Fantastic Races and Where to Find Them

[The GrumpyCat]

I can understand and agree with that feeling. Though I don't believe the original poster's idea was to focus on awards for ethnicity, but rather minor awards to obtain feats/skill bumps from certain nationalities. For example, a minor award for someone of Thayan origin could get SF: Necro OR Skill Focus spellcraft as a free feat, but they could be any non-award race or gender they want. Certainly, a large nation like Thay would be a melting pot after all, even if most of the variety is from the slave markets. It is the same for someone from Amn who could get the Silver Palm or persuasion Skill Focus feat. Of course, this is just an idea of how we might expand the minor award pool with a lean toward RP rather than build optimization perks. Noble awards can still be there, as we can't stack them, and players would have to understand that when making a selection.

Does that clarify things a bit?

If one takes out the gating of human appearences to awards then... well I still really don't like it. But it's a smidge more palatalbe.

I think the idea for nationalities and different little boons is a great idea, making that boon a bonus to ability scores is a horrible idea. Soon you'll find that every strength-based character is an Uthgardt, every charisma-based character from Cormyr, the same exact same phenomenon we see when players make a genasi just for the stat increase.

And this is another reason I'm not hugely fond of it if I'm being honest?

For Racial stuff (as in Species stuff) that makes sense. An elf/dwarf/orc/aasimar/ect es physically different to a large degree from a human. Human differences between nationalities are... not? And if you want to sit here and honestly try to explain to me why some human nationality/ethnic group should have stat decreses to say... inteligence then I shall be EXTREMELY concerned.

I can... perhaps..see maybe an argument for skills? Maybe? But absolutly not stats. And even then, the discomfort is real.

Wizard of the Coast recently changed 'races' to 'species' because of just this issue. And one of the main reasons given for changes on how stats were given out for different species type, was concerns over a paralel between how fantasy races are treated, and how different human ethnicites have been treated.

But that's analogy, that's 'twist your head and you can see it' stuff.

Outwards having a system that says. 'Haya, if you're black/Maztekan, you just ain't as smart as some folk, but you're hardy and can do good labour!'

Look, I know some of this can kinda be twisted in the text already, but it's at least behind a thin film of allagory. Making the subtext text really seems increadibly uncomfortable to me and even leaving aside that

[chris a gogo]

Thread has been derailed by the human suggestion.

But in truth Humans already get it +1 skill point and an extra feat to symbolize being versatile and multicultural no need for extra boons when it is already there.

I also loved waldo52's post:)

[MissEvelyn]

I can understand and agree with that feeling. Though I don't believe the original poster's idea was to focus on awards for ethnicity, but rather minor awards to obtain feats/skill bumps from certain nationalities. For example, a minor award for someone of Thayan origin could get SF: Necro OR Skill Focus spellcraft as a free feat, but they could be any non-award race or gender they want. Certainly, a large nation like Thay would be a melting pot after all, even if most of the variety is from the slave markets. It is the same for someone from Amn who could get the Silver Palm or persuasion Skill Focus feat. Of course, this is just an idea of how we might expand the minor award pool with a lean toward RP rather than build optimization perks. Noble awards can still be there, as we can't stack them, and players would have to understand that when making a selection.

Does that clarify things a bit?

If one takes out the gating of human appearences to awards then... well I still really don't like it. But it's a smidge more palatalbe.

I think the idea for nationalities and different little boons is a great idea, making that boon a bonus to ability scores is a horrible idea. Soon you'll find that every strength-based character is an Uthgardt, every charisma-based character from Cormyr, the same exact same phenomenon we see when players make a genasi just for the stat increase.

And this is another reason I'm not hugely fond of it if I'm being honest?

For Racial stuff (as in Species stuff) that makes sense. An elf/dwarf/orc/aasimar/ect es physically different to a large degree from a human. Human differences between nationalities are... not? And if you want to sit here and honestly try to explain to me why some human nationality/ethnic group should have stat decreses to say... inteligence then I shall be EXTREMELY concerned.

