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Tanuki Tales
2012-07-01, 08:59 PM
I've been reading through the "Fantasy Races you hate" thread and it got me curious. Apparently a large amount of the rpg player base, myself included, despise Kender with a passion and think the only good Kender is a roasted Kender. Are there any folks out there who either tolerate or outright like/enjoy Kender? If so, why?

Grail
2012-07-01, 09:28 PM
Everything about Dragonlance is terrible and should be blasted into the sun at high velocity.

huttj509
2012-07-01, 09:32 PM
One of my college friends had one person he'd allow to be a kender. Because this friend could manage to hit the right balance between chipper/annoying/friendly. It's really tough to avoid taking things too far with a kender.

valadil
2012-07-01, 09:40 PM
I don't hate them, but I suspect I would if I ever played in a game where they were allowed.

Honest Tiefling
2012-07-01, 09:43 PM
It's been ages since I read the novels, but I think even in them kender didn't steal that often. I could be super wrong since I haven't read the books in forever.

I also think some of the kender-hate is from the very badly done Mary-Sueness that everyone who is good MUST LURVE KENDER. Only evil people hate the giggling self-righteous kleptomanic actively working against you, you despicable puppy kicking blackguard!

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-01, 09:44 PM
Not as written, but reading that thread gave me a great idea of how to make them more palatable:

Kender are actually ruled by a Lady of Pain-esque dark god that, for reasons unknown, forces her Kender to act like hyper-annoying kleptomaniacs. The kender are all terrified of her because she sends her demonic minions after anyone who she catches breaking character.

Honest Tiefling
2012-07-01, 09:45 PM
...I love that idea. May I have permission to possibly use it for a future character?

onthetown
2012-07-01, 09:46 PM
I.. I love Dragonlance. :smalleek: There was a time I was completely obsessed with it; now it's just a strong love, since I don't have as much time to read as I used to. I've always particularly loved the kender, simply because there are some dark themes in the novels (the Weis and Hickman ones, not some of the truly terrible fan-author stuff you can find), and Weis and Hickman managed to make kender work within it. In my own opinion, anyway.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-01, 09:48 PM
...I love that idea. May I have permission to possibly use it for a future character?

Why of course! I'd be honored, even.

Grimsage Matt
2012-07-01, 09:50 PM
I like Kender. They're te little fearless bastards that can get things done:smallbiggrin: Also, the only ones who are rarely pessimesstic. Sure, they'll annoy the hell outa ya, but the BBG woun't know how the hell do deal with one being so friendly. And borrowing the intresting things:smallbiggrin:

Honest Tiefling
2012-07-01, 09:53 PM
Here's a question, (And hopefully won't annoy the OP) how does one play a kender right, without annoying the DM or players, and true to the intent of the race?

Jarian
2012-07-01, 09:54 PM
I always found Kender endearing, in the 'official' novels anyway. Even when things are at their darkest, they manage a brave face and plunge ahead.

Though, the books where they lost their immunity to fear were interesting too.

Dead_Jester
2012-07-01, 09:57 PM
I don't hate them, in fact, they are my favorite "little people" race; they have traits that are both interesting and unique. I think the major stigma comes from bad roleplaying more than anything; Kenders are kleptomaniacs, but they shouldn't steal everything, and mostly just take random items. They will not take everything that isn't bolted down because that would be too obvious, and they don't have the pocket space for it. Their fearlessness is also an interesting trait, providing good roleplaying opportunities for the player and the DM.

In any case, Kenders work well for less serious campaigns, although, with mature enough players, I have seen them used in serious settings just fine (they make great investigators for intrigue games, as they tend to pick up random items that can end up being useful and because being immune to mind wrecking horrors is always useful when dealing with the occult).

Winter_Wolf
2012-07-01, 10:00 PM
I'm okay with kender until someone tries to play one. They should stay as story characters though, since no one I've known could ever play one without making everyone want to lynch them (the player, not the character).

Forum Explorer
2012-07-01, 10:01 PM
I've been reading through the "Fantasy Races you hate" thread and it got me curious. Apparently a large amount of the rpg player base, myself included, despise Kender with a passion and think the only good Kender is a roasted Kender. Are there any folks out there who either tolerate or outright like/enjoy Kender? If so, why?

I really like Kender and enjoy playing them. Mostly because they are a lot of fun in general. You basically make a character whose goal is to have fun and is more or less irrational. And every NPC knows it just by knowing what race you are. It's the ultimate choice to play CN really.

It can be really annoying for your teamates if it's done poorly though. You can't go around stealing all their stuff and getting away with it. Some good basic rules are:

1. Don't steal things at inappropriate times. Stealing the fighter's main weapon and hiding it just before the boss battle is never a good play. Basically steal things when the party is in downtime and just roleplaying with each other.

2. When stealing from party members don't be subtle about it. After all in the Kender's mind you've done nothing wrong. So openly play around with the magic item or go up to the wizard and ask what a word means in his spellbook.

2.b. 1 and 2 can basically be summed up in this: A Kender's thefts are roleplaying. Don't try and get any tangible benefits for them and make sure they are fun for everyone. Else don't do it.

3. Be prepared to be disliked by every single NPC you meet. At the same time don't expect to be treated seriously. This means that you are going to be left out of some roleplaying encounters because the king isn't going to meet with a Kender.

4. Don't be annoying for annoying sakes. That only happens when a Kender is bored. And if you are on an adventure you shouldn't be bored often.

So why do I like Kender? Because if they are played well they are fun to be around and lead to interesting roleplaying. However like being CN playing as a Kender does not give you the right to do whatever you want. Always keep in mind that you have to be reasonable.


Honest Tiefling is right. In the books the Kender don't steal that much. They will loot anything not nailed down but that's hardly unusual for PCs :smallwink:
Besides that they generally only do it when they are bored, and pretty much as a form of exploration.

Fatebreaker
2012-07-01, 10:08 PM
The problem with kender is that they behave like player characters.

They loot random shiny stuff which doesn't belong to them (not that they understand "ownership" except as it relates to them anyway).


They ignore whatever dramatic moment is unfolding around them to poke random things.


They expect everyone to be nice to them, always, no matter how much they misbehave.


They manage to succeed at tasks which should be well beyond them, but events just happen to create a scenario where they win through all the same.

Seriously, can you imagine if there was an actual race which behaved the way player characters do? And if they were small and easily filled with holes by sharp objects, yet inexplicably not filled with holes by sharp objects?

No wonder everyone hates those guys.

Starwulf
2012-07-01, 11:06 PM
I've been reading through the "Fantasy Races you hate" thread and it got me curious. Apparently a large amount of the rpg player base, myself included, despise Kender with a passion and think the only good Kender is a roasted Kender. Are there any folks out there who either tolerate or outright like/enjoy Kender? If so, why?

I love Kender. They are highly curious creatures, usually intelligent though flighty, and always(almost) in a good mood. I just like them in general, remind me a lot of myself without the natural pickpocketing, oops, I mean borrowing ^^

Sergeantbrother
2012-07-01, 11:59 PM
and think the only good Kender is a roasted Kender.

Boiled Kender, ground Kender, and fried Kender can also be good. I think that there is also a group of particularly cultivated Hobgoblins who make an excellent Kender foie gras.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-02, 12:04 AM
Not as written, but reading that thread gave me a great idea of how to make them more palatable:

Kender are actually ruled by a Lady of Pain-esque dark god that, for reasons unknown, forces her Kender to act like hyper-annoying kleptomaniacs. The kender are all terrified of her because she sends her demonic minions after anyone who she catches breaking character.

I will second the amazingness of that. Just because I'm a major fan of Right of Caste deals where people are forced to behave a certain way and it's part of the plot to introspect that.


Here's a question, (And hopefully won't annoy the OP) how does one play a kender right, without annoying the DM or players, and true to the intent of the race?

Oh, no at all. I don't have a deep hate of them, I just bemusedly understand why I would learn to hate the little saccharine nightmares.

Archpaladin Zousha
2012-07-02, 12:13 AM
I really like Kender and enjoy playing them. Mostly because they are a lot of fun in general. You basically make a character whose goal is to have fun and is more or less irrational. And every NPC knows it just by knowing what race you are. It's the ultimate choice to play CN really.

It can be really annoying for your teamates if it's done poorly though. You can't go around stealing all their stuff and getting away with it. Some good basic rules are:

1. Don't steal things at inappropriate times. Stealing the fighter's main weapon and hiding it just before the boss battle is never a good play. Basically steal things when the party is in downtime and just roleplaying with each other.

