Think you guys are missing something, which is the major aspect of the conversation. Physical resistance accounts for (guesstimate, but probably right on) over 90% of the damage you will ever take. It is SO dominant, that it pigeonholes race choices. Trust me, if I had known this horrible resistance was going to be in the game at conversion, I would have chosen much differently. This is how I went at conversion and why:
Raiden (thief) -> Halfling because they favor dex.
Arjuno (cleric) -> Gnome because they favor wis.
Anon (mage) -> Elf because they favor int.
Yator (monk) -> Human because stats were more evenly distributed.
Sadler (fighter) -> Half-ogre because they favor physical stats and the only plate armor in game at that time that was -always- large was in Anshelm. Remember old headbutt?
Now for the resistance listing that I promised:
Arjuno -> Cold, Sonic Vibration, Poison, Pure Magic, Death Magic, Asphyxiation, Fire, Electricity, Psychic, Disease, Dessication, Physical, Acid, and Exhaustion
He has the askills for Resist Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Psychic, and Sonic. Draw your own conclusions as to where physical is in the non-adjusted list, but I doubt it would move far.
Raiden -> Exhaustion, Disease, Poison, Pure Magic, Acid, Asphyxiation, Fire, Cold, Electricity, Psychic, Death Magic, Sonic Vibration, Physical, and Dessication
No askills.
I’m not sure where classes come into play with resist either, but I think it’s either non-existent, or a minor change in a resist or two. The only thing I know for sure is that class choice changes your health and mana pool.
Rager: I partially addressed your main point with how I personally chose my races, but how much you spent on int was padded by paying less for str and con than other mages did. If the costs were adjusted down and experience was not refunded, then that was the fault of the wiz council at that time and should not skew your opinion for something almost completely unrelated. If you have to end up paying more than someone else because of your race (overall), then it should be adjusted to be fair.
This is also not a new issue, just a new post on a new forum. I (and many others) have mentioned physical resistance many times since we figured out how bad it was for some races. You made your choice because you had that information available to you, and it was a good choice. I argue that this system does NOT promote new combinations for race/class on the basis for physical resistance and the availability of equipment. As I mentioned before, most high ac armor is large by default (Barb leather is the same way) because the wizards expected that most fighters would probably be large. Clerics are a different problem though, and I’d still like to see some cleric-specific armor get put in...but that’s a whole new post.
I’d agree that there should be a one-time free change for race even if there wasn’t a race recode. I’ve said this so many times, and I wonder when it will finally click, but games, by their very definition, are supposed to be partaken for fun. There is -zero- fun in the current system that requires mages and clerics to lose months of work because they are unhappy with how their class ended up working for them, and the same goes for race.
The point about armor makers is false too. Shops that specialize in small high ac armor have almost no business. Why is that?
Azalin: This isn’t a recode suggestion, just a balance of one resistance. I added infra-vision simply to offset the only other major difference in race choice. Also, most monsters that you would care enough to cast know target on have been given artificial resistances. I highly doubt that changing physical resistance for races would have a negative impact on people’s gameplay. I’m not sure where I said this was based on “feel” but I know that something that hurts players the most on the game shouldn’t cause more/less on certain races. It’s simply bad design. Open a D&D;book and tell me what race takes more damage from physical attacks, then tell me how many people would play them.
Lynis: Yes, race should be about role-playing if anyone actually did that anymore. If that was all a race choice changed, then this post wouldn’t exist. Just like I mentioned to Azalin, open up a DnD book (I highly recommend 4th Edition) and none of the races take more damage from a specific attack. Why? Because it’s a bad idea.
Anon