Drow Tempest in expansion

[Monkey-Boy]

I could see my ac halfling twf character getting trrd into a drow perhaps that character will be a 12 monk 7 paladin 1 rogue with tempest.

Short-sword or handwraps? That looks very interesting.

[maddmatt70]

Short-sword or handwraps? That looks very interesting.

Short sword so you can get more weapon properties out there. There is a possiblity other classes will get an ac bump though to (I hope they do). 18 pally 2 monk or purple dragon knight of the fighter class, etc. could be something new and exciting for ac.

[Chai]

I'd love to see Acrobat instead of Assassin for Halflings ... all the racial athletic boosts, DEX focus, etc. Yes.

And ... I'd love to see Ninja Spy instead of Tempest for drow. We're talking Eberron drow here - Scorpion Wraith - not Duhrizziette

Drow are tribal in Eberron, so a ranger PRE like tempest fits right in.

Drizzt is more akin to Eberron drow in nature than FR drow, hes just out of place in FR, which is what the entire first 2 trilogies about him are based on.

[unbongwah]

Drow are tribal in Eberron, so a ranger PRE like tempest fits right in.

Or barbs, given the whole outdoors-y savage theme. Frenzied drow pallies would make me smile.

[Battlehawke]

Drow Child of Vulkor FVS/Whirling Blade Monk with Tempest 3 maybe.... About as close as you can get to calling shortswords DPS...... ?????

[FranOhmsford]

Are people reading that as pick one of those offered to other races, or pick a total random PRE?

Should imagine the first, hope for the second. ;-)

I read it as the second option - Am really looking forward to the possibility of making a Radiant Hunter of the Dead.

Of course the chances are thinking about it that it's gonna be the second and I'm gonna be seriously disappointed.

Oh and Drow really should not get Tempest - Ninja Spy would fit far better
Warforged should get Kensai rather than stealing Dwarves Stalwart
Elves are gonna be left even further behind too unless AA gets a real boost as AA doesn't give much to non-ranger builds unless you want it for the flavour anyway.

[Chai]

I tend to agree that Tempest doesn't seem thematically coherent as a Drow PrE. If anything, Assassin seems like the most logical fit - Sneak attack, poison usage, and assassinating the unaware. That has drow written all over it!

We play eberron drow, not forgotten realms drow. Eberron drow are tribal, which suits a ranger PRE perfectly.

In my mind, Tempest is very Elf-ish. A whirl of flashing steel, scimitars dancing in a graceful yet deadly choreography... thats what elves SHOULD be :P Especially given the Elf synergy with Scimitars and Dex - Suddenly they have finessable, dual-weildable scimitars! And Elves, quiet honestly, need some good reasons to do anything other than be Archers, only archers, and nothing but Archers. And only when Helf isn't available. (Of course, making the two PrEs mutually exclusive would be reccomended).

Wizards. Elves. Yeap.

Whoever gets Tempest (Please don't be drow, please don't be drow, please don't be drow...), I think Paladins (100% double smite/Divine Sacrifice, better leverage for their static damage boost like Divine Favor and Divine Might), and Monks (Who essentially treat all +% chance for offhand as Doublestrike, since their offhands hit exactly as hard with the same weapon as their mainhand, plus they get better returns for their increased attack speed) will benefit the most.

Please mother of god be drow. Drow have needed a melee boost for far too long. Tempest fits eberron drow perfectly.

[voodoogroves]

We play eberron drow, not forgotten realms drow. Eberron drow are tribal, which suits a ranger PRE perfectly.

Love you man, you keep saying that like we don't know. Tribal to you means ranger; it does not to me. Ninja spy has more of the mystic-tribal spooky jungle feel. Ranger to me is more book lord of the ringsy. What suits one person's flavor does not another. It's not like we're in a different ballpark - we're debating over fluff.

[Cloista]

Eberron Drow are tribal, yes, good, we know. So go tribal - give them a BARBARIAN prestige as their racial. Occult Slayer would seem to fit to me.

[Battlehawke]

To me, Tribal means small backwoods community. Don't forget that DDO will not just be Eberron soon. The gate to Forgotten Realms is almost open! Some new people will really desire to be Drow as they join us. There should be a little something for them & the race should be a viable Race. I just don't see Tempest making that happen. Maybe with the new enhancement trees we'll all be pleasantly surprised....

