Racial ability mods "Fix", Adding player choice

[osmanb]

Hello!

Yes. I really like 4e. Blah, blah, blah. Anyways, one issue that has come up in a few threads (and my group has discussed) is the issue of racial ability score modifiers. In particular, there is the problem as it relates to classes. Because of the important of stats (and pairs of stats) for most classes, and the strange disconnect between races and classes, there are lots of restrictions on what pairings make for good PCs. Clearly, this is somewhat intended, but I think it's overdone. I want the PCs to have some freedom to mix and match races and classes. So, my proposed system:

Every (non-human) race has a list of three ability scores. PCs created using that race may receive +2 to any two of those three scores. The triplets are:

Dragonborn: Str/Con/Cha
Dwarf: Str/Con/Wis
Eladrin: Str/Dex/Int
Elf: Str/Dex/Wis
1/2 Elf: Con/Wis/Cha
Halfling: Dex/Int/Cha
Tiefling: Con/Int/Cha

We tried to keep them thematically appropriate as much as possible, with some concessions. (eg, Elves getting strength is justified by the older concepts of wood elves). Also, this all clearly pre-supposes that optimized character builds (with bumps to the stats being used for powers) are important enough to warrant such a change. That might not be true, and I'm open to the idea that I'm over-reacting.

Anyways, this clearly makes all of these races slightly better. So Humans need something to compensate. The current best idea on how to do that is to give them an extra racial feature ('Human luck?'), that gives a flat +1 to attack rolls. Very powerful, but not (I don't think) unbalancing.

Overall, I like the system, because I don't like the current straight-jacket pairings of race and class. But I'm curious if people have feedback, or if we've overlooked something obvious. (Is it easily exploitable in some way?)

Has anyone else tried something similar (or different) to address the problem?

 

[keterys]

I understand why Elves get Str, but why do Eladrin? Wouldn't one of the mentals (like Cha) fit better there?

Anyhow, in most cases humans aren't losing a lot here... numerically not losing anything, actually, just tactically. If you really want to, make their at-will from any class or give them the option to take an encounter from their own class instead of the at-will.

 

[That One Guy]

I agree that Cha makes sense for Eladrin over Str. I think that half-elves should maybe have an extra stat available (two physical and two mental, maybe?)... A small ember burns in my heart for them being the best at multi-classing.

I'm not sure about the humans getting the +1 to attack. Maybe allow the bonus skill to come from any class? Or a floating +2 and a floating +1?

Maybe that'd unbalance things to a worse degree. Still, I think 1 is a strangely large number in 4e.

 

[Snowlock]

Three reasons to give Eladrins Str over Cha.
First, 4 other races already get Cha, while 3 others get Str.
Second, if they had Cha they would have the same stat distribution as Halflings.
Third, the PHB itself says that Eladrin would make good Warlords. If they have Str it makes them the only class with good Str/Int pairing for a tactical warlord.

 

[Ondo]

.Anyways, this clearly makes all of these races slightly better. So Humans need something to compensate. The current best idea on how to do that is to give them an extra racial feature ('Human luck?'), that gives a flat +1 to attack rolls. Very powerful, but not (I don't think) unbalancing.

The other races gain not in power but in flexibility - giving humans a power boost to compensate is, IMO, a bad idea.

Honestly, I don't think they need anything. Maybe allow them to add +1 to two attributes instead of +2 to one?

 

[osmanb]

Thanks for all the comments so far. Snowlock is (obviously?) the other person that worked to come up with the specifics of this idea. Anyways, when we started, almost the first thing I said was that Eladrin should really get Cha. It stayed like that for a while, but then we hit the problems that he mentioned. (Why do so many races get Cha already!?) Even in cases where the original stat mods don't make much sense, I decided not to alter those, just add a third one. (Why do half-elves get Con?)

The human +1 might be too much, that was one of my fears. One one of my first ideas was similar to what's been suggested ... give them three floating +1s, but no more than two can be used on one stat. Although I really like keterys' suggestions for their powers. Is having a second encounter power at 1st level unbalancing, though? That seems (in some cases) to be on par with the global +1.

 

[Snowlock]

Playing around with the comments from people above, here would be the new stat modifiers:

Dragonborn: Str/Con/Cha
Dwarf: Str/Con/Wis
Eladrin: Dex/Int/Cha *Changed*
Elf: Str/Dex/Wis
Half Elf: Str/Con/Wis/Cha *Changed*
Halfling: Dex/Int/Cha
Tiefling: Con/Int/Cha

We end up with yet another charisma race, but oh well, the like it a lot in 4e it seems.
The only other possible change would make halflings Dex/Wis/Cha, but that takes away one of the few Int races.

 

[Ondo]

The other races gain not in power but in flexibility - giving humans a power boost to compensate is, IMO, a bad idea.

To expand on this a bit: this option boosts the power of some of the bad race/class combos, such as a Halfling wizard. However, the good race/class combos, like Eladrin wizard, gain absolutely no benefit, and the bad combos are (presumably) only increased in power enough to match the good combos. A Human wizard is already a good combo (I think), so it probably shouldn't get an increase in power. It would, however, be nice to give them an additional choice between equally powerful options.

Giving a choice of +2 to any one stat or +1 to any three stats might be okay - I suspect the +2 to any one stat would be this better choice, generally. To make it more appealing you could increase the number of stats that get a +1 - it seems like +1 to all six stats might even be balanced, though four might be more reasonable. Unless you're rolling for stats, in which case I'd just do +1 to two stats, and you'd probably prefer that if your highest stat and another one you care about are odd.

 

[wainwrig]

Dragonborn: Str/Con/Cha
Dwarf: Str/Con/Wis
Eladrin: Dex/Int/Cha *Changed*
Elf: Str/Dex/Wis
Half Elf: Str/Con/Wis/Cha *Changed*
Halfling: Dex/Int/Cha
Tiefling: Con/Int/Cha

We end up with yet another charisma race, but oh well, the like it a lot in 4e it seems.
The only other possible change would make halflings Dex/Wis/Cha, but that takes away one of the few Int races.

Why not make the Eladrin Wis instead of Cha? It makes Dex/Wis common to the elf family with Elf going to Str and Eladrin to Int. That seems like a very reasonable pairing. And the +Will and Charm resistance of Eladrin are both consistent with Wis. Then you have 4 of each except 3 Dex and 3 Int, which is nicely balanced.

I really like your proposal, it's what I did in my game, but I didn't think about it this clearly ahead of time. Ultimately it gets more races playing more classes, and that's more fun for everyone. Finally, I think +2/+1 for Human is probably reasonable since all of the other racial choices have gotten increased flexibility and thus a modest increase in power. But the other idea I had for a minor boon improvement for Humans is that they start with 2 APs after an extended rest. It makes their Action Point feats a bit more useful.

 

[Ondo]

Having two stats that feed into the same save is a disadvantage, and the developers have said that Eladrin and Warforged get more powerful abilities to compensate. So I think this should be compensated for, to help balance the options.

I'd suggest that Eladrin and Warforged lose their +1 bonus to Will defense if they pick stats that provide bonuses to two different defenses, and for any other race if they pick two stats that feed into the same defense give them a +1 to one other defense. Probably limit it to the defense that is boosted by the stat available to your race that you didn't take. So if a Halfling chooses Dex & Int they get a boost to Will, and if a Half-Elf chooses Wis & Cha they get a boost to Fort.