Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:15 am

Well, racial powers that get obsolete over time but are replaced by newer, more level appropriate racial powers don't really affect a high-level character's race choice decisions any more strongly than ability score adjustments that push them around on the RNG the same amount relative to the opposition at every level do.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:21 am

Foxwarrior wrote:Well, racial powers that get obsolete over time but are replaced by newer, more level appropriate racial powers don't really affect a high-level character's race choice decisions any more strongly than ability score adjustments that push them around on the RNG the same amount relative to the opposition at every level do.

So, you see people complaining that the race with the matching attribute bonus to your class is a "must have" combination...

...and your response is "but what if there was that, AND the races did more things just like that!?".

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 10:45 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Your methodology leads to really shitty characters where "Trickster Fairy" IS the only viable fairy option because all your late level preselected options are "Fuck you, trickster archetypes/builds or GTFO".

Personally, I like the idea that while an ogre berserker and fairy berserker should - at higher levels - be able to fulfill the same role, there should be some kind of differentiation there: the fact that one is an ogre and one is a fairy should have some kind of impact, not on effectiveness, but perhaps on approach.

Ignoring the specific implementations in d20, is the notion of racial substitution levels acceptable to get that idea across? Like say that every four levels or whatever, your class gives you an ability relevant to your race/class combination.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 10:53 am

Giving out racial stuff per level automatically leads to right and wrong choices regarding race. If you want that, ok, but mostly it's just bad design if you punish players for not playing a dwarven cleric. If you do that you could just simply be honest about it, tone down the complexity and restrict certain classes to certain races old school style.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:04 am

Okay, I'm just going to chime in and say that generally speaking when you're designing a game you want your design philosophy to be rewarding rather than punitive. You want to reward good play rather than punish bad play, and give your players choices between different, good, options rather than forcing them to choose the lesser of two evil or making one option obviously better than another.

I'm not going to weigh in on whether or not having racial perks as you level automatically makes certain choices better or worse because I don't feel like thinking too deeply into the matter. But if it does that path is certainly suboptimal design, and while I understand that it's impossible to make every option equally good for all cases as a designer it is desirable to minimize the cases where the player is punished, no matter how subtly, for the choices they've made in their play.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:07 am

Guy over on GiTP forums is saying he has a full 5E PHB, the thread is delicious.

I have not seen such rage, trolling and fanboisim in quite awhile, and I frequent the Pathfinder boards!

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:17 am

I find myself... skeptical. I don't know it seems kind of fishy is all, so I'll believe it when I have the product in my hand, or, more likely, when someone around here gets really drunk and reviews the thing.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:19 am

darkmaster wrote:I find myself... skeptical. I don't know it seems kind of fishy is all, so I'll believe it when I have the product in my hand, or, more likely, when someone around here gets really drunk and reviews the thing.

Honestly I expect it is a leaked piece of documentation for an earlier closed playtest, but the thread is wonderful.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:21 am

Covent wrote:Honestly I expect it is a leaked piece of documentation for an earlier closed playtest, but the thread is wonderful.

Seems to be pretty strong evidence in that thread for this to be the most reasonable take on what's happening over there.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 1:07 pm

Regarding racial abilities, I think the 3.x monk provides an example of why that premise is flawed. Consider the Bonus Feat that a monk receives at 6th level; they are given a choice of either Improved Disarm or Improved Trip.

A Human Monk has three feats (not counting bonus) at 3rd level. They can pick up Combat Expertise (the pre-req for both) along with both of those Feats at third level. There's lot of good reasons to consider picking up those feats. They're obviously thematic enough that someone pre-selected them as 'appropriate options'.

The issue with racial abilities is that if they conform to your theme, you are likely to have picked up those abilities (or similar ones) another way. Essentially, the closer you play to 'type', the more likely your racial abilities are duplicating class abilities.

So, for example, if your racial abilities are 'trickster fairy' powers, rogues, wizards, and illusionists likely have powers that make them good tricksters WITHOUT additional racial abilities. Fighters, Berserkers and Paladins are the least likely to have such abilities already - so essentially, by giving an ability that makes all fairies 'tricksters', you're actually encouraging that race to play classes that don't support perceived culture.

On the other hand, if you're giving abilities that aren't themed around common perceptions of the race, what's the point?

