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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 214607" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!You know, Limper, on the *balance* issue, I have listened to many scream about "This isn't balanced" or "These creatures are way too powerful" or "This race is too weak. They're pathetic" and so on. Yet, when I come up with a particular race, that, apart from cultural considerations, demands that they have certain stats, feats, or abilities, I find that when I try and water them down so that they are *balanced*, stat-wise, in order to preserve the whole "Well, why would anyone want to play a human?" syndrome, I find oftentimes that the race becomes so divorced from the original creative concept that it isn't much different from any other standard, non-human race. And for what? So that I can avoid having some frothing at the mouth uber-power-gamer never play humans, because the other races clearly have higher stats?I say too bad. Humans--or any other race--should be played because you have a particular character concept in mind--regardless of what the stat-bonuses, or stat-penalties may be.For example, in my campaigns, I have a different take on Ogres. Ogres aren't terribly smart, but they are incredibly strong and powerful. I have players that like to play Ogres not necessarily because of their stat-bonuses, but because they like the cultural and psychological framework that Ogres in my campaigns have. It is those role-playing details that really make the race interesting to play. The stats, while important, do not *make* the character. Do I care that humans have no strength stat bonuses, and I give Ogres a (+10) strength modifier? No! The reason I assign Ogres (+10) Strength modifier is because it is realistic and appropriate for the race--as I see them--to be far more strong and powerful than humans. If the "human" players don't like that, well, too bad! You know? Ogres also don't make the best Wizards, and their personalities, and psychology simply preclude certain character types. You want to play an Ogre-Rogue, who is a raider? Fine, but as a player, don't expect to play a thief-type Rogue as an Ogre, because not only will the Ogre's penalties to DEX and INT inhibit the character, as DM, I would strongly question even allowing the character to ever learn such skills. The reason being, almost regardless of the actual intelligence score that the character might have, that intelligence is focused differently, in different ways, no matter what the score. Ogres simply have the hardest time even conceptualizing such skills, or the process of employing them. That, however, is a DM-imposed role-playing restriction, and I have no problem enforcing it. That is just the way the race works. There are many different approaches that a player can reasonably take an Ogre character in, but an athletic, technically skilled thief-Rogue isn't one of them. But that is the dreaded, broken, "Role-playing" balance factor that so many say doesn't work, so therefore, if I was a slave to *balance*--I would reduce the Ogre drastically across the board in many ways, in order to be compliant, and to make sure the uber-power-gamers wouldn't be too keen on taking the Ogre as a race for their character instead of a standard human.Do you see my friend?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> It gets frustrating sometimes, but hell, I'm the DM, so I make it work because I say so, you know?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

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