A step in the right direction, now lets finish it.

[Thriand]

Giving drow their (almost) natural spell resistance was a big step into fixing one of the worst races in DDO, however it still leaves them far far short of par compared to the other races, but at least they have something else to put on their splash screen besides "They're just that cool."

The biggest problem I've always had with drow is their complete lack of good enhancements, removing the drow SR enhancements (even though they were horrible) did nothing to help this issue. Its not rare for drow builds to have absolutely no racial enhancements short of the toughness line available to everyone, or the rapier line if they are melee rapier users.

My suggestion would be to at bare minimum add the ability for drow to choose whether their racial enhancements go into dex, cha, or int, but I would also like to see an enhancement line that improves spell penetration (giving them a nice niche in spellcasting to compete with WF and humans), and another melee centric line since the drows of eberron tend to be barbaric.

[k1ngp1n]

the drows of eberron tend to be barbaric.

I always wondered why Drow didn't receive barbarian/shamanesque enhancements.

[Maegin]

Giving drow their (almost) natural spell resistance was a big step into fixing one of the worst races in DDO, however it still leaves them far far short of par compared to the other races, but at least they have something else to put on their splash screen besides "They're just that cool."

The biggest problem I've always had with drow is their complete lack of good enhancements, removing the drow SR enhancements (even though they were horrible) did nothing to help this issue. Its not rare for drow builds to have absolutely no racial enhancements short of the toughness line available to everyone, or the rapier line if they are melee rapier users.

My suggestion would be to at bare minimum add the ability for drow to choose whether their racial enhancements go into dex, cha, or int, but I would also like to see an enhancement line that improves spell penetration (giving them a nice niche in spellcasting to compete with WF and humans), and another melee centric line since the drows of eberron tend to be barbaric.

Are highest DC's in the game not good enough for you? And now with free SR?

[Thriand]

Are highest DC's in the game not good enough for you? And now with free SR?

They don't have the highest DCs, human can get the exact same casting DCs, with higher con, a free feat, the ability to allocate their extra stat point wherever they please, and better enhancements.

Little known fact, there is no difference between a 46 and 47 charisma.

[samthedagger]

What the drow could really use is enhancements to give them minor casting abilities. In D&D they receive dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities. None of these spells exist in DDO, but they could easily be translated into similar spells. Of course these need to be useful spells.

Purchasing each spell 1/rest would cost 1 AP and would have three tiers costing 2 AP at tier 2 and 3 AP at tier 3 to get an additional use of each ability. You could also upgrade these spells for a cost of 2 APs earning a new spell and an extra use/rest of each lower ability. A second upgrade tier would be available at a cost of 4 APs. Fully upgraded you could have T1 5/rest, T2 4/rest, and T3 3/rest for a cost of 10 APs.

Dancing lights -> nimbus of light (T1) -> searing light (T2) -> sunburst (T3)
Darkness -> blur (T1) -> displacement (T2) -> shadow walk (T3)
Faerie fire -> glitterdust (T1) -> wall of fire (T2) -> incendiary cloud (T3)

I think this would go a long way towards improving drow. Imagine a drow ranger with the ability to cast wall of fire or a drow barbarian who could displace himself. Very intriguing prospects.

[rimble]

I don't think they should get full Dex/Int/Cha lines, but maybe they could make it like Half-Elf/Human. So, let's say you can choose two stat Enhancements, like most races, but you can't double up on Int or Cha. So you could take:

+2 Dex
or
+1 Dex, +1 Int
or
+1 Dex, +1 Cha
or
+1 Int, +1 Cha

Where would that leave us?

Human Int/Cha: 18 + 1 Enh = 19
Drow Int/Cha: 20 + 1 Enh = 21
Half-Elf Cha: 18 + 1 Human Enh + 1 Wizard/Paladin Dil = 20**

Human: 19
Half-Elf: 20
Drow: 21

Dunno, seems kinda nice and symmetrical to me.

**Half-Elf is a little weird, you can't double-dip Int as a Wizard since no other Dilettante offers it, so Half-Elf Wizard would just be 18 + 1 Human Enh. As a Sorc/Bard, though, you could double-dip Cha from Paladin Dilettante (I think?!) for the full 18 + 1 Human + 1 Dill.

