Dragonborn suck

Actually, they're pretty awesome.

For starters, they look really cool and inspired some of the best artwork in the 4E books.

Mechanically, they're not all bad. The bonus to healing surges is a real boon. I also like their rage mechanic if only because it gives me a tactical decision to make. Do I hold off on taking a healing word for a little while longer so that I can have that +1 to hit? How long do I risk running on fewer than half my hit points?

Yet, for all that, they truly suck in two crucial ways.

First of all is the breath weapon. For a racial ability that seems so iconic, so central to the race, it is by far the most pathetic piece of crap any race gets. It's just flat out weak. Almost to the point of being utterly useless.

My dragonborn fighter/wizard hybrid has used his breath weapon exactly once, and that was just for shits'n'giggles. Granted the rarity in it's use is due entirely to his having the wizard At-will "Thunderwave". Same burst and damage but with an added push factor. Compared to the breath weapon that's a no-brainer.

However, even if I was to take away "Thunderwave" I still fail to see any appeal in this racial power. It's just so bland and uninteresting. I look at the elf with his re-roll a missed attack, and the eladrin with his teleport, and I'm jealous. Even the halfling has a better racial power. Halflings! WTF!

The sad thing is that all WotC had to do was give the breath weapon some small additional effect dependant on the energy type chosen. Something like 1 point of ongoing fire or acid or poison damage, or slow in the case of a cold based breath weapon, or 1 point of damage to adjacent enemies for electricity. That's all it would take to make the breath weapon not only stand out but shine with distinction. Simple right? So why hasn't WotC done this yet?

The obvious answer is that they're planning a Dragonborn book which will be chock full of feats and powers that'll give the breath weapon some appeal. That's fine by me, but the PHB could've had a little something on the original.

My other beef is with their history. It just feels so tacked on and hackneyed. Was it written by an intern?

The whole 'they had a great and glorious empire that for some reason no one in whatever world you're in has ever heard of' is awkward to say the least. Then, in piling on the suckiness, they forge an even lamer story of a great war between their empire and a similar empire of teiflings. Oh my... the teiflings had an empire too? Was their a sale on empires? Buy one get one free? And is this supposed to stoke up the fires of intra-party tension should there be a dragonborn and a teifling together? Only it's not because that war was a long, long time ago and there are no hard feelings between the races any more. Got it?

The only part of that mash-up story is the possible tension it might have created between dragonborn and tiefling characters. The part they trivialized under the crushing sands of time. Even though plenty of settings have histories of warfare between races and nations. Eberron's entire story is centered around a huge war. Yet generic dnd world has one big conflict but because it happened so long ago it's irrelevant. Nice.

My point is that there are plenty of other tropes that would have made for a seamless fit into whatever world. A pocket plane comes to mind. Or a distant land way off across the big water. Heck, give them a feudal Japan flavor and you've got your ready made intro for the inevitable samurai, ninja, and shugenja classes.

For the centerpiece new race in 4E's flagship book, it has the look of a slapped together hash job that fell far short of it's promise.

Note to the FR fanbois.

Okay. Relax. Take a deep breath. Okay, now let it out nice and slowly. Ahhh. Feel better?

Good, because the Forgotten Realms are changing to sync with 4e.

Whoa there! Ease up a bit. Another deep breath. Put down the mouse and step away from the computer. Everything is gonna be okay.

I just finished reading Chris Perkin's latest blog (from Oct 10, 2007) and I was honestly dumbstruck by some of the news he dropped. Up until this point I had expected some minor tweaking and a little something to explain the change in cosmology. I certainly didn't expect that they'd advance the timeline by ten years.

*cue Jeremy Piven* TEN YEARS! Ten years man. TEN! YEARS!

Even more shocking to me at least have been the hints of Pivenesque outrage in the dnd community. Most of which is apparently (mis)aimed at Rich Baker. In fact, Chris's plea for leniency wasn't the first I've read.

But I'm not here to defend Rich Baker, or any of the other writers/designers at WotC. They are public figures and working on a game that inspires rabid fandom. They are also big boys and I'm sure they can handle criticism.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the diehard fans of FR, because frankly, this outrage and venom over something so trivial is truly perplexing to me.

Are there gamers out there who set their campaigns in the Forgotten Realms and rigidly adhere to every word ever written about FR? Is every line of every novel so sacred? Are they so lacking in imagination that they cannot compensate for any tweak or change in their beloved setting?

Now, I'll admit that I'm a fan of the Realms. As Crwth pointed out earlier I was the driving force behind our group adopting the Realms as our setting. I like the history. I like the maps. I like some of the iconic characters. I've read the FR Campaign Setting book from cover to cover several times. I've read many of the WotC setting books such as The Unapproachable East and The Shining South. I love that shit.

At the same time, our group does not use the setting as canon. It's not the be all, end all of our game. For Crwth I think it's just a framework or skeleton for his story, the foundation on which is campaign sits. It gives him some background and a timeline to work with but it doesn't force his hand in any way.

As a player I like the Realms for the history and the background it provides my characters. I might have a rogue who hails from Thesk, and while I know she hates the Thayans, Crwth doesn't need to worry about that (unless I treat his Thayan npc like dirt for reasons he may not understand). Honestly that sort of thing rarely comes up and if it did I know enough to play along. Others in our group know very little about FR history and the various enmities. And that's fine. I take what I need out of FR and we're all happy.

I also have practical reasons for supporting the FR setting. Those aforementioned books all have dozens of prestige classes, spells, feats, and magic items. Oh the options and possibilities they open up. To be honest, if Eberron had that kind of written support and gave those kinds of options, I'd be just as happy playing in that setting. Because, bottom line, it's the play that makes the setting, and not the other way around.

So for all you hardcore fanbois. Ease up. Relax a little. It's not the end of the world. It's just ten years and a little "Spellplague".