I can... perhaps..see maybe an argument for skills? Maybe? But absolutly not stats. And even then, the discomfort is real.

Wizard of the Coast recently changed 'races' to 'species' because of just this issue. And one of the main reasons given for changes on how stats were given out for different species type, was concerns over a paralel between how fantasy races are treated, and how different human ethnicites have been treated.

But that's analogy, that's 'twist your head and you can see it' stuff.

Outwards having a system that says. 'Haya, if you're black/Maztekan, you just ain't as smart as some folk, but you're hardy and can do good labour!'

Look, I know some of this can kinda be twisted in the text already, but it's at least behind a thin film of allagory. Making the subtext text really seems increadibly uncomfortable to me and even leaving aside that

For clarification, the 3.5 sourcebook I mentioned previously doesn't just offer Humans bonus languages, regional feats, and regional starting equipment. It offers it to the other races as well. For those, they get to choose whether they want their race as their region or they can pick an actual region, if their character is from that region.

So a Moon Elf can pick "Elf, Moon" as her region, or she could pick any of the regions as her starting region.

See quote for reference below:

A character in the Forgotten Realms campaign is more than just a class and a race. Your homeland determines in part your personality, your outlook, and what sort of abilities you have. [...]

"Region" is a broad term. In most cases, it refers to a political entity, such as the wizard-ruled nation of Thay. It may also refer to a geographical area that lacks a central government or well-defined borders, such as the barbarian lands of Narfell. Finally, a region can be defined as a racial cultural identity, such as that of the gold dwarves or half-orcs.

Also,

Thread has been derailed by the human suggestion.

To call the on-going discussing a derailing is disingenuous at best. The topic is whether or not Arelith is too much of a zoo.

Sharing feedback on how to make the mundane races, such as humans, a more depth-filled choice is very much part of the broader discussion.

[Disaster Lesbian]

While I feel as though the first option were simply hyperbole, it's the option I picked.

I'm all for fantastical races. Do I think to the extremes such as beholders or Ilithids? Maybe not; but to option such as dragons, Thri-kreen or even Hengeyokai? Most certainly.

There is a certain suspense of disbelief in what we play, naturally. I'm certainly not smart enough where I feel I can constantly portray a 26 Int (Or 38 int if I'm geared) wizard - keep in mind that 38 intelligence puts you far beyond the intelligence of a dragon; and yet we casually walk around with stats that rival of gods. To put this into perspective - in accordance to Deities and Demigods, Bahamut has 35 bas intelligence. AND PEOPLE WALK AROUND CASUALLY SMARTER THAN THAT. (Though lets overlook the fact that his dexterity score is 10). Kurtlmak only has a Wisdom stat of 25, and that's easily achievable - congratulations any Wis base class; you're likely wiser than a literal god.

How do you play that kind of intelligence, or wisdom? How can you play something so charismatic? Arguably, as players, we realistically can't - yet we suspend our disbelief enough and we continue to play without it detracting. We aren't out characters, after all.

We are only limited by our own imagination, and these fantastic creatures are a part of the world. Some should be rarer than others, and I don't think every possible option should be locked behind Greater and Major Awards - Minor and Normal deserve some love to. But I do support that more fantastical races should be brought it, even if just for a brief rotation or longer.

[Irongron]

While I feel as though the first option were simply hyperbole, it's the option I picked.

I'm all for fantastical races. Do I think to the extremes such as beholders or Ilithids? Maybe not; but to option such as dragons, Thri-kreen or even Hengeyokai? Most certainly.

There is a certain suspense of disbelief in what we play, naturally. I'm certainly not smart enough where I feel I can constantly portray a 26 Int (Or 38 int if I'm geared) wizard - keep in mind that 38 intelligence puts you far beyond the intelligence of a dragon; and yet we casually walk around with stats that rival of gods. To put this into perspective - in accordance to Deities and Demigods, Bahamut has 35 bas intelligence. AND PEOPLE WALK AROUND CASUALLY SMARTER THAN THAT. (Though lets overlook the fact that his dexterity score is 10). Kurtlmak only has a Wisdom stat of 25, and that's easily achievable - congratulations any Wis base class; you're likely wiser than a literal god.

