Human bonuses

[graham anderson]

what about elves being immortal are you saying thats an advantage well yes it is but how often does that come into play in your games.

[the Falcon]

Hey Graham, not to harry you or anything, but could you please use proper punctuation? I find it kinda hard to read your posts. I'm not demanding anything, just wondering if you could. Feel free to ignore me, but many thanks if you could.

[geeman]

graham anderson writes:



> but i still dont agree with humans gaining the bonus abilities

> and no one has managed to explain to my satisfaction why they should

> have them except the obsesion some people have with power gaming and

> also the need to try and balance all the races(why). i also think

> that a bonus feet and skill points is worth a lot more than what

> most of the other races get making if anything humans overpowered.



I don`t think there is a particularly logical reason why humans get those

bonuses other than the aforementioned assumption that humans are by nature

more versatile than the other races, so their racial characteristics (a

bonus feat and more skill points) are variable. Personally, I`ve always

found this to be more a function of culture than race, per se, so in BR I

think those traits should be dedicated to things that express the

characteristics of the human culture. The bonus feat should be dedicated to

a background feat, while the skill points should be dedicated to a skill

that is in some way related to the culture of the character.



Lately, I`ve been wondering if it might not make sense to categorize weapons

by race. That is, have an additional column to indicate which races employ

which weapons. Most weapons would have "All" in the proposed "race" column,

but certain weapons (like the 3e Dwarven Urgosh) might be listed amongst the

martial weapons section, but have "Dwarf" listed in the proposed column.

That would mean for dwarves the weapon was martial while for all others its

use is exotic. That particular weapon might not be the best example, but if

one were to make something like longbows an "An, Elf, Rj" weapon, for

example, then characters of those races who were proficient with martial

weapons would use it per normal, while those not of those races would have

to use the Exotic Weapon feat to get normal access.



Gary

[graham anderson]

sorry about the punctuation but i am pretty busy so i type and then i go without much of a thought or look over whats written down i will try and do better punctuation and spelling but its all down to time if i have it it will be punctuated well if dont it isn't.

[graham anderson]

i tend to categorize weapons by race up to a point my self.
i dont have time to write them all out but

elves have longbows, elven blades(katanas) but not axes

rjurik axes, longswords , longbows but not rapiers,

the way i work it up to a point anyway is if they have any experiance with similar weapons in thier culture they can use an item but unusual weapons that they are not used to like axes for elves and rapiers for rjurik are different.

[ConjurerDragon]

graham anderson schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...=ST&f=2&t=2296

>

> graham anderson wrote:

> i am not trying to get defensive i am trying to get my point across. i mean in relation to goblins and orogs with relation to dwarves and in the fact that humans are fairly xenophobic in general of other races.

>

> i have read all the excuses that they have given for humans having extras but that is what they are excuses.

>

> and if the flava comes from the background and it does why give humans bonuses to begin with.

>

> i dont see the humans as being hamstrung what realy powerfull bonus does an elf get none. they have low light vision big deal

>

> as it is humans and elves begin with the same amount of feats and skill points in my games which i see as being better for game ballance. now if someone wanted to play an ogre or something then we would still be talking levels as an ogre is a considerably more powerfull creature.

>

Graham could you please try to write at least the first character of

your sentences in capitals? I find it hard to concentrate on reading all

of your messages when everything is written small.



Low Light Vision is only one of the "extras" sidhelien receive. And if

you fight at dusk or dawn it can be a relevant advantage. As sidhelien

are very well suited for a sort of guerilla warfare with their abilitys

in forests they could for example ambush some human party/warband in the

early morning where the humans still receive penaltys for not being able

to see well.



The flavour that humans strive to achieve more in a limited time is

nicely mentioned in one of the Birthright novels (which I would suggest

to get all as they can give lots of ideas or help to imagine how Cerilia

might actually look like) where the Chamberlain and his (later)

sidhelien female lover are having a conversation ("The Iron Throne" by

Simon Hawke, p. 183 onward).

bye

Michael

[Osprey]

Lately, I`ve been wondering if it might not make sense to categorize weapons
by race. That is, have an additional column to indicate which races employ
which weapons. Most weapons would have "All" in the proposed "race" column,
but certain weapons (like the 3e Dwarven Urgosh) might be listed amongst the
martial weapons section, but have "Dwarf" listed in the proposed column.
That would mean for dwarves the weapon was martial while for all others its
use is exotic. That particular weapon might not be the best example, but if
one were to make something like longbows an "An, Elf, Rj" weapon, for
example, then characters of those races who were proficient with martial
weapons would use it per normal, while those not of those races would have
to use the Exotic Weapon feat to get normal access.

Gary

It seems to me I've seen this idea somewhere else, but regardless it's a good one.

The 3.5 Noble that Raesene Andu posted for download allows nobles to be proficient with all culturally available weapons, like bastard swords for Anuirean nobles and Dwarven Waraxes (or the Urgosh) for dwarven nobles.

