D&D 5E Race Class combo, together, defines a character ‘type’

[Yaarel]

Nitpick: dragonborn in 3e had Paladin as a favored class. Perhaps you're thinking half-draongs? Or spellscales?

Heh. 3e is alot like Lolth reign of terror.

One of the critiques of 3e is, the ‘favored class’ represented an official race flavor, but the official mechanics of the race too often failed to support the flavor in actually. 3e players are forced to either embrace the flavor at the cost of a suboptimal character, or else reject the official flavor for a mechanically effective character. The prevalence of characters that rebelled against the official flavor created an unofficial but empowered flavor that fandom often embraced.



To some degree, the same problem is happening in 5e. In some instances, the game design promotes an official flavor, but then seems to cheat the players who embrace it, by failing to support the flavor mechanically. It sometimes feels as if a con. For example, with regard to the High Elf, it is also said to represent the Grey Elf tradition, and is supposed to be extraordinary as a Wizard. In previous editions, the Grey Elf gains an Intelligence bonus that within the context of the earlier gaming systems is very powerful for the Wizard class. But this 5e High Elf is suboptimal at being a Wizard. A Human makes a better Wizard, at least as good and able to use the Human feat for a feat that boosts Intelligence. A Gnome is an example of a race that actually supports the wizardry flavor mechanically.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Dragonborn Paladin is an ironic type. This the perspective I am speaking from.

The knight-versus-dragon archetype

Oh! OK, you've got a point, there. But D&D is still such a child of 70s irreverence, that it's just one of many counter-genre ironies.

 

[Sunseeker]

Eh? Considering that elfs are built towards wizard or ranger tyeps, both who cast... what do you play as, class wise?

My current favorite is the Swashbuckler (see the build thread, it's more or less that), following that is monks and then archers of various shades.

My personal favorite are gish types. Paladins, blade warlocks, arcane tricksters, etc. Back in 4e, I liked druids as well, even if I had to accept a penalty to play, but I just enjoyed shape shifting. 5e druid is absolutely not to my taste (I find flipping through the Monster Manual annoying), so I've been playing ranger more. I've recently also grown attached to the 5e assassin and experimenting with poisons, and have been giving thought to the ninja or elemental monk. I usually like bard too, but somethin gabout the 5e bard just feels wrong to me, and not enjoyable.

I don't mind a little magic as a side-dish to my class, but I can really take it or leave it.
I've never been a fan of the "flip through the MM for monster stats" type of druid, but I LOVE shapeshifting. If they could give me a class that did nothing but shapeshifting and dropped the spellcasting side of it for either a faster progression or more interesting forms, I'd be on that like white on rice. The Elemental Monk is a lot of fun. Doubleplusgood fun if you're a fan of the Avatar: The Last Airbender show. But it burns through ki like nobody's business.

As a result of my focus, I tend to play elves over humans, and I like going tiefling for paladins and warlocks. After that? Hmm... I wanted to play an aarokosha wind monk once, but I got yelled at for being a flyer and causing all these sorts of potential problems, which I didn't get, because monk. You know, the up close fist fighters. But in the end, I wasn't allowed.

My first paladin was in 4E. BEST PALADIN EDITION EVER! And I played a Tiefling which I love to this day, but I simply can't recreate the character in 5E or 3.X and nobody plays Pathfinder around here where I could.

I personally find playing humans boring, so I don't usually play them with any race, and I haven't found any other race to really stoke my interest in doing a monk again (I know wood elves are popular, but I just can't feel it). Lately, been considering going Tabaxi shadow monk.

Tabaxi would be an acceptable alternative to elves for pretty much everything I play, but I just haven't nailed down a good character concept with one.

 

[Mephista]

One of the critiques of 3e is, the ‘favored class’ represented an official race flavor, but the official mechanics of the race too often failed to support the flavor in actually. 3e players are forced to either embrace the flavor at the cost of a suboptimal character, or else reject the official flavor for a mechanically effective character. The prevalence of characters that rebelled against the official flavor created an unofficial but empowered flavor that fandom often embraced.

Well, I don't know anything about that. I tended to aim for fun combinations over empowered.

To some degree, the same problem is happening in 5e. In some instances, the game design promotes an official flavor, but then seems to cheat the players who embrace it, by failing to support the flavor mechanically. It sometimes feels as if a con. For example, with regard to the High Elf, it is also said to represent the Grey Elf tradition, and is supposed to be extraordinary as a Wizard. In previous editions, the Grey Elf gains an Intelligence bonus that within the context of the earlier gaming systems is very powerful for the Wizard class. But this 5e High Elf is suboptimal at being a Wizard. A Human makes a better Wizard, at least as good and able to use the Human feat for a feat that boosts Intelligence. A Gnome is an example of a race that actually supports the wizardry flavor mechanically.

You know, you keep saying that. High Elf is suboptimal for wizard. I look at the game, and I see that high elf looks like its second place only to the gnomes for wizardry.

What exactly is suboptimal going on here? Is it the lack of a free feat? Because, if so, then you're going to have every single non-human race being suboptimal, which is just a silly position to take for this kind of discussion.

 

[Yaarel]

The High Elf is also less good at wizardry than the Human.

The point is, High Elf is less good as a pick for a player who wants to play a Wizard type.

Perhaps the High Elf is best selected for to adapt to the new Investigator Rogue? A culture of Indiana Joneses?

The High Elf is less suitable for the flavor that its culture is supposed to be good at.



