I really like 5th edition D&D in a number of ways. I especially like the simplicity since I came from playing Pathfinder before hand. There is one issue, though, that 5E has that has really always been an issue since the early days of D&D (or at least AD&D) and that is racial optimization. If you want to be a fighter or barbarian, choose a race with a bonus to Strength. If you want to be a rogue, choose one with a bonus to Dexterity. Bard or sorcerer, choose a Charisma race, etc. As D&D has progressed, the tendency for this has declined a bit, from the earliest days where your race was your class, to races having only narrow class options and level maximums, to more relaxed options with attribute bonuses and penalties which lent themselves to optimization, to the elimination of attribute penalties (which a feel a bit conflicted over) but still a number of bonuses and abilities which make some class combinations optimal or suboptimal.

I do see this as a weakness in D&D, as well as other games that have the equivalents of races and classes or something similar. Of course, people can always just choose what ever race and class combination that they want without worrying about optimization, but in practice a lot of people won't do this, even players who favor themes over crunch feel a disinclination to do that.

There is also the option to play exclusively human games, which I like and have mostly played over the years, but it can sometimes be fun to have a game with more exotic or fantastic races/species options.

So what alterations or options could one implement to reduce or eliminate race-class optimization as an issue.i have had a few ideas. One could be a number of race options that you can choose from when picking your race, maybe even options tied to classes. For example, maybe orc wizards get a bonus to damage on all damaging spells. Maybe Tiefling barbarians receive a Strength rather than a Charisma bonus. Something like that.

Has anybody thought of this issue and devised ways to miniseries this effect?

That has never really been a problem except with char-op type players which are a problem no matter if there were elves with +2 STR or there was no race bonus at all. They will just min-max/char-op in other ways.

Everyone else plays a character that interested them. So you are trying to fix a "problem" that in a way does not exist except within this limited arena of dysfunctional players.

How do you eliminate the issue? Tell the players at the start to create a character and not a block of points.

It is that simple. If they fail to abide that then tell them no. Go find a table that allows that. This aint one. Just dont come down on players who take certain races because the racial theme fits their idea of a class.

Elves as Rangers or Wizards. Wood Elves as Druids. Orcs as Fighters and Barbarians. Dwarves as Fighters. Halflings as Rogues. Tieflings as Warlocks.
And for whatever reasons and influences I've seen some associate Dwarves and Halflings with Clerics. Dragonborn and Orcs with Paladins.

In these cases its not about any bonuses. It is about character concept.

XP bonus for creating a PC whose bonus is not to the class prime ability?

I've run campaigns where I've limited the class and race options. You could intentionally pick races/classes that don't optimize as the PC choices.

I've played All-Elf and All-Dwarf campaigns, and that forces most of the table to not-optimize.

I agree with Omega that a min-maxer is going to min-max. This is one of the reasons I prefer race-as-class as found in BD&D. Beyond that, I tend to personally play human-centric games, which solves that particular issue.

In a high fantasy game, in your shoes, I'd be sorely tempted to let the dice decide. I'd personally pair this strictly with rolling stats in order, and strongly encourage people to roleplay whatever the oracles decide.

Roll 3D6:
   [table=width: 500]
[tr]
   [td]3[/td]
   [td]Choose: Dragonborn or Gnome[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]4-5[/td]
   [td]Halfling[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]6-8[/td]
   [td]Dwarf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]9-12[/td]
   [td]Human[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]13-15[/td]
   [td]Elf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]16-17[/td]
   [td]Half-elf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
   [td]18[/td]
   [td]Choose: Half-orc or Tiefling[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

I do like the Roll for Race, then Roll for Class idea!

Orc Druid! Human Thief! Elf Barbarian! Dwarf Bard!

Roll on the druid spell Reincarnation? :cool:

But if you really want a dirt cheap solution then just remove the racial stat bonus and give any non-human race a +1 and a +2 to place in any two stats, humans get +1 in all stats. Boom. Done.

1. Play AD&D1e.
2. Roll 3d6 down the line.
3. You are human.
4. Choose fighter, magic-user, cleric or thief.
5. Roll for hit points, starting coin and choose gear.
6. Begin play.

Many problems are solved by this approach. How many Scottish dwarves, effeminate elven archers, sneaky thieving halflings and angry half-orc fighters do we really need to see to realise that the counterintuitive fact is that restricting choices actually enhances creativity?

Better yet. Play AD&D Conan. You are human and your class options are Fighter and Thief. Maybee a Monk.

I haven't really experienced this as an issue in 5e, probably because of the stat cap at 20 - a PC without a racial bonus in their primary stat will eventually hit the cap anyway. Also I mostly use randomly rolled (in order) PCs which heavily reduces min-maxing.

There are a few odd 5e min-max options like mountain dwarfs getting medium armour prof making them the best wizards & sorcerers, this was something I worried about white-room, but in play I don't see mountain dwarf wizards; I suspect the anti-archetypal nature of the build wins out over min-maxing.

I think there's the very real possibility that players, especially the less experienced and less imaginative ones, just derive plenty of satisfaction by playing a stereotype character. They want an elf because all elves are graceful, agile, intelligent, good with the bow, and at home in the woods.
I dont' see why one should discourage that.

Then you also have the munchkin who will always look for optimization. My take on him is that if his obsession becomes a pain in the back for the other players or for the storyline, then I'll deal with that. But if not, if that's what makes him happy - why not.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1091010There is also the option to play exclusively human games, which I like and have mostly played over the years, but it can sometimes be fun to have a game with more exotic or fantastic races/species options.

Well, you could also just not have stat or ability differences among the races. Just have humans with pointy ears, so it's purely a matter of role-playing.

