I feel like this might have the effect of making the various races feel less unique and less diverse. Instead of having a dozen or more unique races each with their own variants. You now have one race that that's just highly dimorphic. Or to put it more plainly, you no longer have different races. Everyone is just some variation of human.
What makes a particular race unique is that it's the only one that gets something. If every race can have a trait that trait is no longer unique to anyone.
Your idea is probably ok from the DM side of things. You could quickly create more variants of elf for example. But if a player is allowed to do this then race just becomes another set of feats you can pick based on the type of character you want to play. You could easily end up with a gnome and a dwarf who are identical in every single way except one character sheet says gnome and the other one says dwarf. Which I think is the opposite of what you're trying to do.
Balance-wise, I think it’s going to be fine most of the time, although there’s probably some weird combination that can make things slightly more powerful than other combinations. But it would be minor. The bigger issue, I agree, is that it does perhaps blur the lines that make existing races unique. From a very balanced perspective, you could also just allow players to use the benefits of whatever race they like, and then just call it a Dwarf or Tiefling or whatever. But other than that little thing, seems fine. There aren’t that many alternate racial traits with overlap like that in the first place, so probably only looking at a dozen different traits that could be gained this way; no one is suddenly getting Drow Noble abilities or anything.
I can see it as a method for making unique mixed race characters... I am the product of an Elf and a Dwarf. It's not at all unbelievable, so why wouldn't you be able to have things from both races?
However, I like the diversity of the different races... I like some things to be more powerful than others, some weaker, some that fly, some that don't... and some of those things probably shouldn't be available to anyone else outside of that race.
I don't think Noble Drow abilities are anything over the top or special... it takes like 30 seconds to get used to the constant Detect Magic vision as a GM. Levitate is a nonissue. Dispel is ok, but Suggestion is borderline useless most of the time. Definitely nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things. But I wouldn't let anyone else have any of these abilities because they are what makes a Noble Drow a Noble Drow.
Swapping things like Keen Senses or Hatred or whatever aren't stripping the race of what makes it, it.
Just don't let people destroy the individuality of each race.
The suggestion here is basically what the ARG's race point system does, only scaled back a little. You'll probably be able to figure out some hilarious equivalencies but it won't actually break the game.
There are some alternate abilities printed in later books that make this idea less desirable.
Take the Shadowhunter racial ability printed in Blood of Shadows.
Dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-orcs, and halflings can take this trait in place of weapon familiarity. Half-elves can take this trait in place of elven immunities. Humans can take this trait in place of their bonus feat, also gaining Iron Will as a bonus feat.Now every core race can trade their racial weapon familiarity for a free trait. 90% of characters don't use their racial familiarity anyways and the extra feat would just be better.
The same applies to Skilled. If you have min/maxers in your campaign, you'll have a party full of non-humans with all the good human traits, because those races with +2/+2/-2 stats can also give up marginal racial traits to get the good ones from human.
Well, going by OP's initial idea, I'd say that it doesn't work that way, because the human version is trading an open feat for this trait plus a specific feat. Going in reverse, it's the classic "you don't have this, so you can't trade it away". However, if they had Iron Will as a free feat from a racial, they could trade that and this trait (or weapon familiarity) for an open feat. Just my two cents. It would be a houserule, so choosing to apply it in that way wouldn't be any less true-to-rules.
Just for the record, everyone, this rule was inspired by Adventure Time’s ttrpg, where you make your race up as part of character creation, due to all the random species that exist in the actual show making it impossible to just make a set of fixed races like in other ttrpgs.
well, that makes sense. many of the characters come across as just humans with weird colored skin and maybe an odd physical trait or two. They don't come across as different races. The system results in exactly what I said it would. Race is no longer a discrete choice, instead you get a collection of powers that you can simply mix and match between. This is perfectly fine if you're playing a mutant where two individuals can be the same "race" but have little to nothing in common with each other physically.
Going back to your original example. If I tell you a character has fey-magic as one of their racial traits it doesn't define their race, its an aspect of the individual's upbringing and background but that's all. If every trait my character has is one that could be had by multiple races my character is no longer a specific race. They are a generic race with a specific kind of upbringing. If afterwards I can write human, orc, elf or dwarf, and it has zero impact on the abilities I chose then that description is diminished, not enhanced. It means that what I put down for race matters as much as hair color does.
Even if it's not wide spread it still diminishes the definition of race. If I am a elf because I have trait X that only elves can get and the rest of my traits are ones that could be had by many races. Then i am an elf only because of that singular trait. Being an elf becomes a very small aspect of the character overall.
If you want to have a game where race doesn't matter, that's great. That is a specific design choice the same way some systems don't have classes and those systems can be great fun. But I would never say that a classless system results in more unique classes. But rather class doesn't define the characters at all, at least not mechanically. You could still call yourself Class X, but there's not any weight behind doing so. Since such a definition is meaningless. "I'm a druid because I can manipulate plants, though I also walk around in metal armor and technically I cast arcane spells. But I'm a druid darn it!"
Being an elf becomes a very small aspect of the character overall.Part of what I'm going for, to piggyback my clarification off you.
Why? What is accomplished by removing race from the character?
Is it an issue that needs resolved? I am not seeing any benefits from this change.
In a situation that offers a character very little to go off of, being able to fall back on the things associated with the character's race can make things better. When in doubt, do Orc stuff if you're an Orc. Why take that away?
The last part of Childhood's End is truly terrifying... no race, no emotion, no individuality... just the average of all humanity. So scary. So lame.
I don’t think you get it. It doesn’t diminish anything. Race literally never mattered anyways, except for qualifying for feats, traits, certain magic items, and archetypes, and even then, there are several workarounds. Nobody says Racial Heritage makes all the humanoid races diminished in definition.
