Water and Air Genasi Update Ideas

[LinuxPup]

I don't think many people pick Air Genasi... one problem is the 1x a day gust of wind as their only ability. I think it'd be cool, and fitting, if they were given Evasion as an innate feat...

And perhaps give the Water Genasi the ability to do a drown attack 1x a day. Either make it similar to the Water Elemental's drown attack... where its a fortitude save or die and the elemental loses half their life doing it, or the water genasi does a lot of damage instead of killing the foe.

Perhaps the drown attack takes half the Water Genasi's HP and applies that as damage (magical damage so its hard to resist) against its opponents nearby. With a fortitude save for half damage.

DC for drown attack should be based on constitution modifier. So something like: 15 + 1/2 character level + constiution modifer. No spellcraft bonus for saves.

[MasterYoda]

I think the earthgen ability was really on to something. A shield. Earth gen can take massive phyicial damage.

Y not go along the same thing with the other 3?

Water gen:

1-19 give em lesser globe of invuln
20-39 give em globe
40 a modified version of globe in a major fasion. IE immune to lvl 8 and below spells.

This would give off the effect of them being in a bubble. That as they grow with there genesai heritage they become more adept at there ability.

Then wind seems like there anti aoe spells.... So y not give them a concealment bonous. But something along the lines of like how ghostly visage works up to etherial.

They can get like 20% conceal and -5 dr
Then 30% and like - 10 dr
Then 40% and like - 15 dr
Then 50% and like - 20 dr

Make it also follow progression of the lvl 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 spel immunities.

Mabey use the clairity + etherial visage for the effect.

Then for fire ( not trying to put something in here not needed ) but I allways thought of those uber dexers and thought it would be cool for them to kinda go fire elemental like and it give mad buffs.

Like

1 - 9 +1 ab +2 fire damage
10- 19 +2 ab +4 fire damage
20- 29 +3 ab + 6 fire damage
30 - 39 +4 ab +8 fire damage
40 +5 ab +10 fire damage

Also let them do damage to there atacker
Like

3, 6, 9, 12, 15 depending on level.

Mabey use the holysword into a constant combust on the player untill it expires.

I think something that helps the characters survivalibility will make these classes more playable.

[MLoki]

Indeed... the 1/day affects are handy at times but they are still only once per day. Not as usefull as a shield that lasts for a decent duration like the Earth Genasi or even the Darkness that Drow and Tieflings have.

MLoki

[Alkapwn]

I have a couple of Fire Genasi toons and rarely use the token. When i do its usually a last resort. Its a good race but I still think it doesnt warrant the ecl it has. As for Water and Air Genasi I totally agree they new a rework . The suggestions above would make them a very desirable races and would add to a much more diverse world and bring them on par with the Earth Genasi(a extremely overused race)
And maybe implement the Banishment(death) effect listed on the wiki. I've tried this on many genasi toons and it doesnt even seem to even cause a save so I assume it was never implemented. Aswell as the Planar Binding(stun) which i havent tested but it would be pretty cool defence against the genasi's.

[Umpa]

Perhaps instead of following this thought of thinking for every planar race, we could go with something else.

The summons line of thinking for some:
Such as Asamir in DnD have no real bonus other then they make Light, weeeeee....Useless, perhaps make this light blinding with resists. Perhaps allow them to summon more powerful versions of Solars then is allowed versus the other planar races.

You could also perhaps make a enhanced Elemental type that each of the planar races could summon, Air Gen, is really not that great for the EXP hit you take to use it. But if the Wizard thought he would get something other then gust of wind, which is almost useless they would.

Air Gens perhaps could use it more often if you add a nockback effect to it thats harder to resist, and use it more then 1 time a rest, perhaps 3, or based on level 1 for every 20 levels you have.

Fire you could add some meta bonus for fire spells perhaps, or let them cast darkfire 1 time a day on self.

Water perhaps a cool mini timestop token or perhaps add water regen ability where they could regen a bit better, if there is water in the map or just all the time.

Tieflings already get darkness which is a really powerful leveling tool, not pvp, but the stats help a lot there.

