Morrus on... Races

Plane Sailing said:

I would like race to always matter, but I'd like to see NO ability score adjustments, either positive or negative. I think that tends to pigeonhole classes /races.

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Maybe, but what's the (real) reason why ability score adjustments pigeonhole classes? It's because in D&D they traditionally directly translate into attack roll modifiers!

Why are there no weapon skills in D&D? Lots of systems have them. Particularly those systems, it seems, that don't put an emphasis on combat.

Imho, 5e is going to do exactly the wrong thing in increasing the importance of ability scores. If you want ultimate flexibility in making race/class combos work, then skills need to be more important than ability scores:
Good ability scores may give you a small boost at the beginning of your career, but they'll soon become irrelevant as your training in various skills overshadows them.

And even if they aren't interested in giving skills a more important role, there's another easy way to make all race/class combinations viable, and it's something they already tried successfully in 4e:
Dark Sun's character themes introduced attack powers that simply use the character's highest ability score, no matter what it happens to be at any point in your adventuring career.
This approach acknowledges that attack (and damage) rolls are the most important thing in a (typical) D&D game and completely disassociates them from the rest of your character's abilities.

Chris_Nightwing said:

I think ability score bonuses/penalties only pigeonhole if classes have narrow uses of abilities (indeed I think things have only got narrower in that respect, with 4E essentially saying 'you need 2-3 abilities, the others are maybe helpful a little?' vs. everyone needing good CON to survive and STR to hit and DEX for missile weapons).

Minimums/maximums for abilities, class levels and restrictions on who can be what are, I believe, gone forever. Probably for the best.

I was thinking further about how to bring back racial importance. Many people seem to agree that Halflings should never become as strong as Half-orcs. This makes them bad Fighters, but we don't want that. They should perhaps be allowed to use DEX to attack/damage opponents, ala weapon finesse (something I sorely miss). I am desperate to see a return to 'abilities matter' rather than 'class decides which abilities matter' - I hated CON based attacks being the norm for a specific class setup.

The question is how far to take this, as in, since we separate Rogues from Fighters in class ability terms, does that mean that a Halfling Fighter can't have any Rogue-like features? 4E stymied this again because of it's combat role obsession. If you were to pin a Halfling down in a fight, they'd tumble out of the way and attack you with advantage - Fighter or Rogue. The two really start blurring together for Halflings because they're both 'Martial'. Half-orcs though, well, the Fighters like big pointy things, but the Rogues know they can't get a kidney with a halberd so still seem Rogue-like.

A couple of very simple suggestions, which are a bit simulationist:
- 2H weapons use Str
- 1H weapons use Dex or Str
- No weapons ever use any other ability please

- Make mobility (and choosing light armour) mean something
- Reduce who/when OA occur to help this!

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To be honest, 4e has its much broader version of Weapon Finesse: Melee Training. And since the debut of the "base attack spammer" classes (Slayer, Knight, Scout, Hunter, etc), you can make fighting classes that are based on pretty much any ability score.

Mouseferatu said:

I've fluctuated on this continuum myself, but I've found myself firmly on the "races should have substantial and up-front mechanical differences."

However, I don't think they should come in the form of ability bonuses. I'd rather see them come via innate talents/powers/advantages and the like. Almost a cross between what we now think of as "races" and "themes."

Ability bonuses have the unfortunate tendency of working in both directions. For instance, if dwarves are blatantly the best fighters in terms of ability score, than not only do most dwarves become fighters, but most fighters become dwarves. I want the races to be blatantly and obviously distinct from one another, without making any given race a no-brain mechanical choice for anyone playing a certain class.

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Part of the whole point of having races is that it provides for a wider variety of possible PCs. That goal is defeated if the race-class synergies are so strong that each class is dominated by a small number of races.

-KS

Klaus said:

To be honest, 4e has its much broader version of Weapon Finesse: Melee Training. And since the debut of the "base attack spammer" classes (Slayer, Knight, Scout, Hunter, etc), you can make fighting classes that are based on pretty much any ability score.

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Ah, I must have missed that one. That definitely worsens my opinion of their design. Some characters should suck at melee because they're weak and clumsy. Was there an equivalent 'You cast spells with Strength!' feat?

I want abilities to be directly relevant to specific things. I don't think it's a bad thing if two abilities can do similar things (str/dex for attacking, depending on the type of attack, or say wis/cha for priest spell effects). I think it's a bad thing if any ability can do anything (or really, more than two abilities can do the same thing). I think there should be some things *only* defined by one specific ability, which skills/saves will be, but why not other things?

