I'm writing this down here because I just finished a 14 hour shift and I am not convinced my grey-matter will remember it in the morning. I'm sure we've all noticed it, and there's ways and means to home-brew certain races up to the same power-level to keep them attractive both for role-play and for effectiveness at the table.
Dragonborn and Half-Orcs are two in the basic Player's Manual that immediately stand out as just being not as good, mechanically speaking, as the other playable races. Dragonborn get a breath weapon which is fantastic but only gets one use between Short Rests, at best, and resistance to one elemental type, and that's about it. Half-Orcs get an even weirder set with two abilities that are incredibly situational, one being their Relentless Endurance racial, which means you get to say 'No' to death once a day, and the other is their Savage Attacks, which again depends upon you rolling a critical, and I've played campaigns where I haven't rolled a single Nat 20 once, and these campaigns went on for over a year ...
What if Dragonborn got 'Gliding Wings', making them different from Lizardfolk (wings for the Dragonborn, tails for the Lizardfolk) in silhouette, while also reinforcing the whole 'descended from/related to/enslaved by Dragons' angle of their race. When Unencumbered, grant the Dragonborn a flying speed of 40 feet, but for every 15 feet they move, they must sacrifice 5 feet of height, so moving forwards 30 feet means they drop 10 feet while gliding, and have a limitation of needing at least 15 feet space around themselves (their 5 foot cube plus 5 foot on either side) to unfurl their wings enough to glide. It is, again, a situational ability but also adds some ability to the class that makes them truly unique.
For the Half-Orcs, given they live on the outskirts of polite society and have to make do with whatever they can steal, build or scrounge, why not grant the race a Tool proficiency and the 'Scavenge' ability, where a Half-Orc can, during a Short Rest, assemble a makeshift Tool-kit that functions for 1d6+4 uses before becoming unusable, with obvious limitations based upon what the Half-Orc can find to make the makeshift Tool in the first place. Where the Half-Elf has the ability to access education and trainers, hence the two bonus Skills, the Half-Orc is a do-er, not a think-er, and thus learns to work with their hands, and thus has access to Tools and the ability to make do with whatever is on hand for a quick and dirty job.
There's more races that could do with a little bit of 'oomph' added to them to keep them in line with races like Dwarves and Elves, but I'm losing consciousness and I have another 13 hour shift ahead of me tomorrow. See you all in 8 hours, bleh...
The Homebrew forum would be a better place to pose this question. As far as the general game mechanics go, there's nothing wrong with any racial options as they are now, and I think it's a mistake to make comparisons on the worth of their various features. Nobody needs to start with 18-20 in their primary stat, nor do they need a particular race's features to make a solid character.
Optimizers are going to optimize no matter what you bring to the table, so there's not a whole lot of purpose in worrying about "balance" in racial features--they're going to pick whatever "best" option is available.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You need to understand the difference between specialist and generalist. Generalists are good for everything, specialists are good only for a few things - but they are BETTER at those things than others. Some of what you think of as 'week' races are specialists.
Half Orcs for example do really well if you play a two weapon fighting Champion with Improved Crit. At 20th level you get 5 attacks, critting on a 19-20 or 10% of the time. You should be critting once every other round.
Another thing you are not looking at are racial feats. They can turn a bad character into a great one.
If you really dislike Dragonborn, make a Gliding Wings racial feat for them rather than changing the race.
P.S. Dragonborn make great Warlocks - adding a resistance and a 1/short rest ability to them can help them out where they need it.,
You need to understand the difference between specialist and generalist. Generalists are good for everything, specialists are good only for a few things - but they are BETTER at those things than others. Some of what you think of as 'week' races are specialists.
Half Orcs for example do really well if you play a two weapon fighting Champion with Improved Crit. At 20th level you get 5 attacks, critting on a 19-20 or 10% of the time. You should be critting once every other round.
Another thing you are not looking at are racial feats. They can turn a bad character into a great one.
If you really dislike Dragonborn, make a Gliding Wings racial feat for them rather than changing the race.
