Class and Racial Restrictions that make sense.

Jimstrom

I was reading through a lot of threads with people complaining about the racial restrictions, some restrictions i agree with but, i belive restrictions is made for replay ability.

Humans :

can use every class and kit but and dual class but not multi/class - Okay in my oppinion

Elf:
Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Mage
Ranger
Barbarian!?
Ranger
Sorcerer
and now also Druids

Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Mage
Mage/Thief
Figher/Mage/Thief

- I would exchange Barbarian with Bard and also add Figher/Druid, Cleric/Ranger and Cleric/Mage as a multi-class because Aeria is a Cleric/Mage.

Kits:

May use any kit but mages is restricted to this

Diviner
Enchanter
Wild Mage

- I would restrict Conjurer necromancer and Invoker but allow everthing else.

Half-Elf:

All EXCEPT Monks, Paladins, Cleric/Thief

- Monks and paladis i can agree with, but cleric/thief? cleric and thief is allowed but not together? makes no sense

Mages is restricted to these kits:

Abjurer
Illusionist
Invoker
Necromancer

- i would take away necromancer since it's the opposite school to illusionists, and add conjurer

Dwarf:

Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Barbarian

Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Cleric

- Okay i can live with the mages restriction, but i would add Bard and the Skald and Jester kits, and the shaman kit also add cleric/thief mulit-class.

Gnome:

Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Illusionist
Barbarian?!

Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Illusionist
Illusionist/Thief
Cleric/Illusionist
Cleric / Thief

- Okay barbarian makes no sense, and should be replaced with bard with Jester kit,

Half-Orc:

Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Barbarian

Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Cleric
Cleric/Thief

- no complaints here but i would add the shaman kit.

Okay this is my thoughts, if you have a different opinion feel free to comment and tell why.

Halflings:

Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Barbarian?!

Figter/Thief

- I would remove Barbarian and add Bard with Blade and Jester kits and also add Thief/Cleric and Fighter/Cleric,

FinneousPJ

Nope, racial restrictions do not make sense.

PK2748

Racial restrictions make perfect sense, I actually think they are already too wide and should be tighter. You need to explain why humans statistically suck and die early but dominate the world. It's been decided it's because culturally and individually humans are flexible, adaptable and diverse. Other cultures and species lack that. If you take that away you need to explain why anyone would ever play human over Elf or Dwarf

sarevok57

also the reason why there are race/class restrictions are because in some form of early dnd certain races had general professions that they would choose, aka dwarves would never become paladins because that was just the lore that earlier dnd had

also, I believe another reason for it is also for a bit of game balancing, if halflings gnomes and dwarves could be ANY class, then why on earth would you ever choose a human? for role play purposes? that would be the only reason why, because in a lot of scenarios the shorties are just better in every way compared to the tallies, so I believe racial restriction is in there to help give those lamer races a shot at being picked

and even though this is 2nd edition dnd, even in the 3.5 dungeons master guide, it takes about how can add racial restrictions for classes to add some more "flavor" to the game, and in its example it uses the exact same racial restrictions that bg has


@Jimstrom and the reason why anyone can be a barbarian is because when bg2 first came out eons ago, barbarian was actually just a "class kit per se" of the fighter class, so if anyone can be a fighter, they can also be a barbarian, although now with the recent patch, I've noticed that they have now added barbarian to the fighter list of kits

JumboWheat01

I see a distinct lack of halflings in that list of your, OP. I find the lack of halflings... disturbing...

Also, Aerie can be a Cleric/Mage because she is a de-winged Winged Elf, or Avariel. They were allowed the Cleric/Mage classification, while Sun, Moon, Wood, Wild and Drow elves were not. Plus she was also trained by a gnome, who was and can be a Cleric/Mage (Illusionist, really, but close enough.)

Also, Half-Orcs can be shaman, I've made plenty of them to try to play the class with.

sarevok57

also I don't think NPCs follow the same guide lines as a character you can make, dorn is a half-orc black guard, and minsc has illegally low stats

JumboWheat01

Minsc MAY have had proper stats when he started his career as a ranger, but so many blows to the head really messed up his Wisdom score.

Jimstrom

JumboWheat01 said:

I see a distinct lack of halflings in that list of your, OP. I find the lack of halflings... disturbing...

Also, Aerie can be a Cleric/Mage because she is a de-winged Winged Elf, or Avariel. They were allowed the Cleric/Mage classification, while Sun, Moon, Wood, Wild and Drow elves were not. Plus she was also trained by a gnome, who was and can be a Cleric/Mage (Illusionist, really, but close enough.)

