D&D General Thoughts on Racial Classes?

[prosfilaes]

To say that there can be no such person arguably confines the player character not just to a particular race, but also to being an ongoing protector of racial secrets lest they become such a reprobate.

Or elves just have the dexterity and magical control to do this, whereas a human, no matter how well trained, could never do it. The problem is that feels like it could be true in the LotR, but D&D (5) elves have a +2 to dexterity and can't be put to sleep, which just doesn't feel like they're different enough that they and only they could become bladesingers.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If "forbidden combinations" are features of the world, that's not true. If you forbid dwarf wizards because dwarves can't do arcane magic, then dwarf NPCs shouldn't be wizards; if it just happens that nobody plays a dwarf wizard, dwarf wizards could be dominant in the arcane world.

You're the DM... you're going to include the NPCs you want and not include the ones you don't want. If no players selects Dwarven Wizard and you don't ever have Dwarven Wizard NPCs... then ostensibly that combination is "forbidden". Now, it's not written down anywhere that it's forbidden... you might not have a world document in your possession that says "In this world Dwarves do not cast magic"... but if no Dwarves use magic, it's going to be a truism of your game regardless.

 

[atanakar]

I always ignored Racial Limitations since 1980.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Or elves just have the dexterity and magical control to do this, whereas a human, no matter how well trained, could never do it. The problem is that feels like it could be true in the LotR, but D&D (5) elves have a +2 to dexterity and can't be put to sleep, which just doesn't feel like they're different enough that they and only they could become bladesingers.

Tolkien elves are basically presented as all being more dextrous than any human, so that makes good sense for that setting. In D&D Tolkien elves should probably all start with 20 Dex and have a cap of 24-30.

If I was going to devise a biological argument in most D&D settings, and using the normal 5e elf racial stats, it would probably be that only elven vocal cords can manage the particular tones of the bladesong, or something along those lines that draws on an aspect of biology not generally covered by rules, though I suppose that wouldn't explain why Kenku can't master it fairly easily given the chance.

In any case I don't really mind something like that in principle, I just don't feel like it fits with the "make whatever character you want" ethos baked into the races of 5e Dungeons and Dragons. I also think that WotC seems to present bladesinging and battleraging as a cultural rather than a biological limitation, which doesn't really fit in their own settings which tend to be (in the settled parts) cosmopolitan in a way evoking the Western world of 21st century Earth. In settings where, say, Tabaxi character being the adopted child of an Elven adventurer unconcerned with elf taboos is a plausible backstory, hard and fast cultural limitations can't really make sense between them.

Now if they were to create the actual class or subclass of "Gish" and restrict it to Githyanki that would make sense in official settings, as Githyanki are presented as an alien and xenophobic people with virtually no non-hostile interaction with non-Githyanki. They are not "mundane" in the way elves or dwarves are. The trouble is that once you allow player characters to be Githyanki but nevertheless travel and fraternize with non-Githyanki, the logic of an absolute cultural limitation that no non-Githyanki, whatever their background, could have possibly learned Githyanki cultural secrets begins to break down.

 

[delphonso]

To sum up, it seems the general consensus is that limits in official core rules are bad, but should be encouraged in setting books, or in your own settings, if it helps the story or leads players in a direction.

Isolation is also necessary if you want it to make sense, so places like the Sword Coast and Zakhara make no sense. Unless it's somehow genetic - which, given the weirdness of DnD - might not limit it to one race.

I forgot who posted it but I liked the point of bringing those limits into the game after character creation, if you wanted them. If my part is a dragonborn paladin, a half-orc monk, and a halfelf sorceror - maybe no half-orcs perform magic. Maybe no dragonborn has ever been a monk. Something to play with for those who want it.

A paragon class could be interesting - I'd be happy with better racial feats, more focused on abilities being better like Dragon Fear.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's your opinion. In reality, many a butcher or baker left their lifeblood on some WWI or WWII battlefield, because people do what they have to. Moreover, it is a fact that in Dungeon Crawl Classics, PCs begin their careers as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers forced into adventure, which means it is a fact that some people play that way.

I never said they didn't or that it was wrong for them to. What I said was that it was atypical for butchers, bakers and candlestick makers to become adventurers. It doesn't matter if there's a setting where PC's always started out as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. That just means PC's and those like them are atypical.

Cool. Is everyone who graduates from college an atypical person, and if so, what does that mean?

College in general is a typical experience in the world today. Adventurers college isn't really the same thing is it?

You were the first person to use typical here. I've always spoken in terms of absolutes: the first dwarven wizard, the first non-elven bladesinger. I can't I would be terribly amused with a player who wants to insist there must have been dwarven wizards and therefore they can play one.

Yes, you may create a world where no dwarf has ever been a wizard not due to lack of capability but due to something else. My challenge is that such worlds don't typically hold up.

It seems you're pounding on a strawman here. Nobody here has said "you can't be X because it's not typical for X race to do Y thing".

No Strawman. You have argued counter that premise multiple times now. It may not be your full position but don't act like you've not made any statements regarding that.

 

[FrogReaver]

To sum up, it seems the general consensus is that limits in official core rules are bad, but should be encouraged in setting books, or in your own settings, if it helps the story or leads players in a direction.

Isolation is also necessary if you want it to make sense, so places like the Sword Coast and Zakhara make no sense. Unless it's somehow genetic - which, given the weirdness of DnD - might not limit it to one race.

I forgot who posted it but I liked the point of bringing those limits into the game after character creation, if you wanted them. If my part is a dragonborn paladin, a half-orc monk, and a halfelf sorceror - maybe no half-orcs perform magic. Maybe no dragonborn has ever been a monk. Something to play with for those who want it.

A paragon class could be interesting - I'd be happy with better racial feats, more focused on abilities being better like Dragon Fear.

I mostly agree with this. There's one part I wanted to explore though.

You mention isolation being a prerequisite for having certain combinations being excluded except in the case of genetics. But if it's cultural isolation that causes Dwarves to culturally never become Wizards - what of the Dwarves that are raised outside Dwarven culture and why shouldn't I as a player be able to play one of those?

 

[delphonso]

I would include "dwarves not being raised outside the mountains" as isolation.

 

[FrogReaver]

But, in a setting where there was not constant cultural commerce it would be a different matter. If it was a setting where elves themselves were very rare and had never taught their language to anyone else then it may make sense that they had cultural secrets no non-elves could even begin to discover. Or if it was just one tiny remote tribe of elves who had preserved this lost art that would also make sense. The problem is making a race mundane and a cultural practice ubiquitous to them and then saying that nobody else can have possibly appropriated their cultural practices. It just seems like rather overly simplistic worldbuilding.

If a race or practice is soo rare that only 1 small tribe exists of it then I'd question whether it should be playable at all by a player of any race.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would include "dwarves not being raised outside the mountains" as isolation.

My problem is that nearly every attempt to paint a non-human society identifies every member of that race as being nearly uniform in practice, beliefs, situation etc.

For example, in this case you implicitly assume that it's not a Dwarf if it wasn't raised in the mountains as if it's impossible that some Dwarves were not raised in the mountains.