Thing is, you have to admit, even for yourself, when you say "option" what you really mean is stuff that affects the math of the game. And someone is always standing by to crunch numbers.

But I really don't think the optimizers are necessarily creating optimal characters. I think they actually miss a lot of key factors in their formulas. So to my eyes, the "problem" is more like player preferences tend to cluster around certain combinations. And I don't know that's actually a problem. Nor is it obvious that fighting against player preferences would be a good idea.

This is actually one of the ways I think the older versions of the game are superior. There are probably millions of ways you could mix and match things to produce a character. And it takes zero effort or insight to just say, "Have at it!" Not all of them are going to be equally fun and interesting to play. What players will ultimately choose will inevitably cluster. And from that, archetypes emerge, and that's what the older versions of the game were doing with all their nasty restrictions. Now it may be the case that after all these years the archetypes need to be updated. But the idea of having a discrete set of archetypes is here to stay.

QuoteSo what alterations or options could one implement to reduce or eliminate race-class optimization as an issue.i have had a few ideas. One could be a number of race options that you can choose from when picking your race, maybe even options tied to classes. For example, maybe orc wizards get a bonus to damage on all damaging spells. Maybe Tiefling barbarians receive a Strength rather than a Charisma bonus. Something like that.

Oddly enough, I find AD&D sort of does that.

For example:

Dwarf Fighters get +1 to hit half-orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins. And ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and titans have -4 to hit dwarves.
Dwarf Thieves can detect traps involving stonework--pits and falling blocks--at 50% probability.

Sure, thieves also get the combat bonuses and fighters get the detection bonuses, but how often is a fighter going to be checking for traps when there's a thief in the party? How often are thieves going to engage in direct confrontation when there are fighters to do it? It's not never, but the significance of the various racial benefits do vary with class. Sort of like what you're suggesting, only more organic.

There are basically 3 tiers of this issue, not 2:

1. Min-maxers, already discussed sufficiently above.

2. Normal people that primarily have a character idea in mind but don't want something that feels "useless" to them--given the nature of the campaign, what the other players are doing, etc.  This is, of course, highly dependent upon the GM and group chemistry.  In a normal game, it can be a fairly wide band.   For these people, finding the perfect race is not an issue.  But they do want to pick from a set of races that are "good enough".

3. Players that for whatever reason (fidelity to character, cluelessness, a perverse desire to push the envelope all the time, a desire for a mechanical challenge, etc.) somehow manage to make a race pick that sets them back.  (Usually the race pick by itself isn't enough to do this in 5E, but that type is unlikely to make compromises elsewhere to mitigate going that hard against type.)  Some of these players don't mind the result.  If they are happy, and the rest of the group isn't rabid min-maxers, then it probably works fine.  It's a great way for a savvy player to push themselves and give newer players some room.

For my current 5E campaigns, I've used two tweaks that make it not an issue at all.  (It wasn't much of one before, since I'm more likely to have someone of type 3 than type 1, but same principle.)  To wit:

A. File the serial numbers off of the races, separating the mechanics from the archetype/story/campaign aspects.  I've tweaked humans to be mechanically human, half-elf, half-orc, halflings to be mechanically halflings and gnomes, toned down drow a little to have a good (for my purposes) third elf race.  So that's 12 racial choices to play human, halfling, elf, or dwarf.  That gives a wider range of classes that work with each campaign race.

B. Use the fact that magic items aren't that important to handle "character balance" issues. Namely, I'm doing a mostly moderate magic item campaign that leans slightly towards the stingy side.  The expectations are that characters don't have many items.  The more a character is optimized, the less likely I am to include an item that will help them much, and vice versa.  It's a subtle effect, and useful for more than simply race choices, but it handles that too.  If someone really had their heart set on a halfling (forest gnome) barbarian with strange ability score placement, that character is going to get a slightly better set of magic items, and get them slightly quicker than the other characters.  That also how I handled the moon druid issues.  Moon druids are somewhat over-powered in the early levels.  For some strange reason, in my campaign moon druids start finding useful equipment about the same time they learn than bears, wolves, and panthers can't handle the current opposition.

Require players to pick their race before rolling stats.  In a game I'm working on right now I set it up so the attribute rolls are modifiers to racial ability scores.  So, if humans get 10s straight across the board, and you're adding 1d10-5 to each ability score, you have to pick your race before rolling stats.

I use regional demographics for my campaign scope.

Yes, that means I have a percentage chance for the races I allow, all stacked together within 100%. Direct Majority Halfling region? They get 51%+ and the rest of the allowed races take up the rest. If a player does not know what they want to play, they can roll on the Demographics Table for a random choice.

(The Demgraphics Table is also useful in randomizing different NPC encounters, too! Party meets a traveller on the Main Road coming into Halfling Land? Dunno who they are? Randomly roll their race, their personality, and a rumor! Ta-dah! Adventure. )

Exceptions are by GM permission only. Any threats to not play unless they get their preferred race is gladly accepted and a new player vacancy appears -- all are happy.

Voilà, all is fixed. My campaign, my rules. Your time, your choice to walk away.

If all races are equal and it makes no difference over game play which one you choose, Why not play humans only then?

And IMHO even a humans only game can and sometimes should have different bonuses depending on your backgrounds. For instance take Conan, You're playing a Cimmerian Barbarian. Does it make sense to allow you to be a priest of Set? Would a Cimmerian born and raised in Cimmeria dabble in magic? Would a Pict know how to build a zigurat? A Turanian what plants are edible in the Kushite Jungles? Not without some in-game justification right?

And this is with a mono species game, just based on culture, and environment.

So there's even stronger reasons in a game with different species, and don't kid yourself those are different species, even if they were called races from day one for some obscure reason.