I'd be happy to see this extended to fighters, rangers, paladins, and barbarians, too! In other words, include it in the Cerilian versions of the warrior classes. That would be as far as I would take it, though...this allows clerics with the war domain to still have the advantage of proficiency in their deity's weapons (particularly useful fopr priests of Haelyn and Moradin, maybe Belinik), and keeps the non-warrior classes from getting free proficiencies with weapons that should be way out of their reach without some minimal amount of multiclassing. Like Anuirean wizards with bastard swords, or dwarven wizards with urgoshes - c'mon, make 'em take at least one level of fighter or noble!

[graham anderson]

As i said about punctuation its a time thing but i will try.

I still dont think low light vision means that humans should get a bonus feat and skill points and as for humans achieving more in a limited time elves arent considered mature until what 50 i can't remember but something like that. Thats a lot of experience.

Yes i have the novels i have all the books it is the same arguments they allways try and use and they have never worked with me it is a poor attept to make all characters equal and in my opinion doesn't work. Humans are not that powerfull or shouldn't be thier main advantage is that they breed quickly like goblins but are better organized and a little more intelligent.

[irdeggman]

Unless I'm mistaken no race 'gets along' with goblins. The only human land that has anything written otherwise is Mhoried.

Why would humans get along with Orogs? They are specifically mentioned as raiders of everyone.

So the bottom line is that dwarves and halflings are not hated by everyone and shouldn't suffer any encounter penalties except under certain circumstances. Humans also should suffer encounter penalties with each other. The Vos don't really get along with anyone. Anuireans tried to conquer the world and except for the Vos had many problems, so I guess they should have encounter penalties with the other humans also. Well the Brecht sort of absorbed their invaders but the Khinasi and Rjurik on the other hand would likely still have some resentment towards the Anuireans. The dwarves and Brecht get along really well, in fact the great bay is the one place where it specifically states they coexist, having to do with the dwarves sharing their undergound shelter during the harsh winters.

So I have yet to see why humans gain such a tremendous advantage in encounters with other races that they would should give up the bonuses the PHB grants them to balance out the mechanic advantages that the other races have. Heck just look at the skill advantages the other races have; pluses to listen, spot, appraise and craft checks. Almost all of these can come into play in encounter situations and not just combat oriented ones.

Now in my BR campaigns I never let players start out as elves, since we were playing in human lands. If they wanted to play a half-elf they had to give me a really good background history as to why they were there. The "My PC is trying to broker a deal with the humans to help gain better relations between the races" history didn't fly with me. In fact when one of my players tried to recruit a half-elf wizard as a Lt, he had to deal with a backlash of public opinion because he was being perceived as an "elf lover". Now this was all role-playing and required no adjustment to the benefits that any race had and still added the "desired" flavor to the campaign.

[Osprey]

Crud...well my first attempt at his post got erased, so here's the 2nd draft:

I love humans having some racial advantages to represent their adaptability. Whether you agree or not is pretty subjective, as we're comparing humans to fantasy races of sentient beings. Where is there grounds for realistic comparison?

So it comes down to what you like. I like the idea that in a typical D&D world, humans are highly adaptable as a race, and very ambitious compared to longer-lived races. Hence an extra feat and skill point - more drive, more motivation, and the brains to take advantage of that drive. I personally think this is one of the best 3e revisions. It encourages players to play humans, which IMO leads to better roleplaying on average because humans are the easiest race for a player to identify with while putting themselves in an imaginary landscape. Playing non-humans tends to lead to racial stereotypes and generic characters, so as a DM I tend to discourage it unless the players are mature roleplayers who can handle that extra layer of character.

Keep in mind that all racial templates are designed around a foundational concept: game balance. The idea, frojm the standpoint of 3e designers, was to create a game where all PC's are more or less equal and given a fair sytem of rewards for overcoming challenges in a fantasy adventure game.

Now, if we're talking about balance in a more political, large-scale adaptation of D&D like many Birthright campaigns, we run into problems, because now we have to deal with the domain-level racial advantages and disadvantages, which are often quite different than things on a small scale. And the 3.x system of ability modifier balancing gets thrown completely out of whack because social skills become very valuable, and "weighting" Strength over Charisma or Wisdom is just stupid in a game that isn't as combat focused as the standard D&D adventure.

I see this little point as one of the biggest problems in converting 3.x races to the Birthright world.

But keep in mind that the whole level-balance system (with +ECL templates for more individually powerful races) is useful mainly for determining XP awards and balancing treasure awards. And in that sense I'd say it works fairly well.

Now, as for balances between races in Birthright...

I've written about elves extensively, and don't want to rehash all of it (check out the BRCS forum if you want to read more on that). But in brief, I'd say Mark Aurel's and Bjorn's suggestions to make the average elf a higher level character is one very easy, and nicely effective, way to distinguish them from humans.

My personal desire is to see elves removed from the list of PC races in Birthright and instead appear in a Cerilian Beastiary with stats for playing them as a "monster race" with a +2 or higher ECL template, giving them better ability bonuses (Dex, Cha, maybe Int) without the frailty penalties, Nature Affinity powers, etc. (Ming I had some decent writeups for some higher ECL elven templates in the BRCS Forum).

Strong negative reaction modifiers would be one of the elven template's disadvantages, especially in human and goblin lands. A good DM would play this to the hilt to discourage elven PC's from prancing around humans saying (in so many words), "Look how cool I am!" I wonder how they'd like a stoning every village or so?

-Osprey