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2012-09-17, 06:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-17, 06:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I'd like to see all races have +2 to one score, but humans get +1 to two different things, this will allow them to tip stats in there favor without people getting red in the face because a "mere human" is better than another race. I think it's kind of ridiculous that people have to imagine humans as the average but oh well.
Actually I want to see humans get a bonus to Int because face it, humans are always the ingenious race, we don't live long so we have to start out smarter to get by, elves are too busy weaving baskets to want to study they have really long lives so there isn't any pressing need to be educated & dwarves are to stubborn in their thinking to innovate.Last edited by Anderlith; 2012-09-17 at 06:29 PM.
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2012-09-17, 07:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I didn't notice the 20 cap rule, but it humans are still better in general. All humans get a +1 bonus to each ability, at the very least.
That is one way to think about it, I suppose. Abilities/features create the stereotypes, but then humans are generally going to tie with a member of another race at a basic task (e.g., when casting a spell, regardless of the number of spells the characters have, an average human will be just as good as an average high elf).Dubhshlaine, Elf Mage, in Eberron D&D 4e
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2012-09-17, 07:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
This makes sense to me. Since we are all humans (don't say it...), whenever we create a fantasy universe, we're going to view our own kind as the default, unless we acknowledge that and purposefully make it different.
Actually I want to see humans get a bonus to Int because face it, humans are always the ingenious race, we don't live long so we have to start out smarter to get by, elves are too busy weaving baskets to want to study they have really long lives so there isn't any pressing need to be educated & dwarves are to stubborn in their thinking to innovate.Dubhshlaine, Elf Mage, in Eberron D&D 4e
DM for Feiticeiro's Ergodic Dungeon (Always Open!), In-Game
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2012-09-17, 07:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I don't see the issue with humans being the default and average ability scores before racial modifiers being based on humans. We're humans. The only real humanoid species we have to work from to build the game is humans.
And I see no reason humans should have an Int bonus. Have you met my generation? Again, the 10-11 average is based on human Int. Giving humans a bonus to any specific ability score just skews the entire system. You might as well then scale it back down to 10-11 and adjust everything else to fit that.Jude P.
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2012-09-18, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Well, there ARE things where non-humans are simply better at than humans in Next*.
Dwarves are always better at fighting with axes and hammers than humans.
(Mountain) Dwarves are always better at wearing medium and heavy armor than humans.
Elves are always better with the bow than humans.
Halflings are always better at stealth than humans.
And so on.
For your specific example regarding magic of high elves and humans, yes, a high elf wizard is not better than a human wizard. How does this contradict and racial preconceptions? Not D&D ones anyway. Elves (talking about PHB elves) in D&D were never seen as the best wizards, neither in mechanics nor in flavor (maybe with the possible exception of 4e's Eladrin, but I don't know that much about them). If anything, humans seem to be the masters of wizardry. Magic has a longer tradition in elven society, and the average elf is far more familiar with magic then the average human. In 3e this is represented by the favored class of elves. In Next it is represented by every elf being able to cast some small magics.
*In a direct and fair comparison, of course.
Regarding scores of 10-11 being the human average:
I don't see why it should be seen as such. In Next it obviously isn't. In Next score of 10 and 11 (+0) mark the middle ground between the two extremes of the possible range (-5 and +5) of the abilities of the player races. Notions of averageness do not enter the picture.
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2012-09-18, 03:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Warning! Crazy idea in this post! Get your pitchforks and torches ready now!
D&D Next should remove Race as having a mechanical impact on the character. If you want to be an Elf, just be an Elf. If you want to be a tiefling, just be a tiefling. Put race where it belongs as an RP element like what your favorite color is or what you plan to do after you retire.
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2012-09-18, 04:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I'd like to keep the effect of race limited.
+1 to one ability, -1 to another, low-light vision when it applies, and maybe one interesting resistance, like enchantment for elves and poison for dwarves. Humans get an extra free skill and everyone is golden.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2012-09-18, 05:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-18, 06:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
1. The mechanical "benefits" given to you by your race more often than not actually *restrict* your choices rather than open them up. Most races are mechanically designed to go with a handful of particular classes, and being a non-standard race/class combination will make you strictly worse than a standard combination.
2. This pattern means your choice of race is almost always determined by your choice of class. They are not, in practice, the orthogonal axis they are advertised to be. In 3.5 you only have at most about a dozen legitimate choices of race when you're playing, say, a Cleric, and everything else is a trap option. I know some of you disagree, but my philosophy is trap options are bad for everyone and should never exist.
4E lightened this problem to a degree by:
- Making races only give bonuses, never penalties (well, almost never).
- Making racial powers and passive abilities based on serving a particular role, rather than just one particular class.
- Providing multiple choices in what benefits your race provides.
