D&D General [+] More Robust 'Fantasy Race' Mechanics for D&D-alikes / Redeeming 'Race as Class' for Modern D&D [+]

[sevenbastard]

Original Halfling class in B/X was more Fighter than Thief. -1 STR

B/X didn't have ability score modifiers for races as they were classes. You could play a halfling with 18 str if you rolled it (or lowered your wisdom or intelligence to boost it).

Halflings in B/X were strong ranged fighters +1 to hit on all missile weapons. More importantly because Dex was a prime request they could raise it by lowering Int or Wis so you could pump up your Dex to get even better to hit bonus.

Halfling weirdly become the default archer of B/X a stereotype not seen in other versions of D&D. Because the short bow does the same damage as a long bow in the game and elves have no special rules with bows, the halfling is great for that role.

They also make good scouts because they are hard to spot in the wilderness. If anything they are a Ranger.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Monte Cook's Unearthed Arcana and even more so Arcana Evolved also featured racial classes and paragon classes. Most noteworthy there might be the Giants, who would even grow to large size, and Faen, who could change into flying Sprytes.
Eberron also had a kind of "racial-adjacent" feature with its Dragonmarks.

I would want to avoid "species" related features as classes, unless there is something more specific to the species. But in 4E speak, I liked them as Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies that happened parallel to your class. Pathfinder's 2E approach with racial feats also kinda speaks to me. Also the idea of 4E that each species might add its own theme to a class.
Sure, Elves and Humans can both be Wizards, but maybe Human Wizards do things a bit differently than Elven Wizards. Maybe Humans focus on adaptability and maybe can choose a human class feature for the Wizard that speaks to that (maybe they can use a short rest to change a prepared spell), while Elven Wizards maybe have access to some kind of "Elven Secrets" that adds some spells to their spellbook, or heck, maybe it's more like a bonus to knowledge-related checks because even the youngest Elves have acccess to people with vastly longer lives than most humans and so will have heard more varied stories. It might be optional features because the Elf or Human might not have chosen to focus on this in their studies and rather take something more regular, or they didn't have the opportunity.

 

[Mannahnin]

OD&D: Elves, dwarves, and hobbits are playable as PCs; the rules are unwieldy, not at all like the "race and class" of AD&D and WotC D&D or the "race as class" of Classic D&D.

For the record, Dwarves and Hobbits in the original 1974 rules are races, and that is a separate concept from class, but the only class open to them was Fighting-Man (AKA Fighter). Only the 1974 rules for the Elf are unwieldy/unclear in OD&D, as they were required to be both Fighter and Magic-User but had to pick one for each adventure, and exactly how this worked was very badly explained. When TSR clarified and expanded the class and multiclassing rules in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement, the rules for race, class, and multiclassing were practically the same as those in AD&D. AD&D just expanded the options a bit more and increased level limits a little.

In 1e, Hobbits make great Thieves or Assassins but lousy melee Fighters. Dwarves make great melee Fighters but can't do arcane casting at all. And so forth.

For the record, in 1E Halflings are the only core PH race not allowed to be an Assassin.

For my actual work, the weird niche D&D-like I'm trying to write and publish? If you'll pardon the reversed order of operations, I'm not writing it for the people who aren't going to like it; I'm writing it for the people who will. I want to include this, as a valuable feature in D&D history that's been unfairly relegated to the ash heap of history, and I want to include the best possible version of it. If I can't figure out a couple of decent ways for home umpires to work around my preferences... if enough people care about the game to care about the solution, someone cleverer than I am will fix it for me.

There's enough people out there writing and playing B/X clones that I'm not too worried about losing the majority of the WotC D&D audience; the 5e audience is big enough that a small minority of it is plenty for me, and my primary audience is people looking for something else anyway.

I'm on board with your concept. I very much like how B/X makes the race-classes embody archetypes more strongly, and eliminates race being used simply as a mechanical option for min/maxing, the way every other edition since 1E has.

