Our Warglblasters Are Different

[John Magnum]

Sometimes it seems like he's trying to write racial features that provide approximately equal bonuses to every class. Sometimes, like with low-light vision, it seems like he's trying to write racial features that provide no bonuses whatosever. Obviously "This race is 14% more snarfoogly than default" isn't going to be strongly synergistic with any class if you decide that the presence or absence of snarfoogliness has absolutely zero game-mechanical ramifications.

[hogarth]

Still, it really doesn't matter. The masses have spoken and they want yet another RPG where people make bad choices at chargen and no one can even pretend that something like a CR system can work.

That's fine. It's certainly easy to write and most people expect that from RPGs, so rewarding system mastery can just be a selling point.

K, we get it. Your answer to any problem is "create a system from scratch where X isn't a problem which is so easy that I could do it on my lunch break except I won't".

Even if that's a true claim, it adds nothing to a discussion.

[Username17]

I am awaiting with bated breath your insane workaround for the Shadowcaster and the Pyromancer, characters who can create or eliminate areas of darkness (respectively). I would think that in almost any conceivable system, that creating darkness would synergize with being able to see in it, while creating light would be counter synergistic with not needing light to see. But you're doing so well in contorting your game proposal to accommodate low light vision without differential class benefit that I can't wait to see how you continue to refuse to concede this point.

A passive saving throw or dispel check can be converted into a attack roll.

Done. Super-easy.

Wait. What the hell does that have to do with anything?

The Shadowcaster makes darkness. I submit to you that this is inherently synergistic with being able to see in the dark. The Pyromancer makes light. I submit to you that this is inherently anti-synergistic with being able to see in the dark.

What the fuck does that have to do with saving throws, dispel checks, or attack rolls? Seeing in the dark is a relative advantage when it is fucking dark. I don't even give a shit what your incredibly moving goalposts currently have that relative advantage being. The Shadowcaster ensures that it is dark more often, thereby getting whatever fucking advantage more often. The Pyromancer ensures that it is dark less often, thereby getting whatever the fucking advantage is less often.

This isn't "super easy", you haven't addressed the question at all.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

I think he's saying that people in an area of Shadowcaster darkness get a saving throw in order to not see darkness. Sort of like a silent image or something. Of course, you're right that this has absolutely no bearing on whether it is synergistic for the Shadowcaster himself to have dark/lowlight-vision.

[Doom]

Of course, one thing missed in all this is a paradigm from 4e that I never much liked: no race has any penalties (except, inexplicably, the halfling, assuming it was never errata'd).

K's inability to understand how any advantage can become a defacto 'only choice' aside, if advantages also come with penalties, it does make the decisionmaking process a bit more challenging.

Seeing in the dark, for example, when combined with a penalty for being in torchlight or better, is no longer obviously the best choice for even a Shadowcaster, since the disadvantage might outweight the advantage given the campaign or scenario.

[Neurosis]

I am awaiting with bated breath your insane workaround for the Shadowcaster and the Pyromancer, characters who can create or eliminate areas of darkness (respectively). I would think that in almost any conceivable system, that creating darkness would synergize with being able to see in it, while creating light would be counter synergistic with not needing light to see. But you're doing so well in contorting your game proposal to accommodate low light vision without differential class benefit that I can't wait to see how you continue to refuse to concede this point.

A passive saving throw or dispel check can be converted into a attack roll.

Done. Super-easy.

Wait. What the hell does that have to do with anything?

The Shadowcaster makes darkness. I submit to you that this is inherently synergistic with being able to see in the dark. The Pyromancer makes light. I submit to you that this is inherently anti-synergistic with being able to see in the dark.

What the fuck does that have to do with saving throws, dispel checks, or attack rolls? Seeing in the dark is a relative advantage when it is fucking dark. I don't even give a shit what your incredibly moving goalposts currently have that relative advantage being. The Shadowcaster ensures that it is dark more often, thereby getting whatever fucking advantage more often. The Pyromancer ensures that it is dark less often, thereby getting whatever the fucking advantage is less often.

This isn't "super easy", you haven't addressed the question at all.