Choosing fixed abilities from a list isn't going to work. Giving some feats (or similar mechanic) that a player chooses, and giving some a 'racial tag' could certainly work. If 'invisibility' is a feat that fairies can take by virtue of being fairies, players that have the ability by other means won't waste their time taking it again. Having a 'retraining' option would also be important... If you can get fairy racial invisibility at 6th level, but then find a ring of Improved Invisibility, you need to get that invested resource back...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:13 pm

The fairy and the hill giant berserker is a slightly hyperbolic example. Being a hill giant at all sets your level to 7 or 8 in most editions, so the hill giant berserker has only had 2 or 3 levels to expand from being a starting giant hero. It would not be unreasonable for for a 10th level hill giant berserker to be bringing a fair chunk of his personal specialness from the fact that they are a true giant. I would expect this character to be relying on 'rock throw' a lot. Both because it is super effective against flying type and because the existence of jotun and syrtyr proves that it's still level appropriate.

A better example would be like a fairy and an ogre. By 10th level, both of them have made more than half a dozen level up decisions since their race got declared. So you'd think both characters would have converged by now.

-Username17

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:15 pm

GnomeWorks wrote:Ignoring the specific implementations in d20, is the notion of racial substitution levels acceptable to get that idea across?

Probably not.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:51 pm

Emerald wrote:"Trickster fairy" and "massive giant" are concepts that would seem to be able to scale well to high levels and mesh well with multiple classes, and giving high-level abilities to elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. shouldn't be any harder than giving them to rangers, fighters, rogues, etc. (which is to say, not very, once you get past the initial Noncasters Don't Get Nice Things hurdle).

The point is that you shouldn't do that. Massive giant is a concept that scales well, but depending on the race it doesn't scale all of the way. Godzilla can squish a hill giant or even a fire giant with only slightly more effort than it takes to squish an ogre.

Unless a race is specifically designed from the ground up to be able to scale all the way up to the imagined end of play using nothing but its inborn racial powers -- for example, a demon or a dragon -- without exception people have had to use Captain Hobo powers to keep them going. Either that or you have to intentionally depreciate the class system so that the fact that someone is a wizard means less over time than the fact that they're an orc or a hobgoblin.

GnomeWorks wrote:Personally, I like the idea that while an ogre berserker and fairy berserker should - at higher levels - be able to fulfill the same role, there should be some kind of differentiation there: the fact that one is an ogre and one is a fairy should have some kind of impact, not on effectiveness, but perhaps on approach.

Terrible idea. You're increasing the combinatorial complexity of the game for little gain. Having a Mounted Paladin class that works equally well for ogres and orcs and goblins via differentiation means more writing and playtesting.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:43 pm

So Lago if I understand you correctly you want either:
A) everything consists of classes (any race like hill giant is just for roleplaying)
B) you have creatures in the MM, but as soon as anything has a class level anything race related is dropped (the race of a classed creature like hill giant is just for roleplay)
C) exactly like B, only it takes X amount of levels before you drop everything that is 'race' related

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 3:57 pm

'Drop' is a misleading word. Imagine it more like the 3E D&D's gnome racial power on a spellcaster.

It never goes away but it matters less and less as time goes on. Sometimes a player will surprise you and come up with a plan such that speaking with burrowing animals is a key component of completing the quest of 'stop and cure the zombie apocalypse', but for the most part their racial powers are obsoleted over time thanks to exponential power growth.

Abilities like 4E D&D's Elven Accuracy or the halfling's bonus to thrown objects are bad for the flavor of an exponentially scaling class and level system. Abilities like the Eladrin's dumbass fixed teleport or the gnome's speak with burrowing animals are nowhere near as problematic.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:19 pm

Racial class substitution levels can't work. K and I made noises about doing it in Races of War, but had to abandon the idea. There are too many races and too many classes, and any rule that kicks in for just an intersection must be repeated a number of times equal to the former times the latter.

Imagine that you start with just the 3e phb's races and classes. That's 66 race/class combinations to concern yourself with. It would be 77, but the half-elf has the special rule that it can use the human or elf option, so at least there you are spared having to write more content (not that historically wotc has been able to restraint itself from writing half-elf options, but you could). Now add all the bonus basic races from core: tiefling, hobgoblin, kobold, etc. You need eleven more such write-ups per race. And it gets worse! Now add some expansion classes, or rules for powerful races, or simply expansion material. By the time you get to the book about the blue continent, you're going to need dozens of racial possibilities for the new wilder and totemist, and dozens of class options for the new Blues, Thri-kreen, and Azurin.

Every new book will have to include hundreds of race/class combination information, and almost all of it will be completely fucking useless. There might never be a player who makes a Vril Samurai or a Bullywug Marshal or a Giff Warlock, but you'll have to include rules for those things anyway if you try to go that route. And not to put too fine a point on it, but there is no fucking way you can possibly balance all these things. What is actually going to happen is that the internet is going to spend far more time thinking about this shit than you ever could, and they are going to make class guides that helpfully inform you that Rangers should be Gnolls while Scouts should be Yuan-ti. And all Assassins played in games over 8th level should be Lamias, because obviously, have you seen their 'poison self' ability? It's madness.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:28 pm

It's the Geist problem of adding more keys. You could, of course, argue that "Oh, but why does every race have to have race substitution levels for each class?"

