Dragonborn/Half-Dragons

[FranOhmsford]

Uh, actualy if you look at the enhancements, there are sub-races, elven weapon training, (Aerenal and Valenar) warforged have their healers friend/mechanic choice (whether to strive for humanity or go all out contruct) and such, so it seems to me to be a much more versatile sub-race system than PnP, in which you are bound to you're character creation choice. Still, it is a good idea...... Not going to spoil your fun.

Lol - Those aren't sub-races! They're Enhancements!

Aerenal and Valenar SHOULD have been Sub-Races but all we got was an Enhancement choice of wpn bonus!

Healer's Friend/Construct Essence again are enhancements - A Sub-Race isn't something you can TRAIN into!


Hey I'd happily drop my wish for Sylvan Elves if we got TRUE Aerenal and Valenar!

And I'll take this opportunity to yet again ask for:

Silver Flame
and
3 or 4 Different Sov Host Choices

FOR CLERICS AND SOULS!

Seperate from Prestiges - Make them Feats chosen at Lvl 1 that give bonuses as we level!

Redo Vulkoor, LoB etc. to work like this too!

[Failedlegend]

Lol - Those aren't sub-races! They're Enhancements!

Aerenal and Valenar SHOULD have been Sub-Races but all we got was an Enhancement choice of wpn bonus!

Healer's Friend/Construct Essence again are enhancements - A Sub-Race isn't something you can TRAIN into!

Hey I'd happily drop my wish for Sylvan Elves if we got TRUE Aerenal and Valenar!

What did you think of my idea for sub-races?

Silver Flame and 3 or 4 Different Sov Host Choices for Divine Classes

Actually I'd like to see them open up the Sov Host entirely (except the ones with weapons that are non-existent in DDO), than remove any racial or realm-based restrictions on gods, there's no reason a Human Cleric/Arty or FvS/Arty can't worship the LoB, especially if he's trying to achieve "Perfection" through construct essence and maybe one day the "Master Maker" prestige class (the 3rd Arty prestige on that super old, probably long forgotten list a dev posted)

[Uska]

What did you think of my idea for sub-races?



Actually I'd like to see them open up the Sov Host entirely (except the ones with weapons that are non-existent in DDO), than remove any racial or realm-based restrictions on gods, there's no reason a Human Cleric/Arty or FvS/Arty can't worship the LoB, especially if he's trying to achieve "Perfection" through construct essence and maybe one day the "Master Maker" prestige class (the 3rd Arty prestige on that super old, probably long forgotten list a dev posted)

I can hang with that, see if am not always disagreeable and yes I could see a non-forged following The Lord of Blades

[Oxarhamar]

Drow aren't really evil on Eberron and I was against their addition as well dragonborn are a silly kids munchkin race and that's enough to loathe them their the stupidest thing made for dnd since spell jammer


You reason against drow is kind of strange as it seems to be an in game reason while mine against dragonborn is based on my real feelings about them

Also you reasoning seems to based on FR and greyhawk drow while we play Eberron drow

So Faileds reasoning based on game play.

Your reasons based on racism.

Yeah we got it your Racist against Dragonborn/Halfdragons

[Drathsiddh]

I can hang with that, see if am not always disagreeable and yes I could see a non-forged following The Lord of Blades

Glad to see that we are moving on(?)!

[Oberon_Shrader]

Going out on a limb...

I'm always on the lookout for more threads supporting Draconics, so naturally this thread caught my eye. After giving it a read-through I found it to have many of the same back and forth arguments for and against Draconics (and by many of the same people, I might add).

However, some posters have been asserting that more people want Kobolds, Gnomes, Aasimar or some other exotic ahead of Draconics. The cited evidence is the number of posts.

As I have said before, this is significantly misleading evidence. Vocal people (myself included) DO NOT represent the majority of player or potential players. Therefore, we absolutely cannot use the number of posts as an accurate measure of how many players want to play what race.

We need more and better marketing info to do that. They need to survey current, past and potential players to make a good decision about this.

I am strongly in favor of a Draconic race. However, I am MOST in favor of Turbine making a good marketing choice that will bring in players and allow them to make another race!

On the other hand, I believe that Draconics are the best marketing decision. I do not have statistical info to base this on, but I do have evidence and a good argument why.

