Make Race Matter

[paladinm]

I'd like to see a character's race actually affect his/her class abilities, beyond the "elves get +1 with a bow" type. If a mage is a wood elf, allow her to take some (limited) druid or nature-domain-cleric spells. If a wood elf is a ranger s/he should get bonuses to tracking, hiding, etc. in the wild. A dwarf cleric should have access to the earth domain by virtue of being a dwarf. Dragonborn cleric could have access to the fire domain.

This is the kind of thing that I see a lot of in BD&D and, to some extent, the 2e kit books; and I think provision for this should be made without requiring multi- or prestige-classing.

 

[steeldragons]

I like your ideas but little +1 bonuses do nothing in the grand scheme of things for skill checks. +5% bonus to something not guaranteed to happen in a session does not make the race matter.

Forgive me, Minigiant, and not looking for an argument here...but...Why not? Have you never rolled percentage dice? 5% matters quite a bit when you're leaving things up to the dice. Especially if no other race gets that 5%.

Personally I'd go more drastic. Attack bonus could stay at +1 but any situation bonus should be at least +3 (15%) or the bonus willing be negligible. "Encounter" powers should be rechargable. If race is to matter, certain stereotypes should be enforced. Racial choice should heavily encourage certain choices and allow options only for the other aspects.

That's understandable and, as you say, "[You]'d go more drastic." By the use of "encounter powers" I assume you play the latest iteration of the game. But, it seems a 15% jump is...well, yes, significant...but unnecessary. If humans can't and dwarves can't and halflings can't....then giving my elf a 5% bonus...to anything...is significant.

Your choice of "Theme", maybe, effects an additional bonus beyond that...for something. But not both Attack and non-Combat bonuses. Your "Race" choices shouldn't do that either. The elf can be as fooled as the gnome...or the dwarf as the human...I mean, unless you're incorporating psionic telepathic ability.

I dunno. I'd rather see a concrete kinda of "race difference", like the proposed racial "class specialties" than relying on arbitrary numbers and bonuses. To me, those effect a better difference between the classes, and the races, than math.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't feel each race should get a re-flavored clone of an existing class, but I agree that it would be cool if each class presented a few options for each race over the level range to make your specific build a more racially flavored variant. Otherwise it'd just be nice if powers were easy reflavored to appear more racially-themed.

 

[Minigiant]

[MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION]

My point is a 5% bonus means nothing if the roll is only done once a session if that. A +1 only matter if you roll a specific number on the dice. If you don't roll a 15 for a DC 16, +1 to Intimidate did nothing. You have to wait until you get around Intimidate check for that 1 out of 20 chance of Orcish Intimidate bonus to matter. And who knows how long that is.

If most of your dwarfness never comes up in a session, then your dwarfness doesn't matter. The fewer times the feature is referenced, the more powerful it will have to to be for players to care. I can list every racial power but not the skill bonuses. The skill bonuses are forgettable. If races are too matter, none of its aspects should be forgettable.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like your ideas but little +1 bonuses do nothing in the grand scheme of things for skill checks. +5% bonus to something not guaranteed to happen in a session does not make the race matter.

Personally I'd go more drastic. Attack bonus could stay at +1 but any situation bonus should be at least +3 (15%) or the bonus willing be negligible. "Encounter" powers should be rechargable. If race is to matter, certain stereotypes should be enforced. Racial choice should heavily encourage certain choices and allow options only for the other aspects.

It's not exactly a completely thought-out design rubrick, it's just a message board post, don't hold to TOO high standards.

I think you can have a design under which +1 is bigger, though 3e and 4e don't have this design, 5e hints at going back to it, or at least to getting away from the days in which my 2nd level character has a +14 to a check.

 

[Kynn]

I'm a bigger fan of synergy between race and class, rather than forcing each member of a certain race and class into a predefined box (e.g. all fighter-dwarves use hammers and axes).

