Simian Race for 4e
From the pages of Atland, the Simians are a race of Gorilla Men trained in the art of warfare from infancy. They can be found far from their homeland as mercenaries, or wandering adventurers. Their savage appearance is contrasted with their keen sense of tactics, and code of honor.
Nate Piekos’ Atland is my favourite fantasy themed comic – both in print and on the web! With more than 230 pages of RPG type adventure, it’s a great story with outstanding artwork. Atland’s mix of humor, action and original take on some classic fantasy archetypes make it a great source of inspiration for a tabletop game.
Nate and I have been collaborating on projects for a few years, and I’m excited to be publishing this new playable race based on his work.
Download the Simian Race for 4e from Lulu.com
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Being able to insta-crit on a daily power seems a bit too powerful. I realize that you have to actually hit to use this power, but there are plenty of reliable powers out there.
Maybe change the trigger to: Hit with an at-will or encounter melee power.
Most of the time a critical hit is weaker than being able to deal extra damage. It’s only when used in combination with other powers that it’s a benefit. The other racial abilities are tuned down compared to other warrior races (eg. Dragonborn get racial power AND improved healing surges) to balance out the the potential benefit of the Savage Pounding.
Great art and concept for a new PC race! I hanker to run jungle-based adventures with yuan-ti baddies and this guy fits nicely.
(I also note that Bruce the Minotaur will be playable in PH3. I personally take delight in Bruce’s resemblance to ALF. At least, his head.)
You may need to nerf the racial ability slightly* since magic weapons do extra dice of damage per +, so at higher levels this might be overpowered as DeadGod observes (automatic extra 6d10 damage with a Berserker Weapon +6). However, I can’t imagine Simians will be upsetting the worldwide balance of power, so it may as well stay as printed until proven ridiculous over a campaign.
* deals maximum weapon damage, for example, or triggers on a basic melee attack (that would be a sweet attack of opportunity)
The extra dice from magic weapons aren’t automatically maximum on a critical hit – so while “good” (along the lines of PHB2) I don’t think the Simian’s racial power is “ridiculous good”.
I tried to keep the Half-Orc’s racial power to add an extra dice of damage in mind as a benchmark. Most of the time I’d pick 2d10 over a straight 10 points of damage, which makes the Half-Orc’s racial power better most of the time. It’s only in combination with using up one of a character’s other powers at the same time that makes the Simian’s racial power preferable to the Half-Orc’s. Although depending on the combat using up 2 powers at once also has it’s drawbacks.
I think it’s quite comparable to the Half-Orc, but distinctive enough that it gives the Simians a different feel.
Edit: My preference is certainly for lower-level and lower-magic campaigns. If the extra damage from magic weapons was too unwieldy then I’d think about making that a limitation of the racial power: it doesn’t trigger the critical hit benefits from magic weapons.
Gee..that’s a nice mod…now someone just needs to come up with a D&D 3.5/pathfinder Version so I could actually USE it.
I want to remember to go back and ’stat up’ a potato man.
Expect more Atland content here in the near future…
Sorry man, but auto Crit is totally Over Powered as a racial ability.
Since the stat bonuses of the Simian lend themselves very nicely to being a Rogue (Brutal Scoundrel) you can kind of abuse them a little bit.
Here’s an example of a basic Level 1 Simian:
Str: 16 Feats: – Rapier Proficiency
Con: 13
Dex: 18
Int: 10
Wis:11
Cha: 12
Start each encounter with the following Set of Maneuvers:
-Roll Initiative (you’re good at this with your Dex bonus/Allies Bonus)
-Move up to a target that hasn’t acted yet
-You get free combat advantage against them (Class Feature)
-Attack using Level 1 Encounter Power ‘Torturous Strike’
Attack Bonus = +9 (4 Ability, 3 Rapier, 2 Combat Advantage)
Damage (auto-crit racial power) = 38 Automatic Damage
2[W](Rapier d8), +4 Dex, + 3 Str, +3 Str (again due to Torturous Strike), + 2d6 Sneak attack Damage.
Just think about every fight starting with one of the equivalent level mobs dying first turn. Not to mention the fact that Crits scale almost unfairly with magical equipment and other bonuses as you level. Half-Orcs aren’t even close to this. It’s defintely not the most balanced race in the game.
Hmm. Good point. I hadn’t found it clear that the Rogue would get their sneak attack bonus maximized on a critical. Looking around on ENWorld, I wasn’t the only one.
I also find having all classes available to all races (eg. I’m a Gnome Barbarian RAWR!) is of questionable merit…
Yeah if you limited the simians ability with stealth based classes, because they have a strong sense of honor. or just put in a “excluding damage from sneak attack or Magic” clause .and, i though sneak attack counted as a critical and you could not crit on a sneak attack anyway. though i don’t like rouges so i may be wrong.
I like it- the sneak attack dice, like the magical item crit bonus, aren’t immediately maxed out.
One suggestion I would make- rather than scaling it down- is to make it a pre-hit power. So the next attack, if it hits, is a critical hit. It would make it more useful, and lessen the chances of it being abused.
Does that make sense?
-Matt
Righteous Rage of Tempus (FRPG pg. 136)
That’s more or less the same as what I wrote for the Simian’s racial power. I’d suggest that if you have concerns with the wording I gave that you should use the (official/core) wording for Righteous Rage of Tempus in it’s place.
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