PH3 Playtest Race: Wilden

[James McMurray]

I like it, but would have hoped for some racial feats (and maybe a paragon class or two) like they did with warforged. Without those it's not that much of a playtest.

My thoughts exactly. Currently players who are looking to play one of these are likely to swap from Dwarf to Wilden. Having 0 racial feats makes it a really bad idea for any character who has dwarven feats.

 

[TerraDave]

creative or just diminishing returns?



hmm.

 

[Aristotle]

As a monster manual race... I love them. As a core race in the PHB? No... Just no.

It seems like there are still many better choices in the games' past. Oddities like this in the core make the sequalizing of the core appear unsustainable.

 

[Klaus]

A quick review of the 3e splatbooks gives us:

- Goliaths <---- covered in PH2
- Stonechildren <---- covered by earth genasi
- Whisper Gnomes <---- covered by gnomes
- Raptoran
- Killoren <---- wilden playtest for PH3
- Gnolls <---- covered in Dragon Magazine
- Centaurs
- Catfolk <---- covered by razorclaw shifters in PH2
- Illumians
- Darfellans
- Hadozee
- Neanderthal <---- covered by half-orcs in PH2
- Uldra
- Dromites
- Githyaki
- Githzerai
- Thri-Kreen
- Half-Giants <---- covered by goliaths in PH2
- Elan
- Maenads
- Xeph


Any of these seem likely?

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I'll be completely honest, I don't understand what direction WotC is taking 4E. I don't necessarily dislike it, but I don't really like it either. Every new race that is being released makes the game resemble old Talislanta.

The Wilden is yet another odd addition to the bevy of strange races.

What are the core conceits behind the design direction of 4E? Not a lot of what I am seeing falls in line with the pre-4E guides. Is it meant to be all-inclusive? I thought they wanted to narrow down the feel and hammer out some positive focus in 4E, not design the game for people that like to play Futars.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Yeah, it seems that we are leaving the land of "loads of humans who are either small, thin or wear Klingon costumes" and enter the realm of "strange, fantastic creatures as races."

Of course, we are moving slowly: currently, some elves are wearing bark & moss skirts, but it seems D&D is getting better at strange & enticing fantasy. Who knows, perhaps PHB5 will contain never-seen races you can only comprehend while wearing special goggles.

Message from me: moar! Bring it on!

 

[Jack99]

My first thought was as yours, not something I was looking for. But then it's taken me several years and an edition to like warforged as a race so it could grow on me, so who knows, I might change my mind before it hits shelves in a year.

I still consider the warforged to be the great travesty of the prior edition.

 

[77IM]

- Darfellans

Isn't Dudefella a Darfellan?


-- 77IM

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Already developed new fluff for my campaign settings:

• They are fragments of the once powerful Spirits of Nature. Broken off they took their nature and formed a moving, humanoid form that could contain the pure elements of its spirit not just destroyed or gone insane.
• They are humans and other races that have slowly become warped by nature. Slowly starting with growth, rot, etc. It rapidly evolves into its current form, the transformation also wrecks with their mind causing a new personality to form.

If they keep making unusual races that aren't traditional I will be quite, quite happy. I am still hoping for Thri-Keen, Elan and maybe, maybe if lucky a non-humanoid race.

 

[Jhaelen]

Guild Wars 2 will use "sylvari"....

Well, they were called Sylvans in Dark Age of Camelot...

Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed it wasn't a preview of a Darksun-compatible race. At least a 4E version of the Killoren is better than a 4E version of the Raptorans. Killoren were the best race introduced in Races of the Wild, imho.

I just don't think they had any traction at all, so I'm a bit surprised about seeing them return.