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

[Lago PARANOIA]

... at least, that's the design philosophy the game is trying to sell me.

You know, this really is one of my biggest pet peeves with D&D and 4th Edition in particular. If you want to be a certain race/class combination for roleplaying reasons, tough shit. Only dwarves can be fighters. I was displeased but could deal with 3rd Edition's racial skewing because frankly the bonuses didn't mean much in the fact of levels and spells.

But 4th Edition's is intolerable. Certain race/class combinations get rewarded coming AND going and it ticks me off. Martial Power is the epitome of this: if you want to be an awesome PHB-only fighter, be a fucking dwarf. You can be a dragonborn, too, if you don't mind a small amount of inferiority but dwarf is where it's at.

[Elennsar]

If you want all races to be equally capable, what does it mean to be a Dwarf (or a Dragonborn or an Elf or whatever) other than fluff that has no impact on anything?

Though, it is annoying that "If you want to be a _____, with ____ being half the classes in the book, they say "human or dwarf."

Races being better at their specialization is one thing. Races being flat out better (but with some workable form of ECL) is one thing. This is just garbage.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you want all races to be equally capable, what does it mean to be a Dwarf (or a Dragonborn or an Elf or whatever) other than fluff that has no impact on anything?

These races should be able to stand up on their own roleplaying merits. If no one picks dwarves or dragonborn after making them all mechanically equal then you have a bad race and should take it out of the game.

People still wanted to play gnomes and halflings in 3.5E even though that edition tried their very hardest to screw them. That was wrong, obviously. But why should we put races in the game that people only play for a mechanical benefit?

[Elennsar]

The problem is that unless they are mechanically identical, Dwarves will get bonuses that make playing a Fighter (for instance) very appealing.

All races should be balanced overall, but feeling that it'd be better to do an Elven Ranger than a Dragonborn Ranger is not necessarily a sign that elves are overpowered or Dragonborn underpowered.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The problem is that unless they are mechanically identical, Dwarves will get bonuses that make playing a Fighter (for instance) very appealing.

I fully support this.

All races should be balanced overall, but feeling that it'd be better to do an Elven Ranger than a Dragonborn Ranger is not necessarily a sign that elves are overpowered or Dragonborn underpowered.

It does mean that Elven Rangers are overpowered WRT any other ranger.

You shouldn't kick someone in the junk for wandering outside the box. Then again, 4th Edition is all about the box.

[Roy]

Four boxes actually. Of course they failed just as hard at four box design in 4.0 as they did in 3.5.

3.5: One box is useless, one box is semi useful but can be replaced with mild difficulty, two boxes are critical to your existence.

4.0: How the fuck did that Controller/Defender/Leader/Striker thing fail again?

[Akula]

4.0: How the fuck did that Controller/Defender/Leader/Striker thing fail again?

The people at Wizards can't do math? Or the people at wizards can't recognize a good character to save their lives.

[Elennsar]

As for Elven Rangers: So, Elves should be no better than anyone else at being a ranger, even though the skills that rangers use are things that elves do better than humans?

Whaaaa? No. Ew.

Being "better than standard" is not a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when the elven ranger is the ranger which things assume is the ranger the PCs have, so anyone not an elf is too weak.

[Roy]

4.0: How the fuck did that Controller/Defender/Leader/Striker thing fail again?

The people at Wizards can't do math? Or the people at wizards can't recognize a good character to save their lives.

This too. I know there was something about Fighters doing more damage than Rangers, but I don't like handling 4.0 too long. It's a poison that bypasses immunity after all.

[Elennsar]

I vote for both. WotC's ability to recognize what stuff actually works (and how it works) is somewhere between laughable and depressing.

[Bigode]

Martial Power is the epitome of this: if you want to be an awesome PHB-only fighter, be a fucking dwarf.

Doesn't seem to make sense: racial favoritism ... Martial Power ... best PHB-only fighter's dwarf? WTF?

