2 4th edition homebrew races

[Blazen]

WALL O TEXT AHEAD
I am working on a personal campaign world for a 4e campaign. The main part of it was that 100 years ago there was a large war between the Fey, and the Elementals, which the Fey end up winning.
Another part is that magic items, when disenchanted create whats called residium, it forms as a powder, lotion, or other substance which can then be used to make a magic item with the same property (so disenchating a vicious axe gives you vicious residium, which you can use to enchant a compatible weapon.
I made 2 races to fit in to my capaign world. The Katan-Kai, and the Chromen.

Katan-Kai:
Katan-Kai (Blader)

Size: Medium
Vision: Normal
Speed: 6

Arm Blades: Katan-Kai have gained the nickname bladers for the retractable arm blades that grow out of each arm. Which blade the character has is based on their Land of birth race feature. The blades are considered masterwork weapons of their weapon group for the use of residium on them. The blades have the retractable property which makes extending(drawing), and retracting(sheathing) them a minor action, but unable to be removed, or disarmed. An arm blade cannot be extended while the character is holding something in that hand. Also when you are holding nothing in either hand and land a critical hit with an unarmed attack that uses only your main hand, as a free action, you may make an unarmed melee basic attack with your off hand only (attacks that state that they may be used in place of a melee basic attack can not be used for this attack).

Weapon Prof. Damage Group Properties
Light Arm blade +3 1d6 Light Blade, unarmed Natural, off-hand, retractable
Heavy Arm blade +2 1d8 Heavy Blade, unarmed Natural, off-hand, retractable

Land of birth: Katan-Kai are found in both the mountains, and forests. While the race used to be same, they have become vastly different from one another to be better suited for their terrain. Select whether you are a Nimble, or Strong Katan-Kai (Also called light, and heavy bladers respectively).

Nimble Katan (Light Blader)
Height: 5' – 5'6”
Ability Score: +2 Dex, +2 Constitution
Skill Bonus: +2 acrobatics, +2 Intimidate
Light Arm Blades

Nimble Walker: Being raised in the forest has trained you to know how to walk around the often dangerous woods. You may move 1 extra square difficult terrain in forests.


Strong Katan (Heavy Blader)
Height: 5'10”-6'4”
Ability Score: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution
Skill Bonus: +2 Athletics, +2 Intimidate
Heavy Arm Blades

Mountain Walker: Your life in the mountains and hardened body and bones makes you better suited for treacherous heights. You may re roll climb, and jump checks, but must use the second result. You have resist 5 against fall damage. This increases to resist 10 at level 11, and resist 15 at level 21.


Racial Feats

Enhanced Blades
Prerequisite: Katan-Kai

Increase the damage die for your arm blades one size.



Chromen:
Chromen
Height: 5'4” - 6'2”
Size: Medium
Ability Score: +2 Intelligence, +2 Constitution
Skill Bonuses: +2 History, +2 Aracana
Speed: 6
Vision: Low-light

Elemental Origin: You are a gathering of energy from the elemental chaos that formed into its own being. You are considered an elemental creature for the purpose of effects that relate to
creature origin.

Elemental shift: Chromen are made of energy from the elemental chaos. As a result their elemental makeup is constantly shifting, and with it their power, and personality changes. Your hair, skin, and eyes change color to reflect your element. When you finish an extended rest, roll a d10 to determine a damage type, and appearance
d10 Damage Type
1 Acid – Green and yellow.
2 Cold – Ice blue, and white.
3 Fire – Red, yellow, and orange.
4 Force – White.
5 Lightning – Yellow.
6 Necrotic – Black.
7 Poison – Green, and brown.
8 Psychic – Purple.
9 Radiant – Gold.
10 Thunder – Yellow, and white.

You gain resist 5 to that damage type until the end of your next extended rest. The resistance increases
to 10 at 11th level and 15 at 21st level. Also, you also gain +1 racial bonus to all attack, and damage rolls of that damage type. The bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level. This damage type is also the damage for you Elemental Burst Racial power.

It should also be noted that a Chromen's personality is very strongly based on his/her current element. So much so that their governments often consist of a council to prevent bad decisions being made as a result of strong emotions. When making your character, consider the current element and fit a personality that works well with it. For instance, you might be very passionate and hot headed while
in your fire form, but very cold-hearted, and logic based while in your cold form.
Final Burst: You gain the Elemental burst racial power.

