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

[Elennsar]

In order:

#1: If magic requires being mentally strong...you do the math.

#2: See above. If the "blood of the earth" is more important (or equally important), then go for it. But see #4.

#3: Because being physically weak (which by me is refering to all three physical stats, not just Strength) is a very bad thing for a guy who does physical activity.

#4: See #2. And who is to say that a race that is physically weak would do this instead of finding ways to avoid physical combat entirely?

#5: There's a reason I support "No, dwarves cannot be wizards." by 2nd edition (though not necessarily that particular one). It should be obvious that I'd say that a kobold fighter is a "this choice is inferior. You know that, right?" to anyone asking. My only point is that I don't think that setting something up so that there are subpar choices is a bad thing if those choices are highlighted. Its not a good idea for an undead hunter to use a rapier.

#6

a) Probably not going to make as many archers or mages as landbound races. Nothing stops one from pursuing it, but they're less likely to do it.

b) No meaningful effect at all here. Its useful and awesome for anyone, but its about equally useful and awesome for anyone.

c) Ditto. Primarily an advantage for guys who either can't afford to be hit.

d) I presume that this means that a dwarven ranger can use "light or no armor" in medium armor, not simply "armor proficiency: medium"?

e) Are going to be good at classes involving one or more of those things.

And e is the thing. If you have a class involving being a scout, and elves get bonuses to perception, elves will be better scouts.

Doesn't necessarily mean "Elves are equal to Scouts (the class) that are one level higher.", however.
Which would be a terrible idea. But if Elves get +2 to Perception and Survival, elves will make better rangers than a race without those bonuses.

Being any race that is presented as playable should be good enough to be playable. But minotaurs who try to learn wizardry might well just plain suck at it and that's why there are "no minotaur wizards". Or dwarves suffer bipolar syndrome when studying arcane magic, so dwarves avoid wizardry.

Whatever. But saying that dwarves should be allowed to be wizards so that people who want to play dwarven wizards can do so is as unreasonable as making it so that all dwarves must use axes and must use heavy armor etc, etc. (Not are "better off"..."cannot wield" and such.)

[Kaelik]

#3: Because being physically weak (which by me is refering to all three physical stats, not just Strength) is a very bad thing for a guy who does physical activity.

Kobolds aren't weaker then Minotaurs. Stop with your fucking hard-on for weak vs strong races and get that in your head.

Minotaurs have higher Str.
Kobolds have higher Dex.
Con is about even.

Kobold fighters of level 5 are equal to Minotaur fighters of level 5 in a level 5 system.

Kobold Fighters are just as good as Minotaur fighters, because there is no race that is better at everything that Fighters do. Minotaurs are one type of fighter, Kobolds are a different, equal, type of fighter.

[Elennsar]

Minotaurs are also larger (sometimes an advantage) and have more racial hit dice, and natural armor, and a few other advantages.

So if it was "Strength bonus vs. Dexterity bonus", and that was the question, then yes, kobolds would be fine.

That's not the case, however.

Stop with your "I can't tell what you actually think, so I'm going to make up something vaguely resembling it and insult you for thinking what I just made up."

[virgil]

Why are people arguing on kobold vs minotaur fighters? If they're supposed to be equal in power yet retain their mechanical dissimilarity, then that means kobolds have to be dextrous fighters while minotaurs are the brute fighters; which I suppose is what Elennsar is actually arguing for, kobold brute < minotaur brute, which is a little more specific than 'fighter'

[Username17]

If a choice exists on a character sheet it should mean something. The kobold fighter should have things available to him that are not available to the minotaur fighter - and vice versa. But if a choice is presented as being meaningful, it should be competitive. D&D doesn't support unarmored fighters, but it supposedly does support a kobold fighter.

If it's supported, it should be level appropriate. That is a no brainer.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

Indeed. But whether or not kobolds should be level appropriate is another story.

Having every possible race and class combination be a viable one is not necessarily a good idea.

But the races which are unplayable should be called out as such, same with any classes that would be unplayable for an otherwise playable race.

If orcs are stupid, maybe you should say "no orc wizards" to players and leave it there.

Much better than "sure, you can be an orc wizard...you'll just suck." Not necessarily better than "sure, you just do something other than Int for wizard stuff".

[Kaelik]

Minotaurs are also larger (sometimes an advantage) and have more racial hit dice, and natural armor, and a few other advantages.

