Ashenie wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 10:10 pm
Hello there,
Just to help the debate, there are version of drows and planetouched in the Player Guide to Faerûn that are without level adjustments. So if that is a question, the balance with other races has already been thought out by the books. It's by the end of the rule book, called "lesser versions".
I am not sure it helps, but at least it exists.
Cheers,
Ashenie
The irony is that the "lesser" version of Tieflings and Aasimar still have their +2 +2 bonuses, and instead lose all of the stuff about them that no one cares about.
BloodRiot wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 9:40 pmThirdly and finally addressing the full implications of this massive change and what really prompted me to break silence to reply. And mostly because it just shows to me a total lack of seeing the wider picture of how things are affected:
Let's take drow because to me it's easy to use them as example as i know them well.
So, for the admittedly good racial stats of the Drow, they currently pay an XP penalty, and light blindness, and lets not ignore the social stigma of the race.
So let's break down the more meaningful implications of what you'd do if you had it your way:
drow would loose 2 levels worth of Class HD + Con Mod HP
drow would loose 2 levels worth of CL if they are full casters
drow would loose 2 levels worth of BAB progression
drow would loose 2 levels worth of Class / Feat DC if based off character level at least partially
drow would loose at least 1 Epic Feat
drow would loose 2 levels worth of skill points
drow could potentially lose on APR if not full BAB progression
Several builds would be affected to the point they could be outright ruined with the loss of 2 levels`
so ill reiterate. You're out of your god damned mind if you think this is in any way fair.
And what they have instead is a net +4 to attributes (equivalent to at least several Great X feats, and 30 skill points from the Int bonus), an additional 6 skill points from their bonuses to skills, spell resistance which is a very rare property for player characters, and the ability to gain some concealment/negate concealment on others even without being a caster (though that's more of a factor in pnp where 1/day abilities scale better due to fewer encounters per day).
Would the loss of levels still outweigh those bonuses? Sure, you're right about that. But the current situation is not fair either, where the only penalty you pay is a short-term exp penalty that is negated the moment the character hits 30, and everyone else has to deal with their immersion being broken because someone wants to powerbuild.
"RP penalties" for powerful stats are not an effective deterrent. At least not for 'surface-adjacent' races. I can buy that it's a decent deterrent for drow (at least in our server environment, which stigmatizes them more and gives them fewer opportunities to be included in surface adventures than an equivalent pnp campaign would). But for tiefling and aasimar, any backstory "trauma" is basically just that, in the backstory. For tieflings and aasimar, whatever 'persecution' they have (lol at aasimar claiming to be persecuted. Perfect little angels) is considered in almost every instance by players as a perk, rather than a negative, because they want to play the outcast and underdog. Even if tieflings and aasimar were more 'lore-accurately persecuted', it would still be a very minor drawback (and only really one for tieflings, not aasimar), and one that plays into the race fantasy that people who play these races want anyway.
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