Racial Class Restrictions

Adamantine

Any word on that yet ? Doesnt seem like that - even in the official forum theres seems to be no word on that.

But it seems to me like the races and classes are now "set in stone" until release.

And EQ had racial class restrictions, VG had initially racial class restrictions, and the Kickstarter also had racial class restrictions.

So its a pretty safe bet that Pantheon will have them, too.



I would guess these are safe bets to be "in":

Human: Warrior, Crusader, Rogue, Monk, Cleric, Wizard, Summoner
Elf: Crusader, Ranger, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Enchanter
Halfling: Warrior, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, Druid
Dwarf: Warrior, Crusader, Rogue, Cleric, Shaman
Gnome: Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Enchanter
Archai: ?
Dark Myr: Dire Lord, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Summoner, Enchanter
Ogre: Warrior, Shaman
Skar: ?

Human probably gets all but Shaman, but maybe they leave one or two more classes out
Elf is probably High Elf + Wood Elf, so everything light and magic and nature themed
Halfling has almost the same list of classes in EQ and VG, so ...
Dwarf has a traditional list, and Shaman was already said in Kickstarter
Gnome well its a very different race this time around, but I guess the classic choices should nevertheless be in
Archai has no data. Elemental race suggests Druid, maybe also Wizard ?
Dark Myr are probably Darkelves, so thats their traditional list of classes (Summoner instead of Necromancer)
Ogre is really hard to say, Kickstarter says no Rogue and thats surprising. Also said Shaman. I really would be surprised if no Warrior.
Skar has no data. Antlike humanoids, extremely aggressive, well Warrior, Dire Lord and Rogue seems likely ?

Warrior: Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Ogre
Crusader: Human, Elf, Dwarf
Dire Lord: Dark Myr
Rogue: Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome, Dark Myr
Ranger: Elf, Halfling
Monk: Human
Cleric: Human, Elf, Halfling, Dwarf, Gnome, Dark Myr
Shaman: Dwarf, Ogre
Druid: Elf, Halfling
Wizard: Human, Elf, Gnome, Dark Myr
Summoner: Human, Dark Myr
Enchanter: Elf, Gnome, Dark Myr

Mind, these are only the "safe bets", i.e. race class combos which are very probable.

Drisdane

I would think that humans would have access to the whole gamut of classes. Humans can be tribal and nomadic as well, making shamans a possibility. It is just the culture of the other races that would usually prevent them from being any class.

whisperwynd

All I know is that there was supposed a lot of info to be revealed at the end of Sept. and still nothing. Wish something would get shown/revealed to us.

Sinist

whisperwynd said:

All I know is that there was supposed a lot of info to be revealed at the end of Sept. and still nothing. Wish something would get shown/revealed to us.

So, filling out all the class information they did on the site is nothing? All of the screenshots of the new Unity 5 conversions are nothing?

whisperwynd

Sinist said:

whisperwynd said:

All I know is that there was supposed a lot of info to be revealed at the end of Sept. and still nothing. Wish something would get shown/revealed to us.

So, filling out all the class information they did on the site is nothing? All of the screenshots of the new Unity 5 conversions are nothing?

Nothing close to "A whole lot of Pantheon busting out at the end of September." as Chris has said. Not really.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see what they have. Just thought they'd have more gameplay/vids to show. I'll wait.

CommoX

From the website;

"For the good of his people, the Dwarven King Khazas sacrificed his immortality to rule among them in the wintry fortress of Khadassa. This selflessness is a crown virtue of the Dwarven race, and to have one as a friend is worth more than several lifetimes of fortune. Believing peace is a product of strength, the Dwarves seek not an empire, but to increase their mastery in smithing, the arcane as well as battle. Their compact form is rarely mistaken for lumbering stiffness, as their reputation in all types of conflict is widely established."

Pretty sure the races won't fall into their typical class roles as they have in many previous games. Dwarfs who are arcane masters is a neat twist. Wonder what that says about their lore?

