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

[Gelare]

As my post count is low, and my optimism and naivete has not yet been dashed against the jagged cliffs of reality by the folks here at the Den, I'm going to try to put the primary arguments into something approximating focus.

Position 1:
This is a role-playing game in a Tolkien-esque fantasy setting. In this general setting, which is common to a significant majority of the campaigns played using this system, it is a core conceit that people of one race - say, elves - are different physically, mentally, and culturally, from people of another race - say dwarves. Since this is a game, these differences can be modeled in game terms. In doing so, a player's choice of race becomes important to the game mechanics and the effectiveness of their character, which most players want.

Now, if every race has equivalent game mechanics, every race will be equally good at everything which, while it is a positive thing for game balance, is a negative thing for the role-playing aspect of the game, because it means that people could just as easily play in a setting of all humans. However, people don't play in an all-human setting because they don't want to play in an all-human setting, they want to play in a setting with a diversity of races where saying "I'm an elf," means something significant and something different from "I'm a dwarf."

If races have no game mechanical differences and instead simply have cultural differences you could, again, just be playing in an all-human setting, where the humans with slanty eyes happen to have a more archery-focused culture and the humans with dark skin happen to have a more close combat-oriented culture, but, again, players don't want this. They want races to be intrinsically different in a way that cultures by themselves are not capable of achieving, which probably means something biological like different ability scores or levels of perception.

This does mean that some race/class combinations will tend to be better or worse than others. That is the price we pay for having race mean something in D&D, and it is an acceptable price.


Position 2:
This is a role-playing game, and in this game people want a wide variety of viable character concepts. In particular, some of the most memorable stories are those involving characters playing against type. We want to encourage people to make whatever stories they want to, using whatever characters they would like. So we definitely do not want a bunch of character concepts that are not viable, because they encourage conformity, and they handicap players with creative concepts, and they restrict the kinds of stories that can be told.

This means we want any race/class combination to be viable, such that if I roll a race die and a class die, I'm guaranteed to get something that will be level-appropriate and able to contribute. Furthermore, in making all combinations viable, we open up storytelling space for "blood of the earth" explanations of characters' skills and other similar story-enhancing justifications why the PCs are just so gosh darn special they might as well go out and save the world. This is a good thing, again, because people like being able to tell different kinds of stories without having to fall back on stereotypes all the time.

This does seem like it will make the races somewhat similar to each other, but (and here opinions seem to differ) we can a) mitigate that by giving races access to lateral abilities which do not directly point to one specific class or b) we can acknowledge that this is, after all, a role-playing game, and players can simply roleplay their racial differences to their satisfaction. The racial similarity is the price we pay for increasing storytelling space without causing mechanical grief for the creative people taking advantage of this expanded space, and it's an acceptable price.


Simply by the way, whoever's taken either one of the positions outlined above is, in my opinion, either mistaken or overstating their position.


So, Elennsar, let's take the Player's Handbook by itself. Do you agree that, within that book, any race/class combination should not be tremendously unequal to another? That is, in facing CR-appropriate challenges, should each combination, even and especially those that play against type, fall within the 45%-55% band for success rate? If you do not think so, I would suggest that you're overly restricting the available space people have to tell stories with the system.


Anyone that isn't Elennsar: Exactly how equal do you think the race/class combinations should be? Should those who play against type have more or less or exactly the same level of power as those who play into a stereotype, or do you think there should be some acceptable range of variance where, say, any concept should fall within the 45%-55% band for success rate against CR-appropriate challenges? If you want to get rid of mechanical implications of race entirely, I would suggest that you're losing some of the qualities that draw us to the fantasy world of D&D. There are absolutely other settings one can imagine, even ones that use the same ruleset, where races could have no mechanical implications at all, but I don't think the way that the way most people play D&D, whether it's in the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or in generic Tolkien-esque homebrew, is conducive to such a setting.

(Sigh. There's another half hour of sleep I won't be getting.)

[Username17]

Anyone that isn't Elennsar: Exactly how equal do you think the race/class combinations should be? Should those who play against type have more or less or exactly the same level of power as those who play into a stereotype, or do you think there should be some acceptable range of variance where, say, any concept should fall within the 45%-55% band for success rate against CR-appropriate challenges?

