If anyone is "essentially inviting him/herself into participating in the actual design of the campaign world," it is the person who insists that whatever fluff is in a book must be followed. Did the DM write the splatbook in question? If not, then anyone who insists on following the fluff in the splatbook that the DM didn't write is intruding upon the DM's campaign-setting-design process. In fact, it is far more intrusive in the setting-design than a player altering the fluff, since a player who alters fluff to fit the campaign setting does so with knowledge of the campaign setting, whilst the splatbook authors typically don't know your personally-created world (and even if they do, the default fluff in pathfinder books aren't written for your personal campaign setting, whereas player-written fluff is written explicitly for the DM's campaign setting).
If it helps clarify my point at all for you, I'm working from the assumption that the DM has already done whatever reskinning of options that he feels need to be done for his setting. At least that's how I operate - somewhere on my old pc I have a long document specifying if and where most of the various 3.5 prestige classes could be found in my own game setting, for example. Anything a player brings to me in that respect is going to be something on top of the work I've already done making generic options into specific ones (or discarding them as inappropriate or unfixable.)
Resskinning doesn't do this at all.You choose all of your character parameters based on the DM's restrictions for setting and flavor.
THEN, you decide "I want to play a guy that shrugs off status conditions, maybe a few times a day he could ignore shaken and nauseated and stuff. Maybe it could scale up as I level, and help with saves and critical hits and stuff. That would be cool! OH! And I should have a badass horse! It would also be neat to have some small party buff stuff that I can do."
THEN, you look at the Samurai class and you say, "heck yes! This does all the things I want!"
THEN, you never worry about "reskinning" or anything related to flavor at all. You already worked all that out with the DM. You didn't step on anyone's design toes. The mechanics are literally causing no impact to the setting.
Except on top of that stuff, I look at it and think "at a minimum, I'm going to have to come up with a house rule for the weapons it gets, as well as deal with the codes of conduct that various orders can have and fitting them into the culture where the player wants to put this character." I don't think any class with a code of conduct as part of their mechanics is an easy reskin job, but that's a matter of opinion. The weapons are easy enough, though, yes.
In this particular example, it's more of a problem with fitting the cavalier class and its overly generic orders into a homebrew in general than it is with the samurai specifically.
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I think the thing we need to understand here is that reskinning is a tool. What you do with that tool can be as noble or obnoxious as you want it to be. There is nothing objectively annoying, entitled, whiny, or irritating about reskinning things, but if you use reskinning in an annoying way then you shouldn't be surprised that your GM/Players don't like it.
As an example, we had a guy who wanted to play as a rabbit because he had a different character in a campaign from another game that he really liked and wanted to update. We used a ratfolk mechanically, but ditched almost all of the ratfolk flavor so that he could be a rabbit. He loves the character and the rabbit thing isn't getting in anyone's way, so we think it was a successful reskin.
Another guy said he wanted to be a druid. He wanted to be an elf in the game, but he wanted to use the half-orc mechanics because he wanted free falchion proficiency and no CON penalty. Also, he wanted to reskin Fate's Favored to be Nature's Favored because Fate's Favored didn't fit his character concept, but he really wanted to have it because mechanically it's a really strong trait. Also, he wanted to have a wolf companion because wolves are really cool, but he wanted to reskin an allosaurus as a wolf because the allosaurus is so much stronger than the wolf, but having a dinosaur is cheesy (his words). This was, in my opinion, a bad series of reskins. The reskins were just there to let this guy play a min/maxed character without looking like he had just min/maxed like crazy. When used for such purposes, I find reskinning to be obnoxious.
I'm in full support of reflavoring things so that they fit your character, or your campaign, but not in favor of reskinning things to boost power levels or offer some mechanical advantage.
I like what DocShock brought up.
I remember a friend of mine, around June of last year, was bummed out in PFS he couldn't play as a vanara aka monkeyfolk. So I told him, just play as a tiefling, use the rakasha-spawn variant heritage (bestial/animal heritage) and take the prehensile tail from the alternate racial traits. Then just refluff the flavor of the race and you got yourself a vanara. He even asked me how would he get a climb speed. So I told him put your skill points in climb and just go Monk and take the Terracotta Monk archetype so by fifth level he could climb at full speed; even Spider Climb as the spell.
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I think the thing we need to understand here is that reskinning is a tool. What you do with that tool can be as noble or obnoxious as you want it to be. There is nothing objectively annoying, entitled, whiny, or irritating about reskinning things, but if you use reskinning in an annoying way then you shouldn't be surprised that your GM/Players don't like it.
As an example, we had a guy who wanted to play as a rabbit because he had a different character in a campaign from another game that he really liked and wanted to update. We used a ratfolk mechanically, but ditched almost all of the ratfolk flavor so that he could be a rabbit. He loves the character and the rabbit thing isn't getting in anyone's way, so we think it was a successful reskin.
