4E Drow in chainmail bikinis should get a +5 damage bonus.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

For fuck's sake people. Finding a balance point for "racial" abilities was solved in the TNE discussions.

Being a certain species does not give you abilities which synergize with classes. Being from a certain culture or region does.

Elves are not awesome archers because their DNA dictates that they must be. Elves are good archers because their society trains them to be. They live a long time, and reproduce infrequently. As a result of this they can only survive as a species if they survive individually for many years. Given that, the elves (or elven subgroup) chose to live in forests because that was the best environment for them to survive in using hit and run tactics. So they became adept with stealth, deception, archery, tracking, etc. The same is true for every race and culture. Dwarves are skilled at fighting giants because they are trained to be so, not because they are short.

Now that we have established that, everything falls into place. You want an dwarven Ranger? Sure! Now you as a player get an opportunity to explain why your dwarf is as skilled an archer as an elf. Maybe when you were young your clan's caravan was ambushed by some raiding orcs in the Elven Forest, and the elves raised you as one of their own. Maybe your dwarf is a Rogue/Ranger style character, and you describe your learning through trickery, guile, or spying. Maybe you grew up in the small dwarven outpost on the treeline between the two nations.

There. Everyone can play the character they want to play, and not be punished for choosing an inappropriate race. Racial archetypes still exist because of cultural and environmental inertia.

Does anyone have a counterargument to this that is not retarded?

[Elennsar]

There. Everyone can play the character they want to play, and not be punished for choosing an inappropriate race. Racial archetypes still exist because of cultural and environmental inertia.

Does anyone have a counterargument to this that is not retarded?

That it fails to address the question of "What if elves DO have the traits that make good archers more strongly than dwarves do?"

Its not like the only thing that produces great archers was (or is) lots of training.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

But that's a tautology. "If all dragons are more powerful than all men, then no man can slay a dragon singlehandedly." Basically, the statement was meaningless.

Well, the point is that if any man can slay a dragon, it doesn't apply. While I would argue by preference that none should be able to (unassisted, at least), that's a different story.

So you don't want one of the classic tropes of the medieval romance in your ideal fantasy game. Interesting.

And while it's implied that Legolas' keen sight is shared by all elves, if JE is right, Legolas' archery may actually be exceptional for elves.

Besides, why couldn't dwarves be better archers than elves, provided they're using their own racial weapon, the crossbow?

Assuming for the sake of this statement that the crossbow is equally good compared to the longbow...

Worse eyesight.

Worse physical dexterity.

Otherwise, 'tis training and such, not genetics.

Oops. I wrote "better" when I meant "as good." And BTW, I don't know what your houseruled dwarves for your special setting look like, but standard D&D dwarves don't have Dex penalties.

[Elennsar]

So you don't want one of the classic tropes of the medieval romance in your ideal fantasy game. Interesting.

In one of my ideal fantasy games, and I used the word "unassisted" intentionally.

St. George has the benefit of God Favors Heroes or something like that. But that's not pure "Sir George" anymore, so he's not 'unassisted'.

Oops. I wrote "better" when I meant "as good." And BTW, I don't know what your houseruled dwarves for your special setting look like, but standard D&D dwarves don't have Dex penalties.

Thought so (given what you've been stating in general). As for the house ruled, neither do they.

You asked what would prevent them, so I listed what would. As things stand, they don't have a Dex penalty, but elves do have a Dex bonus, so they're a +1 to hit behind, all things being even.

[PhoneLobster]

For fuck's sake people. Finding a balance point for "racial" abilities was solved in the TNE discussions.

You missed my first post on the first page of this mess didn't you?

It's worth reading page 1. Basically nothing has developed since then except for bonus extra obfuscation and growing inconsistency.

And though I agree that the TNE discussion you were referring to had some reasonable solutions in it (mostly unlike this thread) I find your bold claims of just plain "solved" utterly hilarious.

Especially since you pick Frank's "fixed but non synergistic abilities" strategy. Which I myself am not TOO critical of. But Frank was exceptionally critical of K about five minutes later and declared it utterly impossible when K was proposing almost the exact same strategy for dealing with multiclassing...