I'm not sure that I even understand what "it is" that I'm not getting. Maybe I just make strange characters, but I know for me race is an important aspect of my character's identity and that it's not all just fluff. There are mechanical advantages my character has being their race. Humans are a bit bland as a race. The racial heritage feat allows you to play something that's not entirely human. The character stands out because they aren't human any more.
So why would this be any different? It is literally just what you are.
it makes the term meaningless because telling you what race an individual is doesn't give any meaningful information.
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You step into the tavern and can see it's an orc tavern. Everyone turns to look at you. One 3 foot tall orc with pale skin and pink pigtails yells at you in a high pitched voice.
"your kind isn't welcome here!"
The brown furred orc next to her stands up with a low growl in his throat.
"you heard her, you need to leave now before there's trouble"
You decide to go a head and leave as the orc behind the bar with black skin, pointy ears and white hair levels a crossbow at you glaring down at you along his pointed nose.
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Yep, those were all clearly orcs......
Also, you keep saying things like “what does it matter if I write elf down on the sheet”, well, simply put, that question is a strawman, because you aren’t an elf. You are a unique race, that may be similar to elves in some ways, but you are not an elf. It’s no different than writing “Fighter (Viking)” on your character sheet. You are not a Fighter, you are a Viking, but that doesn’t diminish the definition of classes, just because you have a Barbarian’s Rage while having Fighter as your class. So why are you trying to make it out to be that way for races?
I thought it was apparent that it does diminish a class. How many threads exist where someone wants to play a "rogue" and their vision is better fulfilled by making a character that is a completely different class? The classes that don't get diminished are those that have something that only that class gets. I have no reason to ever play a sorcerer because the only interesting thing they get (bloodline abilities) I can get through feats. If I wanted to be an arcane spell caster I'd rather play a wizard or arcanist. Why? because these classes can do things that other classes can't. Though even then the only choice between them is, do you want to be a prepared caster with flexible spell slots? or a prepared caster that gets new levels of spells quicker?
If you want fast progression of and full access to arcane spells then wizard is your only option.
Also, you keep saying things like “what does it matter if I write elf down on the sheet”, well, simply put, that question is a strawman, because you aren’t an elf. You are a unique race, that may be similar to elves in some ways, but you are not an elf.So in your example, the GM never would have called them orcs in the first place, because they aren’t orcs.
So, to make sure I understand what you're saying. If a human swaps a trait for say a dwarf trait using your proposed system they now no longer count as human? Do they count as a dwarf? or are they a completely new race all together?
I was under the impression they still counted as human.
I’ve been saying repeatedly that this is for creating unique races. Mechanically though, it would only be fair to have them still have the same subtype, because otherwise, things like the Bane enchantment would be less useful, and I’ve been clear that balance is an issue I’m concerned about.
Another way to look at it, is that it’s similar to the situation with drow. They have the elf subtype, but nobody refers to them as elves, because it is just wrong fluff-wise to do so.
Ok, this is in-line with my original thinking. This is my thought process. Since mechanically a half-orc shouldn't be more or less powerful than a gnome. It seems possible to make a half-orc that functionally is a gnome (basically swapping all half-orc traits and replace them with gnome traits). However, they are still a half-orc they're just a subset of half-orc same as drow being a subset of elf.
The thing is when characters encounter a drow for the first time. The DM will describe them as an elf with black skin and white hair. At this point the characters will get a check to see if they know what a drow is. Maybe they do maybe they don't, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still appropriate to describe it as an elf. This is because, even though they are different from elves in many ways its still a useful description. To the point that I don't have to give any further description for a player who knows what a drow is to immediately recognize it.
If you are some subset of a given race. It should still be useful to describe the character as it's parent race for anyone not familiar with your particular subset. The same way dwarf is a starting point for duergar and gnome is a starting point for svirfneblin.
The thing is when characters encounter a drow for the first time. The DM will describe them as an elf with black skin and white hair. At this point the characters will get a check to see if they know what a drow is. Maybe they do maybe they don't, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still appropriate to describe it as an elf. This is because, even though they are different from elves in many ways its still a useful description. To the point that I don't have to give any further description for a player who knows what a drow is to immediately recognize it.That is not accurate, though. Elves are never black skin with white hair. That is always a drow. So if the character somehow didn’t know what drow are, they wouldn’t think it was an elf, anymore than if elves appeared in real life, ordinary people would see them as just humans with pointed ears. That just wouldn’t happen. Hell, real world humans saw humans of different skin colors as entirely differently species in our somewhat distant past. You can not tell me that someone on Golarion who didn’t know of drow would see something that could never be just an elf, and think “oh, that’s just an elf with black skin and white hair”.
Both Dusk elves and Vourinoi (Desert Elves) have typical colorations that could cause them to be mistaken for drow in their own environment. Yet both are just elves with different alternative traits. Even other elves suspect dusk elves as having drow ancestry because of their dark vision. Not to mention that an actual half-drow can just be an elf with the blended view alternative trait.
Of course, the appearance of elves are less fixed than other races anyway.
Unlike humans, elven diversity springs not from common ethnic lineages, but is often a result of their species' adaptation to the various ecological habitats across the planet. Changes in elven physiology generally occur gradually over centuries, but even a single elf's appearance can change dramatically over the course of his or her lifetime when exposed to a new environment.
So, an elf that spends a lot of time in the darklands could easily look like a drow, even though they are just an elf.
As long as there's some trade off for a power, I see no problem.
A giant dwarf is not really a dwarf. They would probably lose their underground traits but might retain some ability to tell the durability of above ground structures.