So if it was "Strength bonus vs. Dexterity bonus", and that was the question, then yes, kobolds would be fine.

That's not the case, however.

Stop with your "I can't tell what you actually think, so I'm going to make up something vaguely resembling it and insult you for thinking what I just made up."

No, a Minotaur does not have Racial HD and large size and whatever, because those things also add levels. A level 1 Minotaur is something like a goliath powerful build +str, -dex.

Adding levels makes things stronger.

If you are going to seriously argue that we have to use the MM minotaur as a player race then Kobold Fighters are inherently superior to Minotaur Fighters.

This is what you keep not getting.

Kobold Fighters are level appropriate by definition. Because any PC is by definition level appropriate, and Kobolds are PCs.

Similarly, Minotaurs as presented in the MM are shit, and are not even close to level appropriate. As such, if PCs are allowed to be Minotaurs, they need to be level appropriate, which means not using the MM Minotaur.

PC Minotaur Fighter at level 5 and PC Kobold Fighter at level 5 are defined as equal according to the game, and are both called out as being playable by characters.

Therefore: 1) Both races need to be balanced against each other.
2) Both races should be able to play Fighters that are balanced against each other.
3) Both Fighters need to be realistically balanced against other characters, like Wizards

In conclusion, the rules need to be changed such that dex fighter is viable, that fighter is viable, and that Minotaur is viable.

Practically all of this is done in the Tomes, assuming you make your own appropriate lower ECL Minotaur.

And Bam, you have D&D.

The point is that D&D is not a game in which races are better or worse, because it has levels. And so any character of a given level needs to be equal to any other character of that level.

[Elennsar]

So instead of using the official-we-actually-have-stats for this minotaur, we have a thing we call a minotaur that really isn't any stronger than a human or dwarf.

Its just that there are "minotaur racial levels" and we stopped having "Dwarf" as a class in 2nd edition.

As for Str and Dex...

Nothing wrong with wanting the Dex fighter to be viable and the Strength fighter to be viable, but having a Cha fighter so that the people with a Cha bonus do as well as the people who have bonuses to Strength is a bit too much.

The point is that D&D is not a game in which races are better or worse, because it has levels. And so any character of a given level needs to be equal to any other character of that level.

So we should let players pick any race in the monster manual (any monster manual) and it winds up as being equal to any race printed anywhere and all races can do all classes equally well.

Remind me why I should bother picking a race at all?

Particularly once we get into how races don't have distinct psychological/personality traits, so there's not even a roleplaying distinction.

Blobs with numbers. How thrilling.

[Leress]

Elennsar, you are doing what you said other are doing to you position. There wasn't a mention of minotaur racial levels in Kaelik's post.

[Elennsar]

Well, then what makes a minotaur any different than a goliath with (slightly) different stats?

Because unless it has cripplingly low Dex (or something else), it can't get much of a Strength bonus, for instance.

The assumption is that a level 1 minotaur is not at full strength, thusly.

And I'm not calling Kaelik a moron for this, whether it would have racial levels or none.

I may think its a bad idea, but that's very different.

[zeruslord]

Let me lay this out for you in simple terms.

1. Basic minotaurs are supposed to be on an equal footing with level 4 characters.
2. All characters of equal power should have an equal level
3. Minotaurs must therefore be level 4 characters.

What part of this logic do you not understand?

Honestly, I disagree with Kaelik that a Level 1 minotaur should be allowed in games because its level-up progression is quite frankly silly. It grows about two feet as it gains three levels, which could be done in as few as ten days, making a growth rate of nearly 2.5 inches per day. And that's just terrible. If it starts out as Large, then you run into problems with its strength increasing absurdly over that same ten day period, and things are nearly as dumb.

If kobolds aren't level appropriate, fix them, remove them as playable characters, or accept that your game is broken.

[Elennsar]

Which part of my agreement with that is being overlooked based on my disagreement that they should be playable characters to begin with?

Same with kobolds.

Mind, I still think that any given race should have some things it does well, which may well mean that minotaurs make terrible wizards but good fighters.

But "a minotaur" as equivalant to "a 4th level character of any other sort"...good idea.

[Roy]

[Kaelik]

So instead of using the official-we-actually-have-stats for this minotaur, we have a thing we call a minotaur that really isn't any stronger than a human or dwarf.

