Thri-Kreen for 4th ed: Bring back their thorax and other things

[Silverblade The Ench]

Thri-kreen are one of my fave beasties from D&D, especially as I love Dark Sun where they are a PC race
Now, in 1st and 2nd ed, thri-kreen had a big thorax, they are insects.

it's hard getting an old pic of them, but here's best I could do (as my thri kreen minis have yet to be repainted, think they first came in the old Fiend Folio? anyone have link to their first pic?)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3407/3312222477_d8726225aa.jpg?v=0
Veyr clearly they have a thorax like most insects
thri-kreen = INSECTS!

Now, we came to third ed and...you get this

Now, I LUV the art but somehow, thri-kreen lost their thorax, why?
I liked 'em as clearly insects, who went on 4 legs, or 2 if they wanted extra damage output. Much more fun!

Lol, Nerd Rage over an insect's bum...

Also, for 4th ed, their 4 legged nature is good, I was thinking they'd have an ability like:

"Multi-legged mobility" 1/encounter immediate interrupt
"You dig all 4 legs in deep and refuse to yield, or leap and spin in unhuman ways to avoid inoming fire!"
You can EITHER
-dodge a ranged attack (not area attacks, and missile dodging is an old facet of thri-kreen stats)
or
-Negate a forced movement but not a teleport

As for mutli-limbed fighting and thier poisonous bite, that should eaisly be handled by feats or powers, shouldn't it?

Thri-Kreen Bite, Daily, Minor, basic unarmed melee attack, and Attacks Fortitude, immobilized (save ends).

How could you do the fact they can't wear amrour though?
An increasing AC bonus based off level? say +1 AC/2 levels? How ot takein class restrictions on armour etc since a thri-kreen wizard with good AC is very odd, or is that a bad thing?

The githkya and chatckha would need stats too of course.



Oh I found an amazing artist out there who does D&D and Dark Sun stuff, check his thri-kreen out, wow!!
Athasian Thri-Kreen - GFXartist.com - Served over 20,000,000 artworks


then of coruse you have Tohr-Kreen and the wonderfully weird xixchil "You wanted a third leg and four eyes?We did that! But you never specified which species they should look like, you know..."

 

[jdrakeh]

The third edition Thri-Kreen look a lot like the Phraints from Arduin (the original insectoid PC race in fantasy RPGs). Phraints, however, only had two arms by default.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

First of all you mean Abdomen

Old thrikreen had a large adbomen, I know that I was orginally mad about the change in art, but after a while I got used to it, and it made them so much easier to play that I really come to like it.

I'd prefer if they had some abdomen, at all, but not a big one anymore,

 

[RangerWickett]

... but after a while I got used to it, and it made them so much easier to play that I really come to like it.

How did an abdomen make it easier to play them? Were you concerned about how to roleplay a species with no butt?

 

[Moon_Goddess]

No no, lack of the large abdomen made them easier to play,

I didn't enjoy not being able to turn around in hallways or fit in some rooms, couldn't use chairs or a dozen other things.

Alot of the old DS art made 'kreen look like queen ants, you know with the abdomen 4 times larger than her body unable to move. I want a abdomen, but I liked the 3e art SO much better than the old art.

 

[Rechan]

Bring on the bugs! Yay insect races.

 

[kenmarable]

I prefer the larger abdomen thri-kreen as well because I like my strange races to be really strange and less humanoid.

For reference, Google images did manage to find these two - including Tony DiTerlizzi's usual awesomeness even if it isn't very Dark Sun-like.

 

[Spatula]

As for mutli-limbed fighting and thier poisonous bite, that should eaisly be handled by feats or powers, shouldn't it?

How could you do the fact they can't wear amrour though?
An increasing AC bonus based off level? say +1 AC/2 levels? How ot takein class restrictions on armour etc since a thri-kreen wizard with good AC is very odd, or is that a bad thing?

I think the poisonous bite would be the racial encounter power.

Multi-limb fighting... probably not going to happen in an official WotC product, for various reasons.* Ditto with the not wearing armor thing (look at how warforged changed in 4e). It looks like official 4e PC races have to be able to use any piece of equipment that comes along.

Unofficially, I would treat the thri-kreen carapace as leather armor and increase its AC bonus with levels so that it eventually provides a +10. And while the bug wouldn't get any extra attacks from having four arms, you can use free hands for all sorts of things (such as holding a shield or ranged weapons).

Racial feats could include jumping bonuses and thri-kreen weapon training.

* Problem #1: you need specific powers to give you multiple attacks, so there's no way to fit extra limb attacks from your race cleanly into the current framework.
Problem #2: giving extra attacks to one race could never be properly balanced anyway.

 

[chronoplasm]

I dunno... I've seen some good ideas regarding multi-limb fighting for 4E. I like this idea myself:

Multilimb Fighting
You may wield two-handed weapons as though they were one-handed weapons.

 

[Dausuul]

* Problem #1: you need specific powers to give you multiple attacks, so there's no way to fit extra limb attacks from your race cleanly into the current framework.
Problem #2: giving extra attacks to one race could never be properly balanced anyway.

Oh ye of little faith. Here's how I'd do it:

Insect Limbs (thri-kreen racial trait): You have four hands. You can only use two of them at a time; the other two can hold objects but not use them. At the start of each of your turns, choose which two hands you are currently using.

Third Hand Strike (thri-kreen racial encounter power, minor action): Make a basic attack with a weapon or implement held in the hands you are not currently using.

Then throw in some thri-kreen feats that build on the Two-Weapon Fighting feat chain, and maybe a paragon path built around attacking with all four hands at once.

You're probably not ever going to get four attacks a round, every round - though it could be balanced with appropriate to-hit penalties. But multi-limb fighting, sure.