Another guy said he wanted to be a druid. He wanted to be an elf in the game, but he wanted to use the half-orc mechanics because he wanted free falchion proficiency and no CON penalty. Also, he wanted to reskin Fate's Favored to be Nature's Favored because Fate's Favored didn't fit his character concept, but he really wanted to have it because mechanically it's a really strong trait. Also, he wanted to have a wolf companion because wolves are really cool, but he wanted to reskin an allosaurus as a wolf because the allosaurus is so much stronger than the wolf, but having a dinosaur is cheesy (his words). This was, in my opinion, a bad series of reskins. The reskins were just there to let this guy play a min/maxed character without looking like he had just min/maxed like crazy. When used for such purposes, I find reskinning to be obnoxious.
I'm in full support of reflavoring things so that they fit your character, or your campaign, but not in favor of reskinning things to boost power levels or offer some mechanical advantage.
I find both examples of reskinning to be fine. In fact, I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful character with the mechanics just so, he shouldn't have to sacrifice an immersive and satisfying roleplay experience to achieve that. Nor vise versa, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics just to achieve the roleplay experience he is seeking. Or, even more pointedly, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics to achieve the roleplay experience YOU are seeking.
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After thinking about this a bit more, I think I can summarize maybe what the real objection to a lot of the more extreme reskinning proposals comes down to - the player is essentially inviting him/herself into participating in the actual design of the campaign world, and I think a lot of DMs prefer that to be an uncrossed line in terms of where they keep control of things.
Every DM invites the players "into participating in the actual design of the campaign world" when they ask for a background. Refluffing is just a facet that background.
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I never advocated unrestricted reflavoring.
Reflavoring should be something the player, and DM, work together on, and of course, within reason.
My only objection, was to the idea that nothing could be reskinnned, and all material had to adhere to the listed flavor.
This restricts the DM as well.
If his "Bandits" can only be Rogues, then he loses fitting possibilities.
In fact, this works in direct opposition to many published adventures, as monsters, equipment, and NPCs, are quite often fitted with a bit of reflavoring/reskinning.
The example above, of the reskinned Half-Orc, as an Elf, is just not reasonable, and the if the DM still wanted work with the player to accomplish this(I wouldn't), he could have the player have an "Elf-like" Half-Orc, with perhaps a bit of Elf blood, that was still recognizable as a Half-Orc, but slightly Elvish in appearance.
That's teamwork, and that's what I am advocating.
Another guy said he wanted to be a druid. He wanted to be an elf in the game, but he wanted to use the half-orc mechanics because he wanted free falchion proficiency and no CON penalty. Also, he wanted to reskin Fate's Favored to be Nature's Favored because Fate's Favored didn't fit his character concept, but he really wanted to have it because mechanically it's a really strong trait. Also, he wanted to have a wolf companion because wolves are really cool, but he wanted to reskin an allosaurus as a wolf because the allosaurus is so much stronger than the wolf, but having a dinosaur is cheesy (his words). This was, in my opinion, a bad series of reskins. The reskins were just there to let this guy play a min/maxed character without looking like he had just min/maxed like crazy. When used for such purposes, I find reskinning to be obnoxious.
I feel that this isn't entirely reflavoring though, he's taking something that mechanichally has the same purpose and simply trying to reskin the better options to fit flavor. choosing to use resolve instead of tactician, is a huge difference, due to the fact that they want an entirely separate mechanic.
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I find both examples of reskinning to be fine. In fact, I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful...
See, now here I would disagree.
The primary purpose of reflavoring from a player perspective, to me personally, is to allow a player to realize a concept that may not be possible or playable with the available content. There are other times when reflavoring is a good idea, of course, but allowing a player to optimize their build isn't one of them, unless the build was unplayable without the changes. And this was a druid with a pet--the player was going to be fine. I do not disassociate fluff from crunch whenever it is inconvenient.
What's more, this is a scenario where some homebrewing must be done. Half-orcs don't have the elf subtype. They count as humans and orcs for the purposes of effects. Allosaurs ares dinosaurs, while wolves are canines. The way the character interacts with a myriad number of conditionals and effects has been changed.
I would have allowed the change for Fate's Favored, because one invisible hand of fortune is the same as any other, and if the player talked a good game I might have relented on one of the other two points. But when they all come together it represents a playstyle and behavior I'd rather not see at my games--one where the character groans under any kind of limitations, no matter how light. It may be a prejudice, but I wouldn't expect the player to fit in well with my gaming group, and experiences from my first attempts at DMing when I was younger provide additional, if anecdotal, confirmation.
I find both examples of reskinning to be fine. In fact, I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful...See, now here I would disagree.
The primary purpose of reflavoring from a player perspective, to me personally, is to allow a player to realize a concept that may not be possible or playable with the available content. There are other times when reflavoring is a good idea, of course, but allowing a player to optimize their build isn't one of them, unless the build was unplayable without the changes. And this was a druid with a pet--the player was going to be fine. I do not disassociate fluff from crunch whenever it is inconvenient.
What's more, this is a scenario where some homebrewing must be done. Half-orcs don't have the elf subtype. They count as humans and orcs for the purposes of effects. Allosaurs ares dinosaurs, while wolves are canines. The way the character interacts with a myriad number of conditionals and effects has been changed.
I would have allowed the change for Fate's Favored, because one invisible hand of fortune is the same as any other, and if the player talked a good game I might have relented on one of the other two points. But when they all come together it represents a playstyle and behavior I'd rather not see at my games--one where the character groans under any kind of limitations, no matter how light. It may be a prejudice, but I wouldn't expect the player to fit in well with my gaming group, and experiences from my first attempts at DMing when I was younger provide additional, if anecdotal, confirmation.
