Has anyone attempted to inject some old school flavor and archetypes into their 5E game by house ruling restrictions on class by race and/or ability score limits by race?
Two examples of this, from 1E:
Dwarves cannot be wizards or druids, due to the inherently magic resistant nature. (They could be warlocks, however, and possibly sorcerers.)
Halflings cannot have a Strength score exceeding 15.
Class restrictions: I understand that many younger players, who have no experience with older versions of the game, might rankle at the idea of treating the races as less flexible than the 5E RAW. It does, admittedly, reduce your options in terms of choosing a class for at least some races. I do find the idea appealing, though, because I feel like it helps further define and distinguish the available demihuman and humanoid races available to players. My own first attempt at drafting a table listing them, though, made it apparent how tough it could be to determine it for every available race for every available class.
Ability Score Limits: This one makes a lot of sense to me, even if applied in a very limited way. I have a really hard time believing in a halfling having the same maximum strength score as a goliath, for instance. Maybe just giving each race (or most races) one ability score limitation - again, to provide some flavor, RPing opportunities, and distinguish each race from the others. Halfings would be Strength; Half-orcs would be Intelligence, and so on.
I'm not sure how workable these ideas are, especially if you're playing a game in which just about all races and classes are available to players. It might work better in a campaign in which there's a more limited set of races...maybe?
I recently got a little rankled and had a laugh about this one. I started playing d&d with 2E when I was a kid almost 30 years ago, so I'm familiar with these old school rules. Since my friends and I started 5E a few years ago, I've been kinda stuck as the forever DM. Now someone else is going to run an adventure and I'll finally get to play and I was shocked when I realized that my halfling cleric with a 17 strength could lift/push/pull over 10 times his body weight. Seems a little ridiculous to me. They should definitely bring back species limits with One
In the past three years, I've done some thinking about this. And I don't think I'd be on board for ANY ability score limits based on species/ancestry...
..except strength. I still cannot accept that the strongest kobold or goblin is equal in strength to the strongest bugbear or minotaur (all 5E playable races).
IF I were to use ability score limits, I'd likely impose STR limits on goblins, kobolds, halflings, gnomes, harengon, and fairies, and probably in the 14-16 range.
5e is like Harry Potter, easy to access fun to engage in, but’s ability to present the scope of life experiences just isn’t there. If you want to get back into, I’d say get your 5e players to take a look at 3/3.5, if they are onboard you can back port anything you really miss about 5e. That was the strength of 3.5, it could be adapted to anything it was missing.
There were good rules and principles for fitting anything you imagined. Like want a class that doesn’t use the weave? Look at the 3.5 warlock whose magic isn’t tied to spell slots. If you know the mythos behind the Weave & you’ll see why even cantrips weren’t at will abilities.
I wish 5e still had racial ability penalties, it was great to play a character like a full blood orc Monk so you had to face the fact that you had to work harder to be good at something a gnomes and halflings had a penalty to strength and had a reduced carry limit (3/4) for being small.
What worked so well with penalties was while they meant it was harder to do something it also meant that with effort you could have an outlier. At level 20, Bobyn McButterfleecethe halfling Fighter could have a 21 strength, but he would have to dedicate every API to get there. That would be the halfling that looked like a little Mr Universe, and yet Bobyn would still get medium encumbrance if he had held 115 lbs. which might be thrice his body weight, but not more unless you picked a ridiculous weight.
Has anyone attempted to inject some old school flavor and archetypes into their 5E game by house ruling restrictions on class by race and/or ability score limits by race?
Two examples of this, from 1E:
Class restrictions: I understand that many younger players, who have no experience with older versions of the game, might rankle at the idea of treating the races as less flexible than the 5E RAW. It does, admittedly, reduce your options in terms of choosing a class for at least some races. I do find the idea appealing, though, because I feel like it helps further define and distinguish the available demihuman and humanoid races available to players. My own first attempt at drafting a table listing them, though, made it apparent how tough it could be to determine it for every available race for every available class.
Ability Score Limits: This one makes a lot of sense to me, even if applied in a very limited way. I have a really hard time believing in a halfling having the same maximum strength score as a goliath, for instance. Maybe just giving each race (or most races) one ability score limitation - again, to provide some flavor, RPing opportunities, and distinguish each race from the others. Halfings would be Strength; Half-orcs would be Intelligence, and so on.
I'm not sure how workable these ideas are, especially if you're playing a game in which just about all races and classes are available to players. It might work better in a campaign in which there's a more limited set of races...maybe?
I agree, I was thinking max STR for elf would be 16, gnome maybe 15 and halfling 14.
But their max DEX would be 22 instead of 20.
I recently got a little rankled and had a laugh about this one. I started playing d&d with 2E when I was a kid almost 30 years ago, so I'm familiar with these old school rules. Since my friends and I started 5E a few years ago, I've been kinda stuck as the forever DM. Now someone else is going to run an adventure and I'll finally get to play and I was shocked when I realized that my halfling cleric with a 17 strength could lift/push/pull over 10 times his body weight. Seems a little ridiculous to me. They should definitely bring back species limits with One
In the past three years, I've done some thinking about this. And I don't think I'd be on board for ANY ability score limits based on species/ancestry...
..except strength. I still cannot accept that the strongest kobold or goblin is equal in strength to the strongest bugbear or minotaur (all 5E playable races).
IF I were to use ability score limits, I'd likely impose STR limits on goblins, kobolds, halflings, gnomes, harengon, and fairies, and probably in the 14-16 range.
5e is like Harry Potter, easy to access fun to engage in, but’s ability to present the scope of life experiences just isn’t there. If you want to get back into, I’d say get your 5e players to take a look at 3/3.5, if they are onboard you can back port anything you really miss about 5e. That was the strength of 3.5, it could be adapted to anything it was missing.
There were good rules and principles for fitting anything you imagined. Like want a class that doesn’t use the weave? Look at the 3.5 warlock whose magic isn’t tied to spell slots. If you know the mythos behind the Weave & you’ll see why even cantrips weren’t at will abilities.
I wish 5e still had racial ability penalties, it was great to play a character like a full blood orc Monk so you had to face the fact that you had to work harder to be good at something a gnomes and halflings had a penalty to strength and had a reduced carry limit (3/4) for being small.
What worked so well with penalties was while they meant it was harder to do something it also meant that with effort you could have an outlier. At level 20, Bobyn McButterfleecethe halfling Fighter could have a 21 strength, but he would have to dedicate every API to get there. That would be the halfling that looked like a little Mr Universe, and yet Bobyn would still get medium encumbrance if he had held 115 lbs. which might be thrice his body weight, but not more unless you picked a ridiculous weight.
My Brews:
Race: Tropical Dwaves Spells: Summon Spirits Rites of Mummification
Monster: Osprey Feat: Skill Mastery–Animal Handler (Provides DCs for training animals applicable to those with and without this feat)