Also, Half-Orcs can be shaman, I've made plenty of them to try to play the class with.

You are right i forgot about them, but it's been corrected now.

Zilber

Race/class restriction is bad, I really want to play an elven bard, multi a half-orc shaman barbarian, dual a cleric monk, make a halfling cleric/thief, dual to a sorceror or dragon desciple (makes much more sense than mage), make a dwarven wizard to mimic nordic lore.

The choice of allowing the short lived humans to do thing after one another, while allowing the long lived races to do things simultaneously is the opposite of logical as well.
Dual classing having skill restrictions on the leaving class, and such high restrictions on the getting class is bad.

2nd edition was a box of bad rules, but the flavour of the settings is what makes us come back there.

Thels

Monks being restricted to Humans is something we're stuck with, as it's a technical aspect (nonhumans don't have the required animations).

Be glad that races got to pick their classes. :P if an older ruleset was used, races were a class. You could be, say, a level 5 fighter, or a level 5 dwarf.

2nd suffers from Humans having no perks. Give humans perks, and I have no problems lifting the requirements, but without human perks, it's required for balance (and yes, it's pretty clutch balance).

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

JumboWheat01

I see a distinct lack of Eberon on your list. Have you not tried it yet? I suggest you do, it's really interesting and different. DDO is still around if you wanna go with a video game example.

PK2748

I always liked Greyhawk. The first published setting, designed by Gyax himself. I always thought it was superior to Forgotten Realms. Dragonlance's mages being clerics and steampunk, idiot Gnomes were basically unforgivable. Ravenloft and Dark Sun were good but the only salvation to Ebeton for me was fixing crossbow damage

AstroBryGuy

The game should just go back to B/X rules, where the non-human races were classes unto themselves. All elves were essentially Fighter/Mages (and the only ones who could cast spells while wearing elven chain mail). All dwarves were basically Fighters with the ability to navigate underground. All halflings were basically Fighter/Thieves.

Ok, kidding aside...

I disagree that 2nd Edition was a bunch of bad rules. It was a solid, robust, fun-to-play version of D&D. In the end, it suffered from to Too Many Splat Books Syndrome, but D&D editions tend to do that as they age (and TSR/WotC/Hasbro have to find new ways to get your $$$). Until 5th edition, it was the last edition I found could be played without a battle mat and miniatures (too many 3rd and 4th edition rules are just unworkable without a battlemat). I prefer "Theater of the Mind" for PnP combats than worrying about how many squares it is between my PC and an enemy or how best to abuse 5' steps.

A lot of the rules in AD&D depended on the DM to implement realistically. We never had a character dual-class in the middle of an adventure. The DM would never have allowed it. Dual-classing would require months (at least!) of down-time for the character to learn the skills of their new class.

And a good DM could allow normally "forbidden" class choices, for a good enough reason. We once had a player with a dwarf wizard. The player came up with a great backstory and the DM ruled that he did not get the normal dwarf saving throw bonuses to spells and wands because he had overcome the innate dwarven resistance to magic to become a wizard (let him keep the save vs. poison bonus, tho).

If you don't like BG's class/kit restrictions, then mod them with Tweaks Anthology. True, there's a few limitations that can't be overcome without access to the engine code (lack of monk animations, no dual/multi-classing for some classes like paladins, monks, sorcerers, etc..), but you can have your dwarf cleric/thief.

filcat88

Class restrictions make sense ONLY if you think them as a kind of peculiatities.
Ok it is odd to find a dwarf druid or an elf barbarian, but I would say that in the world od D&D every character has the possibility to pursue his vocation (by choice or by fate).

Therefore, classes restrictrions should be off in my opinion.

Thels

2nd edition's rules weren't too bad. They worked, but they were overly complex. THAC0 going down, AC going down, non-weapon proficiencies requiring you to roll low instead of high, thief skills indicating it's completely impossible for anyone else to hide, exceptional strength, humans can dualclass vs other races can multiclass, 7s and 14s being practically identical for ability scores, and the list goes on.

3rd edition felt like they picked up the rules and restructured a lot of it to be a lot more workable. I also totally disagree that 3rd requires miniatures. I've winged plenty of campaigns without a battleground, as both player and DM.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

former_customer

Thels said:

2nd edition's rules weren't too bad. They worked, but they were overly complex. THAC0 going down, AC going down, non-weapon proficiencies requiring you to roll low instead of high, thief skills indicating it's completely impossible for anyone else to hide, exceptional strength, humans can dualclass vs other races can multiclass, 7s and 14s being practically identical for ability scores, and the list goes on.