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Sphere: I don't know if I've seen you in the gazillion pages of this thread, but just to recap, here are some ideas that Elennsar has repeatedly rejected or ignored:

• It's okay to create races with entirely non-numerical special abilities
• You can have classes broad enough that races can be good at different aspects of the same class (though he seems to have waffled on this one depending on who he's trying to discredit at the moment)
• Intentionally unbalanced race/class choices shouldn't be available to the PCs in the default rules
• The PCs are unusual in the world and thus should be allowed to have racially nonstandard combos without penalty
• (Related to the previous point) The NPCs, not the PCs, reflect the central tendencies of their races
  
  That's all I can think of off the top of my head. If anybody's got more, feel free to add to the list for the benefit of thread newbies. Just trying to keep you from banging your head against the proverbial brick wall.

[Elennsar]

It's okay to create races with entirely non-numerical special abilities

You can have classes broad enough that races can be good at different aspects of the same class (though he seems to have waffled on this one depending on who he's trying to discredit at the moment)

Intentionally unbalanced race/class choices shouldn't be available to the PCs in the default rules

The PCs are unusual in the world and thus should be allowed to have racially nonstandard combos without penalty

(Related to the previous point) The NPCs, not the PCs, reflect the central tendencies of their races

In order.

#1: Its not NECESSARY and its not necessarily DESIRABLE. It is certainly possible.

#2: You can, but that does not mean that all classes should be so broad.

#3: Being able to suck should be possible as long as it is clear that you would suck for doing it. Do we need to forbid PCs from being commoners in order to make it clear that's a bad idea? Because if we do, we're playing with idiots.

#4: They should not be so unusual as to entirely ignore the standard. Otherwise, "orc" means nothing other than a three letter word on a character sheet.

#5: Above.

Deal with my points honestly or don't deal with them.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

PL, my memory of the details of this thread has turned into a morass in my brain. There were posts arguing stupid things (20+ pages after your initial posts), so I thought I would bring up the topic again and try to explain it in a different way.

It is a solution. I haven't seen a better one.

Sphere: I don't know if I've seen you in the gazillion pages of this thread, but just to recap, here are some ideas that Elennsar has repeatedly rejected or ignored:

Thanks, I've drifted in and out. Elennsar has been on my ignore list since near the beginning of this thread. I was trying to get a better discussion going by asking for counterarguments or alternate solutions not from Elennsar.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Elennsar:

#1: I didn't feel like typing all that out; the point I was making was that you would reject that approach as a bad idea, even if admitting it's possible.

#2: You said somewhere that you don't like broad classes, and many of your posts indicate a preference for very narrow classes.

#3: Your example about commoners is interesting, given that they're in the DMG, which is where I'd put the suboptimal race/class combos if Elennsar D&D were hypothetically published.

#4: Your response actually sounds like a complete refutation of the idea I accused you of rejecting.

#5: Above

My point was that 20+ pages of thread shows that you would likely reject as undesireable the central premises of Sphere's hypothetical system, usually with the same or similar statements over and over again, and that arguing any of the propositions I listed with you would be like banging his head into a wall.

And someone with a marked tendency to modify his positions without admitting he's doing so should be careful about accusing others of dishonesty.

[Elennsar]

#1 I'm against making it the case when there is a difference that should show up in numbers, I'm not against it if there's a different difference.

Gnomes having an ability like "speak with animals" isn't necessarily a bad one, though it may not be potent enough to matter.

#2: "I prefer" and "I refuse to accept the use of" are two different things.

#3: ...why? Why not say "this is suboptimal" if that's the case and trust people can read?

#4: Its an objection to "Hey. I'm an orc. I have no traits, good, bad, or otherwise that make me orcish, but boy howdy am an I orc."

I have positions I'm fixed (or commited to until persauded otherwise on). There are things I'd be fine with changing if convinced (see my comment on Talisman's idea) and there are things I'm not fine with changing, period.

That came out unclearly. There are things I'm willing to change if someone has a better idea than I do for representing the same kind of effect, and there are things that I'm not willing to drop simply because "and we want to play the one orc who has an Intelligence equal to any human archmage without any difficulty from the fact orcs tend to be less bright at all" is said by a majority.

Should someone put "HEY I CHANGED MY MIND ON THIS!" next to anything they say that was different than a previous post?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Well, it doesn't have to be in all caps.

But seriously, when you've been arguing a particular position with multiple people over 10+ pages of a thread, it's helpful to clearly indicate when you're conceding a point. I mean, we could have avoided a lot of extraneous posts and drama if you had said at some point, "Okay, broad classes + selectable racial abilities could work; I just don't like it." Without some statement of concession, people think you're arguing the opposing position as if it were your own when you advocate it later on, and it leads to the kind of confusion and anger you've been seeing among a lot of Denners.