How do you play that kind of intelligence, or wisdom? How can you play something so charismatic? Arguably, as players, we realistically can't - yet we suspend our disbelief enough and we continue to play without it detracting. We aren't out characters, after all.

We are only limited by our own imagination, and these fantastic creatures are a part of the world. Some should be rarer than others, and I don't think every possible option should be locked behind Greater and Major Awards - Minor and Normal deserve some love to. But I do support that more fantastical races should be brought it, even if just for a brief rotation or longer.

While I understand the desire to play a fantastic race, and the point that we can't properly do justice to such astronomical stats, I don't really like comparing Arelith player stats and levels to those in source books. If we were following those verbatim then most of our monsters would have fractional hit dice, and we certainly wouldn't have epic goblins living in the local dungeons.

I took a decision many years ago that the video game trumps the canonical setting, or to put it another way - I was not going to ignore a good 80% of the game mechanics because having them would not be 'realistic' to the FR setting. NwN is limited enough as it is, and interacting with those systems is key to enjoyable gameplay. This is why I personally advise players to 'divide by 3' when comparing their own level to the lore.

I certainly don't want players running around thinking they are equal to the gods or legendary creatures.

[Darkstorn42]

I am so conflicted by all of this. I totally want to play the unique character that is some special race that everyone oo's and ah's over, but I am also concerned about the zoo effect. So while I already posted my opinion on the first page of all of this, to sum it up:
Some way to remove the rng and give everyone what they want while also keeping a way of limiting the zoo effect would be my preference.

I just keep coming back to this iconic clip in my head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXCCBmTvBI

[Dreams]

I certainly don't want players running around thinking they are equal to the gods or legendary creatures.

Ok, but we currently have some races which seem to be godlike/legendary in status compared to others, whilst we have others that should be but aren't represented well. I'm willing to bet a vampire player feels godlike as they play. Rakshasa certainly do not.

For example: Vampire vs Rakshasa. Both require DM oversight and are capped to certain activity limits.

• Vampires are very powerful on Arelith with multiple special abilities, many unique scripted abilities and bonuses, specific bonuses in specific classes, taken into consideration with a load of bonuses and most of its weaknesses have been systematically nerfed. Best possible weaponmaster an award can buy.

• Rakshasa have the special ability to turn into other racial appearance types, but its then limited to the disguise system. They have 26 SR to represent the spell immunities that they should have, which was nerfed from 32 SR, whilst other classes like monk or Earthkin Defender can get higher than that. They're actually worse at disguising than other polymorph type characters due to the way the polymorphs work, bluff/perform is essential and once you're found out your true name is given up. Compare that to the vampire in wolf form pretending to be a druid, zero bluff/perform, disguise as "Druidbob the Wolf", someone breaks that disguise but gets the response "Polymorphed creature", not their true name.

There are plenty of other bonuses and drawbacks to both of them, but ultimately... Vampires are not that powerful in the lore. Rakshasa are phenomenally powerful in the lore. Neither are represented well on Arelith. One of them gets more attention than the other. I don't know if that is due to popularity, or the massive benefit of crit immunity/being undead, or whether it's more about dev interest and focus being on one of those and not the other.

[Preserver]

I voted in favour of unleashing the ravening hordes. Let them come, let them fill the Cities with Dragons and Pixies! We are ready for them.

Jokes aside, I believe that Arelith, due to a combination of factors, is not suited to represent the more grounded section of the Forgotten Realms. As others, posting on this thread, have expressed, any level of respect for the rarity, the danger, and the mystique of certain elements (Vampires, Dragons, Mind-Flayers, Beholders...) has already been erased by the fact that all of them have been either massacred by the hundreds, met in a tavern, or chased off several times by our unlikely heroes.

