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

[fuindordm]

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.

That was not my intent. I would personally give each race some options to spend feats and/or levels to enhance their racial traits, as a new rules module. But these new abilities need not be entirely unique. One dwarf PC engages with the new rules, the other does not.

 

[DammitVictor]

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". [...]

But if adventuring classes are essentially cultural, where does this leave the species?

It occurs to me that many fantasy RPGs (including some D&D offshoots) have a system wherein, instead of having a bunch of separate ancestries for mixed heritages, they have a little subsystem for being "half whatever".

There's little practical reason why this couldn't be used for "cultural whatevers", if the system included rules for choosing which benefits the PC got. And there's no practical reason whatsoever such a system couldn't exist in parallel with the "biological" hybrids. We're talking... two or three pages, tops, for all of the "standard" ancestries in D&D and two or three more racial feats on top of the two or three every new ancestry should already be getting?

 

[Angus MacDeth]

There's little practical reason why this couldn't be used for "cultural whatevers", if the system included rules for choosing which benefits the PC got. And there's no practical reason whatsoever such a system couldn't exist in parallel with the "biological" hybrids.

That sounds a lot like the approach to Culture in Level Up (or A5e), which has already been mentioned.

A5e separates Culture from Heritage (i.e., race/species/ancestry) and Background. Each culture is a bundle of traits that aren't tied to heritage, allowing you to, for example, combine the Deep Dwarf culture with any heritage to represent a non-dwarf who was raised by deep dwarves (or a non-elf raised among high elves, or a non-gnome raised among forest gnomes, etc.).

And since not all of the cultures are based on specific races/species (e.g., there are "descriptive" cultural options like Nomad and Villager), you can go the other way and create an Itinerant Halfling or a Cosmopolitan Orc. Or you could create a character with the Dwarf heritage and the Deep Dwarf culture to really emphasize their "dwarfiness."

It's a neat system... If I ever run any 5th Edition again, I'll definitely be using A5e.

 

[DammitVictor]

It's a neat system... If I ever run any 5th Edition again, I'll definitely be using A5e.

Yeah. Probably never going to be my cup of tea, but I'm reacquiring the books. I'm starting to consider my perpetual "work in progress" to be a mashup between Sword World and A5E with a bunch of "90s Old School" in it.

 

[GobHag]

Here's a suggestion as someone that hates the concept of Race-As-Class; Don't design Humans as Humans

As in, don't make Humans the baseline. Treat them as just any other 'race'. Spread the classic classes around, there's no sneaky Human Thief but there is a sneaky Halfling Thief; Humans become Goons/Thugs, heavy hitters with strong social skills. Kill humanocentrism.

 

[Tigris]

First your link to another post does not work for me (neither mobile nor on pc browser).


Then about this topic: I am really surprised no one mentioned the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Vampire, because that was literally a (Super)race as a class.

- You still had another 4E race (the one you belonged to originally), so its not 100% pure

- It was a bit squishy on early levels, and some people did not like it because it was doing not thaat much damage for a striker, but overall its quite fine.

- It had tons of Flavour, it put a unique spin on the healing surge mechanic of 4E, where you had only 2 of them, but could drain them from enemies (or allies could spend you), and you could use them to empower attacks or more efficiently heal yourself. You had passive self healing. And both together makes this class feel quite different from other ones and does make it feel like its own thing

- It had some interesting slightly special/stronger multiclassing, which fits as a vampire. So you can still get power from your "original" class, but 4E style multiclassing which is not too extensive (like you can get 1 encounter power and maybe if you have enough feats also a daily power and an utility power from the original class, but you always need to give one up yourself). And you as a vampire got specifically strong multiclass feats to combine you vampire power with your original classes power. (Like martial vampire or primal vampire etc.) This for me works becauae you are still mainly a vampire ehich has some other powerw from previouw life. Not you are a fighter with some vampire powers.

- Then one important point which made it actually work is that we have A LOT of tropes about vampires, so this gave enough opportunity to actually implement the vampire fantasy. So in order for a "race as class" to work, we need to know (or assume from looking at it maybe?) a lot about the class to make it feel flavourfull.


So just here to show what the vampire all could do, and if there would not be a lot of vampire tropes this would just sound like an inconsistent heap of stuff:


- You need to drink blood, because yourself dont have enough

- you can drink blood from enemies and allies can donate it

- you have sunlight weakness

- you are really charismatic and this gives you more power

- You can spend blood to gain inhuman strength for a short time

- you can transform into a bat

- You have a squishy base nature but are still not easy to kill. With temp HP, regeneration and some tricky powers.

- So after a combat you can easily just regenerate as if nothing happened, if you got blood, thats really nice.

- You can later transform into air for some time

- you can dissolve into a swarm of bats to make you for a short time untargetable


- You have both physical hard hitting effects but also more mind effects:

- you can dominate an enemy

- You can lure enemies near you

- You can go full blood crazy mode where you cant heal anymore and just do pure damage


It also worked because it filled its own niche (even if some people dont like it), both from flavour (full powerfull Dracula) but also mechanically. (Dealing less damage, but being able to be more self sustained. You trade damage for being able to recover daily (healing) ressources. So even if a combat takes a bit longer, if enemies attack you, and you could drink blood, this is of no harm to the party).

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

What if every species had a list of Quirks and Counter-quirks. or weaknesses and strengths -whatever you want to call it. I'd include human in this.

So, when you choose your race, you can take 1 or more strength and, for each strength, take a weakness. (halflings are quick and agile: quirk; but small and weak: counter-quirk). Counter weaknesses can be pre-built into the strengths or you just have a list of strengths and a list of weaknesses and you choose one from each list.

These could be related to physiology (elves have keen hearing), culture (dwarves are +2 to hit goblins because of the goblin wars), class (gnomes get a bonus to illusion magic). Then players have a choice to take the quirks that fit their backstory (My dwarf was raised by humans so they never participated in the goblin wars).

Then let race give certain bonuses at certain class levels (every 3rd level, get a racial feat or power). These powers can be a la cart from a list or could be gated by level.)