Nothing can keep people from being able to make a shitty character if they insist on playing non-supported types. A character who insists on running around with a chainsaw in a futuristic setting is going to be at a huge disadvantage in combat unless the system makes huge logical contortions to make that viable (see: 40k). A character who refuses to use a gun in a western is likewise at a huge disadvantage. And so on.

But all supported types should have at least one viable build. I don't care overmuch if a Wisp Psion is required by law to take the Telekinesis path because without it they can't interact with physical objects. Heck, I'm OK if no Halfling character is ever going to succeed at the bullrushing combat stances.

But it's not OK if a Wisp Psion or a halfling fighter is always going to suck.

If you allow Halflings to be Fighters, or Taru to Paladins, or Zerg to be Marines, then you're going to have to leave open at least one build in those career paths that are good. Maybe the Halfling is forced to be an archer or lancer, maybe the Zerg is forced to be a a rusher. So long as you don't throw open the gates for career paths that are doomed, you're good.

Anything that is supposed to be in the game should be good enough to play in the game.

-Username17

[Koumei]

That's basically my stance. If you're allowing goblins to be fighters, then there needs to be the "small agile bastard who stabs you in the back while standing in front of you... using disease" fighter option that is more or less as good as the minotaur's "MY NAME IS HUGE" fighter build. Same class, different styles/builds within the class, equally good.

[Draco_Argentum]

But does the game need to support either or both of those in the first place?

No and that has already been stated. Stop deliberately picking on the example and dismissing the point. I'll restate it with generic names just for you.

If you have {classes} and {races} then every combination that you are allowed to play needs to be of equal power. Thats obvious from the definition of a balanced level system, ie a character of level x has power y.

Before you jump in with your claim that situational abilities mess this up, no they don't. A character must have power y. y is measured against the same game challenge. As long as they better some encounters is cancelled by worse in others you have power y.

Note the further constraint of maximum suckage/pwnage. Having an average of y is not enough. If a certain combo always wins half the encounters and always loses the other half its too extreme a swing.

[Gelare]

But all supported types should have at least one viable build. I don't care overmuch if a Wisp Psion is required by law to take the Telekinesis path because without it they can't interact with physical objects. Heck, I'm OK if no Halfling character is ever going to succeed at the bullrushing combat stances.

Actually, I've got a question about this. Does every race have to be supported with every class? Why? Why couldn't you just make sure that each race must have at least one each of {meat shield, skill monkey, heal bitch, and Batman}, or, if you prefer since you don't seem to like the fighter/skill guy separation, {nonmagical dude, heal bitch, and Batman}, or whatever other set of fundamental roles there is? If you have a class where all of its key abilities are based on Strength, of course it's going to suck for Kobolds, but you could just as easily have a different Dex-based class specifically for Kobolds that still allows them to fill that party role.

[Elennsar]

Gelare:

I would say this. All numbers are pulled from my giant invisible hat (which I always do when coming up with numbers in a hurry, but they ought to give the sense of what I think) 80% of the time, with any given race, whether its a racial strength or weakness, you should be able to contribute to the same stuff.

10% of the time, you will regret being a weak race (or have a tougher challenge than you may be prepared to bite off) or find a stronger race to be a very important edge.

10% of the time, it won't matter, because both of you will crush all things before you.

Some races, of course, are unplayable, but all races that do have the "can be taken by a PC" tag can, at least with half the classes (say), contribute average-or-better-than-average. As stated, 6 you do about the same as anyone else (differently, perhaps, but about the same), 2 you do better, 2 you do worse, assuming ten classses.

No and that has already been stated. Stop deliberately picking on the example and dismissing the point. I'll restate it with generic names just for you.

I keep picking on the example because my entire point is speaking as someone who doesn't think they should be supported as PC viable races or that all races should have all possible classes supported. "Elven warlock" might well suck. And this is okay. Because elves don't do that.

If you don't get that I think there ought to be such a limit, you're only getting the less important part of my point.

