They don't need to be racial themed fighters. Just racial powers. If you give dwarves some abilities that help them with heavy armor, using shield, mitigating damage and being resiliant, they'll naturally gravitate toward certain archetypes, not only fighters, but clerics, paladins or rogues as well. And they'll be unique compared to elven or gnome fighters. ! Rangers or barbarians. Same goes with elven having mobility powers, for example. If two human cultures are so different as XII century japan and XII century Aztechs or XII century vikings, imagine how diverse would be a group of cultures that dont even share race, such as goblins and dragonborns.
Balance bwtween Class, Race, and Background
- Thread starter Starfox
- Start date
They don't need to be racial themed fighters. Just racial powers. If you give dwarves some abilities that help them with heavy armor, using shield, mitigating damage and being resiliant, they'll naturally gravitate toward certain archetypes, not only fighters, but clerics, paladins or rogues as well. And they'll be unique compared to elven or gnome fighters. ! Rangers or barbarians. Same goes with elven having mobility powers, for example. If two human cultures are so different as XII century japan and XII century Aztechs or XII century vikings, imagine how diverse would be a group of cultures that dont even share race, such as goblins and dragonborns.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
I whole-heartedly do not favor archetyping certain races into certain classes by turning certain class proficiencies into racial bonuses.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that a Dragonborn Fighter and a Dwarven Fighter were not trained by an Elven Fighter in a Human civilization in many many D&D settings. For all it's medieval leandings, the D&D multiverse tends to be strongly multicultural.
Then no race should have any trait at all. Humans get a feat becouse of human culture natural curiosity. A Human raised by dragonborns might not have it. Dwarves get darkvidion becouse of their deep relationship. In a world where they are fishers, they shoukdnt have it. And so on with all the habilities. Maybe my homemade halflings are unlucky, so let's not give the lucky trait to them just becouse somebody halflings somewhere aren't that way.
Plus I intntionally said the racial traits should not be class specific. An elf might have several mobility powers, that does not shoehorn them into monks. They can be mobike fighters, mobile rangers, mobile rogues or mobile wizards. They are just different than dwarves, who are armored fighters, armored rogues, or armored wizards.
OTOH I'm fine with occasional reskinning, but I don't really see the point of printing ten races if you are just going to pick one for the mechanics and decide you are a special kind of elf.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
That's why I'm not in agreement with that idea. There should be a certain level of allowable flavorful reskinning to avoid the problem of having dark(drow) elves, sun, moon, wood, eladrin, ect... A standard "light" elf and "dark" elf is really all we need, and the rest can make up the room in which you have to customize your elf.
Starfox
Hero
I think this is the province of world building. Sun Elves, Moon Elves etc add flavor to the Forgotten Realms. But the basic rulebook should not contain all of these options. Still, int needs to contain some of them - which is why we talk of an "implied setting" and rules cannot ever be truly setting-neutral.
tuxgeo
Adventurer
< . . . snip . . . >
I would like to see class determining the basic mechanic a character uses for combat, interaction, and exploration. But a character's theme would define how those abilities develop as they advance. Multi-classing would be replaced by multi-themed characters.
I would like to see more than one multi-classing option:
a. "Take a level" as per the 3E rules would be the main way; but
b. A "Dabbler Theme" that gives limited membership in another class at first level could almost replicate 4E-style multiclassing, with which a character could start out having two classes, and would do so without requiring the use of the Feats module.
I don't think it's a bad idea, but why does it matter whether it's a theme or a feat? Both "modules" should IMO be as "optional".
S
Sunseeker
Guest
No, they can't be "true neutral", but maybe if they were "chaotic neutral", drawing from a diverse background of worlds instead of a singular one we could spread the love around. Referencining in the racial fluff that X race was originally from Greyhawk, Eberron, or Abeir Toril, would IMO, be an acceptable way to reference where X race is normally found en-masse, but that the race can also be found elsewhere. I mean, it's not like there aren't humans in every single plane of existence(with a few notable exceptions).
That and I don't like calling the PHB1 the "basic" rulebook, while that was neat for Pathfinder, it worked for them because they pretty much combined the PHB and the DMG, if Wizards took that path, I'd be OK with that too. But as long as I expect the PHB to be it's own book, I expect something worth my money. I wouldn't mind a "basic" rulebook to include "basic" races and classes, but I do expect my PHB to be significantly more comprehensive.
Doesn't that lead to a very chaotic "implied setting"? If you limit it to only worlds that are at least somewhat compatible the content should be more coherent.
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