Actually, can you even double-dip Dilettantes like that? Does, say, Sorc Cha III stack with Paladin Dilettante +1 Cha? Class ability Enhancements don't usually stack...

[Mithran]

I'm still not sure why you regard Drow as substandard, Thriand. I'm all for giving them another buff, but have thought they're better than elves since they were released. To be sure, I was disappointed in their Weapon Enhancement choices (elves being better, there), but in terms of stat points, it's hard to beat a Drow for Paladin or Rogue.

[dunklezhan]

What the drow could really use is enhancements to give them minor casting abilities. In D&D they receive dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities.

My experience of drow in PnP is forgotten realms. If they also get these in Eberron in PnP then I agree with you.

Dancing lights -> nimbus of light (T1) -> searing light (T2) -> sunburst (T3)
Darkness -> blur (T1) -> displacement (T2) -> shadow walk (T3)
Faerie fire -> glitterdust (T1) -> wall of fire (T2) -> incendiary cloud (T3)

Hmm. See where you're going, but I'm not sure I agree with your suggestions here though.

Dancing Lights is just used to make, well, lights. With permanancy they use them to light up their underdark cities. Totally non damaging. Suggest if it was to be included at all it functioned more like a blindness ward of some kind, with a correponding reduction in hide ability of anyone sneaking in the area of effect. Glitterdust is a reasonable comparison, but WoF or Incendiary Cloud? No, sorry.

Darkness is just that - its darkness, and again is a debuff, not concealment. Suggest this would essentially be a cast of the Deception weapon debuff - making targets vulnerable to sneak attacks for a while. Its not a beneficial buff to the caster as such, Darkness was cast on enemies in PnP, not the caster. EDIT - it could of course be cast on the caster to conceal them but that was counter productive as I recall because the magical darkness couldn't be seen through by drow either, so it would effectively blind the caster. It was used in conjunction with faerie fire because that could be seen from outside the sphere of darkness - so you blinded your foe, then highlighted their sillhouette with Faerie Fire and shot them with your sleep-poisoned hand crossbow. Then you took the opponent back to the city and fed them to your drider.

Fairie Fire is intended to make targets stand out in the darkness. Its otherwise totally nondamaging as with dancing lights. Its supposed to be a debuff. I'd suggest making it an extendable AOE that any sneaking or invisible creature passing through immediately becomes forcibly visible.


They also don't need Tiers. Just make them enhancements that drow can purchase if they choose - though by all means require minimum levels or AP spends first, and have them work from Action Boosts rather than SPs - they're supposed to be 'x per rest' anyway so that fits better than any kind of SL-A type comparison.

[Thriand]

I don't think they should get full Dex/Int/Cha lines, but maybe they could make it like Half-Elf/Human. So, let's say you can choose two stat Enhancements, like most races, but you can't double up on Int or Cha. So you could take:

+2 Dex
or
+1 Dex, +1 Int
or
+1 Dex, +1 Cha
or
+1 Int, +1 Cha

Where would that leave us?

Human Int/Cha: 18 + 1 Enh = 19
Drow Int/Cha: 20 + 1 Enh = 21
Half-Elf Cha: 18 + 1 Human Enh + 1 Wizard/Paladin Dil = 20**

Human: 19
Half-Elf: 20
Drow: 21

Dunno, seems kinda nice and symmetrical to me.

**Half-Elf is a little weird, you can't double-dip Int as a Wizard since no other Dilettante offers it, so Half-Elf Wizard would just be 18 + 1 Human Enh. As a Sorc/Bard, though, you could double-dip Cha from Paladin Dilettante (I think?!) for the full 18 + 1 Human + 1 Dill.

Actually, can you even double-dip Dilettantes like that? Does, say, Sorc Cha III stack with Paladin Dilettante +1 Cha? Class ability Enhancements don't usually stack...

Why would it be so bad to give them a +2? Every other race gets them for their attributes with +2 racial modifiers. Even half-orcs get it for STR which is by far the most important end game stat for all DPS builds.

And no you can't double-dip with class stat enhancements.

Right now humans and half-elves are only 1 int/cha behind drow for casting stats, and since odd stats don't mean anything in this game thats a big problem for the race thats supposed to be the most intelligent/charismatic.

