My Thoughts: The Races


Races & Classes


I like keeping the old standards. Yay for that.

I like the new "net +2" ability score setup and making it selectable for humans.

One of the key things about races is to make them useful at higher levels too. You can do this with racial feats that boost race-specific stuff (e.g. Dwarfy Weapon Focus: +1 with battleaxes,handaxes, warhammers and stacks w/Weapon Focus). Or you can make some of the bonuses grow with level. "+2 racial bonus to X, +1/5 levels" would be about the right speed.

Dwarves:
Slow and Steady - speed is "never" modified by encumbrance? I'd specify up to the max load, or else that dwarf'll be moving 20 with an elephant on his back.
Keen Senses: making fine differentiations in perception (taste and touch) seems mildly finicky to me.
Greed: This means no bonuses if trained, which would seem weak and not a good scaling ability. Bonus abilities should never provide a disincentive to take the real skill.

Elves:
Keen Senses: I've always (as a DM) hated the auto-check to detect secret doors thing. It's too hard to remember to do it. Make it a bonus for active searching instead.
Elven Magic: here you give them +2 on Appraise for their area, which is how the dwarven greed should work.

Gnomes:
I'll have to play one in celebration of y'all keeping them :-)
I'd lose the gnome inherent spells. They'd need another benefit to help them out. Staying away from the tinker bard thing? You could give them bonuses to engineering or appraise on mechanical objects o whatnot. Or, to make it simpler, give them +3 of Obsessive.

Half-Elves:
Same Keen Senses note as elves.

Half-Orcs:
I love the orc ferocity; they needed something distinctive all their own. In fact, I'd take the 1/day limit off of it if they're only up for one more turn - even a pig can go till it's at -10! Even if they always were up (but still bleeding out) till -10 it wouldn't be overpowered... Maybe keep that for the pure orcs. But don't be afraid to boost this power more.

Halflings:
What, not river gypsies? <snark>
Seems fitting, I like the luck aspect.

Humans:
Go humans.

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