Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

RaiderOne wrote:Well people can work on that, FR has allot of races, subraces, sub-subraces, and even sub-sub-subraces. There are so many variants of everything I don't expect people, or even myself, to get every specific right every time. Some of them are common sense I would have thought.

So last night we were in the upperdark (i've never been there before) and our party of 4 (Me LN karatur fighter, Guy who invited me ranger of meiliki, cleric of helm, and some elf bladesinger) run into 2 drow players hiding in the shadows. So first up I don't know the players involved very well or at all, having only played with 1 of them previously, and second this is not an attack on those players but my account of the situation.

The drow talks to us from stealth, i'm a fighter I have zero spot/listen I cant detect them. Our bladesinger can and we take a defensive stance. Then the other two players in our group come over and start a damn conversation with them, all polite like. My character would attack the drow, no talking they are the enemy. You don't wait for pirates to come board your ship to see if they wont sink it, kill you, steal your stuff, etc. Maybe they were scared? My character has immunity to fear because I have dragon warrior class levels.

I can't flag them as hostile because I can't see them and I'm stuck in this awkward position where my only option is to try and get our group to not stand there "waiting to be ambushed" as my character saw it. I did think to wisper but the drow is next to me so that wasn't really an option. It really bugged me that the players chose the options they did.

When we got back to gnomeville one of the drow players was there and one of our group started chatting with her all casual. Not to be the bluntest hammer in the shed, but given the options I'm starting that fight and if you don't back me up then I don't think much of your RP skills.

So do I think we need more races when its apparent we cant play the ones we have? nope.

Such conerns are best directed to DMs.

You CAN flag them hostile by using "P" menu which will bring up hostile screen for all the players on the server regardless of there you are. Given that they whisper to you, you see their character names, and that'll be sufficient to find them in the list. It is a hassle, but you can toggle them.

Also carry bombs and holy water with you next time.

Criticising "RP skills" of others can be perceived in a negative light - because you're deciding you know better than the other player how their character is supposed to act. Rather than arbitrarily deciding that "this is not who it is supposed to be!" you should react on situation. For example, murder the party member who chat with the drow on friendly terms, due to them being collaborating with a drow... which is punishable by surface laws, by the way. Maybe they know this drow. Or maybe they don't know what drow are and mistake them for a dark skinned moon elf. Lots of possibilities here....

"I thought it was a dark-skinned Moon Elf" sounds a poor excuse.

On a side note i've not used bombs or holy water, how would these help me?

RaiderOne wrote:On a side note i've not used bombs or holy water, how would these help me?

AoE attacks.

The problem is if they have hips... they probably have evasion.

Thorsson wrote:"I thought it was a dark-skinned Moon Elf" sounds a poor excuse.

I did see a dark skinned elf that looked just like a drow couple of times.

NegInfinity wrote:

Thorsson wrote:"I thought it was a dark-skinned Moon Elf" sounds a poor excuse.

I did see a dark skinned elf that looked just like a drow couple of times.

It's Charlies' probably.

Could we return to the topic of Star Elves?

I fail to see what human subraces, drow or roleplay preferences has to do with the topic at hand.

/M

OK, let's turn it on its head. Exactly what would yet another extremely rare race add to the server?

Star elves, while they exist, they are locked away in their own plane of existance and do not come back onto Faerun until around 1372DR, if I recall correctly, when they begin losing ground against abolethic sorcerous monsters from Ethereal plane. The only passage to their plane of existance is in Aglarond, which is THOUSANDS of miles away from here. Introducing star elves, in my personal opinion, would be immersion breaking.

So. Just no.

All races should have no bonuses. Remove ALL of them except humans get the extra feat and extra skill points. Boom watch 99% of the players be humans. Ill still be an elf because I choose it for RP not for mechanics... I picked a moon-elf for a wizard, not a sun elf... my what a scandal!!!

Do this and it would fix EVERYTHING

Star Elves in particular seem like a very odd choice to add in that they don't create more conflict nor make too much sense in this place / time frame given what little I know about them. I'd sooner see more monstrous races added to the Underdark, or maybe something like Forest Gnomes or Ghostwise Halflings (both being reclusive and thus rare to see, but not as far-fetched as someone that can be banished) who could add more depth/variety as subraces to the roleplay of gnomes and halflings respectively.

