Elennsar wrote:If you're playing a race that is weaker than humanity on average, then even an exceptional kobold is going to generally be ogre chow because kobolds do suck.
No, bad Elennsar, stop being an unimaginative dullard. A Kobold can easily use it's dexterity to grapple in such a way that it is attached to Ogre where the Ogre can't reach it, and it moves around dodging the Ogre, all the while it bites and claws the Ogre.
Bam, Kobold Wrestler who is not worse then a Human Wrestler.
If a Kobold Wrestler exists as a class, then he must be as good as any other character, or as close as we can get. Punishing people for playing a specific class/race combo is retarded.
Elennsar wrote:As for protagonists and fated people and PCs: Nothing requires you to be Aragorn to be capable of doing cool things as a cool individual in The Two Towers. Yes, the story focuses on Aragorn, but that doesn't mean you couldn't tell a story about what Gamling was up to and he'd be cool and interesting even if Aragorn has a sword that does +1d6 fire damage on crits (or however you want to explain it).
Basically, I'm in favor of PCs being among the special people, but having them usually in the circles of the special people, and not necessarily the best among them at any point.
Still not paying attention, and still living in Elennsar land, where people suck.
This is D&D. Aragon isn't capable of doing cool things. He's a level 3 character with a plot background.
People play D&D to be cool people. To be badasses. Therefore, the PCs that are followed are badasses.
I understand that you personally want your players at the end of the campaign to feel like they weren't important at all, and could have been replaced by any level fucking 3 Warrior and it would have turned out the same because your NPCs do the cool things. That has nothing to do with what's at hand.
People who aren't you play D&D to be cool fantasy heroes who can do the following things:
1) Fly at level fucking 5.
2) Fly all day at level 7.
3) Single handedly kill a bandit ambush at level 3.
4) Kill a flying Fire Breathing Lizard as big as a house at level 13.
5) Wrestle a big dumb Ogre into submission at level 3.
6) Most importantly, ect.
People in D&D can and should do these things. Therefore, they should be superhuman at level 3, and get better from there. I know you don't want them to ever be superhuman, but you also don't want to play D&D.
Elennsar wrote:1) Race means something. Some races are good fighters. Some are bad fighters. Some are no better or worse at being fighters as a result of their racial attributes.
Only if you are an unimaginative dullard who can't think of a fighter doing anything more then one thing.
Elennsar wrote:3) PCs are special, but not necessarily freakishly atypical.
4) There are other special people out there. You will run into them.
Nobody has claimed that there aren't special people out there who aren't PCs. But by definition PCs are "special" in the D&D world. And special means like
seven times better then any human being could ever be at level 5
I know you hate. I know you think special means slightly better then average. But you are wrong. PCs get to fly at level 10, or much lower. PCs get to be invisible all day every day from level 6. PCs get these things, and it doesn't matter how much you really hate D&D and want no one to be able to play it, it's still here.
Elennsar wrote:5) Not all races are human or equal to humanity. You could set up a game like that, or you could set up a game where some races are subhuman. Nothing wrong with either in regards to racism.
1) Subhuman races are called animals, and they aren't playable. But they have probably had various magical adjustments made to some of them such that if a PC wants to play a member of that race they can be a member that is just as badass as every other race.
2) D&D is like that. All races with a +0 LA are definitionally equal to humanity. No seriously. So therefore, there are no races that are inferior.
I know in Elennsar land, you imagine a perfect world where nobody is allowed to take more then 3 levels total, and Kobolds are inferior to humans, along with Half Orcs and Orc, but we don't care. Because we play D&D a game where all characters of a given level are (supposedly) equal in power.