By all the Dark Powers, please use the quote tag properly.
Satori said:
Sure, now a days NOTHING is sacred, like that Lawful Good Mind Flayer they have in "Book of Exalted Cheese".
Is it Cheese because they show a LG mind flayer, or did you just throw that in and you think it's generally Cheese? The book was talking about redeemed creatures, and an Illithid, being one of Wizards Very Special Critters (which they consider so D&D that they don't even put them into the SRD), is a great example for something really evil. They could also have gone with Beholder, sure.
And I'd say that guy is sacred. The point is, they wanted to show that in a world where everything is possible, everything is possible. I applaud that. "You can't do/have that" is a thing of the past and doesn't belong into modern D&D.
Drow are extremely common now, with dozens of source books...and nearly all races are playable, with built in PC stats in their MM write-up.
Wouldn't say "extremely common", but they went way beyond the one single good drow it all started with.
This wasn't always the case, though, and I believe it has turned 3.x into a "Monster Mash", where the "Unusual" is now becoming the "Norm".
I believe it turned D&D into something much better than it was. Note that the books never say that you should allow everything (and also note that monsters as races often don't work out so well, and it's probably done on purpose to discourage floods of monster PCs).
It's all about your gaming group. The unusual has not become the norm in ours, and I doubt it ever will be. Sure, there are the occasional monsters among our characters, and tomorrow, I'm starting a short campaign where weird, way-out-there characters are not only supported, but encouraged, but I call that campaign "The Playground of Madness" for a reason. The one after that will be all standard races again.
Lolth hasn't exactly become a goddess a couple of hours ago. Asmodeus's ascension is pretty new (it will only really come into effect in several months), but Lolth has been a deity for quite some time now.
-Hmm...I'm afraid I'd have disagree with you there. Currently, Drow are ECL +2...which puts then as nearly unplayable by "Normal Group" standards. You can't be a melee class, because your HP/BAB will suck something awful...you can't be a caster because you'll be 2 levels behind in spells...the best you could do is play a skill monkey, hope the unbalanced stats make up for 2 levels, and try not to get hit in combat. Now, this doesn't take into effect the numerous house rules most games install to make Drow playable (Lesser Drow, etc...). I'm not talking about that, but taking Drow straight from the box.
Let me see: I played a drow favoured soul, and I have to agree: That was bad. The fact that favoured souls lag behind one level made it only worse.
I played a couple of drow rogues. The first one died pretty quickly, but that was because the DM rolled like a bastard and couldn't fudge that roll because someone who visited stared behind the screen. Oh, and I had bad rolls all around too. I failed my search check for the trap, the trap got past my SR, I failed my reflex save, and the cone of cold froze him solid despite boots of the winterlands (which give cold resistance 5). The latter did quite well.
I also recently played a drow swordsage. It rocked.
-Oh, I agree that Drizzt was a fantastic character. I loved reading his books when I was an angsty teenager (I also loved Vampire: The Masquerade...big shock, right?).
I read (many of) them after I turned 20 (and no longer a teenager), and I was never angsty. I still liked them.
As I grow older, though, I realize that the more fulfilling characters are "Ordinary" races that become "Extra-Ordinary" through background, roleplaying, and quirks.
I have to disagree there. A drow character can be just as fulfilling as a "normal" elf. Also, what you're describe fits Drizzt, too: His Background is extraordinary (not evil, but managed to survive for a time in evil drow society, and made his escape), the "roleplaying" was fine, and he had his quirks.
Plus, I wouldn't call a drow something extraordinary. Neither in regards to power (or powers), nor in regards to occurance.
Correct. Now, keep in mind that most DnD players DO use the rules as the "Holy Bible".
Absolutely not. Otherwise house rules (the equivalent of "I like the Bible, but the part about not stealing doesn't sit well with me. In my Sermons, that will be 'thou shalt not steal unless the other guy won't miss it'!") would not exist.
I mean...you play a game, you follow the rules that make the game work. Hence, translating Drizzt "Uber-wuber-ness" to a Rules Environment doesn't always work
Not always, no. But most of the time. Just give him, say, 16 character levels and the right feats and stuff and he's quite über compared to your average orc.
and creates an extremely frustrating situation when player expectations aren't met ("What? You mean I can't be as cool as Drizzt?").
