Talk:Cambion (4e Race)

Featured Article Nomination

— This article did not become a featured article. --Green Dragon 12:07, 31 January 2012 (MST)
Please feel free to re-nominate it once it meets the FA criteria and when all the major issues brought up in this nomination have been dealt with.

With the recent release of the Manual of the Planes many may find this an article of great interest. -- Sepsis 13:27, 22 January 2009 (MST)

Comment — More links to the 4e Index need to be added. Also all the links to homebrew feats should be piped to not say "(4e Feat)". --Green Dragon 11:02, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

I agree and will work on these first. -- Sepsis 12:27, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

Comment — I do not see why Cambions can mate with other species, and from a flavor aspect I would just remove that entire aspect. Personally, because Cambions are immortal, I would change the "Cambions Today" to not be raised by by mixed families, but rather be the result of the rare instance when two Cambion's meet, mate, and have a child. Maybe the female would feel obliged to care for it for 10 years or so, but then seeing how selfish Cambions are neither would want to care for the child and they would leave it - to fend for itself. Creating an immensely hard life, and since other children would always treat it differently (it has wings on it's back) it would an outcast, always trying to prove itself. Also in "Playing a Cambion" I do not think they should be classified as beautiful. It just does not seem to fit them. --Green Dragon 11:02, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

The "Cambions Today" section is truley just fluff to set out examples of how a current Cambions may have came into existence (as the war between Arkhosia and Bal Turath is long over). I felt it would help Players build a suitable background for themselves, similar to the examples cited for Dhampyrs in last months Dragon and as with those they are not a set of rules but a set of examples for how Players and DMs can add a PC/NPC Cambion into the game. Being fluff and not mechanics I'm not sure why it should be changed as if any DM disagrees with it he/she can discard any of it and replace it with their own fluff and never need make any mechanical changes. Although if you truely feel it should be changed I will do it. But I may need clearer examples of what you would like to see (or at least how you think it should read). And I will be rewritting the "Playing a Cambion" section as I agree it dosen't feel right. BTW, thank you for your input. -- Sepsis 12:27, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

I guess my question is: When Cambions mate with other species why is a non-half-Cambion the result? It just does not make sense to me. If it makes sense to you that's fine — it's your race and it is just totally flavor with no in-game result. Or if the reason could somehow be explained somewhere on the page that would be even better. --Green Dragon 13:37, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

Well although Tieflings are the result of an infernal curse, they are the Half-Cambion (Tieflings are now born of Devil not Demon blood and Demicambions are more like Dhampyrs...the blood is just slightly tainted). I know the other fact was WotC is working hard to control the proliferation of half-breeds, and I wanted to help with that. When or if a Cambion mates another Cambion, or a Tiefling, is normally the result. I saw no need to create a third race for that, it just adds more of that old 3.X clutter. But I want that to be clear the last thing I want is to have anything be confusing. Let me know. -- Sepsis 19:58, 8 March 2009 (MDT)

I've updated both the "Playing a Cambion" and the "Cambions Today" sections to see if they would sound better and seem clearer. Please give me your thoughts. Also I'm once more at a loss as to what else truely needs to be linked. I keep looking over the article and can't see where I could really use any more (I don't want to go overboard), but if you see somethings that just scream "link me" to you please let me know what they are. I think I would be more link happy if we had 4e SRDs. I don't mind the glossary, but many things just seem to have to point to the same entry, and I don't like to link to the same entry more then once or twice in an article. -- Sepsis 15:09, 9 March 2009 (MDT)

Comment — The major issues for this article not becoming a featured article are listed below.

1. The images are from Wizards of the Coast.
2. There is no racial power, and the balance is skewed (see needsbalance).
3. These have very little reoleplaying potential (hate everything and be hated?)
4. The text is not comprehensive in implementing these into a campaign setting, especially with regard to how they came into existence and what they are doing now.

Once these issues, among others, have been resolved feel free to re-nominate this page for Featured Article status. --Green Dragon 11:55, 31 January 2012 (MST)

Magazine Submission

Overpowered?