-Username17

FWIW, being able to see in the dark is more synergistic with being able to create darkness than being able to see in the dark is anti-synergistic with being able to create light; characters with night-vision who can create light can still help other characters see.

Edit: This is not actually meant as a counterpoint or anything.

[hogarth]

K's inabilty to understand how any advantage can become a defacto 'only choice' aside[..]

As I noted above, it is not true that any advantage can become a de facto "only choice"; many advantages are too puny to matter. For instance, only an idiot would think that a puny advantage like +1 on certain d20 rolls somehow spells the difference between a successful PC and an unsuccessful PC.

[Stubbazubba]

PL is having delusions of grandeur. Frank has articulated the differences very well; one of the early ideas in this thread was that races simply don't exist as we know them, and everyone is a mongrel breed of some kind, thus you purchase your mechanical and fluff background from a list of everything possible. You don't even write a race for your character. Now, perhaps there are groups of 'purebred' races still remaining, striving to maintain their genetic purity, in which case they would have 'this group of features.'

That's totally viable for a highly cosmopolitan Fantasy Kitchen Sink world, basically Star Wars without electricity. What you look like means absolutely nothing to anyone. For D&D Next, that might be the best way to go, considering they are foolishly trying to be omni-inclusive.

But for a traditional fantasy setting, that's probably too much flexibility; it would strain people's sense of verisimilitude if Middle-earth got upgraded with catgirls and lizardmen and their descendants, the catzards, who then interbred with Elves to create Nolcatzards, which humans love to nail, creating a mongrel race with scales, fur, immortality, and a beard.

One option for coping with this is to ask each of the players to design their race, and then design their race's culture; then use those as the races in your home-brew setting. You could preserve special snowflake characters by designing the race's culture to be significantly different than your character. That would encourage some shared world-building, which might be cool, but also might not be.

On the other hand, having a shorter list of races with really detailed, officially supported cultures but a broad list of backgrounds/bonuses available for each race which covers most roles, a la my proposal earlier, allows you to define a race by what it is particularly good at, as opposed to the traditional more restrictive paradigm where they are defined with a very short list of what they are good at and often another list of what they are actually bad at, with everything else just falling in-between. This is at-least a good compromise between the two; more options while maintaining a strong sense of verisimilitude without home-brewing racial cultures for every campaign.

[Koumei]

Seeing in the dark, for example, when combined with a penalty for being in torchlight or better, is no longer obviously the best choice for even a Shadowcaster, since the disadvantage might outweight the advantage given the campaign or scenario.

No way, you just make darkness whenever you need it. Indeed, it would mean "Playing a surface game and you want to play a (Drow or whatever)? I guess you're going to be a Shadowcaster then, aren't you?"

Likewise, if we even go with the old ability score penalties, if you have +2 Int, -2 Str for your race of "Genius Elf", then you're going full speed ahead into Wizardland and not giving a shit. If it's +2 Int, -2 Dex, it might give some pause at least (albeit not very much).

[Doom]

And if everyone on the planet can make light whenever you need it, not so good, eh?

[PhoneLobster]

On the other hand, having a shorter list of races with really detailed, officially supported cultures but a broad list of backgrounds/bonuses available for each race

You just described fucking Pathfinder. Yeah that's right, path finder has a specific racial short list of selectable background options thing going on.

It doesn't work well like that. In fact it fucking sucks balls.

Number one on the long list of balls it sucks... If you use exclusive racial short lists you STILL get "the best wizard race".

Racial short lists undermine the broad selectable background points mechanic to the point where it no longer provides ANY benefit on the "no best wizard race" front.

It is in fact WORSE than K's solution, as presumably with great difficulty he COULD if he meets his goals on low class synergy actually achieve "no best wizard race". But if you are relying on selectable background options to protect you from class synergy you decide you ARE putting into some class synergistic options and you restrict those options by race short lists... you have a fucking "best wizard race".

Pretty much all the benefits of having a broadly selectable background option mechanic are directly proportional to the broadness of the selectability. The ability to play against stereotypes, the toolkits for DMs that don't like Frank's fucking stupid pet bug race that he insists be one of only 5 available, players who want unique and interesting characters, etc... EVERYTHING benefits from NOT having strict racial short lists and the less you have them the better.