...well, why not? I mean, why half-ass it? I mean you could just say "Oh yes, every race has only one preferred class with racial substitution levels, job well done." but when has anyone ever done that in any edition of D&D ever since "Elf" stopped being a class option? You can see in Magic of Incarnum for example, they included core race examples because they wanted to encourage PCs to use the damn book. They're not sticking with the crap PC races in MoI itself, no one would play them.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 5:54 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Racial class substitution levels can't work. K and I made noises about doing it in Races of War, but had to abandon the idea. There are too many races and too many classes, and any rule that kicks in for just an intersection must be repeated a number of times equal to the former times the latter.

Can you drop it back to archetypes?
So (caricature), each race is either small, large, smart, or athletic, and each class is skilled, combatant, or broken. Then you only have to write 12 substitution paths.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:09 pm

fectin wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Racial class substitution levels can't work. K and I made noises about doing it in Races of War, but had to abandon the idea. There are too many races and too many classes, and any rule that kicks in for just an intersection must be repeated a number of times equal to the former times the latter.
Can you drop it back to archetypes?
So (caricature), each race is either small, large, smart, or athletic, and each class is skilled, combatant, or broken. Then you only have to write 12 substitution paths.

Once, long ago, I set out to make prestige classes that would allow different races to be played in different directions. It did not work. It's still just too much material.

The only plausible system is to have each playable race insert itself into normal advancement progressions and have their racial powers rapidly shuffle off to obsolescence.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:16 pm

Well, that or you have a massive build-your-own-class system with certain racial bonuses tied in. So whatever class you have, when you're a Drow and hit Level 5 you can substitute in one of your Racial Power Upgrades for an equivalent class feature. Not quite the same beast, though.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:20 pm

Well, it looks like you tried a bit too hard, Frank.

If the core mechanical contribution of a race to the character's function is a bonus to an ability score or an SLA granted every three or four levels, you could make every race useful for three archetypes (by presenting three alternate bonus options) in only like 80 words per race.

But fectin was suggesting bringing it down to 12 combinations total, not 3 per race. Not convinced that's interesting though.

Edit: Ancient History: The laziest implementation I can think of for that is called "Racial Feats".

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:37 pm

Foxwarrior wrote:If the core mechanical contribution of a race to the character's function is a bonus to an ability score or an SLA granted every three or four levels, you could make every race useful for three archetypes (by presenting three alternate bonus options) in only like 80 words per race.

I think the downside there is that it would be very difficult to make three flavorfully and mechanically distinct options at 3-5 different level points for every race. You'd end up with a lot of repetition and/or useless options.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:42 pm

Foxwarrior wrote:Well, it looks like you tried a bit too hard, Frank.

If the core mechanical contribution of a race to the character's function is a bonus to an ability score or an SLA granted every three or four levels, you could make every race useful for three archetypes (by presenting three alternate bonus options) in only like 80 words per race.

But fectin was suggesting bringing it down to 12 combinations total, not 3 per race. Not convinced that's interesting though.

You can't do 12 combinations. Either your races are playable out of the box or they aren't. If they aren't, the minotaur and the frost giant aren't going to be able to use the same hack to be an arcane spellcaster.

If the Ogre needs a hack before it can be played as a rogue, assassin, or scout, there is absolutely no reason to believe that a Loxo could effectively use the identically worded hack to be a ninja or that a troll could employ this hack to play a bard.

-Username17

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:45 pm

Hmm. Okay, so racial substitution levels get mathematically out of hand pretty quick.

What if, instead, your standard class progression had gaps in it. So like every four levels or so, instead of progressing in class, you progressed in race. Keep the BAB and such of the "parent" class, but fill in class features from the race instead of from the class proper.

Sort of like the racial paragon classes, but being spread across character level.

This solves the fairy vs. ogre problem (if each is a 12th-level character, they both have 9 levels of berserker features), while still giving them the "feel" of their race (each would have 3 levels' worth of racial features).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:53 pm

Rearrangements to the advancement schedule is not going to work. This is a structural problem, not an interface problem.

To wit: if the growth of the racial and class abilities are about equal, you've recreated the original problem. That is, you either have a combinatorial explosion of possibilities for little gameplay gain or you're forced to Captain Hobo it.

If the growth of racial abilities are overwhelmed at the rate of class abilities, you instead have empty levels and/or meaningless page-filler advancement.