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Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:03PM, Cerois wrote:

There is no rational reason that my dual wield half elf ranger should be worse then my dual wield dwarf ranger, in fact I would think that the majority of people would believe it should be the opposite.

Define rational reason.

Is that a Dwarf is naturally stronger then the Half Elf have anything to do with it?

As PBN said within the default context of D&D Dwarves are better then others at what they do good.  Without that flavor its just "Racial Statblock 1" and "Racial Statblock 2"  And I think that is the point.  You (and others) dont like that there is flavor included.  Would a safe assumption be that the perfect game for you is something like:

Pick Race (no crunch at all)

Pick Class (no crunch at all)

Pick Crunch. (no ties to the above steps) 

Above I did not mean to bring "real life" into D&D.  Just the fact that "Inequality" is a fact of life.

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:18PM, Herrozerro wrote:

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:03PM, Cerois wrote:

There is no rational reason that my dual wield half elf ranger should be worse then my dual wield dwarf ranger, in fact I would think that the majority of people would believe it should be the opposite.

Define rational reason.

Is that a Dwarf is naturally stronger then the Half Elf have anything to do with it?

Above I did not mean to bring "real life" into D&D.  Just the fact that "Inequality" is a fact of life.

If you were to take a half elf as described by the fluff, and take a Dwarf as described the fluff, the Half Elf would have virtually every meaningful advantage in a battle between dual wielders, a style which in real life generally relies on speed and range. Being stronger is irrelevant for a great many weapons, including most finesse weapons which are generally associated with dual wielding.

The games adstract representation of the races often creates these kinds of irrational dynamics, the game-simulation divide is great here. Thats not a bad thing in and of itself, and it has many good side effects. However one of the negative side effects is that you sometimes wind up with these kinds of silly and irrational circumstances.

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:18PM, Herrozerro wrote:

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:03PM, Cerois wrote:

There is no rational reason that my dual wield half elf ranger should be worse then my dual wield dwarf ranger, in fact I would think that the majority of people would believe it should be the opposite.

Define rational reason.

Is that a Dwarf is naturally stronger then the Half Elf have anything to do with it?

As PBN said within the default context of D&D Dwarves are better then others at what they do good.  Without that flavor its just "Racial Statblock 1" and "Racial Statblock 2"  And I think that is the point.  You (and others) dont like that there is flavor included.  Would a safe assumption be that the perfect game for you is something like:

Pick Race (no crunch at all)

Pick Class (no crunch at all)

Pick Crunch. (no ties to the above steps) 

Above I did not mean to bring "real life" into D&D.  Just the fact that "Inequality" is a fact of life.

No I wouldn't go that far but certainly in that direction to a much greater extent. I like flavor, in fact as a GM I almost always have considerable flavor added to every character race I allow, I also generally will allow atypical examples of a race in the form of characters who don't have the same baseline abilities. Consistency is generated by the environment not by the players, so I don't mind if there is a human who has the stat package of a goliath, or dwarf, or drow for that matter.

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:27PM, Herrozerro wrote:

Arnt you the one who just chastised me for bringing into the discussion real life?  Who are you to say what is "rational" is a fantasy world?

I apologize if I came across as a little harsh, certainly didn't mean to chastise anything you said.

But, you brought up the natural inequities in the world as an explanation as to why its OK to have choices that are optimal. I simply stated that there is no reason that in a game where we model whatever we want that we need to model life's natural inequities. Its not a particularly fun part of life and were not trying to teach life lessons.

I brought up real life by way of explaining why these types of irrational separations between even game fluff and game mechanics exist. Half Elves based on the fluff description, and the mechanics of the environment should be better dual wield fighters, because of the separation between the rules and the fluff they don't.

This is the divide that I see as the strongest basis for refluffing. Although I as a GM am generally pretty free form on the whole thing, which is kind of odd because I have never asked for permission to refluff a character - I don't mind of others do it in my games but I don't like doing it myself.

Sep 19, 2009 -- 10:35PM, Cerois wrote:

This is the divide that I see as the strongest basis for refluffing. Although I as a GM am generally pretty free form on the whole thing, which is kind of odd because I have never asked for permission to refluff a character - I don't mind of others do it in my games but I don't like doing it myself.

IM gonig to say I think this is where our groups themselves are different.  I guess we dont have a need for refuffing to the extents needed by others because we seem to be more "content" with the game as presented.

Nothing against anyone else.  It's just different.

So with that said, what is the argument over anymore?  Isn't the answer to the question "Whatever the DM says?"  (or for those player power people "The group or some kind of arbitrary decision maker")