New Edition: Iconic Characters

[Username17]

So ultimately a number of races and classes are possible. But for purposes of design, there is going to be a focus on probably about 6 characters. 2 Might classes, 2 Magic classes, and 2 Mixed. For hilarity, these standard should probably all be a different race. What would people like as far as that goes?

Might Classes (pick 2)

• Dark Warrior (Str/Wis)
  
• Warlord (Cha/Str)
  
• Gadgeteer (Int/Str)
  
• Ranger (Dex/Wis)
  
• Paladin (Cha/Wis)

Magic Classes (pick 2)

• Warlock (Cha/Con)
  
• Shaman (Int/Wis)
  
• Psion (Wis/Con)
  
• Druid (Int/Cha)
  
• Priest (Int/Con)

Mixed Classes (pick 2)

• Assassin (Int/Dex)
  
• Rogue (Dex/Con)
  
• Bard (Cha/Dex)
  
• Skin Shifter (Str/Con)
  
• Monk (Dex/Str)

And if anyone has some reassignments they want to do, I'm all ears. Anyway, races can plausibly be anything. They can be selected from Tolkien, D&D, other fantasy stories, world myth, anything.

The important thing is that you would want to read or tell a story about this character when they are running around in the shadows of their village while it is being assaulted by stampeding moose and when they standing on their personal cloud threatening a hundred handed demon king.

Examples:

Hobgoblin Dark Warrior Irish Red Caps? Resigned Kshatriya? Demon-painted Samurai? Tibetan warrior contemplatives? Orange skin? Black skin? Regular flesh tone? Do they have body fur, or do they even have eyebrows? Do hobgoblins have lots of rows of sharp teeth like a shark? Do they cast a shadow? This particular Hobgoblin has a wickedly large sword and a stoic attitude.

Risen Dark Warrior These guys could be skeletal or well preserved bog mummies. Hell, they could even be gothically attractive vampires. This one sleeps in heavy armor and hisses when the sun rises. She carries a wickedly barded spear into battle.

Orcish Warlord These can be green-skin, slack jaw Games Workshop Orcs, or Green Skin attractive Warcraft Orcs. Or they can be muscly fanganged but-basically human Tolkien Orcs. She has a sword and she shouts. She comes from the mountains, where life is hard, she is also hard.

Dwarf Warlord These can have bearded or unbearded women, and they can be patterned on Dunkalfar or Tolkien. He has an axe, and he shouts a lot. He comes from under the earth, where life is hard. He is also hard.

Fareshta Gadgeteer These can be the cold-loving Caelumites of Dominions or the wander-lust driven D&D Raptorans. He has feathered wings and he comes from the mountains. He makes things from the metals within the Earth and that makes him weird among his people.

Gnome Gadgeteer Rock Gnomes? Whisper Gnomes? David the Gnomes? Basically, Gnome just means "small person" and it could take literally any little folk schtick you want. This young lady comes from some kind of burrow that's either in the woods or rolling hills or both or not. And she tinkers with things and makes things with steam and gears.

Elven Ranger Are these guys just like Humans but all glowing and superior? Are they just like humans but with pointier ears? Are they blood drinking Vanir? Are they haughty and confused Tuatha? Shorter than humans? Taller? She has a bow and he comes from the woods. She snipes people.

Bander Ranger Gorillas or monkeys? Tails or no tails? Either way, this monkey-man is at home with a bow as he is with a thrown, um... projectile.

Human Paladin She has shiny metal pants and a shiny metal sword. Humans could be cosmopolitan or backwards.

Halfling Paladin Hearth-loving Hobbits? Kender? 3rd edition D&D midgits of death? Dominions Hoburglings? Brave or cowardly? This one rides into battle on the animals that halflings have domesticated for this purpose, which could be war dogs, boar, giant moths, eagles, wolverines, big lizards, or something else altogether. War tapirs. Anything. Smaller creatures could potentially ride a much wider range of things than we can.