And situational abilities do mess things up if you are "above average" in 80% of the situations that come up, which is the problem. If "good in situation 1" is equally important to "mediocore in situation 2" and "essentially the same in 3 and 4", then it doesn't, but I doubt anyone runs exactly 1/types of terrain (say, five types of terrain you can do well, okay, or poorly in, so 1/5) campaigns. You probably have a mix, but you're not likely to be that even.



Personally, I vote against having each race having at least one of each of the class options. Ideally, one should not prohibit this, but if halflings suck at one fundemental role (assuming there at least three or four roles), that is not necessarily a bad thing.

But if you do that, you need to be really sure that the "other stuff" allows for more than one type of kobold, because presumably everyone else has more than one possibility.

Still. If you say that "kobolds suck at being fighters", that has to be at least as obvious as "kobolds are awesome ninja".

So, to wrap this up (and go back to Gelare).

Minotaurs can technically take the wizard class, and you can technically put an 18 in Strength as a wizard (of any race) and a 12 in Intelligence.

However, minotaur wizards are not supported, and if you do take a minotaur wizard, you are playing an option marked with the "nonplayable" tag (for being too weak).

However, that lack of a "can't do that" is because nothing prohibits a minotaur of sufficient intelligence from studying wizardry...minotaurs just don't have sufficient intelligence to compete on even close to even terms with elves and humans and gnomes.

In combat, however, a minotaur's "I AM BIG AND STRONG" may be equivalant to (but not identical to...some situations favor one, some another, and who wins between the two extremes is another story) "small and cunning".

Assuming both are made fighting styles that are available to pick (which I do not necessarily support), both should be viable options.

And assuming minotaurs are intended to be playable and balanced (which I do not support) in the first place.

But in general, playing against type should be only a weakness when its a weakness of the type to begin with. Dwarves don't make very good archers in my specific idea for the race, but in standard D&D, they're almost as good (no bonus feat hurts here) as humans and certainly equal to half-elves.

So the fact its "against type" just makes it unusual.

[Judging__Eagle]

But all supported types should have at least one viable build. I don't care overmuch if a Wisp Psion is required by law to take the Telekinesis path because without it they can't interact with physical objects. Heck, I'm OK if no Halfling character is ever going to succeed at the bullrushing combat stances.

Actually, I've got a question about this. Does every race have to be supported with every class? Why? Why couldn't you just make sure that each race must have at least one each of {meat shield, skill monkey, heal bitch, and Batman}, or, if you prefer since you don't seem to like the fighter/skill guy separation, {nonmagical dude, heal bitch, and Batman}, or whatever other set of fundamental roles there is? If you have a class where all of its key abilities are based on Strength, of course it's going to suck for Kobolds, but you could just as easily have a different Dex-based class specifically for Kobolds that still allows them to fill that party role.

"Skill Monkey" is not a role. See PHB Ranger, PHB Wizards, HoH Archivists. They have the abilities or availibly skill points per level in order to perform skill checks that are useful.

Neither is "Heal Bitch", see bards, paladins, rangers, rogues with UMD, wizards that learned a healing spell from a Guardian Naga.

Fighters are as magical as anyone else. They use magic swords, yes? They're using magic, it's just a permanent and not instantly combat-ending magic, but it's still magic.

[Crissa]

Maybe Minotaur wizards aren't an option in your game, but once again, Elennsar, you decided not to answer the question at hand.

So, Elennsar, let's take the Player's Handbook by itself. Do you agree that, within that book, any race/class combination should not be tremendously unequal to another?

-Crissa

[Elennsar]

Once again, you ignored/missed my answer.

I would say this. All numbers are pulled from my giant invisible hat (which I always do when coming up with numbers in a hurry, but they ought to give the sense of what I think) 80% of the time, with any given race, whether its a racial strength or weakness, you should be able to contribute to the same stuff.

10% of the time, you will regret being a weak race (or have a tougher challenge than you may be prepared to bite off) or find a stronger race to be a very important edge.

10% of the time, it won't matter, because both of you will crush all things before you.

Crucial text underlined to ensure the gremlins don't prevent you from reading it.

