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

[Elennsar]

But worse still you suggest the kobold wrestler should be allowed to exist as something so strictly inferior it faces a lesser class of challenges outright, a SUB HUMAN class of challenges.

There is absolutely no reason in the world why all nonhuman races are human peers or superiors. None.

That however is no justification for EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL ADVENTURING CHARACTER to experience the identical lame ass specialisation. You are effectively taking your generic NPC character sheet and declaring it ALSO has to be used by the player characters and all the important one off named NPCs.

I don't recall the passage in any definition of PC that said "unique being, conforming to no social or racial norms."

How... incredibly unimaginative of you. I agree with the others, you do have a serious "gaming in my imagined and rather uninformed view of reality" problem.

So, having "I'm a ____." actually mean something other than a bunch of utterly irrelevant fluff is a sign of being "unimaginative"? Riiiight.

Again, that in no way addresses the INDIVIDUAL. And cool adventurers are individuals. You seem to like making rather assumptive references to source material, how often are the heroes "A group of utterly typical physical and cultural specimens of their respective races on a heroic adventure to be pretty much the same as all their friends and relatives"

Actually, it does. Is the average adventuring group exactly average? No. But they're usually within the typical range for people of a given type...a group of knights are likely to be in terms of their abilities pretty similar to "ye average knight". Maybe "ye highly skilled knight", but there are a lot more knights who are more or less like the norm than knights who wish they were monks.

Again, who the hell cares? The overwhelming majority of elves in many settings are also poncy gits who never step foot out of their forest glade cocaine and fairy dust snorting parlours. Should we ALSO include a rule applying THAT to all player characters and named NPCs that write "Elf" on their sheet?

Unless there's a reason other than "I'm a PC!" to be different, yes. PCs can be exceptions. PC=/= exception.

[PhoneLobster]

There is absolutely no reason in the world why all nonhuman races are human peers or superiors. None.

Because you are offering them side by side as playable races that are supposed to team up and fight in the same damn adventures side by side.

Holy crap man, you've really got to get a grip of this whole "balance and fairness" thing. Otherwise it, most people around here, and I myself personally will tear you apart.

I don't recall the passage in any definition of PC that said "unique being, conforming to no social or racial norms."

You aren't asking them to conform to SOME social and racial norms you are asking them to conform to ALL racial and cultural norms.

But even if its some it is frankly unnacceptable and stupid already. I mean hey, all elves don't HAVE to be botanists AND vets anymore, just vets. And all botanist-vets don't have to be elves but all vets do... YEAH SURE that makes it OK!

So, having "I'm a ____." actually mean something other than a bunch of utterly irrelevant fluff is a sign of being "unimaginative"? Riiiight.

Actually I was referring to your rather annoying assumption that humans are simultaneously the ultimate versatility and base line ability race as being profoundly arrogant, assumptive and stupid.

Actually, it does. Is the average adventuring group exactly average? No. But they're usually within the typical range for people of a given type...a group of knights are likely to be in terms of their abilities pretty similar to "ye average knight". Maybe "ye highly skilled knight", but there are a lot more knights who are more or less like the norm than knights who wish they were monks.

That is utter gibberish.

Firstly it is unrelated because you are talking about class.

Secondly its insanely stupid because you are suggesting because you can make an average from a range of variation no variation from the average needs to be allowed.

Thirdly ITS GIBBERISH.

Should we ALSO include a rule applying THAT to all player characters and named NPCs that write "Elf" on their sheet?

Unless there's a reason other than "I'm a PC!" to be different, yes. PCs can be exceptions. PC=/= exception.

Holy mother fucking WHAT NOW?

you actually agree that all elves have to have a rule that says they must ascribe to stereotypical fluff and behaviour as well?

And that you will allow a mere possible exception to this rule for SOME PCs?

You drank the koolade from the real role play wankers club meeting didn't you? The ones who know the one true elf stereotype and its holy purity over all?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Actually, PC kind of does = exception. After all, how many average people go raid monsters homes and take their stuff for a living?