Elemental Burst Chromen Racial Power
When things look hopeless you release a burst of energy from your reserves to aid you in battle, but leave yourself drained afterwards.
Encounter ✦ Arcane
Free Action Close Burst 3
Trigger: You become bloodied
Target: All enemies in burst
Attack: Intelligence +2 vs. AC, Constitution +2 vs. AC, or
Charisma +2 vs. AC
Increase to +4 bonus at 11th level, and to +6 bonus at 21st
level.
Hit: 2d6 damage. The damage increases to 3d6 damage at 11th level, and 4d6 damage at 2lst level.
Effect: After the attack, you lose the benefits of your Elemental shift racial power, until the end of the encounter.
Special: When you gain this manifestation, choose Intelligence, Constitution, or Charisma as the ability score you use when making attack rolls and damage rolls with this power. This
choice remains throughout your character’s life and does not change the power’s other effects.



Racial Feats:

Chaotic Magic

Prerequisites: Chromen, wild soul sorcerer class feature

Benefit: At the end of an extended rest, you may roll one 10 sided die, and use the result for both your elemental shift racial ability, and your wild soul class feature.

[DiscipleofBob]

1. You should do one of two things: Either make separate entries altogether for the Light Blader and Heavy Blader, or specify in the beginning: +2 Constitution, +2 Strength or +2 Dexterity. On a first read, it's a little confusing and it seems that the race only gets a boost to Con. Same with skill boosts. This is purely to make this a more friendly read to your players.

2. Arm Blades. Wow. All right, this is overpowered. First of all, in 4e, two-weapon fighting is something specifically related to appropriate classes because of how much damage it can do. Don't give it a free secondary attack. Also, extending and retracting should be a minor action, at least before feats like Quick Draw are involved (you could make another racial feat for this.) Damage otherwise is reasonable, but only if you get rid of the free second attack.

3. The ability to ignore difficult terrain in a forest is also way too strong as a racial ability. It basically means completely ignoring major terrain obstacles in a lot of situations. You can keep the basic concept without making this overpowered though. A few possible fixes:

Make it so they ignore difficult terrain when they shift, like the elves.
Or, make it so they can move 1 extra square when moving through difficult terrain.
Or, make it an encounter power that lets them move through difficult terrain freely until the end of your next turn.


Any of these solutions will work fine.

Mountain Walker and Enhanced Blades are both all right.


Now for the Chromen.

Flavorwise, they look like basically Genasi, only randomized element. It's just enough of a difference though that it warrants its own race, so you're fine here.

1. Final Burst is a little broken, even for a daily. Free Action, Close Burst 3 (more at higher levels), Don't have to worry about hitting allies, high damage, +2 to hit, don't have to worry about building up the right ability score for damage since it's the preferred of 3 stats, THEN you get at least +4 bonus to elemental damage AND absorb elemental damage until the end of the encounter. Even if it's seemingly random element determined at the end of an extended rest, this is way too much stuff for a class's daily, much less a racial. I'd pick a few things here to ditch.

Otherwise, everything else looks good.

It's good to see some more 4e homebrew on this forum.

[Blazen]

Thanks for the tips. I went ahead and updated the characters.

[DiscipleofBob]

Much better.

A free melee basic attack on a critical hit is an interesting fix, but it's still open to exploitation. Now, I'm admittedly not as familiar with the math in Paragon or Epic tier, but from what I understand it's much easier to get critical hits depending on your Paragon Path and such as well as get tons of bonus damage. The other thing to note is there are a lot of powers that can be used as a melee basic attack, and that can also up the damage considerably. Your Katan-Kai are going to make crazy awesome Strikers from this ability alone.

The other thing you'll need to do is since Katan-Kai characters will most likely be using their armblades as their main weapon, you'll need to make items that allow the Katan-Kai to get +1 bonuses and other magical item properties to their armblades. Maybe some special gloves or bracers.

Something I just thought up, you might want to make a condition where they can't use the armblade if they have something else in their hand, say, a shield.

Final Burst is still pretty ridiculous. It's still almost a guaranteed hit on every enemy in a wide range for decent damage as a free action that's likely to go off EVERY encounter. And now I see you've made it an encounter power it's even more powerful, even without the bonus to attacks and damage.

[Yakk]

You gain resist 5 to that damage type until the end of your next extended rest. The resistance increases
to 10 at 11th level and 15 at 21st level. Also, you also gain +1 bonus to all attack, and damage rolls of that damage type. The bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level. This damage type is also the damage for you Elemental Burst Racial power.