Tiefling Warlock Part demon, fallen demons who lost the juju, or imps who got uppity and turned themselves into humans in order to excape their Dharma? Do they look like Star Trek aliens or Ultima Gargoyles? Tails or no tails? Attractive people with little horns? This one makes pacts with the real demons to gain power and cuts herself to draw upon reserves of dark magic in her blood.

Lizardfolk Warlock Are we talking frilled Warhammer Lizardfolk, Snake-like Dominions Lizardfolk, or craggy D&D Lizardfolk? And they reptillian or saurian? Swamp dwelling savages? Aquatic neolithics? Eqyptian charioteers from the River Kingdom? Crystal using Land of the Lost villains? In any case, this one has brightly colored mud that he paints dangerous magical symbols on his bare scales with. They phorsphoress slightly and promise dark secrets. Dark secrets which he knows.

Goblin Shaman Are we thinking about the gremlins from Gremlins? Or the Warhammer goblins? Or the D&D Goblins? The Tolkien cave-goblins? Are they running around with skin which is a funny color? Is that color Black, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, or Orange? Have they tamed carnivorous beasts for war, and if so are those beasts wolves, giant spiders, huge bats, or cobras? This one comes from the most inhospitable portions of the wastes/jungles/swamps/caves/mountains/or cities that goblins live in and has secrets of Fire and a funny shaped stick. His mouth has a lot of sharp teeth in it. Probably.

Deep One Shaman Are these guys Lovecraftian fish, Dominions frogs or Sahuaginicious sharkmen? Do they live in the sea or can they just breathe water? Do they want to mate with humans? Sharp teeth or no teeth at all? Is their skin smooth and covered with a layer of slime, pebbly and rough, or sharp like sharpaper? This one opens his mouth and speaks utterances which make things explode.

Klackon Psion Bug people can be formed by taking any bug (ant, bee, beetle, scorpion, mantis, whatever) and mixing it to any degree with human. They can have four arms, four legs, or just limit the bug metaphor and not have six appendages at all. They can have functional or non-functional wings. Whether they are attractive humans with antennae and fairy wings or crazy chitonous Gelugon, they can have hives or nests or just live in cities like everyone else. They can have queens or not. In any case, this one has psychic powers, which allow her to see what others cannot see and blast things with her mind.

Merfolk Psion They either have webbed feet or they have fish tails which turn into legs Ariel style when they get to land. Blue skin or flesh tone. They can require salt water immersion or something, but I suggest against it. This one has weird shells which he arranges into patterns to focus his mind into blowing things up.

Gnoll Druid When we speak of gnolls, we speak of gem loving hyena-people. But that still leaves open the question of how much hyena and how much humanoid. I could see anything up to basically the villains from the Lion King, where they ran around on all fours. Or they could be more traditional beastmen. They are perhaps inherently in tune with nature as a people, and in any case this one in particular is all about the Nature and calls upon the wrath of the forest to send a squirrel army against her foes.

Catfolk Druid Humans with cat ears? Dangerously furry? Erect or stooped posture? Claws and Paws or normal hands? This cat boy has the ability to call on his forest friends and bind people in plants.

Abyssian Priest Whether these are humans who have been marked by the Sun, or magma given life, or humans who mated with genies, or spenta who rebelled against the sun and were thrown to earth in a crater, these guys are red and hot to the touch. They may or may not have hair. They can be burningly hot to the touch, or just running constant fevers. Whichever, this particular Abyssian wears the robes of a sun priest and calls upon the light of the Day Star to use White Magic to heal his compatriots and turn aside the arrows of her enemies.

Ratling Priest We could seriously be throwing out OA Nezumi, or Warhammer Skaven. They either have normal human hands or they have advanced rat hands (four fingers, and two enlarged and opposable carpals). Tribal or civilized, these might be nomadic or arranged in secretive cells in the cities of other races. Regardless, this one carries an idol to his god and turns the healing stare of its great eye upon his compatriots.