In other (but meaning the same) words, nothing should be "tremendously unequal" unless you're playing a race with a weakness vs. a race with a strength, and even there it should both should be able to take on the Typical Encounter of Their Level...its just harder for the weak guy. If he's not able to, he's not level X.



And I don't see why Minotaurs have to be made playable for "D&D". I'm not saying "They Must Not be Playable"...just that I don't see any reason to have anything outside the Player's Handbook be a PC-able race.

If anything outside is, it needs to be made balanced with anything else that is, this goes without saying.

The gremlins are being particularly mean spirited to you, because this is the second or third time they've decided to hide what I typed from you.

Looking over the two extreme positions Gelare posted...

I think this is mine.

#1 with the following. Just because minotaurs are bad Wizards, with Wizard meaning an Intelligence based knowledge and learning savvy mage does not necessarily mean that there can't be a "blood of the Earth" thing that does similar stuff...but not the same stuff, or the whole "minotaurs can't become wizards" becomes meaningless.

My basic commentment in regard to modifiers is that I'm more interested in the "Elves make good rangers (i.e, get bonuses that others don't)" races-are-different than the "Minotaurs make bad wizards (get penalties to do wizard things)".

If elves have +2 to a bunch of rangery skills, sure an elf has an advantage, but on a d20, that could easily be compensated for by rolling better. +4 maybe for something they're supposed to (almost) inevitably win at, but a race with that kind of edge is probably not playing at the same ECL (standard ECL being actual level).

[Gelare]

"Skill Monkey" is not a role. See PHB Ranger, PHB Wizards, HoH Archivists. They have the abilities or availibly skill points per level in order to perform skill checks that are useful.

Neither is "Heal Bitch", see bards, paladins, rangers, rogues with UMD, wizards that learned a healing spell from a Guardian Naga.

Fighters are as magical as anyone else. They use magic swords, yes? They're using magic, it's just a permanent and not instantly combat-ending magic, but it's still magic.

That's fine, but doesn't answer my question. I said, "whatever other set of fundamental roles there is". I don't care what you think that set is, it might be the set {adventurer} or it might be the set {striker, leader, controller, and I forget the other one}, I seriously don't care at all, but whatever your favorite set is, why not just make sure that each race has at least one good entry in each of those elements, rather than requiring that every race must function with every class?

[Username17]

Every race should function with every class that is nominally supported by the game. If you have playable wisps and they can't be fighters, or it has playable dwarves that can't use magic, that's fine. But if the dwarves can be played as wizards, then they need to be playable wizards.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

Loser. Er, defender.

Personally, I'd take it a step further. Do we need to ensure every race can fulfill every role so long as they can fulfill one?

Ideally more than one, mind. A race that can only do one thing is going to be too limited.

But if there are three roles, and a race can do one well, one as average, and one poorly, and there are three races (each with a different good/average/bad), that wouldn't be too bad.

So for instance...

Giant: Good fighter, bad thief, average mage.
Human: Average fighter, good thief, bad mage.
Gnome: Bad fighter, average thief, good mage.

Now, I'm not sure what "thief" is as a role. But that could work just fine.

In any case, the fact that we want multiple options does not mean that the race is underpowered because it can only do one if that option is contributing equally to the game.

Regardless of mere balance, however, I'd much prefer any race to have at least two options available...even if that's only "one good", at least two things it can do without being an inferior choice to the baseline.

Its one thing for "most (80%+) dwarves (including most PCs, damnit) to do X". Its another thing if all dwarves do X and there's literally nothing else.

Frank, what do you mean by "can be played as wizards"?

[Username17]

Personally, I'd take it a step further. Do we need to ensure every race can fulfill every role so long as they can fulfill one?

Of course not. We just need every race to be able to fulfill every role that the game claims that they can fulfill. A Tau is supposed to be able to be a good warrior, techie, or diplomat, but no one bats an eye if he can't be a conjurer or battle psyker. But if he actually can't be an effective face because the non-human interaction penalties are so high (or whatever), then that's a serious problem with the game design.

But if there are three roles, and a race can do one well, one as average, and one poorly, and there are three races (each with a different good/average/bad), that wouldn't be too bad.