3rd edition felt like they picked up the rules and restructured a lot of it to be a lot more workable. I also totally disagree that 3rd requires miniatures. I've winged plenty of campaigns without a battleground, as both player and DM.

When Mssrs. Gygax and Arneson were making the adaptation from the miniatures game, it would have been a good time to reconsider some of the old Chainmail rules and optimize them for the new style of game. Of course, the whole thing was in its infancy, and the move from the battlefield to narrative roleplaying may have been enough revolution for one day.

Anyway, racial restrictions look much more to me like basic unit types in a miniatures game. Elves dont have paladins, perhaps, but they have mage archers, and so on. At an individual storytelling level, though, its obtrusive. There's no reason an individual can't learn a skillset or a different cultural mindset

PK2748

For the people who argue that Elven paladins are fine for PCs or Halfling wizards, I'd like to see how you make anyone play a human in second edition then. Especially when you recognize dual classing absolutely sucks in pen and paper when there are no exploits easily milked for exp and it can take years not hours to get that amount of experience and rolling great stats is really really unreliable

dockaboomski

The Complete Bard's Handbook allows all standard demihumans (so, everything but half-orcs) to be bards, but they are limited to specialized kits for each race. It also introduces multiclass bards with the same restrictions. So, in P&P, gnomes and elves can be bards, just not standard bards. So with a little work, and initiative, they could be added to the game.
Not to start an edition war, but honestly the reason I find 2nd edition so appealing (besides real Planescape) is that the rules are not as crunchy as later editions. The esoteric rules are easy to get a hold of, and character creation can be faster than any other edition.
I also (as a real 2nd edition DM) agree that some racial restrictions can be lifted, but only in the situation that a player has a good reason for it (as many here have been saying). It allows a cool character to become even more unique.
In terms of the Baldur's Gate series, they should be kept. It would go too much against the original ruleset, regardless of its flaws. It's very easy to mod out all restrictions.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Thels

dockaboomski said:

Not to start an edition war, but honestly the reason I find 2nd edition so appealing (besides real Planescape) is that the rules are not as crunchy as later editions. The esoteric rules are easy to get a hold of, and character creation can be faster than any other edition.

Are we still talking about 2nd edition here, with THAC0 and AC going down, so you have to twist your mind in three different ways to see if you scored a hit? Or how about there being rules for bonus experience if certain ability scores are above a certain value, or even ability score requirements for specific classes? What about the overly complex exceptional strength? What about all the rules that determine which classes a certain race can develop into, and up to what level, as well as how that race can dual- or multiclass? Not to mention that each class has it's own experience table, or rules for rogue skills that differ from one class to another?

And the list goes on. I don't particularly have anything against 2nd edition, it all had to start somewhere, but saying that later editions were more crunchy is just sooooo wrong.

Skatan

Zilber said:

The choice of allowing the short lived humans to do thing after one another, while allowing the long lived races to do things simultaneously is the opposite of logical as well.

Preach it, brother!

scriver

PK2748 said:

For the people who argue that Elven paladins are fine for PCs or Halfling wizards, I'd like to see how you make anyone play a human in second edition then. Especially when you recognize dual classing absolutely sucks in pen and paper when there are no exploits easily milked for exp and it can take years not hours to get that amount of experience and rolling great stats is really really unreliable

In 3.5 and Pathfinder humans is the most powerful race. People still play as other races. Why? Because they want to.

Likewise, people would still play 2nd ed humans because they want to play humans.

If that isn't enough, then there's always Attribute Rolling Option Four: Pick a class and automatically raise all unqualified attributes to the minimum for that class. Open only to humans.

Thels

@Scriver: I'd say Pathfinder moreso than 3.5. In 3.5, Humans get their bonus feat, which is strong, but not always as strong as a +2 in your primary stat that is available from other races.

Pathfinder made humans really strong in giving them both the bonus feat and a +2 to their primary stat. There are few fluff abilities that hold up against that bonus feat.

But yeah, because 3.x/PF have stats for humans, there is no longer an arbitrary need to restrict the classes and levels of other races, and thus it's much easier to give every race access to every class with unrestricted levels.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

FinneousPJ

subtledoctor said:

The ridiculous thing is, all the math-challenged kiddies are actually bring foolish

@subtledoctor The ridiculous thing is your posts don't live up to your user name.

Zilber

subtledoctor said:

Thels said:

Are we still talking about 2nd edition here, with THAC0 and AC going down, so you have to twist your mind in three different ways to see if you scored a hit?