[Thriand]

I'm still not sure why you regard Drow as substandard, Thriand. I'm all for giving them another buff, but have thought they're better than elves since they were released. To be sure, I was disappointed in their Weapon Enhancement choices (elves being better, there), but in terms of stat points, it's hard to beat a Drow for Paladin or Rogue.

Don't get me wrong elves are very very substandard, but still far better than drow. I can't think of a single build that wouldn't be better off going a different race than drow, at least elves have their arcane archer to cling to, and their scimitar wielding favored souls (although since they mistakingly allowed Helves to take the elven FvS path, I'd prefer a Helf FvS with the rogue dilletante).

And personally I don't think that drow make the best rogues or paladins. Sure drow make it easy for a person to make a divine might IV TWF rapier build, but ultimately a human/half-elf with khopeshes and better tomes available would be far better.

[rimble]

Why would it be so bad to give them a +2? Every other race gets them for their attributes with +2 racial modifiers. Even half-orcs get it for STR which is by far the most important end game stat for all DPS builds.

Yeah, you may be right. I'd have to think about it some more for various builds...but you just may be right...part of my concern is the Arcane casters being distilled down to Warforged Elemental Savant Sorcerers and Drow Pale Master Wizards...

I'd have to put alot more thought into various builds, and I'll be honest, I'm not up to that exercise right now.

I will say, however, that I agree Drow need a little more love...keep on goin' Turbine. Nothin' crazy, just keep dialing it up slowly.

[Doganpc]

I'd like to see a melee combat enhancement, possibly one that cranks up double strike in 2, 4, 6, 8% chance increments but only available to drow with melee (Fighter,Paladin,Barbarian,Monk) classes. The other I would like to see is basically Elven already, Elven Arcanum (possibly for sorceror/bard instead of wizard to separate them from Elves). With these two I think Drow could be considered done for a while and since its essentially a free class on each server through favor anyway, they shouldn't be as good as pay to play or 32pt builds of the other races.

Dogan
I kind of see it as natural transition of a player... 1st toon > Drow toon > 32pt toon

[Albrecht555]

I must agree here. Only time I played a drow was when I was a new player and unlocked them without having 32pts. This being said I cant understand why a race that can be bought with Tps is so weak. SR 30 is far from being a good buff, they lack decent enhancements. Atm, IMHO, drow and elves are the worst race.


Just my 2 cents.

[Yaga_Nub]

Faerie fire is a DnD classic spell and it seems like it would be one of the easier ones to code in DDO. I would love for them to implement this spell and have it give everyone a + to hit or implement it as it reads have have it negate blur, displacement and invisibility.

That would save Drow the need for a true seeing item.

[SaisMatters]

Give drow the twf feat for free. Just the first feat in the line. That would go along way.

[hityawithastick]

Yeah, you may be right. I'd have to think about it some more for various builds...but you just may be right...part of my concern is the Arcane casters being distilled down to Warforged Elemental Savant Sorcerers and Drow Pale Master Wizards...

Just pointing out, drow are, as a group, some of the most feared arcane spellcasters in existence.

I'll toss out the Forgotten Realms reference: Gromph.
Going with this, maybe give drow a +1 to spell DC's and/or a racial spell point enhancement? Something like "Drow Arcane Talent I/II/III at levels 4/7/14." Tier 1: +10 spell points. Tier 2: +10 more spell points and +1 spell penetration. Tier 3: +10 more spell points, another +1 spell penetration, and +1 to spell DCs.

OR

Because drow in Eberron consider themselves the 'defenders' of elven grace, maybe paladin is the way to go?
They could get something like "Drow Conviction I/II" which would give a bonus to the character's Will saves.

OR

Just leave them as is.

IN my humble opinion, drow are not bad at the moment. My drow PM is enjoying his SR 25 very much, thank you.

[Robi3.0]

What the drow could really use is enhancements to give them minor casting abilities. In D&D they receive dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire as spell-like abilities. None of these spells exist in DDO, but they could easily be translated into similar spells. Of course these need to be useful spells.

Purchasing each spell 1/rest would cost 1 AP and would have three tiers costing 2 AP at tier 2 and 3 AP at tier 3 to get an additional use of each ability. You could also upgrade these spells for a cost of 2 APs earning a new spell and an extra use/rest of each lower ability. A second upgrade tier would be available at a cost of 4 APs. Fully upgraded you could have T1 5/rest, T2 4/rest, and T3 3/rest for a cost of 10 APs.