If a Vampire character were to reveal themselves to me in dramatic fashion I would roleplay the fear and terror more to be nice to the player, rather than because it would make sense on Arelith. My experience on the server, in general, is a constant bending of what would make sense within its context for the sake of pleasing those that have invested in a rare award - as if we were all onto a secret, but didn't really want to talk about it for the sake of stepping on other people's fun.

I took a decision many years ago that the video game trumps the canonical setting, or to put it another way - I was not going to ignore a good 80% of the game mechanics because having them would not be 'realistic' to the FR setting. NwN is limited enough as it is, and interacting with those systems is key to enjoyable gameplay. This is why I personally advise players to 'divide by 3' when comparing their own level to the lore.

Though this is well and good, there is still an unfortunate series of circumstances that, to anybody who takes ingame events seriously, radically breaks suspension of disbelief. For yes, we can all decide to agree that we are all actually lvl 10s ... but we are still casting Mordenkainen Disjunction and Wail of the Banshee, opening portals, stepping into Hells to kill Pit Fiends (plural) and warbands of Cornugons, which should not even be remotely approached by lvl 10s, or 15s, or hell, even 20s.
Not only that, even without overextending to the most exotic foes - we can go to the Gap of Aeons and fight the Border Reaver Queen, who will probably survive several hundred damage, most likely pass the FORT save on several kill spells, and enjoy high level protection for good measure. Yes, I am hearing those who claim "it's just the way mechanics work" - but mechanics and how the play do inform storytelling, and if I notice my unlikely Wizard buddy failing to kill an opponent with three Greater Isaacs, that is going to indisputably be part of "what has happened in the story".
That is, of course, unless we just wink, handwave, and say that it didn't actually happen so that the Wizard player does not feel their spellcasting prowess misplaced.

This is not anybody's fault.
I am not making this a critique of Irongron's approach.
It is just how things have worked for some time.
This is a path that Arelith set for itself - and not even maliciously: rather, I would say, it was done with the admirable intent of letting people have fun with toys and magic.

However, I feel it just makes it manifest that any attempt to adhere to the perception of a moderately grounded Forgotten Realms' Setting will just fall flat - it is not how things are, and I personally do not think it is how they will ever be at this point - unless one were to reskin the entire server.
Embrace the weirdness, I say - it may taste unpleasant at first, but it can work.

[Cuchilla]

I am a bit split, tbh.

On one hand, I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more races.

On the other hand, after having tried out kenku, I find it extremely hard to fit in, especially Surface. One option with them is that they can be everywhere - with the risk of becoming - rought said - a "normal" race with an abnormal body (and that's not very interesting in my book). Another is to play it "straight after the book", with the risk of playing alone forever. Allright, a bit black/white, but I hope you get my point.

I would however not exclude Andunor as a place for such creatures. So I took that option above. If not, I'd have voted for the "Already too much".

[Paint]

If a Vampire character were to reveal themselves to me in dramatic fashion I would roleplay the fear and terror more to be nice to the player, rather than because it would make sense on Arelith.

I find myself doing this a lot, so I empathize with this. How many times can your character be shocked by seeing a dragon or a rakshasa or a shifter, etc etc, before it's pure melodrama? That being said, being nice to players is always nice, and I enjoy being a part of giving another character their moment.

Anyways, to reword what Preserver said in my own clumsy terms and provide my own thoughts:

Actions have been made to make Arelith a more grounded setting, but short of a scorched earth approach, retooling the majority of the dungeons in the module, and capping levels at 20, any chance we have at getting a more realistic and grounded fantasy are already out the window.