1) Not every DDO player is a D&D player, even if they are a modern RPG/MMO player. That means they may not recognize many exotic races, including Kobolds, Aasimar, Tieflings or many D&D specific races.

2) Wizards of the Coast is pushing the "Tyranny of Dragons" material which features a lot of Draconic related content.

3) Neverwinter has recently released the Dragonborn race. I don't want DDO to become like Neverwinter (God forbid!), but it does show something about marketing. A new property like that wouldn't spend a lot of money developing it and then charge players a solid chunk of change if they didn't think it was a good marketing choice and had solid data to back it.

4) We are between 2 dragon-featuring "The Hobbit" movies that have fantasy fans all hot for Dragons and Draconics.

5) They are vastly different (in appearance and powers) from other playable races and evoke an impression of power (even when properly balanced to the game).

There it is, my argument(s) for Draconics!

[Uska]

Going out on a limb...

I'm always on the lookout for more threads supporting Draconics, so naturally this thread caught my eye. After giving it a read-through I found it to have many of the same back and forth arguments for and against Draconics (and by many of the same people, I might add).

However, some posters have been asserting that more people want Kobolds, Gnomes, Aasimar or some other exotic ahead of Draconics. The cited evidence is the number of posts.

As I have said before, this is significantly misleading evidence. Vocal people (myself included) DO NOT represent the majority of player or potential players. Therefore, we absolutely cannot use the number of posts as an accurate measure of how many players want to play what race.

We need more and better marketing info to do that. They need to survey current, past and potential players to make a good decision about this.

I am strongly in favor of a Draconic race. However, I am MOST in favor of Turbine making a good marketing choice that will bring in players and allow them to make another race!

On the other hand, I believe that Draconics are the best marketing decision. I do not have statistical info to base this on, but I do have evidence and a good argument why.

1) Not every DDO player is a D&D player, even if they are a modern RPG/MMO player. That means they may not recognize many exotic races, including Kobolds, Aasimar, Tieflings or many D&D specific races.

2) Wizards of the Coast is pushing the "Tyranny of Dragons" material which features a lot of Draconic related content.

3) Neverwinter has recently released the Dragonborn race. I don't want DDO to become like Neverwinter (God forbid!), but it does show something about marketing. A new property like that wouldn't spend a lot of money developing it and then charge players a solid chunk of change if they didn't think it was a good marketing choice and had solid data to back it.

4) We are between 2 dragon-featuring "The Hobbit" movies that have fantasy fans all hot for Dragons and Draconics.

5) They are vastly different (in appearance and powers) from other playable races and evoke an impression of power (even when properly balanced to the game).

There it is, my argument(s) for Draconics!

One question in never winter are dragonborn free or do you have to buy them? If you have to purchase them you could go see how many are on at the sometime to get a rough idea if how popular an idea they were.

[Zachski]

It costs $75 to buy the package that they come in, and you can't buy them by themselves.

This skews statistics.

Because believe me, no matter how badly I want to play Dragonborn, I can't pay 75 freaking dollars for that, that's just insane.

I mean, sure, you get a ton of other goodies with it, too, but I'm not interested in that.

Though from what I've seen, people threw many at the package just BECAUSE of the other goodies - which are admittedly very good.

Oh, and one addendum:

The $75 is after it went down in price. It used to be around a HUNDRED.

[Failedlegend]

Not to mention Neverwinter is an entirely different demographic thus even if the race price/method of sale was the same, the data wouldn't be very useful.

[Zachski]

That, too.

The male Dragonborn in that game are quite sexy, though. Sad that they're stuck behind such a massive price tag, though.

Eh, maybe if I wait a year or so, they'll split the package up and I can get the race by itself.

Unless DDO gets Dragonborn first, in which case... eh I still may get it in Neverwinter, I actually really like the Cleric class in that game. And I think I'll end up liking Warlock, too.

[bennyson]

I think with the current state of the game. I believe its a bad idea to add a Half Dragon as a playable race because there are quests that evolve talking to friendly dragons...specially with the one that gives us a quest chain in 3BC. a

Since Half Dragons are hunted by "pure" dragons...yup prepare to face extreme racist hatred from those guys. O_o

Now Dragonborn, on the other hand, aren't hunted by Dragons and I think they would better fit the game, specially since these guys are meant to be the goody-do-gooders.

