D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[DammitVictor]

The downside, of course, is that building up racial concept in the setting via mechanics necessarily limits the amount of player expression to define the character and their image to their own taste. The balance of "player authority to define their character" compared to "the ability of the system to define the setting" is an aesthetic consideration that needs to be decided by the table.

I'm 110% in favor of a sidebar telling umpires that it won't ruin their game if they decide to shuffle those restrictions around for their homebrew settings, or toss them out entirely if their players don't want to play that way. Starting about '96 or '97, I started rewriting the whole race/class system before every campaign I ran.

It's a lot easier for an umpire to remove restrictions than to add them.

Having played in that era, I'll say the amount of stereotyping and redundancy that it created was not worth the trope reinforcement. If dwarves are typically LG, very religious and martial, why can't they be paladins? If halflings were nimble and rural, why not rangers? If elven art is considered peak, why are there no elf bards? Why can gnomes only learn magic if it's based on illusion? Etc etc.

The principle behind the restrictions was solid; the implementation was terrible. The biggest and best tool that AD&D had for differentiating the multitudes of playable humanoid species... and 90% of them had the exact same options as Dwarf: Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief. Goblinoids replaced Fighter/Cleric with Cleric/Thief. Mage of any kind was rare, subclasses of any group were rare. It was sad, and I'm pretty sure that's a big part of why people ignored them before 1999 and why they got thrown out.

 

[Scribe]

It's a lot easier for an umpire to remove restrictions than to add them.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The answer to that issue is to make additional race as class options to cover these discrepancies. It can and has been done.

are you trying to summon 35 elf classes

I definitely don't want Orcs being banned from being Wizards or the choice of having an Orc as a Wizard be at an extreme disadvantage. Which is why I'm fine with the de-emphasis on ability bonuses.

If you're an Orc that's a Wizard, you simply pick +2 Intelligence (since that's most important) and then maybe throw in +1 Constitution (or the less useful to Wizards +1 Strength) as a reminder the Wizard's Orcishness.

Yes optimizers might say that being able to dash as a bonus action and gain some temp HP, being able to lift and carry more and not falling unconscious when reduced to 0 hp, might not add much to being a Wizard. But certainly some of those Orcish abilities do have some uses even for Wizards.

this is why my up-thread idea sounds like the sane solution just give us more base stats three floating and two locked but the locked and let you push above twenty

 

[CreamCloud0]

this is why my up-thread idea sounds like the sane solution just give us more base stats three floating and two locked but the locked and let you push above twenty

personally i've thought for a while that half-floating species asi would be a reasonable compromise, a species has two favoured stats and needs to have at least one of their asi to be in one of them and the other(s) can go anywhere, it offers both mechanical-thematic versatility and consistency.

 

[Mind of tempest]

personally i've thought for a while that half-floating species asi would be a reasonable compromise, a species has two favoured stats and needs to have at least one of their asi to be in one of them and the other(s) can go anywhere, it offers both mechanical-thematic versatility and consistency.

ah but the genius of mine is the higher stat value meaning you have more options and you get the thematic satisfaction that if you pick something defined by it you can be ludicrously good at it

 

[Corinnguard]

(AD&D was before my time, and I was fully in favor of the changes in 3.0 and PF1; I didn't start arguing for race-as-class and AD&D restrictions until after I discovered the OSR.)

You were originally in favor of the changes in 3.0 and PF1 regarding race and class until you discovered the OSR. What was it about the OSR that changed your mind?

The principle behind the restrictions was solid; the implementation was terrible. The biggest and best tool that AD&D had for differentiating the multitudes of playable humanoid species... and 90% of them had the exact same options as Dwarf: Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief. Goblinoids replaced Fighter/Cleric with Cleric/Thief. Mage of any kind was rare, subclasses of any group were rare. It was sad, and I'm pretty sure that's a big part of why people ignored them before 1999 and why they got thrown out.

More like it didn't appeal to the target audience that WoTC was hoping to get with it's upcoming Third Edition D&D.

 

[DammitVictor]

You were originally in favor of the changes in 3.0 and PF1 regarding race and class until you discovered the OSR. What was it about the OSR that changed your mind?

It wasn't anything about the OSR, actually. It's all the nonsense I saw in 3.5. I loved all of it at first, but it started to wear on me after awhile.

 

[DammitVictor]

Are you by any chance referring to how AD&D placed restrictions on what classes the non-human races could take and how far they could advance in those classes?

Class/race restrictions, yes. Level limits are terrible.

 

[Corinnguard]

Class/race restrictions, yes. Level limits are terrible.

Humans in AD&D had no restrictions placed on them with regards to what class they could be. Why were they the exception?

 

[Micah Sweet]

are you trying to summon 35 elf classes

this is why my up-thread idea sounds like the sane solution just give us more base stats three floating and two locked but the locked and let you push above twenty

I don't care how many elf classes we get. Not sure why there's so much resistance. What exactly are you expecting WotC to give you instead?