This is widely apparent by the continued insistence that level 30 characters are actually narratively more like level 15 characters, despite all of the WYSIWYG mechanics that very much enforces the contrary, and pushes from various DMs to recommend players take creatures that, in lore, are the stuff of nightmare, more seriously to suit the setting. Such pushes and reminders probably wouldn't have to be made at all if Arelith was a more grounded setting. But it's not; it's very high-magic. Half of every fighter you know has enough knowledge of magic to casually cast powerful spells from scrolls, and, on the regular, slays monsters that are the stuff of legends in so many other regions of the forgotten realms. You, as a player, can do your best to respect the lore of the forgotten realms as is and try to treat things that deserve reverence with that reverence, but there is a very clear narrative dissonance none the less unless you pretend that most of your adventuring simply did not happen.

What I'm saying is, if you want a more grounded fantasy PW, you uh, might as well start working on a new server, because the Rubicon was passed a long, long time ago.

Edit:
Nobody saw that.

[vaclavc]

I am an old timer and I would be saddened to see Arelith becoming a zoo or a place to grind characters to 26 for quick turnover and rewards. But I believe we are not quite there, yet.

From my personal experience, all of my long-standing characters were of standard races, and my various major/greater award attempts were usually pretty short lived.

That being said, I respect that Arelith caters to many different kind of players and attempts to accommodate their needs and wishes.

I absolutely do not mind seeing special races on Arelith, I just wish for them to remain special and rare. This way, and when played well, they add a sense of wonder and mystery to the world. They also need to be able to somehow fit in the existing settlements, such as Fey’ri, Gloamings, giants, or even dragons in disguise.

I believe that keeping the numbers low is also good for the players of these special races. Imagine when you finally get a major and create your first Avariel, you step from the boat in Cordor and then you see five other Avariels loitering in front of the barracks. In this moment, the sense of accomplishment sort of disappears.

Slowing the leveling a bit, stop counting banked gold for increases in roll percentages, offering wider selection of special races, but limiting the numbers of each kind, similarly to vamps and Rakshasas, offering a non-mechanical kind of rewards, as was suggested several times in this thread, something like that could help.

-V-

[Security_Blanket]

If you can play it, then others can play it too. If it's common to run into any of these fantastic races in a bustling surface city, means it's no longer a rare encounter, so your fantastic and rare race by definition has become common. This approach is so shortsighted, you can't have it both ways! I'd like to play a Red Dragon as a PC and have everyone respect the fact that I'm a scary, fire-breathing, magical flying lizard, but then, so does everyone else, do you see the problem? A bar needs to be set, there should be limits to what a player can do and certainly what a player can play, this server is becoming Amia 2.0.

[The GrumpyCat]

The issue is not that there are lots of different award races to play.

The issue is that awards are very easy to get.

I don't know how to 'fix' this without wiping peoples vaults of awards, and award characters.

But the best solution if we want to go down the road of 'less wierd looking things', Imo, is not getting rid of award race options. IMO awards should be cool, exciting. and fun.

The issue is making awards themselves rarer.

[ThisIsNotADrill]

The issue is not that there are lots of different award races to play.

The issue is that awards are very easy to get.

I don't know how to 'fix' this without wiping peoples vaults of awards, and award characters.

But the best solution if we want to go down the road of 'less wierd looking things', Imo, is not getting rid of award race options. IMO awards should be cool, exciting. and fun.

The issue is making awards themselves rarer.

What about putting a cap on each individual reward race similar to how vampires are capped? Enforced scarcity irrespective of award volume.

[Ruzuke]

As others have mentioned, and I play the same way, my greater award races (and my 1 major) will never be deleted by me.

I am not going to have the chance to play them again. Making it harder to play. Before the time limit was implemented, those who treated it like the grind leveled to 26 and deleted had all the rewards they wanted (I hope) and used them.

But all of that is an aside. The question is would Arelith's RP suddenly be better without them? Would the setting be more serious? From a lot of comments posted no it would not. I personally prefer my award races be fighting in Dis, Shadowplanes, Limbo, the Abyss, and the other planes they have access to as they defeat dragon #682 and wage war on Pit Fiend #9302 and Balor #1929 while challenging almost deities for the fate of the entire world.