P.S. Dragonborn make great Warlocks - adding a resistance and a 1/short rest ability to them can help them out where they need it.,
I don't know of any class or race that gets resistance at level 1 like Dragonborn do. Given the right class, they will have TWO resistances by level 6? which are not tied to spells or items. That's pretty powerful.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Incidentally, dragonborn and half-orcs may be subpar PC races, but they're great NPC races. A dragonborn or half-orc Guard canonically has the same CR as a generic Guard, but:
An ordinary guard might be expected to last 4 rounds and hit 1.6 (assume ac 16) times for 7.2 damage (4.5 per hit)
A dragonborn guard also lasts 4 rounds, but uses breath once (hits two targets, figure total damage between them is 10) and then hits 1.35 times for 7.4 (total 17.4)
A half-orc guard lasts 6 rounds (Relentless endurance) and hits 2.7 times for 14.8 damage.
I don't know of any class or race that gets resistance at level 1 like Dragonborn do. Given the right class, they will have TWO resistances by level 6? which are not tied to spells or items. That's pretty powerful.
Tieflings have resistance to fire damage, and can pick up additional resistances as a racial feat. Genasi have an elemental resistance. Dwarves are resistant to poison. Yuan-ti Purebloods are immune to poison. That's not to say that Dragonborn having a resistance isn't useful, but it's not unique.
OP, I'm hesitant to consider flight as an upgrade, as there are so many settings (such as AL) where flying PCs aren't always allowed. If you did go ahead and try to make it into a feat or something, I'd also encourage you to rework the requiring extra space around it for gliding -- you're essentially making it a much larger creature that way. Aarakocra and other flying races don't suddenly triple in size when they fly, or gain reach (or incur a greater potential number of opportunity attacks).
Half Orcs are not under powered at all they make great fighters and barbarians. My half orc rune knight does as much damage as the paladin in the group and we just dinged level 12. Relentless endurance may be situational but when it saves your character from high level encounter you will have a much higher opinion of it. Savage attacks gives you one of the better barbarian features for free iirc you can't normally get until 9th lvl.
Is it as powerful as half elf well nothing else is but that doesn't mean its underpowered. I do agree that dragonborn suck though. I always felt it was a parent race and should have subraces like Spellscale to fill it out a bit better.
Is it as powerful as half elf well nothing else is but that doesn't mean its underpowered. I do agree that dragonborn suck though. I always felt it was a parent race and should have subraces like Spellscale to fill it out a bit better.
The problem with dragonborn is that their signature ability (breath weapon) is barely even worth using, and the rest of their kit is nothing special. I'd probably delete the Dragon Hide feat and give them scales and claws by default, and maybe night vision as well.
The Homebrew forum would be a better place to pose this question. As far as the general game mechanics go, there's nothing wrong with any racial options as they are now, and I think it's a mistake to make comparisons on the worth of their various features. Nobody needs to start with 18-20 in their primary stat, nor do they need a particular race's features to make a solid character.
Optimizers are going to optimize no matter what you bring to the table, so there's not a whole lot of purpose in worrying about "balance" in racial features--they're going to pick whatever "best" option is available.
That's fair, I've only been playing 5th edition for about a year now, but I've been at the table for about ... 25 years now? And it has always concerned me that some races come right out the gate with a cool ability, but others have to pick and minmix to get something similar. I understand the 'Class Fantasy' (God I hate that term) of the various races/class combinations in the D&D franchise, but it has always bothered me as a DM that if I design an encounter, I have to take into account that some players won't hit their stride until 4th-8th level, while others are nuking, charming and stealthing through every encounter with no challenge whatsoever, be it a pre-generated module or a homebrewed one.
You need to understand the difference between specialist and generalist. Generalists are good for everything, specialists are good only for a few things - but they are BETTER at those things than others. Some of what you think of as 'week' races are specialists.
Half Orcs for example do really well if you play a two weapon fighting Champion with Improved Crit. At 20th level you get 5 attacks, critting on a 19-20 or 10% of the time. You should be critting once every other round.
Another thing you are not looking at are racial feats. They can turn a bad character into a great one.
If you really dislike Dragonborn, make a Gliding Wings racial feat for them rather than changing the race.
P.S. Dragonborn make great Warlocks - adding a resistance and a 1/short rest ability to them can help them out where they need it.,
I'm well aware of the differences, thanks, but my concern is that the so-called 'specialist' races tend to require a very involved build to reach their full potential, while other races can just muddle about and still succeed.
