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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8538418" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Yeah, this is the kind of thing where a DM would be better off just designing their own system.</p><p></p><p>I mean you could re-design some/all of the classes where you only get new class abilities every other level (say on the evens), and then create your races that give heritage abilities on every odd-level. So levels 1, 3, 5, etc. you gain racial features, and then 2, 4, 6 etc. you gain class features. This way you can really go all in.</p><p></p><p>The downside of course is that you'd have to do a lot of work. The spell slot table would need a major overhaul, you'd need to think of quite a lot of racial features that are not only unique to each of the races, but also do not overlap or are lost to certain class features (in other words, you can't give rogue-like abilities to goblins or halflings that make <em>taking</em> the rogue class superfluous for them.)</p><p></p><p>There's a lot you can do... but at the end of the day I've always felt that once the character is created... I NEVER think about during play which features are from race, which are from class, which are from sub-class, which are feats, which are natural, so on and so forth. The mechanics are just OF this character, regardless of what feature gave it to them. And so bothering to make new charts to demarcate which pieces of your PC come from one thing while others come from another thing is rather a waste of time once you are sitting at the table.</p><p></p><p>I mean honestly... when you ask the characters for a Perception check, does it ever matter whether some have proficiency because they took it as part of their class and some have it because they are Wood Elves? I don't think so. They have proficiency or they don't have proficiency and the race of the character never comes up. Especially considering the fact that that proficiency is only giving them a 10% better chance (when at +2 prof bonus) than any non-proficient character-- meaning that even this supposedly really observant-- eagle eyed-- hyper-focused-- Wood Elf race of character... will STILL blow Perception checks time and time again with crappy d20 rolls. So what is their race REALLY doing to enhance their motif in the narrative? Even if you gave them Expertise in Perception as some sort of bonus heritage feature in some sort of new system... they are still going to fail Perception checks all the time. So giving out bonus mechanics to Perception is not really making them more Elf-y.</p><p></p><p>I always say that the game mechanics of D&D will never really exemplify the story of what all these classes, races, backgrounds, etc. are. The only way your character is ever really going to feel the way you think it should feel within the story is to portray and roleplay it that way so YOU feel who your character is as you play them... even when the mechanics inevitably let you down.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8538418, member: 7006"] Yeah, this is the kind of thing where a DM would be better off just designing their own system. I mean you could re-design some/all of the classes where you only get new class abilities every other level (say on the evens), and then create your races that give heritage abilities on every odd-level. So levels 1, 3, 5, etc. you gain racial features, and then 2, 4, 6 etc. you gain class features. This way you can really go all in. The downside of course is that you'd have to do a lot of work. The spell slot table would need a major overhaul, you'd need to think of quite a lot of racial features that are not only unique to each of the races, but also do not overlap or are lost to certain class features (in other words, you can't give rogue-like abilities to goblins or halflings that make [I]taking[/I] the rogue class superfluous for them.) There's a lot you can do... but at the end of the day I've always felt that once the character is created... I NEVER think about during play which features are from race, which are from class, which are from sub-class, which are feats, which are natural, so on and so forth. The mechanics are just OF this character, regardless of what feature gave it to them. And so bothering to make new charts to demarcate which pieces of your PC come from one thing while others come from another thing is rather a waste of time once you are sitting at the table. I mean honestly... when you ask the characters for a Perception check, does it ever matter whether some have proficiency because they took it as part of their class and some have it because they are Wood Elves? I don't think so. They have proficiency or they don't have proficiency and the race of the character never comes up. Especially considering the fact that that proficiency is only giving them a 10% better chance (when at +2 prof bonus) than any non-proficient character-- meaning that even this supposedly really observant-- eagle eyed-- hyper-focused-- Wood Elf race of character... will STILL blow Perception checks time and time again with crappy d20 rolls. So what is their race REALLY doing to enhance their motif in the narrative? Even if you gave them Expertise in Perception as some sort of bonus heritage feature in some sort of new system... they are still going to fail Perception checks all the time. So giving out bonus mechanics to Perception is not really making them more Elf-y. I always say that the game mechanics of D&D will never really exemplify the story of what all these classes, races, backgrounds, etc. are. The only way your character is ever really going to feel the way you think it should feel within the story is to portray and roleplay it that way so YOU feel who your character is as you play them... even when the mechanics inevitably let you down. [/QUOTE]
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