Classes and races become switched in importance

>classes and races become switched in importance
>what you can do in the game in now defined far more by what race you are, rather than what class you are
>switching become classes and expanding out into multiple classes is much easier than before, reducing the importance of class
How well would such a system work? Think something along the lines of Dungeon Crawl.

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Something like WHFB? where the jobs are just basically lists of available skills/determine your starting skills?

Race as class has always been a stupid, stupid system.

well mostly youd need very different races.
Humans elves dwarves wnt cut it.

You probably wanna include giants and centaurs and stuff like that.

I just found out Hushabye is buddies with Decu.

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I would agree, completely distinguished physiology would be importnant. Get 1 humanoid, 1 faun type, 1 centaur type, 1 tentacle(?) type.

The more I think about this, the more it lends itself to a more science fiction speculative setting.

Why cant my gnome have a rage though? We all know orcs will get it. My gnome is angry

You don't even know what it represented and yet you bitch about it.

You need to think of a class as a story/ movie role. Not job description.

Take for example Lord of the Rings. You have Strider who is a ranger, Boromir who is a fighter, Gandalf who is a mage. Halfling are halfings. Legolas does elven shit. He shoots bows, uses two-weapon fighting. His role is to be a elf in the story. Same for Gimli. His role in the story is to be a dwarf.

Dialling back the classes from DnD style importance is fine, dunno if you really need to push stereotyping of the races any more to compensate though.

That's what I was thinking. In Dungeon Crawl (which I was using as an example of how to do this), undead races like Vampires and mummies can't worship good gods, while only only the Orcs can worship Orc Jesus and demigods can't worship any god at all. Lamias are powerful fighters and gain a strangle attack, but they have trouble finding armor for their lower body and they're slow. Formicids (basically ant people) can dig through the walls in the dungeon and can see through obstacles, however they are incapable of teleportation, which matters ALOT in the late game when you need to make an escape. Humans, as always, are the jack of all trades that can do anything but excel nothing. Dwarves do exist, and they are resilient to damage, however they literally cannot heal naturally through time, requiring a potion to heal themselves, or otherwise using a special ability they have to heal themselves that takes away from their maximum hp.

Of course, those are only some of the races, but the point is that any race you choose will radically alter the way you play. The classes, meanwhile, are just your starting equipment and skills, which can easily be gained quickly through gameplay. Hell, you don't even have to be playing as that class to level up in it, you can be playing as a wizard and choose to only level up your fighter skills, thus making the game incredibly fluid in terms of how easily you can switch classes.

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What's a humans role? Because boromir and strider are the same race with different jobs.

Races offer a lot of pesudo-magical abilities and limitations, both in terms of society and cosmology.

It could be that the races could be sci-fi oriented. There could be 3 or 4 main races, which could be "human, machine, energy being, insectoid" and so forth, each one having totally different specifications. Humans are the social class, machines are almost impossible to destroy and are very strong, energy beings can pass through walls and interface with weird space clouds, etc. Your class is only really your collection of skills and abilities which are easy enough to obtain. You could be a medical doctor, which mostly just involves using the medical scanner device, you could be a soldier or pilot and get bonuses to combat rolls relating to your profession, etc.

Fantasy could work as well, especially if the game had a different sort of cosmology. Imagine something like Exalted but each Exalt could be a different race. Another example could be something with magic closely tied to each race, such as Dwarves being skilled with Earth spells and only Earth spells, Elves being good with water or air, humans being fire, etc.

As I said Strider role was to be a ranger. As story progresses he changes into Aragorn - future king.

Humans can have multiple roles. There's only one dwarf/elf in the party. Also culturally, they are much more different.

Once again, you seem to be confusing the factual world-space with the game mechanics. Race as class works totally fine if you stop trying to example it in world.

>How well would such a system work?
Badly

Legolas is a straight fighter while Galadriel is a straight caster (bard at best) which is why race as class is fucking retarded

This is how it works in real life, I don't see why we couldn't make it work in a game.

I confused it like that because I replied to a post that used an example in world to try to explain it. Not my fault what I had to go off of was wrong.

>There's only one dwarf/elf in the party.
This is retarded grog shit.