No, the actual Minotaur would be stronger then a human or dwarf. And it would gain size as it leveled. But no, it's not the MM Minotaur, because the MM Minotaur is inferior. And was designed to be inferior. And having options designed to be inferior is bad.

Nothing wrong with wanting the Dex fighter to be viable and the Strength fighter to be viable, but having a Cha fighter so that the people with a Cha bonus do as well as the people who have bonuses to Strength is a bit too much.

A racial bonus to Cha and penalty to Wis in no way equates to a worse fighter then a human. And since humans are generally considered good, that should be fine. There are different kinds of fighters, one of them is a smart fighter, but the reason I used dex is because Kobolds are better then humans or dwarves at it, so clearly if Dex fighter should be equal to str fighter, then kobold should equal dwarf.

So we should let players pick any race in the monster manual (any monster manual) and it winds up as being equal to any race printed anywhere and all races can do all classes equally well.

No, every race that we allow to be played has to be good at every class. Yes. Really. If that means we have to tear apart half the classes in the game, assign all their class features to feats, and then have only a decent number of classes and races in the game instead of 5000 of each. That's fine.

What is not fine is having a hundred and fifty classes not worth playing, a shit ton of races that suck balls, rarely come up, and don't add anything, have a shit ton of crap options, and eventually boil it down to:

Elf Ranger/Dwarf Fighter/Human Wizard/Halfling Rogue/Anthropomorphic Bat Druid/Any race Cleric.

Because that's bullshit.

Remind me why I should bother picking a race at all?

Particularly once we get into how races don't have distinct psychological/personality traits, so there's not even a roleplaying distinction.

Blobs with numbers. How thrilling.

The reason you choose a race is because they are distinct, and the reason you choose a class is because they are distinct, and the reason you choose both it because any race can be any class.

That's why under my system, choosing race and class are done separately, instead of just choosing "Elf Ranger" or "Dwarf Fighter" because Elf Fighter and Dwarf Ranger aren't valid concepts.

And seriously, is there anything in the above quote that even remotely resembles anything that I've ever said in this? No, there isn't, you literally just pasted Phone Lobsters argument onto me. If you have such a problem, why not argue against him.

And I'm not calling Kaelik a moron for this, whether it would have racial levels or none.

I may think its a bad idea, but that's very different.

So it's okay if you strawman, as long as you don't call me a moron for believing the thing I don't believe?

[Elennsar]

Assuming all other features of being a kobold are balanced with all other features of being dwarf, which they aren't (certainly not for being fighters).

Having each race be good at each class is a bad idea.

If (arcane) magic requires great brainpower, and orcs are stupid, "but I want to be an orc wizard!" is not supported by what magic requires.

Tough fething shit.

As for blobs with numbers: So we have "different but equal because the idea that a stupid race would have a disadvantage instead of just a difference is a bad one."

My appologies for the confusion. Still about as excited at the idea...it means that there is no race that's better at wizardry or fighting or rogue stuff or any stuff. They just do different things.

As for strawmanning: No, I was just noting the difference. No intent to strawman was present, and as stated, appologies.

[zeruslord]

That same line of argument above applies to everything else ever.
A minotaur with a single class level in anything would therefore be a Minotaur 4/Something Else 1, which is a level 5 character. All characters of equal level should be equally powerful. Therefore, a minotaur 4/something else 1 should be as powerful as any other level 5 character. If this isn't true, minotaurs should not be playable characters.

[Elennsar]

I think I'd be able to survive minotaurs not being playable characters. Or kobolds.

Or...anything outside the Player's Handbook, really.

However, whatever is a playable race should be capable of being equal to anything else that is.

Some races make great wizards but poor fighters. Some are the reverse. So long as both fighter and wizard are equally good, this is fine.

Mind, if this is done, the idea that "humans can be anything!" probably needs to go. There is no reason for our species to be the anything-it-wants (or there to be such a race if there are any "can't be X" situations).

[Maj]

If (arcane) magic requires great brainpower, and orcs are stupid, "but I want to be an orc wizard!" is not supported by what magic requires.

Because, as I said before, when you look at individuals within a given race, there will be a smart orc. There is no reason why a stereotype should be forced upon every character. Not every step-mother is evil. Not every hero is male. Not every fighter is strong. Not every elf likes the forest.