Never heard that. What I did hear was: "What, that 'legendary' Drizzit guy's only level 16? I'm a level 20 character now, I'll go and kick his butt." often enough. Compared to your average sell-sword or low-level character, Drizzt seems like the unstoppable force of destruction or something, but in the big picture of D&D, it's small potatoes. I always wondered why people complain if Drizzt wastes three dozen orcs without breaking a sweat. D&D characters can usually manage that before they turn 10th level.
he just happens to fit into that model as well. Drizzt is "Unplayable Race X trying to a Good Guy"
Who says drow are unplayable?
which is frustrating to many DMs who don't want the headache of statting out something like a "Lawful Good Half-Demon Grimlock Paladin".
Since when do DMs stat out the players' characters?
And creating a half-demon grimlock paladin is a headache? I can whip that up in like 5 minutes. About 1 minute longer than a regular grimlock paladin. Maybe I'm just that good.
Now we're on to something here. Your first line ("Orcs are stupid...") tells me everything I need to know about this mind set, and why it might frustrate some people.
First off, Drow are EVIL...yet players make them GOOD when it suits their purposes.
They're usually (neutral) evil. That's far away from always evil. It means that half of them are NE. Of course, another 30 per cent or so are likely CE and LE, respectively, and another 10-15% are among the neutrals. That means 5-10 out of a hundred drow are good. They might be an exception rather than the rule, but it's a long shot from the unique/one-in-a-million non-CE demon. Plus, in the Realms, they even have a CG goddess.
So yes, it's not quite ordinary for a drow to be good, but heroes are from extraordinary stock. I'd also say that most good drow would become adventurers roaming the world (away from their home cities), while few evil drow ever become adventurers and stay most (or even all) of their lives within a mile form the place of their birth. That means that most drow adventurers are likely to be good rather then evil.
Yet, an Orc is STUPID...and players aren't willing to make them SMART when it suits their purposes?
Willing, maybe. But it's not easy, because orcs aren't "the book says they're usually stupid" stupid, but "the book says all orcs get -2 on int, wis and cha" stupid. Sure, many like the "smart orc" concept, but not everyone is willing to play such a character because it isn't nearly as effective as a similar concept done with a race that doesn't get that penalty, or even gets a bonus on it.
YOU AREN'T LIMITED BY YOUR RACE!!
YES YOU ARE!!
A first-level orc can only have Int 16, and even that means wasting lots and lots of points on it (points that will be missed in other stats you might need for your concept, because most concepts that require a good int are also partial to decent wis or cha, and those get a penalty, too). Any half-decent int score will cost you dearly.
As I said: Many players don't want to play a sub-par character. I'm not saying that they're pure power gamers, because it's not power gaming to just want a character that can pull its weight.
This sort of limited creativity is what drives so many DMs crazy. You don't need a black skinned, red eyed, white haired race to make your character unique!
No, but it doesn't hurt, either.
Polarized concepts are not only really annoying (Redeemed Devil, Evil Angel, etc...)
Non-evil drow aren't a polarised concept, unless you have a very narrow definition about what a drow should be capable of.
Of all the drow (or half-drow) I've seen or played in the past, none were "redeemed evildoers" or "exemplars of light". There were good-aligned ones among them, who weren't making a big deal about how all their race was evil and they weren't or anything. Some were neutral - not pathological bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs, but not paladin-like either. Some were evil. In fact, I played one who was a pbhm. Had a great time with that character. One of the most fun parts was his low bluff score.
but lack the nuances of creativity you can achieve with a more mainstream example (Vicious Halfling, Cold Blooded Gnome, Kind Hearted Orc).
That's just an excuse. Of course you can achieve the same nuances of creativity. There might be some people who will only go as far as "I know, I'll make a fallen angel", but not everyone is like that.
And for the record, non-evil drow isn't any more polarised than cold blooded gnome, vicious halfling or kind hearted orc. All these races are humanoids without any alignment restrictions hard-wired into their traits.
Again, this is where we disagree. A Drow is NOT a really cool looking human...a mainstream Drow is the equivalent of a Bondage Obsessed, Sadistic, Psychopathic Serial Killer than a mainstream human every will be.
That's just because there's no mainstream human. Other than that, drow aren't any more capable of sadism or anything like that than a human. Drow don't have an alien mindset that is utterly incomprehensible to a human or anything. They're both humanoids.
If you want some insight on how Drow SHOULD be portrayed
I don't need any insight on how someone else things they should be portrayed. I know exactly well how they should be portrayed.
As an example, Drow within those books do things like force an adventurer to watch his wife get slaughtered in an arena...then animate the wife as a ghoul to devour the adventurer's best friend.
Nothing a human wouldn't do, too. Sure, not every human would do that, but then again, not every drow would do that, either.
But you gave me a great incentive to stay away from these books. If they can't get past the "drow should be treated as outsiders as far as alignment is considered", they're worthless.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
