D&D 5E What Makes an Orc an Orc?

[Guest 6801328]

That they thought that one point lower ability modifier made certain races unsuitable for certain races. For this one can conclude that only acceptable situation is that everyone has the same modifier.

I don't think she said "unsuitable".

But, in any event, that's quite a leap.

 

[BrokenTwin]

We can work with that. I'm not saying that should be the orcish archetype, but let's play with that:

Tusks: When attacking with an unarmed strike, if you hit then as a bonus action you can make a tusk attack.

Fight/Flight: After successfully saving against any kind of fear, as a reaction you may make one melee weapon attack against the source of the fear.

Having an ability based on being hit by a fear effect would be fantastic in Shadow of the Demon Lord where fear effects are everywhere, don't think they're nearly prevelant enough to be a trigger for a racial ability in D&D.

Going off what was mentioned earlier, in terms of niche, what if orcs were the "determinator" race? Humans are versatile, elves are elegant, orcs just. don't. stop. The half-orc racial would be a good starting point, and help the transition from the current vision to the new one.

Or lean into the idea of them being "retaliators" and give them advantage on attack rolls (weapon or spell) when they're attacking an enemy that injured them the previous round.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If I understand your argument correctly, it's "every class is viable without a 16 in the primary stat, therefore it's not unbalancing to give a +2 to some races."

Basically yes.

While that's true, it ignores the reality that the +1 bonus (of +2 to a stat) is actually pretty significant in the game, and it influences people's decisions.

I'm sure it does. I just don't think that is a huge problem. Some races could be revisited and given some generally more useful features or ones that directly favour different class than their ability bonuses. But min-maxers are gonna min max, and if you remove one benefit they just calculate the effect of the next. It will not stop until every race is just identical. So I really don't feel that hugely sweating about the balance is worth it. I care more about the verisimilitude and the rules reflecting the lore than the balance.

Anyway, just ideas to illustrate the goal.

Yes, but I don't believe that assigning races only class-agnostic mechanics is possible and at least you had to strip so much stuff that only thing that would be left would be a handful of insignificant ribbons. I don't want that, I want the races to be mechanically distinct and different and if that causes some minor imbalance then I'm fine with that. (And I remind you that this imbalance is probably smaller than imbalance between two characters of the same race created using random ability generation method.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

Basically yes.


I'm sure it does. I just don't think that is a huge problem. Some races could be revisited and given some generally more useful features or ones that directly favour different class than their ability bonuses. But min-maxers are gonna min max, and if you remove one benefit they just calculate the effect of the next. It will not stop until every race is just identical. So I really don't feel that hugely sweating about the balance is worth it. I care more about the verisimilitude and the rules reflecting the lore than the balance.

That suggests min-maxers are binary: they either are or aren’t.

I suspect, largely because it applies to me, that there is a huge range, and that for most people the magnitude of the mechanical advantage matters, and thus the more you balance things the more people will make choices for flavor rather than balance.

 

[Charlaquin]

If an int 14 human wizard is OK and playable concept, then is also an int 14 orc wizard.

By all means, if you *want to play an int 14 human wizard, or an int 14 orc wizard, knock yourself out. What you can’t do is play an int 16 orc wizard because point buy and array only go up to 15 and orcs don’t have a bonus to int.

Either the the lower score is acceptable or it is not, regardless of what was the cause.

Uhh... no? A floating +2 and +1 allow anyone to play any race/class combination without being at a disadvantage to their primary ability compared to characters of other races. Racial ability score adjustments don’t do that thing. This isn’t complicated.

And as I very much think that +2 is sufficient starting bonus in the main ability score modifier, I do not feel any race makes any class unplayable.

Unplayable? No. Objectively, measurably worse at some classes than other races would be? Yes. This is, again, limiting for roleplaying and echoes real world racist ideas about different races capabilities.

And if one happens to be a min-maxer that has to optimise everything, then in absence of ability bonuses those other features will just as surely affect their decision and shoehorn certain races to certain classes.
The truth is, we both are actually willing to accept certain degree of imbalance caused by the selection of the race, I just don't arbitrarily focus on one aspect but look the races as whole.

