Melee combat balance: races and stats

[Sharn]

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Strength:     How much you can carry, and how hard you hit in battle   
Dexterity:    How good you are at scoring and dodging hits in battle
Constitution: How much damage you can take before you die (hitpoints)
Intelligence: How much mana (spellpoints) you have
Wisdom:       Your ability with casting spells
Discipline:   Whether you dare to attack things tougher than yourself

I just wanted to point out:
4 out of 6 races are "blessed" with high intelligence, wisdom or discipline.
Discipline is useless, intelligence and wisdom are good only for magic guilds.

How many occupational magic guilds can gnome, elf or hobbit choose?

1. I do not like that by choosing 3 out of 6 races you are set at a disadvantage.
2. I do not like how goblins, who according to fantasy literature are pretty much evil gnomes, except the fact that gnomes are intelligent and goblins are stupid, are much more powerful then any other race.
3. Huge effort is put into balancing guilds, while at the same time races are as much (if not more) unbalanced.
Balancing stats sounds pretty easy, compared to guild recodes.

[Sharn]

Most of you young'uns don't remember when dis was needed to lead a team.

I had the "pleasure" to experience it. Pretty annoying

[Tarax the Terrible]

Everyone has a choice to be whatever race they like, there is also more prejudice against goblins than any other race.
Eg quests you can't do, areas you are attacked when visiting weapons and guild specials to hit you harder.

[Sharn]

Everyone has a choice to be whatever race they like, there is also more prejudice against goblins than any other race.
Eg quests you can't do, areas you are attacked when visiting weapons and guild specials to hit you harder.

1. Yeah, goblins have some minor disadvantages. But you can be a minotaur and have goblin stats, cant you?
Read: goblin with much less disadvantages.
2. Everyone has a choice to be whatever race they like, but what if goblin stats would be changed to be similiar to gnome stats?
Wouldnt you get sudden feeling, that you should try some other race?
3. Why to balance anything at all? Everyone has choice to be whatever guild they like.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Everyone has a choice to be whatever race they like, there is also more prejudice against goblins than any other race.
Eg quests you can't do, areas you are attacked when visiting weapons and guild specials to hit you harder.

1. Yeah, goblins have some minor disadvantages. But you can be a minotaur and have goblin stats, cant you?
Read: goblin with much less disadvantages.

Most places in my experience with a goblin prejudice don't treat a gobbo mino any different.
Try to hire a horse in bree and they say no gobbos.
Called a gobbo by npcs etc. Quite annoying.
Only thing I noticed was being able to wear tempered armours.

Two chars I played first was neutral human second was gobbo.
Gobbo choice was mainly because wanting to be evil AA but found out AA were closed.
But to be honest I did not feel I was missing out playing a human.

The stat bonsus have an effect but I think its more effect in the early says.
The preferences in how you grow your stats are the main factor how your char turns out.
Especially when it could be done by numbers and you could put 50 into a single stat 5 on the rest.
Most people I know of would have put the most into dex.

Ogre bonsus to str and con way bigger than anyone else, saying its linked to a guild doesn't really make a difference either way.

If we have finally got away from the YEARS of dex ruling supreme and hobbits etc being the uber killing machines.
Good. I think its more balanced that way more combat stats being meaningful and the races are closer now.

I agree a gnome isn't a born killing machine. They can still pump their combats when growing.
Anyone who is a gnome is likely doing it for RP reasons and choice.

There are weapons etc that give bonsus in the hands of elves, uses for a larger mana pool, specials and resistances that take mentals into account. I think that you are way off the mark to think its majorly unbalanced.

Also want to make the point there are many varieties of goblin in lore.
The gnome like ones, goblins where they are big and mean, hobgoblins, the bigger orcs and the bigger still uruks.
Same way there are pixie like elves and the tall elegant ones.
Calling a big bad gobbo a silly green gnome (aka smurfs) is an insult!