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And so on. Seriously, nothing ruins a setting more than trying to cram all the races into it. I should think that there is room for at most 20 basic races, and that's honestly way too high unless you're trying to make a point by cramming it all in. So in addition to paring down each of the races into a single consistent schtick, a goodly portion of the characters listed above are probably going to be cut out simply because there isn't room for them in the world.

-Username17

[Captain_Bleach]

For Might, I'd like a Gadgeteer and a bad-ass warrior-type; I'd prefer if it was generic/customizable as there are about a million different fighting styles out there. For magic, I'd like a Healer/Buffer and a Blaster/De-buffer that doesn't suck. For mixed, I'd like a Social class that has a more intelligent design than 3e Diplomacy, and a generic "Sneaky Bastard" class. Sounds like it would get my bases covered.

[Username17]

So you'd like the sample characters to be a Gadgeteer, a Warlord, a Priest, a Warlock, a Bard, and an Assassin?

For the record that's 2 Blue, 2 Black, 1 Red, 1 White. Very Pirate of you. Also it uses Carisma and Intelligence three times and Wisdom not at all.
Totally workable.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

How would you even do a gadgeteer? I mean of all concepts to represent in an RPG, I think that one is the toughest.

[Username17]

1198454349[/unixtime]]How would you even do a gadgeteer? I mean of all concepts to represent in an RPG, I think that one is the toughest.

A Gadgeteer in this setup would be a lot like a D&D Wizard. Rather than having a specific number of powers the way that a Warlock does, you grab yourself a number of slots that you fill with powers on a daily basis. The Gadgeteer ideally would be running around with effects that were slightly smaller than other people's effects, with the added assumption that he or she is going to be retrofitting themselves to take advantage of situations.

It's moved into "gadgetry" because it's a lot easier to conceptualize why you might have a limited number of devices operating simultaneous than to have a limited number of spells memorized. Heck, even "daily" limits make a lot more sense when you're throwing explosives than when you are speaking the dread words of power.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

The number 6 suggests one iconic race for each color and 1 odd-man out, probably aspected toward White to keep the group weighted to the 'hero' aesthetic. While the classic sixth 'color' in MTG is artifact creature, and as appealing as I find the image of a clockwork Paladin kicking ass and reciting "10: Smite!; 20: GOTO 10," I'm not sure how many people are with me there. So the odd-man becomes Human, the every-man.

Black: Ophidian Dark Warrior
Snake-like reptile people living in a horrible Macchiavellian-Byzantine culture supported by slave-trading and danegeld tributes. Sarrah is a young noble out in the world searching for something to give his family (and especially himself) an edge, and also dodging a hit. Sarrah is charming in an oily way, and his egocentrism is balanced by a keen sense of enlightened self-interest.

Red: Goblin Shaman
I kind of like the Gremlin look, grey skin and scales, big toothy grin and motile webbed ears. Cheerful, hard-drinkers and hard-bargainers, probably living in a medieval Guild system in mountain holds. Gruagh men Luagh uses her connection to the elements to search out rare and valuable materials for her Guildmates, and those journeys often take her far afield.

Blue: Merfolk Bard
Merfolk are like selkies: intelligent seals who can become human on land. Like seals, they are polygamous and I'm thinking a Bedouin-inspired culture who herd schools of fish. Donegal was run out of his community for stealing wifely affections from all his neighbors, and continues his search for good company and good times, a one-man party willing and able to talk his pals into and out of trouble as often as they'll let him.

Green: Elf Ranger
Elves are like short, androgynous pointy eared humans who stop aging in their early twenties. As a result, they are cowardly arch-conservatives, who still knapp their tools out of stone. They are masters of medicine and aesthetic pursuits, though. Lalee'lay is a border guard who is perversely attracted to the world beyond the forest enclave, and though in denial about her xenophilia, has gone AWOL to explore.