I’m not focusing on ability scores arbitrarily. I’m focusing on them because they make a significant statistical difference in a character’s effectiveness, while other racial features are less significant and more subjective in their impact on a class’s effectiveness. If you think I’m wrong, try running with everyone getting a floating +2 and +1 and see how many more nonstandard race/class combinations get played.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That suggests min-maxers are binary: they either are or aren’t.

I suspect, largely because it applies to me, that there is a huge range, and that for most people the magnitude of the mechanical advantage matters, and thus the more you balance things the more people will make choices for flavor rather than balance.

Yes, probably. And it is basically just a matter of taste where one feels that thing are sufficiently balanced. We seem to disagree on where that point is. shrug
(That being said, I am in favour of improving the balance, just not at the cost of ability bonuses.)

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm sure it does. I just don't think that is a huge problem. Some races could be revisited and given some generally more useful features or ones that directly favour different class than their ability bonuses. But min-maxers are gonna min max, and if you remove one benefit they just calculate the effect of the next.

This is a slippery slope argument, which is logically fallacious. I have no interest in removing racial features other than ability score adjustments, as the impact they have on the viability of nonstandard race/class combinations is not sufficient to be of concern.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

By all means, if you *want to play an int 14 human wizard, or an int 14 orc wizard, knock yourself out. What you can’t do is play an int 16 orc wizard because point buy and array only go up to 15 and orcs don’t have a bonus to int.

Sure. And you can't play a fire-breathing halfling either.

Uhh... no? A floating +2 and +1 allow anyone to play any race/class combination without being at a disadvantage to their primary ability compared to characters of other races. Racial ability score adjustments don’t do that thing. This isn’t complicated.

Either main score of 15 is sufficient or it is not. This is not complicated.

Unplayable? No. Objectively, measurably worse at some classes than other races would be? .

Marginally, yes. It's not a big deal.

Yes. This is, again, limiting for a roleplaying.

What sort of roleplay you do that requires 16 in your main ability?

and echoes real world racist ideas about different races capabilities.

Yes, totally. This is totally what it is. Give me a break. I get that you really don't like ability bonuses, and that's fine, but trying to justify it this way is rather tasteless.

Furthermore, they're species, they're not human ethnicities. It is not racist to say that bears are stronger than foxes.

I’m not focusing on ability scores arbitrarily. I’m focusing on them because they make a significant statistical difference in a character’s effectiveness, while other racial features are less significant and more subjective in their impact on a class’s effectiveness. If you think I’m wrong, try running with everyone getting a floating +2 and +1 and see how many more nonstandard race/class combinations get played.

They both have an effect. By removing the ability bonuses you merely change which races favour which classes. And seriously. It is not a competitive game. Tiny imbalance doesn't matter. Hell, Warhammer 40K armies are far worse balanced that D&D races and that is a competitive game!

 

[FrogReaver]

This is a slippery slope argument, which is logically fallacious. I have no interest in removing racial features other than ability score adjustments, as the impact they have on the viability of nonstandard race/class combinations is not sufficient to be of concern.

1. In the general sense slippery slopes are not fallicious. Even Wikipedia has a whole section dedicated to non-fallicious slippery slopes.

2. I believe you don’t think like a min-maxer. If I can’t get an advantage by ability scores the. I will do so by race features. Maybe medium armor on dwarves. Maybe fire resistance on tieflings. Maybe magic resistance on gnomes. Etc. Which means there will still be a best race for a class And so all you’ve done is moved the problem from ability scores to a different area.

 

[BrokenTwin]

While I disagree with the idea of removing attribute bonuses from ancestries, I am STRONGLY in favour of adding relevant attribute bonuses to level 1 class selection. Wizards should get a +1 to Int, Fighters get +1 to Str or Dex, Paladins get Str or Cha, so on and so forth. Make it so it only applies to level one, so it doesn't incentivise multiclass dipping.