gated by award, so I'm glad that they're back.
-In some cases I like that 2 ECL races can now choose a gift, like gnolls and to a lesser extent troglodytes were always to my mind suboptimal race picks; now they are actually pretty competitive, the fact that everyone else has eaten a huge nerf notwithstanding.
EDIT: In a perfect world, this would be my [more succinctly written] preference for "fixed things":
drow lose the melee magthere/gift of clergy gift
0 ecl races can take 2 gifts again
...that's all.
Last edited by
strong yeet on Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