Looking at the classes available and pondering if the classes have alignment requirements and if specific races are aligned a certain way, we could see some limitations, but my guesses for classes Dwarfs can't be are;

Druid, Shaman and Dire Lord, possibly Ranger.

reeereee

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

Adamantine

Drisdane said:

I would think that humans would have access to the whole gamut of classes. Humans can be tribal and nomadic as well, making shamans a possibility. It is just the culture of the other races that would usually prevent them from being any class.

You're trying to make sense out of something that really doesnt make sense. Which classes can be picked up by which race is obviously quite abritary.

Humans traditionally get almost all classes except Shaman. Thats just how it is.

reeereee said:

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

Eh, dont ask me why they are there.

There is a priori no good reason why a sentient race should be unable to pick up any task.

Unless you have special, well explained cases, like in Dragon Age, Dwarves cant be mage because they just dont have access to magic.

Now of course one could argue, and I wouldnt oppose that statement, that all races live in specific conditions. An eskimo wont be a samurai, either, after all. However, the player isnt playing an ordinary person - the player character is an adventurer, possibly a hero, in any case an exception from the rule. Also, while almost all eskimos wont be samurai, a specific eskimo child can end up for example being fascinated by japanese culture and learn how to use katanas through own study. Or they could be raised by a japanese and teached in katana useage.

So yeah, I'm not a fan of racial class restrictions either. But they'll be there, thats just like it is.

Sinist

reeereee said:

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

Actually, they are game play elements that provide depth in character development and play. Such is the cornerstone of role playing games. Games of old used to have multiple layers of character development which affected the choices of the player.

Thing is, most games today don't bother with such features as they have all been streamlined because giving the player choice over the pros/cons of their character development is considered too much effort for the average gamer these days.

Adamantine

Sinist said:

Actually, they are game play elements that provide depth in character development and play. Such is the cornerstone of role playing games. 

In other words:
(a) We want you to roleplay
(b) To encourage that, we limit your possibilities to do so

Sinist

Adamantine said:

Sinist said:

Actually, they are game play elements that provide depth in character development and play. Such is the cornerstone of role playing games. 

In other words:
(a) We want you to roleplay
(b) To encourage that, we limit your possibilities to do so

  Computer role playing games and their parent PnP systems have a very clear history of character development and focus concerning these types of choices. It is the point of their systems. If we didn't care about rules and just wanted to play make believe, a SIMS game would be a better fit. Considering this is a game, has specific rules of  character development and is established from a very long history of such systems, I think that it is reasonable to expect people want to play a game, not simply play act.

Zajjar

class restrictions is a natural law in high fantasy as a troll aint a high elf. Simple. Nothing to be discussed imo.

Adamantine

Except many high fantasy settings, such as the most important - D&D, dont know them.

Sinist

Adamantine said:

Except many high fantasy settings, such as the most important - D&D, dont know them.

???

Class and race restrictions are all over D&D. Though, that would be D&D before it was mainstreamed. Crack open a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition DM and players guide and go over numerous restrictions that existed. I am talking about the history of cRPG and PnP gaming, not the pointless mainstream systems of today.

Adamantine

Sinist said:

Adamantine said:

Except many high fantasy settings, such as the most important - D&D, dont know them.

???

Class and race restrictions are all over D&D. Though, that would be D&D before it was mainstreamed. Crack open a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition DM and players guide and go over numerous restrictions that existed. I am talking about the history of cRPG and PnP gaming, not the pointless mainstream systems of today.

D&D 3.0, which was the climax of D&D, the best system they ever had, did away with any race class restrictions. Its a simple and elegant and powerful system, much better than anything before that point.

AD&D was still a mess, thats true. Humans could dualclass, non-humans had multiclassing, and from level 9 or 10 (depending upon class) on you would only get minimal additional hitpoints, and OMG was there many rules, I doubt anyone ever managed to understand and remember that all.

Not to speak of D&D 1.0 in which your race would be your class, so your elf would always be fighter/mage etc, except if you're human. And there was maxlevels for non-humans, too.

Unfortunately with D&D 4.0 they restarted the theme of weird rules that made no sense.

Sinist

Adamantine said:

Sinist said:

Adamantine said:

Except many high fantasy settings, such as the most important - D&D, dont know them.

