Break Down Dragon Compendium Races for classes?

[CyberThread]

My friend is considering buying the book , are good/useful are the races in the book and what can they go towards in the various classes in other published books?

[zilonox]

I have it, but have yet to use any races from it since the DM's I have encountered have a trait that greatly increases the dislike for a product the further from core that it is and they consider the Compendium borderline 3rd party material (which would be heretical to use). :smallfrown:

Funny thing is I know one that would allow thri-kreen, but not diopsid (an insectile race from Dragon Compendium), even though the diopsid seem weaker to me.

Anyway, the tibbit seem to get a lot of love around here for their ability to become tiny, hidden terrors.

[Chronos]

A lot of Dragon Magazine material is just poorly thought-out. Not necessarily overpowered, not necessarily underpowered, just leaving open a lot of situations where the DM or players will go "Huh? How do the rules for that work?".

[thethird]

I personally really like some of the races there.

Lupin are like werewolves but not quite, like they are humanoid wolves and are cool.

Diopsid are a watered down Thri Keen, thus nice.

Tibbits are furred little balls of DOOM!

There are also Dvati which... are difficult to handle, but nice. 2 bodies 1 soul.

---

Classes are also pretty nice, I really like the Sha'ir.

[Darrin]

Diaboli: They get LA +1, mostly for having a poison attack that might mildly annoy someone. While venomfire shenanigans spring to mind, the limitations on the poison don't make it worth the LA +1. The natural tail attack is nice, and opens up Multiweapon Fighting with only a feat (Prehensile Tail), but there are other races that get natural attacks without any LA (Darfellen, Kenku, Kobolds, Warforged).
Rating: D

Diopsid: These oddballs may be one of the weirdest races you can play and still call yourself vaguely humanoid. Their racial features are somewhat contradictory: they have darkvision, yet can also glow via bioluminescence. They have four arms, but instead of using the existing rules for multiple arms, they have an odd subset of restrictions. They have a Dex penalty, yet can ignore the Dex requirement for any feat that mentions "Two-Weapon". They also get a +4 natural armor bonus, stubby wings that provide a nearly "always on" featherfall effect, and don't need to sleep. They have a LA +1 (which rankles me a bit), but this more forgivable on what is obviously a melee-oriented race, and they're much more playable than the similarly multilimbed Thri-Kreen.
Rating: B-

Dvati: Fantastic idea, extremely poor execution. You really, really need to talk this race over with your DM and work out a framework to handle the rules headaches that will invariably pop up every time you try to use this race. I even emailed the Dvati's original creator, and even he wasn't entirely sure how they should work (you can see his email responses in this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7815509&postcount=32)). For the record, I think it's pretty clear that each twin should get his/her own set of actions, otherwise most of their racial abilities just plain don't work as described, but even beyond just the actions, there's a whole mess of spell effects to work out. Even so, a very unusual idea, and would probably be a blast to play, but you'd need a flexible DM who is able ot tweak things on the fly to work most of the kinks out.
Rating: B+/F

Lupin: My overwhelming reaction to these guys is: *Snoooorrrrre*. Boring. They don't really offer anything unique or interesting. Darkvision, some racial skill bonuses, +1 attack/damage bonus against Werewolves... none of these really stand out as a reason to take this race. The only thing that's even mildly unusual is an acute sense of smell... but it's not Scent, and barely even useful. There's nothing really bad about them, and as a monstrous humanoid with no racial HD or LA, so that may be worth something, but... sorry, just... boring.
Rating: D

Tibbit: Small size, Str -2/Dex +2, which is pretty standard for small races, but they also have darkvision (one of my pet peeves from playing a halfling... no lowlight/darkvision), and they can also turn into a tiny-sized cat at will. Now, there's an argument that this is not really a benefit, since most of your stats except your land speed and Hide bonus are worse, but... you get to tear things apart or blow things up as a housecat. That's just pure awesomesauce. The only real knock against them is the rules aren't clear how Tibbit spellcasters in cat form handle somatic gestures, but if your DM is being hardnosed about it, you can probably fix that with a feat (Surrogate Spellcasting).
Rating: A

[CyberThread]

If a diospid can carry a large weapon in two of its four hands, can it carry a huge weapon in four of its hands?

[killem2]

A lot of Dragon Magazine material is just poorly thought-out. Not necessarily overpowered, not necessarily underpowered, just leaving open a lot of situations where the DM or players will go "Huh? How do the rules for that work?".

Very little of it is poorly thought out, most of it ended up with future splat books.

Its a lot of unwarranted hate and a bunch of lazy DMs.

[dysprosium]

Very little of it is poorly thought out, most of it ended up with future splat books.

It's a lot of unwarranted hate and a bunch of lazy DMs.

+1 to this. There is so much 3.5 "canon" that was first printed in Dragon Magazines.

But to answer the OP, tibbits are pretty much universally loved. Psionics are ususally used with them for the shenanigans that can happen like with stuff being blown up all around but only a cat is there.

I personally like the diaboli and the lupins maybe because of the fluff/lore. Lupins go all the way back to first edition.

Never tried the dvati or the diopsid.

[CyberThread]

the dio,seems to want some love as it grants some rather unique things, like the powerful build, while just using weapons, although I need to see if they qualify for grappling bonus also.