It’s annoying that you never see elven martials due to the -2 con. You never see dwarves sorcerers or paladins due to -2 Cha. It’s Limiting.
Would it break the game to let races use their lvl1 Feat to remove the negative racial stat penalty?
I mean...dwarves for example, still wouldn’t make the best sorcerers, oracles, skalds, bloodrager s, or paladins. But they could now do it without feeling needed.
And elven fighters would still gravitate towards being lightly armored dex warriors due to their +2 dex. But now they’d no longer be paper thin.
Would this be game breaking?
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While cha is harder to overcome I see plenty of eleven dex based martials anyways and they can grab toughness and overcome the hp penalty quite easily.
I mean... I think it might be more balanced to take away some of the racial traits instead. Look at humans. They lose their feat AND the skilled racial trait for another +2 to an ability score.
Many of the racial traits are quite strong.
Aye...
Humans give up everything for +2/+2
Aasimar get +2/+2 with a boatload of extras...
But for a dwarf, as an example...what would he give up? Stonecunning? Defensive Training? Hatred? Greed? Hardy?
Stoic Negotiator gives +2 diplomacy, bluff and profession merchant. Perhaps change that to the +2 Cha? Allows for Dwarven casters while having less face modifiers.
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It’s annoying that you never see elven martials due to the -2 con.
I see them: They make fine dex based martials. Toughness and FCB can make up the HP ground.
You never see dwarves sorcerers or paladins due to -2 Cha.
No sorcerers? They make awesome Empyreal sorcerers. Paladins? They make fine Tortured Crusaders.
Breaking news! Aasimar are broken compared to core races!
I've seen lots of elven martials. Not so many dwarven sorcerers but no reason it couldn't be, especially for a dragon disciple type.
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tortured crusader kinda sucksIt’s annoying that you never see elven martials due to the -2 con.I see them: They make fine dex based martials. Toughness and FCB can make up the HP ground.
You never see dwarves sorcerers or paladins due to -2 Cha.No sorcerers? They make awesome Empyreal sorcerers. Paladins? They make fine Tortured Crusaders.
I just looked at the archetype and I have no idea where your opinion comes from. It's based off a better stat(Wisdom) and gives a huge bonus to attack and AC at level two again the target of your Smite. The only thing it really loses is Divine Grace, but that's where Dwarves come in with their awesome saves against spells and poison, so...
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
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Oh noes, you lose Detect Evil, that’s horrible...
You get more skill points and a lot of nice skills, your smite is functioning as having an 18 and later 26 equivalent Charisma, which is really nice when you roll stats or use standard Point Buys.
And even better everything goes off Wisdom.
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your smite is functioning as having an 18 and later 26 equivalent Charismano its stuck at what an 18 would give you, you just get double smite damage on non evil outsiders/dragons/undead targets at later levels wich is great if you are doing like a 10 point buy and can only have a 12 in wisdom at the start but in all other cases its strictly worse off
Ah, I had misread and thought you got doubled Attack bonus as well. Oh well, double Smite damage on all your attacks, rather than just the first on specific targets, is very nice
Don't know why you brought up Wisdom since it doesn't interact with TC's Smite Evil.
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cuz everything else is based on wisdomyour smite is functioning as having an 18 and later 26 equivalent Charismano its stuck at what an 18 would give you, you just get double smite damage on non evil outsiders/dragons/undead targets at later levels wich is great if you are doing like a 10 point buy and can only have a 12 in wisdom at the start but in all other cases its strictly worse offAh, I had misread and thought you got doubled Attack bonus as well. Oh well, double Smite damage on all your attacks, rather than just the first on specific targets, is very nice
Don't know why you brought up Wisdom since it doesn't interact with TC's Smite Evil.
Except smite, I know there's already been debate on whether you get Wisdom in addition to the static bonus but I don't believe you do and I'll leave it at that.
But most likely not an 18, since a Paladin also needs good Strength and Constition and possibly Dexterity.anything over a 12 they will get higher then an 18 eventually
But you're missing the point. This is compared to Charisma builds on a race with a -2 to charisma vs a wis build with a wis bonus.
So it's not 'a 14+ wis would be better' but 'a cha 14+ would be better'. Clearly you're going to need a HUGE point buy to make a cha 14+ worth while starting off with a -2.
So you're talking apples and oranges by continuing to hammer 14+ WISDOM.