Finally, I realize this is a personal reason but it's just too big to ignore: I hate stereotype enforcement, not only in race but also everywhere else. No, dwarves should not ALL be alcoholic scottish vikings who live in caves, and I should not be required to homebrew my own version of dwarf racial mechanics if I want to host my game in a setting that subverts or ignores this. Even if you did solve all of these problems I stated above, race still simply does not matter nearly as much as your other character choices and serves very little purpose aside from acting as stereotype enforcement.
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2012-09-18, 07:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
This isn't a bad idea, but it is exactly counter to the central idea of 5e. Since the beginning the whole point of the edition change has been to win back old players who were disillusioned by 4e, even some old 1e/2e diehards if possible. So I don't see making such a drastic and unprecedented change as really fitting with the nostalgia-heavy design philosophy at work here.
I'm also not sure how it would play out in practice. Halflings and Gnomes are much much smaller than humans, while Dwarves and Elves are always portrayed as more hardy and dexterous than humans. Ignoring that in the mechanics seems like a mistake, albeit a very minor one.
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2012-09-18, 08:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
My question would be, how do you roleplay "a dwarf" when there is no information given as to what constitutes "a dwarf", either fluff or mechanics?
Aside from that, I don't like the idea of moving away from races as a mechanical part of the game. Statting a human and an elf the same is like statting a human and a tiger the same.Jude P.
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2012-09-18, 08:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Eh, I'm well aware of that. Still, one can hope.
This is exactly my problem with the whole stereotype enforcement thing. You roleplay characters, not races. If the question that pops in your mind when you roleplay a dwarf character is "What would a Dwarf do in this situation?" then you've fallen into the trap. It's as absurd as roleplaying a canadian character and asking yourself "What would a Canadian do?"
Aside from that, I don't like the idea of moving away from races as a mechanical part of the game. Statting a human and an elf the same is like statting a human and a tiger the same.I'm also not sure how it would play out in practice. Halflings and Gnomes are much much smaller than humans, while Dwarves and Elves are always portrayed as more hardy and dexterous than humans. Ignoring that in the mechanics seems like a mistake, albeit a very minor one.
1. This proposal assumes PC/NPC asymmetry and monsters follow completely different creation rules from those followed by characters. Some people won't like this, but I don't think it's that big of a loss.
2. You can still *have* the racial bonuses, they'd just have to be modeled differently (and optionally), like through feats or monster class levels or something.
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2012-09-18, 09:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
But a Canadian is MORE likely to react to certain things in a certain way than, say, a South African. Who will be more likely to react to those things in a different way then, say, a Chinese person. These are useful things to know when creating a character.
And that's not even getting into the fact that there are, in fact, physical differences between an elf, a dwarf, a human, and a halfling that don't really exist between different nationalities of human.
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2012-09-18, 09:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
It's as absurd as roleplaying a canadian character and asking yourself "What would a Canadian do?"
I think the big problem of reducing race to just another choice like hair color is that it leads to playing dwarves and elves as "humans in funny hats". Then again, I'm one of those crazy SOBs who kind of likes the idea of Race as Class for some mechanical race flavor.
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2012-09-18, 09:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Okay, here I have to come in with my academic background in cultural studies and intercultural interactions:
We don't usually think "what would a Canadian do?". But subconsciously that's what everyone is doing all the time in all parts of the world.
If I am a German and in Germany, and there is an older man in a restaurant who is talking very loudly, I don't stop and think "what would a German do?". I would lean over and say "excuse me, could you keep your voice down a bit?".
But assumed I sit in a restaurant in southern Italy or Turkey. Those places are not far away but still I, and I think quite a lot people, would wait a moment and think "what would a local do?". Does this person behave inappropriate in public and by the local customs it is appropriate to speak up when someone feels annoyed? Or supposed I'm in China. Am I as a 20-something allowed to say such a thing to an older man, or would I have to give one of the older people from my group a hint to speak up in my place?
Many people never do it, and they are the ones that in all places of the world are called "Those damn stupid tourists!" in the local language.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2012-09-18, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
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2012-09-18, 09:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2012-09-18, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-18, 10:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
If I were roleplaying a Canadian I would definitely think, "What would a Canadian do?" Their culture is different from mine, so there are a variety of things the average Canadian would do differently. Yeah, "average"--that means that there will be exceptions, but in general, more Canadians will be like that than, say, Australians.
Further, dwarves, elves, and humans are all physiologically and neurologically different. Dwarves may well have a neurological predisposition to gruffness, beards, and alcohol.
And individual characters can be very different from their racial norm. The racial fluff is about the average dwarf, elf, or whatever. You can ignore it completely if you want to, but it's there to help influence character creation by giving an idea of the general racial predispositions and cultural background your character probably came from in the default setting.Jude P.
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2012-09-18, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Listen to Craft here guys; being a Canadian (and I'd like to think I have some experience at playing one) is not about (aboot?) choosing to eat poutine over wings at a pub.
I would challenge anyone to describe the real differences between an individual Canadian and an individual American; I assure you that it would be a very small list!
