Talk:Simplified Races (3.5e Variant Rule)

More Races

Any requests for specific races? --Ghostwheel 13:59, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

There are about a billion sub-races of elf. Start with those?--Tavis McCricket 19:37, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

I'll request the planar ones (aasimar, tiefling, genasi), but there's no rush on them. - TarkisFlux 00:42, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

As far as the sub-races, for the most I'll simply say to use the base elf. It fits most of them well enough. That said, I'll probably add the drow at some point (5+HD SR, I'm thinking as a passive ability). I'll also add the aasimar and tiefling soon, though I'm not sure if I should make the genasi a single race (and give different specific effects depending on the flavor) or a different entry for each one.

All the planetouched have been added. Anything else? --Ghostwheel 18:11, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Kobolds come to mind. Hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls, yuan-ti*, xvarts, githyanki*, githzerai*, pixies, orcs, kuo-toa*, sahuagin, lizardfolk/trogdolytes (not sure I should be grouping those together). Dragonborn, perhaps, or their like. Bold denotes things I'd consider more as staples to the D&D world (excluding the product identity stuff). Merfolk and mongrelfolk are possibilities, I suppose. Not sure if shifters/weretouched/were-anything should or could be covered under this variant.

*Denotes product identity; not sure how that would affect a decision to rebuild them under this variant. -- Jota 19:21, July 4, 2010 (UTC)

Attribute Bonuses

Is there any way to factor those in? Rather than the standard "+2/-2", what about +2 to one variable attribute? For instance, Elves get +2 to Dexterity OR Intelligence, Half-Orcs get +2 to Strength OR Constitution, Humans get +2 to any attribute, Dwarves get +2 to Constitution OR Wisdom, etc.--Tavis McCricket 19:37, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why you'd want to. Mental boosts are worth more than physical boosts, any sort of boost / penalty tends to diminish consideration of races for classes outside those that are benefited by their boosts, and the boosts are worth substantially more under a scaling cost point buy system. They just don't do anything particularly good and have several minor problems. - TarkisFlux 20:25, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

Any reason apart from affecting the DCs of spells traditionally that mental boosts are worth more than physical boosts? And Tavis, any good counterarguments on why/how ability boosts would be be a good thing without necessarily shoehorning races into specific character classes? --Ghostwheel 22:30, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

That's the big one, though it's also that a +1 to save DC is just bigger than a +1 to AC or attack or HP because of how the systems scale. - TarkisFlux 22:58, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

@Tarkis- I dislike changing races because classes are imbalanced. I suggested a variable bonus to compliment class consideration, rather than harm it. This may adversely impact a point buy system, but should the method of character creation govern whether or not a class or race is balanced in gameplay? As it stands, the current change reflects a homogenizing of the races, which I dislike. Not to say that the current races are better or that these are bad, but the simplified races seem bland to me.

@Ghostwheel- By chosing (to a limited extent) where your bonus goes, it gives you more options. An elf that picks Dex vs Int has more options than one that gets Dex and loses Con. A player might actually play a Dwarf cleric or paladin (which alledgely exist already) if he got +2 Wis, rather than -2 Cha. As it stands, people will still likely pick the same races for the same rolls. Furthermore, some of the abilities (Elvish Precision, Powerful Build) already encourage people to play certain class/race combinations. Just saying.--Tavis McCricket 23:01, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

So why not just increase the point buy instead of letting all players have an extra +2 to put anywhere? Is there any real difference between the two, apart from allowing you to break the 18 cap at first level? (And should it even be allowed to be broken? Don't primarily only SAD classes break it, and they're usually much more powerful than other classes anyway?) And sure, some of the abilities nudge people towards a certain concept, but I don't think they completely decide it--you could easily play a half-orc wizard, and not be much worse than someone playing an grey elf one, while in the usual races virtually no one would ever play a half-orc wizard, or even a half-elf one if they could be a grey elf. So while there's some nudging, I don't think it's quite as restrictive and shoehorning as the "usual" race rules are. What do you think? --Ghostwheel 23:25, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

Some points:

• "I dislike changing races because classes are imbalanced." I don't actually see why you'd want to ignore races just because classes were imbalanced. If anything, the imbalance of classes is a reason to modify races. If you can't effectively use a race in a powerful class and are instead stuck to the weaker classes because of racial abilities or lack thereof, then the race itself will be valued poorly in high power games. The imbalance of classes looks to be a reason to avoid building races into class straightjackets, and since the standard setup does that it appears to be a reason to change it.
• Point buy is intended to be balanced, and it is less so with no-cost modifiers that you put on top of your existing scores purchased with scaling costs. If costs were linear this wouldn't be an issue actually, but in the normal point buy system this gives you a variable number of bonus points.
• I don't see this as a homogenization, as they don't have a lot of shared abilities. It's probably a standardization, in that they all get the same number of the same types of things. And I'll give you that this page is bland because it's so consistent and rules dense, but also because it's lacking fluff text entirely. The mechanics themselves are fine, and if this was stuck at the bottom of a regular racial writeup that helped explain why they got the abilites they got I imagine it would be much less bland.