[lyrecono]

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonborn


http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat

4,0 is horrible, many customers (and wotc devs) ran to other companies like pathfinder for a good reason

In the Eberron campaign setting, Tiamat is imprisoned in a cavern somewhere on Argonessen. Powerful dragons guard her for terms of a few centuries, after which time they are required to suicide.

Knowledge of the existence of Tiamat is hidden from the lesser races.

Tiamat is written in Eberron at 4,0? never seen her in the Eberron handbook.
anyway, gods don't walk the lands of Eberron, thus don't influence it.
Lord of the blades nor Vol are actually gods, divine casting works differently in Eberron.
anything that looks like a half dragon(whether they are one or not) is gone end up dead by dragons really fast, end of story.
even if they come from the (should have stayed) forgotten realms
as for other races:
i understand gnomes don't have an added value but i wouldn't mind seeing them referenced more, maybe a post station?
i'm very much against "variant" races, an elemental/environmental version of all the races so all the munchkins can get their +2 to their preferred stat? no thank you.
a shifter wheremaster? maybe, at least it's core.... but no lycantropes, period.

[Zachski]

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat
She's the daughter of Khyber.

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonborn
The dragonborn are located on Argonnessen, the continent of the dragons. Ergo, the dragons aren't killing them, obviously, if they're living right next to the dragons.

Okay, let me make one thing clear.

The dragons are not stupid. They know the difference between a half-dragon and any other draconic race.

In fact, I haven't seen any evidence of their crusade against all half-dragons. That was a meme that surfaced and never sourced, so for all I know, it's BS.

Incidentally, Good Dragonborn worship the Sovereign Host's draconic incarnations, evil Dragonborn (one advantage of the Dragonborn introduced in 4E as opposed to the Dragonborn template of 3.5) worship Khyber himself, not even the Dark Six.

[Scrabbler]

The dragonborn are located on Argonnessen, the continent of the dragons. Ergo, the dragons aren't killing them, obviously, if they're living right next to the dragons.

That's how things are in 4e, and DDO is not 4e.

In fact, I haven't seen any evidence of their crusade against all half-dragons. That was a meme that surfaced and never sourced, so for all I know, it's BS.

Let's read the Eberron Campaign Setting:

Erandis d'Vol was the result of these experiments, a half-dragon created from the arcane union of her elf mother and green dragon father. She was hidden and raised in secret as both House Vol and the green dragon sought to find a peaceful end to the conflict. However, the revelation of Erandis's existence had the opposite effect: Elf and dragon alike saw the mixing of the species as an abomination. Finally, the two sides came together on one issue-- half-dragons and the House of Vol had to be destroyed.

Races of the Dragon:

Other dragons usually view such crossbreeds as abominations. If a dragon learns of a half-dragon's existence, that dragon seeks the destruction of the half-dragon and possibly its sire.

[Zachski]

That's how things are in 4e, and DDO is not 4e.

That is a deceptive statement, because DDO isn't 3.5, either. In fact, DDO is half 4E and half 3.5, to be precise, as it takes elements from 4E and adopts them to the game. It also invents new mechanics. This is an MMORPG, not your tabletop game, after all, and it has different needs and wants.

And honestly, there's plenty of good stuff about 4E - rejecting all of it just because of the things you don't like means you're gonna reject a lot of things that you WOULD like. 3.5 was a pretty terrible edition as well, and 3E was rejected by AD&D fans like 4E has been rejected by 3.5 fans, and 5E is being rejected by 4E fans. The cycle continues.

(But then again, if your intent is to look for bad things and ONLY bad things, of course you're gonna pass right by the good things.)

Not to mention that this is official Eberron lore. Whether you want it to be or not. DDO is Eberron and as such, there is a precedent.

Also, thank you for providing the thing about half-dragons. That does make sense. Thankfully, Dragonborn aren't half-dragons, and the dragons are smart enough to know this.

[Oberon_Shrader]

Not to mention Neverwinter is an entirely different demographic thus even if the race price/method of sale was the same, the data wouldn't be very useful.

