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Custom Racial Stats
For those who weren't around, originally we only had one option for racial statistics per race. Then we got the awesome change that gave 4-5 options for each race, which is the system currently in place today.
Correct me of I am wrong, but the motive behind this change was to further RP so that you didn't have to be a Mhun to be the best serpent, or a troll for the highest strength. Some of this still stands, such as Atavian serpent or grook/siren Magi.
What about adding custom stats?
From what I can tell, the pattern is "Lose two, add three" from ground level stats (12 str, 12 dex, 12 int, 12 const). So for example, a Grook Scholar adds three points to intelligence, but removes two from strength. My numbers could be off, but this seems to be the case in quite a few of the race stat choices.
Point is, it would be awesome if I could be whatever race, start at 12/12/12/12 then when I get level 10 have the ability to start playing with different stats until level 30, at which point my stats then become permanent with 1 free reincarnation.
Thoughts? Concerns?
My first concern was a Troll Serpent, and other stuff like that. But Trolls already have a 14 dext option so the extra point isnt going to make much of a difference.
Anyway, discuss!
Correct me of I am wrong, but the motive behind this change was to further RP so that you didn't have to be a Mhun to be the best serpent, or a troll for the highest strength. Some of this still stands, such as Atavian serpent or grook/siren Magi.
What about adding custom stats?
From what I can tell, the pattern is "Lose two, add three" from ground level stats (12 str, 12 dex, 12 int, 12 const). So for example, a Grook Scholar adds three points to intelligence, but removes two from strength. My numbers could be off, but this seems to be the case in quite a few of the race stat choices.
Point is, it would be awesome if I could be whatever race, start at 12/12/12/12 then when I get level 10 have the ability to start playing with different stats until level 30, at which point my stats then become permanent with 1 free reincarnation.
Thoughts? Concerns?
My first concern was a Troll Serpent, and other stuff like that. But Trolls already have a 14 dext option so the extra point isnt going to make much of a difference.
Anyway, discuss!
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Edit: As opposed to choosing a stat package such as it is now, that is.
For base stats, every race (except human, which is all 12s) has -1 to a single stat and +1 to a single stat, so they have two stats at 12, one at 11, and one at 13.
I don't mind keeping the same limitations with "opposite" stats and such, but it sure would be nice to be able to get any of the current stat sets as any race.
My initial gut reaction was "No, that seems like it would be really bad." The only objection I could actually come up with was that it would allow you to spec for the stat you want most, but offset the negative effect into a stat you want least (e.g. I could spec for strength, but then take the penalty in dexterity rather than intelligence). If the racial specialisations remained the same, though, being able to pick, for example, Xoran base stats as a Human wouldn't really be an issue.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Game mechanics dictating which stat is the most effective for your class/playstyle is unavoidable. Stats being tied directly to race, and therefore influencing the potential choices you can reasonably make, isn't.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
You can use a trait to boost that stat a little bit. I'm wondering if a possible solution to the roleplay versus stats thing might be to double that trait if it's your race's weak stat? So if a Siren Fury gets the strength trait, it would give +2, giving 15 base strength as opposed to Troll with strength trait having 16 base strength? And if a Troll got the intelligence trait, it would give +2, bringing it up to 15 base intelligence as opposed to Grook with intelligence trait going up to 16? That seems like another compromising step between just giving statpacks and keeping things how they are. I like the flavor of the racial specializations personally, I just wish the stats were a little less forbidding.
To take an example (not based on actual race stats), if Atavian had 11 strength and 13 Intelligence, then an Atavian Magi would be full effectiveness with the ability to fly, but an Atavian Paladin would be sacrificing two strength for the ability to fly. Why shouldn't an Atavian Paladin have the option of being full effectiveness for their class, plus the ability to fly, when a Magi (or other Intelligence using class) does?
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
The whole point of homogenizing the stats between races was to discourage the "Oh, you use balance? Rajamala or mhun. Mage? Grook." that the original race system encouraged. Making the races more mechanically similar is a better way to encourage people to choose a race based off of their desired roleplay.
Something more creative should be done with racial traits. I don't like things like elemental resists, but I love the ones like Xorani being able to light pipes/etc and grook being able to breathe underwater.
I see no problem with Atavians flying, considering that's a 'cheap' artie.
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If the goal is to still have races differentiated in their combat potential, then I definitely think that something like @Tesha's suggestion would be good. It'd halve the disadvantage of choosing a race that's bad for your class from a two point loss to one point, while still leaving certain races best at certain things.
The one disadvantage I could see to it is that in some instances a race that benefited from this would be simply better then humans, who never could, but that'd simply be rearranging the mechanical stratification that already exists.
It makes me sad that "Well I have enhanced endurance regen and... the ability to stomp on someones face." Know how many times I used the latter as a monk? None, because Back Breaker was almost always the better option (unless I wanted to cause stupidity). As a druid, there's even less desire for the latter since I don't PVP. As a dwarf I get a lot of stats, and traits that make me a much more efficient hunter simply because I get the ability to shove off a number of damage sources... Oh, and starting out with a higher con is cool.