I didn't say the problems with attribute mods were big ones, just that they were there and they didn't add anything to the game. I don't know how a race getting +2 to physical stat or +2 to mental stat is anymore flavorful than the stuff that Ghost already has here. It seems like passive number shuffling that doesn't actually add any options to the race or impact their tactics in a fight, just what classes they're going to take.

If you want some numbers that different races get to add to different things, why not a variable skill bonus instead? +2 to 3 skills from some racial list or something? - TarkisFlux 23:30, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

@Tarkis- Like I said (or was trying to say), variable bonuses are a step towards freeing races from class restrictions, while allowing races to retain bonuses that set them apart. That being said, if Ghost elected to include them, I'd hope it would be in addition to what he already has down rather than replacing it. As for the "blandness" of the rules, I wasn't refering to lack of fluff but to the content of the rules themselves. A dwarf is always a dwarf, not once per encounter (part of the reason I would like attribute bonus included). As for variable skill bonuses, that's not a bad prize. I had thought of suggesting it, but was going to wait for this debate to simmer down before adding more to the pot.

Are your thoughts of race balance based purely on high power games? If so, we'll likely never reach an agreement, beacuse we don't have balance points for races, and we should. We're trying to force a static system onto a fluid framework.

@Ghostwheel- These rules certainly encourage more class/race diversity that the current ones, no arguement here. As for point buy, I actually don't use it. 4d6 rolled seven times, drop the lowest. That's just me though. If you're creating these rules specifically to be used with point buy, increasing it certainly isn't a bad idea, but the suggestion wasn't simply to make PCs more powerful (and thusly I can't say if I agree of disagree). I do, however, find it acceptable to allow someone to exceed a score of 18 at first level (by virtue of a racial modifier mind you).

Everything I'm trying to suggest is an addition to what Ghost has already laid out. I'm not suggesting he remove things, merely add them. My heart isn't really in a long drawn out debate like I entertain with Storm for that very reason. I like what is there already, I just want there to be more.--Tavis McCricket 00:09, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

We shouldn't have balance points for races, because they should all be roughly equal (within their LA / ECL bracket) to make them equally viable choices in a game. Racial bonuses do set them apart, but they diminish the ability of a race to be an equally viable choice in all classes, and thus in all game types. I don't think it's worth it for differentiation purposes, not where there's ability or whatever differentiation to take it's place. I'd actually be really happy with racial stat maximums though, and getting some differentiation in that way, but that's not on the table here and probably shouldn't be.

I guess we'll just disagree on the blandness of the rules though. I rather like them, though I think they're a bit austere. A dwarf in this is always a dwarf in this, and once per encounter he can call on that dwarfness to do stuff. If he wasn't a dwarf he wouldn't have access to it, and the access is what makes him dwarfish. The access is always there, even if the ability has been used. I wouldn't turn down an additional passive ability for each race though, just to increase individual feel a bit more. And they could maybe use some level based advancement, but it's not especially important to me. - TarkisFlux 00:40, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

As I said on the intro, you/the DM can add all the misc bits if you want to--though I'm not sure how often the elf immunity to ghoul paralysis comes up... And the current abilities of most of the races were hard enough to come up with--do you want to come up with one more passive one for every race? :-P --Ghostwheel 04:45, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if you had thought about incorporating these simplified race's abilities into the Original Race rebuilding? I think that would be fairly awesome to be able to pick some of these instead of something like Bonus Feat. Not sure how many slots each would be worth though.108.13.212.160 05:08, September 8, 2010 (UTC)

Drow Utility

So, I'm a drow. I create darkness in my square and the squares adjacent to me. I then move thirty feet away. Does the darkness effect move with me? Quilliard 20:38, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Negative. Stays where you created it. --Ghostwheel 22:32, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

A rarer piece of knowledge regarding drow: they have horrible flatulence. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 23:13, August 17, 2010 (UTC)