Favoured classes - nature or nurture?

[AGGEMAM]

Nature!

I think that if you made this into a poll you'll have 85% saying 'don't mess with FCs'.

In D&D, as opposed to RL, I believe most (or all) qualities of a race is biological instincts that cannot be suppressed.

Actually the fact that you wrote that it is a Monk order trying to suppress their half-orc nature is perfect evidence that they should keep the Brb as FC, they are just trying to suppress their nature, they haven't changed.

 

[Bonedagger]

I allways saw a favoured class as a potential, not training. A wacky example: The frog may have spend his life practicing his violin skills but he has a lot more jumping talent than his snail violinist colleague.

 

[Valicor]

I say let him make the change, If you have him work out a fairly detailed but not cmplex history as to why he is this way, then what is the problem. Just make sure he tels you what he is planning on doign with the character long & short term, so there aren't to many suprises. The DMG even says you can modify classes to suit the flavor of a character. So why can't you play with the races in the same way. its not like he will be a super monk either, because he doesn't gain a bonus to his wisdom modifier.

I'm not sure how aout the rules for oriental adventures but, I am assumeing you still have to remain lawful to advance as a monk even in that bok? if that is the case its not like he will be breakigng into to many other classes. And if you think he pushes you aroudn remmber, what you gave him you can always take away.

But remmber D&D rules are built as a guide line, they don't have to be solid, set in stone all the time, ceartain exceptions can be made here & there.

I'm sure most of the people in this thread have bent a rule or chnaged one at least once in there life.

 

[Rune]

In this situation, I'd be inclined to go with the behavioralist approach, as long as the half-orc still has one class as a favored class.

...Except that in my games, I generally allow half-orcs the same benifit that the other half-race gets regarding favored class--that is, I allow them "any."

It always kind of irks me that everyone seems to stress how bestial half-orcs are. Does no one remember that half-orcs are also half-human (remember, in 1e, where half-orcs could sometimes be mistaken for humans?)? Allowing them the "any" favored class helps to make them feel more human.

Other demihuman races, I usually set the favored class according to the campaign I'm running, but it's always a behavioral thing. If one race is raised by another, it's perfectly reasonable to substitute that race's favored class.

 

[Olive]

thatnks for the responses guys...

the background for the group he works in was worked out by me, pre-campaign starting, so i think it's workable.

but yes: he certainly has to stay lawful, thats the whole point!

so i think i might let him, and I also liked rune's "half-humans (of any flavour) have any FC" approach.

unless there are any other objections?

Also, just as a note, the player was in no way pushing me around. He had an idea for taking some levels of ranger, which actually fits with the character concept very well... plus we're using monte cook's version which, for all it's other faults, is much less front loaded than the PHB ver. So it's not so cheesy to take it...

 

[Aaron L]

I believe that the Favored Class rules are for maintaining race flavor, and can be changed with no ill effects. For exampe, I don't foresee any imbalances if you changed Elves favored class to sorcerer, or ranger, or even cleric. Doing away with FC would put a little hurt on humans, but changing a races FC wouldn't do anything.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

Nurture!

Even if you play right by the book, "Race" on the second column of PHB p. 94 leaves room to play with racial starting packages to reflect their upbringing and even provides an example of a dwarf that grew up around humans.

 

[Olive]

well, nurture wins it!

I'm going to let him do it... i'll let you know if anything interesting comes of it.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Posted by Olive---

Favoured classes - nature or nurture?

Both.