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General Tabletop Discussion
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A design goal: making different races FEEL different.
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 5760470" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>It's an interesting idea, but racial levels might be a bit tricky. The biggest issue I see is that it could give races too strong a bias toward one class. Certain races have been inclined toward certain classes in every edition (at least those that had the race/class distinction) but my concern is that this could take that much further.</p><p></p><p>Of course, it's probably feasible to avoid this issue, but I expect it would require significant design constraints. The designers would have to beware with regard to any racial benefits that favor certain classes over others. While to a certain extent this is inevitable, and probably even desirable for a consensus of mechanics and fiction, I do think it's important to be careful to avoid sidelining certain character concepts. In my personal opinion, returning to the days when dwarves could not be magic users would be a step backwards. That sort of thing isn't necessarily bad in specific settings (like WHFRP) but D&D isn't setting-specific and therefore needn't (and IMO shouldn't) hold to such conceptual constraints.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps "racial levels" could offer racial feats instead of features. This would allow the designers to offer a variety of choices for each "racial level" and thereby potentially avoid limiting a given race to only a subset of class choices.</p><p></p><p>[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] - I disagree. Every race ought to be both physically and psychologically distinguishable from humans, otherwise what's the point of having that race? D&D dwarves are significantly different from the average human, having both a lower center of gravity as well as greater density. As a result, their martial arts should differ from that of humans, and I see nothing wrong with reflecting this mechanically whenever reasonably possible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 5760470, member: 53980"] It's an interesting idea, but racial levels might be a bit tricky. The biggest issue I see is that it could give races too strong a bias toward one class. Certain races have been inclined toward certain classes in every edition (at least those that had the race/class distinction) but my concern is that this could take that much further. Of course, it's probably feasible to avoid this issue, but I expect it would require significant design constraints. The designers would have to beware with regard to any racial benefits that favor certain classes over others. While to a certain extent this is inevitable, and probably even desirable for a consensus of mechanics and fiction, I do think it's important to be careful to avoid sidelining certain character concepts. In my personal opinion, returning to the days when dwarves could not be magic users would be a step backwards. That sort of thing isn't necessarily bad in specific settings (like WHFRP) but D&D isn't setting-specific and therefore needn't (and IMO shouldn't) hold to such conceptual constraints. Perhaps "racial levels" could offer racial feats instead of features. This would allow the designers to offer a variety of choices for each "racial level" and thereby potentially avoid limiting a given race to only a subset of class choices. [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] - I disagree. Every race ought to be both physically and psychologically distinguishable from humans, otherwise what's the point of having that race? D&D dwarves are significantly different from the average human, having both a lower center of gravity as well as greater density. As a result, their martial arts should differ from that of humans, and I see nothing wrong with reflecting this mechanically whenever reasonably possible. [/QUOTE]
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