+1 Voodoo, Cloista, MaddMatt... for being open minded....

[Chai]

Love you man, you keep saying that like we don't know. Tribal to you means ranger; it does not to me. Ninja spy has more of the mystic-tribal spooky jungle feel. Ranger to me is more book lord of the ringsy. What suits one person's flavor does not another. It's not like we're in a different ballpark - we're debating over fluff.

The ranger stereotypes cultivated over the years are hilarious, heh.

While you might say we are debating fluff, the end result wont really be fluff related. Which race gets which PRE will have alot to do with optimization of planned characters.

[Chai]

Eberron Drow are tribal, yes, good, we know. So go tribal - give them a BARBARIAN prestige as their racial. Occult Slayer would seem to fit to me.

Barbarians arent any more or less tribal than rangers. Take the gutbuster brigade for instance. Drow favor dex, int and cha racially and you want them to be barbarians?

From what we've seen in the enhancement thread on tempest, drow fits tempest pretty well.

[voodoogroves]

The ranger stereotypes cultivated over the years are hilarious, heh.

I say varied.

While you might say we are debating fluff, the end result wont really be fluff related. Which race gets which PRE will have alot to do with optimization of planned characters.

And this is the truth.

[azrael4h]

I know that on one hand the Drow Tempest is going to lead to an insane number of Drizzt rip offs,

As opposed to? I grouped with two Drow Ranger Scimmy users today in Tempest Spine. I've seen hundreds more. There are likely many many many more that I've never bothered noticed.

That said, Tempest, if the feat requirements are reduced to allow the PrE to be usable for any Drow who wishes to take it, not just Rangers and Fighters and Monks and maybe the odd Artificer build, should help push the race into viability as a two-weapon user.

[Aashrym]

As opposed to? I grouped with two Drow Ranger Scimmy users today in Tempest Spine. I've seen hundreds more. There are likely many many many more that I've never bothered noticed.

That said, Tempest, if the feat requirements are reduced to allow the PrE to be usable for any Drow who wishes to take it, not just Rangers and Fighters and Monks and maybe the odd Artificer build, should help push the race into viability as a two-weapon user.

Tempest is becoming a free PrE with points spent in the tempest enhancement tree. I don't expect any feat requirements to gain the PrE. I expect there might be some enhancements that affect feats but that is completely different.

[Jaid314]

Barbarians arent any more or less tribal than rangers. Take the gutbuster brigade for instance. Drow favor dex, int and cha racially and you want them to be barbarians?

From what we've seen in the enhancement thread on tempest, drow fits tempest pretty well.

tempest rangers are more tribal? really?

tell me, when you hear the word tribal, what exactly about that makes you envision some guy dual-wielding scimitars? because i hear the word tribal, and that's not at all what i think of. and that's just about the *only* part of the ranger class that drow will be getting, from the look of it. it won't really be nature-oriented at all. it will just be the ability to dual-wield weapons, particularly including scimitars.

frankly, if we're going to try to emphasise the tribal, i'd be much more likely to say barbarian fits. at least if they got occult slayer, i might expect it to be useful for something other than a very narrow build concept which has little to no synergy with most currently-used drow builds.

TWF favors very few of the common drow builds. scimitars favour them even less, because at least drow already get a bonus to rapiers and short swords, and that is rather factored in when considering character design.

tempest is a bad choice to give drow. it has poor synergy with drow (which are generally not competitive for melee builds). it only has abilities that are useful if you focus on TWF. melee. it isn't just "only melees" it's "only TWF melees" that care about it. for any other build, it is completely useless.

now compare that to WF stalwart defender; while i'm not a huge fan of them sharing a racial PrE with dwarves, it does at least have potential to synergize with many WF builds. it offers a con boost, HP boost, and resistance to physical damage if nothing else, and there's also a strength boost (good for carrying stuff if nothing else), and the bonus threat will be great for WF caster tanks as well as WF FvS tanks. same applies basically for dwarves. elves... well, take a look around. there's about a bajillion different arcane archer builds. some great, some (or many) not so great. but it gets used a lot. in fact, it gets used a lot more by non-rangers than it gets used by rangers, i'd bet.

and then we come to tempest. what a terrible, terrible choice. as odd as it sounds, i'd almost rather see drow deepwood sniper (provided they tweak it to not be *completely* useless. at least i can envision them fitting in some stuff that's useful to more than one concept; almost any non-caster will use a ranged weapon every now and then, threat reduction is another reasonable possibility and that's widely useful as well, and stealth abilities can potentially be used by anyone also. it would support a variety of builds *much* better than tempest would.