I would also say that dwarves are a good combat guild choice and another balance to the goblins.
Since the two are usually considered to have a lot of hatred for one another.

[Ilrahil]

Minotaurs are a secondary race Sharn.

And what I mean by that is if you are a goblin based minotaur, you will have the same prejudices leveled against you. It always amused me that minotaurs being huge creatures could wear the grey leather (dex increasing) boots, because there base race was goblin, yet they were only supposed to be for the short races.

[Sharn]

Minotaurs are a secondary race Sharn.

And what I mean by that is if you are a goblin based minotaur, you will have the same prejudices leveled against you. It always amused me that minotaurs being huge creatures could wear the grey leather (dex increasing) boots, because there base race was goblin, yet they were only supposed to be for the short races.

It is a bug and should be reported. Navarre fixed quite a few of those after my reports. Thanks, Navarre!
So, if you are minotaur and npc calls you goblin <bug npc_name>, if you can wear the dex boots - report it too, etc.
Navarre explained to me, that a lot of code uses old function to check race. Should be easy to fix, just report it.

[Ilrahil]

*shrug* bug reported them a long time ago with most of the same wizards around. Nothing changed. So i stopped bugging them.

[Tarax the Terrible]

Since the topic of this is melee combat balance and not just races balance..

Being a goblin also limits you to fewer guilds to choose from.
And many of those guilds that accept goblins are lower in the overall balance stakes than those that don't.

So Knights and Neidars beat up DA's when it comes to melee, the DA's rely on greater physical size or numbers.
Rangers beat up AA in a toe to toe battle.

IMO it is a pretty plain to see fact that evil guilds are balanced down compared to good.
I can also see why it "has to" be the case, because if you give evil too many tools they will just run around killing everyone.
It almost like AoB in the past planned for always going to be an extra evil tagging along in the team so balance accordingly.
Fine for PvP annoying for grinding.

But this is not just hot air, was an experiment once arranged by BDA general and high up knight drafting me in to arena battle a knight.
Two titans. Me and nigget who will remain nameless. Same identical solamnic gear.
He beat me up, but it was close enough he was TH I think..
Everyone happy, then we revealed our stats.
Because of whole chars life spent focusing whereas he had run level my combat stats where hugely ahead of his.
I am talking forceful versus immortal type gaps.
Everyone not so happy.
(But the solamnic gear also sucked, which effected the more equipment dependant BDA worse)

So back to gobbo balance.. SU goblins not allowed.

The exceptions like mercs, glads, calians gobo may be good but you hear rumours about specials being based on dis and dex..
(I don't know why its only rumours, people should know what they need to train and focus on, those with the wiz info know etc)

I guess the main exception to all this is the monks.
Where big STR and CON is sweet for unarmed combat. So gobbo monk is a very nice concept.
It has been from back in the Kahedan days.

But if you where to take the stunning out of the equation I would say a greatly equipped member of the other melee guilds would kick their ass quite easily.
I remember an arena match watching myth BDA human quite easily beating up two titan monks (one human, one goblin) who where both trying to stun him.
Have also sparred without stunning and done very badly versus other guilds.

But stunning is in the equation of course, which is why the monks have been "balanced" to not be a rabid killer guild.
All honky dorey then?

But when the shield slammers (another relastically non gobbo guild) came along and they changed that.
They give damage and stun at same time, they give it in a layman, and they open it up to the predominantly non goblin side of the war like guilds.

So I put it to you that life is a lot harder for the gobbos outside of the monks, they are suitable picked on and discriminated against.
It may not be that they "like it" like Sharn does, but they are willing enough to go for it if they get the chance to smash everything else up

[Sharn]

Being a goblin also limits you to fewer guilds to choose from.
And many of those guilds that accept goblins are lower in the overall balance stakes than those that don't.

So Knights and Neidars beat up DA's when it comes to melee, the DA's rely on greater physical size or numbers.
Rangers beat up AA in a toe to toe battle.

These are assumptions and you present them as facts - please provide some arguments.