[wotmaniac]

What exactly is wrong with having "the best wizard race"? As long as that same race isn't also "the best fighter race" and "the best sneaky race" , etc., etc., then I don't see any problem. It's not like "Genius Elf" is game-breakingly better at being a wizard than the baseline. Hell, once you get past 1st level, the difference is completely negligible.

Sounds like a bunch of racket over nothing, to me.

[John Magnum]

It's stupid to have really obvious race/class pairups where anything else is basically deliberately taking a hit because you like the flavor of a half-orc wizard or something. It's not that any given race would be "broken", but the entire system is stupid if there's a near-1:1 correspondence between races and classes because there's such strong synergies between races and classes.

[PhoneLobster]

Because it is bad for the players.

Because we really don't give a shit if there is a best wizard race for NPCs. Whatever. That's cool, or not, but really, whatever.

But when there is a hard mechanical "best wizard" race it means EVERY player who takes a wizard PC MUST pick that race or play a mechanically inferior sub optimal character. It is dictating a player character's flavor based on the players desire not to end up with an underpowered gimp who drags his party down.

Not to mention all the bullshit balance issues that then leaves us with as well since the moment there is a best wizard race and we assume the goal is that players frequently pick what they want instead you are aiming at a suboptimal balance point, and did you just miss the thread about that stupid idea lately?

The "best wizard race" issue is arguably the biggest and most destructive issue of traditional D&D Race rules and there is no reason to tolerate it. And THAT'S why EVERYONE on this thread is talking about solutions (or imagined solutions) to the problem.

[Mask_De_H]

What exactly is wrong with having "the best wizard race"? As long as that same race isn't also "the best fighter race" and "the best sneaky race" , etc., etc., then I don't see any problem. It's not like "Genius Elf" is game-breakingly better at being a wizard than the baseline. Hell, once you get past 1st level, the difference is completely negligible.

Sounds like a bunch of racket over nothing, to me.

It sounds like a bunch of nothing because there's nothing between your ears.

You don't want to force players to be a specific race to be a specific class, just like you wouldn't want a player to have to gimp themselves for flavor reasons (like if you had an Orc which was the inverse of the Genius Elf). PL might be overselling it (depending on the bump level), but for balance's sake you don't want that kind of straight numerical stratification. Moreover, you don't ever want to have to tell John Q Fuckface that his character idea is mechanically unfeasible, unless it's something like trying to play a spaceman in a fantasy heartbreaker.

And a +2 to your caster stat is not negligible; it's an extra +1 to DCs, an extra spell at first and most importantly, will always make you numerically superior to someone who had a zero or negative value to the caster stat. No matter what another caster does, they will always be just that much worse than a Genius Elf that does the exact same things they do. That's bullshit, even if the stat bump seems small. It's even worse if the caster stat also affects your defenses, like Wisdom. The only time racial stat mods are good idea is if there's no class system, then your stats become your "class" and dictate your abilities. Nowhere else.

[K]

I am awaiting with bated breath your insane workaround for the Shadowcaster and the Pyromancer, characters who can create or eliminate areas of darkness (respectively). I would think that in almost any conceivable system, that creating darkness would synergize with being able to see in it, while creating light would be counter synergistic with not needing light to see. But you're doing so well in contorting your game proposal to accommodate low light vision without differential class benefit that I can't wait to see how you continue to refuse to concede this point.

A passive saving throw or dispel check can be converted into a attack roll.

Done. Super-easy.

Wait. What the hell does that have to do with anything?

The Shadowcaster makes darkness. I submit to you that this is inherently synergistic with being able to see in the dark. The Pyromancer makes light. I submit to you that this is inherently anti-synergistic with being able to see in the dark.

What the fuck does that have to do with saving throws, dispel checks, or attack rolls? Seeing in the dark is a relative advantage when it is fucking dark. I don't even give a shit what your incredibly moving goalposts currently have that relative advantage being. The Shadowcaster ensures that it is dark more often, thereby getting whatever fucking advantage more often. The Pyromancer ensures that it is dark less often, thereby getting whatever the fucking advantage is less often.