As far as the "too many elves" thing: the vast majority of characters I see are humans, aasimar, elves, and tieflings. I do mean the VAST majority. Those four races constitute so much of the population, and I'd argue it's largely because they've got more character design options (mechanically in the case of elves, and for all of them appearance-wise they've just got more options than other races). Humans are the race I see most often, followed by elves, followed by tieflings. And I assume some of those humans I see are Aasimar.

Also remember that people typically play humans and elves in most every fantasy medium over the other races available... often because they're easier to make sexy. To ask people to stop playing elves often comes down to asking someone to turn their d***s off. Have you seen some of the descriptions people give female humans/elves/Drow? Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with trying to pretty up / sexy every character (even though I disagree with it as a roleplayer), but you're not going to make much headway trying to tell people to stop playing elves partly because there's sex appeal inherent in the race. This doesn't even mention the attraction of playing a character that can live longer than most anyone else, that can be both very wise and intelligent from experience while physically fit, that is supposed to have a sort of more-than-human quality to their movements and their expressions, that is popular among other players, that has a lot of lore behind them (because of course writers focus on humans and elves more than other races)...

Ahem. Yeah. You're not going to stop people from playing elves. I'd love to see less elves myself, and more dwarves - the kind that aren't DRUNKGAR AXEHAMMER and really delve into dwarven society and this age of the Thunder Children. I'd also love to see more halfling roleplay surrounding Gullykin rather than halflings just being teeny weeny cute humans, and I'd love to see gnomes working alongside the elves and dwarves in their roleplay, showing their value as a race. But... you're gonna get humans and elves.

If it becomes too immersion breaking to see more than 50% of the server playing not-humans, remember that player characters are the exception, not the rule, and that the majority of NPCs are definitely human in the Sword Coast region.

Again, remaining on topic: I'd rather see Forest Gnomes and Ghostwise Halflings than Star Elves.

(Final note: not besmirching people who play elves, here, or even people who favor a race due to its sex appeal. Elves have a LOT of good lore behind them, making them an interesting choice in that regard; and there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a sex drive.)

Xanfyrst wrote:I'm personally against more PC elves on the server. Always bothered me that they sometimes outnumber human PCs. And not to mention the legion of outsiders we got running around.

Humans should have an option to allocate +2 wherever they want. It would represent their diversity which is known as one of their trademark strengths. Just me though.

Tell this to the official statistics.
viewtopic.php?f=136&t=61769&p=774513&hi ... ts#p774513
36,3% humans, come on. It is 3 times more than all 4 species of elves combined!

As for the topic, I am voting for star elves. Just give them the same stats as sun/moon elves, except for +2 Cha instead of Agi/Int, no need to bother with ghost touch during the nighttime only and other complicated stuff. (I am also voting for black orcs, cough cough)

I'm still a bit annoyed Grey Orcs exist on this PW, which they should absolutely not. They are a race of the Unapproachable East, as are the Star Elves, whom do not exist in great numbers and where they are confined to is their home plane of Sildeyuir or in the Yuirwood of Aglarond. Ultimately neither should have a presence here.

Is no-one going to also mention favoured class : bard? Elvish racial perks plus bard with ease of multiclassing on a race that has no business on the Sword Coast - it's a snowflake power builders wet dream!

deserk wrote:I'm still a bit annoyed Grey Orcs exist on this PW, which they should absolutely not. They are a race of the Unapproachable East, as are the Star Elves, whom do not exist in great numbers and where they are confined to is their home plane of Sildeyuir or in the Yuirwood of Aglarond. Ultimately neither should have a presence here.

AC81 wrote:Is no-one going to also mention favoured class : bard? Elvish racial perks plus bard with ease of multiclassing on a race that has no business on the Sword Coast - it's a snowflake power builders wet dream!

I think the two of you just made the best arguments for adding them.

We already have a similar exception, elves are loved by the 'staff' of the server and many players, and some of them do really like to play with powerful characters.