Heh. My bad. I just doublechecked the ‘Inquisitive’ Rogue. It is a Dexterity-Wisdom archetype, focusing on Perception, rather than a Dexterity-Intelligence archetype focusing on Investigation. So, the High Elf is less good at that too. The Wood Elf is a better choice for the type, perhaps as a kind of special ops.



The traits of the High Elf make its culture most adapt to become Arcane Trickster Rogues. Mainly, they are competent Rogues who can only dabble at magic.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh, so most High Elves know Thieves Cant.

 

[Mephista]

The High Elf is also less good at wizardry than the Human.

You keep saying that. Why? Is this a high-end optimizer thing? It works great as a wizard from my point of view. You keep repeating this as part of a larger point about "failing to support the flavor mechanically." To me, the high elf supports not only the wizard, but the eldritch knight and arcane trickster beautifully as well.

So, I guess I'm going to be outright here. The high elf supports playing a wizard beautifully. Its features are aimed at doing wizard things, its got good attributes for being a wizard, and there's nothing that detracts from wizarding.

Hmm... I know! Perhaps we should talk about bladesinger, eldritch knights and arcane tricksters here for a bit. The iconic elf, back in 1e, was a fighter/wizard/rogue mix. I missed 2e for the most part, so lets skip that. Elves in 3e had favored class: wizard, but favored class bit was good for one thing and one thing only. No, not flavor, but multiclassing. Elves in 3e were designed to multiclass into wizard and something that relied on their Dex, and eventually get into a PrC that combined them. Such PrCs were things like Arcane Archer, Bladesinger, etc. Eladrin in 4e not only were iconic wizard, but also spellblades and melee fey warlocks. Fey Charger was a thing for a reason - a deliberate design decision for arcane melee types. Hells, even the 4e eladrin wizard was pushed towards using a longsword due to their feats and paragon path.

Fast forwards to 5e. High elves are supposed to take up the same mantle - not just being able to make good wizards, but good arcane gish types. Thus the dex and favored weapons (though, the longsword's inability to be used with dex has been problematic for a while, though Classes that rely on elf weapons have consistently swapped out for rapier for a while now).

Perhaps this is part of the confusion. Elves, as a whole, gravitate more towards the Expert and gishy classes rather than the full caster classes. Wood elves are designed to be Rangers, not druids. We talked about drow and the rogues; warlocks are considered to be a kind of magical trickster by many, rather than a true full caster, from 3e to 5e. Half-elves are iconic bards. The only such class there isn't a kind of elf for is Alchemist.

High elves... well, not really skill heavy, but they're designed to mix weapon and magic, and have some skill towards researching magic. Thus, the extra language for arcane study. Most setting have ancient magical texts in draconic or giant or some other cthonic race. Also, don't forget to check out the high elf god - s/he is a god(dess) of swordplay, the arts, and arcane magic all at once.

Is this perhaps related?

 

[cbwjm]

The high elf makes a great wizard.
+2 Dex helps with their AC and initiative to get their spells off early.
+1 Intelligence means that (if using point buy/standard array) they will start with a 16 Int for that +3 modifier.
They get a bonus cantrip which has Int as the caster stat so if an attack cantrip is taken then it will be scaling well with the rest of the high elf wizard's spell abilities.

Then you have the rest of the high elf abilities: darkvision, fey ancestry, free perception, weapon training, extra language all add to the class. My high elf wizards aren't running around with a staff like a stereotypical mage, they have a longsword or shortsword (well, almost always a shortsword due to finesse) to back up their spellcasting in case they get caught in melee and cannot escape. They are also highly accurate with the longbow or shortbow due to that high Dex (if I'm maxing it out, my high elf wizards have a 16 dex at the start) and are able to switch to their bow to take on enemies out of range of their spells.

High elves make great wizards.

 

[Yaarel]

First, the official method of determining ability score is 4d6Drop. So, if the highest score is randomly even, the +2 to the score is a significant improvement.

Second, I like the 5e Wizard class. Probably the best version of Wizard from any edition. Unfortunately for a Wizard, I would never play the High Elf because it is suboptimal. It lacks the +2 and is mediocre at best. Worse, its extra cantrip is redundant and less important for the Wizard class. I am less into the Rogue class, so the High Elf holds zero interest for me.

The High Elf has never happened and will never happen because of its suboptimal mechanics.

It is a shame too. I am a fan of the Elf wizardry flavor, and its 5e version has been acutely disappointing.

 

[Yaarel]

The high elf makes a great wizard.
+2 Dex helps with their AC and initiative to get their spells off early.
+1 Intelligence means that (if using point buy/standard array) they will start with a 16 Int for that +3 modifier.
They get a bonus cantrip which has Int as the caster stat so if an attack cantrip is taken then it will be scaling well with the rest of the high elf wizard's spell abilities.

Then you have the rest of the high elf abilities: darkvision, fey ancestry, free perception, weapon training, extra language all add to the class. My high elf wizards aren't running around with a staff like a stereotypical mage, they have a longsword or shortsword (well, almost always a shortsword due to finesse) to back up their spellcasting in case they get caught in melee and cannot escape. They are also highly accurate with the longbow or shortbow due to that high Dex (if I'm maxing it out, my high elf wizards have a 16 dex at the start) and are able to switch to their bow to take on enemies out of range of their spells.

High elves make great wizards.

Cbwjm, if you are trying to make me like the High Elf mechanics, then your effort has failed.