This isn't "super easy", you haven't addressed the question at all.

-Username17

I didn't address your question because just saying "Shadowcaster and Pyromancer" didn't give me enough context to figure out what's in your head. My mind-reading powers have limits.

That being said, the answer to your real question is to make Shadowcaster darkness an illusion that low-light vision doesn't bypass and make Pyromancers unable to create substantial amounts of light because the blasts are not prolonged or don't give off a lot of light (it's magic fire, so it follows any rules we like).

Super-easy.

That may look like moving goalposts to you, but it's actually just basic design decisions. Once choice naturally leads to another choice as the generalities and assumptions lead to specific rules and you lock down what various powers can and cannot do.

That's what following a design goal is. When someone proposes something that violates the assumptions or goals you are working with, you change their proposal or your initial assumption until it fits (or just reject it). As more content and rules are written, more and more gets locked-in and it becomes harder to just fire off examples based on hidden assumptions that no one has agreed to (like your original assumptions that ranged fire had to work like 3.X or SR and that sniping had to involve spotting checks).

For example, your design goal of "allow crazy amounts of variety" leads to your race power lists idea. That idea is actually compatible with my goal of "no one loses at chargen," but it requires you to modify your race proposal so that picking racial abilities actually locks you into a class and locks you out of other racial abilities suited to other classes.

Still, this is not something you have to rage-post about any more since people have rejected the design goal of "no one loses at chargen." The matter is settled in my mind.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Of course, one thing missed in all this is a paradigm from 4e that I never much liked: no race has any penalties (except, inexplicably, the halfling, assuming it was never errata'd).

Dude, what the fuck? The way the bonuses are structured, lack of a bonus IS the penalty, especially considering you don't hit in 4e and characters WITH the racial bonus need a feat tax to hit.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Any design decision which involves removing the ability of a fire mage to set something on fire for light is a bad decision.

You are seriously taking the game into 4e levels of non-interactivity with the environment so that low-light vision doesn't violate your precepts of balance. I shudder to think what any ability anyone might get excited about would require you to do.

[Doom]

Yes, of course, an ability given to one race is a kind of penalty given to all other races.

Next up, a discussion of why water is wet....

[Dean]

On the other hand, having a shorter list of races with really detailed, officially supported cultures but a broad list of backgrounds/bonuses available for each race

You just described fucking Pathfinder. Yeah that's right, path finder has a specific racial short list of selectable background options thing going on.

It doesn't work well like that. In fact it fucking sucks balls.

Number one on the long list of balls it sucks... If you use exclusive racial short lists you STILL get "the best wizard race".

I think this is disingenuous. In the Pathfinder Advanced Player guide there is something similar to what's being discussed yes but the important thing is it doesn't -replace- actual racial benefits. Elves are still the best wizards and Orcs the best Barbarians but that's because the + and - 2's are still there. You have minor modification you can do ON TOP OF that with Pathfinder but it's still there.

[K]

Any design decision which involves removing the ability of a fire mage to set something on fire for light is a bad decision.

You are seriously taking the game into 4e levels of non-interactivity with the environment so that low-light vision doesn't violate your precepts of balance. I shudder to think what any ability anyone might get excited about would require you to do.

I said "meaningful amounts of light." You can easily set up the rules where Pyromancers can at best make small amounts of light like torchlight that casts bad light at 20 feet, but being able to see ambushers 100 feet away or more with our version of low-light vision is a big deal (and useful to any class).

I mean, if your assumption is that Pyromancers can create light as bright as daylight in hundreds of feet radius and can sustain that without using up actions AND not do it by setting all of those thousands of square feet on fire WITHOUT everything happening to be be easily flammable OR making crazy amounts of smoke... well, you are clearly working on a different set of assumptions from me where Pyromancers would be better called Lightbringers Who Happen To Use Fire.

I mean, interactivity has to make sense. I have no problems with Pyromancers creating small amounts of light by setting things on fire, but deciding in the rules what that actually means in relation to other rules is a different issue.

