D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

Micah Sweet · Mar 8, 2024

Minigiant said:
Nobles and Knights are literally the Elite.
Commoners, guards, and tribal warriors are normal people.
The DMG gives you the racial adjustments for humaniod NPCs. Even with racial ASI, the guards and commoners are far below the scores for PCs.

3e had a concept of arrays

The Elite array was for PCs and NPCs who had PC class levels.
Then Nonelite array was for nonPC ranked NPCs who had NPC class levels. It was 2 +1s and 2 -1s for flavor.
Then "All 10s and 11s" for normal monsters.

So in 3e it was assumed your PC was better than common members of your race.

Even in 0e, 1e, and 2e, it was assumed that your main PCs were the ones who rolled well. If you rolled bad, your PC died.

You roll average though, you played 'em. I'd play even if the stats were bad, just to how what emerged.

Minigiant · Mar 8, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
You roll average though, you played 'em. I'd play even if the stats were bad, just to how what emerged.

Sure you played them. And they would die.

We are just skipping the steps where all the 10 STR fighters and 11 INT wizards died and you settled down to name your PC with good stats.

And let's not fool ourselves. Since 3e, having a 13 or less in your primary score was dooming your PC to failure or death unless you were doing some nacho cheezy munchkin thing down the road.

5e is easy but that ease is under the assumption of stating with at least a 15 in your class's prime score, and a 12 or higher in Dex, Con, and Wis.

That's why +X -Y races stopped working.

Micah Sweet · Mar 8, 2024

Minigiant said:
Sure you played them. And they would die.

We are just skipping the steps where all the 10 STR fighters and 11 INT wizards died and you settled down to name your PC with good stats.

And let's not fool ourselves. Since 3e, having a 13 or less in your primary score was dooming your PC to failure or death

Maybe they'd die, maybe not. Player skill (and luck!) used to matter a lot more).

And my D&D preference is pre-3e.

CreamCloud0 · Mar 8, 2024

while i'm perfectly fine believing that PCs might be 'a cut above' than a vast majority of the common masses i do not believe that 'a cut above' means 'able to freely ignore and even defy the inherent ingrained strengths and weaknesses of their fundamental biology' or that they should be seen as superman walking amongst civilians(at least, not until they're at least level 10-ish), a PC is just someone with class levels and with a bit of effort and training every single person in the world can gain those, if a NPC puts in the work to get those levels i expect them to match the PCs in strength.

Hussar · Mar 8, 2024

Crimson Longinus said:
Yeah not the same.

Consider this. It is defining trait of wizards that they cannot cast healing magic. But that is the game telling us what to do! But wait, let's just everyone choose any spell, and if people like limitation of wizards not having access to healing spells, then they can just not choose those!

Purpose of the splats is to define things; thy should tell us what we are allowed to do! If they don't, they do not need to exist. If species rules are not defining those species, then just get rid of the concept. Everyone can just choose a bunch of free-floating feats and traits at character creation, and fluff it however they want. And then for sake of consistency, do that with the classes.

You keep conflating race/species with class and they just aren't comparable.

After all, lots of arcane casters in 5e actually CAN cast healing magic. Artificers, certain breeds of Sorcerer and Warlock. So, no, it is not a "defining trait" of wizards that they can't cast healing magic. If you want to not cast healing magic, don't play a class that has access to it. Or, even if you do choose that class, don't choose to take healing magic. It's 100% up to you.

But, race isn't like that. Once you choose a race, that packet of mechanics is fixed. There's no variation within the races. A hill dwarf always has exactly the same elements as another hill dwarf. But now, they've made races a little more like classes in that you can have a strong hill dwarf or a smart hill dwarf. Same as you could play a wizard with healing if you so choose.

Minigiant · Mar 9, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
Maybe they'd die, maybe not. Player skill (and luck!) used to matter a lot more).

And my D&D preference is pre-3e.

CreamCloud0 said:
while i'm perfectly fine believing that PCs might be 'a cut above' than a vast majority of the common masses i do not believe that 'a cut above' means 'able to freely ignore and even defy the inherent ingrained strengths and weaknesses of their fundamental biology' or that they should be seen as superman walking amongst civilians(at least, not until they're at least level 10-ish), a PC is just someone with class levels and with a bit of effort and training every single person in the world can gain those, if a NPC puts in the work to get those levels i expect them to match the PCs in strength.

But like I keep saying.
your fight is with the mechanics.

+2 STR is just 30 pounds of carrying capicity and 60pounds of lift.

Stop making Ability Score the determination of species rather than feature.

A halfling cant lift as much as an Orc because the Halfling is Small but the Orc counts as Large.

But they but can have 20 STR relative to their bodies and stab you equally as good with a spear.

We skip over traits, age, height,weight, and and size then cry about the ramifications of balanced class ability scores.

Elves are 300+ years old but we don't give them +2 extra skills. Why not?

DammitVictor · Mar 9, 2024

Corinnguard said:
Just as the static ASIs in 5e had the unfortunate side effect of type-casting a race toward favoring a particular character class, the static ability score penalty had it's own set of issues. Type-casting was one of them. If you belonged to a race that had a -2 CHA, would you play a class that relied on CHA such as the Paladin or the Sorcerer?

I just realized, this is why Dwarves weren't allowed to be Paladins in AD&D.

Remathilis · Mar 9, 2024

DammitVictor said:
I just realized, this is why Dwarves weren't allowed to be Paladins in AD&D.

Not exactly...

Dwarves couldn't be paladin because notbody but humans could be paladins (though a few obscure later races, like aasimar, bucked that trend). Come 3e, dwarves could be paladins but with a net -2 to Cha, it was folly to do so.

Corinnguard · Mar 9, 2024

Remathilis said:
Dwarves couldn't be paladin because notbody but humans could be paladins (though a few obscure later races, like aasimar, bucked that trend). Come 3e, dwarves could be paladins but with a net -2 to Cha, it was folly to do so.

And now 5e has it where any race can have it's share of paladins as well as any other class.

Scott Christian · Mar 9, 2024

Minigiant said:
Sure you played them. And they would die.

We are just skipping the steps where all the 10 STR fighters and 11 INT wizards died and you settled down to name your PC with good stats.

And let's not fool ourselves. Since 3e, having a 13 or less in your primary score was dooming your PC to failure or death unless you were doing some nacho cheezy munchkin thing down the road.

5e is easy but that ease is under the assumption of stating with at least a 15 in your class's prime score, and a 12 or higher in Dex, Con, and Wis.

That's why +X -Y races stopped working.

Before I jump into the array. I had a 2e fighter whose highest attribute was a 13. We played that campaign for over a year.

D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

Minigiant

Legend

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

CreamCloud0

One day, I hope to actually play DnD.

Hussar

Legend

Minigiant

Legend

DammitVictor

Trust the Fungus

Remathilis

Legend

Corinnguard

Hero

Scott Christian

Hero

Similar Threads

Voidrunner's Codex