Yes it would. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Whatever is optimum is standard in any non-random character generation system. In such a model you have three races and only one role that each race does well. And then your game supposedly supports other character types, but none of them perform well. They just perform poorly or very poorly. Fully two thirds of the choices presented as plausible by the game are in fact not doing their jobs well. That's fucked.

In any case, the fact that we want multiple options does not mean that the race is underpowered because it can only do one if that option is contributing equally to the game.

This is true. If you provide a race that is capable of filling in five character rolls, you've added five options to the game. If you add a race that is only capable of filling one roll you've still added one option to the game.

The disconnect here is that you keep insisting that it's OK for a character to be presented as a reasonable option when they don't perform well. And that's just not true. That's cruel to players, and it's cruel to the Game Masters as well.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

It is absurd to insist that you have to have the best possible bonus to not suck, however.

If you need to hit AC 25 to beat CR 7 monsters with attacks resisted by AC and you can hit AC 25 on a 9, then the fact that your orc hating elven ranger buddy can hit AC 25 on a 7 when it comes to things involving his orc hate doesn't mean that both of you can't able to deal with CR 7 monsters.

Now, if you made it so that there were AC 38 things at CR 7, which the ranger can hit on a 20 but you can't hit at all (barring arbitrary things like "all natural 20s are hits"), that would be cruel.

But it is ridiculous that you can't have two people with different modifiers at the same level without one or the other being at the wrong power level.

[IGTN]

If your choice is noticably less than the best possible choice, then it does, in fact, suck.

Going with your race/class example (3 of each, each race good/fair/poor in the three classes)

Elves: Good at Green, average at Blue, bad at Red
Ogres: Good at Red, average at Green, bad at Blue
Sahuagin: Good at Blue, average at Red, bad at Green

Gives an end result of three real options: Green Elves, Red Ogres, and Blue Sahuagin. The average options (Blue Elves, Green Ogres, and Red Sahuagin) do not belong in a party with any of the good options, because they cannot keep up.

If Good indicates a +2 bonus over Average (averaged over everything), then a Blue Elf is ten whole percentage points worse at being Blue than a Blue Sahuagin. In a system where you get a +(level) bonus to your rolls, like D&D3 attacks for fighting classes, a Blue Elf in fact performs two levels lower than a Blue Sahuagin, despite them being nominally the same level. This is bad for the game. If, when you average your results over the entire game, Good comes up with any advantage at all, then it's bad for the game.

Nothing, of course, needs to prevent you from taking on challenges not rated as level-appropriate, but it costs you more. If the party has, for instance, limited healing, then the Blue Elf is costing the party healing just by taking longer to kill the monster than they would if they had picked Sahuagin. Giving any benefit at all to picking a specific combination is, essentially, giving a permanent level bonus to characters in that combination.

Same level = Same effectiveness, averaged over everything. If that statement isn't true, then levels are meaningless. Race can affect where you get your effectiveness (Elf Rangers might have marginally better senses and be stealthier in woods, while Dwarves are stealthier in rocks and deal with traps better, for instance), but it cannot affect your net effectiveness because that makes levels meaningless.

[Elennsar]

If, when you average your results over the entire game, Good comes up with any advantage at all, then it's bad for the game.

Then there is no point whatsoever in ever being an elf because elves are ___ (with ___ anything beneficial), because you wind up with identical modifiers to the ogre.

What's the point of being an elf at all then other than nonmechanical traits?

Cosmetic stuff is not worth saying "I'm an elf", because I could just say "I'm a fair skined human with little body hair and a slim build." and it would literally mean the same thing.

How do you manage to get positive modifiers anywhere if "...(when) Good comes upw ith any advantage at all" it's bad for the game?

Now, if we mean that the green elf should not have a level (or more) advantage on the red sahuagin, but since being able to do red stuff is stuff that guys able do green stuff can't do, I'm not sure how he gets a horrible advantage for having +2 to do green stuff vs. the Sahugain getting +0 for his red stuff.