2. When stealing from party members don't be subtle about it. After all in the Kender's mind you've done nothing wrong. So openly play around with the magic item or go up to the wizard and ask what a word means in his spellbook.

2.b. 1 and 2 can basically be summed up in this: A Kender's thefts are roleplaying. Don't try and get any tangible benefits for them and make sure they are fun for everyone. Else don't do it.

3. Be prepared to be disliked by every single NPC you meet. At the same time don't expect to be treated seriously. This means that you are going to be left out of some roleplaying encounters because the king isn't going to meet with a Kender.

4. Don't be annoying for annoying sakes. That only happens when a Kender is bored. And if you are on an adventure you shouldn't be bored often.

So why do I like Kender? Because if they are played well they are fun to be around and lead to interesting roleplaying. However like being CN playing as a Kender does not give you the right to do whatever you want. Always keep in mind that you have to be reasonable.


Honest Tiefling is right. In the books the Kender don't steal that much. They will loot anything not nailed down but that's hardly unusual for PCs :smallwink:
Besides that they generally only do it when they are bored, and pretty much as a form of exploration.

You have it in one, Forum Explorer. I personally didn't dislike kender that much when I briefly played in a party that had one, but part of that was because I wasn't with the group for very long. The kender character didn't steal anything, he was just obsessed with his "Kender Spoon of Turning," a piece of flatware he believed to have the power to turn undead like a holy symbol. We never got to test his theory.

I have to agree that the main problem people seem to have with kender is when kender are roleplayed poorly, same with paladins, chaotic neutral characters and non-evil drow. They generally start out as a flanderized version of the source material that only gets worse with each iteration until they become almost universally loathed.

Cespenar
2012-07-02, 12:46 AM
I myself would simply fluff their kleptomania and not roll actual dice nor change mechanics in any hard-set way.

For example, the group wizard says "I whip out my Wand of Prestidigitation and magic myself clean." Instead, he fumbles around his belt for a couple seconds and throws the kender a icy stare. She smiles back openly and offers the wizard the same wand, noting helpfully that maybe he could use this instead. No permanent changes, no actions lost, just roleplaying.

Worira
2012-07-02, 12:53 AM
There is basically no circumstance where you should not break all of a kender's fingers.

Lord Raziere
2012-07-02, 02:21 AM
I don't! Kenders are awesome. :smallcool:

*slowly reaches for his shield….*

Vovix
2012-07-02, 02:38 AM
Kender are awesome, both to play and to have in the party, as long as the kender player doesn't use it as an excuse to be disruptive. A well-played kender can create a lot of memorable comedic situations(like this (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?486915-Kender)). However, playing a kender does NOT mean you should talk nonstop and steal everything in sight. Like Forum Explorer said, kender should be roleplayed in moderation, at appropriate times.

Kurald Galain
2012-07-02, 03:41 AM
Kender are awesome, both to play and to have in the party, as long as the kender player doesn't use it as an excuse to be disruptive.

I think this is key. It's similar to Malkavians (insane vampires from Vampire The Masquerade): they work very well if played well, but most players attracted to them are The Loonie archetype and will just use them as an excuse to be disruptive.

So bottom line is that I wouldn't allow most players to play a kender (or malk) in my campaign. Not that I've ever played Dragonlance anyway.

Vovix
2012-07-02, 05:14 AM
snip
...go up to the wizard and ask what a word means in his spellbook.
snip

I might have to steal borrow that idea for my kender.

Skaven
2012-07-02, 07:19 AM
I'm neutral on Kender. I liked Tasslehoff, but could take or leave any others.

I liked Dragonlance, pre mess it all up age. It was a great setting, fairly low magic. However then they had to screw it all up for.. I dunno what reasons.

Drascin
2012-07-02, 08:20 AM
Personally, I don't mind them.

See, here's the thing - most people do it wrong, and take actually useful items, and keep them. But if a Kender goes through a wizard's pockets, what is he going to take, that boring old valuable spellbook or the little beautiful mirror he uses to shave each morning? In a kender's mind there's no contest - I mean, look at that mirror, it's so shiny!

And Kenders rarely get to keep what they take often - they actively use it without remorse, because they don't understand they've done anything wrong. So they're most frequently caught withing moments.

Basically, a kender's thieving is a quirk, like a stutter. Just flavor. It should not be used to inconvenience the party or empower yourself - and if you can't think of it like that, you're going to have trouble playing kender.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-02, 09:02 AM
Everything about Dragonlance is terrible and should be blasted into the sun at high velocity.

I endorse this statement. =)

I pretty much have a kill on sight policy for kender now. It's turned out to be much less troublesome.

MrRigger
2012-07-02, 11:05 AM
It's not always even the player. I remember one story told on here that had one player as a kender, and another playing an ooze master (or something like that). The kender player was playing it as fluff, but the DM ruled that the kender took an item (spellbook or something similar) of the ooze master's that it should have been impossible to take (it was specially protected so that only the ooze master could retrieve it).

Or the case that personally happened to me, where my character went into a room with a kender, and then I was told I had to check to see what was stolen from me, because I was in a room with a kender, so something was definitely just stolen from me. It's that sort of thing that gets to me.

MrRigger

Arbane
2012-07-02, 11:15 AM
I played in a game once that was all human characters, except for one Kender. She actually wasn't BAD - she got played like a slightly hyperactive kid, and other character had worse psychological problems than the Kender's ADD.

That said, she was the only one we knew of. If I had to play on a world in which they were a major race, I'd probably feel obliged to play a NE Druid serving the God of Natural Selection and do my best to wipe them out, as there's no way an entire species of slow-breeding kamikaze dumbasses should have lasted this long. :smallamused:

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-02, 12:09 PM
That said, she was the only one we knew of. If I had to play on a world in which they were a major race, I'd probably feel obliged to play a NE Druid serving the God of Natural Selection and do my best to wipe them out, as there's no way an entire species of slow-breeding kamikaze dumbasses should have lasted this long. :smallamused:

Apparently they have a Plot Shield that would put Sasuke Uchiha's to shame.

QuidEst
2012-07-02, 01:16 PM
Are you kidding? I love the Kender!

Actually, I'm kidding. I haven't played with them, but races that actually require a certain personality bug me.

Friv
2012-07-02, 04:21 PM
Apparently they have a Plot Shield that would put Sasuke Uchiha's to shame.

I seem to recall that their homelands were brutalized and a lot of them actually did die, leading to various haunted (emotionally) kender drifting across the landscape.


Anyway. I happen to like kender, but the key to playing one is to not be disruptive. Don't crack jokes during every important scene, and try to keep such jokes low-key when you do them. Be annoying to NPCs or PCs once in a while, but not usually. As a good rule of thumb, a single annoying moment per session towards fellow PCs is going to be plenty, trust me. Especially don't ever start being annoying during a scene where another player is really into it, because you will shatter their immersion and that can't be easily recovered.

People have really covered the theft stuff well, but the disruptions are, IMHO, the bigger issue most of the time. It's not stealing someone's tea, it's doing it constantly and making a huge scene out of it.

(I actually played a kender barbarian in 3.5, which was a ton of fun. He had decided that he was the team's resident lockpicker, which he accomplished by means of a greatsword. The door was open, wasn't it? What was the problem?)

Kish
2012-07-02, 04:28 PM
Yeah, I like kender, too. They just don't go well with a player who cares about optimization at all, as other people have commented on.

(At least, not in odd numbers; I seem to remember an old 1ed rule that if there are two kender in the party, they'll tend to "borrow" almost exclusively from each other, annoying no one, because when there's another kender around it would take pretty compelling evidence for a kender to think a human, elf, dwarf, or even gnome would have anything comparably interesting in his/her pockets.)

Melayl
2012-07-02, 05:28 PM
I love kender. Tas was my favorite character in the novels, too. Although, as Forum Explorer noted, they need to be played "appropriately".

JadedDM
2012-07-02, 05:55 PM
I love Dragonlance. But you know what my problem with kender are? They are always played as pale clones of Tasslehoff. Every PC kender I encounter has a hoopak and a topknot, and they basically just quote Tas constantly. It gets boring after awhile.

The same problem with gully dwarves, too. They're all basically just Bupu.

I've always wanted to play a kender fighter based off of Finn from Adventure Time. More emphasis on the fearlessness and innate goodness than the kleptomania. "I am going to kick evil right in the BUTT!"

