D&D 5E Shoe Horning the Races by Class?

Zardnaar · Jul 16, 2019

In 5E virtually every new player regardless of ability score generation tends to match up their main racial bonus with their class.

This means unless your race has a plus 2 whatever orcare the variant human you will never see a Dwarf Wizard for example.

Back in AD&D you had racial restrictions and ability score negatives but you would often see races in classes where they lacked a relevent bonus. Probably due to multclass rules and racial packages.

Just something I have noticed. You can usually have a decent guess at a players class by their race.

Blue · Jul 16, 2019

Moderate agreement - you will often see races that have a modifier paired with a class that uses that ability. It doesn't have to be +2. (If it did, you wouldn't see any variant humans, and I think they are the race I see the most.) With a 15 accessible both point buy and standard array, and 16 and 17 both giving the same +3 modifier, I see a lot of 16s around.

This is why I like how 13th Age (a d20 game) does it better. You get a +2 from choice of 2 from race, and a +2 from choice of two from class. They can't be to the same ability score. So any race can have the prime ability of a class, but the races still play different from each other.

Jer · Jul 16, 2019

Zardnaar said:
Back in AD&D you had racial restrictions and ability score negatives but you would often see races in classes where they lacked a relevent bonus. Probably due to multclass rules and racial packages.

I don't remember this, though I ran B/X and only really engaged in AD&D as a player, and it's been a long time, so perhaps my memories are shaded.

What I remember was that the class/race combos you could play were insanely restrictive. If you were playing anything other than a fighter, magic-user, or fighter/magic-user you were playing a human or a half-elf. When I played I was almost always a cleric, so I was almost always playing a human. Because only half-elves, half-orcs and humans were allowed to be clerics, and the level caps for half-orc and half-elf clerics were stupidly low and the benefits of not being human weren't that great (I googled it real quick to remind myself, and it was worse than I thought - half-orcs were capped at level 4 and half-elves at level 5 - honestly in retrospect it wouldn't have mattered much because our AD&D campaigns never got past level 10 and more typically level 5, but when we were starting out we always assumed they would.) You might get someone playing a halfling thief every once in a while, but that required someone to be a thief and honestly most of the people I gamed with thought AD&D 1e thieves were a joke.

Of course that was 1e. You're probably talking about 2e where it loosened up a bit (hey, at least dwarves and halflings could be clerics in 2e - widening up the options a bit), but even there most of the folks I gamed with had the same attitude towards class/race combos and the "right" choices to make. And many races were still restricted - by the rules you couldn't have a halfling wizard or a dwarf druid, for example. It wasn't until 3e that I saw a widening of the combos outside of house rules at various tables.

Blue said:
This is why I like how 13th Age (a d20 game) does it better. You get a +2 from choice of 2 from race, and a +2 from choice of two from class. They can't be to the same ability score. So any race can have the prime ability of a class, but the races still play different from each other.

Yes - this is one of the mechanics of 13A that is more subtle than a lot of the other ones that folks think of, but I think it has a major impact on the game. Your players who want to have a cool character that is outside of the typical stereotypes but also don't want to be less effective mechanically can have their peanut butter and their chocolate.

lowkey13 · Jul 16, 2019

*Deleted by user*

GreenTengu · Jul 16, 2019

Zardnaar said:
In 5E virtually every new player regardless of ability score generation tends to match up their main racial bonus with their class.

This means unless your race has a plus 2 whatever orcare the variant human you will never see a Dwarf Wizard for example.

Back in AD&D you had racial restrictions and ability score negatives but you would often see races in classes where they lacked a relevent bonus. Probably due to multclass rules and racial packages.

Just something I have noticed. You can usually have a decent guess at a players class by their race.

Umm... You have never seen a Dwarf Wizard?...
You have seen less Dwarf Wizards than in AD&D?...

First, Dwarfs get a Constitution bonus which is nice to have if you are a Wizard. Furthermore they are the only race that grants you access to medium armor proficiency-- which is super nice to have if you are a Wizard. Their lack of intelligence bonus literally does not matter at all if you simply avoid the spells that have DCs that the target can make a save against. Avoid those spells and it hardly matters if your Wizard has an Intelligence score of 8.
Furthermore, the Proficiency bonus that one has when swinging the Dwarf's axe is the same as the Fighter's. Which means, so long as you don't tank your Intelligence score, up until the usual fighting classes get multiattack, so long as you don't tank your Strength score and instead take advantage of the fact that the Dwarf is the ONLY race in the game to get a +2 to two stats, means you are going to be hitting only slightly often and slightly less hard with your axes as the fighting classes are.

The Dwarf is probably one of the best races to be if one is going to play a Wizard in 5E and people noticed that almost immediately after the racial stats were put out.

