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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6471567" data-attributes="member: 6777454">You posted this a month ago, but I will make it clear the pitfalls of your whole mentality.Pigeon-holing a race is not going to make them seem more distinct from humans, it is just going to make the entirety of the race seem like a very specific kind of human.And... that doesn't work. Every race, by definition, needs to be able to functionally meet all needs of its society-- it need to be able to have people specialized in all sorts of different fields. If every single person in a society has the same specialty and the same abilities, then the society instantly fails right there. They would naturally either die off or wind up in a symbiotic relationship with a different race that could provide the skills it would need to survive and thrive as a society.The other thing you DEFINITELY want to avoid is "Race X is best at A, Race Y is best at B and Race Z is best at C". In such a case naturally the class choice is going to dictate the racial choice and you are going to end up in a situation where certain Race/Class combinations are never going to be chosen outside of someone "roleplay" i.e. they don't give a damn about positively contributing to the party and they are creating a malfunctioning character for the hell of it just because. But under normal circumstances, this presents the issue above-- a race needs to be able to function as an independent society which means not everyone can have identical specialties-- and the idea that only those who have one particular specialty among a race can ever rise to heroes is just.. lame. Uninspired. It is a demonstration of sucky game design.5th Editions goal, perhaps a goal they have not achieved, was that all races could bring something unique to the table. Perhaps all Dwarfs, regardless of class, have a certain stripe of Fighter. This doesn't mean that they are the best of the best Fighters, in fact some of their abilities might get nullified by what one automatically gets in that class and so their abilities are best suited in a different class, but still... regardless of your class, you seem part Fighter.Other races, like Halfling, attempted to offer something that would be universally beneficial regardless of your class.This seems like the best handling of races I have ever seen. Giving racial classes of any sort would be a disastrously terrible idea. It would limit the actual options of class/race combinations that would actually be playable regardless of how you went about it and, as a result, limit the actual playable options by even more. If Elves are flat out, hands down he best archers and wizards, then there is never, ever a reason to play any other race if you intend to play a Wizard or a Ranger. And that's seriously screwed up.</blockquote>

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