D&D 5E Races that make a better class than yours.

ccs

41st lv DM
Look, putting the Voldo's book and the smeghead who designed the PC racial stats in it aside, this edition has done a pretty good job, a FAR better job than any previous edition, of making just about any race/class combination functional. The only major slip-up in the PHB was designing the Half-Orc in such a way that you absolutely could not be anything but a Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin or maybe Cleric without basically losing access to all of your abilities.

?? What are you talking about? A 1/2orcs abilities are:
Str +2, Con +1
Ok, so extra Str isn't that great a draw for the arcane casters & if you're looking to play certain classes you might wish that you could could put that +2 elsewhere. But if that were so important you would've picked some other race, right?
The extra Con? Who doesn't want more Con? Point them out to us.
But at no point does the 1/2orc player lose access to these.
With these bonuses, were I to play a class the 1/2orc doesn't excel in (like cleric for ex) I'd just look at it as a free bonus to a stat I was already likely putting a lower # in.
Darkvision
No class choice negates the usefulness of this in any way.
Menacing - prof. in Intimidation
Again, no class choice negates the usefulness of this in any way. What # you assign to your Cha will impact it, but that's YOU'RE choice. This is here to reflect the flavor of the race.
Relentless Endurance
Again, no class choice negates the usefulness of this in any way. In fact, if you're playing a class that's less durable than the fighters/barbarians/paladins/whatever, it's probably MORE valuable. I know I've dropped the parties rogue, sorcerer, & bard to zero HP plenty of times. They aren't playing 1/2orcs. I'm sure they'd appreciate this ability if they could snag it.
Savage Attacks
Scoring extra damage on crits with melee weapons.... Let me repeat: Again, no class choice negates the usefulness of this in any way. True, it might not come into play very often if you're one of the arcane casters. But if it does, BONUS! Everyone else? They'll make decent use of it. Especially those rogue types that like to sneak attack things....
Languages
Um, ok. You speak/read common & orc. And again, no class choice negates the usefulness of this in any way.

So it boils down to mostly the arcane caster 1/2orcs won't be maximizing their +2 str & ability to deal extra crit damage with melee weapons.
But no abilities lost, & you certainly are not restricted to playing only Barbarians/Fighters/Paladins & maybe clerics....
 

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James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Supporter
Maybe not restricted, but when one of your key racial features is completely useless to anyone who isn't a melee combatant, it's not a good deal. It's really bad design- even Orc aggressiveness could find some use on a caster. When designing a race, you want to make sure that even unusual class choices can use the abilities of that race without feeling like it was a completely dumb choice- because even if nobody ever plays a Half-Orc Wizard, it still should make some kind of sense for there to be NPC Half-Orc Wizards.

Far from my biggest peeve about Half-Orcs though. I still refuse to admit that "I crit gud" is a freaking racial trait. It makes no sense to me (please don't try to explain how it makes sense, my friends have already tried).

If you're going to make a race that is predisposed towards certain classes, you should also throw a bone to other kinds of classes, because yes, there are Elf Barbarians and Dwarven Rangers in the world. Most of the 5e races are actually pretty good about this, because even if High Elves are terrible Barbarians (save for some oddball Dexbarian build), that free cantrip can really come in handy for the fights you don't want to (or can't) use rage for. Or maybe you use it for cool utility, that's not bad either.
 

GreenTengu

Adventurer
?? What are you talking about? A 1/2orcs abilities are:

Try to make a functional Half-Orc oh... let's say Warlock or Sorcerer or Bard or Druid... and then you see how often your racial abilities actually ever come into play as opposed to if you were an Elf or a Dwarf or a Halfling.

And it isn't just bad enough that the race offers you NOTHING of any benefit beyond an Intimidation skill if you are anything but a Barbarian, Paladin or inferior version of the Fighter (moreover, this edition even made it so you can't even be a functional strength-based Monk-- they were so much on their "let's make Dexterity should be the god stat so that elves are the super race" kick that they not only made strength-based Fighters the crappier build, they actually eliminated the possibility of making a functional strength-based monk!), but the abilities the race DOES have all stack onto making them the best possible tank.

When you look at the properly constructed races, how it is supposed to work is that if your racial attribute bonuses make you superior for one class, your other abilities should give you less benefit if you are that class and more benefit if you are another class. For instance, the Dwarf has a lot going for it to be a tanky melee class, but if you are one then your weapon and armor proficiency are effectively nullified or, if you choose Hill Dwarf, the extra hit points mean less to a class that gets twice as many hit points normally than one that gets half as many.

In the case of the Elf, if you do a Dex fighter with one then your weapon proficiencies don't mean anything. On the other hand, if you choose the Wizard-leaning one, you get one extra cantrip which means a lot less to a character who already gets 3 than a character who wouldn't normally get a cantrip at all.


In the case of the Half-Orc, your attribute bonuses are already ones that extraordinarily limit you to only 2 classes or the inferior build of a third class or possibly the cleric (but not really). Then you have an ability that only helps you if you are the person in the party who is going to go down in combat first-- sure, its possible that someone besides the tank is going to one day have to make a death saving throw, but in any such case the tank should have already gone down and be on their 2nd or 3rd turn of being at 0 HPs before it is remotely likely that a spellcaster is going to be making one. And then you have an ability to do more damage, but ONLY in melee combat.

