D&D 5E Race Class combo, together, defines a character ‘type’

[cbwjm]

Personally, I'm not really a fan of the variant human, there just doesn't seem to be anything behind it to make it an interesting choice beyond power gaming for many people. I wouldn't stop my players using it but I think it would be far more interesting to use it to create cultures such as Halruan (or any magical utopian race): +1 dex/int, arcana skill, magic initiate (wizard).

 

[Hussar]

And, I'm still rather confused how a +1 to Con is the gap between great and poor concentration checks. At the absolute outside, it's a +1. Umm, I think, [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] that your definitions here are a bit... erm... idiosyncratic?

I mean, you're ignoring the fact that the elven wizard has a +2 Dex - not an insignificant boost at all. It's far, far more likely that a Dex check will come up more often than a Con check.

But, hey, I think this horse has been thoroughly flogged. I strongly disagree with your assessment.

 

[Lylandra]

@Mephista, your overview of the flavor drift feels accurate and useful now for 5e. Essentially, Lolth Drow culture promoted female Cleric and male Wizard (and probably add Fighter here too). But the free anti-Lolth Drow culture favors Warlock and Rogue.

The genius is, the suboptimal Lolth Drow culture can become a feature, not a bug.

It is abnormal for Drow to be Cleric and Wizard so frequently. But it is the Lolth reign of terror that imposes these classes unnaturally. The Drow performs as poorly as the Half-Orc at being a Wizard. The Drow performs as poorly at being a Cleric as the Gnome does. The spider demon culture goes against the grain of Drow nature.

Part of the reason the rebel Drow prove so successful is, they are discovering survival strategies (combat classes) that Drow traits naturally select for, for an advantageous evolution in Drow culture. The innate advantages of Dexterity and to some degree Charisma, allow Drow to flourish at the implementation of Rogue endeavors, and to a lesser degree Warlock.





The narrative informs the prominent Drow character types.

A terrorized tradition of female Drow Cleric alongside Drow Wizard and Drow Fighter, versus a free and empowered rebellion of Drow Rogue and Drow Warlock.

Uh, drow were fairly good at being wizards in 3.X when the race still had a LA. And everyone and their mom wanted to play it beacuse this was basically the height of Drow fandom (the last days of 2e and during 3.x).
Charisma back then was also a stat you'd want as a cleric. Not a main stat, but you could do something with it.

But I agree that drow stats and favored classes were pretty messed up. They'd made excellent sorcerers, gish or favored souls.
And I'm happy that we can leave the stereotypical Menzoberranzen Drow as the image for "standard Drow" behind.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Which all assumes your group makes use of the optional variant human, which some groups do not.

Not to mention the optional feat rules as well.

If you're going to rule out standard array and point-buy when judging character creation because they're optional, you can't really base your assertions on the use of two other optional rule variants.

 

[MoonSong]

To me scores +background + class is what defines a character type for me. Ok, to be more precise the way scores, background, and class suit the idea of a character in my head, I don't really "play archetypes".

Wait. Are you saying, where the 1e origins had Wisdom Drow Cleric as a female type, the 5e incarnation of this tradition now has a Charisma Drow Warlock as a female type? I dont see this view as true upto now, but may well be the direction that this tradition is evolving.

3e switched Drow to a high Charisma (plus Dexterity plus Intelligence).

It seems to me, 4e tried to cohere this tradition by making the Drow high Dexterity-plus-Charisma/Wisdom. Thus regarding females who happened to have high Dexterity and Wisdom, the Drow culture groomed them to excel as great Clerics. Those males who happen to have high Dexterity and Charisma to excel as great Warlocks. In this way, the Warlocks were flavored as a male Drow type. Nevertheless, these types seemed to gain less traction and played out in a messy way, with Drow Rogue and Drow Sorcerer mixing things up, not to mention Dexterity-Wisdom Drow Avenger often serving as the female priestess, and so on.

So far in 5e, the Drow is only Dexterity and Charisma, for both female and male. Maybe the female ‘priestess’ type is now defacto a Drow Warlock with a Spider pact, plus an Acolyte background? Meanwhile the rest of the Drow, including both females and males, tend to excel in the ‘military academies’ as a Rogue, and to some degree Dexterity Fighter? Drow magic institutions promote ‘Drow blood’ Sorcerer?

Or maybe Drow culture makes magic mainly warlockry? Where the female priestess is more an infernal pact, while the male is more a fey pact? Plus Rogues dominating the nonmagical sector?