[Bigode]

Not really. Unless you go back and take Elennsar's position that no one should be better at archery than an elf 'if elves are best' or no man should be able to slay a dragon 'if dragons are more powerful than men'. I forgot what page that was on, but it's in there somewhere.

As long as there's ability packages of any sort, someone with the right one's gonna beat everyone else of the same level at the right activities. Of course, sometimes the activities in question are extremely specific.

The thing is, grappling isn't a main schtick, it's a side schtick. Grappling opens up tactics, it doesn't do damage or hit opponents. And it's totally possible to negate a Stability bonus (Grease, for example). It's not in the game mechanics to negate an unnamed untyped racial bonus.

There's literally nothing working properly here. Grappling can be a main resource, it does "hit" and "deal damage", it'd still not matter anything against my point if it couldn't, stability has nothing to do with grappling (as per D&D RAW - if you're arguing hypothetically possible rulesets, no use saying what a spell can or can't do, since it could be ... anything that was convenient for either side; if you're talking some other system ... let me know), opening up tactics ... is story variety, and the last sentence undermines your own point: if there's no way to remove it, it's more restrictive storywise.

I know I post gibberish sometimes, but... I have no idea what you're saying.

Different levels of competence should look different barring extenuating circumstances.

So the game mechanical solution to that is that Legolas is still slowed by the snow - he must walk carefully - but has the special effect that he makes it look easy. The two characters are at the same negatives, but appear different when the story is told.

Strength isn't a perquisite for every single melee or ranged physical damage maneuver. It only gives you a plus to hit for some attacks, and it adds to damage to some attacks. Not all. Con, Dex give different bonuses to physical combat. If you had a minus to most of them, you could make a case, but we're only talking to a minus to one of them at a time, a small fraction of what's used for combat.

You're talking MAD vs. SAD here, not anything to do with kind of class. There are MAD spellcaster classes (the fact that people don't use them due to MADness itself's beside the point).

I wouldn't. If you guys would, you're welcome to make TNE work like that.

Your permission isn't needed. Cut the crap off your posts, retard.

#3: Being able to suck should be possible as long as it is clear that you would suck for doing it. Do we need to forbid PCs from being commoners in order to make it clear that's a bad idea? Because if we do, we're playing with idiots.

"Clear that you'd suck" cannot mean anything other than "lower-leveled".

Deal with my points honestly or don't deal with them.

STFU. Do you perhaps think you're such a genius that we're having to delude themselves to think you're wrong?

Especially since you pick Frank's "fixed but non synergistic abilities" strategy. Which I myself am not TOO critical of. But Frank was exceptionally critical of K about five minutes later and declared it utterly impossible when K was proposing almost the exact same strategy for dealing with multiclassing...

What I remember's the problem with dual-classed > single-classed. Are you talking about something else?

[Surgo]

#4: They should not be so unusual as to entirely ignore the standard. Otherwise, "orc" means nothing other than a three letter word on a character sheet.

Where do you get this shit from? Even if you're somehow a good archer, 'orc' still means you look like an orc, quack like an orc, and smell like an orc and that's really what I want to be an orc for anyway.

[Judging__Eagle]

In case anyone cares, I had been playing with Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (using the Lights of the Warp add-on) with orks to get footage for my video compositing class.

So I had Ork-speak on the brain.

Ok, for setting, since it's the new question[/b].

[Ice9]

Two things:

It's okay to create races with entirely non-numerical special abilities

Non-numerical doesn't mean they aren't better for one class than another. If you give Elves an ability like "hide in foliage", it's better for a stealthy sniper than a mounted knight.

You can have classes broad enough that races can be good at different aspects of the same class (though he seems to have waffled on this one depending on who he's trying to discredit at the moment)

How does this fix anything? If someone thought playing a Fighter with 8 Strength was a good idea, they're just as likely to think picking the "Tough Fighter" powers over the "Smart Fighter" or "Agile Fighter" ones is a good idea.

Where do you get this shit from? Even if you're somehow a good archer, 'orc' still means you look like an orc, quack like an orc, and smell like an orc and that's really what I want to be an orc for anyway.

So basically, you're advocating "races as hair color" - i.e. a purely aesthetic choice which has no mechanical impact. That's one way to do things, but it's not what the stated intent has been thus far.

Now personally, I would find "culture determines abilities" to be as much or more limiting than "race determines abilties". Now if I want to be a good archer, I have to be a forest-dwelling nomad with a loose but important warrior's code? I'd rather be able to pick what I act like than how I look like.