The-Mage-King
2012-07-02, 05:58 PM
I love Kender, as well. They remind me of my family, in terms of attitude and telling random stories.


...Have I told you about the time that uncle Trapspringger and-

Forum Explorer
2012-07-02, 11:52 PM
It's not always even the player. I remember one story told on here that had one player as a kender, and another playing an ooze master (or something like that). The kender player was playing it as fluff, but the DM ruled that the kender took an item (spellbook or something similar) of the ooze master's that it should have been impossible to take (it was specially protected so that only the ooze master could retrieve it).

Or the case that personally happened to me, where my character went into a room with a kender, and then I was told I had to check to see what was stolen from me, because I was in a room with a kender, so something was definitely just stolen from me. It's that sort of thing that gets to me.

MrRigger

That just sounds like really bad Dming to me. He's basically railroading another players character to behave a certain way.

Kiero
2012-07-03, 03:49 AM
I don't mind kender at all.

On the other hand I hate hobbits/halflings.

Kurald Galain
2012-07-03, 04:40 AM
That just sounds like really bad Dming to me. He's basically railroading another players character to behave a certain way.

Yes, well, people do that a lot. I know numerous players and DMs who assume that any character with the "rogue" class will automatically want to steal anything and everything that's not nailed down and on fire.

DigoDragon
2012-07-03, 08:22 AM
The problem I see with Kender (particularly with the local group I RP with) is that Kenders seem to have been Flanderized into two-dimensional "little annoying kleptomaniacs".
I don't see Kender that way, as in trying to steal everything the party owns and annoying people to one's own death. I interpret Kenders in a way that can work with a party. My personal guidlines I followed for a good Kender were:

1. I'm curious about the world. It's why I adventure. I stick with the party because I know going off on my own is boring. No one to share the experience with! Adventures attack the largest group possible first so staying with the team maximizes the experience.

2. Although I'm immune to most forms of fear, it doesn't mean I'm stupid. A large red dragon swooping down on me is a perfectly reasonable excuse to join the rest of my team and duck for cover. Not because the dragon is scary, but because I'm a bite-sized chicken nugget.

3. I'm not a kelptomaniac, I simply lack a concept of "personal property". As an adventuring group we share all our equipment and I will use the items carried by my teammates when it is logically appropriate.
I won't steal the wizard's spellbook just because I can. Why? I have no reason to. However, when the wizard has been knocked down by a ferocious bulette, I will take the wizard's scroll of Benign Transposition and use it to switch the wizard with someone else who can better handle the land shark.


These guidlines work for me and is the reason that one time I played a Kender I was actually liked by the party.

Ianuagonde
2012-07-03, 10:16 AM
The only time I played in a Dragonlance campaign, I played a kender. I don't usually play races with 'every member of this race always acts like this', but why not for once?

As others have mentioned, moderation is key. I've played with the other players before, so they had no objection: they knew I wasn't going to be extremely annoying. In-character, they were quickly reassured when they figured out my modus operandi.

-I will not steal borrow the fighter's greatsword. It will tear up my pouches if I try to put it in.
-I will not steal borrow the cleric's shield. It's heavy, unwieldy and it will slow me down so much I can't keep up with my friends. Also, it doesn't fit in my pouches.
-I will not steal borrow spell components. If I do, I can't watch the wizard perform shiny magic, or cast a fly spell on me. Also, sulphur and guano make my pouches smell like gully dwarf.
-I will not steal borrow everything. Everything does not fit it my pouches.

Ashtagon
2012-07-03, 10:54 AM
Rather than focus on the "take stuff" aspect of their borrowing, I'd focus on their "just happen to have something handy" aspects. Some time ago, I made a house rule that pretty much amounted to:

You have a pool of "Schrodinger's equipment". This pool has a maximum weight of x lb and a maximum value of y gp. No item produced from the pool can be larger than six inches in its longest dimension, nor can any item be magical or alchemical in nature. At any time on your turn, you can convert some of the Schrodinger's pool into an item that may be useful in the current situation. When you do so, you deduct the appropriate gp/lb value from your pool. You can refill this pool any time you are in a large community. The gp value of items is for tracking purposes only; the actual items produced are second-hand, used, and of no real sale value.

Jan Mattys
2012-07-03, 11:23 AM
Rather than focus on the "take stuff" aspect of their borrowing, I'd focus on their "just happen to have something handy" aspects. Some time ago, I made a house rule that pretty much amounted to:

You have a pool of "Schrodinger's equipment". This pool has a maximum weight of x lb and a maximum value of y gp. No item produced from the pool can be larger than six inches in its longest dimension, nor can any item be magical or alchemical in nature. At any time on your turn, you can convert some of the Schrodinger's pool into an item that may be useful in the current situation. When you do so, you deduct the appropriate gp/lb value from your pool. You can refill this pool any time you are in a large community. The gp value of items is for tracking purposes only; the actual items produced are second-hand, used, and of no real sale value.

I think this would be an awesome houserule, even better if kept secret from the other PCs.
They would soon learn to greatly value the kender for his ability of always having the right tool for the job, and they would constantly wonder how in hell can he be so prepared.

Since such a rule is hardly gamebreaking, and is mostly just for fluff and fun, there's no need to have the mechanics for it available to others.
This gives the kender player quite a bit of things to work on. Of course he can still boorow the fighter's whetstone, but that's just because his old and shiny dagger needs a revamp.

/me likes

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-03, 01:00 PM
The problem I see with Kender (particularly with the local group I RP with) is that Kenders seem to have been Flanderized into two-dimensional "little annoying kleptomaniacs".
I don't see Kender that way, as in trying to steal everything the party owns and annoying people to one's own death. I interpret Kenders in a way that can work with a party. My personal guidlines I followed for a good Kender were:


To be fair, I don't see much of a stretch for Flanderization of Kender when their fluff in their racial entry practically screams at you to behave in that manner.

Anarion
2012-07-03, 02:56 PM
That just sounds like really bad Dming to me. He's basically railroading another players character to behave a certain way.

This totally depends on how it was RPed. Having you roll a d20 to see which item you "forgot" on the way out could be funny. Having your main weapon gone while you hunt down a random Kender just feels bad.

My suggestion for RPing Kender is to ask your players and DM to be realistic with their reactions. If you ever steal something that annoys a player, the character should get annoyed. And if you steal important things, the guards should throw you in jail for the night. Sure, a Kender can escape jail, but after you've done it a couple times it gets boring. Why steal stuff that makes you have to do something boring?

Kish
2012-07-03, 03:11 PM
Why steal stuff that makes you have to do something boring?
Because "playing a kender who thinks of himself/herself as ever stealing anything" is "playing a kender badly," and thus playing a kender whose behavior becomes in any way different because the kender genuinely, sincerely decides, "I am avoiding stealing from this person" is playing a kender badly?

Giggling Ghast
2012-07-03, 03:15 PM
I like dead kender, especially when they're stacked up in piles. Does that count?

Beowulf DW
2012-07-03, 03:16 PM
I always found Kender endearing, in the 'official' novels anyway. Even when things are at their darkest, they manage a brave face and plunge ahead.

Though, the books where they lost their immunity to fear were interesting too.

That was the War of Souls, right? I felt really bad for them. To suddenly have an emotion like that forced on you. How do you deal with that when you've never even understood the concept before?

Vovix
2012-07-03, 03:18 PM
Rather than focus on the "take stuff" aspect of their borrowing, I'd focus on their "just happen to have something handy" aspects. Some time ago, I made a house rule that pretty much amounted to:

You have a pool of "Schrodinger's equipment". This pool has a maximum weight of x lb and a maximum value of y gp. No item produced from the pool can be larger than six inches in its longest dimension, nor can any item be magical or alchemical in nature. At any time on your turn, you can convert some of the Schrodinger's pool into an item that may be useful in the current situation. When you do so, you deduct the appropriate gp/lb value from your pool. You can refill this pool any time you are in a large community. The gp value of items is for tracking purposes only; the actual items produced are second-hand, used, and of no real sale value.
That is actually a feat in Pathfinder: Well Prepared (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/advancedFeats.html#well-prepared). It allows halflings to do just that.

Icewraith
2012-07-03, 05:57 PM
One of our buddies, who hadn't actually read any of the dragonlance novels at the time, played a kender based off the description. One of the other group members had read a few of the novels, and spent many of the sessions laughing hysterically in the corner at how well the character was being played without having read most of the books.

I ended up writing a wall 'o text regarding this unique character.



