This months Dragon magazine from WotC say the return of Krynn’s draconians, portrayed for D&D 4e through the use of racial variants for the Dragonborn race. Presented in the article were the Bozak (magic using) and Kapak (stealthy, acidic) draconians. Other the next few days, it’s my intention to write up the missing racial types.
Racial Variant: Baaz Draconian
Considered to be weak minded and with no discernible personality, Baaz draconians are the most numerous, serving in great multitudes as the foot soldiers of the Dark Queen Takhasis. Their natural ferocity and undisciplined and often sadistic behaviour is exploited by the other draconians, who whip them into a frenzy before battle. In death, the baaz draconian turns to stone, resulting in battlefield littered in the statues of the draconian armies, the weapons that slayed them still embedded in their bodies, though these statues soon crumbled.
Baaz draconians are generally indistinguishable from normal dragonborn, with the same humanoid form, clawed hands and blunt draconic snout with small sharp teeth. Their dragonlike wings are small, thin and leathery, barely capable of supporting their weight when gliding, yet alone allowing them to fly. Their scaled skin is a bright brassy colour when born, but fades to a dark green as they age and the scales harden.
Baaz player characters are usually pure martial warriors such as slayers or knights, or even barbarians, where their natural strength makes them formidable fighters.
When creating a baaz draconian character, you can pick from the following benefits.
Warrior Blood: Driven to a frenzy before battle, your strikes fell your foes with ease
Benefit: You gain a +1 racial bonus to the damage rolls of your martial weapon attack powers. This bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level. This benefit replaces Dragonborn Fury.
Draconic Form: Your sclaes provide you with a natural armour, and while your wings are neither large enough nor strong enough to sustain flight for long, they can help you glide rather than fall.
Benefit: You gain a +2 racial bonus to AC, and you take no damage from falling and land standing up. This benefit replaces Draconic Heritage.
Frenzied Combat: In the heat of combat you lash out with your claws and teeth, the scent of blood filling your nostrils and making your attacks more fierce.
Benefit: You gain the Violent Outlash power. This benefit replaces Dragon Breath.
Violent Outlash * Baaz Racial Power
With your foe smarting them your attack, you lash out, hitting him with your claws, or biting at their face.
Encounter * Martial
Free Action * Personal
Trigger: You hit and damage an adjacent creature with a weapon attack
Target: The triggering creature.
Attack: Strength vs AC
Hit: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage
Level 11: 2d6 + Strength modifier damage.
Level 21: 3d6 + Strength modifier damage.
Special: You regain the use of this power when you are bloodied.
Death Throes: The draconic blood that flows through your veins solidifies as soon as the your heart stops beating, petrifying your body from the inside out, turning you into a statue.
Benefit: You gain the Solid Death power. All baaz draconians gain this benefit.
Solid Death * Baaz Racial Power
As the attack ends your life, your scales harden to a stone like material.
Daily
Free Action * Personal
Trigger: You die
Effect: You turn into a statue. If the creature that struck the deathblow was using a weapon, it must make a Hard DC Dexterity check or have its weapon fused inside your body. You crumble to dust after 2d10 minutes.
Draconian Feats
The feats in this section enhance the capabilities of draconian characters.
Baaz Footsoldier
Seizing the opportunity to finish your foe, your blows stagger them, allowing you to strike harder next time.
Prerequisite: Baaz draconian, Warrior Blood racial feature
Benefit: If you hit and damage a target with a martial weapon attack power, you gain combat advantage on your next attack against the target.
Gallop Into Battle
The lust to engage your foes means you run into combat.
Prerequisite: Baaz draconian
Benefit: You gain a +2 feat bonus to speed while charging, and gain a +2 bonus to your speed when running. In addition, you do not suffer the -5 penalty or grant combat advantage for running.
6 comments
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Mik Calow
March 12, 2013 at 10:19 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
They were originally included as monstets in one of the Draconomicon 4e books, and stats appeared in the old off-line monster builder. Baaz, Bozak, Kapak, Sivak and Aurak were the originals and then they added new ones for the newer dragon versions (cobalt etc) whose names escape me at present.
Nice to see them presented as a playable race. A great alternative to Dragonborn, especially for a Dragonlance campaign.
BlindGeekUK
March 12, 2013 at 10:20 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Some general observations about the Dragon article, and making this variant…
1) Personally, I’d have given all the draconians their death effect as a free benefit, it’s kind of one of the defining things about draconians from my experience of krynn. The draconians death stuff is also unlikely to ever happen, since its rare to ever actually kill a character in 4e. This especially makes it replacing the dragon breath power really crap.
2) I dislike racial variants having different stat bonuses because its nasty coding in the cbloader. This is especially true for the Kapak, where they have given it a fixed +2 dex, +2 cha, rather than the +2 cha, +2 str/cons of the normal race. Personally, if I was doing racial stat changes, i’d have done +2 dex, +2 cha/cons for the kapak.
3) The fixed nature of racial benefits, where variants replace choices is both good and bad. The fact that you can pick and choose to truly custom your character is great, but, if you want to add more, such as the wings and the scales of the baaz as 2 separate options, its impossible to have both.
BlindGeekUK
March 12, 2013 at 10:26 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Mik: yeah, the adamaaz, ferak, and kobaaz. There were also noble, frost, lightning, venom, flame and vapour version added in the 3e krynn bestiary. I’ll probably do all the Draconomicon ones.
DGibb
March 12, 2013 at 2:04 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I may be reading the feats incorrectly, but I have the following observations:
Baaz Footsoldier – does this mean if I go up against a solo, I hit him once and then have combat advantage against him on every attack until I miss? (ie. round 1: hit, round 2 w/ca: hit, round 3 w/ca: hit, round 4 w/ca: hit, round 5 w/ca: miss, round 6: no ca) If so, bring on the strength based rogues to maximize sneak attack!
Gallop Into Battle – Static +2 to speed when charging or running. This makes them as fast as or faster than half-orcs. Negate the -5 to hit when running? Rather than giving a +2 to charging/running, just give them a static +2 to speed, essentially. Every round, a baaz can run 10 (base speed 6, +2 running, +2 gallop into battle) then charge 8 (base speed 6, +2 gallop into battle) to attack, and take no penalties for it.
It is just my thought that these feats are overpowered.
BlindGeekUK
March 12, 2013 at 2:23 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Oh, yeah, they are definitely overpowered… they are also homebrew, and created in about 30 minutes without testing…
On the flipside, from what I remember from krynn books (its been 24 years since i read dragons of autumn twilight), even the big group of tanis, strum, rasitlin, caramon, flint, tasselhoff, goldmoon and riverwind struggled against a small group of draconians, so i’m happy for them to be overpowered in my game.
DGibb
March 12, 2013 at 2:34 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Fair enough.
I would probably alter the Gallop Into Battle to provide a +1 to speed when charging static and 1/encounter reduce the -5 to attack when running to -2. This would highlight the speed and agility they have in battle and their prowess with their weapons even when a normal soldier would be out of breath and losing focus.
For Baaz Footsoldier, I would change the feat completely to include a reroll. Once per encounter, if you miss your target with an attack, you can reroll the attack and take the second result. This would be equivalent to a soldier’s attack glancing off armor and making a second attack to find the chink in the armor. This also puts it at an appropriate power level – it isn’t as strong as Elven Accuracy since it takes a feat slot, but performs the same way.