And that's his point; a dwarf is stereotyped into being seen as a short humanoid that enjoy drinking and hating on giants, but that says little about any particular individual. It's no different than declaring Americans to be jingoistic, fat, bull-headed people who like steak and Coca-cola.
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2012-09-18, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I agree with you that it's kind of ****ty that I can't take any elf or any dwarf and make it work with any given character archetype. Being an elf shouldn't make me worse as a fighter than a human or a dwarf, and being a dwarf shouldn't make me worse as a wizard than a human or an elf. Sure.
However, fantasy races are a completely different kettle of fish to real-world races. The game should make these beings out to be alien and exotic, and making character race have no effect is not the way to do that.
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2012-09-18, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
That's not how culture actually works. Allow me to illustrate.
"All dwarves are short and have long beards. They all live underground and are proud of their fine stonemasonry work. They drink large quantities of alcohol, are fiercely obsessed with clan honor, and will start a fistfight with anyone at the slightest provocation."
"All Frenchmen are smelly and don't shave their body hair, aside from that on their face which doesn't grow in anyway. They wear silly hats and are proud of their superior fashion sense. They live on fancy cheeses, are obsessed with preserving their language and heritage from pollution by dirty foreigners, and whenever threatened will surrender to their attacker instantly."
Why is one of these descriptions standard and accepted while the other one horribly offensive?
Further, dwarves, elves, and humans are all physiologically and neurologically different. Dwarves may well have a neurological predisposition to gruffness, beards, and alcohol.
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2012-09-18, 12:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Honestly it's been a long time since the traditional fantasy races had anything distinguishing about them that actually made them different to any noticeable degree. If you play a "dwarf" but instead of taking the dwarven features you take a bonus skill point and feat, chances are nobody else in the group would ever notice. The only real exception to this is sight modifiers (ie not having Darkvision when it comes up would be a red flag).
If the races actually were more different, I could see the desire for keeping them with separate mechanics. But as it is, the majority of racial benefits are things that could conceivably come from training or other individual differences already. If those differences aren't greatly increased (likely to the point that the races are unrecognizable), then you may as well just leave it as all races use the same mechanic, with a different coat of paint.If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?
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2012-09-18, 12:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Personally I like having races mechanically different. I find that 4E does this better than 3E. In my experience, unless a player is being over-the-top stereotypical, it's easy to forget what race his character is; whereas most 4E races have an obvious special power that will be visible almost every encounter. Even the monster manual gives e.g. the halfling racial power to most halfling enemies.
I like racial feats for the same reason. If all elves are simply humans with +5% dexterity, then that's really not noticeable enough in play.Guide to the Magus, the Pathfinder Gish class.
"I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums. I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that." -- ChubbyRain
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2012-09-18, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
Well, since I love to be contrarian, historical and geographical knowledge is probably the biggest one. I can name the 50 states off the top of my head, in alphabetical order (we practiced that in second grade for 3 friggin weeks) but the only canadian province I can name without looking them up is Saskatchewan, and I probably didn't spell that right either, see how clueless I am?
There's also current events and artistic knowledge: For example, there are probably plenty of great TV shows in Canada that've never seen the light of day elsewhere, but I've never heard of them.
Finally I'm sure there's also some differences in terms of rituals and tradition like national holidays and whether you drive on the right or the left side of the road. (Which one is it in Canada? Look at me, the uncultured dumbass!)
Noticeable differences in personality and disposition though? I'd bet anything that there are none.
And that's his point; a dwarf is stereotyped into being seen as a short humanoid that enjoy drinking and hating on giants, but that says little about any particular individual. It's no different than declaring Americans to be jingoistic, fat, bull-headed people who like steak and Coca-cola.
EDIT: Crap, massively off-topic! Think of something, Craft! Uhh....
Is anyone else majorly disappointed that the Necromancer specialty is only available to spellcasters? It's the perfect example of how we can use specialties to blend archetypes together and they screwed it up! Aura of Souls could easily be applied to all attack rolls, not just necromancy spells. And who says we need spellcasting to get an undead minion?Last edited by Craft (Cheese); 2012-09-18 at 12:28 PM.
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2012-09-18, 12:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
The way I see it, more blatantly magic feats require spellcasting ability, meaning it is easier for a spellcaster to gain an undead servant, which makes sense. Note that becoming a spellcaster is as easy as taking a feat to gain minor spells(which is worthwhile on it's merits alone), or being a high elf.
"Sometimes, we’re heroes. Sometimes, we shoot other people right in the face for money."
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2012-09-18, 12:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-09-18, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
I only half-read the aura of souls feat and at first I thought you could use it to make a "Death Knight" fighter who uses the souls of his enemies to fuel deadlier attacks. Then I read it again and there went *that* character idea. If I ever do play in a 5E playtest game with this packet I wanna run a fighter with a homebrewed version of this feat that lets him get back expertise dice when he slays an opponent.
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2012-09-18, 12:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting
5e Homebrew: Death Knight (Class), Kensai (Monk Subclass)Excellent avatar by Elder Tsofu.