So I'd rather not see each class have "here's the little fiddling bonus you get for your race choice" especially since that will never scale well over the course of the game's inevitable expansion into multiple classes (30+) and multiple races (50+). Are we really expecting a special rule to be written for each class/race combo?

 

[TwinBahamut]

@TB - How would you propose to do that?

I kinda like having dwarf fighters be different than elves, hobbit thieves be different than human ones, and elf mages having different spell lists.

And.. I would make sorcerer the default "magic user" class for elves. Aren't elves supposed to be inherently magical? I'd have thought that would be an instant fit for elves.. but 3.x kinda dropped the ball

How I would propose to do that? That is a bit of a tricky thing to answer... The most important thing is to give race a much bigger mechanical impact to it than in the past. Reviving the idea of the "20 level race" that was tossed around in the talk leading up to 4E, where you get new benefits from your race as you go up in level. Make these benefits potent and potentially character-defining. Make them a useful part of your character no matter what your class is. If you can do that, then an elf fighter will be rather different than a dwarf fighter without needing to adjust their class options.

As for what kinds of abilities I would give those particular races... I don't have a clue. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of elves, dwarves and halfings in D&D, so I don't really think about what abilities I would give them very much... I suppose that if you folded in many of the elements of Elves from across D&D, counting everything from common wood elves to Drow and the Bralani and Ghaele Eladrin from 4E, then you have a rather wide range of elven traits to pull from. If you give high level elves innate magic spellcasting, teleportation, and flight as racial traits, then an elf fighter, rogue, or wizard start to look pretty different from dwarven equivalents.

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble with giving mechanical advantages to different races is that people invariably end up picking the best race for a class. You also end up with an arms race for races, as a small bonus in that category isn't enough.

Like how half-orcs weren't enough, you had to have half-ogres, then half-giants, then minotaurs, all with more and more strength bonuses.

Something as important as a character's race should be picked for a role-playing reason, not mechanical.

 

[steeldragons]

The trouble with giving mechanical advantages to different races is that people invariably end up picking the best race for a class. You also end up with an arms race for races, as a small bonus in that category isn't enough.

Like how half-orcs weren't enough, you had to have half-ogres, then half-giants, then minotaurs, all with more and more strength bonuses.

Something as important as a character's race should be picked for a role-playing reason, not mechanical.

I completely agree with this.

But I don't think paladinm is advocating "better" racial class choices...but "different" racial class choices. What an elf ranger can do is different than a human ranger, what a halfling thief can do is different than a human thief...but not across the board "better." Whatever the elf or halflign can do, the human can't (as well), but the human can do what the [other race] can't "better."

I am NOT an advocate for "class balance"....by any stretch...but I can see this as all evening itself out in the wash, as it were.

Whatever a certain race gets for a given class comes, part and parcel, with a penalty to some other element of the class that the human does not have to endure.

 

[Minigiant]

The trouble with giving mechanical advantages to different races is that people invariably end up picking the best race for a class. You also end up with an arms race for races, as a small bonus in that category isn't enough.

Like how half-orcs weren't enough, you had to have half-ogres, then half-giants, then minotaurs, all with more and more strength bonuses.

Something as important as a character's race should be picked for a role-playing reason, not mechanical.

The key is different not better.

Elves are faster than humans, can fire two arrows at once, but have 2 less HP per level.

Dwarves have 2 more HP per level, treat heavy armor as medium armor, but are slower than humans.

Halflings get AC from size, can actively dodge melee attack, but are physically weak.

Elf fighters are skirmishers or archer. Elves make terrible tanks due to their poor HP.

Dwarf fighters are great tanks and berserkers. Dwarves make terrible skrimishers due to their low speed.

Halfling fighters are good tanks and lurkers. Halfings make terrible berserkers as they have low strength.

Human fighters aren't as good an archer as elves, tanks as dwarves, or lurkers as halflings. But humans can have good damage, AC, HP, and speed at the same time. If you want a good archer who doesn't fall over in 2 hits, be a human.