[Elennsar]

Exception to Joe Average, yes. Exception in the sense of oh, a Hannibal (completely unlike the norm), not necessarily.

To put it this way, "my viking was taught kenjutsu by the samurai" is pushing it well beyond the limits of plausible No Way Could This Happen events.

[ckafrica]

Oh god he's into this again.

I bet a blow job in a Saigon whore house (i live there so I can make good) that no one is gonna back you up on any of this Elenssar.

Most people think that their characters should be special, you know the stars of the game. Hannibal is the norm for players. If they aren't no one is gonna care about them. Your characters need to be able to have what it takes to lead armies to victory against overwhelming odds. They need to be able to solve all the towns problems on their own. If they don't they aren't heroes and none of players are gonna care much what happens to them.

[Elennsar]

I don't mind "special". I mind "hey I'm one of a kind, I'm the only one who can do this, I'm better than any of my peers, etc, etc."

Wish fulfillment fantasy works for protagonists who are fated. Not something that most adventurers should be entitled to, and the idea that PCs are better than most adventurers just by being PCs is going back to wanting to play the only characters who matter.

Being able to lead an army to victory against overwhelming odds with great effort is awesome and cool. Being able to do that on a regular basis is neither, because the odds aren't overwhelming at all, they're not even challenging.

So basically you wind up with having to find more and more powerful things in order to even have a close fight.

Not my style of gaming, whether looking into playing above-average humans on Terra or borderline larger-than-life characters in fantasy settings.

Regarding the thread issue.

So, if a race should never be better (or worse) than any other race at a given class, how do you handle a smart race in a system where smart people make better mages (defined as spellcasters, in D&D wizards to be specific)?

Or a dexterous race in a system where dexterous people do well at the things that the Swashbuckler does.

Do you just make it so that you wind up with no benefits at all for playing a talented race?

Sounds very unappealing.

[Bigode]

Oh god he's into this again.

I bet a blow job in a Saigon whore house (i live there so I can make good) that no one is gonna back you up on any of this Elenssar.

Most people think that their characters should be special, you know the stars of the game. Hannibal is the norm for players. If they aren't no one is gonna care about them. Your characters need to be able to have what it takes to lead armies to victory against overwhelming odds. They need to be able to solve all the towns problems on their own. If they don't they aren't heroes and none of players are gonna care much what happens to them.

I didn't know leading armies to victory required going radically outside the confines of one's race. Nor did I know that people aren't worth caring about unless they can single-handedly fix everything in need.

Elennsar: you go ahead and design the smart race with something that makes it an "equally bad" mage, for the easiest solution (aside from making race meaningless).

[Draco_Argentum]

Wish fulfillment fantasy works for protagonists who are fated. Not something that most adventurers should be entitled to, and the idea that PCs are better than most adventurers just by being PCs is going back to wanting to play the only characters who matter.

No. Every single adventurer is a nutcase who ate some crazy pie. We're talking about people who fight soul sucking undead for a living. They aren't normal.

My knight PC is not a typical human. I can tell because typical humans stay at home while the knight finds something deadly's house and breaks in.

By the same token the orc PC is not a typical orc. As a race orcs can be thick, but the PC version is a freakshow and is free to be a good wizard.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Expanding on Draco's point: If you think of your campaign as a kind of interactive fantasy novel, how many novels are about even typical adventurers? The kinds of stories we read and watch are about spectacularly exceptional, and even fated, people. In the context of any story, even if the world is filled with other adventurers, the protagonists are the only characters who matter because they're the only ones who are "on stage" all the time.

[PhoneLobster]

I didn't know leading armies to victory required going radically outside the confines of one's race.

In the case of Hannibal it did however involve something radically outside of the confines of one's CULTURE. Which in "D&D" Race terms, and Elen's inspired argument is basically identical.

Also Hannibal lost.

But in Elen's alternate fictionalised history Hannibal also totally sucked because he spent his cultural background on Skill Focus: Proffession(Merchant) like ALL Carthaginians do.

