How do you make mud interesting?

[LuminousWarrior]

I am currently creating a homebrew setting, and I have been trying to expand on a few races that I think need a few more options. One of those races is the genasi. I love the concept of humans who have been altered by powerful magic so much that it has become a part of them, but I thought that the genasi could use a few more variants. I already looked through the Dragon magazine articles and found the Abyssal genasi and Athas genasi, but I still wanted more. So, I started homebrewing my own. I took a cue from the 3e Inner Planes and started creating genasi based on the para-elemental and quasi-elemental planes, but hit a roadblock when making the genasi from the para-elemental ooze, which I dubbed the Mudsoul Genasi.

My problem is that I cannot seem to think of a racial power for them. I was thinking that the Mudsoul Genasi are constantly being underestimated and wanted a racial power that allowed them to use that to their advantage. Either that, or have them able to manipulate mud to their advantage. How should I go about doing this?

[LibraryOgre]

Perhaps they react to fire damage by getting a temporary DR? Like, if they take fire damage, they get DR 3(per tier)/- until the round after they take fire damage?

Or maybe let them squeeze through narrow places at full speed?

There's always the "react to slippery surfaces as if they were normal"

[LuminousWarrior]

OK, after a lot of brainstorming I came up with this. Do you think that this is balanced well enough?

Spoiler

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Mudsoul Genasi

You can breathe underwater. You can ignore difficult terrain due to mud or shallow water.

Muddy Ground
As you concentrate, your enemies begin to sink into the ground.
Encounter
Minor Action Close Burst 1
Effect: The ground around you has the consistency of mud. The area in the burst you is difficult terrain until the end of your next turn, and whenever an enemy ends its turn adjacent to you, it is restrained (save ends).

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Muddy Ground
As you concentrate, your enemies begin to sink into the ground.
Encounter
Minor Action Close Burst 1
Effect: The ground around you has the consistency of mud. The area in the burst you is difficult terrain until the end of your next turn, and whenever an enemy ends its turn adjacent to you, it is restrained (save ends).

Hm. I'm a little uncertain about this. Restrained is a pretty powerful condition (-2 to attack, no movement, and grants Combat Advantage), and this is therefore a fairly powerful ability. Then again, it does require enemies staying immediately next to you. Hm.

Is it odd that I'd rather see this as an automatic restrained status on all adjacent opponents for 1 round, with a save-ends that allows them a save at the beginning of their turn? And then perhaps consider making it a daily, as the assured restrained can be exploited prior to the target's actual turn.

[LuminousWarrior]

Hm. I'm a little uncertain about this. Restrained is a pretty powerful condition (-2 to attack, no movement, and grants Combat Advantage), and this is therefore a fairly powerful ability. Then again, it does require enemies staying immediately next to you. Hm.

Maybe if I replace restrained with slowed. I gave the Mudsoul Genasi the ability to ignore difficult terrain due to mud to allow them to move through the difficult terrain that they create with their Muddy Ground power.