The 4th edition Players Handbook outlines various party roles, defender, controller, striker, and leader but this article has nothing to do with those roles.  What I want to address today is the oft controversial role of party leader – the guy who does most of the talking to NPC’s and who makes most of the major decisions, i.e. which way to go next.

I need to make it absolutely clear to anyone new to the game that any character of any race or class can be party leader, and in fact the responsibility can (and probably will) shift from player to player throughout the campaign.

There are two common misconceptions about being party leader.  First that it is fun.  Second that it is not fun.

Some people feel completely left out.  They feel like the person in the leadership position is stealing their thunder or pushing them to the side.  While this can happen, usually it is not the case.  Usually they aren’t even trying to be leaders.  They just like playing and don’t take time to notice that the other players have something to add.

This brings us to the first responsibility of leadership within the D&D game.  If you are party leader, then your primary job is to make sure that everyone is included and that all party resources are being utilized.  All too often someone who assumes (or is given) the job of party leader feels like they need to solve problems by themselves.  Most times problems can be more easily solved by pooling resources than by tackling them solo.

This can make being party leader sound very unfun.  After all if the other players blame you for leaving them out and making their game unfun that can be a big negative.  So what do you do?  Have fun first.  Learn to balance your needs with the needs of the other players.

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I’m an old gamer so when I cracked the 4e PHB and found that Dragonborn top the list of races (alphabetic order or course) I did a double take.  Understand that I’m not a big fan of playing walking lizards. 

Back in the day we had lizardmen and they were just nasty to deal with.  Anyone else ever run the old Quagmire module?  (Sorry I can’t even find a link to it).  Anyway to point is that the art in the player’s handbook reminded me of lizardmen (not the new fangled lizard folk).  So I didn’t like dragonborn from the get go.

The only other point of reference is to the Dragonlance setting, where the bad guys were generally the draconic creatures.  If you ever played the old Dragonlance AD&D computer games (me and my commodore 64 spent many hours together), then you know the frustration of fighting these bad boys.  Everytime you killed one you either lost your weapon or got exploded.

But the 4th edition dragonborn have a different spin.  They are honorable, loyal, courageous - all of the good things you would want in a paladin leading the fray.  They sound pretty cool.  Also they get a nifty breath weapon, and that can be plenty of help in a pinch, I don’t care who you are.

My problem is still that I don’t like playing a lizard.  I guess I’ll just have to buckle down and get over it.  I have actually played one - but I can’t say I like the idea of being a talking lizard.  Like so many other aspects of the game it will grow on me.

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The genasi in 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons have been completely overhauled.  Whereas in 3rd edition the genasi were all different races depending on the element they were descended from, in 4th edition the genasi are all planetouched from the “elemental chaos.”

This means that they all get the same base ability bonuses.  But you get to choose from one of five elemental manifestations to start with.

Earthsoul
Firesoul
Stormsoul
Watersoul
Windsoul

Each manifestation has a different power associated with it and as you progress in levels you can take feats to get access to more manifestations or to boost your elemental powers.

Personally I like the windsoul manifestation the best.  The ability to fly is hard to come by, and being able to fly as an encounter power gives a lot of flexibility.  Because of the mechanical change of putting them all as one race, the flavor of the genasi has shifted a little bit from their original roots, but I can understand why WOTC would want to make this move.  It does make the game a bit simpler.  I would favor having each genasi being their own race myself, but as a DM I do like this implementation.

Which genasi do you like?

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