And I've rarely seen a campaign from WotC last past level 15 or 16, even with padding from the GM (normally me). Capstone abilities are great, but I've rarely seen an official module get to that level, and I can just imagine the slog of getting through dozens, if not scores, of sessions to get to high level to finally make a build 'work', when the other players have all hit their stride at mid-levels and only gotten stronger...
I don't know of any class or race that gets resistance at level 1 like Dragonborn do. Given the right class, they will have TWO resistances by level 6? which are not tied to spells or items. That's pretty powerful.
I know Tieflings have Fire resistance, and can gain more through feats. Aasimar have resistance to Radiant and Necrotic Damage. Dwarves have resistance to Poison. Yuan-ti Purebloods have immunity to Poison and Magic Resistance to spells and other magical effects.
Anyone else find it weird that Air and Earth Genasi don't have Resistance to their 'native' Element?
I don't know of any class or race that gets resistance at level 1 like Dragonborn do. Given the right class, they will have TWO resistances by level 6? which are not tied to spells or items. That's pretty powerful.
Tieflings have resistance to fire damage, and can pick up additional resistances as a racial feat. Genasi have an elemental resistance. Dwarves are resistant to poison. Yuan-ti Purebloods are immune to poison. That's not to say that Dragonborn having a resistance isn't useful, but it's not unique.
OP, I'm hesitant to consider flight as an upgrade, as there are so many settings (such as AL) where flying PCs aren't always allowed. If you did go ahead and try to make it into a feat or something, I'd also encourage you to rework the requiring extra space around it for gliding -- you're essentially making it a much larger creature that way. Aarakocra and other flying races don't suddenly triple in size when they fly, or gain reach (or incur a greater potential number of opportunity attacks).
I generally house-rule flyers with that rule because it partially stops flying becoming the be-all end-all answer to challenges, and apply it to both PCs and their opponents. The flyer still only occupies that five-foot cube, but they need those five feet on either side to expand their wings to get the room to flap them, or hold them steady for proper gliding, in this case.
Magical flying that doesn't involve extremities, of course, need not apply, but that's what Dispel Magic is for ...
Half Orcs are not under powered at all they make great fighters and barbarians. My half orc rune knight does as much damage as the paladin in the group and we just dinged level 12. Relentless endurance may be situational but when it saves your character from high level encounter you will have a much higher opinion of it. Savage attacks gives you one of the better barbarian features for free iirc you can't normally get until 9th lvl.
Is it as powerful as half elf well nothing else is but that doesn't mean its underpowered. I do agree that dragonborn suck though. I always felt it was a parent race and should have subraces like Spellscale to fill it out a bit better.
They do, oh but they do. And I'm not spitting on the Relentless Endurance, it has saved folks bacon quite a few times, but Savage Attacks is entirely dependant upon getting a critical, and unless you pick specific classes (Assassin Rogues, Champion Fighters, etc), there's a good chance you will never see one roll on your table.
I have a Jar of Shame which is full of D20s that failed to give a natural crit or a natural 20 once in their lives, and thus were condemned and taken away, and I'd give the players a new D20 and see if their luck changed.
To the Dragonborn's breath weapon? It's good, but I would have made it a sub-species choice, between Dragonborn and 'Traitor' Dragonborn, the interbred version and those who, upon being stranded on their 'new' world, were enslaved or chose to follow the Chromatic or Metallic Dragons and were blessed with the breath weapons and resistances of their new 'masters', and give the race some internal punch there, between the Dragonborn who virulently defend their right to self-rule against those who surrendered to their old masters in exchange for power, or were forced back into servitude and have only recently escaped their renewed bonds.
I have a Jar of Shame which is full of D20s that failed to give a natural crit or a natural 20 once in their lives, and thus were condemned and taken away, and I'd give the players a new D20 and see if their luck changed.
I used to have that problem from when I started TTRPGs in middle school through college. I'd highly recommend you do a balance test by dunking your dice in a hot saltwater solution (enough for the dice to rise the surface). If you're using Chessex dice (like most people), the quality of their injection molding process has plummeted in the last 10 years. The solid single/multi-color ones, especially, have a lot of air bubbles that throw off balance.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
People seem to not understand that playtesting keeps everything from being obviously underpowered. And besides, D&D is a role-playing game. People seem to forget that playing a Dragonborn Beast Master can be just as fun as playing a Variant Human Hexblade.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
I mean, I don't entirely disagree, but there's also the point that maths plays a heavy role in D&D. Even with the random chance of the dice and a benevolent DM (usually me ...long suffering sigh), some races are simply going to end up outclassing everyone else simply by the numbers.