[Talisman]

Now personally, I would find "culture determines abilities" to be as much or more limiting than "race determines abilties". Now if I want to be a good archer, I have to be a forest-dwelling nomad with a loose but important warrior's code? I'd rather be able to pick what I act like than how I look like.

In D&D, race (largely) = culture. "Elf" is both a race and a culture, unless the GM decides to define separate culutures of elves; even than, "culture" is often fluff. If the desert elves and the mountain elves have the same mechanical mods, their differing culures are fluff and flavor...not that there's anything wrong with fluff and flavor.

I was going to post more about the Race Debate, but I think it'd be pointless now. Everyone has their positions pretty solidfied, so the only thing left is to pick a position (i.e., fluff only / minor abilities only / etc) and hash out the best way to implement that with others who favor that position.

[Maj]

Well, different settings do vary. But if you were playing in the one I'm creating.. <snip>

You have conflated roleplaying and mechanics quite a bit here. That explains a lot about the way you game and why you seem to stand for roleplaying some of the time, but not for others.

Where do you get this shit from? Even if you're somehow a good archer, 'orc' still means you look like an orc, quack like an orc, and smell like an orc and that's really what I want to be an orc for anyway

While I realize that there are a lot of players who prefer to have actual mechanical differences between races, I don't care. The roleplaying part of the game isn't really about how you treat the world - your attitude is defined by whatever you want it to be defined by - it's about how the world treats you.

If orcs are the thugs of the game, it doesn't matter one whit unless the extras in the game reflect that in the way they act around orcs. If elves are awesome archers, then that needs to be reflected in the way the world (including the other PCs) looks in awe/fear at an elf when they pull out a bow. Hell, it should be reflected in disappointment or scorn when a non-arching elf fails to pull out a bow. That's just not able to be made into a mechanic. Likewise, any mechanic reflected in a race's stats that isn't reflected in the way the world actually interacts with a character of that race means nothing except "this PC is good at X," not "this race is good at X."

[Elennsar]

But seriously, when you've been arguing a particular position with multiple people over 10+ pages of a thread, it's helpful to clearly indicate when you're conceding a point. I mean, we could have avoided a lot of extraneous posts and drama if you had said at some point, "Okay, broad classes + selectable racial abilities could work; I just don't like it." Without some statement of concession, people think you're arguing the opposing position as if it were your own when you advocate it later on, and it leads to the kind of confusion and anger you've been seeing among a lot of Denners.

I'm not in favor of it. I can see ways it would work, and I can see that there are thing it fits.

But if asked "How do you think this should work?", my answer is for relatively narrow classes.

Your permission isn't needed. Cut the crap off your posts, retard.

Nor is there any desire to imply that it is. I'm simply stating that you're welcome to do something your way for your game because I'm not in a position to say "do it my way" and I'm okay with that.

"Clear that you'd suck" cannot mean anything other than "lower-leveled".

Or doing something that your race does poorly. Insisting that a stone giant should do well as a ninja, assuming stone giants are a playable race at all and ninjas are a playable class at all, is absurd.

STFU. Do you perhaps think you're such a genius that we're having to delude themselves to think you're wrong?

No, and that was a post was a specific context...if you're going to argue I've been arguing X Y and Z, be sure you know what I mean by X Y and Z. Whether you agree with it or not.

I was going to post more about the Race Debate, but I think it'd be pointless now. Everyone has their positions pretty solidfied, so the only thing left is to pick a position (i.e., fluff only / minor abilities only / etc) and hash out the best way to implement that with others who favor that position.

Personally, I'm willing to listen to alternatives to my preference as long as they're ones that don't render it irrelevant (as in, it reallly is just a three letter word on the character sheet.)

There has to be some trait that makes "orc" "not something that isn't an orc".

You have conflated roleplaying and mechanics quite a bit here. That explains a lot about the way you game and why you seem to stand for roleplaying some of the time, but not for others.

The two are both part of what makes an orc an orc and not a something else. In our world, we're all playing humans with certain arbitrary divisions that rarely (ever?) manifest as anything more than training varying between cultures in terms of what you'd measure in a game.

With nonhumans, they may well have things we don't do or things we do as humans but they do much more commonly.

I'm all for roleplaying, but I'm not for insisting that everything roleplayable be equally mechanically playable. As stated, a guy without weapons and armor would not work in Dux Artorius, though no one should force the player to put "uses a sword and armor" on the sheet if he's determined to pick a nonviable option.