I agree that this particular reskin does require some additional work on the GM's part. As someone who GM's nearly all the time I would be happy to make some or possibly all of those changes after talking with the player. As for whether that person would be happy in my game, I couldn't say until they played. 90% of our current game is roleplay and intrigue. Some weeks we don't have combat. So being mechanically strong in combat has very little effect on my game. I make strong encounters and I don't pull punches, when combat happens it is serious. I'm happy for my players to have whatever legal mechanics they choose during those times, and I'm not going to penalize them the other 90% of the time for it.
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Where on earth do you get the assumption that we all play in Golarion from?
Golarion is the default assumption of Pathfinder RPG. For many people, Pathfinder is Golarion and not just the 3.75 ruleset.
Every class bit fluff, every deity, every caviler order, every iconic character is presented as part of Golarion.
If you are not playing in Golarion fine, but at that point you are significantly changing the game as written.
Would you agree that in such a case the lions share of the work in making the reskin fit should fall on the player who wants to specifically include excluded material?
I'm pretty sure no one has disputed this. Players are supposed to be making characters who fit the theme of a campaign anyway. This thread just concerns taking classes which have default fluff that doesn't fit said campaign and changing it to fit that theme.
Like, say, if a GM wants to run a chivalric middle-ages type game, taking a samurai and changing its fluff to a knight whose faith in God (or supreme discipline, or powerful self-confidence) allows him to ignore conditions that would otherwise incapacitate him.
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I would have to hazard a guess that the proportion of non PFS players who either play something other than Golarion or a Golarion altered enough that it differs significantly from the book in many ways is at least as large as the group that plays GAW - "Golarion as written" - so I'd call that likely an unwarranted assumption on your part. And it's an especially ironic argument to use in a thread about reskinning.
I'm not making an argument either way. I'm just saying that the assumption of the game is Golarion. For those of you not playing in Golarion, reskinning becomes even more important.
For example, how are there any Red Mantis Assassins if there is no Achaekek? You however may have another organization that has very similar features to the Red Mantises.
Edit: And it's not just PFS. Several home games play APs, and moving the APs out of Golarion is very difficult. It can be done, but the APs really explore the lore of the world.
I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful character with the mechanics just so, he shouldn't have to sacrifice an immersive and satisfying roleplay experience to achieve that. Nor vise versa, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics just to achieve the roleplay experience he is seeking. Or, even more pointedly, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics to achieve the roleplay experience YOU are seeking.
I read the player's intent very differently. To me it comes off as "I wanna min/max like nuts and pretend like that's not what I'm doing". Believe me, this guy isn't into immersive roleplay experiences, he's into min/maxing as hard as he possibly can.
And you're right, I find it obnoxious because it's not the roleplay experience that I'M seeking, but it's also not the roleplay experience that that the OTHER 4 GUYS in our group are seeking. The rest of us just want to hang out and play an elf that's really an elf with a wolf that's really a wolf. We make character decisions that aren't based 100% on mechanical strength. As such, we find reflavoring, when used as a tool to ensure 100% mechanical strength, to be irritating.
But this goes back to my original point. If you don't find that example obnoxious, great, then that application of a neutral tool will work at your table. At my table, we don't like it when people use reskinning for that purpose, so we avoid it. That doesn't make reskinning objectively good or bad.
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I find both examples of reskinning to be fine. In fact, I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful...See, now here I would disagree.
The primary purpose of reflavoring from a player perspective, to me personally, is to allow a player to realize a concept that may not be possible or playable with the available content. There are other times when reflavoring is a good idea, of course, but allowing a player to optimize their build isn't one of them, unless the build was unplayable without the changes. And this was a druid with a pet--the player was going to be fine. I do not disassociate fluff from crunch whenever it is inconvenient.
What's more, this is a scenario where some homebrewing must be done. Half-orcs don't have the elf subtype. They count as humans and orcs for the purposes of effects. Allosaurs ares dinosaurs, while wolves are canines. The way the character interacts with a myriad number of conditionals and effects has been changed.
I would have allowed the change for Fate's Favored, because one invisible hand of fortune is the same as any other, and if the player talked a good game I might have relented on one of the other two points. But when they all come together it represents a playstyle and behavior I'd rather not see at my games--one where the character groans under any kind of limitations, no matter how light. It may be a prejudice, but I wouldn't expect the player to fit in well with my gaming group, and experiences from my first attempts at DMing when I was younger provide additional, if anecdotal, confirmation.
If a player wants a powerful character, but he does not like the flavor, I still see it as legit to reflavor it. Otherwise it is like saying only weaker characters should be allowed to have their flavor changed.
It is not like it would be any less powerful if he chose the original options, and just kept the original flavor.
I also don't see an issue with wanting powerful characters as long as you stay within the group's optimization limits.
I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful character with the mechanics just so, he shouldn't have to sacrifice an immersive and satisfying roleplay experience to achieve that. Nor vise versa, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics just to achieve the roleplay experience he is seeking. Or, even more pointedly, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics to achieve the roleplay experience YOU are seeking.