It would seem more serious for RP if a world-ending plot didn't occur on a small island in the middle of nowhere. I would also assume Mystera's church would seal up the same MacGuffin as they are thematically, which is the purpose of an entire order. It was a fun plot (my druid tried to join Team Evil and die in the fight to be rolled). However, if we are going to have such plots (and I am not saying we should stop), having a few dragons and liches would be great.

How is the good with the mini UN on Arelith where team Good has the same laws in every settlement? With politics, don't like the city leave or spend your free time being harassed on a video game. Where voting in the game is more restrictive than in the real world (in real life I just vote I don't have to talk about a lot of things. Also, parties here in the US do registration drives right before an election to get their candidate to win). When an election in the game happens, nothing but the top name changes. Everyone else remains the same.

tl;dr Many factors make Arelith the game it is today. From many non-casters being able to use powerful magic, death having no meaning, world-ending plots, the majority of the races forced to live in the Underdark being there when the setting itself says they do not belong there, and more. Gatekeeping other things will not make the game more lore-compliant or, in other words, a serious game.

[Second Breakfast]

I think “beholder” was included as a joke, but honestly I think that’d be a good out-there option for a Major, with an application attached; same with Alhoon. Both have a lot of information and resources that can be pulled from vis-a-vis Lords of Madness and the like. Obviously both would be UD races.

[MissEvelyn]

A way to meet each other in the middle - with regards to those who want less and those who want more - would be to have exotic races that are introduced with the understanding of being tied to a settlement or region.

I'll use a playable Beholder as an example, since it was brought up. Let's say as part of introducing them as a Major PC race, Andunor was attacked and suffered heavy losses. In the aftermath, to prevent such losses again, they've contracted with the Xanathar's Thieves' Guild of Skullport, recruiting the help of powerful beholders; agents to act as elite defenders of Andunor.

When a player spends their Major to play a Beholder, they will do so with the understanding that their character is tied to Andunor, that their character cannot ever become good and suddenly an ally of Cordor or anything of that sort.

If exotic races were introduced with more lore-accurate constraints that ties them to the setting (not just FR, but Arelith, too), I think more players who voted against the zoo would reluctantly be open to the possibility of seeing the addition of more exotic races.

It would also add some purpose to a character that may seem so strangely foreign and alien to the player that they might not know which direction to go with their major reward, which they have finally gotten.

[Spriggan Bride]

I think “beholder” was included as a joke, but honestly I think that’d be a good out-there option for a Major, with an application attached; same with Alhoon. Both have a lot of information and resources that can be pulled from vis-a-vis Lords of Madness and the like. Obviously both would be UD races.

The further you get from humanoid though the more you'd have to arrive as a fully-formed character with a custom build and gear. A level 3 beholder showing up to do writs makes little sense. Not to mention gearing up a body that isn't even a body. Arelith unfortunately has some very narrow limiters about how a character's path progresses from new arrival to epic and it all but demands you play something that fits into one of the existing settlements.

I think these wilder races were probably more playable when the devs would take requests and custom build you something. I'd actually say something like a beholder could be playable as a sort of player-controlled-NPC but you might have to arrive fully formed as like a level 25 with certain stats and abilities that make up for not being able to wear standard equipment and maybe not be able to progress. That's all totally different from what we're used to of course but it would be more like you could play a monster that would normally be controlled by a DM for a while.

[chris a gogo]

Post by The GrumpyCat » 29 Aug 2024 14:01

The issue is not that there are lots of different award races to play.

The issue is that awards are very easy to get.

I don't know how to 'fix' this without wiping peoples vaults of awards, and award characters.

But the best solution if we want to go down the road of 'less wierd looking things', Imo, is not getting rid of award race options. IMO awards should be cool, exciting. and fun.

The issue is making awards themselves rarer.

