Alignment-locking races vs Forbidding class/race combos

[Amateur Hour]

The recent update that allowed avariel to be lawful only if they pick paladin as their first class got me thinking about this.

So far, it seems we have two races who are not allowed to be lawful: firbolg and avariel. And with the paladin change, the only reason I can think of for having this barrier is to keep there from being firbolg and avariel monks who (at least to my bad-at-builds eye) would be overpowered. Fair enough to place restrictions to protect balance.

What I do wonder, though, is why this can't be handled by making avariel and firbolg ineligible for the monk class specifically instead of locking them out of alignments players might want to roleplay. There doesn't seem to be a setting-integrity reason that a firbolg or avariel would inherently eschew a lawful lifestyle any more than, say, moon elves; in fact, firbolg were usually lawful in first and second edition. Unless there's something mechanical about race-restricting classes that I don't understand, it seems like the current arrangement will lead to something that either needlessly restricts roleplay or leads to further ignoring alignment as a guideline for roleplay.

If there's another reason for the restriction, please let me know, because I genuinely would like to learn.

[yoimtide]

I remember reading that the reason why avariel were locked out of lawful was because of some obscene bug that caused them to have inflated stats (100s or more) when picking lawful as an alignment. Paladin being available for avariel sounds promising that the team is close to resolving whatever the issue is!

[Richrd]

Preamble; yes, there probably do exist examples of beings that are not in line with the rest of what I am about to write here. But you know what they say about exceptions.

So, the universal alignments in the DnD setting are more than just what a character feel like in the moment, they are more of an indicator of an individual's soul and essence. That is why you have things such as Smite Evil, Protection from X Alignment, alignment locked classes and so on and so forth.

Just the same there are things that simply are because that is the way they were set up to be in this fictional setting. Such as every devil / demon being aligned evil, most celestials being good, all the way to that rabid wolverine you encounter outside of Skaljard Village being neutral. Because it's just a dumb animal with the most basic of needs and the bare minimum intelligence.

I am not too familiar with avariel and firbolgs but I would assume that if they are set up to not be lawful then they simply shouldn't be lawful.

[Amateur Hour]

I am not too familiar with avariel and firbolgs but I would assume that if they are set up to not be lawful then they simply shouldn't be lawful.

Avariel are just other elves who happen to have wings and be able to fly. It's true elves lean chaotic, but no other elf subrace is mechanically banned from being lawful. There is no reason in the lore for why an avariel would necessarily be non-lawful, any moreso than a wild elf.

Firbolgs in 1e and 2e explicitly tended lawful, and in 3e/3.5e there is no remark on their lawful-chaotic bent. You could maybe make an argument that their rejection of the Ordnung is a sign of non-lawfulness, but they seem to have adopted an alternative strong code in substitute, so I still don't see the reason.

If alignment locking the subrace really is the only way to stop the overpowered class combos, then fine. Sacrifices must be made in defense of keeping the game fair. But it doesn't seem like it has to be that way since we know Arelith has customized some classes that are race-locked (e.g. Earthkin Defender). And I'm not seeing a reason why this alignment-lock is necessary for setting integrity when even good drow are allowed with an award.

[The GrumpyCat]

Someone from Contributors will probably have to correct me here, but as I recall we made Avariel None Lawful primarly because it was believed they would be too powerful, and too popular, as a monk class. The fact that they're freedom loving elves, and lean towards the chaotic also came into it, but wasn't the deciding factor, but also did figure into it.

I don't think at the time we had a way of blocking pcs from taking certain classes? Maybe we do now? I honestly don't quite recall why we didn't go that rout of simply having them unable to pick Monk as a startup.