I read the player's intent very differently. To me it comes off as "I wanna min/max like nuts and pretend like that's not what I'm doing". Believe me, this guy isn't into immersive roleplay experiences, he's into min/maxing as hard as he possibly can.
And you're right, I find it obnoxious because it's not the roleplay experience that I'M seeking, but it's also not the roleplay experience that that the OTHER 4 GUYS in our group are seeking. The rest of us just want to hang out and play an elf that's really an elf with a wolf that's really a wolf. We make character decisions that aren't based 100% on mechanical strength. As such, we find reflavoring, when used as a tool to ensure 100% mechanical strength, to be irritating.
But this goes back to my original point. If you don't find that example obnoxious, great, then that application of a neutral tool will work at your table. At my table, we don't like it when people use reskinning for that purpose, so we avoid it. That doesn't make reskinning objectively good or bad.
I'd have to agree. Reskinning a dinosaur into a wolf because the wolf isn't as strong isn't something I'd be in favor of; I wouldn't allow someone to reskin a great sword into a dagger either. Individual parts of what the player wanted could be worked with, but taken as a whole seems like the player's goal isn't to try to work within the framework of the campaign to make a character fit with reskinning, but to gather every mechanical advantage they can while shucking as many negatives as possible.
I'm all for compromise. This isn't it.
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Where on earth do you get the assumption that we all play in Golarion from?Golarion is the default assumption of Pathfinder RPG. For many people, Pathfinder is Golarion and not just the 3.75 ruleset.
Every class bit fluff, every deity, every caviler order, every iconic character is presented as part of Golarion.
If you are not playing in Golarion fine, but at that point you are significantly changing the game as written.
Pathfinder is the core game, but it is not Golarion so they would be wrong. I do understand using Golarion as a default baseline for many things however since it is the default setting. The default setting of D&D based systems is not the game. Paizo even knows this. That is why they have the "Setting" line of books, and the core rule line. You can play without any setting books at all, and still be playing Pathfinder as written.
Not playing in Golarion is not changing the game as written at all. An example is that in Golarion you must have a deity as cleric or paladin, so you are actually changing the game as written if you do play in Golarion.
I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful character with the mechanics just so, he shouldn't have to sacrifice an immersive and satisfying roleplay experience to achieve that. Nor vise versa, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics just to achieve the roleplay experience he is seeking. Or, even more pointedly, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics to achieve the roleplay experience YOU are seeking.
I read the player's intent very differently. To me it comes off as "I wanna min/max like nuts and pretend like that's not what I'm doing". Believe me, this guy isn't into immersive roleplay experiences, he's into min/maxing as hard as he possibly can.
And you're right, I find it obnoxious because it's not the roleplay experience that I'M seeking, but it's also not the roleplay experience that that the OTHER 4 GUYS in our group are seeking. The rest of us just want to hang out and play an elf that's really an elf with a wolf that's really a wolf. We make character decisions that aren't based 100% on mechanical strength. As such, we find reflavoring, when used as a tool to ensure 100% mechanical strength, to be irritating.
But this goes back to my original point. If you don't find that example obnoxious, great, then that application of a neutral tool will work at your table. At my table, we don't like it when people use reskinning for that purpose, so we avoid it. That doesn't make reskinning objectively good or bad.
There is certainly a play style difference. I'm far more interested in the roleplay than being upset about why someone else's character sheet doesn't fit my stereotypical conception of what they are playing. I see the mechanics as completely divorced from fluff and if the mechanics fit the flavor the player wants then that good enough for me. Even if that flavor isn't very developed because that's not the part of the game he's interested in; indeed, for that player having the desired mechanics is even more important and there is nothing wrong with that.
It doesn't effect my fun for someone to take the collection of stats listed under "half-orc" and call it "elf," because what I really see is "base creature template 1."
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I find both examples of reskinning to be fine. In fact, I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful...See, now here I would disagree.
The primary purpose of reflavoring from a player perspective, to me personally, is to allow a player to realize a concept that may not be possible or playable with the available content. There are other times when reflavoring is a good idea, of course, but allowing a player to optimize their build isn't one of them, unless the build was unplayable without the changes. And this was a druid with a pet--the player was going to be fine. I do not disassociate fluff from crunch whenever it is inconvenient.
What's more, this is a scenario where some homebrewing must be done. Half-orcs don't have the elf subtype. They count as humans and orcs for the purposes of effects. Allosaurs ares dinosaurs, while wolves are canines. The way the character interacts with a myriad number of conditionals and effects has been changed.
I would have allowed the change for Fate's Favored, because one invisible hand of fortune is the same as any other, and if the player talked a good game I might have relented on one of the other two points. But when they all come together it represents a playstyle and behavior I'd rather not see at my games--one where the character groans under any kind of limitations, no matter how light. It may be a prejudice, but I wouldn't expect the player to fit in well with my gaming group, and experiences from my first attempts at DMing when I was younger provide additional, if anecdotal, confirmation.
If a player wants a powerful character, but he does not like the flavor, I still see it as legit to reflavor it. Otherwise it is like saying only weaker characters should be allowed to have their flavor changed.
It is not like it would be any less powerful if he chose the original options, and just...
