Racial abilities & stereotypes.

[Dark Mistress]

In my opinion, race should be the biological aspects: Some examples include
1. Ability Score bonuses and penalties
2. Bonuses to saves vs.poison, disease, sleep, etc. (true immunity should, generally, be rare (e.g, constructs not needing to eat or breathe)
3. Special sight (e.g., dark vision, night vision, etc.)
4. Special movement (e.g., swimming, flying, gliding)
5. Natural weapons (e.g., claws, fangs, tails)
6. Special healing requirements (e.g., requiring constructs to be healed with a craft skill or spells that repair items rather than cure wound spells)
Cultural aspects (e.g, special weapon proficiency or bonuses, bonuses to skills representing culture, detecting unusual stonework, etc ) should be separate, a background or theme layered on top of race. The rules can suggest a "default", but it is a recommendation that can be replaced depending upon the campaign or to represent a character that grew up in another culture.

Pretty much agree with this, The last part could be represented by the trait system in PFRPG if it was expanded. Give everyone x number of traits but restrict some traits by race. So people that want to play that took them but the ones that wanted the dwarf raised by circus folk would not take things like stone work bonus etc.

 

[GreyICE]

I can't see ever going back to the -2 penalty. It is just so crippling for classes that want to use that stat. To not have a +2 is fine, that's just a small bonus, but to not have that +2 AND have another -2 on the other side is just cruel. Also it's practically impossible to justify with charisma (charisma bonuses/penalties are generally hard to justify, but penalties end up being worse because you inevitably result to unflattering stereotypes, which end up making the race a tad cartoonish).

I don't think we need to worry about the 3E approach coming back, there's no way that they'd fail to consider how a race works in the larger system (I say that, but they released Pixies...).

 

[triqui]

Perhaps a better way to achieve the original effect would be maximum and minimum stats. So instead of an elf getting +2 Dex, you would be unable to play an elf unless you put at least a 12 in Dexterity, say. I'm assuming a point buy system.

<- Old school.

the problem with that, is it assumes there are no clumsy elves in the world. It might work in the old days of D&D, were everything was archetypical (and Tolkienesque), and thus elves were, all of them full of grace. Current tendence is that races gravitate toward certain abilities, but there are individuals that are above and below the average in the race. "most" elves are agile is different from "there's not a single elf in the world that is clumsy", imho.

 

[billd91]

the problem with that, is it assumes there are no clumsy elves in the world. It might work in the old days of D&D, were everything was archetypical (and Tolkienesque), and thus elves were, all of them full of grace. Current tendence is that races gravitate toward certain abilities, but there are individuals that are above and below the average in the race. "most" elves are agile is different from "there's not a single elf in the world that is clumsy", imho.

I generally agree. It's why I prefer the bonuses and penalties. You can achieve a high level of strength as a halfling but it's going to cost you a lot more than the half-orc to do so. As an elf, your low investment in Dexterity gets you a little bit more than the dwarf for the same investment. That seems appropriate to me.

 

[Doug McCrae]

the problem with that, is it assumes there are no clumsy elves in the world.

You could lower the minimum if you want some clumsy elves. Say, 7, instead of 12. The former is the value 1e AD&D uses. Most of 1e's min/max values allow for a pretty broad range, except for half-orcs who get severely typecast - max charisma 12!

 

[triqui]

You could lower the minimum if you want some clumsy elves. Say, 7, instead of 12. The former is the value 1e AD&D uses. Most of 1e's min/max values allow for a pretty broad range, except for half-orcs who get severely typecast - max charisma 12!

But then it's irrelevant. If you make Dex for elves 7-18 (or even 10-18), then for the most part, elven players aren't more dextrous than human players. Which is not bad per se, since it's a valid assumption. However, that means race has no influence in abilitie scores at all, in a practical in-game sense. I'm not sure if people will like that

 

[Doug McCrae]

But then it's irrelevant. If you make Dex for elves 7-18 (or even 10-18), then for the most part, elven players aren't more dextrous than human players. Which is not bad per se, since it's a valid assumption. However, that means race has no influence in abilitie scores at all, in a practical in-game sense. I'm not sure if people will like that

Yeah, I can see there's a tension between the rules used for the PCs and the rules used to describe the world. PCs tend to be a cut above, unless it's one of those '3d6 in order' games.