Gaining hitpoints is very good in 4e. For example, toughness is actually a pretty powerful feat. Triumphant Surge can grant massive tanking capability to a striker (read: rogue). It seems overpowered. On the other hand, it also draws fighters to actually want to choose this class even though the statistics bonuses are not tailored to them. What do you think? --Aarnott 13:59, 12 December 2008 (MST)

Well actually gaining HP in 4e is not that great. Between the high HP given from start (and at each level), the ease with witch PCs can heal themselves, and the abundance of powers that grant healing, gaining HPs (temp or not) is quite common (much more MMORPGish). As well I've had a Cambion PC in one of my games for some time now, and the Triumphant Surge power has not been a huge issue. Sometimes he can build a small bank of temp HP, but for the most part he gains very little (they go away when a Cambion rests). So I have to say from actual experience that no it is not overpowered. -- Sepsis 15:52, 12 December 2008 (MST)

I agree with Sepsis. I would make Triumphant Surge look like this, though;

Triumphant Surge	Cambion Racial Power
The blood of your enemies gives you strength.
4e Power Usage::At-Will
4e Power Action Type::Immediate Reaction	Personal
Trigger: A non-minion enemy is bloodied or reduced to 0 hit points or less by one of your attacks.
Effect: You gain 5 temporary hit points.
Special: Must have a starting class that draws from the Martial, Primal, Ki, or Psionic power sources.

I think that it is more like an immediate reaction than a free action. --Sam Kay 04:32, 13 December 2008 (MST)

That was how I had originally thought of it, but in reading the section on "Immediate Actions" (PHB pg.268) I noticed that it says "You can't take an Immediate Action on your own turn" (although I swear I've seen official creations that do). I would be curious to see what the general concensus is and if anyone can find one of those official examples I mentioned (I'm going to look again). It really does seem like "Immediate Reaction" would work best. -- Sepsis 05:54, 13 December 2008 (MST)

I talked about this with my group last night and they agreed with you. So it seems Triumphant Surge is alright. Soul Mantle on the other hand... My entire group agreed that it should be a daily. Otherwise it means that every encounter you get +2 AC and Reflex against ranged attacks. If you wanted that, it should just be a permanent racial feature. --Aarnott 09:09, 14 December 2008 (MST)

I want it to be a "permanent racial feature" for Cambions drawing from the Arcane, Divine, Elemental, or Shadow power sources. So I thought presenting it as a Power (opposite of Triumphant Surge), worked well and allowed me to scale it as the Player went up in levels. I suppose I could write it up that way as a racial trait, but then I could do the same with Triumphant Surge. If I do one I want to do the other. What do you think? -- Sepsis 10:55, 26 December 2008 (MST)

I changed the Powers into Traits. Same effect, different format. Tell me what you think. -- Sepsis 11:26, 26 December 2008 (MST)

I stumbled upon this while trying to figure out some flight feats for the pixie. I was thinking of using yours however the fall damage thing throws me off. All fractions in DnD since I can remember have been rounded down. It is possible that this got changed in 4th edition and i just didn't notice because I assumed it was the same and never looked it up. Hope I've helped at all. --YQM 07:53, 18 April 2009 (MDT)

In 4e fractions are always rounded down, except when noted (PHB pg. 11). I had done so in this case to prevent PCs from taking 0 damage from a fall (eliminating damage is a bigger no no), but I do have a wording solution that will easily fix it, thanks for bringing it up. -- Sepsis 11:41, 18 April 2009 (MDT)

type, origin, keyword

I can't edit this page. Some minor clarifications are needed regarding infernal origin. Devil is a keyword, but Immortal is an origin. Categories need changing accordingly: "Category: Immortal Origin" and "Category: Devil Keyword". See Monster Manual p. 6. Thanks, Marasmusine 03:27, 9 January 2012 (MST)

Cambions are strictly defined as male. Please do more research on a race you're creating (Monster Manual II 1st/2nd ed, Tome of Horrors revised 3.5e, http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cambion ). What would be considered the sister version of a cambion is called a Alu-demon Anon 14:09, 26 December 2016 (MST)

Needsbalance

Both the Heritage traits are overpowered for at-will, but about right for encounter. If you want them at-will, they need to drop right down: Triumphant surge to 2 THP; Soul Mantle to +1 racial bonus to AC and Reflex - and this shouldn't scale with tier. However, I would favour making them encounter powers. Marasmusine 00:32, 1 February 2012 (MST)

I was trying to address this. I guess I was wrong saying that is is slightly underpowered, then I changed the {{needsbalance}} text. --Green Dragon 10:19, 1 February 2012 (MST)