I totally agree. The stormwind fallacy is prevalent in this thread.
I'd have to agree. Reskinning a dinosaur into a wolf because the wolf isn't as strong isn't something I'd be in favor of; I wouldn't allow someone to reskin a great sword into a dagger either. Individual parts of what the player wanted could be worked with, but taken as a whole seems like the player's goal isn't to try to work within the framework of the campaign to make a character fit with reskinning, but...
I find the 2nd one to be a particularly GOOD example of not letting rollplay and roleplay step on each other's toes. He wants to play a powerful character with the mechanics just so, he shouldn't have to sacrifice an immersive and satisfying roleplay experience to achieve that. Nor vise versa, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics just to achieve the roleplay experience he is seeking. Or, even more pointedly, he shouldn't have to give up on strong mechanics to achieve the roleplay experience YOU are seeking.
I read the player's intent very differently. To me it comes off as "I wanna min/max like nuts and pretend like that's not what I'm doing". Believe me, this guy isn't into immersive roleplay experiences, he's into min/maxing as hard as he possibly can.
And you're right, I find it obnoxious because it's not the roleplay experience that I'M seeking, but it's also not the roleplay experience that that the OTHER 4 GUYS in our group are seeking. The rest of us just want to hang out and play an elf that's really an elf with a wolf that's really a wolf. We make character decisions that aren't based 100% on mechanical strength. As such, we find reflavoring, when used as a tool to ensure 100% mechanical strength, to be irritating.
But this goes back to my original point. If you don't find that example obnoxious, great, then that application of a neutral tool will work at your table. At my table, we don't like it when people use reskinning for that purpose, so we avoid it. That doesn't make reskinning objectively good or bad.
What negatives exactly? Are you suggesting that the game mechanics are balanced by fluff drawbacks?
What negatives exactly? Are you suggesting that the game mechanics are balanced by fluff drawbacks?
I'd go past suggesting and outright say that there are positives and negatives to the fluff. A dinosaur tends to draw different or more attention than a wolf/dog. An elf versus a half-orc. A great sword versus a dagger.
The game, at least for me, isn't Stat Block X with Item Y and Perk Z drawn from anywhere and bludgeoned together to sort of fit the game. The fluff is there for a reason. It helps drive the story and if you can just get around all that by reskinning every element, what's the point?
What negatives exactly? Are you suggesting that the game mechanics are balanced by fluff drawbacks?I'd go past suggesting and outright say that there are positives and negatives to the fluff. A dinosaur tends to draw different or more attention than a wolf/dog. An elf versus a half-orc. A great sword versus a dagger.
The game, at least for me, isn't Stat Block X with Item Y and Perk Z drawn from anywhere and bludgeoned together to sort of fit the game. The fluff is there for a reason. It helps drive the story and if you can just get around all that by reskinning every element, what's the point?
If the GM runs the game as if people trust druids(or anyone with an animal companion) to control their animal companions then this is a non-issue, but if druids(etc) with certain animal companions would still draw unwanted attention then I agree the flavor then becomes a mechanical affect. However I would think that if the person came up with the example had that as an issue they would have mentioned it.
The flavor when set in stone just because "that is what the freelancer or designer wrote" can hinder a story more than it can drive a story. What matters is the flavor at the table, because that is what the story will contain. The flavor in the book is just a pre-written option.
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[sarcasm]
Guys, I can't believe what I'm seeing. The class name is the defining aspect of the character. If I wanted someone who was a dishonest, knavish person, scoundrel, a tramp or vagabond or a playfully mischievous person; scamp. Then I have to play the ROGUE class, as these are the definitions of the word ROGUE. ALSO if I play a ROGUE I MUST be this kind of character, otherwise I should have picked a different class. You can't be a scoundrel as a BARD, or Alchemist, or Slayer, only as the rogue class can you do it. Where to people get the gall to say that the class name is just a way to tie a bunch of class features together. That your character is your own with it's own personality. BTW all BARBARIANS are mindless fighting machines that should just attack the closest thing it sees as threatening.
[/sarcasm]
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"Wanting to be an honorable warrior who shrugs off debilitating conditions through sheer force of will and using the Samurai chassis to do so" and "wanting to be an elf but have the mechanical advantages of being a half-orc" are two entirely different scenarios. The former changes nothing about the mechanical assumptions of the game; the latter involves this particular "Elf" interacting with mechanics in a way that no other Elf does. Elves do not have Darkvision (and if they do they also have light sensitivity), but this Elf does. Elves take fire damage from the Boiling Blood spell, but this Elf instead receives a +2 morale bonus to strength.
What negatives exactly? Are you suggesting that the game mechanics are balanced by fluff drawbacks?I'd go past suggesting and outright say that there are positives and negatives to the fluff. A dinosaur tends to draw different or more attention than a wolf/dog. An elf versus a half-orc. A great sword versus a dagger.
The game, at least for me, isn't Stat Block X with Item Y and Perk Z drawn from anywhere and bludgeoned together to sort of fit the game. The fluff is there for a reason. It helps drive the story and if you can just get around all that by reskinning every element, what's the point?