I'm assuming you need both red stuff guy and green stuff guy in roughly euqal measure. If not, you have a problem whether both are getting a racial +2, a racial -2, or a racial +0.

[IGTN]

Handing out across-the-board bonuses for playing to type is bad for the game. Handing out specific racial-dependent bonuses to everyone that are supposed to average out to even bonuses is not.

What you want would make the game worse by its inclusion. In order to have a working game system, every character of level X must have Y amount of power, however you define power. Here it's the Same Game Test. If playing to type gives you bonuses, then your SGT score is not going to match someone who is breaking the stereotype. Therefore, either one of the options has to go, or the two options need to be re-balanced.

The SGT, though, has, by definition, a variety of encounters (the ideal SGT for a level would include all possible encounters at that level. A practical one has a small representative sample). If an Elven Ranger curb-stomps a Manticore while the Dwarven Ranger has trouble with it, but the Elven Ranger can't easily deal with a hall covered in rune traps that the Dwarven Ranger deals with easily, and the Rune Hall and Manticore are the same level, then the two Rangers are balanced.

If the Elven Ranger curb-stomps a Manticore but the Dwarven Ranger does not, and both rangers have trouble in the rune hall (or the elf does better there, too), then we get elves being better rangers (which you wanted), but we also get unnecessary imbalance; one option is not as good as it needs to be to compete, therefore it sucks. The two are inextricable.

Your idea would make the game objectively worse were it to be implemented.

[name_here]

I think in this context, equivalent means "equally effective, on average, against all level-appropriate challenges." The fact that one character may be more effective against some challenges than others doesn't change the overall balance. True, it's possible for the DM's choice of encounters to affect two characters' balance agaisnt each other over the course of the campaign, but those differences should be slight. And if the DM is going to favor certain kinds of encounters to the point where the difference is significant, he/she should make that clear at character creation.

Here is the solution being advocated by other people, in general:

race 1 is good in forests, average in plains, and bad underground.

race 2 is good in plains, average underground, and bad in forests.

race 3 is good underground, average in forests, and bad on plains.

the game worlds total terrain averages out to 33.33% forest, 33.33% plains, and 33.33% forest. which race is better?

That's not really it, but if you want to see the sort of detailed explanation, i think it's on page four or thereabouts.

[Crissa]

I did notice, that instead of quoting their answer, Elennsar just said they answered and moved on again.

It's kinda a yes or no question. In one post, there's alot of things which might be perceived as yes, then in another post, there's a no - which is contradicted by the next sentence saying that it's perfectly okay to have weak options.

That's not an answer. That's alot of hemming and hawing.

-Crissa

[Gelare]

Let's see if we can get somewhere with this.

Every race should function with every class that is nominally supported by the game.

We have (at least) two options from this:

1) Make every race function with every class. This is difficult, and reduces the ability of players to differentiate their characters by choice of race, which is bad because people do want to do this. However, it also allows for a wider variety of viable character concepts, which is good.

2) Make every race function with at least one class and do not make the rest of the classes "nominally supported by the game". In practice this should take the form of a warning label that says "This race is suboptimal in conjunction with the following classes, and probably should not be played with them: X, Y, Z." This should not take the form of "This race may not play the following class under any circumstances," because this reduces variety which is objectively bad. (To anyone who disagrees with this, I direct you to any introductory economics textbook, which will explain that having more choices while not altering or removing the choices there previously is at worst a neutral thing, and often a good thing.)

Furthermore, stuff like this:

If, when you average your results over the entire game, Good comes up with any advantage at all, then it's bad for the game.

Is, in a word, incorrect. You simply can't take a game as complex as D&D and make every possible choice exactly equivalent. It's seriously not possible. Everyone really has to accept that there will be some variance in power level between the different race/class combinations, and from that point it's an empirical question how much people are willing to accept. I proposed the 45%-55% band earlier, which I think should be acceptable to most people but, again, since it's really just a question of all your preferences, maybe not. Maybe you want 49%-51% (IGTN, perhaps?), or 40%-60% (Elennsar, maybe?). But that's basically just a matter of preference, and not particularly up for debate.