I guess they are Favored souls instead of Clerics?

First, the official method of determining ability score is 4d6Drop. So, if the highest score is randomly even, the +2 to the score is a significant improvement.

Second, I like the 5e Wizard class. Probably the best version of Wizard from any edition. Unfortunately for a Wizard, I would never play the High Elf because it is suboptimal. It lacks the +2 and is mediocre at best. Worse, its extra cantrip is redundant and less important for the Wizard class. I am less into the Rogue class, so the High Elf holds zero interest for me.

The High Elf has never happened and will never happen because of its suboptimal mechanics.

It is a shame too. I am a fan of the Elf wizardry flavor, and its 5e version has been acutely disappointing.

Official doesn't really matter a lot outside of organized play, and in orgaized play isn't point buy the legal option?

No, it is ONE of the defaults. There are two. 4d6 drop PLUS standard array.

Presuming you won the stat lottery in chargen isn't all that helpful when discussing whether or not an additional +1 is going to make much of a difference. We have a VERY long thread telling me that a 17 or 18 is actually pretty darn rare - to the point where you should not even consider starting with that - less than 10% of characters will.

Every time I roll I get a 17 and a 16, sometimes an 18 too. Which is bad because I prefer lower stats. I even ask for just 3d6 hoping to get really low scores and I keep getting those uber scores.

Personally, I'm not really a fan of the variant human, there just doesn't seem to be anything behind it to make it an interesting choice beyond power gaming for many people. I wouldn't stop my players using it but I think it would be far more interesting to use it to create cultures such as Halruan (or any magical utopian race): +1 dex/int, arcana skill, magic initiate (wizard).

I refuse to play standard human, it is a bland bundle of +1s that tells me nothing about my character and makes the character too foreign to roleplay. At least with variant human I can patch spells known or get some skills or weapons to round my character.

 

[Mephista]

Lets stop arguing about one person's playstyle behind. I admit that I was curious why (s)he said that, but now that its answered, lets move on to something more interesting than telling one person their preferences are wrong.

To me scores +background + class is what defines a character type for me.

Oh, I completely agree on the background part, though I do take more than scores from race into account as well.

Anyways, in my experience? Most of the time, people end up picking backgrounds that clearly resonate with the class. Acolyte cleric. Outlander barbarian. Scholar wizard. Noble paladin. Criminal rogue. Soldier fighter.

Do people end up with the same usually? Here, we see how race and class interact, but have people seen the same for background and class? And I wonder what race-background match up as?


As an aside. I wish we had an INT sub-race for the dwarves. I'd love to see alchemist dwarves for my game as well as Forge clerics and Fighter/barbarian types.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

As an aside. I wish we had an INT sub-race for the dwarves. I'd love to see alchemist dwarves for my game as well as Forge clerics and Fighter/barbarian types.

Why would you need to see a complete new sub-race in order for Alchemist dwarves to exist? Do your players refuse to play any character that doesn't have a bonus in its primary attribute?

 

[Mephista]

Why would you need to see a complete new sub-race in order for Alchemist dwarves to exist? Do your players refuse to play any character that doesn't have a bonus in its primary attribute?

No, but its more along the lines of the base dwarf abilities as well as the mountain and hill dwarf bonuses don't resonate with alchemist at all. Even the tool proficiency is denied, as Alchemist's tools don't benefit from the expertise. Its a complete mismatch. Fighty dwarf and hardy dwarf are alright, but I want to see more crafty dwarves.

This entire thread is a nod to the fact that people play race-class combinations that resonate with each other, and I'm just saying I'm interested in seeing a dwarf that has abilities that resonate with the alchemist. I'm just saying that would just be nice to see.

 

[TwoSix]

Why would you need to see a complete new sub-race in order for Alchemist dwarves to exist? Do your players refuse to play any character that doesn't have a bonus in its primary attribute?

Judging by the D&D Beyond/538 article, a lot of players prefer to play races with a bonus to the primary attribute of the class.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Personally, I'm not really a fan of the variant human, there just doesn't seem to be anything behind it to make it an interesting choice beyond power gaming for many people.

I think it depends on the Feat chosen. Often when I play vHuman it's so I can pick a Feat that is very concept-defining and situationally great, but isn't otherwise optimal. E.g. Dungeon Delver or Mage Slayer or Shield Master. I'm not sure I'd ever pick those over an ASI. Not before a level that I never get to anyway. So for me vHuman actually results in less powergaming.