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Frobi-Wan Kenobi wrote:

It's very true that the roleplay aspects of the new system (or almost any system) are limitless; however, in my experience with Living Forgotten Realms I haven't seen very many characters playing against their races strengths - no pun intended.

Clerics are Dwarves & Elves, Fighters are Dragonborn & Genasi, Rogues are Drow & Halflings and so on and so forth.

Which I guess one can attribute it to the system being brand new but I have to wonder really why since for the first time you can actually play any class with any race without taking too much of a hit ability wise.

Examples: 3.5 Half-Orc Wizards must have been few and far between as well as Dwarf Sorcerers (considering I never saw either).

Perhaps we will see less "race+class sterotyping" as the campaign progresses.

For the most part, I haven't been seeing too many people playing againt their race's strenghts either.

My first and primary character is an Eladrin fighter that actually works very well because of Eladrin Soldier, the free skill choice and Fey Step but, such builds get overlooked because many are blinded by just the stat bonuses.

I think as the former LG players begin to realize that they don't need to optimize 100% to survive we'll begin to see more varied choices.

lcghent wrote:

I don't think it is all about "former LG players trying to squeeze every bit of bonus as they can" as you insinuated. There are just as many powergamers from home campaigns as LG as well by the way, so no need to bash on the LG players.

In addition, all of us are new to the system, so many people are being very conservative with builds. When it is obvious you need a certain stat for a particular build, then people are going to actually have that stat. Once people get more experience with the system, then maybe they will open it up more.

Second, racial stereotypes are there for a reason. If everyone was a "freak" for their race, whats the point? I think its a good thing to see races playing to their stereotypes (and yes their strengths) as it makes perfect sense. Sure you will have the occasional abnormal person of the race, but thats the exception not the rule.

And yes, I admit I have an 18 int Eladrin.

I wasn't bashing just presenting my view from the inside. I was a frequent LG player up until GenCon and there was defintiely a pervasive sense that you needed to build strong if you were going to get through some mods. Alot of us are adjusting to what I believe was an excellent choice to scale for the middle of the power range instead of the top.

Certainly, more than just former LG players powergame their characters but, most of the LFR I have played(16mods) has included a fair percentage of my old playmates and building for this new campaign/game is a definite paradigm shift. The expectation shift of former LG players weighs in heavily on this particular issue.

Reylance wrote:

My next character will be a gnoll. Maybe a fighter?

Ironically enough I spent a little time today building a flail-using spellscarred gnoll fighter (I've got the cards, may as well use 'em).