Give me choices!

[MerricB]

So how exactly are halflings any different? They are short humans, they even look like short humans, or overweight short humans. And dwarves, they are overweight short humans with bad tempers and beards. The only distinction is the +2 con, really.

The AD&D halfling is a hobbit, and really doesn't have much of a place in the game. (Even less in oD&D, actually). By the time you get to 3e, they have a role as excellent thieves - bonuses to stealth and Dex really help there. The actual cultural background has been a problem, though.

The D&D dwarf has a strong role - gruff, likes fighting and gold, and is tough and dependable. Mechanically, they should be better fighters than they have been.

Funny - the halfling has had a strong mechanics with dodgy background; the dwarf is the other way around.

The AD&D elf had both - strong mechanics and strong background. The D&D 3e elf lost the strong mechanics. It did a few things well, but really lost the magic it needed.

Cheers!

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

The realm of the Good People

Also remember why they were always called the Good People, the Fair Folk, the Kindly Ones. Because they were unpredictable and dangerous in ways that made people flatter them in any reference to these potentially might-be-watching-me-right-now creatures.

 

[Clavis]

Also remember why they were always called the Good People, the Fair Folk, the Kindly Ones. Because they were unpredictable and dangerous in ways that made people flatter them in any reference to these potentially might-be-watching-me-right-now creatures.

You know they don't like to be reminded of that....

 

[MerricB]

Still low levels, 2-3.

That's why.

Actually, it's not that my questions imply that the only type of D&D play is big wilderness adventures, it's rather that having a cleric enables such games. You can run low-level urban games without a cleric, but they're not the only type of adventures!

I've run the Age of Worms AP from 1st to 21st level. My homebrew campaign is currently 15th level, and my previous homebrew finished at about 15th. I've had quite a bit of experience at the higher XP levels, and once you hit 7th level or so, the requirement for a cleric in the group keeps getting stronger and stronger.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Myself, I prefer to relegate Dwarves to the NPC role. Nobody I've ever DMed for ever wanted to play one, and I have zero personal sympathy for them as usually presented. I tend to only use them for comic relief.

Fair enough. As I think I just mentioned, dwarves relate to me on the background level (though not the background related in Races of Stone, which I hope gets buried in 4e), but mechanically they don't work as well as I think they should.

Cheers!

 

[KingCrab]

The D&D dwarf has a strong role - gruff, likes fighting and gold, and is tough and dependable. Mechanically, they should be better fighters than they have been.

Agreed. They made great wizards though.

 

[MerricB]

Just in regard to the Fair Folk, and especially as regards the Tuatha de Danaan:

It seems that a big deal of the 4e "feywild", eladrin and elven backgrounds will be taken from such mythological sources. The use of such a background makes me very happy.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Agreed. They made great wizards though.

The funny thing is that in AD&D, they made even worse fighters than they do now... and they couldn't even be wizards!

(Gary Gygax admitted at one point that he would have removed the level-cap for dwarven fighters).

Cheers!

 

[Clavis]

Fair enough. As I think I just mentioned, dwarves relate to me on the background level (though not the background related in Races of Stone, which I hope gets buried in 4e), but mechanically they don't work as well as I think they should.

Cheers!

3.x edition Dwarves always struck me as too powerful. Dwarven Cleric seemed to me like the power combination from hell. I never saw one played, however.

 

[KrazyHades]

Indeed. I've no problem with optional support characters in theory.

The problem is the practice of requiring every group have a cleric... when the group doesn't have someone who wants to play one. It's the biggest problem with 3e. If you don't have a cleric in a 3e group, you are really in trouble.

Cheers!

*AHEM*

The group of seven players (at 7th level) that I run for doesn't have a single magic-user at all, arcane or divine. NONE. In a group of SEVEN.

Each adventure they have a choice:
get screwed over by things that would be easy if they had magic users
OR
Spend all the loot and gold they got on the last adventure buying poitions for everybody and wands and scrolls for the rogue.

A new person is joining who is interested in being a cleric, and an existing player is going to retire her Monk for a Wizard, but really!