One could use two separate ranges - NPC elves are 7-18, PC elves are 12-18 - which would mean that there are clumsy elves out there, but would also have an impact on elite PCs. That's becoming a bit complex, admittedly. All elves get +2 Dex is definitely simpler.

 

[Lanefan]

First off, for every bonus there should be a penalty.

Second, some racial abilities should be baked in. Elves can see in the dark. So can Dwarves; and they have some underground skills as well. Hobbits are better with hand-thrown missiles. That sort of thing.

Third, though it does add some complexity to roll-up there's a flexible and granular way of handling racial ability bonuses/penalties, and that's to put each ability for each race on its own bell curve which is for that race analagous to 3-18 in Humans. You need a chart of how each bell curve adjust each raw number. Then you roll what you roll (yes, roll) and let the chart fix it for you.

So, an example: let's say a Dwarf with less than 7 Strength isn't going to be let out into the world, but Dwarves can have natural Strength of 19 where Humans can only go to 18. Thus, what is 3-18 for Humans becomes 7-19 for Dwarves. Roll a 3? It gets adjusted to 7. Roll an 18? It gets adjusted to 19. Roll a 10? It goes to (I think) 13; a rolled 11 would also go to 13.

What this gives is a way for a DM to easily tweak the racial adjustments to suit her taste - for example, if 7-19 is too big an adjust for Dwarf strength for you, make it 5-18.

Penalties work the same way - Dwarvish Charisma might go from 3-16, as an example.

We've been doing it this way for about 28 years.

Lanefan

 

[slobster]

First off, for every bonus there should be a penalty.

Why? I don't mean that in a snarky way, I'm actually curious about this line of thought.

If I want to make dwarves resistant to enchantments, why do they need a penalty to go along with it? It isn't a balance issue, because races just need to be balanced against each other. If I give every race a few bonuses and specialties, and none of them penalties, they are still all balanced. They are all viable options.

So what are your reasons for this?

 

[Haldrik]

5e abilities

Im on board with new racial abilities system.

+1/−1

Normally, I hate penalties, since they are fake costs that are easy to min-max around, leaving only the “free” benefit. However, in this case, the +1/−1 works out with a satisfying stat for the Human race, as far as I can tell. The Human who is supposed to be the norm with neither bonus or penalty makes up for the loss of this “free” racial bonus, by getting +1 to all defenses. I cant tell which race benefit I would rather have, a partial +1 toward the attack ability along with toward one defense and suffer partial −1 toward one defense, or else have the benefit of a Human with full +1 to all defenses. Both are attractive. The Human probably has the edge but a high primary ability can be so important. It seems solid balance here.

On top of this, the system brings an additional +1 from the class. This is excellent, and makes everything else work well. First, min-maxing tends to add the +1 from the class to the same ability as the +1 from the race. Flavorwise, this encourages certain races to gravitate toward certain classes. These synergistically favorable classes then become central for understanding the culture of the race.

So it always works well to play the race according to type - because the class-race synergy gets a full +2 bonus to the primary ability.

On the other hand, if people want to play against type, they can pick almost any other class, enjoy a +1 to the primary ability, and function as well as any Human, who is the standard. Great.

A player can even play an antitype, and use the +1 from the class to neutralize the −1 racial penalty, and still function perfectly well, only one point less than a standard Human.

One could say, just have the +1 racial ability and no penalty - and it wouldnt be much different. But in this case, the penalty is important to express flavor. For example, both the Elf and the Halfling are a “Dexterity” race, but the penalties help distinguish them, with the Elf being stronger despite the Con penalty while the Halfling is tougher despite the Str penalty.

It impresses me how well the racial - and class - abilities work as a system.