| From: | shadowrn@*********.com (Achille Autran) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Drakes! (was Year of the Comet Thoughts) |
| Date: | Sat Aug 4 04:35:05 2001 |
>From: <John@*****.co.uk>
>and finaly game balance. how the hell should these be balanced? you can
>argue the dual nature could be balancing, I thought of tying them to a
>particular dragon in some way (not sure how yet) losing the ability to
>astrally project would be drawback for any mages.. this is where I get
>stuck, I mean, what munthkin WOULDN'T want to play a drake :-)
>
>any ideas/feedback people?
Frankly, I don't think that drake are playable as PCs, unless you want Ryan
Mercury wannabees roaming the ground. You've got the Dragons SB, so you've
got drakes stats, but you don't seem to be used to ED stats. Then let me
tell you: drakes are munchkin as hell, a good match for circle 9-10 ED
characters, at least, and that's a power level unmanagable with SR
mechanics. Their attributes are at least twice normal PC's attributes,
thrice for full-grown drakes. Their natural fighting capacity is awesome,
and they're skilled spellcatsers to boot. Even hybrid (between a drake
created by the Dance of Blue Spirits and a Name Giver) drakes like Aardela
(as well as Ryan Mercury/Quicksilver or that mutating guy from YotC) kick
serious ass, on a par only with very high-power PCs, check Aardela stats in
Prelude to War or Barsaive at War if you have these books. And that's what
drakes ARE. Whatever you'll do, if you keep them at their place in draconic
society, they won't be balanced.
But well, it's your game, you do as you like, but this is way, way over the
top for a sane game, IMO. You'd better check for dragonkins (there has been
some discussion on the list some time ago, search for a "dragonkin as PC"
thread), you can even claim that some SURGE effects are little remains of
draconic blood, either from a dragonkin or an hybrid drake descent.
Molloy
