D&D Race You Hate the Most

[Sunseeker]

Lowering the cost of something is certainly an important way of making it more powerful, and this is indeed where too many previous bad implementations went awry. I really hope that any future version of this sort of thing completely sidesteps the Level Adjustment/Savage Species style of mechanics.

I don't MIND LA/CR/racial classes for races that simply can't be boiled down to a base level, but I would like to see everything that can be made playable function similar to the full-race at start, and keep any buy in to a +3LA/CR/Racial Class maximum.

Well, the problem with looking at D&D campaigns for this sort of data is that the historically bad mechanics for this sort of thing tended to push people away from the choice. If you look at something relevant outside of D&D campaigns alone, then other trends become apparent. For example, many MMOs have pretty crazy racial choices, and they can be rather popular. I think that once you get past the group of players who just want to play humans (which is rather large), then the remaining set seems to feel as comfortable playing orcs, trolls, or panda-men as they do elves or dwarves. That's a bit of a vague generalization, but it's my impression.

Sure, these MMO's do what we're talking about, reduce an otherwise powerful creature to a base version to keep it in-line with other races. If that could be accomplished for a wide variety of creatures, that'd be great!

Also, I again want to express that I don't think you need to play a "monstrous campaign" in order to have races like dragons in a group of PCs. I know not everyone is okay with this flavor, but I'm rather fond of a group of PCs including 3 humans, a dwarf, and a dragon. When the humans and dwarf head to the pub, the dragon just chills outside, maybe wandering off to glean some information from the dragon who protects the king's castle.

I suppose it has to do with how I conceptualize worlds, dragons literally don't fit in most places, such as dungeons, inside buildings, ect... w/o some sort of "change shape power". Which IMO, any magical, monstrous race should have. Driders could shift into drow, dragons to some form of medium human, ect... Without this being any significant cost to that race.

You would certainly need this approach. I have no interest in implementing these races simply by making players play their characters straight out of the Monster Manual. That would be a terrible approach. You need to build mechanics for them as races, the same as elves or dwarves. That will certainly require a somewhat different approach to race design than past editions, but it is possible. You won't get a fully powered Great Wyrm dragon at level 1, but you can certainly get a character who looks like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and has all the mechanics of not wearing armor and breathing fire needed for him to be unmistakably a dragon.

Sure, we'd probably have to start them out as a younger dragon too, which already knocks off a great deal of the power associated with the creature.

I don't want this to be left up to third party works. WotC needs to tackle this one. This kind of thing needs to be built into the central mechanics of the game if it is ever going to work. It can't just be hacked in by some third party. I'm not really a fan of third party stuff anyways... I only ever bought two third party d20 books (both for Iron Heroes, actually).

While I'd like to see Wizards tackle it, as I've said before, I don't have much faith in Wizards being able to actually execute the concept. I realize I'm back to the "this is how it was done in the past" argument, but we're looking at a specific history of actions by WOTC. As a realist by nature, I can only honestly expect them to do more than what they've done.

What can I say? I just can't see the appeal...

Well, they're not bananas so that's understandable...
But I meant as being flavorfully defined by what they are. Primitive orcs captured long ago by mind-flayers to serve as slaves and artifically evolved to be better servants who then rebelled and now serve dark gods. I may not LIKE them, but their background was certainly flavorful enough for me to successfully role-play one of them in a campaign. I successfully pissed off most of the group with how I played my character, but few could argue that I wasn't being true to the race. Once people got that I was just being an elitist ass in-character, people laid off. It was fun, but not something I want to do often.

I suppose I would start by not assuming that every creature of those types has that kind of power. For the most part, any given member of one of those types has a few fairly iconic abilities. Angels are holy and have wings. Demons/devils are unholy. Genies are elemental. Dragons breath fire. You don't need to replicate the full stat block of a Solar, Pit Fiend, or Djinni Prince in order to get the flavor across or get to the heart of their mechanics. Some could also have severe drawbacks that limit them compared to Humans (this is clearest with a Dragon's inability to wear armor or carry a sword, but similar drawbacks may apply to the others). Generally speaking, a very low level Angel, Demon, or Genie might very well closely resemble an Aasimar, Tielfing, or Genasi. It is only at high levels that the major differences would begin to shine through.

Sure, and that's why I've always liked the idea of providing racial feats to allow players to enhance their racial traits in addition to advancing their class as well.

Personally I'd like to see an advancement triad where class, race, and theme could all be advanced simultaneously but each in different ways. Perhaps a character would at every other level be able to choose three tiers of feats, and each pillar of their character would present 3 tiers of options.
1: high-power option
2: mid-power option
3: lower power option.

IE: You could take a high-power class ability, a mid-power racial ability, and a low-power theme ability. Or any combination thereof. Any pillar of your character could be exactly as weak, as flavorful, or as powerful as you chose to make it.

 

[CleverNickName]

Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead? I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.