White: Klackon Priest
Chitinous, four-limbed, mandibled, compound-eyed, antlike beings who live in enormous nestlike cities under a Confucian bureaucracy. Brother T'(click)chik is a mendicant missionary, hoping to convert others by good example. He's kind of brainwashed and Flanders-like, but also has a childlike innocence and authenticity.

White again: Human Monk
Humans live anywhere in any way, but Meticulous Tortoise comes from a hilltop Shaolin-style monastery that serves the nearby farming communities like a classic feudal castle, but since the monks eschew material wealth, the peasants are happier. Meticulous Tortoise goes from town to town kicking ass for justice, and deflating the egos of the uptight with his Robin Hood-style antics.

[Koumei]

Thoughts on races:

Hobogoblins: No, that wasn't a typo. As they are goblinoids, I feel they should be green. Probably hairless, and tall but wiry with their strength.

Orks: Warhammer for the win. I also elect to give them the Warhammer speech, if only because it pisses you off

Gnomes: Come on, they should totally be Urgo Gnomes. That way, anything they build can be an Urgo-Gnomic (pronounced "Ergonomic") device. Hilarity.

Elves: Elves as the little "Santa's Helpers" or "Enid Blyton Books" would be kind of cool, and different in this "lol, LotR" world. But they'll probably end up being pointy-eared humans, which doesn't really bother me, truth be known. The Vanir are also awesome sounding.

Tiefling: Imps who got uppity sort of amuses me, and it even means your character has awesome demon powers simply because he/she is awesome enough, not because an ancestor was awesome. Thin tails (with or without points) and small horns on an otherwise human, maybe with wings, sounds ideal.

Lizardfolk: I like the idea of large, bulky, scaled monsters but at the same time, slender, serpentine creatures are also very cool. Likewise, Egyptian-style and civilised, or jungle-based savages? It's so hard to tell. But if there are dinosaurs as monsters, you can bet the ballsier members of this race try to ride them.

Deep One: Much as I like the Lovecraft mythos, I'm going to go with Sahuaginesque creatures here, because Sahuagin are also extremely cool. Then again, they could also look like Tentacruel and I wouldn't complain. They probably secretly (or openly) want to find a way to flood the world so that they can rule over the entirety of it. Or if they're amphibious, they would want to stop the Sahuagin plan to do the same, as that way their aquatic foes and land foes are divided into separate areas.

Anyway, for races allowed, I demand the following:
Lizardfolk, deep ones, orcs (or hobgoblins) and tieflings.


Dwarfs and kobolds can fuck right off.

Now, for the iconic characters. I'd like to see:

Elf Dark Warrior: Let's go Vanir style. She might come across as a less pale, red-haired vampiress, and upon disabling foes by charging her longsword with fell energy and running them through, she drinks their blood, which in turn empowers her abilities. Or maybe she does it for fun and profit.

Lizardman Warlord - he has a blue tongue and actual venom sacs, making him the scariest of his tribe, and as such, was designated the leader. He bellows commands but tries to be the first to collide with the enemies. He likely uses a falchion or a battleaxe, and if it breaks, he relies on claws and fangs, or seriously wields enemies as weapons.

Deep One Warlock: Because Warlocks aren't allowed to be nice. Or something. It (genderless? Or merely unknown and people voted to not find out?) plots the eventual rulership of the known universe, at which point it will move onto the unknown, but for now, it carries a strange stone idol of a dark god, which whispers to it in its sleep.

Human Druid: This is the crazy cat lady taken to extremes. A kind of creepy, but good-natured, person who lives with humans, but owns a lot of animals. You know, dogs, spiders, serpents, jaguars, bears... that kind of stuff.

Tiefling Rogue: A great acrobat and trickster, someone who will stab you in the face while standing behind you, even though they think they're standing behind him. He uses his tail to balance, to steal (and wield?) weapons and as a climbing aid, and can probably wreath himself in eldritch flames or perform short teleportations with bursts of brimstone. He can likely send people to sleep by gazing into their eyes.