Standard grog "only one of each non human" tolkien reenactment parties were always stupid as fuck and basically relied on the idea that humans had to be the center of the universe to a point that stretches credibility.

The problem with that is what if I want to role play as a dwarf, but want to cast fire spells? At least in a class system you can multiclass, I can't start taking levels in human.

Like even Tolkien didn't stick to that dumb formula (The Hobbit is 13 dwarves, 1 halfling, 1 useless Aasimar; the Silmarilion is mostly all elf + 1 useless Aasimar parties)

Yes. Legolas is a fighter. Galadriel is a mage. Gimli is a fighter.

And guess what roles elves and dwarves usually have in stories? Elves are fighters, mages, or mage-fighters. Dwarves are usually fighters.

So their role in a story is to be a stereotypical dwarf or elf. You will rarely see, if ever, a dwarf or elf that isn't shoehorned into those sterotypes. That is why their class/role is ELF or DWARF.

How the fuck is this hard to understand this?

>implying
READ
ANOTHER
FUCKING
AUTHOR

>The problem with that is what if I want to role play as a dwarf, but want to cast fire spells?

That's literally the point of the OP's concept. Races are more important then classes. Once concept would be if cosmologically, certain races are tied to certain magic/supernatural abilities. So only Dwarves can use earth magic, you can't "learn" it if you're a different race.

The Hobbit is 13 dwarves

That are mostly background characters that don't do anything of importance.

Most of them only have a description of "his name, he is a fucking dwarf".

Most time is spent with Thorin as character of importance. Everyone else is there as cardboard cutout. Fili and Kili die at the end so they actually have some more impact of the story.

>The problem with that is what if I want to role play as a dwarf, but want to cast fire spells?
That's the whole idea user, you choose the race for casting fire spells rather than the class. What if I want to play as a fighter but caste fire spells? That would be difficult under a system that emphasizes class, but easy with a system that emphasizes race, assuming you pick the right race for the job.

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>The Hobbit is 13 dwarves
>That are mostly background characters that don't do anything of importance.
>Most of them only have a description of "his name, he is a fucking dwarf".
That sounds like a terribly sparse material to make 3 movies out of...

Fantasy game was made. Inspired in some part with Tolkien. Has Elf class/role.

Hey this is retarded. It makes no sense. What did they think when they made this?

Even still the only real importance of Fili and Kili is their relation to Thorin. They're dwarfs, yes, but more importantly they're his nephews.

Nigga the Hobbit is barely even above a short story. It's like 100 pages.

if you actually read the Hobbit you wouldn't use that movie atrocity as your defense argument.

Once again you can cross class in most systems, a lot of d&d have fighter classes that cast spells. A fighter can learn to cast, a dwarf can't learn to human. Again my example is I want to role play as a dwarf, the beards booze and mining, but I like fire spells. As opposed to I want to role play a fighter, the swords shields and front line, but I like fire spells so I'm gonna take a feat or cross class into letting me do both.

I don't see why I'd want to actively enforce those stereotypical roles, as a GM. I might want races and cultures in my settings that have more things going on than fit in a single character.

I thought they were based off of vance et al and gygax didn't like Tolkien as much?

Are you mentally challenged in some way?

Read the thread. Read the post. Read the concept. Stop being dumb. Nobody is arguing you can't do that in a game with classes, but these are RACE FOCUSED CONCEPTS in this game. If a game has it where only one race can learn one kind of magic then you CANNOT LEARN THAT TYPE OF MAGIC UNLESS YOU ARE THAT RACE BECAUSE THE GAME FEATURES RACES AS MORE IMPORTANT THEN YOUR CLASS

Jesus.

Gygax didn't like Tolkien. But Gygax didn't make a game alone. Also you have hobbits, elves and dwarves. Hell they even had to name them halflings so they don't have a legal problem.

The entire point of a race focused system is so that you don't have to be a fighter or mage if you choose a Dwarf or Elf. The class you choose will be of far less importance than the race you choose, class can be easily changed while race will define the way you play. See for an example. You certainly wouldn't expect a lamia to ever fight the same way as a human, but there's nothing stopping a human fighter from also learning to be a mage.

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>Humans can have multiple roles.
So race as class is flawed even in its prime example?