If you want all races to be equally capable, what does it mean to be a Dwarf (or a Dragonborn or an Elf or whatever) other than fluff that has no impact on anything?

Equally capable in different ways?

The problem is that unless they are mechanically identical, Dwarves will get bonuses that make playing a Fighter (for instance) very appealing.

I fully support this.

All races should be balanced overall, but feeling that it'd be better to do an Elven Ranger than a Dragonborn Ranger is not necessarily a sign that elves are overpowered or Dragonborn underpowered.

It does mean that Elven Rangers are overpowered WRT any other ranger.

Doesn't "very appealing" mean "better than the other races"?

Being "better than standard" is not a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when the elven ranger is the ranger which things assume is the ranger the PCs have, so anyone not an elf is too weak.

If one's obviously better, everyone should have that one. Period.

[Elennsar]

Bigode: I'm all for equally capable in different ways. Some of those ways are going to be "better at Y class instead of X".

As for "everyone should have that one"...sure, if the goal is to play the most powerful characters.

And last I checked, the goal of a roleplaying game was not simply playing the most powerful characters you can create in the system.

Now, if a nonElven ranger is unable to take on the encounters for a character of his level, he's underpowered, and that's a problem, but playing a dwarf because some dwarves do become rangers (despite it not playing to their strengths as much as it does for elves) is a perfectly reasonable option.

[PhoneLobster]

Didn't we cover this already recently in the big race wars thread?

Frank's solution is that no race package should give you anything that ever has synergy with any class package.

Mine was that race/background abilities be selectable so you can just select abilities that do or don't have synergy with your class freely regardless of whether you write Dwarf or Orc at the top of your race/background box.

I of course like my solution. Your personal character traits and background should always be more important than some racial stereotype. Some Orcs should be intelligent runts, some elves should be tough wiry well trained fighters, etc...

[Elennsar]

That basically means that no race ever has talents in anything that would make them want to take a given class or shortcomings in anything that would ever make them want to avoid a given class.

Personally, I don't agree to that being a good idea. At all.

[Manxome]

Elennsar, your position seems to be that people who play unusual characters should be objectively less powerful than people who play archetypical characters. That's...well, on the face of it, stupid.

If you don't want people to play dwarven rangers at all, then don't allow them. That's not hard.

If you want people to play dwarven rangers, and also to have people play elven rangers, then why do you want to kick the dwarven rangers in the nuts? No, balance is not the be-all and end-all of RPG design, but it's generally acknowledged as a good thing, so precisely what good thing are we getting here in exchange for making our game worse through deliberate imbalance?

If you want dwarven rangers and elven rangers to be different, that makes sense. One could imagine some system where elven rangers are faster and dwarven rangers get damage resistance or some such and they're distinct without either being obviously better. One could even imagine a system where elven rangers are better at some "rangery" things, like tracking, while dwarven rangers are equally good overall because they have an advantage in a less thematically-related category, like navigating caves or something.

But if you're genuinely arguing that some valid PC concepts should be intentionally designed to be more powerful than others, this whole "well, I think it's a good idea" line of argumentation you have going is insulting. We should all be in favor of a game trait that fits a well-studied and widely-acknowledged pattern of really bad ideas because of no reason in particular? I'm willing to consider radical positions, but you need to actually present a convincing case, not just whine that you want it that way.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There shouldn't be dwarf-only or elf-only ranger builds either, Manxome.

[Elennsar]

My position is that people who play characters at something their race does poorly should be less powerful than people who play characters their race does well.

Now, there are undoubtedly ways that dwarves are merely different and ways that dwarves are better in some areas and elves are better at others as you said.

No reason that elves can't just be overall more talented at this in particular.

I'm basically for the following.

Each race has some things that come naturally to it. Being a member of a class that focuses on those things more than the normal adventurer proficiency is a good idea.

Each race has some things that it does reasonably well at. This is the point they're all about even.

Each race has some things it does poorly.

