Talk:Troll (4e Race)

Regeneration needs additional limitation(s) -Why?

Brutal accuracy is a bit needless and unfitting (as you should be hitting if you have combat advantage) -It being needless doesn't mean it's unbalanced? O.o

to many racial traits makes them complex to use and difficult to balance -The racial treats are more or less equivalent to the Elves. I don't see why you think it has too many racial traits. There are plenty of races with more. The Half-orc heritage is just there to make them capable of being used with in-cannon feats and paragon paths. So it's really a throwaway ability. To put it another way, I could just go rewrite all the Half-orc feats and paragon paths for the race, but it would change nothing mechanically about the race's actual abilities.

Regeneration limitations because regeneration is very powerful, Shifters get it only when bloodied and as an encounter, since there is no stance or keyword associated with it once they leave bloodied it's gone for that encounter and if it never gets bloodied it never gets bloodied at all.

If it's needless it means its under powered and practically useless, changing it to a re-roll per encounter would be on par with some other class features and give it a more useful effect.

Lots of traits scare off DM's and players that's all. --Aitharious (talk) 06:53, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

Well, I'd have to disagree with the idea that there's too many traits. There's 6, and one of them is just qualifying as a Half-orc so, that one pretty much is just so I don't have to go make a dozen new identical feats and simplify things. The Eladrin has 6 traits, the human 4 traits, the elf 5, etc. So I don't feel like the large number of traits are necessarily that large. It's roughly equivalent to the elf, save for changing perception to insight, the weapon proficiency to axes, and the ability to shift in difficult terrain with ignoring light cover (also a terrain feature). But, the predatory eye is similar in that they are more accurate. The only real big difference is regeneration, but as far having too many features, they're pretty similar to a lot of races. I think 6 traits is fine, even if we count the Half-orc thing. The Shardmind is the most complex of them all. I also don't see why you think it's unbalanced. There's a difference between your opinion and marking it as being something unbalanced. Not to say I don't appreciate your input but, I don't really see your reasoning there.

As for predatory eye, the power isn't super powerful, but it is beneficial. A D6 to the attack roll is pretty huge, that's an average of a +3 to an attack roll. You can actually miss even with combat advantage, as that's just a +2. So, instead it's a +5 to hit. It's not a guarantee to hit but it's pretty close, and guarantees at least a +1 bonus to hit. I guess I could remove the requirement of combat advantage but, I feel it's better to limit it in some way.

As far as regeneration goes, the point is to be stable. Shifter's get a +2 bonus to damage and 2 regeneration, but only when they are bloodied (the power says until the end of the encounter, so it doesn't actually end when they stop being bloodied, it just reactivates when they are bloodied). All the Troll gets is a 1 regeneration. Maybe it scaling is a little much, but it doesn't seem that overpowered. We could instead, if we wanted a limitation, say that fire or acid stops the regeneration until the end of your next turn, but, I don't really see the point. It's less powerful, but it's active all the time. JohnSmith82 (talk) 08:28, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

The shifter's regeneration reads "In addition, while you are bloodied, you gain regeneration 2." - it does end when they stop being bloodied, so their power can't be used to top back up to maximum hit points.

With Brutish Heritage, if start combat with a harmless creature or a willing PC, I can top back up to maximum hit points. This is quite disruptive to the healing surge / hit point economy. Marasmusine (talk) 09:20, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

My reference was to "once they leave bloodied it's gone for that encounter", but as far as it goes this is true with a lot of powers. Lots of abilities could allow you to regain things if you challenged a PC or a Weak enemy deliberately. For instance, powers that allow you to heal hit points equal to your ability modifier. In combat, this is pretty low, but if designed to allow you to randomly target someone in combat, you could heal a bunch of hitpoints in a cheap manner, as well. Or gain a bunch of stances and so on. You could go in and out of combat and reuse a bunch of encounter utility powers to heal yourself and so on. I think then that, it's up to the DM to not allow this types of cheap farming of abilities or hitpoints, rather than the effect of the abilities themselves. A Shifter can still heal a number of healing points, meaning they can shave off at least 1 healing surge compared to ordinary individuals in this manner. For instance, the Shaman's Spirit’s Shield could potentially allow for farming this way. Or, with a racial power, for instance the infernal blessing feat for the Tiefling in Divine power, which allows an ally to regain hitpoints equal to their charisma modifier. I can understand the concern, but there's a lot of ways to break the game like that. JohnSmith82 (talk) 10:16, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

