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9 months ago ::
Aug 31, 2012 - 2:25PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Oct 27, 2007
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PCs are not exceptional in my games, so what they have is what everyone has. The only exceptional thing about PCs are abilities score above average. And that's on the dice.
Woo! I wasn't gonna' be the one to say it--but yeah, the whole idea that PCs are exceptional is pretty lame. I really don't play that way either. It's a conciet that really bugs me. If PCs are better than regular folk from the start and destined for greatness, then it sort of feels like they don't earn their accomplishments. I like the idea that the PCs start out in the same boat as every other person out in the world, but that they go out and get for themselves whatever degree of heroism, villany or mediocrity they aspire to. I'm not telling a Greek myth here, I want real folks full of weaknesses, emotions and foibles--real people in fantastic situations.
For my money I'd like to have different (or tiers) in the game right from the start:
Gritty (PCs are pretty much like everyone else--they adventure rather than farming, but it's their occupation, not their chosen status as folk set apart for awesome at birth)
Heroic (PCs are a cut above--nothing supernatural or verisimilitude breaking, but they are irrationally better at surviving otherwise lethal damage and other silliness. See any action movie especially ones with Arnold Schwartzeneger.)
Legendary (PCs are figures of mythic proportions. See Beowulf. You can fight naked at the bottom of a bog against the queen of monsters for days, convince lions not to eat you by sheer virtue, take out whole armies of badguys while tied up and topple a temple on top of yourself as the big finale...except for the getting blinded and dying part, because in Legendary you're cool enough you grow new eyeballs the next day after you crawl out of the rubble. Booyah!)
I guess my thing is epicness shouldn't be about level, or a basic assumption of the game. Different games have different levels of epic and I think that's okay.
Now with 100% more Vorthos!
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9 months ago ::
Sep 01, 2012 - 10:12AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2007
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For the main part of the thread. Humans are not really unbalanced mechanically. At most you are looking at a 5% boost in every roll, but realistically it is more a 5% increase in probably 3-4 attributes and with a cap of 20 non-humans still end up slightly better in their specialty and humans are slightly better in the off specialty stuff. I'd probably give non-humans a +2 in their big stat so they hit 20 at the same time as humans though, but that is a fairly minor tweak.
As for exceptional Pcs on some levels well duh the are. By virtue of being an adventurer and having the drive to go out and slay monsters and take their crap and not remain a farmer they are not the average guy. There is a reason in any campaign why the Pcs are doing things and others are not even though the same catalyst may have occurred in their backgrounds. Personally I think the whole not having straight 10's in attributes shows that enough though. If you give everyone the standard distribution though even that wont apply, but that would boggle me even more. You think average people are that exceptional?
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 10:05AM
#23
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Date Joined:
Oct 27, 2007
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As for exceptional Pcs on some levels well duh the are. By virtue of being an adventurer and having the drive to go out and slay monsters and take their crap and not remain a farmer they are not the average guy. There is a reason in any campaign why the Pcs are doing things and others are not even though the same catalyst may have occurred in their backgrounds. Personally I think the whole not having straight 10's in attributes shows that enough though. If you give everyone the standard distribution though even that wont apply, but that would boggle me even more. You think average people are that exceptional?
I'd argue that the most exceptional thing about an adventurer should be that they're an adventurer. In the same way that most people in our world aren't cops or emergency room doctors or secret agents--but those careers are the most exciting ones, so most of our stories are about them.
I guess put another way, I don't see there being much mechanical difference between having a PC who's a farmer or a merchant versus a PC who's a fighter or a cleric...it's just that a game focused on a farmer PC would be a much duller game.
I like a D&D game where the difference between the PCs and NPCs is less the difference between Aragorn and Butterburr and more the difference between say me and a cop.
Now with 100% more Vorthos!
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 1:40PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Aug 11, 2006
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Their intent is to have humans be Good at Many Master of One concept. The +1 to all is just 100% mechanics so that PC humans don't miss weapon training or what have you. Remember PCs are exceptional and my assumption in regular people they only would get the +1 to one, if one thinks mechanically.
PCs are not exceptional in my games, so what they have is what everyone has. The only exceptional thing about PCs are abilities score above average. And that's on the dice.
I keep supporting stronger bonuses with a malus for non human race, like a +2 -1 to something when humans got only a +1 or a +1 -1 for non humans and nothiung for humans. And also a changed ability cap. So where the top is 20 an elf has a 21, 22 maximum int, or dex and a 18, 19 maximum con.
PCs are not exceptional in my games, so what they have is what everyone has. The only exceptional thing about PCs are abilities score above average. And that's on the dice.
Woo! I wasn't gonna' be the one to say it--but yeah, the whole idea that PCs are exceptional is pretty lame. I really don't play that way either. It's a conciet that really bugs me. If PCs are better than regular folk from the start and destined for greatness, then it sort of feels like they don't earn their accomplishments. I like the idea that the PCs start out in the same boat as every other person out in the world, but that they go out and get for themselves whatever degree of heroism, villany or mediocrity they aspire to. I'm not telling a Greek myth here, I want real folks full of weaknesses, emotions and foibles--real people in fantastic situations.
For my money I'd like to have different (or tiers) in the game right from the start:
Gritty (PCs are pretty much like everyone else--they adventure rather than farming, but it's their occupation, not their chosen status as folk set apart for awesome at birth)
Heroic (PCs are a cut above--nothing supernatural or verisimilitude breaking, but they are irrationally better at surviving otherwise lethal damage and other silliness. See any action movie especially ones with Arnold Schwartzeneger.)