Second, you literally could NOT play a Dwarf Wizard in AD&D. In fact, the only thing you were allowed to be as a Dwarf in AD&D is a Fighter or a Rogue-- and they both had hard level caps meaning you just became useless once the adventure level got too high. And the Rogue level cap was super, super low-- like level 6 or 8. There might have been an option for Cleric for the Dwarf in the final version of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, but I am not even sure about that.

So you are claiming that the edition where Dwarfs can be one of the most potent races to pair with the Wizard class has less people playing Dwarf Wizards than an edition where the book literally forbade you from playing a Dwarf Wizard?

Is this some sort of Mendella Effect thing? Did you step out of a parallel world where everything is completely backwards?

Shiroiken · Jul 16, 2019

Unlike some of the prior editions, 5E does mechanically reward stereotypes. Dwarves make great warriors and clerics. Elves are good at magic and archery. Halflings are awesome thieves. Half Elf Bard is good instead of bad. Gnomes are excellent wizards. You get the idea.

However, ability scores are not the end all/be all of the race. I've seen a dwarf wizard in 5E, because they got medium armor and battle axe proficiency (to use Green Flame Blade). Finesse weapons with light armor make Elves and Halflings good front line options, even thought they aren't the stereotypical front line warriors. While I'll agree that most characters are going to line up somewhat with the stereotypes, I feel there are enough viable options to create significant variety.

Zardnaar · Jul 16, 2019

GreenTengu said:
Umm... You have never seen a Dwarf Wizard?...
You have seen less Dwarf Wizards than in AD&D?...

First, Dwarfs get a Constitution bonus which is nice to have if you are a Wizard. Furthermore they are the only race that grants you access to medium armor proficiency-- which is super nice to have if you are a Wizard. Their lack of intelligence bonus literally does not matter at all if you simply avoid the spells that have DCs that the target can make a save against. Avoid those spells and it hardly matters if your Wizard has an Intelligence score of 8.
Furthermore, the Proficiency bonus that one has when swinging the Dwarf's axe is the same as the Fighter's. Which means, so long as you don't tank your Intelligence score, up until the usual fighting classes get multiattack, so long as you don't tank your Strength score and instead take advantage of the fact that the Dwarf is the ONLY race in the game to get a +2 to two stats, means you are going to be hitting only slightly often and slightly less hard with your axes as the fighting classes are.

The Dwarf is probably one of the best races to be if one is going to play a Wizard in 5E and people noticed that almost immediately after the racial stats were put out.

Second, you literally could NOT play a Dwarf Wizard in AD&D. In fact, the only thing you were allowed to be as a Dwarf in AD&D is a Fighter or a Rogue-- and they both had hard level caps meaning you just became useless once the adventure level got too high. And the Rogue level cap was super, super low-- like level 6 or 8. There might have been an option for Cleric for the Dwarf in the final version of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, but I am not even sure about that.

So you are claiming that the edition where Dwarfs can be one of the most potent races to pair with the Wizard class has less people playing Dwarf Wizards than an edition where the book literally forbade you from playing a Dwarf Wizard?

Is this some sort of Mendella Effect thing? Did you step out of a parallel world where everything is completely backwards?

Never seen a Dwarf wizard since 3.0. Actually did see more in 2E as some settings had them.

Didn't see a lot if wizards in 3E, 50/50 in 5E it seems. Not seeing many fighters either outside that one guy.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 17, 2019

Second, you literally could NOT play a Dwarf Wizard in AD&D. In fact, the only thing you were allowed to be as a Dwarf in AD&D is a Fighter or a Rogue-- and they both had hard level caps meaning you just became useless once the adventure level got too high.

You might want to check that: dwarves could be Clerics, too. (In addition, when the classes were added, they could be alchemists and psionicists as well.)

Also, every race had at least one class in which their progression was unlimited. As I recall, that was Thief for dwarves. (Possibly all races.)

Jer · Jul 17, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
You might want to check that: dwarves could be Clerics, too. (In addition, when the classes were added, they could be alchemists and psionicists as well.)

Also, every race had at least one class in which their progression was unlimited. As I recall, that was Thief for dwarves. (Possibly all races.)

In 1e only NPC dwarves could be clerics - PCs could not unless your group house ruled it. In 2e they opened up all of the NPC only classes to allow PCs as well.

And anyone could be a thief in 1e as well as in 2e. Because thieves were terrible and there were no concerns about "balancing" them.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 17, 2019

Jer said:
In 1e only NPC dwarves could be clerics - PCs could not unless your group house ruled it. In 2e they opened up all of the NPC only classes to allow PCs as well.

And anyone could be a thief in 1e as well as in 2e. Because thieves were terrible and there were no concerns about "balancing" them.

I went and checked: PC Dwarves could be Fighters, Thieves and Assassins. NPC Dwarves were limited to 8th level. All races except Half-Orcs were unlimited as Thieves, who were instead unlimited as Assassins.