There is a huge difference between "balanced by the publisher using fluff" and "negative consequences in some settings." I completely reject the first notion as false. The game is mechanically balanced (in theory) to provide suitable gameplay for a variety of settings. The second statement is quite possibly true at some tables, in some settings. That is, to me, a great reason to divorce mechanics from flavor, because mechanic choices shouldn't be limited based on game flavor.
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If a player wants a powerful character, but he does not like the flavor, I still see it as legit to reflavor it. Otherwise it is like saying only weaker characters should be allowed to have their flavor changed.It is not like it would be any less powerful if he chose the original options, and just kept the original flavor.
I also don't see an issue with wanting powerful characters as long as you stay within the group's optimization limits.
I think it would be obnoxious for anyone at my table to reskin for a power boost, regardless of total power level. I'm not trying to give you my whole life story here, so I'll just say that the example I gave was about half of the optimization changes the guy wanted to make, and his character was way outside the bounds of our group's optimization level, in part due to the reskins.
It doesn't effect my fun for someone to take the collection of stats listed under "half-orc" and call it "elf," because what I really see is "base creature template 1."
Yikes! Here's why we disagree on this stuff. My concept of what roleplaying means is really really far divorced from the "base creature template 1" model of roleplaying. To me, there's a certain charm to the notion that a gruff dwarf gets a bonus to his saves because he's a gruff dwarf, and a scrawny elf gets a CON penalty and a bonus to Spell Pen because he's a scrawny elf.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my version of roleplaying is any more or less valid than yours, I just think we want different things out of the game, so our disagreement on being irritated by a wolf that isn't really a wolf seems pretty reasonable to me. Lets agree that we both think reskinning has it's place, and I'll continue to roll my eyes every time my player says "in the next campaign, I'm going to call my allosaurus a camel".
If a player wants a powerful character, but he does not like the flavor, I still see it as legit to reflavor it. Otherwise it is like saying only weaker characters should be allowed to have their flavor changed.It is not like it would be any less powerful if he chose the original options, and just kept the original flavor.
I also don't see an issue with wanting powerful characters as long as you stay within the group's optimization limits.
I think it would be obnoxious for anyone at my table to reskin for a power boost, regardless of total power level. I'm not trying to give you my whole life story here, so I'll just say that the example I gave was about half of the optimization changes the guy wanted to make, and his character was way outside the bounds of our group's optimization level, in part due to the reskins.
It doesn't effect my fun for someone to take the collection of stats listed under "half-orc" and call it "elf," because what I really see is "base creature template 1."
Yikes! Here's why we disagree on this stuff. My concept of what roleplaying means is really really far divorced from the "base creature template 1" model of roleplaying. To me, there's a certain charm to the notion that a gruff dwarf gets a bonus to his saves because he's a gruff dwarf, and a scrawny elf gets a CON penalty and a bonus to Spell Pen because he's a scrawny elf.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying my version of roleplaying is any more or less valid than yours, I just think we want different things out of the game, so our disagreement on being irritated by a wolf that isn't really a wolf seems pretty reasonable to me. Lets agree that we both think reskinning has it's place, and I'll continue to roll my eyes every time my player says "in the next campaign, I'm going to call my allosaurus a camel".
That's fine, and as far as our interaction goes I am happy to leave it with this parting thought; that gruff dwarf can still get the bonus to saves in my game by choosing the mechanics that provide it. However, if I wanted to play a disgruntled, tough, loner halfling I couldn't capture that as well if I played in your game. And I promise you that my level of immersive rollplay wouldn't be affected by that mechanical choice at character creation. I would also posit that none of your other players would suspect anything unless you told them. (And I certainly wouldn't, I don't let other players look at my c-sheets when I play because it encourages metagaming.) So the only person left with a hang up on it is you. And that's fine, if knowing that my gruff loner halfling is mechanically modeled on the "dwarf" frame ruins the game for you... then... well, I wish you the best in your future games because that is too much stuff for be to stress about as a GM. I've got a world to run, with very real an (in some cases) strict flavor, but that doesn't mean that a character in my setting has to be a member of, "The Freeriders of Apolo," to be a paladin and it doesn't mean that all the Freeriders are Paladins mechanically (though they are in flavor.)
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And that is the fundamental divide. On the other side of the argument, some people do want their flavor to have an impact on their mechanics. That's why the class system exists in the first place--at the conceptual level, a well designed character option is supposed to emulate an important choice about your character. There are games that forgo that entirely, and they are a blast to play. But when something like character race means nothing for my character past some aesthetic choices, it becomes less interesting for me. The idea that halfling warriors require different tactics than orcs because of their limitations doesn't limit my character ideas--it helps to inspire me, and immerse me into that mindset, because I see advantages and disadvantages that I might not have considered if race provided no statistical difference.
I wouldn't call this fascination a "hang up" -- it's too ubiquitous in RPGs for that label. It's a meaningful and separate school of thought in roleplaying--simulationism vs. narratavism, if I may dredge up the outdated terms. Some people want to their statistics to reflect the character concept they've already created; other people want each decision about their character to inform the final version, developing fluff and crunch simultaneously.
Unfortunately, because both narratavism and simulationism rely on different kinds of consistency, the existence of one character in a game can diminish a player's taste for the other. And it goes both ways, as much as people tend only to see the bias of the other side. But neither side is invalid, and most people actually fall somewhere in between the lines of "refluff anything" or "refluff nothing"--it's good to remember that our preferences are, indeed, just preferences.