Oh, and let's consider something here... what reason was there to limit savage attacks to melee weapons? Putting that restriction on it when you already forced the race to primarily specialize in the second worst attribute in the damn game was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Is there any particular reason the aggressive spirit of the Orc-blooded individual couldn't make their magical attacks a bit more "boomy" than a less a race with less fury racing through their blood? A simple strike-out through the words "a melee weapon" and replace "weapon's" with "attack's"... and right there you would have a key to making a functional Orc Monk, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, Warlock or Wizard. Instead, an unnecessary restriction to ONLY work with melee weapon attacks slapped on there exclusively to artificially limit the classes you can even play as with the race is jammed in there for no other reason but that the designer who made it sucks at his job.

And its no like the concept of an Orc shaman or warlock is such a wild or unusual one that it would seem wildly out-of-character. And when such things are depicted, they are never depicted as absolutely HAVING to use a weapon at all times to be remotely effective. In fact, having their spellcasters use big, flashy, barely controlled blasty damaging spells seems quite Orc-like.

Oh, and finally there is the Intimidation skill. That could possibly be useful, but only if you are willing to follow up your threats with actual violence. Its always going to be inferior to Deception or Diplomacy in any given situation. And, moreover, since the Half-Orc's attributes and other abilities basically prevent you from being any class that is going to have a reason to invest in charisma, it cannot remotely be of any use. You can pick an intimidation skill up off of background or choosing it from your class skill list, so you are better off being any other race that offers any other skill you might use in addition to giving you actual benefits then just picking Intimidation up off background or class.


But, you know... given that the two major things that make the Half-Orc kind of terrible are..
1) Strength being an absolute trash dump stat in this edition that offers you no real benefit.
and
2) Savage attacks being unnecessarily limited only to melee weapon attacks

Well, #2 is easily houseruled out of existence and #1?... well, yeah... that's a more fundamental problem with this edition that isn't resolved so easily. Quite a lot of houserules would have to be implemented in order to make Strength (and even more so Intelligence) attributes that any character should actually want to invest in.
 


schnee

First Post
When people rant for hundreds of words about how bad the game is, I wonder why they're here.

--

IMO, the whole 'this race is pretty bad at this class' is truly a D&D staple from day #1. If 5E's goal was to 'feel like D&D' then it succeeded. :heh:

In spite of that, the imbalance is the least horrible it's ever been, and that means a table of middle-of-the-road players can do a 'play against type' character and still be effective and have fun.*




* Optimizers are another issue.
 

Bardbarian

First Post
Balance doesn't necessarily make a game good. It's ok for a game to have imbalance as long as that imbalance exists within a framework of choice. Players choose their class and race and where to apply their stats. This allows players to tailor their experience to their expectations and makes for an enjoyable playing experience.
 

gyor

Legend
The Tabaxi is faster in short bursts, but the Wild Elf is faster over long distance. The Tabaxi is a sprinter, Wild Elf is a Marathon runner.

As for half orc arcane casters, just get cantrips like Booming Blade and gish it up abit.

And because Bards, Warlocks, and Sorcerors are Charisma focused, you'll have better stats to take advantage of menancing then the Barbarian or Fighter.

The +1 Con can help maintain consentration saves.
 

Dualazi

First Post
Balance doesn't necessarily make a game good. It's ok for a game to have imbalance as long as that imbalance exists within a framework of choice. Players choose their class and race and where to apply their stats. This allows players to tailor their experience to their expectations and makes for an enjoyable playing experience.

But lack of balance does make a game bad. What you're describing is the exact same justification used in designing 3rd edition, where some feats/skills/spells/classes were intentionally designed to be inferior so as to encourage game mastery. This lead to huge swathes of options being essentially thrown in the dumpster, because as the edition pressed on it became more common knowledge of which classes were wildly overpowered or incredibly weak. Anecdotally speaking I've yet to see a player in 4th or 5th edition come to me and say they want to re-make their character on account of poor performance, and this was not at all unusual in the days of 3rd edition. From a DM's perspective, a balanced game is also vastly more pleasurable and easy to run. In a game with significant character imbalances, it becomes a draining balancing act to try and keep the powerful players challenged without annihilating the less optimized players, and I for one am pretty happy that this is not as extreme as it was, which is a result of better balancing.
 

akr71

Hero
Welcome to level 10. Where players look back at choices made and what could have been... and convince the DM its time to start a new campaign. :lol:
 

MrHotter

First Post
In my game I want players to pick a race they want to play instead of picking the race that is best for the class they want to play.

My first house rule is that a player can move 2 of their racial bonus ability points to any other ability that does not already have a bonus. It would make sense that a scrawny/brainy half orc would end up being a wizard or that a brawny/dim-witted gnome would end up becoming a plate wearing fighter.

My other house rule is that casters can change their casting stat under certain situation. I let a cleric use int or chr for casting, a bard use int, warlock use int/wis, etc. We basically make up a subclass that would best fit how the player wants to play.
 

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