Did her arm just explode?

Holy crap, take it easy spazz. My whole point is that you can't in a system where your race determines what you can and can't do to such a degree.
I'm saying its bad for role-playing. Op asked if it would work and I'm answering by giving a specific example as to why it wouldn't.

I thought those were appeals by him to market better with the rise of LotR miniatures that were the big thing back then.

Anywho, thanks for the insight!

Gygax didn't like Tolkien and halflings only made it in because his players nagged him.

Literally every edition and setting of D&D has been desperate to not have them be fucking hobbits

it isn't about enforcing stereotypes. This started with "why are races classes? This makes no sense"

While people say stereotypes are bad they still make stereotypical characters as they usher these words. You are making a role in a story and every role has certain elements that has to show up so the concept can work.

I went through entire process of Tolkien is the shit, Tolkien is shit, My elves are different kind of elves,

just some tissue tearing, these girls are tougher than common people

People seem to be taking my question the wrong way. They think that I'm saying "why don't we force Dwarves to be fighters and Elves to be mages etc."

What I'm saying is that classes should be far more fluid than before and most races should be able to switch between most classes fairly easily, class shouldn't matter all that much. But the races have ways of differentiating themselves in OTHER ways, hence why Dungeon Crawl and the example given in was used. Anyone who has 4 hands and the ability to petrify people with their stare but can't use potions is going to fight FAR differently from a squat guy with a beard, regardless of what class they are.

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Oh hay it's just Dragonball Z

But 2 beings of the same race, one training in sword fighting all their life and the other in magic will also fight completely differently. One would say a dwarf and a medusa both trained in sword fighting would fight a lot more similarly than a mage dwarf and the same fighter dwarf.

>one training in sword fighting all their life and the other in magic will also fight completely differently
Only if you have a setting where magic or fighting is very difficult to learn. Maybe magic is fairly easy to learn, and frequently used by all races and even civilians in their daily life? You'd frequently see fighters incorporating magic into their fights in such a case. In which case the thing that defines how you fight would depend far more on your natural traits, rather than the abilities you can learn.

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You swing a sword the same way, and racial traits related to that would be a few lines at best. A medusas gaze wouldnt change how it fights with sword and board other than it really wouldn't have to, either all your races are overpowered in extremely unusual ways which means enemies will have to be immune to a wide array of effects or they aren't worth what you'd learn from perfecting a fighting style.

Now if you were to take every class and then give them each a few abilities depending on race that might be interesting. Like a medusa fighter can expend a use of her gaze at a lower save with the intent of, if not petrifying the target, at the very least slowing it enough for her to have a better chance of hitting, mean while the dwarf can use its connection with metal to see weak spots on armor giving armored opponents less of an advantage against them but no penalties to unarmored opponents. Two fighters, two races, will approach fights differently, still primarily class based with just more emphasis on how their race class combo mix. Thats probably the best I can contribute. Let me know what you think.

One thing that I was thinking of was having Aasaimar and Tieflings be able to,as they level up, stoke the power from their divine or infernal bloodline into something comparable or even surpassing their otherworldly ancestor.

Better yet, unique racial abilities for each class.

Race-as-class
BUT
Assume multiclassing by default
The first level in a demihuman class must be chosen on character generation and as the first level.
And the elfiest elf who ever elfed will be very different than an elf who focused on fighting or casting spells.

>Standard grog "only one of each non human" tolkien reenactment parties were always stupid as fuck and basically relied on the idea that humans had to be the center of the universe to a point that stretches credibility.
Closet furfag detected.
Yeah humans being the most dominant race and every story revolving around humans in the stories human tell really breaks my suspension of disbelief.

Let's take this a step even further. Class is changed comparatively easily, you don't even need to level up first, and multiclassing is fairly easy to do with minimal penalties. Instead of gaining class abilities when you level up, you gain racial abilities as well as a stat boost which is tailored to your race. Learning new class abilities is mostly just a matter of having the gold, the time, and the trainer to do so.

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Working on a system/setting where that is the case right now actually, OP. Only humans have truly free wills, so they can be any class they want. The other races have been so warped by exposure to certain magics that they can only play one "class" apiece.