Now you're embarrassing yourself. What, do you think there was some kind of council or editors' meeting where people decided how every roll should work? This all began in some dude's garage. Do you think those guys overtly decided to make players "twist their minds in three different ways?" Somehow, I don't think that's what happened. I think it was more something like this.

OD&D: consult this chart, looking at your experience level. Try to roll a d20 die higher than the number. Add the target's AC score to your roll.
B/X D&D: exactly the same. Roll higher than the number on the chart, add target's AC to the roll.
BECMI: same exact mechanic.
1E AD&D: same exact mechanic.
2E AD&D: same exact mechanic.
BECMI re-release: same exact mechanic.
2.5E AD&D: same exact mechanic, and they also switched psionics over to using the same mechanic (they called it "mental thac0" or mthac0) because everyone was completely comfortable with the mechanic.

For 25 years players were fine with it... only when 3E came along and the 10-year-old kids complained did they say "hmm, let's change the mechanic from one arbitrary system to another. They even called it "BAB" for "baby players." (True story, look it up.) As usual, millennials ruin everything.

Funny thing was, the switch from thac0 to BAB had nothing to do with whether one arbitrary system is "better" than the other; it had to do with multiclassing. The dual/multi hybrid system in 3E have to-hit bonuses when gaining certain levels in certain classes; but thac0 is a set number on a chart and therefore didn't lend itself to the new system of incremental to-hit bonuses.

The ridiculous thing is, all the math-challenged kiddies are actually bring foolish when they post screeds against thac0, because thac0 is still there in the combat system. It has never gone away; rather, it just doesn't change with level anymore, instead you get cumulative incremental attack roll bonuses. But it's still there. The real difference is that they flipped AC around, now you subtract the target's AC from the attack roll instead of adding it. To me, that seems more complicated. But, whatever.

You've skimmed over the experience based on stats, class restrictions, damage vs different sizes, all the different saves, system shock, AC vs different types, and the incredibly convoluted non-combat proficiencies.

When we last played Ravenloft, the horror was more about the 2nd edition system than the adventure could convey.

Those who claim 2nd edition was simple either have it hardwired in their brain somehow, or played half the game.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Thels

@Subtledoctor: I've played 2nd edition for years, so yeah, I've gotten used to it. It's still completely counterintuitive. BaB not only is useful for multiclassing, it's also a lot more intuitive.

2nd edition:
- Roll a die.
- Add your bonuses.
- Calculate the difference between the end result and your THAC0.
- If you rolled higher than your THAC0, you hit a negative AC value.
- If you rolled lower than your THAC0, you hit a positive AC value.
- If the AC value that you hit is equal to or lower than your target's armor class, you hit.

3rd edition:
- Roll a die.
- Add your bonuses.
- If the result is equal to or higher than your target's armor class, you hit.

Claiming that 3rd is not a lot easier to calculate is sticking your head in the sand.

2nd edition has rules. 3rd edition has rules. Both editions allowed you to bend, change or even entirely ignore rules as determined by your DM.

The big difference? 2nd edition had rules that were so insanely stupid, that you basically were forced to change the rules as needed, whereas this was an optional thing in 3rd edition.

PK2748

Thels said:

@Subtledoctor: I've played 2nd edition for years, so yeah, I've gotten used to it. It's still completely counterintuitive. BaB not only is useful for multiclassing, it's also a lot more intuitive.

2nd edition:
- Roll a die.
- Add your bonuses.
- Calculate the difference between the end result and your THAC0.
- If you rolled higher than your THAC0, you hit a negative AC value.
- If you rolled lower than your THAC0, you hit a positive AC value.
- If the AC value that you hit is equal to or lower than your target's armor class, you hit.

3rd edition:
- Roll a die.
- Add your bonuses.
- If the result is equal to or higher than your target's armor class, you hit.

Claiming that 3rd is not a lot easier to calculate is sticking your head in the sand.

2nd edition has rules. 3rd edition has rules. Both editions allowed you to bend, change or even entirely ignore rules as determined by your DM.

The big difference? 2nd edition had rules that were so insanely stupid, that you basically were forced to change the rules as needed, whereas this was an optional thing in 3rd edition.

Maybe our talents with math and our experience with Dungeon Masters differ but the process in both games is, in my experience :

1. Roll a die
2. Add your bonuses
3. Report results to the DM
4. The DM tells you if you hit
5. You do the incredibly simple math in your head to figure out the creatures AC in any system

If you can't intuitively figure out step 5, I don't want you at my table. I've played 1st and 2nd edition AD&D since seventh grade and it's never been hard to figure out THAC0.