It should also be noted that a Chromen's personality is very strongly based on his/her current element. So much so that their governments often consist of a council to prevent bad decisions being made as a result of strong emotions. When making your character, consider the current element and fit a personality that works well with it. For instance, you might be very passionate and hot headed while
in your fire form, but very cold-hearted, and logic based while in your cold form.
While it is random, these bonuses are possibly a bad idea. Untyped +3 to hit and damage has a pretty large impact.

Final Burst: You gain the Elemental burst racial power.

Elemental Burst Chromen Racial Power
When things look hopeless you release a burst of energy from your reserves to aid you in battle, but leave yourself drained afterwards.
Encounter ✦ Arcane
Free Action Close Burst 3
Trigger: You become bloodied
Target: All enemies in burst
Attack: Intelligence +2 vs. AC, Constitution +2 vs. AC, or
Charisma +2 vs. AC
Increase to +4 bonus at 11th level, and to +6 bonus at 21st
level.
Hit: 2d6 + Intelligence, Constitution, or Charisma modifier damage. The damage increases to 3d6 + Intelligence, Constitution, or Charisma modifier damage at 11th level, and 4d6 + Intelligence, Constitution, or Charisma modifier damage at 2lst level. The range becomes Burst 4 at 11th level, and Burst 5 at 21st
Miss: Half Damage
Effect: After the attack, you lose the benefits of your Elemental shift racial power, until the end of the encounter.
Special: When you gain this manifestation, choose Intelligence, Constitution, or Charisma as the ability score you use when making attack rolls and damage rolls with this power. This
choice remains throughout your character’s life and does not change the power’s other effects.
Getting bloodied is not that rare. With close burst 3 and targets enemies, it will almost always hit at least one enemy.

Far too many things scale with this power. And even without anything (besides to-hit) scaling, it makes the Dragonborn's breath power look like junk.

Why does it target AC?

It should have keywords that varies with the damage type. The damage type should vary with what you roll randomly.

While the random component is interesting, the Gensai is already a creature in this thematic space. You could poach the Gensai, and add in "you randomly determine what element you manifest after each extended rest".

[Blazen]

Made some more changes. I removed the int/con/cha modifier to damage, and the scaling range. I added the "cant hold anything part for the bladers".
Also, I clarified a part from the earlier post. In my campaign world, because of how magic weapons work, it is possible to apply magical enhancements to the arm blades.

[Mando Knight]

Axe the miss damage on the Chromen racial power. It's a close burst 3 encounter free action power that targets enemies only. It doesn't need miss damage, and I dare you to find any powers that have all of those qualities without feat, Paragon Path, Epic Destiny, or magic item modifiers.

Also, they're a Con/Int race, but their only racial feat is for being a Chaos Sorcerer. Int and Wis are the Sorcerer's dump stats, and Con is the class's tertiary stat at best. Ironically, they make much better Shielding Swordmages, Staff Wizards, and Con-Warlocks than Sorcerers.

[Blazen]

Axed the miss. Also, that was the only feat I could come up with for them.

[DiscipleofBob]

They look pretty good right now. Final Burst is now reasonable, but still awesome.

Let's see... You could use some racial feats, so here's a few suggestions off the top of my head.

Katan-Kai

Arm Blade Defense
Heroic
You gain a +1 shield bonus to your AC as long as you are not holding anything in your off-hand. If you make an attack with your off-hand armblade, you lose this bonus until the start of your next turn.

Jagged Arm Blade
Heroic
Your arm blades gain the brutal 1 property.

Jungle Predator
Heroic
Requirement: Light Blader
You gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with your arm blades when you have concealment from your target.

Mountain Stance
Heroic
Requirement: Heavy Blader
Whenever you are pushed, pulled, or slid, you can reduce the distance you are moved by 1.



Chromen

Chaos Flux
Heroic
When you roll a die to determine the attribute of your elemental shift racial feature, you may roll twice and use either result.

Elemental Corrosion
Heroic
Enemies that take damage from your Final Burst racial ability get a vulnerability to the type of damage of your elemental shift equal to your Constitution modifier until the end of your next turn.

Heart of Chaos
Heroic
Requirement: Sorcerer
You may substitute your Constitution modifier in place of your Charisma modifier on attack rolls and the main damage roll where applicable. This does not allow you to use your Constitution modifier in place of any other effects the power might have nor can you substitute your Constitution modifier for other class features.

Variable Defense
Heroic
Once per encounter, as an immediate interrupt, when you are attacked, you may roll a d6. On a result of 5 or 6, you gain a +2 bonus to the targeted defense until the end of your next turn. On a result of 1 or 2, you take a -2 penalty to the targeted defense until the end of your next turn. On a result of 3 or 4, no change is made.