On a general note I prefer to give a race a free skill and toolkit, or a non-damaging cantrip, or a bonus to something that's thematic to the race, but I do feel like a bit too much Sacred Cow™ got left on some of the races and some are just, mechanically and mathematically, superior to the others, and while I've generally managed to dispel min-maxing from my table by being a 'benevolent' DM and being more "Why not?" instead of "WHY!" with my players, I guess I'm still scratching me head a bit on why we've got some player races that are flat out godly, while others are, at best, niche builds if you want to be competitive or useful to the campaign outside of one or two roles?
I generally reward players that 'break the mold' with race/class combinations because after so long at the table, I've seen just about every variation of Half-Orc Barbarian, Elven Magic-User and Halfling Rogue. Give me something fresh and bold and I'll fineagle the rules to make it viable for you.
I have a Jar of Shame which is full of D20s that failed to give a natural crit or a natural 20 once in their lives, and thus were condemned and taken away, and I'd give the players a new D20 and see if their luck changed.
I used to have that problem from when I started TTRPGs in middle school through college. I'd highly recommend you do a balance test by dunking your dice in a hot saltwater solution (enough for the dice to rise the surface). If you're using Chessex dice (like most people), the quality of their injection molding process has plummeted in the last 10 years. The solid single/multi-color ones, especially, have a lot of air bubbles that throw off balance.
And digital dice, of course, can be worse.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
Any competently implemented RNG is better than mass market dice (just calling Math.random() in your browser is adequate), but if they don't release the code they're using there's no way of telling whether it's competently implemented.
Any competently implemented RNG is better than mass market dice (just calling Math.random() in your browser is adequate), but if they don't release the code they're using there's no way of telling whether it's competently implemented.
Huh, I didn’t know that! But we’re getting off-topic...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
I'm writing this down here because I just finished a 14 hour shift and I am not convinced my grey-matter will remember it in the morning. I'm sure we've all noticed it, and there's ways and means to home-brew certain races up to the same power-level to keep them attractive both for role-play and for effectiveness at the table.
Dragonborn and Half-Orcs are two in the basic Player's Manual that immediately stand out as just being not as good, mechanically speaking, as the other playable races. Dragonborn get a breath weapon which is fantastic but only gets one use between Short Rests, at best, and resistance to one elemental type, and that's about it. Half-Orcs get an even weirder set with two abilities that are incredibly situational, one being their Relentless Endurance racial, which means you get to say 'No' to death once a day, and the other is their Savage Attacks, which again depends upon you rolling a critical, and I've played campaigns where I haven't rolled a single Nat 20 once, and these campaigns went on for over a year ...
What if Dragonborn got 'Gliding Wings', making them different from Lizardfolk (wings for the Dragonborn, tails for the Lizardfolk) in silhouette, while also reinforcing the whole 'descended from/related to/enslaved by Dragons' angle of their race. When Unencumbered, grant the Dragonborn a flying speed of 40 feet, but for every 15 feet they move, they must sacrifice 5 feet of height, so moving forwards 30 feet means they drop 10 feet while gliding, and have a limitation of needing at least 15 feet space around themselves (their 5 foot cube plus 5 foot on either side) to unfurl their wings enough to glide. It is, again, a situational ability but also adds some ability to the class that makes them truly unique.
For the Half-Orcs, given they live on the outskirts of polite society and have to make do with whatever they can steal, build or scrounge, why not grant the race a Tool proficiency and the 'Scavenge' ability, where a Half-Orc can, during a Short Rest, assemble a makeshift Tool-kit that functions for 1d6+4 uses before becoming unusable, with obvious limitations based upon what the Half-Orc can find to make the makeshift Tool in the first place. Where the Half-Elf has the ability to access education and trainers, hence the two bonus Skills, the Half-Orc is a do-er, not a think-er, and thus learns to work with their hands, and thus has access to Tools and the ability to make do with whatever is on hand for a quick and dirty job.