I prefer races-matter(more for weaknesses than for strengths).. But.. behind the scenes.. the development of those rules needs to be governed by a balanced system that the DM can use to build additional races.

Ex, half-orc (+1 Str, -2 Int) + Ferocity (cool racial ability), +1 racial skills (x,y,z). + Social Aversion (-1 to all socail interactions.. or some other cool "weakness" to be roleplayed).

A full list of basic races gets published in the PHB.

Later.. they publish an "optional" book with the rules to create/modify the racial choices..

Chris_Nightwing said:

Ah, I must have missed that one. That definitely worsens my opinion of their design. Some characters should suck at melee because they're weak and clumsy. Was there an equivalent 'You cast spells with Strength!' feat?

I want abilities to be directly relevant to specific things. I don't think it's a bad thing if two abilities can do similar things (str/dex for attacking, depending on the type of attack, or say wis/cha for priest spell effects). I think it's a bad thing if any ability can do anything (or really, more than two abilities can do the same thing). I think there should be some things *only* defined by one specific ability, which skills/saves will be, but why not other things?

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I can justify any ability score being used for melee combat.

As for Strength-based spellcasting: Sorcerors of the Dragon or Cosmic bloodlines use Charisma and Strength to cast spells.

Race should matter.
They usually do not in D&D. A +1 to saves is roughly 1 or 2 levels. A +1 to hit is again 1 level of fighter or 2 levels of wizard. Thus most of the already existing 2-3E racial powers are overshadowed by class level quickly.
Even the 2E +4-+5 magic/poison saves of dwarves means nothing after some levels (albeit much more levels, I admit).

I have no problem with racial abilities making certain race/class combinations better than others. We don't play smiths, carpenters and accountants, and the same goes for halfling fighters. Halfligns could, on the other hand, be good ranged rangers (or strikers in 4E terminology). So they have their martial type.
I think all races should have their martial / expert and magic-user class where they can shine. It does not mean all combinations should as good as others.

I have to admit, I'm partial to racial ability maximums in the new edition.

I like halflings that have a strength cap of 16. It doesn't mean they can't be fighters. They just won't be as effective as the half-orc with a 19 strength in a straight up contest of strength. It doesn't mean a halfling can't defeat a half-orc, though. It just means he's going to approach combat differently, using his better dexterity to dodge and weave, moving in quickly to strike and moving back out to avoid being struck. This can be reflected in different racial abilites.

There's nothing wrong with a Dwarven Thief with a 15 dex. He just has to try harder to succeed on some skills. But hey, that resistance to poison comes in handy when he does fumble that disable traps roll and pricks his finger on that poisoned needle.

I never understood racial level limits, though. Why would an elf, who lives 1000 years, max out at level 12 as a wizard? He has all that extra time to study! I'm glad those were removed and I'd hate to see them return.

Interesting interesting and great great discussion. And once again we see the wide variety of styles and interpretations that people want and have for their D&D games.

Myself, having read all of this, I am now leaning towards a view that says “race should matter, but not in a direct base way.” Which is a horrible and not very descript way of putting it. Expounding, I like the idea that race choice has little influence on the direct, fundamental ability of your class (in the way that stat bonuses/penalties can), yet that race choice allows nifty variation on how you accomplish said fundamental ability of your class.

If we remove bonuses/penalties to hit or damage resulting from race choice, then it lets race choice be more about RP and about options. If we give class options based on characteristics of the race (say, options for small/large characters for a fighter class) that are interesting, play differently, yet are equally effective in their pursuit of what the class is supposed to do, then it becomes a flavour choice rather than a flavour & effectiveness choice.

Then, if we give each race interesting and nifty abilities (or access to them) that could be useful for a number of classes, again it allows for flavour choices and diminishes the need to factor in statistical effectiveness as a choice for the player to make.

Taken all together, race matters to the extent that different characters will play differently and may have different special niftys, but race does not matter to the extent it will not create noticably substandard class/race combinations. So a kind of middle ground, I guess?

It would be a tall order to design... (no pun intended )

In the DMG could also be rules for making the races choice more loose (swapping racial features, RP vs Mechanics race, etc) or even tighter if the DM desires (even disallowing certain class selections for fiction reasons), thus covering all the options.

Rambly thoughts,

Peace,

Kannik

Personally? I'm more of a "Race as an Ethnic Group" kind of person, where the differences are importaint, but not necessarally in a mechanical way. The problem is getting some players to read the handout