Each race has an about equal (to the other races) list of "good classes, average classes, and poor classes". So orcs make terrible wizards, do fine as rogues, and are good barbarians, perhaps.

[PhoneLobster]

So then, well, to reitterate...

your position seems to be that people who play unusual characters should be objectively less powerful than people who play archetypical characters

[baduin]

We already have a mechanic for differentiating more or less poweful characters. It is called "level". If elven rangers are better, elves should have more high-level rangers.

Of course there can be some minor differences in power between characters of equal level (it is impossible to balance things 100% exactly), but they must be much smaller than differences between levels. Ie - each character of level X which can be constructed in the game should be better than all possible characters of level X-1.

The problem in D&D 4ed is caused by their use of attributes as bonuses to attacks and defences.

My solution would be to have attack to-hit bonus, damage bonus, defense bonus and toughness/resistance to damage as 4 basic characteristcs. You could adjust them by increasing to hit and decreasing damage, or the other way round (+-3), or the same with defense/toughness. Strength and size would be minor characteristics, used to determine encumbrance etc. Of course, characters with attacks based on strength would have very high Str and would be able to carry a lot of loot.

Some kinds of attacks could be better or worse against some kinds of defense (+-2 to damage). Eg magical attacks could be weaker against divine defences etc.

[Bigode]

Bigode: I'm all for equally capable in different ways. Some of those ways are going to be "better at Y class instead of X".

No. Characters have to be equally capable in different ways.

As for "everyone should have that one"...sure, if the goal is to play the most powerful characters.

And last I checked, the goal of a roleplaying game was not simply playing the most powerful characters you can create in the system.

The goal of any non-retarded group's to get rid of its suckers.

Now, if a nonElven ranger is unable to take on the encounters for a character of his level, he's underpowered, and that's a problem, but playing a dwarf because some dwarves do become rangers (despite it not playing to their strengths as much as it does for elves) is a perfectly reasonable option.

No, it isn't. It's a loser's game that might well be handable by the players, but wouldn't actually fly in the setting (or with regards to game design goals).

[Roy]

Especially with the way the system is designed, even losing a single +1 cripples you.

[Manxome]

My position is that people who play characters at something their race does poorly should be less powerful than people who play characters their race does well.

Yes, but as many people have already pointed out, that is not balanced, and you have not actually presented any advantages to designing the game that way. We have solid reasons to reject your proposal, and you have presented no substantive reason to endorse it. Barring any further developments, that means you lose the debate.

There shouldn't be dwarf-only or elf-only ranger builds either, Manxome.

Depends what you mean by that.

Most people want all the basic options in the game to be viable, but allow that choosing a strategy totally at random is still going to be worse than an intelligently-constructed strategy, because some combinations of choices are bad. People generally don't consider it a flaw in the game design if a sorcerer can't emulate a fighter's tactics, or if the sorcerer spending all his gold on an awesome sword is a bad idea.

And technically, if race has any mechanical effect at all, then race is part of a build. So actually, every dwarf ranger build is dwarf-only, because if you're not a dwarf, it's a different build.

And I don't think it is necessarily a problem if, say, elves have a racial trait "ignore weather penalties to vision, navigation, and tracking" and dwarves have a racial trait "ignore darkness penalties to vision, navigation, and tracking."

So you may need to clarify that remark.

[PhoneLobster]

And technically, if race has any mechanical effect at all, then race is part of a build.

But technically under both my proposed solution AND Frank's proposed solution it basically doesn't have any mechanical effect at all.

Frank's doesn't mechanically interact with your class aspects of build and mine doesn't restrict your selection of abilities that interact with the class section of your build.

Your weather and darkness tracking examples are far from ideal because I'd pick the more useful darkness one every time and they imply that each race now is a vast package of hopefully equal but different bonuses to EVERY class.

And that's pretty zany.

[Elennsar]

Baduin: Its also called "skill check modifier" "attack roll" "AC" etc, etc.