Bolded my response point.
Not sure that's true.
I've played here... well JJ owned it when i started.
So I'm not even sure how long ago it was, but a very long time anyway.
I have had a total of 2 "special" characters an imp greater award rolled it when I was finished.
A pixie major award and I only got that fairly recently and I've wanted to play one of them from when I first started here.
I have one greater award in the bank so to speak because I had to roll my hexblade due to the class changes and got lucky.

[Xerah]

Bolded my response point.
Not sure that's true.

Awards are easy to get. You’re talking as a single individual, but the population as a whole means they are easy to get since it is much less defined by individual RNG.

In a year, let’s say we have 2000 players. Let’s say, they, on average, roll once a year (I’ve probably done 5 year on average since the limits started—all normals).

2000 rolls

Not everyone will max gold, so let’s assume the lowest 5% major and 20% greater.

After 1 year, you have 100 major rewards and 400 greater rewards.

That’s an absolute insane amount of rewards. Maybe there’s not that many rolls a year and I’m over estimating but I was trying to be very conservative in my estimates.

[Kalthariam]

And then you have people whom have rolled 30+ Characters and never gotten anything over a normal. Despite "Statistically' them suppose to have ages ago.

You have some people that have hit Major awards multiple times. Because they are just lucky.

Problem is it's a random chance, and the chance is (Almost) never in your favor.

[MarkRed]

Then, award zero points to rolled characters made with award points to play a special race. When a character made with award points in this fashion reaches level 30 the get a MoD. (Maybe a special MoD with more lives)

While I like the point system better than the RNG of awards, this MoD part will make people extremely toxic. It wouldn't be the first time in Arelith or gaming history of someone being targeted OOC by people they pissed off to get their characters killed. If these races are still locked behind slots like a Vampire currently is (I think), it would just further excel toxicity, and these players will be purposely hunted and killed to cycle them to give themselves or their friends a chance to play that Race.

[Ruzuke]

Bolded my response point.
Not sure that's true.

Awards are easy to get. You’re talking as a single individual, but the population as a whole means they are easy to get since it is much less defined by individual RNG.

In a year, let’s say we have 2000 players. Let’s say, they, on average, roll once a year (I’ve probably done 5 year on average since the limits started—all normals).

2000 rolls

Not everyone will max gold, so let’s assume the lowest 5% major and 20% greater.

After 1 year, you have 100 major rewards and 400 greater rewards.

That’s an absolute insane amount of rewards. Maybe there’s not that many rolls a year and I’m over estimating but I was trying to be very conservative in my estimates.

That is not how statistics work.

Each person has a 5% chance. Not 5% of the population will gain a major. If I roll 100 times I will not get the major 5 times. Each time I roll I have a 5% chance.

For the math you are speaking of requires a limited number. A jar with paper which mentions what each reward is. In that case 5% of the slips of paper in the jar say Major and by the end of the year once the jar is empty all of the majors will be handed out. This is not the system (as far as I am aware) we use.

[Spriggan Bride]

I feel like everyone should have a shot at playing a special race that inspires them but when they do there's a long wait time before the can play another. Like major is two or three years, greater 18 months, etc. Just make it fair to everyone if they're going to exist at all and don't make it a slot machine for vampires.

The RNG aspect is creating a culture of disposable characters made just to be deleted and who have minimum involvement in the world and that's a worse problem than too many special races or too many level 30s hanging around in my opinion.

[Xerah]

That is not how statistics work.

Each person has a 5% chance. Not 5% of the population will gain a major. If I roll 100 times I will not get the major 5 times. Each time I roll I have a 5% chance.

For the math you are speaking of requires a limited number. A jar with paper which mentions what each reward is. In that case 5% of the slips of paper in the jar say Major and by the end of the year once the jar is empty all of the majors will be handed out. This is not the system (as far as I am aware) we use.

You might get 10 majors. You might get 0.

I’m not sure your background but I’m an engineer with 20 years experience who deals with statistics to make informed decisions on safety (loss of life). We create models based on a similar random generator that NWN uses. I’m extremely familiar with how statistics works. That is very much how statistics works.