Granted, we had the only Kender in the known history of the universe with JUST ENOUGH patience and talent (and a love of fire) to study wizardry. This meant that if he was bored there was a fairly even chance that he'd go looking for trouble in "classic" Kender mode OR he'd sit down on the ground and use illusions, produce flame, light etc. and work on his spellcasting. The way his attitude towards magic and the way he got his abilities wasn't quite Sorcerous enough to be a Sorcerer, the only accomodation we really had to make I believe was that his spellbook magically followed him around so he wouldn't forget it.

The idea was that generally speaking it's almost impossible to stop Kender from getting into whatever objects are immediately at hand, if there's a Wizard academy in the area and the Kender (1) stays in the area and (2) sees the apprentice Wizards conjuring fire as a form of practice and (3) considers Fire to be the ultimate shiny, he might figure out how to replicate what the Wizards were doing since Wizardry is by definition reproducible by anyone with enough practice. Once this conceptual barrier is crossed, the Kender has access to an ever-shinier set of shinies he knows that he can figure out how to create, at this point "forgetting" how to Wizard would be like "forgetting" how to pick pockets- Kender forget all sorts of things but they don't forget important and personally interesting knowledge (three billion stories about Uncle Trapspringer, for instance), nor do they forget "how" to pick pockets. The end result is a sort of combined "rule of funny" and "rule of kender" applied to magic, and somewhere in the multiverse it had to happen at least once.

The only real objection to a Kender Wizard is whether or not they have the ability to get over the first hurdle.

The DM was completely against this whole idea originally, but I guess someone convinced him to give it a trial session and that went off so well RP wise he couldn't bring himself to disallow it.

He didn't usually forget about fires he started and wander off to do something else because fire was the ultimate shiny for him, so we avoided most of the destruction you'd expect from a fire-focused character who was also a Kender. There were still hilarious shenanigans- rp and in combat, only now they could be magical too, which worked well with a caster-heavy campaign.

The only real downside to the character was the player found him so exhausting to play, doing it "right" required exorbitant amounts of coffee. Eventually he had to retire the character, but not before he developed a habit of flying towards interesting-looking places while on fire. He turned up in a much later campaign as a joke and then accidentally gained minor divinity when he flew over a large island chain during an auspicious ceremony and its inhabitants started worshiping the fire in the sky as a deity in its own right.

The character actually embodied the principles of fire perfectly- impetuous, unpredictable, volatile, potentially destructive, yet also a source of light and means of prolonging life, representing creativity, fearlessness, relentless cheerfulness, energy, and acquiring useful and useless knowledge of everything. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING, including having been chucked out of or escaping from most of the upper and lower planes in the process of being curious about, for example "how Hellfire works" or



"what's actually IN the Sacred Book of Holy Fire? Is it different from regular fire? Can I make my fire holy fire? How holy is this fire? Oh hey, a holy tree of fire! Look, I was just borrowing the Sacred Book of Holy Fire, it's not the end of the world. It was just sitting there surrounded by angels who weren't even LOOKING at the fire. Also there were like fourteen of those neato exploding glyphs, but I disabled those so you don't have to worry about them hurting anyone. Can you talk to squirrels like my druid buddy? So being the guardian of the Sacred Book of Holy Fire must be pretty cool, can YOU tell me what's inside it? Well if you never looked how do you know it's the right book? Tell you what let me have it and I'll make a copy of it in case you ever lose the original, and I'll make a copy of that in case I lose the copy of the original, and then a couple copies so you can have them on hand for people to read while you guard the original book, and..."

*Insert the sound of a Kender being punted through the Celestial gates by an angry Solar*

If the character ever amasses enough power to grant spells, I imagine a CG base alignment granting Fire, Chaos, Travel, Luck, and Magic would be appropriate.

Note to self- that's actually a really sweet domain setup.

Ashtagon
2012-07-04, 12:05 AM
That is actually a feat in Pathfinder: Well Prepared (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/advancedFeats.html#well-prepared). It allows halflings to do just that.

Ehh. Paizo would have had to make that feat before 2007 to have been first.

a_humble_lich
2012-07-04, 06:25 AM
I remember playing a game a long long time ago where at least one of the characters were kender (I think there were two). It was a short light game and the kender worked quite well as I remember (in particular I remember the kender trying to steel the minotaur's loincloth.)

While I think many people have given good advice on how a kender can be well played, kender (and similar characters) are like evil PCs--don't do things to make the other players mad. A well played kender should make the other party members annoyed with you, but be sure that you don't get the other people at your gaming table annoyed with you. And what counts as annoying can vary greatly on the players and the game style.

Cerlis
2012-07-04, 07:07 AM
*replies in quote*


The problem with kender is that they behave like player characters.

They loot random shiny stuff which doesn't belong to them (not that they understand "ownership" except as it relates to them anyway).


They ignore whatever dramatic moment is unfolding around them to poke random things.No, they are facinated by dramatic moments. Unless you are talking about something boring like a lore dump or ceremony


They expect everyone to be nice to them, always, no matter how much they misbehave. They dont misbehave. Most races fail to empathize with a species that has such a short attention span. you make it sound like they deliberately get into trouble.


They manage to succeed at tasks which should be well beyond them, but events just happen to create a scenario where they win through all the same. Tasselhoff maybe. but thats why he is a legend. Only other decent Kender i know of is the necromancer, and his greatest accomplishment was persuading a God, He didnt accomplish much. And from what i hear in the lore about most barbarian races killing kender on sight, and the horrible travesty that killed thousands of kender, i'd hardly say this statement is accurate at all

Seriously, can you imagine if there was an actual race which behaved the way player characters do? And if they were small and easily filled with holes by sharp objects, yet inexplicably not filled with holes by sharp objects?

No wonder everyone hates those guys.


From what i saw from threads like that, people hate people who Misplay Kender, not Kender.

I love every aspect of em

Ashtagon
2012-07-05, 07:38 AM
Back on topic...


Character creation ideas from the movies! The character of Tasslehoff Burrfoot was a combination of Harpo Marx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpo_Marx) and Margaret O'Brien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_O%27Brien), child actress, from the movie musical Meet Me in Saint Louis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_Me_in_St._Louis_%28musical%29). If you watch her in that movie, notice her eyes and the expression on her face as she tells the most outrageous lies. I always saw that expression on Tas's face.

So that's how to role-play a (particular) kender. Straight from the author.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-05, 08:08 AM
This totally depends on how it was RPed. Having you roll a d20 to see which item you "forgot" on the way out could be funny. Having your main weapon gone while you hunt down a random Kender just feels bad.

My suggestion for RPing Kender is to ask your players and DM to be realistic with their reactions. If you ever steal something that annoys a player, the character should get annoyed. And if you steal important things, the guards should throw you in jail for the night. Sure, a Kender can escape jail, but after you've done it a couple times it gets boring. Why steal stuff that makes you have to do something boring?

Because you don't understand the concept of "stealing"?

Roderick_BR
2012-07-05, 03:28 PM
My friends and I actually like Kenders. We only hate them in-character :smallamused:

Ravens_cry
2012-07-05, 04:24 PM
Even in the fiction, which I generally like more than as a setting for role playing, Kender could get tiresome.
I don't care if your species has kleptomania in the genes, you steal from party, you get strung up like like a ham.

Yukitsu
2012-07-05, 05:21 PM
Kender make me want to make some in game camps and Godwin's law myself.

Starbuck_II
2012-07-07, 03:53 PM
There is basically no circumstance where you should not break all of a kender's fingers.

According to Kender's description, not treating them nicely means you just don't understand them. A world without Kender would be a sad world (that is what it actually says).

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-07, 04:01 PM
According to Kender's description, not treating them nicely means you just don't understand them. A world without Kender would be a sad world (that is what it actually says).

Yup. Their sourcebook fluff basically writes them as being all the negative things that are played slightly up by bad Kender players and then call you "bad meanie poo poo pants" for ever being anything but completely in love with them. :smalltongue:

Ravens_cry
2012-07-07, 04:08 PM
Yup. Their sourcebook fluff basically writes them as being all the negative things that are played slightly up by bad Kender players and then call you "bad meanie poo poo pants" for ever being anything but completely in love with them. :smalltongue:
I believe they even have one deities protection to prevent in-universe the logical conclusion of their tomfoolery.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-07, 04:19 PM
I believe they even have one deities protection to prevent in-universe the logical conclusion of their tomfoolery.

I can see how the concept of Kender as a race could be endearing and light hearted, but what I don't see if why they had to take all of the traits attributed to Halflings and then ramp them up to 11.