However, if I wanted to play a disgruntled, tough, loner halfling I couldn't capture that as well if I played in your game.
Why not?
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I think it would be obnoxious for anyone at my table to reskin for a power boost, regardless of total power level. I'm not trying to give you my whole life story here, so I'll just say that the example I gave was about half of the optimization changes the guy wanted to make, and his character was way outside the bounds of our group's optimization level, in part due to the reskins.
In your other post it seemed like the reskins, and not a power boost due to reskins, was the issue. The OP of this thread would also likely be against reskinning to gain power, and I don't think anyone here is supporting that. To me that is another topic entirely since the OP was speaking of reskinning in good faith from what I read.
Why not?
However, if I wanted to play a disgruntled, tough, loner halfling I couldn't capture that as well if I played in your game.
Off the top of my head, the +2 to CHA is directly opposed to the gruff/loner type. The -2 to STR is also directly opposed to the tough type.
So those are reasons why the classic "halfling" model doesn't fit well, now the reasons why the dwarf type does.
+2 CON is very representative of being tough, as does stability and and hardy. The slow and steady ability is very invocative of someone who has spent time taking care of themselves (always bearing the full load, etc.)
Unfortunately, because both narratavism and simulationism rely on different kinds of consistency, the existence of one character in a game can diminish a player's taste for the other.
I think this is a fair point in many cases, but in both types of games neither is an acceptable reason for "The flavor in book is not to be touched".
Now some will say the way to play the game is by whatever flavor comes with the class, and the mechanics are not too be separated. I don't really agree that it does anything for the game as whole, even if I do understand why they like it. I also don't think it has anything to do with narratism or simulationism. GM's on both sides of the spectrum still may not allow for reflavoring for whatever reason....
I feel that races should pretty much not be flavored, but that classes really have no baring outside of specific ramifications, like paladins and clerics with deities, (even then for non-PFS you can always go with 2 domains that match your views).
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In your other post it seemed like the reskins, and not a power boost due to reskins, was the issue. The OP of this thread would also likely be against reskinning to gain power, and I don't think anyone here is supporting that. To me that is another topic entirely since the OP was speaking of reskinning in good faith from what I read.
Oh, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I was trying to convey that this guy was reskinning only for the sake of having more powerful choices, not to fit into the campaign setting or anything like that. That's what was obnoxious. And to be clear, I'm in total support of reskinning a Samurai as a Knight (unless my samurai is going to be obnoxious about it).
And that is the fundamental divide. On the other side of the argument, some people do want their flavor to have an impact on their mechanics.
I agree with those people, I just think the options should be far far more granular. I build for flavor first. Let me be completely clear what that means (I said this earlier in the thread too). I build a character in this order.
Race & Gender
Community
Family
Personal Roles in Family and Community
Personal Background
Personality / Style
Job
Combat Roles
THEN
Mechanics.
That's right, I do all of that character work before choosing mechanics INCLUDING combat roles. When I have made my choices about all of those things, I then go about finding the mechanics which best represent that character. I feel absolutely NO obligation to the printed flavor, but I will flatly dismiss the idea that mechanics and flavor DON'T match in my games. I find that mechanics and flavor ARE FAR MORE IN SYNC when I approach the game in this way.
That's not just reflavoring. You've two wizards one with a bag of parchment scrolls, the other with a bag of "scroll" gems. Toss them both into the nearby lake. When they come out of the water dripping wet, one of them is going to be a lot less happy than the other.Whereas other wizards are masters of arcane writings, Gilgeam is a master of "gem magic."
This is an example of reflavoring. Literally nothing is different when compared to other wizards with Scribe Scroll save the way certain things are described.
well if his gems dissolved in water like sandstone then they both lose out.
Oh, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I was trying to convey that this guy was reskinning only for the sake of having more powerful choices, not to fit into the campaign setting or anything like that. That's what was obnoxious. And to be clear, I'm in total support of reskinning a Samurai as a Knight (unless my samurai is going to be obnoxious about it).
In your other post it seemed like the reskins, and not a power boost due to reskins, was the issue. The OP of this thread would also likely be against reskinning to gain power, and I don't think anyone here is supporting that. To me that is another topic entirely since the OP was speaking of reskinning in good faith from what I read.
So then the question is, if he didn't have issue with the flavor as printed, why was he reskinning? He could have created exactly the same character without the reskin so the reskin didn't change the power at all.
I don't think any class with a code of conduct as part of their mechanics is an easy reskin job, but that's a matter of opinion.
In this case, that hardly seems to be an issue, since the samurai can select a cavalier order (and vice versa).
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Off the top of my head, the +2 to CHA is directly opposed to the gruff/loner type. The -2 to STR is also directly opposed to the tough type.So those are reasons why the classic "halfling" model doesn't fit well, now the reasons why the dwarf type does.
+2 CON is very representative of being tough, as does stability and and hardy. The slow and steady ability is very invocative of someone who has spent time taking care of themselves (always bearing the full load, etc.)