[Neurosis]

But when there is a hard mechanical "best wizard" race it means EVERY player who takes a wizard PC MUST pick that race or play a mechanically inferior sub optimal character. It is dictating a player character's flavor based on the players desire not to end up with an underpowered gimp who drags his party down.

You do know that for many many players...at least half, as far as I've observed...playing a mechanically sub-optimal character is an acceptable tradeoff for being different/playing the specific flavor they want.

Of course, there is an important distinction in my view between "suboptimal" and "completely shitty", therefore there is an important distinction between "suboptimal" and "an underpowered gimp who drags his party down". Like seriously, a +2 to Int or whatever is not that fucking important for a Wizard that it's the end of the god damn world if I make my Wizard a human and take a bonus feat or a Dwarf and take some more Con instead of being an "optimal" Gray Elf (or whatever).

Just saying.

In my experience even when there were "best" races for certain classes, those classes weren't those races all that more often than they were any other races. Sometimes I feel like optimization just...happens a lot more in the conceptual space where the Den inhabits than in the actual gaming I've done.

[wotmaniac]

The binary attitude towards the issue is simply myopic. Just because a particular option is a little better in a given instance, doesn't necessarily mean that all other options are non-viable. Seriously, what kind of tunnel-vision bullshit is that?
And no, a single +2 to the casting stat is not a HUGE deal -- it's 1 extra spell/day and a marginally better (to the point of being negligible) save DC -- seriously, the difference between a DC23 and a DC24 is fucking nothing; and if 1 spell per fucking day is gonna make-or-break a character, then something is seriously fucking wrong. These are differences that seriously nobody notices unless they're some sort of OCD mental case -- at which point, that little +2 INT is the very least of their problems.
And there is a huge swath of middle ground between Genius Elf wizard and Retarded Orc wizard -- it's not that fucking binary. Average Human (or whatever) still is an awesome wizard, and has other things (useful, even) to make up for not having that extra +2 INT.

To say that every race/class combo should all be equally awesome is just silly -- it's some vanilla bullshit that puts me to fucking sleep.

[Mask_De_H]

Any design decision which involves removing the ability of a fire mage to set something on fire for light is a bad decision.

You are seriously taking the game into 4e levels of non-interactivity with the environment so that low-light vision doesn't violate your precepts of balance. I shudder to think what any ability anyone might get excited about would require you to do.

I said "meaningful amounts of light." You can easily set up the rules where Pyromancers can at best make small amounts of light like torchlight that casts bad light at 20 feet, but being able to see ambushers 100 feet away or more with our version of low-light vision is a big deal (and useful to any class).

I mean, if your assumption is that Pyromancers can create light as bright as daylight in hundreds of feet radius and can sustain that without using up actions AND not do it by setting all of those thousands of square feet on fire WITHOUT everything happening to be be easily flammable OR making crazy amounts of smoke... well, you are clearly working on a different set of assumptions from me where Pyromancers would be better called Lightbringers Who Happen To Use Fire.

I mean, interactivity has to make sense. I have no problems with Pyromancers creating small amounts of light by setting things on fire, but deciding in the rules what that actually means in relation to other rules is a different issue.

K, I'd like to think of myself as reasonably intelligent but I still have no idea what the fuck you're on about. What the hell does "Pyromancers would be better called Lightbringers Who Happen To Use Fire" even supposed to mean if you're not goalpost shifting?

Aren't design goals predicated on making assumptions about the game and if you're not going to acknowledge the assumptions of others shouldn't you, I don't know, tell us what the fuck your design goals are?

Just tell us what you're trying to do. Give us concrete examples. If nothing else, to get Frank to stop rage posting so you two can have makeup sex or whatever it is you two do after futilely butting heads over nebulous mechanics.

And wotmaniac you are so goddamned dumb it's hard for me to even parse your terrible opinions, much less come up with a cogent response that isn't go fuck yourself over and over.

[PhoneLobster]

...In the Pathfinder Advanced Player guide there is something similar to what's being discussed yes but the important thing is it doesn't -replace- actual racial benefits. ...

Alternative Racial Traits

You can exchange one or several of your character’s normal racial Traits, but of course you cannot exchange the same racial trait more than once.

I think this is disingenuous...