"Elves get +2 to the following 5 skills: Endurance, Survival, Perception, Search, Knowledge (Nature)" would be perfectly reasonable. You'd want to make sure other races had equivalant bonuses, but elves winding up as superior is not a bad thing unless the resulting character is superior to the rest of the group.

Bigode: And some of those ways will involve that being from a smart race is likely to benefit you when playing a wizard and being from a race that scorns book learning is likely to harm you.

As for getting rid of a non-retarded group: So, if you're not the best you can be, you suck? Are we playing a roleplaying game or a "most powerful characters we can build" game?

As for the setting: Yes, it would. Just because dwarves are less good at being rangers than the race that is particularly talented doesn't mean that they're so bad that they'd be better off not having rangers at all.

Roy: That's called "bad design".

Maxome: How about the fact that it is stupid to make all races equal in all areas because it means that what race you pick means absolutely nothing except fluff that you could reassign to anything?

If you want all characters to be exactly equally good at being anyhting, they need identical stats.

If you want to have the races be different, there will be times that some races excel at some things and suck at others and do the standard (no racial modifier) to still others, because its really not very relevant to "heavily armored warrior with sword and shield" that elves emphasis training with bows and light armor instead. So if you play a "heavily armored warrior with sword and shield", being an elf will not be the optimal choice.

Oh noes.

The only unbalance is that if an elven ranger is a better character than the dwarf in the party, not if elves do rangery stuff but dwarves do samuraiy stuff.

[PhoneLobster]

No one said that you had to have kobolds able to outwrestle humans (let alone kobolds) for them to be playable at all. A kobold just needs kobold scale challenges.

If the kobold's class is "Wrestler" and their character background is "Grew up in the kobold mud wrestling pits" then they damn well better out wrestle a human who's character background is "son of merchant" and who's character class is "Guy who reads magic books".

And every bit where the word Kobold makes them less good at that and the word Human makes their opponent more likely to thwart their entire schtick is despicable.

But worse still you suggest the kobold wrestler should be allowed to exist as something so strictly inferior it faces a lesser class of challenges outright, a SUB HUMAN class of challenges.

That kind of racist game can work with real race segregation where everyone has to be a kobold or no one gets to be one. But in a mixed party that means the kobold fights at the kiddy table while the grown ups fight things anyone cares about and that is utterly impractical and stupid to suggest.

As for the racial norm: No, I'm suggesting that you're likely to find that a race that is "stronger than" humanity will do well at classes relying on Strength, one that is less good with logic and reason will probably do less well with things requiring Intelligence.

We don't give a damn what a RACE does collectively. You write up a generic NPC sheet and declare the majority of the race uses that.

That however is no justification for EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL ADVENTURING CHARACTER to experience the identical lame ass specialisation. You are effectively taking your generic NPC character sheet and declaring it ALSO has to be used by the player characters and all the important one off named NPCs.

A world with race having no meaningful impact on whether you are smart, frail, good with bows, talented with illusion spells, or any other trait should stick to humanity, where all modifiers are cultural and individual.

How... incredibly unimaginative of you. I agree with the others, you do have a serious "gaming in my imagined and rather uninformed view of reality" problem.

There are human midgets. The overwhelming majority of humans are between 5'-6"-something, however. So "things humans are good at" are based on that, not on the fringe exceptions.

Again, that in no way addresses the INDIVIDUAL. And cool adventurers are individuals. You seem to like making rather assumptive references to source material, how often are the heroes "A group of utterly typical physical and cultural specimens of their respective races on a heroic adventure to be pretty much the same as all their friends and relatives"

A race should have more things that it does at about an average level tha things it is either talented at or poor at, but if the overwhelming majority of elves have good hand eye coordination, they will do things taking advantage of that most of the time when all things are otherwise equal.

Again, who the hell cares? The overwhelming majority of elves in many settings are also poncy gits who never step foot out of their forest glade cocaine and fairy dust snorting parlours. Should we ALSO include a rule applying THAT to all player characters and named NPCs that write "Elf" on their sheet?