Even if everyone does agree on this band (consensus being a very rare thing here at the Den), it's another different empirical question which mechanics will actually keep people in that range. Will a skill bonus? Will darkvision? Will +2 or -2 to a stat? I don't know, and I'm not going to bother to figure it out. But from that point on it's a debate (with actual numbers and probably actually doing the Same Game Test) about how much or little to translate racial difference into game mechanics while still keeping the flavor text relevant.

[Talisman]

Note: I have skimmed the above page, so forgive me if I address something that has already been dealt with.

If your choice is noticably less than the best possible choice, then it does, in fact, suck.

...

Giving any benefit at all to picking a specific combination is, essentially, giving a permanent level bonus to characters in that combination.

I think this is an oversimplification and not entirely fair. Consider a hypothetical game in which attacks and defenses are equally balanced.

Race A gets +1 to attacks
Race B gets +1 to damage
Race C gets +1 to defenses
Race D gets +1 to toughness
Who is the best?

It's entirely permissible for one race/class/whatever to have slight deficiency in one area, so long as it's balanced by an equally-strong advantage in an equally-important area. If Dex and Str are of equal value, than a +2 Str/-2 Dex race is balanced with a +2 Dex/-2 Str race.

The problem is that I haven't seen a system yet where the various aspects of the game are so perfectly balanced. Any racial modifier requires a heck of a lot of calculation and consideration, especially in D&D. Otherwise, a +2 to Spot would be equal in value to a +2 to Use Rope.

---

I would like to propose that a lot of the problem here is due to players playing in the GM's toy box. Kobolds and minotaurs have been used as examples a lot, and while I understand that they are just that - examples - they represent a problem with D&D specifically, and fantasy RPGs in general.

Monsters aren't supposed to be PCs.

Most fantasy books/movies/plays/fever dreams involve a bare handful of "PC" races and great hordes of monsters. If you were a PC in Middle-Earth, you got yo pick from four: humans, elves, dwarves and hobbits. Orcs were the bad guys. Ents and Eagles were cool NPC allies. As such, the GM didn't have to worry about the powers of a thirty-foot Ent PC, or the social ramifications of an Orc's -10 Charisma penalty.

2e gave us the Complete Book of Humanoids, and 3.x teased us with the idea of "level adjustments" that would make nearly anything playable. The fact is, monsters are part of the GM's toolkit and that's where they belong - a fire giant adventuring with elves and humans is a one-in-a-million sport, and unique rules can be made up to fit him.

Humans, Elves, Dwarves and one other are the standard fantasy quartet, and they work just fine - four races can be balanced against each other fairly easily, assuming a functional base system. Opening the floodgates to hundreds of exotic races, just so that one guy gets to play a half-dragon centaur with a ukulele, was a terrible idea. The concept that his unique half-dragon centaur Tiny Tim impersonator had to be mechanically identical to every other half-dragon centaur bard out there (all one of them) was even worse.

Races are races. Monsters are monsters. If you want a "monster" as a race, it needs to be statted out and balanced as a race, not have some crappy patch stuck on it. Minotaur PCs are a fine idea, but the minotaur race has profoundly different requirements from the minotaur monster.

[Elennsar]

The SGT, though, has, by definition, a variety of encounters (the ideal SGT for a level would include all possible encounters at that level. A practical one has a small representative sample). If an Elven Ranger curb-stomps a Manticore while the Dwarven Ranger has trouble with it, but the Elven Ranger can't easily deal with a hall covered in rune traps that the Dwarven Ranger deals with easily, and the Rune Hall and Manticore are the same level, then the two Rangers are balanced.

If the Elven Ranger curb-stomps a Manticore but the Dwarven Ranger does not, and both rangers have trouble in the rune hall (or the elf does better there, too), then we get elves being better rangers (which you wanted), but we also get unnecessary imbalance; one option is not as good as it needs to be to compete, therefore it sucks. The two are inextricable.

St. Thor's bones, I hate being unclear. "Better ranger" would involve the and "track a guy who past by last week", but "rune hall" would not. "Curb stomp a Manticore", assuming both have the right tools (no fair comparing an elf who hunts manticores to a dwarf who doesn't, that's seperate) would be 50-50, 45-55 (given the d20) at most, and who knows which one would have it.

