Primitive Screwhead
First Post
In preparation for a playtest tomorrow evening and explaining the a new set of players how to make characters, I realized that OLD/NOW/NEW commits racial stereotyping as is found in virtually every other game, and due to the smaller scale in stats the mechanical difference between three different Sylvan Elf berserkers is going to be limited at best. Mostly just the skill and trick choices. So what if you want to have a Sylvan Elf Berserker team? Everyone is the same?
For those who paid attention to my posts back in the later days of 3e, I posited a drastic set of house rules that broke the DnD Racial stereotyping into two parts; Blood and Culture. This enabled for half-breed mixes of all sorts and expanded the width of character options without significantly adding piles of new racial descriptions. For instance there was only one 'Elf' blood but a bunch of elvish cultures. Anyway, you can search for those posts if you want. Moving on..
So looking at OLD the small scale and preset stat changes limits the roleplaying options within each race. I mean, what if you wanted to play a naturally strong Small folk Assassin? Well, as written you would have to take the Man at Arms career to boost your STR up some, making you less of an Assassin and more of a sword-swinger.
The choice is to play a skilled Assassin with a STR of 2, or play a less skilled Assassin with a higher STR
{Hmm, just noticed that Small folk make really great Assassins...}
What if you broke the racial mechanic into half?
Body Type has the base stats starting at 2s, each type bumps up 3 stats to 3s
- Strong : STR, AGI, END
- Smart : INT, WIL and either two skills or +1 MAG
- Slick...er, Charming: CHA, LUCK and either two skills or +1 MAG
- Slinky... er, Fast: AGI, END, LUCK, can change directions during a charge
Then the racial selections add 6 points based on their key attributes and provide racial traits.
{or 5 points and a real good racial trait}
Fx, Small folk have +2 AGI, +2 INT, and +2 LUCK, and darkvision.
While not an exact match, a Charming Small-folk has results close to the current template.
This allows for the racial stereotypes to always show through, Ogres are always pretty strong but some can be brighter than others. And if also makes creating new races relatively easy as you keep to the 5 to 6 point spread.
Thoughts? I can post the listing of races as I have them set up for tommorrow if you want.
For those who paid attention to my posts back in the later days of 3e, I posited a drastic set of house rules that broke the DnD Racial stereotyping into two parts; Blood and Culture. This enabled for half-breed mixes of all sorts and expanded the width of character options without significantly adding piles of new racial descriptions. For instance there was only one 'Elf' blood but a bunch of elvish cultures. Anyway, you can search for those posts if you want. Moving on..
So looking at OLD the small scale and preset stat changes limits the roleplaying options within each race. I mean, what if you wanted to play a naturally strong Small folk Assassin? Well, as written you would have to take the Man at Arms career to boost your STR up some, making you less of an Assassin and more of a sword-swinger.
The choice is to play a skilled Assassin with a STR of 2, or play a less skilled Assassin with a higher STR
{Hmm, just noticed that Small folk make really great Assassins...}
What if you broke the racial mechanic into half?
Body Type has the base stats starting at 2s, each type bumps up 3 stats to 3s
- Strong : STR, AGI, END
- Smart : INT, WIL and either two skills or +1 MAG
- Slick...er, Charming: CHA, LUCK and either two skills or +1 MAG
- Slinky... er, Fast: AGI, END, LUCK, can change directions during a charge
Then the racial selections add 6 points based on their key attributes and provide racial traits.
{or 5 points and a real good racial trait}
Fx, Small folk have +2 AGI, +2 INT, and +2 LUCK, and darkvision.
While not an exact match, a Charming Small-folk has results close to the current template.
This allows for the racial stereotypes to always show through, Ogres are always pretty strong but some can be brighter than others. And if also makes creating new races relatively easy as you keep to the 5 to 6 point spread.
Thoughts? I can post the listing of races as I have them set up for tommorrow if you want.