[Kaelik]

Elennsar, again with your I want everyone to be normal stick.

What part of the following does not make sense to you:

1) Hannibal is crazy smart, he is better then average in lots of areas.
2) Clarice is super smart, she is better then average in lots of areas.
3) Silence of the Lambs follows these two characters as protagonists (sort of).

You play D&D to be someone special, not to be Joe average. The story follows some characters, who are badasses. If they weren't badasses then the story would follow someone else who is.

We aren't playing Farming&Running away from Dragons that want to eat us. We are playing D&D, which means we fucking go into a Dungeon, kill a Dragon, and come out alive.

Other adventurers (NPCs) are actually equally badass, which is why commoners have commoner levels, and they can conform to racial stereotypes, and warriors are just that, and they can conform to racial stereotypes, but if an NPC Orc is a level 10 Wizard, he better not be somehow half as good at being a Wizard then an Elf level 10 Wizard. If he is half as good, he should be level 9 instead.

But basically, Halfling Fighters should be just as good fighters at any given level as Dwarf Fighters. There might be fewer halfling fighters in the world, most of them might be lower level then Dwarven counterparts, but goddam it, if a PC says, "I want to be a Kobold Wrestler" then he better have some way of Wrestling people that involves, attaching himself like a Stirge and draining Con instead of normal grappling, or something that justifies him still being alive after spending the last five years grappling ogres on a regular basis.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

So Elennsar. Do you believe all the differences in the cultures of the real world to be irrelevant because we are all the same species?

Differences in culture do not have to emerge from inherent differences in species. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Differences in cultures arise from many things: access to food, access to animals, access to building materials, harshness of weather, harshness of terrain, level of interactiveness/isolation, etc. To say that having a +2 to Int is more determinate of the shape of the species culture is foolish. In Dnd land there are tons of fantastic things that can shape a culture. Curses, wards, supernatural tyrants, Su guardians, Su diseases, Su environments, etc.

Even if you insisted on having inborn abilities be determinate of a species culture, there is no reason why that has to have class specific synergies. Dnd's Gnomes are a good example. They have Speak with Animals. This in itself doesn't add undue synergy to any class, yet it has huge effects on shaping the society of Gnomes. That is the type of ability diversity which should exist.

Elennsar, if you really think the only way a race's culture can be interesting is by having bigger numbers in a few places...well that's retarded.

---

I bet a blow job in a Saigon whore house (i live there so I can make good)...

You live in a Saigon whore house? That's interesting.

[ckafrica]

I bet a blow job in a Saigon whore house (i live there so I can make good)...

You live in a Saigon whore house? That's interesting.

Well while I might feel the urge to call my gf one from time to time. not a whore house, rather simply in Saigon. I was briefly tempted to move into a whore's house while i was living in Phnom Penh, but I decided that even though I was being offered good rent with perks, the sloppy seconds and general weirdness were a bit too much.

[Elennsar]

Differences in culture do not add up to anything other than one of two things:

1) Stuff that you will have on your sheet whether you want all the effects or not.

2) Stuff that is meaningless fluff because it doesn't alter your sheet one bit that you grew up amongst Vikings or Romans or whatever.

If you're playing an elf, you should have elven traits, not just whatever bonuses you personally find awesome and what penalties you're willing to live with.

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.

If you want character race and character culture to be about as relevant as what hair and eye color you pick (which would be from the entire color spectrum, since the idea that your Japanese samurai can't be blonde is obviously limiting your options), then what is the point? If it won't influence what you're good at and it won't influence what you generally do, it has no meaning.

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.

If you have to dominate to have fun, your interests in roleplaying are as limited as the people who think that we should all have 3d6 assigned in order stats because we can't choose what stats we're born with.

So don't put words in my mouth or attribute opinions to me that I don't hold. THe brief version:

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.

2) Culture also means something.

3) PCs are special, but not necessarily freakishly atypical.

4) There are other special people out there. You will run into them.

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.

[Kaelik]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Roy]

[Elennsar]

1) And of course, a kobold has to be able to do these things, because we have to permit people to play kobolds, because, um, that part I'm not following.