And also IMO: level adjustments need to be banished forever.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead? I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.

My issue with that is "create your own X" rules tend to be pretty poor in games like this. They lack flavor and tend to push towards certain assumptions and options. They also tend to lack balance. How do you even build a good system for creating both elf subraces and dragons? It is unlikely to work, and I think it is even less likely that WotC would go that route.

 

[Sunseeker]

Here's an idea: instead of trying to fit dozens of different races into the core rulebook, why not give us rules for creating our own custom races instead? I would much rather have instructions on how to create my own races and a small handful of examples, than a chapter full of crazy hybrids.

And also IMO: level adjustments need to be banished forever.

That's a great idea, but balancing those costs is a VERY difficult feat, go check out the beta-test document for the Paizo book coming out this june on the very subject. It doesn't take a genius to see how unbalanced a lot of the costs for racial traits are. Supposedly they're fixing that, but who knows.

I think a chapter with 10 or so races in Core is good regardless of if we get a splatbook to make our own races later in the game. The Paizo book is going to be a full-on book of features to build races with, I don't think it'd help anyone to try and cram all that into a chapter of the PHB/DMG/MM.

 

[CleverNickName]

My issue with that is "create your own X" rules tend to be pretty poor in games like this. They lack flavor and tend to push towards certain assumptions and options. They also tend to lack balance. How do you even build a good system for creating both elf subraces and dragons? It is unlikely to work, and I think it is even less likely that WotC would go that route.

Oh I dunno, my custom races seem to be playing just fine...when they get played at all. I created two custom races and two variants for my Egyptian-flavored game, and it wasn't terribly difficult. (It was kind of fun, actually.) Still, the players almost always go for humans, dwarves, or elves.

But I agree: WotC is unlikely to go this route. Giving us the tools to create our own races (and classes, monsters, spells, etc.) would make it harder for them to sell subsequent books. But still...it would be nice to have.

Maybe a handful of us could collaborate on an ENWorld project once the 5E rules are out? Something like a downloadable public-domain PDF, with how-to instructions and advice for creating balanced custom races and variants.

 

[KesselZero]

Two unrelated thoughts.

1. I like [MENTION=50987]CleverNickName[/MENTION]'s idea about a set of race-creation rules. My dream for 5e is a module that lets you build your own half-races. It's always bugged me that every "half-X" race is "other half human." I want a half-elf-half-dwarf, or a half-tiefling-half-halfling (he would be called a "lingling" and would be a little man with horns). I'm not sure why I want this so much but I do. Any rules support for making weird new races would get three thumbs up from me.

2. Can somebody please explain to me how Level Adjustment rules for non-standard races are supposed to work if you're making a brand-new, level 1 character? This always baffled me in 3e. If I wanted to use a PC race with LA +3, could I only do that in a campaign that started at level 4 or higher? Did I miss a section of the rules?

 

[TwinBahamut]

Oh I dunno, my custom races seem to be playing just fine...when they get played at all. I created two custom races and two variants for my Egyptian-flavored game, and it wasn't terribly difficult. (It was kind of fun, actually.) Still, the players almost always go for humans, dwarves, or elves.

There is a pretty big difference between having success with your own custom races (which is always cool) and trying to create a system for making custom races. Basically, trying to systematize that sort of thing is where things go awry. Kind of like the monster creation rules in 3E that were very complicated and ultimately failed to actually be balanced or interesting in any meaningful way. Ultimately, the only way to make a good, custom race or monster or anything else is build it from complete scratch and playtest it like crazy, which makes it rather hard to create a few simple rules to make it work.

But I agree: WotC is unlikely to go this route. Giving us the tools to create our own races (and classes, monsters, spells, etc.) would make it harder for them to sell subsequent books. But still...it would be nice to have.

I don't think it is the need to sell supplements stopping them... I think it is more the issue that there simply is no way to effectively make a comprehensive race creation mechanic. I don't even know where they would start.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't think it is the need to sell supplements stopping them... I think it is more the issue that there simply is no way to effectively make a comprehensive race creation mechanic. I don't even know where they would start.

By reverse engineering current races and monsters and assigning point values to the pieces.

Check out what Pathfinder did: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/v5748btpy8osf

The document there is pretty old, the full-book will be coming out in June. But it's a good look at how Paizo did what you're saying Wizards should do.

 

[airwalkrr]

The dragonborn has always been a horrible idea. If you want to have PCs as dragons, let them be dragons, not some half-baked mesh of the two. Dragons are POWERFUL and DEADLY creatures. They are not an entire race of breath-spewing paladin-types.

 

[SensoryThought]

The dragonborn has always been a horrible idea. If you want to have PCs as dragons, let them be dragons, not some half-baked mesh of the two. Dragons are POWERFUL and DEADLY creatures. They are not an entire race of breath-spewing paladin-types.

Can I get an amen?