I guess I'm just having trouble understanding where you're coming from in terms of what you feel is separate from the mechanics. Earlier, you said:
I see the mechanics as completely divorced from fluff
I took that to mean that in your mind your character was separate from his spreadsheet values. So a gruff loner would just be the way you play him, and not be influenced by his CHA score. And tough would some from acting like James Dean (there's no WAY that guy had a CON bonus).
If your character's personality is influenced by his ability scores, then where do you draw the line between fluff (I hate that expression, by the way) and mechanics?
Off the top of my head, the +2 to CHA is directly opposed to the gruff/loner type. The -2 to STR is also directly opposed to the tough type.So those are reasons why the classic "halfling" model doesn't fit well, now the reasons why the dwarf type does.
+2 CON is very representative of being tough, as does stability and and hardy. The slow and steady ability is very invocative of someone who has spent time taking care of themselves (always bearing the full load, etc.)
I guess I'm just having trouble understanding where you're coming from in terms of what you feel is separate from the mechanics. Earlier, you said:
I see the mechanics as completely divorced from fluff
I took that to mean that in your mind your character was separate from his spreadsheet values. So a gruff loner would just be the way you play him, and not be influenced by his CHA score. And tough would some from acting like James Dean (there's no WAY that guy had a CON bonus).
If your character's personality is influenced by his ability scores, then where do you draw the line between fluff (I hate that expression, by the way) and mechanics?
No, I mean that the PUBLISHED flavor is completely divorced from the PUBLISHED mechanics. Sorry I didn't make that clear earlier.
I feel that the flavor I choose should be reflected in the mechanics I choose and that the publisher's suggestions should have no restrictive influence on those choices.
DocShock you can ignore this if you answer in reply to TBone, but the question is "How is the reskinned version of the player's character more powerful than one that would not be reskinned?".
Example(simplfied)
If I have a druid with a tiger, and I have a druid with a tiger(reskinned as a wolf), how is the reskinned version more powerful?
If it is not more powerful what is the talk of "reskinning for power for"?
So then the question is, if he didn't have issue with the flavor as printed, why was he reskinning? He could have created exactly the same character without the reskin so the reskin didn't change the power at all.
I think we're looking at this from opposite directions. You're starting with "Half-Orc, Allosaurus" and then reskinning.
He started with "Elf, Wolf". That was his character. He had it all drawn up. It was about the optimization level of the other characters. Then, strictly in order to boost his power level , he decided he wanted to reskin things to be mechanically more powerful without altering his character in any way.
In the end, he has the exact same character, so my logic might seem silly, but it's an absolute reversal in what he was using reskinning for. It wasn't to make his Half-Orc better fit the campaign or a character concept, it was to make his Elf mechanically stronger. And all I'm saying is that that rubs me the wrong way. If it doesn't rub you the wrong way, good, I'm not trying to step on your toes or tell you you're doing it wrong. I'm just sharing my opinion.
Edited for clarity.
So then the question is, if he didn't have issue with the flavor as printed, why was he reskinning? He could have created exactly the same character without the reskin so the reskin didn't change the power at all.
I think we're looking at this from opposite directions. You're starting with "Half-Orc, Allosaurus" and then reskinning.
He started with "Elf, Wolf" which was about the optimization level of the other characters. Then, strictly in order to boost his power level , he decided he wanted to reskin things to be mechanically more powerful without altering his character in any way.
In the end, he has the exact same character, so my logic might seem silly, but it's an absolute reversal in what he was using reskinning for. It wasn't to make his Half-Orc better fit the campaign or a character concept, it was to make his Elf mechanically stronger. And all I'm saying is that that rubs me the wrong way. If it doesn't rub you the wrong way, good, I'm not trying to step on your toes or tell you you're doing it wrong. I'm just sharing my opinion.
I see where you are coming from now, and I think part of the difference to my reaction (and perhaps in the players mind) is that when "Elf, Wolf" get decided the exact mechanical implementation of that isn't in the decision process. If you (disambiguous, AKA your player) put that together based on what the books say are "Elf" and "Wolf" and then think, "This really isn't as strong as I would like," or "This doesn't work how I would like," or "This doesn't fit the flavor I had in mind for this particular guy just right," or ALL OF THE ABOVE, then you look around for other stuff that might work.
You (specific) get annoyed that someone would re-work based on the first objection above. Now, imagine, if instead of reworking you (disambiguous, AKA your player) skipped the step where you put the character together based on what the publisher suggests you use for "Elf" and "Wolf" and directly chose what you wanted to represent with your character.
This completely eliminates the part that annoys you. You (actually you again) can be happy that the player has a character who thematically fits in the game you are playing, and your player can be happy that they can play the character he wants to play. Everyone wins, and no one gets rubbed wrong.
No, I mean that the PUBLISHED flavor is completely divorced from the PUBLISHED mechanics. Sorry I didn't make that clear earlier.I feel that the flavor I choose should be reflected in the mechanics I choose and that the publisher's suggestions should have no restrictive influence on those choices.
Ahhhh. I can agree with this. I fully understand why you would want to separate things like Resolve from an Eastern themed character. On some level I do get into the flavor of what's published, but if it's strictly for flavor reasons, I support reskinning 100%. I just don't like it when it's used to min/max or power-game at my table.