Now, if kobolds were a level +/-0 race, meaning that they're supposed to be played without being a lower tier or a higher tier, then yes, a kobold should be able to do level 1 stuff at level 1 and level 60 stuff at level 60.

Doesn't mean that has to be the case, however.

2) No, living in the land where "TOTAL DOMINANCE" is not the only alternative to "total suck".

A player should feel that they had fun playing a character. They might save the day, or they might fail. They might be able to beat the King's champion or not.

Insisting that "they have to be superhuman or they SUCK" is as ludicrious as insisting that Superman be only capable of doing human things would be for me, which is why I'm not insisting on the latter.

3) No, only if being a fighter is a limited array of things (like any other class would be), instead of "any possible idea that involves a sword (or any other weapon)".

4) That kind of special (in bold) is not "special". Its just "powerful". And arguing that the game should be designed to do that and the game not being designed for that makes PCs wretched losers is as bad as me arguing that no game should ever have PCs who ever do anyhting worth worth doing would be.

You can be on the same level as the best people in real life and do things that would not be unimpressive in a game, or you can make that game so that those things are bypassed after a few levels. You do not need to do the latter, however.

5) Or kobolds, or anything else that isn't as capable as humanity. No one said our species was the minimum level to be competent when we're the only species (in our world, that we know of) that we have to compare ourselves to. You could be slower and frailer than the average human but much smarter with psychic powers and survive.

So, while all +0 LA races should be equal to humanity, not all races should be +0 LA.

I don't mind people taking over three levels, but I do mind the idea that a minotaur fighter and a kobold fighter and a human fighter are exactly equal in power even though that would require the kobold to be freakishly capable for kobolds and the minotaur to be equally freakishly pathetic.

Stop insisting that every option should be a viable option and that I'm against giving options at all.

Not all things are created equal.
But you're basically saying you want all the bonuses of being a kobold (being too small for the ogre to notice easily) but none of the penalties (being too weak to effectly hurt him).

Ew.

[CatharzGodfoot]

As for getting rid of a non-retarded group: So, if you're not the best you can be, you suck? Are we playing a roleplaying game or a "most powerful characters we can build" game?

So, how much more often should dwarf rangers fail than elf rangers? Is 5% of the time often enough to make the races sufficiently different? How about 20%?

[Elennsar]

Well, on the assumption that human rangers are the baseline (so the "DC 40 means you need a 15 would be based on a human's bonuses.), an elf might have "you need a 13". And a dwarf would also be a 15.

If dwarves were poor rangers, it'd be say a 17.

Naturally, in terms of "general adventurer proficiency", elves and dwarves and humans would be about equal. Different, but they'd be succeeding on the Basic Tasks Every Adventurer Should Be Able To Do (plural intended, I mean the whole list) about an even number of times. Sometimes the elf would be better, sometimes the dwarf, sometimes the human.

Sometimes it wouldn't matter, but I wouldn't make that the case in all situations where doing well comes up.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So for the 'rangery' task, a specialized elf should succeed 20% more often than a specialized dwarf. The elf hits 40% of the time and the dwarf hits 20% of the time. One elf ranger is worth about two dwarf rangers.

[Elennsar]

Not that extreme, if possible.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Not that extreme, if possible.

Well, that's exactly how you laid it out.

[Elennsar]

Well, the proposal was that an elf is 13+, and a human or dwarf is 15+.

"17+" would be if dwarves were bad at it (which was not the proposal, hence my comment on "not that extreme").

[Roy]

In which case 3 elves = 4 humans/dwarves. Still a full third better.

[Elennsar]

Which is a bad thing, if the goal is for elves to be better in this respect, why again?

Now, if "X elves = Y nonelves" and that was true more of the time than not, then elves are not a LA +0 race (whether they should be an entirely seperate discussion).

But if X elves = Y nonelves at one thing, and X nonelves = Y elves at another, and both come up about the same amount of the time...perfectly reasonable.