D&D 4th Ed, part 2

I'd like to go back to Character role from chapter 2 before dealing with races. My previous post was pretty much just a howl of outrage without really dealing with why. I'll give a pass on defender, I don't really think of that role in that way, and they ignore the cross role ability of the ranger, warlord and even cleric, but close enough. Controller also seems misnamed to me, but I can't think of a better name. Presumably "nuke it from orbit" was deemed insufficiently fantasy. The real problems with how role are presented starts with striker completely ignoring the non-combat importance of stealth. We are role playing after all, not roll playing. Calling the healer/support group the Leader really seems like they were trying to justify the Warlord's existence and thinking no one will want to play a character who's role is called support. They even acknowledge the potential confusion with the spokesperson non-combat role, but use the term anyway. Like I said, it just seems like much of this was taken way to seriously.

Enough on that, on to Chapter 3. I'll try to keep it shorter with less poo flinging, but no promises. I can only think dragonborn made it in one of two ways. One is to totally pander to people who liked playing half dragons, the other is as a feature of yet another new campaign setting at the expense of older settings. I haven't seen anything about Grayhawk or DragonLance for 4th ed, so presumably they are out of favor again. There's bunches of Forgotten Realms stuff in the pipeline already. Maybe they are yet another super powerful race in the Realms banished in ancient times and now coming back to restore their empire no matter what the current occupants of that land think. Str +2, Cha +2, so that means balance is out the window. That will make humans interesting. Dwarves are still dwarves. Another new race, Eladrin. They're mostly elves with a shiny new back story. I thought 3rd ed's handling of sub races in the Monster Manual was good enough, but whatever. Elves are elves, although they are fey now instead of humanoid. Half-elves are half-elves. Halflings are halflings, although not having a homeland of their own is a bit of a demotion. Humans are pretty much the same as 3rd ed. Only +2 in a single skill, but it's the character's choice. Bonus power, bonus skill, bonus feat, +1 to Fort, Reflex, and Will. Tiefling is an odd choice of new race since they go to so much trouble to stress that characters should be good. Aasimar didn't make the cut, and would make more sense. Both Dragonborn and Tiefling seem odd as new core races since both are supposed to be rare. Oh well, if it made sense it wouldn't be D&D.

oops, time for Simpsons. More ranting later.