???

Class and race restrictions are all over D&D. Though, that would be D&D before it was mainstreamed. Crack open a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition DM and players guide and go over numerous restrictions that existed. I am talking about the history of cRPG and PnP gaming, not the pointless mainstream systems of today.

D&D 3.0, which was the climax of D&D, the best system they ever had, did away with any race class restrictions. Its a simple and elegant and powerful system, much better than anything before that point.

AD&D was still a mess, thats true. Humans could dualclass, non-humans had multiclassing, and from level 9 or 10 (depending upon class) on you would only get minimal additional hitpoints, and OMG was there many rules, I doubt anyone ever managed to understand and remember that all.

Not to speak of D&D 1.0 in which your race would be your class, so your elf would always be fighter/mage etc, except if you're human. And there was maxlevels for non-humans, too.

Unfortunately with D&D 4.0 they restarted the theme of weird rules that made no sense.

Oh that's right, 3rd didn't have racial restrictions, I didn't care for 3rd that much, 1st and 2nd are more my tastes and the extensive rules was what I found enjoyable about the game. We played the game from a technical standpoint, not a play acting one, so having race restrictions were a nice element of play that gave reason for certain races having advantages/disadvantages over another.

Dual classing and multi-classing were great elements. Again, it gave purpose to the system. Humans lived short life spans and did not have the time to slowly learn skills over 100's of years as most demihumans so the concept of a differing exp structure and focus made sense. Again, layered elements of rules that gave depth of play.

Wizards of the Coast buying out TSR was the beginning of the end of the D&D as from then on it became a mainstream marketing gimmick, I mean, their biggest contribution was MTG and Pokeman card games, need I say more? 4th edition was horrible, and 5th isn't far behind. Like MMOs and cRPGs, D&D suffered the same fate with its mainstream streamlining of the systems in order to reach a very broad audience to maximize profits. That is, their interest was not in games, but in money and while every business needs to make a profit, making it the focus is what drives the product itself which is why you can spot a gimmick game these days without even breaking open its box.

I miss the days where people played games because they liked "games", not because they want a game to be entertaining (and yes, there is a difference in what a person expects in the product because of that).

SavageHorizon

reeereee said:

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

DMKano said:

Racial restrictions make no sense.

What does make sense are racial uniqueness to each class 

Example Human monk and Ogre monk would not fight the same. They can both be monks but the set of skills would be different - like a human monk could do flying kicks while an ogre monk could do body slams. 

But both could punch and have the same mechanics such as feign death, only light armor, etc...

Ogre would have higher caps on STR and HP, but human would have higher DEX and AGI.

I prefer race class restrictions but i remember my Mordebi Tuugin shaman played differently to the other two Shaman classes. The most obvious was he was a bear and could take a lot of punishment, he also had great tanking buffs for the tanks.

My Rakuur could stealth and was about regeneration and combat speed with high dex and agility, loved my wolf. I never played the caster shammy, didn't like the pet which could do immense damage but died quickly.

xerax

Everyone wants to be a bit different so Any race = Any class is gonna be popular.

I personally love obscure race class combinations. I loved my female troll enchantress (coercer) in EQ 2 that I moddled on a green hag (called Hagetha Christie).

Any race = any class does cost more in terms of development art. eg There is no art for ogres and trolls in EQ1 to wear cloth armour.

Something that has been very successful in our pen and paper games is "on death specials". Our group playing is a gritty fantasy work where sometimes people just die and being restored to life is expensive and reserved for the elite.  This is effectively a perma death system but on perma death the deal is sweetened by picking an random envelope from a pile of 20 or so.  They range from a couple of hundred extra gold for your new character to permission to play a none standard class/race combination or race not normally playable (eg a neutral good bullywug cleric).

It keep things fresh and the rare race/ class combinations rare but makes everything possuble.

Sinist

DMKano said:

Racial restrictions make no sense.

What does make sense are racial uniqueness to each class 

Example Human monk and Ogre monk would not fight the same. They can both be monks but the set of skills would be different - like a human monk could do flying kicks while an ogre monk could do body slams. 