What was wrong with regular Halflings to be used as the lovable, slightly sticky fingered, courageous, luck prone short guys?

Ravens_cry
2012-07-07, 04:35 PM
I can see how the concept of Kender as a race could be endearing and light hearted, but what I don't see if why they had to take all of the traits attributed to Halflings and then ramp them up to 11.

What was wrong with regular Halflings to be used as the lovable, slightly sticky fingered, courageous, luck prone short guys?
In this case, I think Halflings as we know them actually derived a lot of traits from Kender, the slight build and wanderlust, without most of the annoying features.
Back then, halflings were more Hobbits with the serial numbers filed off, basically literally, being tubby little home bodies who were Expert Treasure-hunters and good at stealth

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-07, 04:43 PM
In this case, I think Halflings as we know them actually derived a lot of traits from Kender, the slight build and wanderlust, without most of the annoying features.
Back then, halflings were more Hobbits with the serial numbers filed off, basically literally, being tubby little home bodies who were Expert Treasure-hunters and good at stealth

Right.

I keep forgetting that Halflings didn't really stop being walking Lawsuit magnets until 3rd edition.

Talyn
2012-07-07, 05:53 PM
Kender are, basically, fearless sociopathic children. Barely tolerable when in safe environments, and an active liability when in dangerous ones (like, say, a dungeon!).

I hate them. I hate that they are designed to allow obnoxious kids to be disruptive and pretend to be "roleplaying." It's the same reason I hate Malkavians in World of Darkness.

nedz
2012-07-07, 06:41 PM
Right.

I keep forgetting that Halflings didn't really stop being walking Lawsuit magnets until 3rd edition.

There have been several Hobbit related lawsuits involving Shops and Cafes etc. recently; something to do with a recent movie I think. I'm not sure how they went.

I do recall a Kender being player rather well at a few LARP events a few years ago, mainly she played pranks during some Lord General's speeches. The player had rather good comic timing.

JadedDM
2012-07-07, 09:54 PM
What was wrong with regular Halflings to be used as the lovable, slightly sticky fingered, courageous, luck prone short guys?

This is just an anecdote I once heard, and I can in no way verify the validity of it; but I once heard it was because Hickman had a moral objection to a race of thieves (not that all halflings must be thieves, but they do tend to get typecast as such, just as dwarves are usually warriors and gnomes are usually illusionists). So he came up with a race that had thief-like abilities, but didn't actually 'steal.' They just 'borrowed.'

The Glyphstone
2012-07-07, 09:58 PM
That's some impressive self-delusional logic, if that's a true story.

oblivion6
2012-07-07, 10:00 PM
i LOVE kender

Ravens_cry
2012-07-08, 05:04 AM
i LOVE kender
I know right? The older ones require a good marinade, but brazed with some red wine . . .

Surfing HalfOrc
2012-07-08, 05:26 AM
I liked Kenders in the books. I HATED them in games.

Nobody seemed to know how to play them. They were meant to be a playful race, not an Avatar of Annoyance. After the third time a player said "I want to play my Kender," then immediately proceeded to spike every drink, pinch every waitress' (and waiter's!) rear end, and generally be as obnoxious as humanly possible (because it was the character's, NOT the player's fault!) I refused to play any game that included Kenders.

The same thing happened with Pixley the Pixie in "Monsterquest." (Dungeon Magazine #10).
Look, I don't care if you're Gay, Bi, or Bi-Curious. I just can't stand it when someone plays an over-the-top stereotypical gay male. Strangely enough, female players and my one openly gay friend could play Pixley without being complete twits about it. But something about the picture of Pixley in the magazine just brought out the worst in several players. It was a fun little adventure, but after a few times I learned to just NPC Pixley...

Vknight
2012-07-08, 01:14 PM
Kender are, basically, fearless sociopathic children. Barely tolerable when in safe environments, and an active liability when in dangerous ones (like, say, a dungeon!).

I hate them. I hate that they are designed to allow obnoxious kids to be disruptive and pretend to be "roleplaying." It's the same reason I hate Malkavians in World of Darkness.

Ah but Kender can be played so well. One of my players in a short campaign(5sessions only made it to 3) played a Kender for that.
He kept the party happy, bright, cheery and without that the overly dark depressing nature probably would have broken there characters.
They came out of it stronger for it... until the TPK which the Kenders slight kleptomania saved the day as he pulled the second wand of fireballs the wizard had letting the ranger escape...
Its just how you play a Kender.

They should not be well that. They should be kind, slightly crazed, unknowing of certain norms but willing to respect them, able to both be sir gallant or robin hood.

Which is something that also Malkavians need/can pull off and why there the only vampire I play

Lord Raziere
2012-07-08, 03:30 PM
Hm. maybe a lawful good version of Kender/Halflings who always follow the law instead, but still maintain that bright cheeriness and how to say it, gallant nature? none of the stuff that people consider annoying, but still those happy go lucky guys who do brave stuff while having a bit of a code of honor to them?

cause who said lawful good had to be dour?

Grimsage Matt
2012-07-08, 09:34 PM
The dwarf using the kender as a warmace:smallbiggrin:

Lawful= 85% dour.

Lawful Good= Stick rammed up rear end and preachy additude half the time.

Paladin= Above rump *Insert Tree here*

Celestial= Above rump *Insert Mount Everest Here*

Kender= Crazy, friendly, and prone to players beinf dimbulbs about how to play the racial traits.

After all, do we make EVERY dwarf a alcholic with a axe and a scottish accent?

Do we make EVERY elf that oh so graceful magical know it all treehugger?

The list of fantest tropes that tend to be badly played because player feel that playing a race purely on the lore is a good idea. As in, the steyrotype becomes the player, because they feel the steryotype lets them get away with it:smallyuk:

KillianHawkeye
2012-07-09, 03:53 AM
I don't hate kender. I don't care about them enough to hate them.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-09, 10:25 AM
That's some impressive self-delusional logic, if that's a true story.

Seconded.


...

Stupid 10 character limit. :smallannoyed:

Fatebreaker
2012-07-09, 09:52 PM
The problem with kender is that they behave like player characters.

They loot random shiny stuff which doesn't belong to them (not that they understand "ownership" except as it relates to them anyway).

They ignore whatever dramatic moment is unfolding around them to poke random things.


No, they are facinated by dramatic moments. Unless you are talking about something boring like a lore dump or ceremony

Good thing there's no way either of those things could ever be important or relevant to anyone else.


They expect everyone to be nice to them, always, no matter how much they misbehave.


They dont misbehave. Most races fail to empathize with a species that has such a short attention span. you make it sound like they deliberately get into trouble.

Ah. Cultural relativism, tolerance, and empathy. Three subjects my sword has no interest in.

Even if their behavior is not deliberate, that doesn't mean I or anyone who doesn't like it is obligated to put up with it. I don't need to understand them. I just need to know that I enjoy the world better when it's full of dead kender instead of live ones, and that I have the capacity to replace live kender with dead kender.

Or, put another way, there's nothing about kender which makes it so that I have to accept their behavior while they don't have to accept mine.

Consequences. They happen.


They manage to succeed at tasks which should be well beyond them, but events just happen to create a scenario where they win through all the same.


Tasselhoff maybe. but thats why he is a legend. Only other decent Kender i know of is the necromancer, and his greatest accomplishment was persuading a God, He didnt accomplish much. And from what i hear in the lore about most barbarian races killing kender on sight, and the horrible travesty that killed thousands of kender, i'd hardly say this statement is accurate at all

In this case, simply surviving is a task which should be well beyond them. They're tiny and weak, annoying, unable to focus, have no concept of ownership, and have no real military skills to speak of. Eventually, they're going to piss off the wrong folks. An entire race of these things should have been put to the sword long ago. Their survival as a species is due to the author keeping them alive, in the same way that the DM keeps the players alive when they behave this way.

I mean, heck, if they've been looting shiny stuff for generations, then adventurers should be lining up to kill these guys. They'd be little loot pinatas.

Just because you like kender in no way means that their behavior isn't objectionable to others. There's nothing which requires other folks to tolerate them, empathize with them, or understand them. There's not really even a benefit towards doing so.

In short, saying "you just don't understand them!" first requires me to care.

LibraryOgre
2012-07-09, 11:44 PM
Here's a question, (And hopefully won't annoy the OP) how does one play a kender right, without annoying the DM or players, and true to the intent of the race?

Playing a kender well requires a good player and a good DM.

