PDA

View Full Version : Dragonborn Flying Feats, Take II [4E, Feats]



Grey Watcher
2008-08-06, 01:08 AM
Well, since my original thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85869) on the subject is far down enough that it's borderline thread necromancy to revive it, I'm just going to post the fruits of my labor here. I hope they work. The numbers might need tweaking, but I feel pretty happy with what I've got here. So, without further ado, here are a bunch of feats that should help your Dragonborn take to the skies!

Heroic Tier Feats
Dragonborn Wings [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15
Benefits: You have a pair of wings. You gain the Dragonborn Jump power. This replaces your 2nd-level utility power. If you do not yet have a 2nd-level utility power you can replace the power when you gain it.
Special: This feat must be taken at 1st level and cannot be retrained.

Dragonborn Jump (Feat Power)
With the aid of your wings, you are able to make incredible leaps.
At-Will
Move Action Personal
Effect: You make a high jump or a long jump. Determine the DC of the Athletics check as though you had a running start. In addition, you gain an untyped bonus to the check equal to your level.

Paragon Tier Feats
Dragonborn Flight [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15, Dragonborn Wings feat, 14th Level
Benefit: You gain the Dragonborn Flight power. This power replaces Dragonborn Jump.

Dragonborn Flight (Feat Power)
Your wings beat and you take to the air.
Daily
Move Action Personal
Effect: You gain a fly speed equal to your base speed, including any modifiers for armor or other encumbrance, until the end of your next turn or until you land, whichever comes first. As part of the action of using this power, you may fly up to your speed, and must move at least two squares. While airborne, you cannot shift or make Opportunity Attacks. You are considered a clumsy flier, giving you a -4 penalty to attack rolls and defenses while you are airborne.
Sustain Move: To sustain this power, you must spend a move action and move at least two squares in flight. If you land, the power immediately ends. If you do not spend a move action to sustain this power, you crash at the end of your turn and the power ends.

Easy Dragonborn Flight [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15, Dragonborn Wings feat, Dragonborn Flight feat power
Benefit: Your Dragonborn Flight power becomes an Encounter power.

Improved Dragonborn Flight [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15, Dragonborn Wings feat, Dragonborn Flight feat power
Benefit: You are no longer considered a clumsy flier when using your Dragonborn Flight power.


Epic Tier Feats
Effortless Dragonborn Flight [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15, Dragonborn Wings feat, Dragonborn Flight feat power, Easy Dragonborn Flight feat
Benefit: Your Dragonborn Flight power becomes an At-Will power.

Perfected Dragonborn Flight [Dragonborn]
Prerequisites: Dragonborn, Str or Con 15, Dragonborn Wings feat, Dragonborn Flight feat power, Improved Dragonborn Flight feat
Benefit: When using your Dragonborn Flight power, you can hover, meaning you no longer have to move a minimum number of squares to activate the power, and the Sustain entry changes to “Sustain Free: This power is automatically sustained until you land or crash. No action is required on your part.” You may also shift and make Opportunity Attacks while in flight.

Design Notes:Dragonborn Jump was designed using Great Leap (Rogue Utility 2) as a basis for comparison. Being able to move up to twice your speed was exchanged for a scaling bonus to the Jump Check, since using Great Leap verbatim would actually mean that a Dragonborn going from Dragonborn Jump to Dragonborn Flight would actually take LONGER to cross a chasm than his lower level counterpart (the Heroic character can do it in one round, using a Jump, while his flying Paragon equivalent has to spend two turns flying over it?). As for the scaling bonus, since, as I read the rules, you can't trade this power out for a class power later (because it, itself, is not a class power), I decided to give it a little extra zing to keep it from feeling like total dead weight while you're waiting to hit 14th level.

Dragonborn Flight was compared to Fly (Wizard Utility 16). Since, unlike Fly, it takes two feats just to acquire, and a third feat just to bring it up to par with what Fly is capable of, I figured that justified bringing entry down to 14th level. I don't know if putting level requirements is considered appropriate for non-multiclass feats, but I could think of any other way to prevent a player from taking Dragonborn Flight at 11th level, which seemed way too early to give a character the ability to fly once per day.

I'm still somewhat tempted to eliminate some prereqs. For example, perhaps Easy Dragonborn Flight SHOULDN'T be a prereq for Effortless, since Effortless makes Easy redudant, but making it an official prereq prevents you from retraining back out of it. Still, using the Warforged Article in Dragon 364 as a comparison, you can't really retrain out of prereqs for Warforged racial powers, so why should you be able to for Dragonborn powers? Still, I'm especially interested in critiques on this point.

chronoplasm
2008-08-06, 01:13 AM
My one complaint is that it can only be learned at 1st level.
I think it would be pretty cool in a campaign to have a plot-point where the Dragonborn guy starts grows wings.
Other than that, groovy.