Please can you give me a specific example of the type of healing power you are talking about? Marasmusine (talk) 10:46, 8 June 2016 (MDT)

I did give a few examples, for instance with infernal blessing and Spirit Shield, but my point is that many, many options in the game can be exploited by going in to an encounter intending for one side to lose or win. You can enter and then get out of combat and spam this and have unlimited encounters. Or even keep using dailies if your parties sleeps after every encounter. Even those that regain hitpoints equal to their bloodied value can save the equivalent of a healing surge or two using the, attack a PC and use regeneration power. I feel this is a fundamental problem to any power. Other powers include Rewarding Strike of the Ardent in PHB III, Sunburst in PHB1 for the cleric. Astral seal is a level 1 Cleric at-will power that allows you to regain hitpoints equal to your charisma modifier. There are plenty of other powers that can be exploited in the same way, although not to regain hitpoints. Say, master of deceit, where you could keep endlessly bluffing, or Distracting Flare where you could keep turning invisible by declaring combat with an ally. I think that can break the game in many ways. So, I don't find it to be too huge of a deal. It's up to the DM to make sure they don't exploit features like this, rather than the raw abilities themselves.

Hydra Armor in PHB allows for regeneration.

Troll regeneration is completely passive, whilst:

Spirit's Shield requires attack rolls and is triggered by an enemy; :::::::Infernal Wrath requires than an enemy hits you; Rewarding strike requires both you and an ally to hit a creature; etc.

External rests have a 12 hour cool-down, and are usually unfeasible in the middle of an adventure location.

My point is that "in combat" is never a trait/power qualifier, it's not actually defined. It would be better to be something like "while you are within 2 squares of an enemy." Marasmusine (talk) 00:41, 9 June 2016 (MDT)

Well my point was just that many powers could be exploited that way. Not that they functioned identically to this. Functionally they all could screw up the potential healing surge economy. However, I wouldn't mind the within square range thing, the only problem is that, if you're in range of an enemy and not in combat than you could do the same regeneration thing. So maybe, if you're within 20 squares of an enemy and in combat or something, but then that could just as easily be exploited.

So alternatively, I could make it a racial encounter power. You have to activate the encounter power and you gain regeneration 1. Or, I could make it so when you attack an enemy, you regain 1 hitpoint or something. Maybe if you "target an enemy with an attack", or perhaps if you take a standard action. JohnSmith82 (talk) 15:10, 12 June 2016 (MDT)

I need to rethink my statement, I thought "enemy" was exlusively an "in combat" targeting term, but I've now checked the definition: ""enemy" means a creature or creatures that aren’t your allies (whether those creatures are hostile toward you or not)." You are right that this too can be exploited. Marasmusine (talk) 15:33, 12 June 2016 (MDT)

So, I've changed it to an encounter power. Now, it must be used during an encounter and, it ends at the end of the encounter. Alternatively, I could make it a stance but then other stances would replace it. Stances only last for 5 minutes out of combat. JohnSmith82 (talk) 09:19, 14 June 2016 (MDT)

How about Trigger: You roll for initiative. 09:37, 14 June 2016 (MDT)

Even better :D JohnSmith82 (talk) 09:42, 14 June 2016 (MDT)

So, would you guys say he's balanced now? JohnSmith82 (talk) 11:00, 19 June 2016 (MDT)

I say it's balanced enough, I personally think it's slightly more powerful than the average races, but not enough to be of concern. --Aitharious (talk) 12:07, 20 June 2016 (MDT)