Something I wrote way too long ago about DMing a Kender. (http://www.kencyclopedia.com/kender/roleplaying/Article_display.cfm?page=dmnote)

As a DM, you have to be willing to say "No." To not let the kender walk all over the game because he's "just playing his character."

As a player, you have to learn an important trait from the "PC" kender in the books: When to shut up and stop being a kender. Tasslehoff frequently did so, at the request of his companions. Delbin Knotwillow learned that when Kaz said "Take a breath, Delbin", he was in danger of being beaten by a minotaur who just wanted him to shut. up. It means being willing to surrender some of your character's personality under not being a jerk to the other players.

Drascin
2012-07-10, 08:45 AM
I mean, heck, if they've been looting shiny stuff for generations, then adventurers should be lining up to kill these guys. They'd be little loot pinatas.

You of course realize that kenders actually keeping stuff are rarer and harder to find than dragon hoards. And that they extremely rarely take anything with any actual use or value anyway.

They're the opposite of a loot pińata. They're almost never worth the annoyance of catching them, given how incredibly slippery they are.

Also, you're suggesting acting like a character type that is hugely more annoying and disruptive in play than Kender in the first place, which rather makes the whole post somewhat ironic :smalltongue:.

Fatebreaker
2012-07-10, 11:09 AM
Also, you're suggesting acting like a character type that is hugely more annoying and disruptive in play than Kender in the first place, which rather makes the whole post somewhat ironic :smalltongue:.

Really? The guy in the tavern who's quietly enjoying his drink until someone steals his stuff is more annoying than the loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries?

You sure that's the position you want to take?

The Glyphstone
2012-07-10, 11:13 AM
Really? The guy in the tavern who's quietly enjoying his drink until someone steals his stuff is more annoying than the loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries?

You sure that's the position you want to take?

But that's not what you advocated. He's saying the sociopathic hobo who murders people on sight for their pocket change/loot, particularly when they've made a snap judgement based on race, is more annoying than the potentially loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries.

Fatebreaker
2012-07-10, 11:25 AM
But that's not what you advocated. He's saying the sociopathic hobo who murders people on sight for their pocket change/loot, particularly when they've made a snap judgement based on race, is more annoying than the potentially loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries.

*chuckle* D&D adventurers are peripatetic murder-hobos who stab different-looking strangers for pocket change. That's the core concept of the game.

That said, that's not what I'm saying. Here:


Even if their behavior is not deliberate, that doesn't mean I or anyone who doesn't like it is obligated to put up with it.


Or, put another way, there's nothing about kender which makes it so that I have to accept their behavior while they don't have to accept mine.


Eventually, they're going to piss off the wrong folks.


Just because you like kender in no way means that their behavior isn't objectionable to others. There's nothing which requires other folks to tolerate them, empathize with them, or understand them. There's not really even a benefit towards doing so.


In short, saying "you just don't understand them!" first requires me to care.

Kender, as a race, have characteristics which lead them into conflict with others. Characteristics of the "loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries" variety. When they engage in those behaviors, it does not matter whether we empathize, understand, or care about why they do it. They still do it. And when they do it, and I don't want them to do it, then my response to their actions is to stab them until they stop doing it.

Or, to put my argument in its most succinct form:


Consequences. They happen.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-10, 11:33 AM
But that's not what you advocated. He's saying the sociopathic hobo who murders people on sight for their pocket change/loot, particularly when they've made a snap judgement based on race, is more annoying than the potentially loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries.

And adventurers DO tend to die swift, horribly messy deaths on a routine basis.

Combining the "loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky fingered pest" with the adventuring profession should only do terrible things to the projected lifespan.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-10, 12:09 PM
*chuckle* D&D adventurers are peripatetic murder-hobos who stab different-looking strangers for pocket change. That's the core concept of the game.

That said, that's not what I'm saying. Here:



Kender, as a race, have characteristics which lead them into conflict with others. Characteristics of the "loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky-fingered pest who has no concept of personal boundaries" variety. When they engage in those behaviors, it does not matter whether we empathize, understand, or care about why they do it. They still do it. And when they do it, and I don't want them to do it, then my response to their actions is to stab them until they stop doing it.

Or, to put my argument in its most succinct form:


And adventurers DO tend to die swift, horribly messy deaths on a routine basis.

Combining the "loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky fingered pest" with the adventuring profession should only do terrible things to the projected lifespan.

Well sure, that's fine. But 'kills random strangers for pocket change' is not inherently a superior archetype to 'childish intrusive kleptomaniac'. They are both annoying and disruptive to campaigns, and both should suffer the logical consequences of their actions (death).

VanBuren
2012-07-10, 02:14 PM
Ah. Cultural relativism, tolerance, and empathy. Three subjects my sword has no interest in.

Even if their behavior is not deliberate, that doesn't mean I or anyone who doesn't like it is obligated to put up with it. I don't need to understand them. I just need to know that I enjoy the world better when it's full of dead kender instead of live ones, and that I have the capacity to replace live kender with dead kender.

Or, put another way, there's nothing about kender which makes it so that I have to accept their behavior while they don't have to accept mine.

Consequences. They happen.

One could say the same about genocide. :smallwink:

Actually, I think a Paladin might be more comfortable with the troublesome-but-good-natured Kender than a character who finds wiping them out to be the optimal solution. Maybe. Probably depends on the Kender.

Gnoman
2012-07-10, 04:38 PM
Here's the thing that everyone seems to forget about kender. Kender do not steal. They don't see something that someone else has, and decide that they simply must have it. It's supposed to be that they notice something interesting, simply must have a closer look at it, and they just have a tendency to absently-mindedly tuck it in their pouches as they move on to the next interesting thing. They do have a tendency to lift things from other people, but there is never any intent of theft. "Borrowing" isn't a euphemism. It's what they truly intend to do. They just forget to give it back, because they forgot they borrowed it in the first place.

Any kender in my group would not be allowed to make pickpocket rolls intentionally (unless, of course, there's good RP for it.) Instead, I would mix their rolls into my normal DM rolls, and they would occasionally find new objects in their inventory. (Or, they'd fail the roll and get caught with their hand in the King's pocket.) That fits the lore better than anything I've ever seen.

Yukitsu
2012-07-10, 04:57 PM
Here's the thing that everyone seems to forget about kender. Kender do not steal. They don't see something that someone else has, and decide that they simply must have it. It's supposed to be that they notice something interesting, simply must have a closer look at it, and they just have a tendency to absently-mindedly tuck it in their pouches as they move on to the next interesting thing. They do have a tendency to lift things from other people, but there is never any intent of theft. "Borrowing" isn't a euphemism. It's what they truly intend to do. They just forget to give it back, because they forgot they borrowed it in the first place.

Any kender in my group would not be allowed to make pickpocket rolls intentionally (unless, of course, there's good RP for it.) Instead, I would mix their rolls into my normal DM rolls, and they would occasionally find new objects in their inventory. (Or, they'd fail the roll and get caught with their hand in the King's pocket.) That fits the lore better than anything I've ever seen.

That's still stealing. Even if someone pulled that and was legitimately telling the truth, I'd still call the cops, and they'd still be arrested.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-10, 05:04 PM
Here's the thing that everyone seems to forget about kender. Kender do not steal. They don't see something that someone else has, and decide that they simply must have it. It's supposed to be that they notice something interesting, simply must have a closer look at it, and they just have a tendency to absently-mindedly tuck it in their pouches as they move on to the next interesting thing. They do have a tendency to lift things from other people, but there is never any intent of theft. "Borrowing" isn't a euphemism. It's what they truly intend to do. They just forget to give it back, because they forgot they borrowed it in the first place.

Any kender in my group would not be allowed to make pickpocket rolls intentionally (unless, of course, there's good RP for it.) Instead, I would mix their rolls into my normal DM rolls, and they would occasionally find new objects in their inventory. (Or, they'd fail the roll and get caught with their hand in the King's pocket.) That fits the lore better than anything I've ever seen.

Just because their racial delusion combines kleptomania with short-term memory loss doesn't make it any less stealing. If I, say, huff so much toxic gas that I think I'm handing my friends delicious lollipops when I'm actually setting them on fire with a flamethrower, I am still murdering people.

Yukitsu
2012-07-10, 05:21 PM
Just because their racial delusion combines kleptomania with short-term memory loss doesn't make it any less stealing. If I, say, huff so much toxic gas that I think I'm handing my friends delicious lollipops when I'm actually setting them on fire with a flamethrower, I am still murdering people.