I honestly think the Blind with 0 resists killed off the Drow, they are not planar, but Why would you use one if you know your going to be blind 3/4 of the battle where SR wasn't even figured in. This also goes for deep gnomes, if we are looking at DnD novels and books as our basis, did drizzt go blind every adventure during combat? or do you think he built some resistance? I am still a backer of magical light should be resistable if its a magical source. Its not a summons.

Just a thought, but I think following the combat line of thinking for everything will detract from the game a bit more then needed, somethings work better in combat, but taking 3 times longer to level an Asamir, those folks would really have to want those 2 extra wis points.

It would also be cool of instead of handing them their race upgrade/item you made it a bit of a quest to get it, then power it up on the appropriate plane.

Edit: Perhaps Drow could summon more powerful Balor/knights, as seen where the 3rd expansion a Drow summoned Meph.

[Gornickthy]

Darn it... I think Yoda is on to something.... I like his thinking... man, now I have to hunt him down and pk him for making sense.

[Nolan Silvermoon]

IMO all the gensai races need to be and ecl 3, earth gen is way overpowered to be an ecl 2. but who am i to question the powers above

[Alkapwn]

IMO all the gensai races need to be and ecl 3, earth gen is way overpowered to be an ecl 2. but who am i to question the powers above

Are you joking? Eath Gen becomes powerful at 40 and thats a long road as is. Even then it doesnt last that long in a mob or pvp. There's a couple of good Egen builds running around that are really powerful but its more the build then the race abilites.
As for the other Genasi Almost not worth the ecl as is in my opinion. Fire and Earth being the exceptions. Ive looked them over for builds on numerous occasions and considering thier lack of SR and only 50%of their elemental resists?
take a look Air Genasi vs. Moon Elf
Water Genasi vs. Wild elf
The elf races have no ecl and basically the same stats with less minuses, no ecl, and Elf abilities(constant search,spot bonuses etc...)!!!
The genasi gets their seeminly less then effective tokens(water,air) and 50%immunities and an xtra feat for being human. for this they get +2ecl.....
I see the only way to warrant an ecl 3 would be to give them SR aswell maybe Starting 3% +4%/5levels

[Kirg]

I agree with you Alkapwn just a remark :
comparative THAN
temporal THEN

Thank you

[Celorn]

Well those are interesting ideas, but you could tie things in better...

1. All the GEN races could simply have modified Darkfire/Flame Weapon spells (for clerics & mages) that give acid, cold or electrical damage (for earth, water and air GEN).

2. All the GEN races could have 100% immunity to their element, but perhaps a 25% vuln to their opposing element (fire/water, earth/air)

3. And to follow in the earth gen line, you could give a damage shield along the same power to the other 3:
i. fire could simply be the Elemental shield spell, cast based on total # of levels as caster lvls (maybe 100% fire instead of 50/50 fire/cold),
ii. water could be a stronger version of premonition ie: same scale as earth gen, (kind of looks like a water effect in a way), and
iii. air could be a kd aoe effect spell similar to the air plane cleric mob...

Those kind of changes would make the other races a lot more interesting IMHO.

and i do believe the ECL2 of earth gen is just right since they don't get SR, but unless improvements are made to the other gens, I think ECL2 may be too much to be worth it (except possibly for builds that benefit a LOT from the stat bonuses).

[Binkyuk]

1 i think might be a bit powerful. As it stands fire resist is the usual one people take because they know it'll help against darkfire and flame weapon. I think this change might be much more powerful than you think.
It also affects only certain classes, which is generally a bad thing because then you skew the power in their favour. You'd have to add another ability that somehow helps other classes but not wiz/sorcs and clerics - a toughie.

Personally if I could make 2 small changes:
make the Air Genasi ability 3 uses per day and only affect a single target, or only affect enemies. As it stands its tendency to take out summons and party members much more easily than monsters makes it really difficult to use.
make the Fire Genasi ability work *way* more times per day (maybe even 1/2 levels). It's nice at the start, but becomes quite obsolete when instead a casting class can throw *two* attack spells per round that are usually marginally better, and a melee class can hit 4 times per round, hopefully 1 or 2 of them critting. With scaling uses it'd give effectiveness early on and stamina later on.