Legendary (PCs are figures of mythic proportions. See Beowulf. You can fight naked at the bottom of a bog against the queen of monsters for days, convince lions not to eat you by sheer virtue, take out whole armies of badguys while tied up and topple a temple on top of yourself as the big finale...except for the getting blinded and dying part, because in Legendary you're cool enough you grow new eyeballs the next day after you crawl out of the rubble. Booyah!)
I guess my thing is epicness shouldn't be about level, or a basic assumption of the game. Different games have different levels of epic and I think that's okay.
Hate to break it to you guys, but the moment a player of any race picks a class and goes adventuring (for whatever reason, power, protection of a loved one, saving the kingdom or a myriad of other choices and situations) they ARE special.
They're not staying behind and hoping someone will save them like the rest of humanity tends to do. They're going out and doing the deeds. They're the ones wanting to change and shape the world.
Whether or not they actually succeed, is really up to the GM. But in the end, the fact that the PC characters (if you'll let slip into make believe for just a second, I know, it's tough with this being D&D and all, but you remember being kids, right?) are standing and facing the dangers ahead, instead of running away from it, or letting it overrun them, makes them 'heroes'.
And Heroes (and I'm using it in the Grecian sense, not the Saturday Morning Cartoon way) do big things.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 3:40PM
#25
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Seriously, the other races suck compared to the Human Master Race.
At high levels, the plus to all abilities is more powerful than ever. Power to attack, power to damage, power to skills, power to save, power to win.
Meanwhile, everything the other races get which is mostly trivial to begin with becomes obsolete. *roll eyes*, a Wizard looses out on an 18 just to get an extra cantrip - when the Wizard alread has cantrips plus a single feat grants three more? Ridonkulous.
The other races suck.
It is broken.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 5:02PM
#26
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Well, there are certainly some strong emotions running in this thread. I think it would be most helpful (from a playtest point of view) to discuss how common humans are amongst your PC's. Working with a level cap of 20 (per the rules) we had 8 of 10 characters choose human. Now, that might sound good to some of you who don't want non-human pc's to be the norm, but it smacks of a mechanics problem to me.
We just recently tried capping traits at 18 instead of 20 (which has a number of balancing effects) and we have 3 of 4 non-humans. That seems a hair better from a game balance point of view, but it may not be everything.
We also found that the dex fighter had a lower AC, lower initiative differential and generally seemed balanced with St fighters.
In fact a 16 in a secondary trait seemed very strong, where when we had 20's the 16's weren't all that useful (except in con and for certain skills.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 5:39PM
#27
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Well, there are certainly some strong emotions running in this thread. I think it would be most helpful (from a playtest point of view) to discuss how common humans are amongst your PC's. Working with a level cap of 20 (per the rules) we had 8 of 10 characters choose human. Now, that might sound good to some of you who don't want non-human pc's to be the norm, but it smacks of a mechanics problem to me.
We just recently tried capping traits at 18 instead of 20 (which has a number of balancing effects) and we have 3 of 4 non-humans. That seems a hair better from a game balance point of view, but it may not be everything.
We also found that the dex fighter had a lower AC, lower initiative differential and generally seemed balanced with St fighters.
In fact a 16 in a secondary trait seemed very strong, where when we had 20's the 16's weren't all that useful (except in con and for certain skills.
Humans tend not to be that common among my players. At most there will be 2 PCs in 5 that are human. The reasoning is simple, "You are human in real life, why play one in fantasy?"
I don't know how much that could help in a playtest sense?
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 5:52PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2012
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If you look back to older editions and old school games in general humans got a raw deal. They got one bonus. Some cases XP or other times how high of levels they could go. Without level caps in non human races in the new editions things have turned into of a cf of trying to make people want to play humans and now it seems like you want people to not play humans. Its odd to see a thread like this to me haha. But really though level caps aren't a bad option in short term games. But if you do long term ones make the non humans take a tiny bit longer to level up. Don't cap em. No one likes that. This reminds me of a debate I once had about non human level caps. I was on the against side. I was saying even if it helps game balance it isn't realistic. Gnomes, Elves, and Dwarves all live longer than humans and therefore should never get a cap. Well the other side said if you do that no one will play humans. You get a more interesting character with different abilities with no drawbacks. Draw your conclusions I think level slow downs are perfect in my games.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 7:04PM
#29
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A player character is exceptional in the fact that they are insane enough to start adventuring in the first place. Your group's highly skilled fighter probably could have a gotten a cushy high paying job protecting some noble, or perhaps he could have joined the military where he would likely be quick to advance in rank. Instead he chooses to run around dank festering monster holes in the hopes that he will find a pile of coins or a magic potion.
Most of the races get a weapon die bonus, which is cool unless you are a wizard or warlock. The one weapon die increase that other races get are nice, although that extra 1 point of damage that you always get for the +2 of being human more than makes up for it. Most of the other abilities just seem situational, unless you are always in a forest or your dm always uses charm effects. A cap of 20 also means that humans will reach it at greater speed than the other races, allowing you to put more points into your secondary and tertiary stats which will already be higher than every other race.
I'm not usually very good at character optimizing or power gaming, (nor do I particularly care to be) but the advantages to playing a human seem obvious.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 7:53PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Jul 31, 2007
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Interestingly enough, though, out of my players, only 1 is a human. The special abilities and flavor are what draws people. The abilities they have flesh them out nicely, making them a lot more robust on default than a human is, and that is a small part of the draw.
That said, I'm probably just going to say that humans still cap at 20 in all stats and non-humans can go to 22 in their buffable stat. Either that or I will end up giving my non-humans an extra +1 to their core stat for race out the box to balance their main stat out mechanically. That would make sense to me.
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