There's more races that could do with a little bit of 'oomph' added to them to keep them in line with races like Dwarves and Elves, but I'm losing consciousness and I have another 13 hour shift ahead of me tomorrow. See you all in 8 hours, bleh...
The Homebrew forum would be a better place to pose this question. As far as the general game mechanics go, there's nothing wrong with any racial options as they are now, and I think it's a mistake to make comparisons on the worth of their various features. Nobody needs to start with 18-20 in their primary stat, nor do they need a particular race's features to make a solid character.
Optimizers are going to optimize no matter what you bring to the table, so there's not a whole lot of purpose in worrying about "balance" in racial features--they're going to pick whatever "best" option is available.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You need to understand the difference between specialist and generalist. Generalists are good for everything, specialists are good only for a few things - but they are BETTER at those things than others. Some of what you think of as 'week' races are specialists.
Half Orcs for example do really well if you play a two weapon fighting Champion with Improved Crit. At 20th level you get 5 attacks, critting on a 19-20 or 10% of the time. You should be critting once every other round.
Another thing you are not looking at are racial feats. They can turn a bad character into a great one.
If you really dislike Dragonborn, make a Gliding Wings racial feat for them rather than changing the race.
P.S. Dragonborn make great Warlocks - adding a resistance and a 1/short rest ability to them can help them out where they need it.,
Champions Crit on 18, 19, or 20 by 20th level.
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I don't know of any class or race that gets resistance at level 1 like Dragonborn do. Given the right class, they will have TWO resistances by level 6? which are not tied to spells or items. That's pretty powerful.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Incidentally, dragonborn and half-orcs may be subpar PC races, but they're great NPC races. A dragonborn or half-orc Guard canonically has the same CR as a generic Guard, but:
Tieflings have resistance to fire damage, and can pick up additional resistances as a racial feat. Genasi have an elemental resistance. Dwarves are resistant to poison. Yuan-ti Purebloods are immune to poison. That's not to say that Dragonborn having a resistance isn't useful, but it's not unique.
OP, I'm hesitant to consider flight as an upgrade, as there are so many settings (such as AL) where flying PCs aren't always allowed. If you did go ahead and try to make it into a feat or something, I'd also encourage you to rework the requiring extra space around it for gliding -- you're essentially making it a much larger creature that way. Aarakocra and other flying races don't suddenly triple in size when they fly, or gain reach (or incur a greater potential number of opportunity attacks).
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Half Orcs are not under powered at all they make great fighters and barbarians. My half orc rune knight does as much damage as the paladin in the group and we just dinged level 12. Relentless endurance may be situational but when it saves your character from high level encounter you will have a much higher opinion of it. Savage attacks gives you one of the better barbarian features for free iirc you can't normally get until 9th lvl.
Is it as powerful as half elf well nothing else is but that doesn't mean its underpowered. I do agree that dragonborn suck though. I always felt it was a parent race and should have subraces like Spellscale to fill it out a bit better.
The problem with dragonborn is that their signature ability (breath weapon) is barely even worth using, and the rest of their kit is nothing special. I'd probably delete the Dragon Hide feat and give them scales and claws by default, and maybe night vision as well.
Hey all, sorry for the delay, just woke up and having to run around getting everything ready for another 13-14 hour shift.
Hooray for the idiots in Victoria and their flagrant disregard for how how dangerous the Corvid-19 pandemic is.
Alright, jumping back into this as I wait for my meals to finish cooking...
That's fair, I've only been playing 5th edition for about a year now, but I've been at the table for about ... 25 years now? And it has always concerned me that some races come right out the gate with a cool ability, but others have to pick and minmix to get something similar. I understand the 'Class Fantasy' (God I hate that term) of the various races/class combinations in the D&D franchise, but it has always bothered me as a DM that if I design an encounter, I have to take into account that some players won't hit their stride until 4th-8th level, while others are nuking, charming and stealthing through every encounter with no challenge whatsoever, be it a pre-generated module or a homebrewed one.
I'm well aware of the differences, thanks, but my concern is that the so-called 'specialist' races tend to require a very involved build to reach their full potential, while other races can just muddle about and still succeed.