I'm not sure this is true. I don't see any obvious reason why Neverwinter and DDO don't share a target audience(s).

What do you think is different in the demographics that makes such a meaningful difference in their target audience?

As far as I can tell, Neverwinter is simply trying to become a mainstream, high-profile MMO property. As far as I can tell, that's what DDO should be doing, too, if they want to be profitable; (and I think they have been moving that direction).

Note, that doesn't mean dismantling the incredible game that DDO is to make it something we don't want it to be (i.e., more like Neverwinter).

I think the sales and player races data from Neverwinter would be incredibly useful. In fact, if I were Turbine, I'd have employees playing Neverwinter and interacting with that playerbase in order to gather info to help make informed marketing decisions. They'd have to be sly about their interactions, though, or they'd give the game away! (Couldn't help myself with the pun!) :P

As Uska mentioned above, seeing how many players use Dragonborn in Neverwinter would allow Turbine to see roughly how popular they are.

I still think they need a comprehensive survey of past, current and potential players; as well as more than just the one focus group (that is, the Player's Council). Some of those focus groups could be short term, too.

[dunklezhan]

Yes the Dragonborn are not half dragons. They are much more like Drakes in the Fourth and Sixth worlds. Servants and slaves, not abominations to be eradicated. Unless they rebel, of course. Draconic ego is kind of pre-programmed to not stand for that sort of thing, you know.



Further - where concerns lore, only timeline consistency really matters, I can accept any amount of retconning if they don't mess with 'established fact'. If they re-invented a new timeline of stuff for dragonborn in Eberron for 4e after never having mentioned them before and made them 'ancient' and a significant and visible part of major historical events then I call BS. That is ridiculous, for the same reason suddenly throwing in midichlorians was ridiculous. If they're a "recent development" in the timeline on the other hand, or they have good reasons why no-one noticed them before in any materials - then no problem at all. I see from wiki that they are not supposed to be 'new' and took part in some big stuff. I cannot find clear information on whether they have any mention at all in 3rd ed materials. So I really don't know.

Providing the Eberron lore/history is reasonably consistent between 3rd and 4th edition material, then I'd be perfectly happy with them as NPCs or new mobs to fight. No issue with that at all. If we only found them in FR, so much the better. FR always was cheese, in every way, and the world has been rebooted a number of times anyway so the Lore doesn't actually have to too make sense.

...but even if the Lore makes sense... allowing them as PCs in a standard campaign is still cheese born out of pandering to a desire from sections of the playerbase to all be over the top super special snowflakes at the start (instead of becoming super special snowflakes which is the whole basis of character progression), and I'd rather not have them in DDO as PCs for that reason. Which isn't the same as saying 'they're not a good race' or 'turbine shouldn't make money off of people's childish fantasies', because if we start down that route, we'll soon all be playing humans. Still - I would rather not see them as PCs, it seems against the grain to me.

Note I said standard campaign. I can think of any number of campaigns in which playing rare and unusual races would be freakin' awesome. But if you just have them as 'anyone can play' then you:

Dilute the specialness of the race and the lore that goes with it.
Dilute the 'wow factor' of encountering one
Render the words 'rare and unusual' completely meaningless.

All of which are reasons I would not want to see them as player characters in Eberron. Unless perhaps they were artificer level grind with no way to store bypass. And maybe their own starter area. THEN they would be cool. But there's no way Turbine's going to invest the necessary resources for something hardly anyone would then get to play. They'd have to make it pay to access, really... and so I would once again be back to being against it.

Though now I think about it... a new starter area could be enough to bribe me into changing my opinion.

[Uska]

Yes the Dragonborn are not half dragons. They are much more like Drakes in the Fourth and Sixth worlds. Servants and slaves, not abominations to be eradicated. Unless they rebel, of course. Draconic ego is kind of pre-programmed to not stand for that sort of thing, you know.



Further - where concerns lore, only timeline consistency really matters, I can accept any amount of retconning if they don't mess with 'established fact'. If they re-invented a new timeline of stuff for dragonborn in Eberron for 4e after never having mentioned them before and made them 'ancient' and a significant and visible part of major historical events then I call BS. That is ridiculous, for the same reason suddenly throwing in midichlorians was ridiculous. If they're a "recent development" in the timeline on the other hand, or they have good reasons why no-one noticed them before in any materials - then no problem at all. I see from wiki that they are not supposed to be 'new' and took part in some big stuff. I cannot find clear information on whether they have any mention at all in 3rd ed materials. So I really don't know.