But both could punch and have the same mechanics such as feign death, only light armor, etc...

Ogre would have higher caps on STR and HP, but human would have higher DEX and AGI.

???

Racial restrictions make perfect sense. For instance in your example, it is very unlikely that an ogre would even be a monk. They have extremely low intelligence/wisdom and while strong, are extremely uncoordinated. A monk is a very specific concept of discipline, honing a given martial skill to the point of exactness and perfection. Also, Monks tend to be peaceful and meditative as well as pious or philosophical, something completely alien to the ogre. This is why many classes had given attribute restrictions. Some races were not fit to be such.

Another example is dwarfs. Why were they not allowed to be magic users in the old D&D rules? It is because the history of their race denotes their extreme resistance to magic at all. That is, their physical being denied the means to even make arcane magic work. Their use of the arcane was like trying to mix microchips and electromagnetic waves, it just doesn't work. I mean, you could play a magic user dwarf in those rules, it would be amusing, but it would not be very effective as your failure rate on spells would be near guaranteed.

Racial restrictions were essentially general stereotypes that explained the advantages and disadvantages of a given race. It was another layer of game mechanic just as a fighter is different than a cleric, or a mage.. etc... it is meant to create a means of choice, of weighting pros/cons of a given makeup to be applied in a game world.

Removing race restrictions was just one more step of dumbing down the game systems. People wonder why games today are bland, boring and without any depth? It is because they removed all the "choices" you had to make while building a character and dealing with those within a game world. Everyone in games today are all the same basic classes, with all basically the same abilities, and they stumble around in a world collecting widgets.

Maquiame

Sinist said:

Adamantine said:

Sinist said:

Adamantine said:

Except many high fantasy settings, such as the most important - D&D, dont know them.

???

Class and race restrictions are all over D&D. Though, that would be D&D before it was mainstreamed. Crack open a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition DM and players guide and go over numerous restrictions that existed. I am talking about the history of cRPG and PnP gaming, not the pointless mainstream systems of today.

D&D 3.0, which was the climax of D&D, the best system they ever had, did away with any race class restrictions. Its a simple and elegant and powerful system, much better than anything before that point.

AD&D was still a mess, thats true. Humans could dualclass, non-humans had multiclassing, and from level 9 or 10 (depending upon class) on you would only get minimal additional hitpoints, and OMG was there many rules, I doubt anyone ever managed to understand and remember that all.

Not to speak of D&D 1.0 in which your race would be your class, so your elf would always be fighter/mage etc, except if you're human. And there was maxlevels for non-humans, too.

Unfortunately with D&D 4.0 they restarted the theme of weird rules that made no sense.

Oh that's right, 3rd didn't have racial restrictions, I didn't care for 3rd that much, 1st and 2nd are more my tastes and the extensive rules was what I found enjoyable about the game. We played the game from a technical standpoint, not a play acting one, so having race restrictions were a nice element of play that gave reason for certain races having advantages/disadvantages over another.

Dual classing and multi-classing were great elements. Again, it gave purpose to the system. Humans lived short life spans and did not have the time to slowly learn skills over 100's of years as most demihumans so the concept of a differing exp structure and focus made sense. Again, layered elements of rules that gave depth of play.

Wizards of the Coast buying out TSR was the beginning of the end of the D&D as from then on it became a mainstream marketing gimmick, I mean, their biggest contribution was MTG and Pokeman card games, need I say more? 4th edition was horrible, and 5th isn't far behind. Like MMOs and cRPGs, D&D suffered the same fate with its mainstream streamlining of the systems in order to reach a very broad audience to maximize profits. That is, their interest was not in games, but in money and while every business needs to make a profit, making it the focus is what drives the product itself which is why you can spot a gimmick game these days without even breaking open its box.

I miss the days where people played games because they liked "games", not because they want a game to be entertaining (and yes, there is a difference in what a person expects in the product because of that).