If it's the goggles you're referencing here, the lollipop was the axe. :smalltongue:

VanBuren
2012-07-10, 06:01 PM
Here's the thing that everyone seems to forget about kender. Kender do not steal. They don't see something that someone else has, and decide that they simply must have it. It's supposed to be that they notice something interesting, simply must have a closer look at it, and they just have a tendency to absently-mindedly tuck it in their pouches as they move on to the next interesting thing. They do have a tendency to lift things from other people, but there is never any intent of theft. "Borrowing" isn't a euphemism. It's what they truly intend to do. They just forget to give it back, because they forgot they borrowed it in the first place.

Any kender in my group would not be allowed to make pickpocket rolls intentionally (unless, of course, there's good RP for it.) Instead, I would mix their rolls into my normal DM rolls, and they would occasionally find new objects in their inventory. (Or, they'd fail the roll and get caught with their hand in the King's pocket.) That fits the lore better than anything I've ever seen.

In other words, it is stealing. Just not ill-intentioned.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-10, 06:18 PM
If it's the goggles you're referencing here, the lollipop was the axe. :smalltongue:

I got my point across, close enough.:smallbiggrin:

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-10, 06:39 PM
Just because their racial delusion combines kleptomania with short-term memory loss doesn't make it any less stealing. If I, say, huff so much toxic gas that I think I'm handing my friends delicious lollipops when I'm actually setting them on fire with a flamethrower, I am still murdering people.

Meet the Pyro?

Aneurin
2012-07-10, 07:01 PM
Just because their racial delusion combines kleptomania with short-term memory loss doesn't make it any less stealing. If I, say, huff so much toxic gas that I think I'm handing my friends delicious lollipops when I'm actually setting them on fire with a flamethrower, I am still murdering people.

Well, actually, no. No, you're not. You're killing them, yes, but not murdering; and a court of law (in theory) would not convict you for murder. A bunch of other stuff, sure, but it's really not the same as murder.


That's still stealing. Even if someone pulled that and was legitimately telling the truth, I'd still call the cops, and they'd still be arrested.

Are you telling us that you've never picked something up, and forgotten you had it? Even if you took it back when you remembered? Because that's what kender do - they just don't remember where they got the things. If they did, they'd give them back. And they do get arrested, do get in to trouble, and quite often do get killed. It's just that many places find that their citizens get upset if their guards start executing small, child-like creatures.

Besides, this view point assumes that the kender are taking something valuable rather than something interesting. They'd rather have a piece of sea-washed glass over a diamond any day of the week.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-10, 07:11 PM
Are you telling us that you've never picked something up, and forgotten you had it? Even if you took it back when you remembered? Because that's what kender do

No, no it isn't. Kender don't just "find things" and "get persecuted". They knowingly take things out of the belongings or off the person of another creature, pocket them and forget they had them and that they were taken from someone else.


Besides, this view point assumes that the kender are taking something valuable rather than something interesting. They'd rather have a piece of sea-washed glass over a diamond any day of the week.

Now that's just fallacious. The source book fluff says that they could find the sea glass as interesting as the diamond and are just as likely to "borrow" either item.

Yukitsu
2012-07-10, 07:38 PM
Are you telling us that you've never picked something up, and forgotten you had it? Even if you took it back when you remembered? Because that's what kender do - they just don't remember where they got the things. If they did, they'd give them back. And they do get arrested, do get in to trouble, and quite often do get killed. It's just that many places find that their citizens get upset if their guards start executing small, child-like creatures.

No I haven't. I don't pick other people's stuff up. I certainly wouldn't feel sorry for you if you were rude enough to pick up something of mine without asking, forgot to return it, and I told the cops you'd stolen it.

Gnoman
2012-07-10, 07:41 PM
"Stealing" is "That's a cool knife you have. IT WILL BE MINE!" What Kender do is "Hey, that's a neat-liiking knife. He's not using it, so he won't mind me having a look at it." Later it's "Hey, I found this neat knife in my pouch!" There is no intentional act of theft, any more than there is when someone flips through a book that's on my shelf. Kender simply have short attention spans and a very different notion of personal space than is standard.

Yukitsu
2012-07-10, 07:41 PM
"Stealing" is "That's a cool knife you have. IT WILL BE MINE!" What Kender do is "Hey, that's a neat-liiking knife. He's not using it, so he won't mind me having a look at it." Later it's "Hey, I found this neat knife in my pouch!" There is no intentional act of theft, any more than there is when someone flips through a book that's on my shelf. Kender simply have short attention spans and a very different notion of personal space than is standard.

I still don't care, and the cops still don't care.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-10, 08:11 PM
Well, actually, no. No, you're not. You're killing them, yes, but not murdering; and a court of law (in theory) would not convict you for murder. A bunch of other stuff, sure, but it's really not the same as murder.


No, but I would be found not guilty by reasons of insanity, and still locked away. I would not be let off scot-free to continue 'giving people lollipops' just because I didn't know what I was doing, the way people here seem to expect of those victimized by kender.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-11, 11:20 AM
"Stealing" is "That's a cool knife you have. IT WILL BE MINE!" What Kender do is "Hey, that's a neat-liiking knife. He's not using it, so he won't mind me having a look at it." Later it's "Hey, I found this neat knife in my pouch!" There is no intentional act of theft, any more than there is when someone flips through a book that's on my shelf. Kender simply have short attention spans and a very different notion of personal space than is standard.

I feel like this explanation would not get me very far with the cops if I was using this logic to explain why my pockets are full of random things from a store that I didn't pay for.

Menteith
2012-07-11, 11:22 AM
I feel like this explanation would not get me very far with the cops if I was using this logic to explain why my pockets are full of random things from a store that I didn't pay for.

And in a world with a significantly faster and more visceral justice system, the continued existence of the race boggles the mind.

Shatteredtower
2012-07-11, 12:04 PM
And in a world with a significantly faster and more visceral justice system, the continued existence of the race boggles the mind.

If it's one that hadn't adapted to the nature of kender, sure. It's amazing what other people, from entirely different backgrounds than yours, have adapted to in the course of their lives.

Aneurin
2012-07-11, 01:19 PM
No, but I would be found not guilty by reasons of insanity, and still locked away. I would not be let off scot-free to continue 'giving people lollipops' just because I didn't know what I was doing, the way people here seem to expect of those victimized by kender.

A psychiatric ward isn't quite the same thing as prison, though. It does say that kender caught handling are escorted from the city, placed in prison or both. I strongly suspect that a good IC reason kender are not simply but to death is that kender bear an uncanny resemblance to a young half-elf - or to a poor observer, even a regular human child - and a guardsman executing a child by mistake is quite likely to kick off a riot.


No, no it isn't. Kender don't just "find things" and "get persecuted". They knowingly take things out of the belongings or off the person of another creature, pocket them and forget they had them and that they were taken from someone else.

They have no concept of ownership, and it says as much in the fluff. In their society, everything belongs to everyone. They have no sense of personal boundaries. There are examples of real-world cultures with these beliefs, too. I believe some sects of Buddhist monks follow them.

The issues that arise between kender and non-kender are (presumably) that the vastly more materialistic and proprietal humanoid societies don't follow these beliefs, and the kender cannot grasp the concept of not sharing everything without thinking about it.


Now that's just fallacious. The source book fluff says that they could find the sea glass as interesting as the diamond and are just as likely to "borrow" either item.

No, it doesn't. It says they're more likely to be interested in the feather of a goat-sucker bird than a sapphire. Actually, the precise wording is nonsense, but I think that's the gist of it.


No I haven't. I don't pick other people's stuff up. I certainly wouldn't feel sorry for you if you were rude enough to pick up something of mine without asking, forgot to return it, and I told the cops you'd stolen it.

Really? Because I've had plenty of people do it to me, and I do it back fairly often. Not out of malice, not out of anything other than forgetfulness. I nearly walked off with someone's keys once because I thought they'd been left by accident, then forgot I had them by the time I found their owner. They weren't upset, just like I wouldn't have been. There's no reason to get upset, just because someone had a generous impulse followed by forgetfulness. It's irritating, perhaps, but there's no nastiness to it.



Don't get me wrong here, I'm not arguing that kender should never face consequences to their actions or anything like that. There should be roleplaying consequences, because they're what makes the game interesting. I'm just trying to point out loop holes in the "kender are horrible, horrible monsters that deserve to die" arguments.