??? Monk (bonus points if they're a little bit less "Hiryu-Shouten Blast Revised, Horizontal Blast, HYAA!" and a little bit more "Pie Iesu domine... dona eis requiem". Rather, a little bit more with the use of flails and being empowered by their faith.)

[Surgo]

Can we just get rid of elves already? There is no race more tired, overused, and completely useless. Let's replace them with one of the other awesome races detailed in the original post, like Lizardfolk (of the reptilian sort that walk on two legs) or Klackons or something.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I see what you did there.

Anyway, there should probably be at least one iconic of each color, and a Gadgeteer is a given.

Another issue is whether there are going to be PC races not playable from level 1. Guys with flight, big elemental resistances, or 'flavor-breakingly odd' (if you want to go the D&D races route).

If we're going to have 'monstrous' PC races, I'd like to see the Duszek (Black or White) and Tatanka (probably Green, maybe Red or White). Both concepts just seemed way too cool not to see light (let's avoid the gold-obsessed alcoholics for PC reasons, as neat as they are).
Not having humans is probably too much of a change. I'd rather not see more than one small race, but there should be at least one. I've got a place in my heart for the 'little tinkerers' meme, so I'd vote for "gremlins" which combine features of gnomes and goblins.

Maybe a lineup like Tatanka (probably should get a different name) Psychic or Warlord, Gremlin Gadgeteer... I'm not sure what stat adjustments Duszek would get in this game.

That's a big race, a scary race, a small race, and humans. Additional coolness might be an elemental race (maybe Red Ifrit--again the Dead Man's Hand version), something fey and sexy for the elf obsessed, and something with scales? Maybe something like dwarves for visual balance? I dunno.

I guess I should actually do some background write-ups.

[Edit]
On second thought, Duszek probably are too inhuman, and Tantanka magical abilities may not mesh well with any class (making them a monster type as well).
I also realized that you're keeping entirely to Magic and D&D races, so that's that.

Also, what does a Druid do?

[Koumei]

No, no dwarfs. We don't need to add "Just plain ugly." for visual balance. "Monstrous" can work just fine instead.

And I don't mind there being no elves.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

First thing: no psionics please.

As for a core race/iconic character, I vote for a Spriggan-like rogue creature (FF p.162). I like the idea of a nasty little fey that can hulk out and smash your face. Also, being able to change sizes means that he can scrabble around scouting as a little creature (small? tiny? deminuative?) and fight with the party as a larger creature (medium? large?).

If you wanted to go the route of racial abilities improving as character level improves (ex: Raptorian), then his size-changing abilities could improve with level. The minuscule Elder Spriggan hiding in corner is the one you should be worrying about...

[Orion]

I don't actually like Gadgeteer as the Blue might class. Why can't reason and logic inform a mor ephysical character?

How about a Pirate or Duelist with super running and jumping, trip/disarm abilities that work against monsters too, and maybe a sneak attack like mechanic for dealing bonus damage when he has "the edge" on the enemy through flanking, higher ground, opposed inteligence dice, or knowledge skills...

[CatharzGodfoot]

Boolean:
Here's my take on it:
1) Because pirate is a profession, not a character class.
2) Because there is already a rogue class.
3) Because there's no other easy way to fit in the gadgeteer. And there is going to be a gadgeteer.

If you can find a solution to this, I'm mostly ears.



Frank: It really would be easier if we had a slightly better understanding of what classes did. At this point it feels like taking names out of a hat. For example, what class would best match a tatanka's temporal abilities? Or would that be purely racial abilities, making most tatanka warlords or shaman?

What is "control", which I'm assuming is the gadgeteer's Str-based set? Is the tinkerer a catch-all for tech, throwing bombs and shooting guns at low level, sending forth clockwork warriors with gatling guns (or wearing clockwork armor with the same) and flying machines at mid level, and psychic amplifiers, electric mobile cities, and magic engines at high level? Or is it steam automata from the start?

