Dwarves

[Cyberzombie]

Dwarves? Overpowered? Hah! Crop 'o' crap that is. (No offense to you, Thanee -- I know you're looking for flavour, not to correct supposed imbalance. ) As has been said, if they were unbalanced, everyone would be playing one. The *only* dwarves I've seen were chosen because the players likes dwarves.

When players are going for power, they go for a human or a halfling. Not that I'm saying they should be weakened! The other races should be strengthened, instead.


Back on topic, I'd say replace -2 Cha (which is simply a holdover from older editions and shows a lack of coordiantion amongst the designers of 3e) with -2 Dex. If you really, really, really want to give them Endurance, give them a -1 on Cha-based skills other than Intimidate.

And, as has been said, giving them a Climb penalty is a bad idea. If you don't know why, go caving. You will learn why almost instantly.

 

[Thanee]

Well, I do think dwarves are the most powerful PHB race - altho not the best for every concept, of course.

Giving them a little disadvantage (and those skill penalties (not all, just some) are not more than a very small disadvantage, unless you really want to use most of them, which you rarely if ever do, if you play a dwarf) just seems appropriate while changing them, altho a change itself is not justified just to add some disadvantage to them.

However, dwarves are one of those races not everyone likes. I for one, would never really want to play a dwarf. Others love them.

About climbing... that can be dropped, of course, I just can't imagine how a dwarf easily scales a building or somesuch!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Khaalis]

About climbing... that can be dropped, of course, I just can't imagine how a dwarf easily scales a building or somesuch!

Since I agree with most of what Cyberzombie said, I will only add the following in response to your above comment.

As a part-time rockclimber myself, I can see how a dwarf would climb well.

Climbing is both a balance of physical strength as well as skill. It has little if anything to do with grace or dexterity. In the case of a dwarf - their strong, stocky builds would be highly advantagious when climbing. They have a lower center of gravity which makes centering their balance on their feet much easier (this is incredibly important). Their height doesnt really come into play as they are not that much shorter than a human, and what they lack in height is made up for in muscle density. Thus searching for handholds is a give and take, they may not be able to reach as far, but they can instead find and use holds that a weaker climber might not be able to. Anywho - JHMO.

 

[Thanee]

Not grace... climbing is all about strength, of course.

But I thought, that since dwarves have a very high body mass in relation to their size, while they still have the same average strength as a human, they would have a harder time here, since their muscles need to carry all that weight, all the time.

Freeclimbers (and that's probably the closest thing to climbing in D&D) usually are very thin, quite muscular and of a pretty low body mass. I'd think, that this is the most advantegous body type for climbing.

That's what I was thinking at least.

Bye
Thanee

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

About the climbing thing: I've only climbed trees and rock walls, and some slanted rock faces, so I'm not an expert climber or anything. I climb signifigantly faster than anyone I know, or who was at anything I climbed at. I'm tall and very thin, and considerably less strong than most guys I know, including my 15 y.o. and 13 y.o. brothers. Just sayin', tall, skinny and graceful (I like to think) is pretty good for climbing.

 

[Thanee]

Being tall is of course a benefit, but I guess that is just a matter of technique.

Muscle related to body mass (you might not be exceptionally strong, but I suppose you are not weak for your body mass either) is most important IMHO.

Some coordination (agility) is surely helpful, even very helpful, but that part is neglected because of the abstract nature of the system.

Bye
Thanee