I'll have to disagree with this fully I think 5th is actually a pretty good game. Also I will say that I prefer the way Vanguard handled classes the most and since it has MULTIPLE human cultures and starting locations and continents, even all humans could not be all classes. There were classes that the Mordebi (Africans) and the Asian humans (forget their names) could be that the Arabian and Europeans humans could not and vice versa and because Vanguard cared more about cultures it made sense.  The rpg Pillars of Eternity made different human races and demihuman races make sense in modern videogames and why everyone could be everything - due to the various racial groups trading with each other, cultural diffusion is bound to happen and its right there on the "front page" at the point of entry, there is no guessing - you go to the Wiki and to quote the classic spaghetti sauce commercials - "Its in there!" So you killed two birds with one stone.

But since "all humans are the same now, living together happily!" it would kind of make sense that the humans could be all classes. Now what would make sense is that humans could be shamans DUE to the fact that there are sects of humans that are more tribal living with the ones who are not therefore the non tribal humans LEARNING how to be shamans from the tribal ones (based on the devs claims that different sects of humans are living together now). Of course the current human lore does not lean this way with its obvious ONLY Euro leanings (and straight Lord of the Rings direct rips and naming patterns - how very unoriginal that after fourty years of the rpg genre this is the best that can be done when even EQ and Vanguard were not even this...), and not "all humanity together - here it is right on our front page, let us show you its diversity" as the claims that are made which thus it should be. (One should not have to guess or be told later, one should see it from the beginning - because you know, humans are a real race and we all don't look like our names could be Avendyr in this thing called real life, nor should we be relegated to being those exotic people in the third row that you really don't care about in a Star Wars senate scene).

Now personally I have no problem with either approach, cultural diffusion happens.  What I do have a problem with is lore that does not say why either approach is as it is. When it doesn't make sense to the world it breaks immersion.

Adamantine

Nobody argues with racial restrictions to class selection when theres is a good reason, such as dwarves with high magic resistance that just cant use magic. The problem is, in most cases there are none. Why cant human pick up Shaman ? There is no inherent disability why they shouldnt be able to.

Sinist

Adamantine said:

Nobody argues with racial restrictions to class selection when theres is a good reason, such as dwarves with high magic resistance that just cant use magic. The problem is, in most cases there are none. Why cant human pick up Shaman ? There is no inherent disability why they shouldnt be able to.

Well, the poster I was talking to was. He saw no point in them. As for shamans, that one I am not sure (was that a AD&D restriction? Most of those were clear in explaining why such restrictions occurred, AD&D was not a game known for being illogical).

I would never argue for race restrictions (or bonuses) that did not make sense within the lore of the race. I mean, that is the entire point of the restriction in the first place. If there is no logical explanation as to why, then  it is just very poor game design. I don't advocate that at all.

Sinist

Maquiame said:

I'll have to disagree with this fully I think 5th is actually a pretty good game. Also I will say that I prefer the way Vanguard handled classes the most and since it has MULTIPLE human cultures and starting locations and continents, even all humans could not be all classes. There were classes that the Mordebi (Africans) and the Asian humans (forget their names) could be that the Arabian and Europeans humans could not and vice versa and because Vanguard cared more about cultures it made sense.  The rpg Pillars of Eternity made different human races and demihuman races make sense in modern videogames and why everyone could be everything - due to the various racial groups trading with each other, cultural diffusion is bound to happen and its right there on the "front page" at the point of entry, there is no guessing - you go to the Wiki and to quote the classic spaghetti sauce commercials - "Its in there!" So you killed two birds with one stone.

But since "all humans are the same now, living together happily!" it would kind of make sense that the humans could be all classes. Now what would make sense is that humans could be shamans DUE to the fact that there are sects of humans that are more tribal living with the ones who are not therefore the non tribal humans LEARNING how to be shamans from the tribal ones (based on the devs claims that different sects of humans are living together now). Of course the current human lore does not lean this way with its obvious ONLY Euro leanings (and straight Lord of the Rings direct rips and naming patterns - how very unoriginal that after fourty years of the rpg genre this is the best that can be done when even EQ and Vanguard were not even this...), and not "all humanity together - here it is right on our front page, let us show you its diversity" as the claims that are made which thus it should be. (One should not have to guess or be told later, one should see it from the beginning - because you know, humans are a real race and we all don't look like our names could be Avendyr in this thing called real life, nor should we be relegated to being those exotic people in the third row that you really don't care about in a Star Wars senate scene).