[Captain_Bleach]

1198450467[/unixtime]]So you'd like the sample characters to be a Gadgeteer, a Warlord, a Priest, a Warlock, a Bard, and an Assassin?

For the record that's 2 Blue, 2 Black, 1 Red, 1 White. Very Pirate of you. Also it uses Carisma and Intelligence three times and Wisdom not at all.
Totally workable.

-Username17

Are you a Magic: The Gathering fan? You seem to be integrating the Color factors into D&D.

[Endovior]

Hmm. I personally think that it's Shaman that should be Int/Cha while it's Druid that should be Int/Wis... I'm inclined to think that the Shaman is more "Ooga booga look at my scary magic!" while the Druid is more "Grr, I prefer trees to people". But maybe that's just me.

Beyond that, I'm very much in favor of not having the Tolkien races. Like, at all. No Elves, no Dwarves, no Hobbits.

That being said, so long as psionics use the same fundamental mechanics as the other magic, I have no problem with them. Barring existing earlier D&D baggage, Psion parses to me as Telepath/Telekinetic; flavor-wise, this means you have the Telepath Psion who is the New Edition Enchanter Wizard, and the Telekinetic Psion who fights at range with animated weapons and thrown rocks and stuff. Which kind of Psion do you want? Depending on how you slot your powers, you might do either or both.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1198471888[/unixtime]]
That being said, so long as psionics use the same fundamental mechanics as the other magic, I have no problem with them.

From what it sounds like, psychics will be using the same basic mechanics as warlords and warlocks.

1198471888[/unixtime]] Barring existing earlier D&D baggage, Psion parses to me as Telepath/Telekinetic; flavor-wise, this means you have the Telepath Psion who is the New Edition Enchanter Wizard, and the Telekinetic Psion who fights at range with animated weapons and thrown rocks and stuff. Which kind of Psion do you want? Depending on how you slot your powers, you might do either or both.

Here's Frank's original class list:

1198322612[/unixtime]]
The sample characters I am basing this off of are (school names subject to change):

Red
Might: Warlord (War/Destruction)
Magic: Shaman (Fire/Whim)
Mixed: Rogue (Misery/Chance)

Green
Might: Skinshifter (Hunger/Growth)
Magic: Druid (Plant/Animal)
Mixed: Ranger (Hunt/The Way)

White
Might: Paladin (Light/Truth)
Magic: Cleric (Protection/Health)
Mixed: Monk (Order/Purity)

Blue
Might: Gadgeteer (Artifice/Control)
Magic: Psychic (Foresight/Stoicism)
Mixed: Bard (Music/Subtlety)

Black:
Warlock (Heresy/Blood Magic)
Assassin (Untouchable/Deception)
Black Knight (Death/Decay)

[virgil]

I would like to see at least two races take advantage of the fact that we don't care about any SFX budget. My votes go towards...

Star Spawn Dark Warrior: The elite caste of Deep One culture, these are what illithid wish they were. They don't eat brains, but tap into a dreamscape of non-Euclidean power. This one taps deeper into the dreamscape, awakening with the dark armor of R'lyeh, and moves with an inevitable gait.

Hogoblin Warlord: A race of Irish redcaps, furred and vicious, able to change their size from something small to something big enough to heavy lifting. This one does the household chores of war, and likes to beat people up.

Tengu Druid: A kite-headed race of the unenlightend, having lost much of their spirit powers from their own faults. This one remembers the rules and calls on spirits like a deadbeat cousin would mooch for money.

Human Priest: Their culture is one of sheep, following the herd towards a heavy-handed faith. This one knows the scripture of his particular faith and calls upon it to heal and aid.

