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<blockquote data-quote="Satori" data-source="post: 3563279" data-attributes="member: 37233">Moogle:&nbsp; You misread my post, or simply focused on an online attempt at humor.&nbsp; Had you not strawmanned me into the &quot;Your type of fun is bad!&quot; group, and actually read the rest of my post, you'd realize that we both agree on the same thing.&nbsp; LA for unusual PC races is in place to create a statistical &quot;Preference&quot; for the races that the designers (and most gamers in general) consider to be ideal. The designers (and most gamers in general) envision DnD as a game involving human-ish heroes fighting against non-human-ish critters.&nbsp; LA establishes a firm &quot;ease of use&quot; in defaulting to core races.I've DM'd games for 12 year olds, and I've personally ok'd &quot;Half Vampire/Half Werewolf&quot; characters for these players.&nbsp; Heck, I even gave a kid a &quot;Returning Frisbee of Death&quot; because he wanted one.&nbsp; They had a lot of fun, and it wasn't &quot;ZOMG BADWRONGFUNEXPLODE&quot;.Now, for that game I removed LA because I was dealing with a group of young kids who enjoyed anime-esque concepts.&nbsp; Therefore, their level 6 characters were probably on par with EL 12 critters. Because they all had HUGE LA races, it didn't make a difference.However, would it be fair to let these kids use their characters with a different group involving more &quot;traditional&quot; players?&nbsp; Of course not.&nbsp; Not only would the Half Demons and Werewolf PCs dominate the Core races of the other players, but conceptual the combination is simply far too silly to create a cohesive and immersive experience. Does this make sense?&nbsp; Or is it still &quot;YOU ENJOY BADWRONGFUNPANCAKES!&quot;Ehren: I mentioned above that DnD (and most gamers in general) typically feel that a &quot;Human-ish&quot; group of adventuers fighting &quot;non-human-ish&quot; critters feels more appropriate than the inverse.&nbsp; Currently, all the &quot;Human-ish&quot; races are relatively even in power level...which means that a players choice between Dwarf, Elf, or Human is largely dependent on their concept, specific build/role, and personal preference rather than a severe deficit in mechanical balance.&nbsp; Making unique, outlandish races playable on the same level as the &quot;traditional&quot; races tends to create a paradigm shift in conceptual perspective.&nbsp; i.e. After some revising, a Lizardfolk is made equally powerful to a human or elf.&nbsp; Suddenly, players start looking at Lizardfolk like a standard, non-unique option because there is no &quot;preference&quot; mechanically NOT to play them.&nbsp; Therefore, the world of &quot;Human-ish&quot; adventurers immediately finds an influx of &quot;Human-ish characters AND lizardfolk&quot; adventurers.Some games have no problem with this.&nbsp; Some settings, like Eberron, actively encourage unique-yet-plentiful races like Warforged, Shifters, and Changelings.&nbsp; However, generic 3.5 DnD is arguably designed for more &quot;traditional&quot; games and settings...and within these settings, non-core races don't need the coverage core races get.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Satori, post: 3563279, member: 37233"] Moogle: You misread my post, or simply focused on an online attempt at humor. Had you not strawmanned me into the "Your type of fun is bad!" group, and actually read the rest of my post, you'd realize that we both agree on the same thing. LA for unusual PC races is in place to create a statistical "Preference" for the races that the designers (and most gamers in general) consider to be ideal. The designers (and most gamers in general) envision DnD as a game involving human-ish heroes fighting against non-human-ish critters. LA establishes a firm "ease of use" in defaulting to core races. I've DM'd games for 12 year olds, and I've personally ok'd "Half Vampire/Half Werewolf" characters for these players. Heck, I even gave a kid a "Returning Frisbee of Death" because he wanted one. They had a lot of fun, and it wasn't "ZOMG BADWRONGFUNEXPLODE". Now, for that game I removed LA because I was dealing with a group of young kids who enjoyed anime-esque concepts. Therefore, their level 6 characters were probably on par with EL 12 critters. Because they all had HUGE LA races, it didn't make a difference. However, would it be fair to let these kids use their characters with a different group involving more "traditional" players? Of course not. Not only would the Half Demons and Werewolf PCs dominate the Core races of the other players, but conceptual the combination is simply far too silly to create a cohesive and immersive experience. Does this make sense? Or is it still "YOU ENJOY BADWRONGFUNPANCAKES!" Ehren: I mentioned above that DnD (and most gamers in general) typically feel that a "Human-ish" group of adventuers fighting "non-human-ish" critters feels more appropriate than the inverse. Currently, all the "Human-ish" races are relatively even in power level...which means that a players choice between Dwarf, Elf, or Human is largely dependent on their concept, specific build/role, and personal preference rather than a severe deficit in mechanical balance. Making unique, outlandish races playable on the same level as the "traditional" races tends to create a paradigm shift in conceptual perspective. i.e. After some revising, a Lizardfolk is made equally powerful to a human or elf. Suddenly, players start looking at Lizardfolk like a standard, non-unique option because there is no "preference" mechanically NOT to play them. Therefore, the world of "Human-ish" adventurers immediately finds an influx of "Human-ish characters AND lizardfolk" adventurers. Some games have no problem with this. Some settings, like Eberron, actively encourage unique-yet-plentiful races like Warforged, Shifters, and Changelings. However, generic 3.5 DnD is arguably designed for more "traditional" games and settings...and within these settings, non-core races don't need the coverage core races get. [/QUOTE]

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