It is the nature of good stories to star characters like these, and the nature of good roleplaying games to tell good stories. If the only thing that matters to you is seeing your race translate into numbers on your character sheet, then it really doesn't matter that orcs get an Int penalty because you're not going to be interested in playing characters like an orcish wizard to begin with - you'll just run with the biggest numbers.

[Koumei]

Just for the record, why use kobolds as an example here? Shouldn't they be relegated to the role of "Minion found in teams. Caps out at 6HD, takes the hilarious minion feats."?

[Talisman]

Not everyone hates kobolds, Koumei. Besides, they're a useful example of the "small, high Dex, low Strength" race. For a kobold adventurer to be a valid concept, he has to be able to capitalize on his high Dex while compensating for his low Strength.

If it bothers you, mentally replace "kobold" with "halfling." Same paradigm.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

One Drizzt is cool and interesting. Two is okay. Three is fanboyism. Four plus and you've just announced that "drow" doesn't mean anything at all.

Speaking metaphorically, its more like that there are more Drizzt types than actual CE drow played by people.

And the kinds of drow played by PCs says absolutely nothing about what most drow are like. PCs are exceptional. Otherwise they wouldn't be at the center of the story. You don't make the point that most drow are evil by prohibiting people from playing good drow. You do that by having most NPCs shrink in fear from the drow PC or say, "OMG! It's a drow! Somebody kill it!"

Similarly, the fact that orcs aren't usually wizards is reflected by the reactions of NPCs. Elven archmages look down their nose while saying, "I thought orcs were too stupid to be wizards," and orc NPCs make fun of the dork who has his nose in a book all the time and can't swing a greatclub.

[Talisman]

True enough, AW, but a big coccoon* of CG, twin-scimitar-wielding, PC drow does tend to dilute the whole "drow are evil bastards" angle. I mean, a bunch of "one in a million" heroic drow all managed to not only survive, but learn similar combat styles and hook up into the same adventuring party.

(I exaggerate slightly for effect.)

IMO, such things are best dealt with outside of the rules...i.e., "in my world, good drow are incredibly rare. One per party; first person to call it gets it."



*the scientific name for a group of drow.

[Kaelik]

I think there's a problem with the code, because it keeps adding a weird post that doesn't exist on the end, that produces a new page, that can't be viewed.

[Elennsar]

I was picking kobolds as an example of CR 1/6, actually. Not Dex vs. Strength.

Dex vs. Strength is one thing. Low Strength and very small size are not assets.

As for PCS being exceptional:

I'll put it this way. If orcs are, as a race, less intelligent than humans, then that means that orcs are dumber than humans. Not just usually dumber.

If drow are evil, then one or two Drizzts in the entire setting is barely within reasonable.

PCs are exceptional does not and should not mean that PCs get to break all the rules and be totally unique individuals.

There are a lot of reasons why some races are strongly prone to X, and strongly prone means anything up to and including "there are no exceptions". There are no LG succubi. There are not many more CG from-the-underdark drow.

In plain English: If you can't tell a good story about a person who is like most of their kind, you can't tell a good story to begin with!

If you want to play an orc wizard, either you want one of two things:

1) to roleplay something unusual. In which case, if that's going against the racial limitations and weaknesses, its going to be a weaker something. Tough beans.

2) "My race has a good bonus to X. Can I use X for my stat-for-this-class to make up for the fact that I'd otherwise be weak at said class (and thusly find it much less important that my race is weak here)?"

If character race means anything at all, it means these two things below:

1) What you are good or bad at.
2) What you are inclined to do.

In our species, we're pretty enduring and pretty good at push-to-limits will. We're also clever but usually not wise.

Speaking of the human race on Earth, here.

There are things that we do well. There are things we'd do poorly. There are things being "human" wouldn't matter in regards to.

Having all things be like that just means that the whole "orcs tend to be ___" is, instead of an actual racial characteristic, a stupid stereotype.

And I'd much prefer it to be an actual racial characteristic. If "being an orc" has no impact either on the kind of person you are or the kind of things you do well or poorly or sometimes merely differently, then there is no purpose in writing it on the character sheet.

Now, half-orcs are unplayable because they're too weak, but having half-orcs make bad wizards as long as they're not bad PCs in other areas that are equally important is perfectly fine unless you want "I am a half-orc" to mean exactly nothing.[/i]

[JonSetanta]

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