Talk:Charr (4e Race)

Edited part of the page: Corrected a spelling error, and corrected their race. Charr are NOT Half-Demons.

Long story short, this needs reworking

Having played Guild Wars 2's stories and over, and having put hundreds of hours into RP and lore research on my Charr characters alone, I really feel this page needs an update. (I made a few small changes, a height correction and a spelling fix). I LOVE this race, and I wanted to bring it into a DnD campaign of mine.

Things that need addressing: the Stat bonuses and Skill bonuses. The current ones heavily lean towards arcane classes, and of course, Rogues and Warlords. In fact, a LARGE populous of Charr would be considered heavy and bulky classes like Fighter, Paladin, or the like (going from their Guild Wars class equivalents)that, while would be happy with some of the skills given (Fire Resistance is cool, as is a bit of extra STR), wouldn't really be as terrifying as they are in their universe. (I don't intend to break this race if I can help it, but it needs a bit of help if you ask me) That on top of the fact that it only lists 2 racial features as opposed to the usual 3 to 5 means at the VERY least we should try and work a third feature in. One idea I have is to perhaps give them the ability to, as a minor action, run on all fours, adding +2 to their speed while in this stance, but taking a -1 to Attack Rolls as well while in this stance. Or perhaps to reflect their predatory nature, giving them a bonus to Attack Rolls if they are Bloodied, or to give them an Attack Bonus against Bloodied foes

That simply isn't the case. Charr are so varied in skillsets and physiques that I honestly feel we could address this in two ways. One: we give Charr options for racial traits and skill bonuses and stat bonuses based on their background. Or two: we simply go the human route and give them a bonus Feat, and +2 to one Ability Score. But at that rate I may as well just play a human with a different skin for RP-only purposes.

Personally, I want to try and incorporate the first one. Perhaps your racial traits and features could be based on what Legion you belong to (Blood, Iron, Ash, Flame) with their own specific skills and bonuses. Blood Legion would generally prefer front line martial classes, Defenders and bulky Strikers, so their racial traits would reflect that. Iron Legion, generally has the tinkerers, the leaders, the thinkers of the Charr, classes I would imagine like Warlord, and Artificer. Ash Legion holds the spies, classes who rely on bluffs and stealth (Rogue and Assassin, was there any doubt?). The Flame Legion holds the most Magic users, and they are also the religious zealots, and as such would more cater to Arcane and Divine Classes, particularly those who use skills with the Fire keyword.

Is this a bit of work and a bit in-depth? Yes, but I REALLY felt that, when I first saw this page, it was entirely underwhelming and only BEGAN to touch on what a Charr really is. I want to hear people's opinions on this, however, before I start.

Although I haven't played the game I will help you in any way I can. I think the choice of Legion is like a sub-race or a guild, both of which 4e has handled as Feats. But I wouldn't object to it being a racial feature. I'll look through this wiki and see if I can identify some baseline attributes

It says they have a military culture so they might elf/dwarf style weapon proficiency: is there any set of weapons they favour in the game?

It also talks about their expertise in military technology, mass production, clockworks, vehicles... there's no "mechanics" skill in 4e though, the nearest would be Thievery which does cover tinkering with machinery. Marasmusine (talk) 01:33, 29 January 2014 (MST)

First of, thank you VERY much for responding so fast, I was honestly expecting this to go unnoticed for months. Second off, I actually had considered making just, sub racial pages too, after sleeping on all this, and just leaving this as "Generic Charr" page.

Sadly in the game, Weapons you can use entirely depend on your class (the game's selection being swords, greatswords, hammers, maces, short bows, longbows, staff, scepter (probably comparable to a Wand in 4e), Focus (probably comparable to an Orb here), torches (not sure what that's really comparable to as a weapon in 4e), pistols, rifles, spear, and trident, the latter two only available underwater), so that isn't much help here sadly.

