Flavor changes, show me the problems.

[Eolin]

Inspired by the thread on fixing the half-orc, I've redesigned a few of the base classes and made some slight changes to the normal races.

This is for a world in which how magic manifests is governed by your race. Each race seems magic in a different way. While each race is imbued with the power to change and contort the world around them, each race has a different outlook.

The dwarves are wizards. And the wizard bonus feats have to be item-creation. That's the only real change. I don't see dwarves crafting new spells (ala metamagick) on the fly, but using what abilities they have to craft items. I'm considering giving all dwarves proficiency with the dwarven waraxe or the warhammer, as I figure that if wizards were common in dwarven society, they'd still teach everybody how to use a weapon.

The elves are druids. As the druid class is already fairly powerful, I havn't changed this at all. The only change I've made is to elves favored class -- its now druid.

Next, the humble orcs. Orcs I'm leaving the same, but I am doing some changes to the half-orc. For this campaign, a half-orc is what happens when an orc breeds with any species. The orchood is diluted, but the other species isn't there at all. I remember the recent thread on halfbreeds and genetics -- this is just magic. And yes, I think orcs can breed with animals. Icky.

Half-orcs no longer get the -2 to cha, they instead get a -2 to Diplomacy and gather information checks. But they get a +1 to intimidation and the like. And, i guess, get to add there str mod to intimidation checks as well. Oh, I almost forgot, half-orcs get weapon familiarity with weapons with orc in the name.

Orcs get sorcerery magic. Different, isn't it? They get it because orcs want power immedietly without the waiting or studying or what have you that the others do. They sure don't want to have to memorize spells!

So, I had to change the sorcerer a bit. Given that this is enworld, I'm sure this'll be met with um ... diffidence. I did a small change. I took away the familiar, and gave them eschew Material components at first. Then a bonus metamagick feat at fifth and every five. Add Intimidation, gather info and diplomacy to the spell list, and give them 4 skills a level.

The humans are clerics. I've been hashing through changes to the cleric class in another thread - I've been wanting to make them even more versatile. Here's what we got:
The lessening:
only light armor,
spontaneous conversation to cures at one level lower than the spell unless you have the domain,
one domain at first level.
Spells level 7-9 come from only domains.

The upping:
spontaneous converstion to domain spells from spell level 1-6.
Bonus feat at first, fifth and every five. This is to be spent on domains, armor profs (possibly other fighting-type profs), metamagick and item creation. Maybe other things if I get talked into it.

I wonder, does all that balance out?

You know what I'd really like? For clerics to have something that yells cleric and just build on that every five. I guess I could do that with turning. These current changes have a *lot* of changes, which bothers me a bit. I'm vaguely thinking of changing it back to normal but with a bonus feat every five that has to be a turning related feat. The clerics are still up in the air.

so, what do you all think of these changes? Except for the cleric, they're all pretty minor changes. And I suppose I took away a lot more from the cleric than I gave ... but I did give them five feats. That's pretty nice, right?

 

[DragonSword]

Personally, I'd have dwarves as clerics and humans as wizards. I just think it'd fit better for me.

 

[Eolin]

I like dwarves as wizards.

For one, I don't think its been done before. We can all imagine dwarves who worship whatever deity the dwarves worship in a particular world. That's normal.

But dwarven wizards? Its strange, and it feels all tasty in my mouth. I dig the idea of dwarves using magic just as they do everything else. They use it to make blades sharper, to dig more dirt out of the way, etc etc. All the dwarven stuff.

 

[DragonShadow]

Not a bad little spin on things.

Of course, were my DM to present me and my fellow players with such a change, I would promptly write up a martial character rather than a magical one.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

Some interesting ideas.

Dwarves using primarily wizardly magic, I like (similar idea in Rune Quest 3rd ed if I remember right), and the concentration on item creation feats would certainly be in keeping with the traditional view of the race.

Elves I see personally as sorcerors and bards. I'm actually toying with giving elves in my campaign a CHA bonus rather than DEX - it just seems more in keeping with folk tales and legend. (And I don't like the idea that elves are all tree-huggers .)

Maybe Gnomes should be the Druidic race. OR how about Orcs as Druids? It would explain all the interbreeding you propose if they are adept at shapechanging .

As to potential problems .... I'm not 100% clear on whether you are proposing that members of these races (including PCs) can only ever be the designated type of spellcaster, or whether you're just setting that as a designated racial norm from which certain individuals (eg the PCs) can vary.

If it's the first, then of course it harks back to AD&D and the racial restrictions there - even if done differently. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but you'd need to be sure your players bought into it. We're all used to freedom of choice under 3rd Ed.

You might also need to give some thought to the "hows and whys" of certain races being limited to specific types of spell casting. In particular humans being the only ones with access to Clerical magic. Why? Do the other races not have Gods? Do their Gods not grant them access to Clerics? Why not?

I'm not saying it can't be done - I think in RQ the Dwarven God expected his race to be self-reliant, hence they had to get by on wizardry and had no divine magic - but you need good answers for every race.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think yours is a very good approach to making a setting flavor different than usual.

On one hand, I wouldn't like a hard restriction such as "dwarves can be wizards, but not clerics/druids/sorcerers/bards", which I would instead keep as open possibilities.

On the other hand, if this then makes your PC group come up again with an Elf Wizard and the other typical casters, then your change only would have half the wanted effect (it still has the effect on the rest of the world...).

So I think you should follow you idea, plus propose these race/class combos to the players as an opportunity to play something different for a while. Good players should probably be interested by such an opportunity, while the setting has a twink enough to be remembered.


this comment from me has nothing to do with the class changes

 

[Eolin]

Excellent responces everybody.

I don't think I'll necessarily limit the PCs, just give them bad looks if they do something like an elven wizard.

DragonShadow -- why wouldn't you want to play one of these classes?

HalfOrc -- I've also always liked to see elves as sorcerers. Its very Galadriel of them, but I wanted to get away from it for this game. While its easy to see elves in any of the basic four spellcasting progressions, Druid is one I've seen about least.

The human clerical magical doesn't necessarily come from a human god. I'm thinking it can just as easily come from strong believe in certain ideas -- domains. That way, you can have a secular humanist cleric who believes in, maybe, Good and Healing. and at later levels, gets to pick up more domains as the breadth of his vision expands.

Time for lunch.

 

[ARandomGod]

First flavor "problem" I can see is here:
"That's the only real change. I don't see dwarves crafting new spells (ala metamagick) on the fly, but using what abilities they have to craft items."
Non-spontanious casters who take metamagic feats are a flavor problem. They should instead research new spells if they want new magic. Or to say, they should really craft new spells, not attempt to find ways to make the ones they already know more powerful without changing them.

(Hey, you're asking for opinions! O_O )

Other than that practically off topic opinion, it all looks fine.

 

[Eolin]

ARG -- That's basically what I was saying.

 

[GreatLemur]

I like both the idea of orcs as Sorcerers and the changes made to sorcery quite a bit. Frankly, I don't think there was ever any good reason for Sorcerers to need material components in the first place. It's a pretty bad a flavor contradiction, in my mind. I don't even like the idea of them having to use verbal components.

The Cleric changes all sound really good. Honestly, I might even go so far as to remove spontaneous conversion to anything other than domain spells. In fact, I'd like to figure out a way to limit a Cleric's whole spell list to domain spells, but I'd obviously have to come up with much larger domains. I might also ditch undead turning except as a feat or domain power, but I'm probably going way farther than you intended, here.