Race Balance

[Aus_Snow]

This has the curious effect of making Half-orcs very good Paladins, which strikes me as a little odd.

Uh. Maybe I'm missing an important detail here, but why does -2 Cha help to make "very good Paladins"?

 

[MerricB]

Hmm...

I would say Elves need to be more attractive as Wizards.
Gnomes are fine.
Halflings are close to fine. (One wonders if -2 Str, +2 Dex & +2 Con would be fair, esp. given how hobbits are meant to be tough little things).
Half-orcs are close to fine. (Perhaps +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha).
Humans are great.
Half-Elves need a lot of work.

Cheers!

 

[Aus_Snow]

Elves need to be more attractive as Wizards.

How about a bonus to Spellcraft checks? Maybe know (arcane)? It's a simple, fairly harmless sort of bonus..

Halflings are close to fine. (One wonders if -2 Str, +2 Dex & +2 Con would be fair, esp. given how hobbits are meant to be tough little things).

Yeah, but they do get the saving throw boni, which I guess kinda covers that. If they were Hobbits though, there are a number of changes I'd give them.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Personally, I'd suggest one big change before messing with the races: Get rid of favored classes. I do it already in my homebrew. That tends to ratchet the power of the human choice down a tad and set them equal with the other racess except the dwarf.

To make the dwarf better I much prefer the earlier suggested -2 DEX rather than -2 CON. I also think they could easily lose one of their natural enemies (goblinoids or giants) and still be an attractive class.

Perhaps the half-elf is a bit underpowered, but I'm also strange in that I like the bard class and like to play it. So perhaps power plays out a bit differently in the games I am in and run. I don't think the half-elf needs fixed.

I also don't mind the half-orc, but I also never played one. I'd be willing to give the suggestion earlier (+2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha) a go. But, I'd also like to think that it could work this way: +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int, -2 Cha. That would make it more attractive to the Druid class - which I think could be a good thing for half-orcs.

All-in-all, though, I am a big fan of taking power away from the dwarf than bringing everyone else up. The game is always fighting power creep as it is, why encourage it?

 

[Agent Oracle]

*cough*

I've actually never noticed a racial imbalance...

I mean, sure, dwarves seem to get a grab-bag of goodies, but consider, how many of their thingies are actually useful?

+2 con: Really useful. More hit points are allways better.

-2 charisma: poor charisma, it's like the redheaded stepchild dump-stat. Nobody seems to think that loosing a point in social setting is equivalent to gaining a point of HP.

Medium size; but shorter. perfect for all the "Damn, you're short" jokes.

20' movement: Slow. They suffer the low-speed penalties of the Small racers, without the added armor class and to-hit abilities.

Darkvision: Great! Except you're always traveling with people who need torches...

Stonecunning: Most Useless Bonus... EVER. Sure, it LOOKS like it would be useful, but it's only on Search checks, and on one type of surface, and only for "unusual details" which the GM can just BS. Alos, the "Intuit depth" sub-ability is about the only part that ever gets major play. Dwarf: "How deep below the surface are we?" GM: "About Five floors down." Thrilling!

Weapon Familiarity: Okay, This i'll give you. it's way more useful for the dwarf to get this proficiency than any of the other racial weapon proficiencies. I like dwarven Waraxes and Urgoshes. Sue me.

Stability: +4 save Vs. a pair of somewhat under-used tactic. DM's need to remember monsters have special attacks too!

Poison save: Nice, but again, it's dependent on what the GM has the players encounter.

+1 to-hit and +to-AC Interchangeable with the Halfling or Gnome techniques, albeit without the size bonus further adding to it.

+ appraise and + craft. Meh, don't really adjust balance much.

 

[MadScientist]

Agent Oracle you forgot the +2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects. Which is better than Iron Wil, Great Fortitude or Lightning Reflexes IMO. Between that and the poison save bonus it's rare that a dwarf makes a save w/o the +2.

 

[LightPhoenix]

If being forced to assume a STR bonus is equal to two mental penalties (which I don't... DEX maybe, but not STR) then for Half-Orcs I would rather remove the CHA penalty than the INT one. That would make them a little more versatile, allows them to Intimidate, and plays up to the slightly-dull aspect of Orcs in general.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Make the Dwarf's ability mods +2 con, -2 cha, -2 dex. Viola! they're (almost) balanced. The half-breeds need more work. And halflings need darkvision and 3.0 weapon rules (guess that applies to gnomes, too). A race that has favored class rogue that needs a torch to sneak in the darkness? Not very sensible, or effective.

 

[frankthedm]

I was wondering what people would do to 'balance' the Core races to the Dwarf level of power?

I was just curious to see what people thought. Thanks!

Nerf the dwarf. That is the answer.

When one thing out of many is broken, you fix the one thing, you don’t break the rest. Drop the waraxe and give every dwarf a one handed axe, hammer or pick. Thus all dwarves make competent combatants rather than their warriors being super warriors. I let dwarves take the hit to DEX rather than CHA, though forcing that would put the dwarf in a spot where most folks won’t touch them for anything but heavy armor characters and make the urgosh used very, very rarely.

Half orcs could use a minor boost. But it would have to be something that won’t boost them further in the melee attack department. Their STR boost was why they needed shafting in the first place, they had to be undesirable enough not every melee combatant would be one. Since IMG orcs and hobgoblins are two strains of a single race, I allow half orcs to take their +2 to STR, DEX or CON and choose favored class Fighter or Barbarian.. And since the orc race is pretty mutable IMG, I let them take the two -2 penalties to any two stats of their choice. Thus the half orc paladin could take his hits to INT and WIS.

Half elves… how bout 4 bonus skill points at first level or a weapon proficencyin longbow or longsword? Both if folks think they are that weak.

 

[delericho]

Uh. Maybe I'm missing an important detail here, but why does -2 Cha help to make "very good Paladins"?

Oops. I misread the post I was replying to. Somehow, I went from "lose the -2 Int" to "Half-orcs have +2 Str, -2 Int". My mistake.