All Police And Detectives Are Furious
Jun. 18th, 2010 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amnesiackThe more I play D&D, the more I dislike the racial ability bonuses. More often than not, the race/class parings I'm really interested in are completely sub-optimal because the ability bonuses don't line up with the necessary abilities for the class. While it would be completely possible to just build the character that way anyway, I find it really difficult to divorce my thinking away from the tactical nature of the game, and that +2 to two abilities can end up making a pretty big difference in a character's effectiveness.
One Bad Egg (RIP) addressed this problem via their Hard Boiled Cultures supplement, suggesting subcultures within each race that had their own unique ways and corresponding bonuses. That's fine, if the players/DM accept it and someone wants to put in the work to create it. But what I really want is to just do away with race-based ability bonuses all together and just let players assign a +2 to two abilities at character creation, just like they do at levels 11 and 21. The races would still be diverse mechanically via their racial attributes and feats, but it would be way easier to play a wide variety of race/class combinations without sacrificing effectiveness.
One Bad Egg (RIP) addressed this problem via their Hard Boiled Cultures supplement, suggesting subcultures within each race that had their own unique ways and corresponding bonuses. That's fine, if the players/DM accept it and someone wants to put in the work to create it. But what I really want is to just do away with race-based ability bonuses all together and just let players assign a +2 to two abilities at character creation, just like they do at levels 11 and 21. The races would still be diverse mechanically via their racial attributes and feats, but it would be way easier to play a wide variety of race/class combinations without sacrificing effectiveness.
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Date: 2010-06-19 03:52 pm (UTC)But look, D&D is all about tactical effect. It's a list of dungeon themed problems and a big book of potential solutions. You are rewarded for solving the problems, and the rewards is better kit and more XP, which let you go into deeper dungeons, kill bigger monsters, and so on.
If you aren't bought into the cycle then D&D isn't really going to work for you. And if all the solutions were equal, then there would be no point in the extensive choices you have to make.
Well, no point beyond getting to play a character you think is awesome and tell the story you want to tell.
Compare with Dogs in the Vineyard, where you can build someone whose attribute: "I can overcome my blindness" can have near equivalent game impact to "I'm a great swordsman." Dogs in the Vineyard rocks as a way to play exactly the kind of characters you want to play and to tell really thematic stories about them. It sucks as a system for solving problems tactically.
(Plus, I really want to run a half-troll bard.)