Now personally I have no problem with either approach, cultural diffusion happens.  What I do have a problem with is lore that does not say why either approach is as it is. When it doesn't make sense to the world it breaks immersion.

I am not arguing against properly supported and logical explanations for game systems. I am against just allowing anything to be anything because someone doesn't care about rules and structures. As I said, if someone wants to play a Dwarf Magic User (using an AD&D example), fine... but you then have to accept all the limitations. The things is, some don't want that. They want to be able to say that their dwarf is a special dwarf and come up with some long story that explains why they are in tune with magic. There is nothing wrong with that in a small PnP game where the player can work such out with the GM, but it doesn't work in games like these. So, either you homogenize everything to allow the ogre to play as a the brilliant intellectual wizard or a dwarf that is an Olympic swimmer for the sake of role playing, or you create a game with structure and means to balance out choice between race, class, etc... and then deal with how those choices interact within the world. I think the latter is more practical if you want to promote game play.


As for the politically correct parts of your position, sorry I don't care and I think complaints about that are silly. My response to that is, don't like it, don't play it. /shrug

edit:

let me be clear about the last part. Information on the depth of lore and how it relates to class/race restrictions with Pantheon, well... it is WAY to early to start making assumptions about the explanations as to why something is or is not in Pantheon itself. Those would be good questions for the team I am sure, but it is pure speculation at this point.

If you notice, my discussions are not about the specifics of Pantheon systems, they are general discussions concerning systems in all games (racial restrictions, class restrictions, etc...) and how these systems are important for depth of play. As to what should be what with what Pantheon has already provided, all I can say is... we just don't know enough yet, maybe ask them?

ste2000

reeereee said:

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

No it is all about Lore.
it gives a better cultural background about the races without delving too much in the Lore narrative.
But I agree that it helps making sure that the world is not inhabited by only 1 or 2 races over a choice of 8-10.

I am for Race/Class restriction.

Rusque

Adamantine said:

Drisdane said:

I would think that humans would have access to the whole gamut of classes. Humans can be tribal and nomadic as well, making shamans a possibility. It is just the culture of the other races that would usually prevent them from being any class.

You're trying to make sense out of something that really doesnt make sense. Which classes can be picked up by which race is obviously quite abritary.

Humans traditionally get almost all classes except Shaman. Thats just how it is.

reeereee said:

Racial class restrictions are all about trying to force people to play unpopular races. 

Eh, dont ask me why they are there.

There is a priori no good reason why a sentient race should be unable to pick up any task.

Unless you have special, well explained cases, like in Dragon Age, Dwarves cant be mage because they just dont have access to magic.

Now of course one could argue, and I wouldnt oppose that statement, that all races live in specific conditions. An eskimo wont be a samurai, either, after all. However, the player isnt playing an ordinary person - the player character is an adventurer, possibly a hero, in any case an exception from the rule. Also, while almost all eskimos wont be samurai, a specific eskimo child can end up for example being fascinated by japanese culture and learn how to use katanas through own study. Or they could be raised by a japanese and teached in katana useage.

So yeah, I'm not a fan of racial class restrictions either. But they'll be there, thats just like it is.

I think you perfectly explained class restrictions without realizing it.

Using a katana or following Bushido won't ever make that Eskimo a Samurai. Being a Samurai makes you a Samurai. It's a caste not a profession. Any culture could come up with it's own closed class that can only be entered into by virtue of birth (aka you're born Human, so only you can be class X). So even those someone can learn the skills associated with that class, they will never be part of it.

In video games, I've of two minds on this. On one hand I appreciate open systems where you learn skills and customize your own class. And on the other, if a game is going to be class based, I prefer it to have race locked classes (at least a few specific to each race with some general neutral ones).

Adamantine

Rusque said:

I think you perfectly explained class restrictions without realizing it.

Nope I really didnt.