So maybe having a wider 'range' of racial traits for certain races, and letting everyone get to have a 'point buy'ish system? The answer to being a satyr that hunts shouldn't be "get every arty for health and go full con spec to have 14(17) con." it should just be 'maybe we should let some satyrs be dumber than others... yet more hardy.'
Would be really nice to have something along these lines implemented.
If this goes thru, gem can be changed to allow both re-spec and race change. Problem solved.
I like to be human for crit bonus yet still able to min max based on class. Especially now with multiclass.
Welcome custom stats!
Thus the issue I have with disconnecting races from stats even further is that a good chunk of "racial RP" kinda depends on those disparities. Aside from the little random racial traits, which are generally just flavour, races' RP is -because- of their stats, or is at least justified by their stats. Trolls are described as big, burly, and strong because they -are- actually stronger than other races. Take that away and that Troll RP doesn't really make sense any more, because now a 90 lb Siren can be just as strong in all cases. The races that are canonically described as faster, stronger, smarter, tougher, etc cease to actually be those things, (for the most part) and all the colors mix to grey.
If races are identical across the board in their class capabilities, that's not an interesting "RP choice" in my opinion, that's just choosing your character's League of Legends skin.
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I also don't believe it adds any flavor to the game, to be forced to choose between a race you want(RP), and a race that mechanically offers .33% effectiveness over another. I dislike the setup, and believe it could be done better.
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But really, I don't think that trying to create rp through stat differences makes sense. Don't get me wrong, I see the appeal, but Achaea isn't Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, where your stats have effects on out of combat things (and even then there's a reason why so many people play human in 3.5). In Achaea your stats matter only in combat and hunting, and even then just add or subtract a few percentage points here and there. As a result, almost no one roleplays their actual stats much, especially since artifacts throw that even more out of whack by making it so that members of mechanically inferior races already are stronger/faster/smarter. To build on @Aerek's example, it's definitely cool to be impressed by a troll knight, but in practice, that would mean that one should be even more impressed by the siren/atavian who walked in with gauntlets.
The problem is that for every person who picks their race because it gives them the numbers instead of being because they like the concept/theme/story, we've got someone who's less likely to actually want to roleplay their race. And for every person who chooses an inferior race because they'd like the roleplay, they'll often have a harder time getting into combat (particularly as several classes, like serpent/occie/knight scale hugely in their effectiveness off of their core stat). It's not good for anyone involved. The old system with its even heavier disparities proved it, with the horde of rajamalas that were there for the minmaxing and not for caring about what the roleplay could be. I see the appeal of the combat mechanical differences, but in practice I just don't think that's how it works.
and some of the current racial stats make certain races largely inferior, and several don't make any sense from an rp perspective. This is probably just my personal gripe as a tsol'aa sylvan, but there are only advantages for me to switch to siren, which would give me more constitution. I don't want to play a siren, and I definitely don't want to be with it just for the +1 con, but that's a 400 credit difference I'm getting with no trade off as an intelligence focused race taking an intelligence focused class. It's like that for all con penalty races especially, where short of builds with lots of artifacts there will always be a race that is strictly better despite roleplay suggesting that your race should be good at this.
Some of the stats don't really make sense, either, especially with the last set of switches forced races into this current framework. Rajamalas went from having above average intelligence to below average. Atavians went from being less dextrous humans to more dextrous but less strong (and I always have a hard time reconciling this with the atavian royal guards, who do not seem to be dealing with less strong). The mechanics often don't make sense when examined in lore, and that's because these days they're really just here for the sake of making there be mechanical differences. That's not interesting, in my opinion, since it just precludes or penalizes what could be interesting archetypes that already exist in the lore (the aforementioned denizen atavian knights, the qurnok shaman, ect), which makes them less likely to actually get played.
In making people chose between rp and combat, you're either limiting what could be interesting roleplay or (and perhaps this is more likely, given how few grooks/trolls there are even with the mechanics) just making combat harder to get into or excel at without spending money. Neither of these outcomes is favorable. There are few advantages to the current system, given how empirically few people seem to decide that they have to play this race for the mechanics but they'll dive into the rp too, and there are a host of disadvantages. I think that switching to stat packs, though it certainly would have its own problems and limitations, is a far superior option.
TL;DR: The current system either discourages roleplay or discourages combat by making someone choose between them. Statpacks are a much better alternative.
P.S. If we're necroing this thread anyways, may as well use some of the good material here. @Synbios' post a bit up this page had a good suggestion for trying to insert more racial difference without just falling back on stats. Racial differences can be cool, but having solely combat implications to the differences doesn't work well. Hopefully stat packs could also open room for some other sort of rp-driven, not combat related bonuses to each race.