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Assuming you're the GM, you could just eliminate the -2s and let everybody have +2/+2s. For nonstandard races, they can remove two points of penalties (so a kobold, normally -4, has a -2).
Assuming you're the GM, you could just eliminate the -2s and let everybody have +2/+2s. For nonstandard races, they can remove two points of penalties (so a kobold, normally -4, has a -2).what would you do for races that only get a +2 and no penalties?
My thoughts exactly. So either take away something from the races that DO get a -2 or give humans a +2 to an additional ability score, maybe?
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Assuming you're the GM, you could just eliminate the -2s and let everybody have +2/+2s. For nonstandard races, they can remove two points of penalties (so a kobold, normally -4, has a -2).what would you do for races that only get a +2 and no penalties?
I forget they exist. Nobody EVER plays a human or half-human around here. ;)
So, yeah, another +2 seems about right. Maybe one fixed and one floating, or two floating, but no stacking in either event.
and how crippled would the character be if you were not running a bloodline that swaps casting stat like say draconic
But he doesn't HAVE to be crippled... That's the point of stat replacement archetypes. You take classes you aren't good in and change them into one's you ARE good in. IMO, it's hard to be sympathetic when you have a good option but pick a bad one then complain about it.
Not every race is suited for every class, nor should they. For myself I'm more annoyed by people trying to play class/race combos that make no sense than no orc wizards. :P
Just because it makes no sense to you doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to someone else. Besides, by virtue of self-determination, no class-race combo doesn't make sense. You are what you choose to be.
Atypical characters are usually more interesting than stereotypical ones, anyway.
Just because it makes no sense to you doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to someone else. Besides, by virtue of self-determination, no class-race combo doesn't make sense. You are what you choose to be.
Atypical characters are usually more interesting than stereotypical ones, anyway.
It seems you misunderstood me: I'm not saying someone shouldn't make the character they want to play, just that they shouldn't complain about that character when they went out of their way to pick a subpar combination. If they want to play against type, more power to them. However, if someone feels 'crippled' by their character, they only have themselves to blame for picking 'flavor' over function.
So I NEVER said or implied that any "class-race combo doesn't make sense": It's a statistically certainty that you'll have anomalies that don't fit the norm. PC playing against type by going out of their way to pick a combo that they know will have -4 to their main stat [over a race that gets a bonus] know that going in and should be willing to accept the consequences of that.
All of this is doubly true when there is an archetype that IS suited for the class and they ignore it for one that isn't.
This is one of the reasons I came up with am alternative for generating ability scores:
Choose any scores with a total modifier of +6. Three even numbers, three odd. You cannot have a score lower than 3 or higher than 18 before racial modifiers.
Point-buy is great. But in a truly well-rounded campaign with a wide variety of challenges and threats, I see no reason why a player should have to pay a premium for higher scores. A plus is a plus, and that's that.
Of course, my players tend to be fairly realistic about their characters. Natural 18's are exceedingly rare, and their three highest scores don't just happen to be their three odd one as well.
Take Vell, the elven Conjurer: Str 10, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 7. Raised in a militant community and trained for combat at an early age, before his brilliance and arcane affinity were truly discovered, he is fit, tough and stubborn. His analytical mind and aloof elven nature makes him cold at the best of times and outright calloused at the worst.
--the player knew that a Con of 15 was pretty unusual for an elf, and he liked that idea, especially for a wizard. The Charisma score is getting into the Danger Zone for ability damage and drain, but the player felt it was fitting and decided to take the chance. He put an odd number in that slot as well, with the thought of increasing it down the line to shore up those weaknesses a bit and manifest some character growth.
so 7,18,18,7,18,7 would be a valid stat array with those rules
Yup! Absolutely.
Though I'd be curious as to *how* a person would end up with such numbers. They don't really seem to call to mind a real person.Even more importantly, most of my players wouldn't want to portray someone with three 7's. It could easily lead to a character that's boring or limiting to play. We've realized that a character is defined by their greatest weaknesses at least as much as they are by their most profound strengths.
And then there's the mechanical aspect of it. Do you want to play a character that takes a fairly steep penalty to half of everything a person can do? Do you want to be 2d6 damage or drain away from being instantly neutralized?
The system could be abused by a player who doesn't care about story, if they had a DM that didn't properly challenge them, but it hasn't been a problem for us in the 12 or so years we've been playing under the rule. It's met with such success in fact that everyone who's run a character under the rule has gone on to implement it in their own games as well.