Race Character Creation - I want a varitety!! (getting rid of racial stat bonuses)

[Ginnel]

Hey all.

I'm thinking of running a planescape game, this time in 4E.

2E setting 4E rules.

Anyway to my question at hand, what I want is for my players not to feel compelled to choose a particular race/class combo or not to be penalized for choosing a non opitmal one.

These are the planes there are going to be every combination of class and race available to players.

So I'm thinking, get rid of the stat bonuses the minor racial powers/falvourings can stay but the stats go, so Gnomeish Paladins and Half Orc bards and Dwarven rogues are more commonplace.

I'm think just getting rid of the bonuses full stop would do it, though maybe putting a stat adjustment on the class instead.

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by Ginnel

I'm think just getting rid of the bonuses full stop would do it, though maybe putting a stat adjustment on the class instead.

I am fond of class stat adjustment purely on its own merits (and you keep the balance between players and monsters closer to the same that way)

I will say its rather kin to making all races as adaptable as humans in this regard (you might consider giving humans another tid bit of some sort)

[keterys]

Well, humans probably wouldn't need anything cause you're getting rid of +2 to two stats on other races and just +2 to one on humans.

Anyhow, yeah, I pretty much think that racial stats affecting attack bonuses are too important in 4e and screw up character creation. It'd be good to, say, give some kinda bonus to support things that were previously backed up by the stats. Course, that's work, but could probably be as easy as picking a number of feats each can take as a bonus. Eh, still work

[Alisair Longreach]

This house rule don't require much work. Just add two sentences to your house rules document.

Ignore all racial stat modifiers.
Add +2 to the primary and one secondary class ability score.

[MadLordOfMilk]

I like Alisair's idea. More extreme option B, just have race be cosmetic and have everything use the human race features.

[Dragongrief]

Something my DM did that lets any race be any class, but doesn't completely ignore "traditional strengths" was:

+2 to one stat favored by the race
+2 to any other stat

[keterys]

Yeah, I remember giving that suggestion to someone else before, and it is nice for keeping at least some of the flavor.

[aurance]

Originally Posted by Dragongrief

Something my DM did that lets any race be any class, but doesn't completely ignore "traditional strengths" was:

+2 to one stat favored by the race
+2 to any other stat

This is what I do as well.

[DanmarLOK]

Ditto on the +2 to a racial biased stat and +2 to any other stat.

[CapnZapp]

Originally Posted by Ginnel

So I'm thinking, get rid of the stat bonuses the minor racial powers/falvourings can stay but the stats go, so Gnomeish Paladins and Half Orc bards and Dwarven rogues are more commonplace.

I'm think just getting rid of the bonuses full stop would do it, though maybe putting a stat adjustment on the class instead.

And you are not alone.

I'm too bugged about how racial stats can encourage a class that isn't iconic in the slightest for a certain race.

From a balancing viewpoint, because most if not all classes can be played with an "ideal" race, it seems reasonable to assume allowing any race to be "ideal" won't break a thing.

Not even visavi humans. If humans are already balanced with another character that is of an ideal race/class combo, it stands to reason that removing "less than ideal" combos won't hurt the human at all.

(If you're thinking the human is balanced on the assumption at least some of his friends in the party are sub-optimal race/class combos then you're simply wrong)

Thus allowing all races to choose which two attributes that get the +2 bonus (i.e allowing all combos to have ideal stats) is balanced, both overall and visavi humans. You have simply removed a needless nerf factor that never impacted the charop players anyway.

(This doesn't mean the proposal to allow only one +2 to be selected freely, as suggested by lots of posters above, is a bad one )

Z

PS. From a design standpoint, this seems to be a holdover from 3E, if anything. It's a rare case where the design goes against the philosophy of 4E to allow players to do what they want and find fun.