D&D 4E Fluff that plays bad (and how to fix it in 4e)

[jasin]

Dwarves as presented in Races of Stone need to go.

What is so offensive in how they are presented in Races of Stone? I only skimmed the book, but it seemed OK (and nothing out of the ordinary) to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The Bloodguard from Stephen Donaldsons 'Wounded Land' books are an interesting non-oriental take on monk like characters. I believe Monte Cook was very heavily inspired by them when he produced his monk-like 'unfettered' class in AE.

As someone mentions higher up in the thread, anything that allowed a separation of 'fighting' talents and 'mystical' talents would play very nicely into a Bloodguard like setup.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

The Bloodguard from Stephen Donaldsons 'Wounded Land' books are an interesting non-oriental take on monk like characters. I believe Monte Cook was very heavily inspired by them when he produced his monk-like 'unfettered' class in AE.

As someone mentions higher up in the thread, anything that allowed a separation of 'fighting' talents and 'mystical' talents would play very nicely into a Bloodguard like setup.

I think you mean oathsworn.

I second the thought of fighting and mystical Talent Trees! Good stuff.

 

[coyote6]

What is so offensive in how they are presented in Races of Stone? I only skimmed the book, but it seemed OK (and nothing out of the ordinary) to me.

From memory, Races of Stone has "dwarves" who don't build monuments to their dead (i.e., tombs), and only use things like gold coins for money because outsiders want them (if they didn't deal with humans, et al, they wouldn't have gold coins; and of course they don't hoard them or anything).

Note that the web enhancement for Races of Stone -- the book that says dwarves don't build big fancy tombs or hoard treasure -- is an adventure to a big fancy dwarven tomb full of treasure.

Also, the extra dwarven gods in the book aren't really great, especially given that the "core pantheon" already had dwarven gods that covered some of that territory (Clangeddin, Berronar, etc. -- from the original racial pantheons that were originally presented as *Greyhawk* gods, before they became part of the FR).

Yeah, I completely agree with MerricB on this one. As a variant dwarf type for a specific campaign, the Races of Stone dwarves would've been interesting; as an *expansion* of the "core" dwarves, it was rubbish.

 

[Rechan]

I'm probably going to catch hell for this, but...

Not-nice character concept = Evil.

The assassin, the necromancer, etc, it's always "You're Evil." Assassins don't have to be Evil. Nor Necromancers. But creating undead = evil. Among other things, Necromancers should also be good healers, because necromancery deals with LIFE and death.

I also never liked "If you're not human, your race has no cultural diversity unless you're a sub-race."

Magic is the same for everyone. A Red Wizard of Thay and a lizardfolk sorcerer from the Black Swamp cast a fireball, both using bat guano and both spells act/look the same.

Only humans/demi-humans are integrated into society. Everything else is a monster that keeps to itself. Anything with at least an 8 intelligence, means of communication, not CE, and not utterly alien could say to itself "You know, if I use my innate strengths for this community over here, I bet I could make some gold!" Granted, this won't work with the local illithid, but a Giant could protect a village in exchange for sheep, orcs or ogres could do heavy lifting/logging/construction, and so on. Just to dispel the notion that "If it's not human/demi-human, it's a savage monster that wants to kill you."

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think you mean oathsworn.

You are right of course (long time since I looked at the book). Draws the connection to Bloodguard even more keenly, yes?

 

[fuindordm]

I have no problem with a few very weak alignment restrictions, such as:

Clerics: No more than one step from deity
Druids: any flavor of neutral
Barbarians: not lawful
Monks: not chaotic
Assassin: not good

etc...

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't see anything wrong with having someone that has trained themselves to fight unarmed and is devoted to physical and mental perfection. I see no reason they have to be from a far off land and have a shaved head though.

I see it wrong when matching it against my idea of D&D default style being fantasy western middle ages... same reason why I don't want Warforged in a core book. But even if I can accept them being core, then I see no reason why the distinction between exotic (in the sense of eastern) equipment like nunchaku or shuriken. If Monks belong to the central place of the setting, why is it only always Monks fighting with those weapons? :\

Why don't fighters learn to use a nunchaku or kama (which are not better than martial weapons) if they are as normal as a Monk, or otherwise why all Monks learn those weapons if these weapons still come from far away?

The reason why the Monk is in D&D is only because kids love kung fu movies... But it's never really fully integrated with the rest of the bunch, it's more "sneaked into the game".

 

[jasin]

Only humans/demi-humans are integrated into society. Everything else is a monster that keeps to itself. Anything with at least an 8 intelligence, means of communication, not CE, and not utterly alien could say to itself "You know, if I use my innate strengths for this community over here, I bet I could make some gold!" Granted, this won't work with the local illithid, but a Giant could protect a village in exchange for sheep, orcs or ogres could do heavy lifting/logging/construction, and so on. Just to dispel the notion that "If it's not human/demi-human, it's a savage monster that wants to kill you."

I'm quite the opposite. I'd like even less of a Mos Eisley cantina atmosphere.

Sure, it would make sense for a hill giant to work as a lumberjack. But fantasy isn't about what makes sense, it's about what works on an emotional level. There's a reason traditional tales don't have giants working in the lumber mill and elves holding taverns.

Now, I'm not opposed to the idea of a lumberjack hill giant. But it should be kept as an exception, not made the rule.

 

[mmu1]

One of the big things that I'd like to see is the removal of all of the Asian flavored classes and put them in their own book. I'd say that the majority of the people that play D&D aren't familiar with Asian culture and thus have no interest in having these classes in the core rules.

It's not like this stuff is even Asian flavored. 90% of the time, the "Asian theme" comes down to sticking three archetypes (or action movie cliches, if you're not feeling kind) - the Samurai, the Ninja and the Shaolin Monk - into the game and calling it a day.

Though at least that makes it easy to get rid of them.