I'm interested in your take, in part because I like what I've heard of that other game which has been alluded to, but I don't wish to buy it. So new options treading similar ground with race-classes are certainly of interest.

B/X didn't have ability score modifiers for races as they were classes. You could play a halfling with 18 str if you rolled it (or lowered your wisdom or intelligence to boost it).

Halflings in B/X were strong ranged fighters +1 to hit on all missile weapons. More importantly because Dex was a prime request they could raise it by lowering Int or Wis so you could pump up your Dex to get even better to hit bonus.

Halfling weirdly become the default archer of B/X a stereotype not seen in other versions of D&D. Because the short bow does the same damage as a long bow in the game and elves have no special rules with bows, the halfling is great for that role.

100%.

They also make good scouts because they are hard to spot in the wilderness. If anything they are a Ranger.

 

[Fenris-77]

So, just to be clear, I'm not actually a fan of 'race as class' per se, but I also think that ancestries can be used in more interesting ways that we see in a lot of OSR and D&D-adjecent games. Probably the biggest part of this is the specific system we're talking about. The mechanical zoom level of a given system is what sets the boundaries for what can be vis a vis race as class in any form. Even in low-zoom OSR games, like Shadowdark say, you can still do a lot of work to individuate ancestries even within classes if that's what you want to do.

 

[Angus MacDeth]

I hate being coy about this, but there's an OSR game I think handles this well.

Wait... Why be coy? Are we not allowed to mention ACKS II by name (which I'm assuming is the game in question)?

As far as I'm concerned, the way ACKS II handles "racial classes" is the ideal approach. To quote By This Axe (The Cyclopedia of Dwarven Civilization):

"[W]e found neither option [i.e., 'race-as-class' or 'race-separate-from-class'] to be ideal. Race-as-class is ultimately too limiting. Surely some elves were something other than fighter-mages? Surely some dwarves did things other than fight? But race-separate-from class felt too arbitrary. Surely entire species would have their own traditions, archetypes, and professions which are distinct from those of humankind? We decided that in ACKS, the... base classes... actually represented archetypes of human adventurers. The playable demi-human races would have their own archetypes, which we called 'racial classes'."

If you're playing a human, you've got 15 (or so) base classes to choose from, but if you're playing a dwarf or an elf, you can pick from a dozen distinct classes that reflect the history, traditions, and beliefs of your species. So, instead of dwarven fighters or clerics, you have Vaultguards and Craftpriests; instead of elven bards or assassins, you have Spellsingers and Nightblades.

I find that approach evokes the cultural differences between humans and non-humans and illuminates the setting in a way that having a single set of homogenized classes for all simply doesn't.

 

[DammitVictor]

Wait... Why be coy? Are we not allowed to mention ACKS II by name (which I'm assuming is the game in question)?

I'm referring to the first edition; I haven't purchased the second edition (yet). I'm being coy out of an abundance of caution because talking about the game and talking about the publisher are against the rules in a lot of communities, either because of political unpleasantness or ensuing legal threats.

And if it isn't strictly against the rules here, I still don't want to deal with (or subject the forums  to said political unpleasantness.

As far as I'm concerned, the way ACKS II handles "racial classes" is the ideal approach.

[...]

If you're playing a human, you've got 15 (or so) base classes to choose from, but if you're playing a dwarf or an elf, you can pick from a dozen distinct classes that reflect the history, traditions, and beliefs of your species.

I don't want as strictly rigid a divide as that because, traditions notwithstanding, some things are just true and some techniques just work and these will cross all cultural and even many essential boundaries.

But otherwise wholly agreed, and the ideal is for each ancestry to have its own bespoke selection of class options-- with a lot of overlap between them, with humans having the widest selection (and best multiclassing) and nonhumans having classes that are exclusive to themselves and/or their half-human siblings.

 

[Angus MacDeth]

I'm being coy out of an abundance of caution because talking about the game and talking about the publisher are against the rules in a lot of communities

Fair enough... Since this is a [+] thread, I won't comment further on that score.

