Shortly after the release of D&D 4E I began developing my own custom content, mostly PC races. My first (and so far only) “professional” release has been my 4E tortle, a race of anthropomorphic turtles (or tortoises) originally from the Savage Coast setting. This release includes PC race stats, weapons, feats, and monster blocks. (This is simply a transfer of the file and change log from my old blog to this one.)
Change log after the jump.
6/27:
Tweaked the functioning of the Elder Shaman’s existential barrier ability.
6/28:
Restored the net’s range to its original value.
Added Weapon Focus (Net) to the feats section and updated the Tortle Angler feat to give a similar bonus.
Added note to “Playing a Tortle” about tortles wearing armor.
Removed the racial swim speed and updated the Natural Swimmer feature to compensate.
Added size restriction to Entangle power.
Fixed a few typos in the Feats section and the Militia Captain and Elder Shaman monster blocks.
6/30:
Tweaked average height/weight to be closer to original measures.
Renamed Tortle Armor to Tortle Shell and added direct note about tortles wearing armor.
Removed Slow and Steady ability to ignore speed penalties in heavy armor.
Tweaked trigger for Shell Defense to allow it to activate when an adjacent ally is hit as well and updated monster blocks accordingly.
Changed Trident: two-handed weapon, 1d10, not thrown. Updated monster blocks accordingly.
Changed Entangle: requires combat advantage or flanking allies.
Added note about burst or area powers destroying nets. (The functioning of the net is still very much a work in progress.)
Tweaked Elder Shaman abilities.
7/11:
Various changes, mostly to the functioning of the trident and net.
Thanks so much for the TORTLE pdf . My DM clued me into it. He knows how much I enjoyed playing races from Mystara
I know I’m asking a lot, but would you please make a pdf for the Rakasta and maybe, possibly the Lupin ?
One of the Dragon magazine articles out lately has been about Knolls.
If I remember correctly, Lupins were supposed to be the light side of the knolls like the Elves and Eladrin are to the Drow.
And I would love to be able to play a Rakasta in 4e. The only question would be which class to pick from ? A samurai type fighter or a ninja type rogue ? Maybe even a warlock ?
Though that might fit a Tortle better
So, would you please make a Rakasta pdf ? And maybe a Lupin pdf ?
Thanks again, I appreciate all the effort you put into the TORTLE pdf.
Yours truly,
Andy
Hey Andy,
I’ve actually done stats for both rakasta (as catfolk) and lupins. I’ve never officially released them, though I do have a player in my campaign playing a rakasta with them. I actually meant to release the PDF for rakasta/catfolk a long time ago (along with eventually other races including lupins) but I never got the art finished.
Since you’ve expressed interest, though, I will try to finish up the rakasta PDF and perhaps even put together the lupin PDF as well in the next couple of days (I’d probably release it this weekend).
I do warn (though you should know this if you’ve read the tortle PDF) that I’m not particularly attached to the original Mystara/Savage Coast flavor; I planned on releasing the rakasta as “catfolk” (after their flavorless 3.5 incarnation) because I didn’t want to step on the toes of anyone looking for a more faithful recreation. (My rakasta are steppe nomads, for example, and my lupins don’t have anything to do with werewolves.) That doesn’t affect the stats themselves too much, though, so I hope they’ll still be helpful to you.
My rakasta, by the way, are geared towards rangers and rogues (+2 Str, +2 Dex). The lupins are more wizard/warlock/warlord-y (+2 Con, +2 Int).
Nur-ab-sal,
I look forward to the Rakasta and Lupin pdfs. Thanks again for the Tortle pdf.
Andy
I appreciate the quick reply, I just now thought to check back at your site.