Tiefling Skin Shifter: Uppity imps who turned human to escape Dharma, but couldn't get the shift done just right, so they retain some part of their old form; so some have tails, others have horns, and anyone with experience recognizes their accent (really difficult to train out). This one had fun with the transition, and turns into all sorts of people.

Gandharva Monk: A musically inclined race of horse-style satyrs, requiring no food or water, but will die if too long without the scent of an apple tree (be it sap, bark, blossom, or fruit). This one seeks his next life to be something greater, and became a monk.

[Orion]

Gadgeteers sound Mixed to me anyway.

If you don't like Pirate, how about "strategist"?

He uses tactically interesting debuffs --- hit to blind, hit to damage movement, et, hit to grant fire vulnerability, etc. He buffs the party by giving orders and whatnot.

For noncombat/nonmelee ability, nonmagic that simulates enchantment/illusions. He has diplomancy, plus can make distractions that let his team disappear...

[the_taken]

My suggestion, come out in sets. While each set has 6 races tied to six classes, that's just the default. You can mix any race with any class, and things will work just fine.
A skeleton ranger will not have any problems performing, nor will a skeleton assassin, or zombie cleric, or Lycan psion.

1st set: Double White
Might: Red Goblin Warlord & Green Gnoll Ranger
Magic: White Aasimar Cleric & Black Zombie Warlock
Mixed: White Human Monk & Blue Robot Assassin

2nd set: Double Green
Might: Black Skeleton Knight & White Dwarf Paladin
Magic: Blue Tiefling Psion & Red Orc Shaman
Mixed: Green Lycan Skin Shifter & Green Elf Bard
3rd set: Double Red
4th set: Double Black
5th set: Double Blue

[ArtD]

1198444598[/unixtime]]The important thing is that you would want to read or tell a story about this character when they are running around in the shadows of their village while it is being assaulted by stampeding moose and when they standing on their personal cloud threatening a hundred handed demon king.

Warlord is almost always going to be a misleading and inappropriate title for a first level character. Skald or Marshall might be better.

My choices:
[*] Gnoll Ranger - I'm all for gnolls being able to switch back and forth between running four legs and standing on two.

Disappears into the forest at will, makes no sound in a heavy suit of ring mail, and snipes at his enemies while laying devious snares and traps.

[*] Orc Skald - UGLY, with dark and greenish skin, but similar enough to humans that half-orcs can pass for men.

Has got either a small gang or a huge horde that fights with him, inspired by his ferocity in battle, excited by his tales of plunder, or enraged by his demands for vengence.

[*] Dwarf Priest - Beards are such a huge deal for dwarves that facial hair for both sexes seems fitting, though I do not really feel strongly about that.

Gentle to his friends, upon whom he bestows blessings. Upon enemies he bestows his hammer.

[*] Human Warlock - Her outward appearance is no different from you or me, but that makes her seem all the more monstrous in her dealings with the dark powers.

[*] Gnome Rogue - Has empathy with moles, innate ability with minor illusions, and feels at home in the underground. Untrustworthy little trickster, deceiving bigger folk and stealing their valuables to hoard them away beneath the hills.

[*] Merfolk Assassin - Blue skin and webbed feet, completely amphibious. Being cold-blooded makes her slightly resistant to poison, which she uses to take out her victims before hiding the bodies in a watery grave.

[Draco_Argentum]

1198475443[/unixtime]]Human Priest: Their culture is one of sheep, following the herd towards a heavy-handed faith.

This sounds a lot like you're trying to get the RCC into the game so you can make fun of it. We could just not put the RCC into the game.

Also, this isn't WoW, the non human women don't have to be good looking.

Frank: It really would be easier if we had a slightly better understanding of what classes did. At this point it feels like taking names out of a hat.

Largely, classes are just preselected level appropriate abilities with a name tacked on. You could just pick different abilities that you liked from your colour.

[Username17]

Are you a Magic: The Gathering fan? You seem to be integrating the Color factors into D&D.