[daniel7]

I wonder if they are considering changing the AC shield bonus to be more beneficial. Right now it's not very useful because A: AC builds will use a wand of shield and B: AC doesn't matter to everyone else that doesn't aim for high AC.

Perhaps the AC part of Tempest should be modeled after shield mastery.

[Zyerz]

Obviously they haven't even figured out what they (turbine) are going to do yet. I think that they have barely even begun to put the treelines together yet, but correct me if I'm wrong but under the current rules handwraps neutralize the tempest bonuses don't they? Making tempest and monk pretty much useless. That would be a nice change though if they let it happen...

Yes... Tempest doesnt work on unarmed dmg.... Unfortunately. But two weapon fighting feats do as far as I can tell.

[licho]

Perhaps the AC part of Tempest should be modeled after shield mastery.

This.
With that maybe i will roll Tempest again.

[Chai]

tempest rangers are more tribal? really?

Tempest PRE is more tribal + drow. Ranger has nothing to do with it.

tell me, when you hear the word tribal, what exactly about that makes you envision some guy dual-wielding scimitars? because i hear the word tribal, and that's not at all what i think of. and that's just about the *only* part of the ranger class that drow will be getting, from the look of it. it won't really be nature-oriented at all. it will just be the ability to dual-wield weapons, particularly including scimitars.

When did scimitars come into this besides the fascination of the masses to roll up drizzt clones? Tempest is a TWF PRE - they did state it will allow finesse use of scimitars but that doesnt box anyone in. We can all still bounce a feat off khopesh and roll str versions just like good little optimizers.

frankly, if we're going to try to emphasise the tribal, i'd be much more likely to say barbarian fits. at least if they got occult slayer, i might expect it to be useful for something other than a very narrow build concept which has little to no synergy with most currently-used drow builds.

So youd take a race that favors int, cha, and dex, and make them barbarians over rangers? I disagree.

TWF favors very few of the common drow builds. scimitars favour them even less, because at least drow already get a bonus to rapiers and short swords, and that is rather factored in when considering character design.

Again with the scimitars. Whats stopping them from being str build khopesh users again?

tempest is a bad choice to give drow. it has poor synergy with drow (which are generally not competitive for melee builds). it only has abilities that are useful if you focus on TWF. melee. it isn't just "only melees" it's "only TWF melees" that care about it. for any other build, it is completely useless.

Tempest is the PERFECT choice for drow. Tempest will put them back on the map. You cant really use the current version of tempest to judge that though, because the entire PRE is changing.

now compare that to WF stalwart defender; while i'm not a huge fan of them sharing a racial PrE with dwarves, it does at least have potential to synergize with many WF builds. it offers a con boost, HP boost, and resistance to physical damage if nothing else, and there's also a strength boost (good for carrying stuff if nothing else), and the bonus threat will be great for WF caster tanks as well as WF FvS tanks. same applies basically for dwarves. elves... well, take a look around. there's about a bajillion different arcane archer builds. some great, some (or many) not so great. but it gets used a lot. in fact, it gets used a lot more by non-rangers than it gets used by rangers, i'd bet.

Its an apples to oranges comparison. Youre comparing a race that favors power attack boost and con -vs- a race that favors int, dex, and cha, then takes a con penalty.

and then we come to tempest. what a terrible, terrible choice. as odd as it sounds, i'd almost rather see drow deepwood sniper (provided they tweak it to not be *completely* useless. at least i can envision them fitting in some stuff that's useful to more than one concept; almost any non-caster will use a ranged weapon every now and then, threat reduction is another reasonable possibility and that's widely useful as well, and stealth abilities can potentially be used by anyone also. it would support a variety of builds *much* better than tempest would.

Knowing how terrible ranged is in this game, youd rather saddle them up with a ranged racial PRE? And this, right after you talked about how a TWF PRE boxes them in.

When my tempest drow kensai has an attack rate that is off the hook and full str damage to offhand is destroying things, Ill look back on this proclamation of poor choice and grin.