Providing the Eberron lore/history is reasonably consistent between 3rd and 4th edition material, then I'd be perfectly happy with them as NPCs or new mobs to fight. No issue with that at all. If we only found them in FR, so much the better. FR always was cheese, in every way, and the world has been rebooted a number of times anyway so the Lore doesn't actually have to too make sense.

...but even if the Lore makes sense... allowing them as PCs in a standard campaign is still cheese born out of pandering to a desire from sections of the playerbase to all be over the top super special snowflakes at the start (instead of becoming super special snowflakes which is the whole basis of character progression), and I'd rather not have them in DDO as PCs for that reason. Which isn't the same as saying 'they're not a good race' or 'turbine shouldn't make money off of people's childish fantasies', because if we start down that route, we'll soon all be playing humans. Still - I would rather not see them as PCs, it seems against the grain to me.

Note I said standard campaign. I can think of any number of campaigns in which playing rare and unusual races would be freakin' awesome. But if you just have them as 'anyone can play' then you:

Dilute the specialness of the race and the lore that goes with it.
Dilute the 'wow factor' of encountering one
Render the words 'rare and unusual' completely meaningless.

All of which are reasons I would not want to see them as player characters in Eberron. Unless perhaps they were artificer level grind with no way to store bypass. And maybe their own starter area. THEN they would be cool. But there's no way Turbine's going to invest the necessary resources for something hardly anyone would then get to play. They'd have to make it pay to access, really... and so I would once again be back to being against it.

Though now I think about it... a new starter area could be enough to bribe me into changing my opinion.

Dragonborn were shoehorned into Eberron when they came out with races of the dragon to boost sales of that book and make the munchkin kiddies happy so they did get added before 4e but weren't in at the start. In 4e they were made core in 5th I think they are optional but so are gnomes and half-elves but they all come in the core first book

[Zachski]

Dragonborn (as in the 4E race when compared to 4E humans) are still less powerful than Humans, so I don't see how that makes them "over the top super special snowflakes."

[lyrecono]

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat
She's the daughter of Khyber.

http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonborn
The dragonborn are located on Argonnessen, the continent of the dragons. Ergo, the dragons aren't killing them, obviously, if they're living right next to the dragons.

Okay, let me make one thing clear.

The dragons are not stupid. They know the difference between a half-dragon and any other draconic race.

In fact, I haven't seen any evidence of their crusade against all half-dragons. That was a meme that surfaced and never sourced, so for all I know, it's BS.

Incidentally, Good Dragonborn worship the Sovereign Host's draconic incarnations, evil Dragonborn (one advantage of the Dragonborn introduced in 4E as opposed to the Dragonborn template of 3.5) worship Khyber himself, not even the Dark Six.

That's how things are in 4e, and DDO is not 4e.


Let's read the Eberron Campaign Setting:

Erandis d'Vol was the result of these experiments, a half-dragon created from the arcane union of her elf mother and green dragon father. She was hidden and raised in secret as both House Vol and the green dragon sought to find a peaceful end to the conflict. However, the revelation of Erandis's existence had the opposite effect: Elf and dragon alike saw the mixing of the species as an abomination. Finally, the two sides came together on one issue-- half-dragons and the House of Vol had to be destroyed.

Races of the Dragon:

Other dragons usually view such crossbreeds as abominations. If a dragon learns of a half-dragon's existence, that dragon seeks the destruction of the half-dragon and possibly its sire.

exactly this, if it looks like a half dragon it will look rather brownish a few days later.
half dragons don't belong in eberron, keith baker (the source of all this) has stated this here and there. WotC (who have lost the soul of D&D in the eyes of so many of their customers) have put them in their because munchkins want their half dragon fixes, ergo dragonborn.
if you follow the logic/narative of the original 3,5 Eberron books you will understand why the half dragons(and their look a likes) don't belong in the game.
If you follow the history of WotC and the writings of the campaign creator you would understand how much of a be-trail 4.0 was to the entire D&D franchise.

so no to these scaly additions