Dancing lights -> nimbus of light (T1) -> searing light (T2) -> sunburst (T3)
Darkness -> blur (T1) -> displacement (T2) -> shadow walk (T3)
Faerie fire -> glitterdust (T1) -> wall of fire (T2) -> incendiary cloud (T3)

I think this would go a long way towards improving drow. Imagine a drow ranger with the ability to cast wall of fire or a drow barbarian who could displace himself. Very intriguing prospects.

Darkness does not equate to blur displacement and shadow walk, beside you would be giving drow for a few ap what elves have to take 3 feats to get. Drow suck, but I would have suggest that elves are not that much better if not worst, and you want to give drow elven abilities for Ap instead of feats.

In fact everything you have suggested is overpowered. being able to cast firewall for AP because Drow in PnP cast a spell that prevents target from hiding and reduces ac.

Globe of darkness translates fairly well to obscuring mist and in fact years ago when I was a noob running water works for the first Time I mistook obscuring mist for globe of darkness. There really isn't a need have more then one tier of that unless it only increase the casts /rest.

There really isn't a reason that Fearie Fire isn't in game. It would be useful for marking orathons in VoD. Put it in game and give it to drow for AP.

IDK about dancing lights as I always thought it was pointless in PnP as well. Give them daze for AP I guess.

[noinfo]

Giving drow their (almost) natural spell resistance was a big step into fixing one of the worst races in DDO, however it still leaves them far far short of par compared to the other races, but at least they have something else to put on their splash screen besides "They're just that cool."

The biggest problem I've always had with drow is their complete lack of good enhancements, removing the drow SR enhancements (even though they were horrible) did nothing to help this issue. Its not rare for drow builds to have absolutely no racial enhancements short of the toughness line available to everyone, or the rapier line if they are melee rapier users.

My suggestion would be to at bare minimum add the ability for drow to choose whether their racial enhancements go into dex, cha, or int, but I would also like to see an enhancement line that improves spell penetration (giving them a nice niche in spellcasting to compete with WF and humans), and another melee centric line since the drows of eberron tend to be barbaric.

Other ideas:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...55#post3319155

[Geodude07]

but why wouldnt you want to play the drow


I mean they're just THAT cool!


that is my favorite splash screen, but in all seriousness they do need a little work. You still see tons of the running around but overall I think they need a few more things. I mean I think they are one of the worst races. Want a caster? make a warforged! want a melee? make a half orc! (or dwarf) want a rogue? make a human!

alot of people use drow just because its easy to favor grind for and its a 32 point without having to have 32 point.

[Urvine]

in PnP Darkness was plenty useful when cast on one's self. in the drow of the underdark handbook there is a feat for races with dark vision that allows them to see through darkness as if it weren't there. you can actually cast darkness on an object and when stored somewhere light sealed the effect would be shielded. a drow rogue could use this on a necklace kept under their armor, and draw it out at any time giving them free sneak attacks on anyone within 20 feet of them and 50% concealment.

alot of people also don't realize that drow have a +2 level adjustment. all the other current races do not. if drow were given their full potential they would obviously be over powered as DDO doesn't have level adjustment. it just seems to me that people want to make drow into a powergamer race. and with select builds they can be currently. I however would like them more accurately portrayed to the drow of the underdark handbook.

I would add 3 racial spell like abilities.


Darkness 1/day. duration 30s+6s per character lvl. 20 ft radius. Pretty much obscuring mist with 50% concealment rather than 20%.( and yes i know darkness actually last a min per caster lvl, but it just seems too powerful without adjustment. and while i'm at it, Darkness the spell should be added to the game.)

dancing lights 1/day duration 30s+6 per character lvl. 20 ft radius. causes a -20 penalty to hide checks.


fairyfire 1/day. duration 30s+6 per character lvl. 100ft range single target. prevents the target from hiding or going invisible and -2 to ac.

and an enhancement line to grant additional casts of these ability. 1ap 2ap 3ap for each individually.


and i have to agree with a previous posts. drow should have a human versatility like enhancement line that only works with dex, int, or cha.