Now that I looked into it, yes, that makes sense now that Thievery would cover the tinkering and all that. (TM93, 1-29-14, 8:23AM CST)

While I do not play 4.0, I do play Guild Wars (I and II). Personally, based off of the way Charr run in GW2, I've always had the impression that Charr are strong and fast/nimble, so I think +2 Dex and Str would be appropriate. Maybe make the Str bonus switch to something else with "sub-race or a guild" (guild would be a more appropriate term) feats. As for incorporating the legions into the race, maybe give them a bonus feat at first level like a human, but it can only be used on one of the four legion feats. Also, bonus to intimidate (they have that in 4.0, right?). My suggestions may be awful for 4.0, but in 3.5 that is sort-of how I would have gone about it. --Salasay Δ 10:14, 29 January 2014 (MST)

Quick Edit while I hash out the details: Charr do NOT live over 400 years. They mature and live about as long as humans according to the devs (And this is somewhat supported in-game), and in the game the oldest stated Charr is about 90 years old. Therefore it's wrong to assume that naturally on average, not counting casualties of war or accidents, they live much more than 100 years. I never got far into the first Guild Wars, but even if this is a retcon we should probably keep this current

Now, one other thing I'm going to have to be careful of is specific locations. Obviously most GM's are going to be using either a preset campaign or a custom world of their own that just happens to include Charr. While obviously major parts of Charr society like the Legions, and probably rankings, will have to be in place, where they're located in the campaign will probably be different. I'll also probably have to touch up on the concept of the Fahrar. But say, the Black Citadel, and Ascalon itself, probably won't exist unless you're placing your Campaign somewhere in Tyria.

(TM93, January 30th, 2014, 9:05AM CST)

I have, hopefully made a SIGNIFICANT improvement to both the mechanics and lore/fluff of this page. Now, apparently I have no goshdarned idea how to do the racial feats like I've seen elsewhere (and I'm not 100% sure they're perfect) so if someone does want to handle that bit, or even add to them, I feel I've still done a decent job. I hope that in the end, I've helped make the Charr a race that, while not flat-out overpowered, has the potential to optimize for many different classes, much like how they do in the Guild Wars series, and to still perform well in classes they aren't fully optimized for. I may want to add a few Paragon Tier feats (namely one for Iron Legion to improve the range or blast radius of ranged attacks, and to increase the damage of Ash Tactics to D6's). One final thing I may want to look into is making a Epic Destiny of Khan-Ur, I feel it would just make sense to have such an option for Charr characters. (TM93, February 3rd, 2014, 8:10 PM CST)

The feats are written as though they were powers. I can convert them into racial utility powers (which the player can take instead of class utility powers), or rewrite them into feats (and that would be a significant rewrite). Marasmusine (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2014 (MST)

Gosh darn it... I wasn't 100% sure whether I should make those things extra features for choosing said Legion, or Feats that you could CHOOSE to use and have to pay for (to be fair a couple of Feats in the handbooks also give you access to powers (Channel Divinity for the most part, and Balm of the Cultivator for Wilden, and I THINK there's a Racial Daily Feat in the Dragonborn Handbook)), but they're usually Encounter powers, but I felt that these powers had too much potential to be abused if they became Encounter Powers. By all means if you feel like they belong in the Feature Area (apart probably from the Improved Call of the Khan-Ur, that's probably a normal Feat), by all means move them. TM93 (talk) 7:36AM, February 4th, 2014 (CST)

I'll tackle Ash Tactics first. There are already rules for poisons with the Assassin in Heroes of Shadow, so I'll try to follow those standards. This will probably stay a feat. Marasmusine (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2014 (MST)

I need to change Rely on Iron. There will be conflicts if you can add Reliable to any power. In particular it completely breaks if it's added to an attack with multiple attack rolls like a close burst 1. Marasmusine (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2014 (MST)

I need to change Boiling Blood too. If I'm making an attack, I can't also spend a minor action at the same type. I could be a Free Action triggered on the attack. The other problem is that all these powers basically do the same thing: Overwhelming Flame, Rely on Iron, Boiling Blood and Call of the Khan-Ur all add to an attack and damage roll. I'll try and think of a more interesting distinction. Marasmusine (talk) 01:51, 5 February 2014 (MST)

Marasmusine, let me just say you're an absolute godsend here, AND let me just say that. I fully admit that I'm not the best at making homebrews, and this is the first one I've tried to really rework, so your reworking these powers as you see to be more fit and balanced is incredibly welcome. And yes, they all sort of are similar, that was probably my first mistake. The fact that I've been working sporadic hours lately probably didn't help my power creation there either. TM93 (talk) 7:38AM, February 5th, 2014 (CST)