I like your idea of a hybrid approach, wherein certain classes (e.g., fighter and thief, maybe) are universal enough archetypes that they can be pursued by all races/species/ancestries, while others are specific to a particular race/species/ancestry. Of course, as you surmise, you'd want to balance any non-human traits or advantages against the human baseline, but that's not a new problem (just one that ACKS solves).

In any event, good luck with your efforts... Cheers!

 

[fuindordm]

In a class-based RPG, you can't fully separate the available classes from the world-building. There simply aren't enough archetypes that are truly generic--any magic-using class immediately adds enormous specificity if only through its spell list. And I believe this is why we have an overabundance of spellcasters. It is much easier to design a magical class that feels unique and special than a mundane class.

So the question becomes: how much work do I want to put in to represent different adventuring traditions? There is nothing wrong with giving each species a full set of 10 adventuring classes distinct from the human ones. Nor is there anything wrong with a player saying "I'm a human orphan raised by elves, so I am taking the elven shadowdanceweaver class". If I were to undertake this exercise, I would try to design only classes and subclasses or variants that I thought the players were likely to use.

But if adventuring classes are essentially cultural, where does this leave the species? Back to being a small package of special abilities that must be taken together? We are back to square one, this solution is also unsatisfying for players who want to become a a paragon of dwarfhood. So I circle back to the idea of spending levels or feats to enhance the biological features of the race. My dwarf Olaf Steelbeard has spent all his feats on innate fire resistance and bludgeoning damage resistance, something no other species can do, and this choice is completely decoupled from his profession which is Bard (college of dance). His sister Olga belongs to the priesthood of Moradin, and has similar abilities but they come as a blessing from Moradin and not a personal choice to train her innate dwarven abilities.

That seems OK to me.

 

[Mannahnin]

But if adventuring classes are essentially cultural, where does this leave the species? Back to being a small package of special abilities that must be taken together? We are back to square one, this solution is also unsatisfying for players who want to become a a paragon of dwarfhood. So I circle back to the idea of spending levels or feats to enhance the biological features of the race. My dwarf Olaf Steelbeard has spent all his feats on innate fire resistance and bludgeoning damage resistance, something no other species can do, and this choice is completely decoupled from his profession which is Bard (college of dance). His sister Olga belongs to the priesthood of Moradin, and has similar abilities but they come as a blessing from Moradin and not a personal choice to train her innate dwarven abilities.

That seems OK to me.

Reminding me of the [species] paragon classes in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana. I remember taking levels in the Elf one with one of my characters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In a class-based RPG, you can't fully separate the available classes from the world-building. There simply aren't enough archetypes that are truly generic--any magic-using class immediately adds enormous specificity if only through its spell list. And I believe this is why we have an overabundance of spellcasters. It is much easier to design a magical class that feels unique and special than a mundane class.

So the question becomes: how much work do I want to put in to represent different adventuring traditions? There is nothing wrong with giving each species a full set of 10 adventuring classes distinct from the human ones. Nor is there anything wrong with a player saying "I'm a human orphan raised by elves, so I am taking the elven shadowdanceweaver class". If I were to undertake this exercise, I would try to design only classes and subclasses or variants that I thought the players were likely to use.

But if adventuring classes are essentially cultural, where does this leave the species? Back to being a small package of special abilities that must be taken together? We are back to square one, this solution is also unsatisfying for players who want to become a a paragon of dwarfhood. So I circle back to the idea of spending levels or feats to enhance the biological features of the race. My dwarf Olaf Steelbeard has spent all his feats on innate fire resistance and bludgeoning damage resistance, something no other species can do, and this choice is completely decoupled from his profession which is Bard (college of dance). His sister Olga belongs to the priesthood of Moradin, and has similar abilities but they come as a blessing from Moradin and not a personal choice to train her innate dwarven abilities.

That seems OK to me.

That sounds like reflavoring. I know this is a good solution for many people, but I have never been in favor of it. For me, if you are simulating different things they should be represented differently in the rules.