I haven't played M:tG for a long time. However, I am creditted with inventing Creature Rush and Discard as valid tournament offerings. The five spoked wheel of dharma has advantages for a role playing game:

• Familiarity. People generally know what it is about.
  
• Non Judgmental. People can play anything and noone tells them they are wrong.
  
• Stable. A two or three way conflict ends quickly, and a 4 way just breaks into a pair of pairs.
  
• Conducive to Party Unity. With small numbers of teams, there's no reason for player characters to not kill each other.

And let's face it, you do want some kind of role-playing aid, especially for new players. "I'm a knight, I have a sword." is less useful than "I'm a Chaotic Good Knight, I fight injustice!" I mean, the fact that "Chaotic" and "Good" don't make any fucking sense in D&D doesn't stop that from being a moderately helpful thing to write on a character sheet. So taking a step back and throwing down some "alignments" that characters can have that are fairly consistent and non-absolute is pretty much a no-brainer.

The M:tG five aren't the only choices. You could write up or borrow a specific set of philosophies instead. But that is more work. And I do like it more than the oWoD Nature & demeanor thing, and much more than the nWoD Virtues and Vices system (seriously, chastity?).

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I do seriously like the idea of all of the races having a Dharma problem. The Tieflings are imps (minor summonable swarm monsters) who have cast their dharma aside to be playable characters, and I guess look like this:

The Tengu (or Kenku for holders of the original Fiend Folio) were some more enlightened thing and got kicked off the power train because they were dicks. They look kind of like this:

The Bandar Log are just generally dicks, and have a serious Dharma problem of having been cursed long ago for having stolen a bunch of stuff and been generally disrespectful and unapologetic about it. They look like this:


In general, I'd like to cleave to Eastern, Middle Eastern, and South Asian mythology as much as possible. If something can be done without referencing modern European fantasy at all it probably should.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Familiarity. People generally know what it is about.

I certainly don't.

And from the perspective of the uninitiated it looks confusing, complex and stupid.

As far as I'm concerned its just like taking the whole 4/5 elements thing except all the elements have been renamed at random to things like "Joe", "Milk", "Dicombobulate", "Toyota" and "Neptune" so as to divorce them from even minimal familiarity (or interest).

Then you pile a bunch of associated races, classes and ideas and stuff (like with a zany elemental thing) only it makes even less sense cause its just a bunch of random abstract colour teams or something.

And they don't even merge together to summon captain planet.

I've been meaning to throw in some comment about not supporting the whole MtG aspect. Consider this that comment.

(edit: actually looking at the renamed elements list I mentioned above I find THAT more interesting and familiar than MtG)

[virgil]

My idea on the human priest thing wasn't really intended to be a jab at the Riverside Community College or anything like that. A less hostile way of saying it would be that humans make communities (if you recognize that reference, there's more to it), and are a greatly unified people.

Oh, and Frank, you want tieflings to look like chobits?

Aha! Here it is. I couldn't remember where I heard about surviving off of the smell of apples, but I kept thinking it was the gandharva for some reason. Let me change that vote...

Astomi Monk: A race of hairy, mouthless people, their lands an endless grove of wonderfully scented blooms. This one moves with the grace of a breeze, and the power of mint.

[Username17]

Now as for traditionally "more powerful" races, I'm not sure. Flight, for example, doesn't have to be massively more powerful than non-flight as long as you make it like actual flight and not like Superman Flight. Owls aren't "overpowered" compared to foxes, because in reality flight is a lot of work, the air is actually filled with terrain that makes it hard to move around, it's quite difficult to do other things while doing it, and a flying target is actually quite vulnerable to attacks.

Nevertheless, it's entirely possible that some races would have a "minimum level." Ogres are a good candidate for that.


As for Tatanka specifically, I would patch them in a bit more with the South Asian Bison. So they would be less "Buffalo Woman" and more "Uncle Deadly" in appearance. Like the D&D Yak Folk only without all that crap about staves and shit.


-Username17