If orcs are the thugs of the game, it doesn't matter one whit unless the extras in the game reflect that in the way they act around orcs. If elves are awesome archers, then that needs to be reflected in the way the world (including the other PCs) looks in awe/fear at an elf when they pull out a bow. Hell, it should be reflected in disappointment or scorn when a non-arching elf fails to pull out a bow. That's just not able to be made into a mechanic. Likewise, any mechanic reflected in a race's stats that isn't reflected in the way the world actually interacts with a character of that race means nothing except "this PC is good at X," not "this race is good at X."

And the problem is, if an elf with a bow is no more impressive than anyone else with a bow, there's nothing that will lead to that being awe-ful/fearful other than misconception.

Even if that's only "the vast majority of elves do become excellent archers", there needs to be something that makes elf with a bow able to do well enough that not just anyone could copy it.

Maybe a dwarf who commited himself to mastering the bow as well as any elf could achieve that one day, but it would be accomplishing beyond the usual realm of nonelves...even extraordinary nonelves.

[Crissa]

Then again, Bigode, I don't have a problem with bigger creatures just being better at grappling because of their size instead of their level. Yeah, it sorta breaks the by-level thing, but it does represent some simulationist tendency towards bigger critters being better at hand to hand.

But then again, I only want this to be represented vs equal level opponents. If the small guy is higher level, he should win.

But should he win using his schtick or the lower level guys' schtick?

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

What I remember's the problem with dual-classed > single-classed. Are you talking about something else?

The aspect I'm referring to is the whole "I can write a raft of non synergistic abilities" claim.

Frank disliked my selectable background abilities suggestion (despite the fact it is pure genius).

His idea, if I recall, was that fixed racial abilities were fine as long as they weren't synergistic so he would just go and write up a vast raft of non synergistic racial abilities.

It was a rather less flexible and more difficult solution than my proposal but assuming he could write that raft it could work to the limited degree of its envisaged scope.

But then K suggested a proposal for multi classing based on his ability to write a raft of non synergistic class abilities. And that was declared basically impossible by the same people who supported Frank writing non synergistic race abilities. I'm pretty sure Frank also was rather critical of the potential for such an implementation to be possible.

[Bigode]

Then again, Bigode, I don't have a problem with bigger creatures just being better at grappling because of their size instead of their level. Yeah, it sorta breaks the by-level thing, but it does represent some simulationist tendency towards bigger critters being better at hand to hand.

But then again, I only want this to be represented vs equal level opponents. If the small guy is higher level, he should win.

But should he win using his schtick or the lower level guys' schtick?

-Crissa

If you're gonna win, it's because you've a higher modifier (or extra abilities, sure, but not for the case being) described however the hell you want. Either you account size variance on the grappling RNG or you represent size simply as Str and account for just that.

Lobster: how I saw it was that races under Frank's model would strive to give abilities synergistic with all classes, not that they'd actually be non-synergistic.

[Crissa]

I'm still wondering how level should interact with schticks which are not your own. (grappling, shoot-n-scoot, magic, etc) Are we okay with some schticks being able to take on an opponent not your level?

-Crissa

[Bigode]

I'm still wondering how level should interact with schticks which are not your own. (grappling, shoot-n-scoot, magic, etc) Are we okay with some schticks being able to take on an opponent not your level?

You oughta clarify the hell outta this. Let me see: grappling's available to (nearly) anyone (the haven'ts are nonstandard, not the haves), I'm assuming shoot-n-scoot == kiting, which's almost not a concern if you assume wide availability of ranged attacks (and I think you should), "magic" doesn't really mean anything (what matters' what a kind a particular effect belongs to, even in D&D 3.x - check how counterable direct damage is, vs. force effects), and I'm not even sure what's the doubt you have with regards to facing opponents of level different from one's own.

[name_here]

I think that your schtick shouldn't be able to beat someone higher level if they're trying to counter your schtick and know what they're doing. otherwise you're talking rock-paper-scissors balance in a game where people only have one character.

[Crissa]

I'm not sure I need to clarify it.

If your schtick is hitting a guy with your sword, and you can't hit the other guy with your sword - because he's made pit traps with magic or is running away from you or you're at some other tactical negative where your sword is not accessible...

How many 'levels' will that negate you? Will merely being one level mean you can still take the guy?

It's kinda the Ewoks vs Stormtrooper question.

-Crissa