And I've rarely seen a campaign from WotC last past level 15 or 16, even with padding from the GM (normally me). Capstone abilities are great, but I've rarely seen an official module get to that level, and I can just imagine the slog of getting through dozens, if not scores, of sessions to get to high level to finally make a build 'work', when the other players have all hit their stride at mid-levels and only gotten stronger...
I know Tieflings have Fire resistance, and can gain more through feats. Aasimar have resistance to Radiant and Necrotic Damage. Dwarves have resistance to Poison. Yuan-ti Purebloods have immunity to Poison and Magic Resistance to spells and other magical effects.
Anyone else find it weird that Air and Earth Genasi don't have Resistance to their 'native' Element?
I generally house-rule flyers with that rule because it partially stops flying becoming the be-all end-all answer to challenges, and apply it to both PCs and their opponents. The flyer still only occupies that five-foot cube, but they need those five feet on either side to expand their wings to get the room to flap them, or hold them steady for proper gliding, in this case.
Magical flying that doesn't involve extremities, of course, need not apply, but that's what Dispel Magic is for ...
They do, oh but they do. And I'm not spitting on the Relentless Endurance, it has saved folks bacon quite a few times, but Savage Attacks is entirely dependant upon getting a critical, and unless you pick specific classes (Assassin Rogues, Champion Fighters, etc), there's a good chance you will never see one roll on your table.
I have a Jar of Shame which is full of D20s that failed to give a natural crit or a natural 20 once in their lives, and thus were condemned and taken away, and I'd give the players a new D20 and see if their luck changed.
To the Dragonborn's breath weapon? It's good, but I would have made it a sub-species choice, between Dragonborn and 'Traitor' Dragonborn, the interbred version and those who, upon being stranded on their 'new' world, were enslaved or chose to follow the Chromatic or Metallic Dragons and were blessed with the breath weapons and resistances of their new 'masters', and give the race some internal punch there, between the Dragonborn who virulently defend their right to self-rule against those who surrendered to their old masters in exchange for power, or were forced back into servitude and have only recently escaped their renewed bonds.
I used to have that problem from when I started TTRPGs in middle school through college. I'd highly recommend you do a balance test by dunking your dice in a hot saltwater solution (enough for the dice to rise the surface). If you're using Chessex dice (like most people), the quality of their injection molding process has plummeted in the last 10 years. The solid single/multi-color ones, especially, have a lot of air bubbles that throw off balance.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
People seem to not understand that playtesting keeps everything from being obviously underpowered. And besides, D&D is a role-playing game. People seem to forget that playing a Dragonborn Beast Master can be just as fun as playing a Variant Human Hexblade.
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
My homebrew setting: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/94809-wakai-a-setting-inspired-by-japanese-folklore-and
This account is kinda old and I haven’t used it in a while
I mean, I don't entirely disagree, but there's also the point that maths plays a heavy role in D&D. Even with the random chance of the dice and a benevolent DM (usually me ... long suffering sigh), some races are simply going to end up outclassing everyone else simply by the numbers.
On a general note I prefer to give a race a free skill and toolkit, or a non-damaging cantrip, or a bonus to something that's thematic to the race, but I do feel like a bit too much Sacred Cow™ got left on some of the races and some are just, mechanically and mathematically, superior to the others, and while I've generally managed to dispel min-maxing from my table by being a 'benevolent' DM and being more "Why not?" instead of "WHY!" with my players, I guess I'm still scratching me head a bit on why we've got some player races that are flat out godly, while others are, at best, niche builds if you want to be competitive or useful to the campaign outside of one or two roles?
I generally reward players that 'break the mold' with race/class combinations because after so long at the table, I've seen just about every variation of Half-Orc Barbarian, Elven Magic-User and Halfling Rogue. Give me something fresh and bold and I'll fineagle the rules to make it viable for you.
And digital dice, of course, can be worse.
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
My homebrew setting: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/94809-wakai-a-setting-inspired-by-japanese-folklore-and
This account is kinda old and I haven’t used it in a while
Any competently implemented RNG is better than mass market dice (just calling Math.random() in your browser is adequate), but if they don't release the code they're using there's no way of telling whether it's competently implemented.
Huh, I didn’t know that! But we’re getting off-topic...
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
My homebrew setting: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/94809-wakai-a-setting-inspired-by-japanese-folklore-and
This account is kinda old and I haven’t used it in a while