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Apr 29, 2012 -- 9:24AM, SantaClaws wrote:

Apr 29, 2012 -- 9:03AM, TheMormegil wrote:

Also, human isn't awful at any class.

Fixed

Many builds gain no benefit from additional at-wills and +5% to every defence. Extra feats are always nice but not always nicer than +2 to both key ability scores. 
  

Except that +4 to a missed attack is pretty powerful, and their Racial PP is one of the best all-around Paragon Paths in the game. No one rolls a human for that +1 to NADs and extra at-will.

But it seems like you've blanket-banned too much, and as a result, ruin the delicate balance of the game. Simple answer: Let your players put +2 in any two stats they want and take the racial effects from the race they intend to play. At worst, everyone is now a human with +2 to two stats. At best, you now have any class your players want with no downsides.

This really isn't the fault of 4e, and in fact, 4e strived to make race -less- important to class than previous editions. You know, those editions where you had penalties. Often, fairly steep ones. This is a fault of blanket banning without looking at how you can rework the races to fit your setting.

Your inflexibility is not a fault of D&D, and Next promotes even more flexibility available to the DM and players.

EDIT: Also, to clarify: My group is semi-optimized, and I've made challenging encounters (7 encounter day? No rest? Totally). My players haven't felt any real need to pick the best races for their classes. Wilden Cleric. Tiefling Rogue. Shadar-Kai Ranger. They miss a fair bit, but Level+8 is pretty silly, especially considering it scales 1 per 2. I think it's on you if that's the case and they feel that -those- are the stats necessary to win. Perhaps you should be toning -down your monsters, instead of forcing your players to search for every +1 to attack they can.

Apr 29, 2012 -- 1:43PM, Pa11ad1n wrote:

No game should force optimisation.

Any game wherein combat is the primary focus forces optimization. It's a sound strategy and is well within the realms of roleplaying for any character who regularly engages in those combats.

I disagree with the idea that the GM should have to change his world to accomodate every thing the players want.  If they don't fit, they don't fit.  If the world exists as part of a mulitverse (as most classic D&D settings do) then it may be possible for a character to have come from some other part of the multiverse rather than belonging to a native race.  Though the GM shouldn't be forced to allow 'special snowflake' or 'mary-sue' characters if they don't want to. 

Then the GM is playing the wrong game. Flat out. 4e makes the implication that the PCs are Big Goddamn Heroes. They are not the normal, and break from the monotony of everyday life, come from strange and wild backgrounds and do so to fight injustice and evil. And I agree that this should be the way the game treats PCs. Why? If you're Jimbob the Farmer who has just learnt to swing his sword because goblins razed your village, why are you being picked by the king to do a job over the captain of the guard? Or a more established adventurer? Those games work for some people, and in some games of D&D (older editions, most notably), but they come with contrivances that are hard to ignore for some people.

Also, people seriously need to understand what the terms they're using are for. Does everyone love your character when you meet them? Do Orcs suddenly begin to fawn over your PC, regardless of gender? Do they apologize for hurting you? Does your PC have magical Plot Armor? If not, then it's not a "Mary Sue". Mary Sues are "Everyone loves me, and no one would think bad of me. Even my enemies secretly love me." characters. That's why they exist. As for Special Snowflakes... meh? That's the PC's job in the world. If they weren't special snowflakes, they wouldn't be doing anything in the first place. They wouldn't be able to avoid legalities to get jobs, they're be constantly stopped and forced to fill out the proper paperwork. All wizards would be elderly men who have spent their lives training hard to master the most basic of spells - no natural talent there. That's too "Special Snowflake" for us.

Hyperbole and exaggeration aside - PCs are special snowflakes. They should be exempt from general world rules. If a GM says "X isn't in my world because they don't make sense." and will refuse to listen to any attempts to help my character fit into his setting, then I'll simply take my game elsewhere. If a GM wants me to play his character, then he can feel free to run a campaign with premades for me to pick from.

Apr 29, 2012 -- 2:05PM, Pa11ad1n wrote:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

...The very first thing on the page is that has several errors.

Yes. Very credible.

EDIT: Ontop of that, it supports exactly what I said. Everything after the last annotated paragraph o in the first section is pointless, because there is no evidence, and is what it has evolved into via overuse.

But, uhm, thanks.