"Better at every roll made because you took the ranger class" would be terrible beyond terrible. But "better at the stuff about being woodsmen", such as Survival and Perception, those would be "Elves are better rangers".

Mea culpa. Thank you for calling out exactly what it was coming off as, because that was directly not what I meant by "better at ____".

I did notice, that instead of quoting their answer, Elennsar just said they answered and moved on again.

It's kinda a yes or no question. In one post, there's alot of things which might be perceived as yes, then in another post, there's a no - which is contradicted by the next sentence saying that it's perfectly okay to have weak options.

That's not an answer. That's alot of hemming and hawing.

-Crissa

I'd really appreciate if you'd show me what you're refering to and why it appears that what.

I'm not always clear in what I say to other people. But for Terra's sake, if I appear to be saying something in contradiction, point it out to me so I can clear it up, rather than making a reference to it that I'm unclear on that I can't do anything about.

Bad for you (since you presumably care what I said enough to read the post), bad for me (since my meaning is mangled by my wording), and good for the gremlins (Who get a good laugh at both our expenses)

Gelare: Everyone really has to accept that there will be some variance in power level between the different race/class combinations, and from that point it's an empirical question how much people are willing to accept. I proposed the 45%-55% band earlier, which I think should be acceptable to most people but, again, since it's really just a question of all your preferences, maybe not. Maybe you want 49%-51% (IGTN, perhaps?), or 40%-60% (Elennsar, maybe?). But that's basically just a matter of preference, and not particularly up for debate.

40% as the worst, 60 the best, and the normal range that will come up being about 45-55, if it matters.

Talisman: Races are races. Monsters are monsters. If you want a "monster" as a race, it needs to be statted out and balanced as a race, not have some crappy patch stuck on it. Minotaur PCs are a fine idea, but the minotaur race has profoundly different requirements from the minotaur monster.

Just want to note this and applaud. If minotaur PCs are an option, we need a minotaur that works for that, and the kind of minotaur that does fun as a Big Nasty Scary Monster isn't quite the same thing.


Now the question is. Does something like a Minotaur (picked because it has much bigger bonuses and penalties than the standard PC races) balance out well with the guys with smaller adjustments?

It seems too extreme...too likely to win with its strengths and too vulnerable in its weaknesses.

[name_here]

um, we do get that you mean being better at rangery stuff. the problem is that we don't like elves being superior rangers. we want elven rangers to play differently than dwarven rangers but come up the same on average for the entire domain of rangery stuff.

[Crissa]

It's impossible to point out the ephemeral, Elennsar. You spend too many words over too many lines saying too little for me to quote what you didn't say.

-Crissa

PS, the bug with the page is just that the link is being printed incorrectly, losing the thread info that should be in it. Just don't click on things pointing at the last page, because the posts aren't on it yet.

PPS, I hate people talking about percentages in effectiveness. First off, they're misleading, as they've ben hard to quantify. Secondly, those of us who are on the balance side of the argument want equatable. If you're able to quantify it, and it's not within a percent, it's not balanced.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that there are plenty of things rangers do (and PCs do) that aren't what I meant by 'better at rangery stuff".

+2 to Perception (Spot+Listen) and Survival is a nice edge.

+2 to Endurance and +2 (+3?) to Search and Disable Device involving Runes is a nice edge, but not "I am an expert at mastering the wilds. I have literally forgotten more about this forest than you will ever comprehend...and elves never forget."

Crissa: If its possible to note it to complain about it, its possible to note it to refer to it.

I can't correct a problem without knowing what the feth you expect me to correct, and "Everything" is slightly less than useful.

I am okay with some options being poor ones. I am not in favor of making things so that there's "good" and "unplayable".

No racial modifier ought to be so significant that it is (undesirably) more important to be or not be that race than to be the class to which it is linked to.

Elves "make better rangers (when both are rangers)" is one thing. "Elves are able to do rangery things better than dwarven rangers (who hypothetically would be bad rangers) while having levels in 'urban street thief" would be a failure.