I agree that their fluff is poorly written, and hasn't been all that well thought through; the traits presented are far too exaggerated. Then again, maybe they have to be to make sure the idea comes across properly to readers. But I don't think the fluff is poorly written enough to justify instant loathing. Hating them based on how you've seen the portrayed by other players is more sensible, but still not entirely justified; you may as well hate, say, female characters, because they're often portrayed by men - and you have most often see them portrayed by men who have no idea how a woman would actually realistically react to a given situation (the busty, ditsy elf wizardess princess archetype's a good example here).

Like anything, kender can be well roleplayed and poorly roleplayed. What matters is the player. Some people can make a bog standard human fighter loathsome and detestable to the rest of the gaming group, while some can make a mute house plant the most exciting and memorable member of the party.

Yukitsu
2012-07-11, 01:22 PM
If it's one that hadn't adapted to the nature of kender, sure. It's amazing what other people, from entirely different backgrounds than yours, have adapted to in the course of their lives.

People who have to deal with them, shoot at badgers every day. We don't tolerate people or critters who try to take things from us all that well, and we don't adapt to ignore them. We adapt by getting more accurate guns. Seeing people do it isn't really any better, we adapt to thieves by getting better guns and arresting more of them, not by getting used to getting robbed.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-11, 02:03 PM
A psychiatric ward isn't quite the same thing as prison, though. It does say that kender caught handling are escorted from the city, placed in prison or both. I strongly suspect that a good IC reason kender are not simply but to death is that kender bear an uncanny resemblance to a young half-elf - or to a poor observer, even a regular human child - and a guardsman executing a child by mistake is quite likely to kick off a riot.

Well, a psychiatric ward and a prison aren't quite the same thing NOW, in the modern day. In olden types? Yeah, they were.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-11, 02:41 PM
heck, sometimes the prisons were healthier and more humane.

Aneurin
2012-07-11, 02:47 PM
Well, a psychiatric ward and a prison aren't quite the same thing NOW, in the modern day. In olden types? Yeah, they were.

Nah. Prisons were much nicer.

Besides, my point was more that it's a different response than any kind of commentary on psychiatric or penal institutions.

Kish
2012-07-11, 03:43 PM
"Wipe out or enslave the kender" has been a pretty consistent goal of all the major villains of the setting.

It appears some people here have a problem with that goal being treated as villainous, but it's not like no one's thought of it or like the setting's never addressed it.

McNum
2012-07-11, 04:23 PM
I never played with a Kender, so I don't know them too much. I'm kind of wanting to play a Kender Paladin now, though. That's either the best idea ever or the worst. Not entirely sure which.

oblivion6
2012-07-11, 06:02 PM
I never played with a Kender, so I don't know them too much. I'm kind of wanting to play a Kender Paladin now, though. That's either the best idea ever or the worst. Not entirely sure which.

thats a very hilarious thought:smallamused:

LibraryOgre
2012-07-11, 11:42 PM
I never played with a Kender, so I don't know them too much. I'm kind of wanting to play a Kender Paladin now, though. That's either the best idea ever or the worst. Not entirely sure which.

In one of the short story collections, there was a story of a kender who tried to become a Knight of Solamnia.

Shatteredtower
2012-07-12, 12:13 AM
People who have to deal with them, shoot at badgers every day.

Badgers aren't people. Kender are.


We don't tolerate people or critters who try to take things from us all that well, and we don't adapt to ignore them.

See, the problem is that you think of yourself as we, then you compound your mistake by thinking of we as they.

My own view on a theft has always been this: so long as you appreciate what you stole and the loss won't ruin my health or livelihood, it's something I can accept. If you stole it to destroy it, or rid yourself of it by means of sale or purchase, or just to deny me what you took, then I have an issue with you. And if you took what was mine and I know you'd give it back upon request, why should that be a problem for me or anyone else? I don't expect you to share my view, but there's no reason a society must adhere to yours either.


We adapt by getting more accurate guns.

I'm sure some people do that, but they're the sort we laugh at when Yosemite Sam appears in a cartoon.


Seeing people do it isn't really any better, we adapt to thieves by getting better guns and arresting more of them, not by getting used to getting robbed.

Kender aren't thieves any more than someone that accidentally walked off with your property is a thief, regardless of what the law has to saw about the matter. (If you let judges and lawyers dictate reality to you, that's your problem.) Kender interact with people mature enough to realize that the kender display no ill intent in their actions and are generally easy enough to get along with for those who can tolerate a minor nuisance. They aren't depriving people of life support, and anything they might take can be regained with much ease as it takes to ask a question that starts, "Would you happen to have--?"

If that's so much harder for you than having to call in policemen or draw firearms, the problem isn't with kender.

If you gave one cause for needing the shirt of his back, he'd give it to you without a second thought... and likely never remember to ask for it back. Kender are not parasites. They're perfectly capable of sustaining themselves at least as well as any other humanoid race, and they've no reason to begrudge anyone that comes looking for a meal or a place to stay. I know most players don't think in those terms, but their society does. That's not alien behaviour to this planet, not when compared to old rules for hospitality or dealing with such things as elves.

Remember, this is a world where the gods smacked down a theocracy for pursuing a war of extermination against ogres and goblins. I doubt they were going to look that kindly upon people willing to kill another species over something as petty as a misplaced stamp collection.

Yukitsu
2012-07-12, 12:34 AM
Shortened

The judges and lawyers state that you'd still be a thief entirely because we don't want to have to deal with the rest of you lot "accidentally walking off" with our stuff. It doesn't matter that you don't like it, since the rest of us have all agreed by social contract that we don't want people walking off with our stuff, and since it isn't your stuff, it isn't your decision.

Menteith
2012-07-12, 12:39 AM
My own view on a theft has always been this: so long as you appreciate what you stole and the loss won't ruin my health or livelihood, it's something I can accept. If you stole it to destroy it, or rid yourself of it by means of sale or purchase, or just to deny me what you took, then I have an issue with you. And if you took what was mine and I know you'd give it back upon request, why should that be a problem for me or anyone else? I don't expect you to share my view, but there's no reason a society must adhere to yours either.

As someone who's actually been the victim of (uninsured) theft, I'm going to disagree strongly with you on that one. I don't have many possessions, and I don't have the means to replace them if they're gone. Losing something like my laptop significantly affects my life, in both a professional and personal sense. Even if someone steals something like a well-loved book, that's a luxury I might not be able to afford or find again. These don't have to be very expensive things - there are many things in my apartment that aren't valuable for their monetary value, but for personal reasons. I'm willing to accept the idea that a person may have a fixed compulsion or tendency toward kleptomania - they may have no malice behind their actions. They're still intruding into my life, and significantly worsening it because they're unable to control themselves. End of the day, I can pity them, but I'd still hate their actions, and if they refused to try and change or control themselves, I'd probably hate them too, for entering and destroying parts of my life. So yeah, I don't really care that they don't see it as stealing, when the result is the exact same.

Morithias
2012-07-12, 12:48 AM
From what I can see, the major trade with Kender and normal halfling is -2 wis, and lose bonus on listen, climb, jump, and move silent for +2 on open lock and sleight of hand, and the fearless trait.

In all seriousness I cannot recall the last time I ever got asked for a climb or jump check, and as a rogue those two +2 are pretty important. The -2 to wisdom hurts but it's not a major game changer for rogues.

And the "affected Kender" are nothing short of awesome, you get the +2 to climb, jump, and move silent back. Another +2 to hide in addition to being small and you're a halfling which means if you reach 10 in rogue levels you qualify for the sniper variant in races of wild.

A dark affected kender has +14 racial bonus to hide at level 2. Not to mention a great dex score and likely ranks in hide. They make AWESOME snipers and assassins.

Really if I ever played a Kender, you should be less worried about him robbing you and more worried that someone will pay him to slash your throat when you're asleep. The Dark Affected Kender plus any of the death attack classes are just deadly.

Of course people do hate Kender for the fluff, but really is that any different than people who hate the elves for being all "HIEL ELVES WE ARE SUPERIOR TO YOU!". You're hating the fluff and completely ignoring the crunch.

At least the Kender aren't outclassed in every way by Humans.

Jan Mattys
2012-07-12, 03:45 AM
The way I see it, the problem with Kender and consistency is that in a world where Beholders and Dragons are much real stuff, a race that combines curiosity and fearlessness should have a lifespan in the order of minutes.

That's the main problem, imho.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-12, 08:34 AM
"Wipe out or enslave the kender" has been a pretty consistent goal of all the major villains of the setting.

It appears some people here have a problem with that goal being treated as villainous, but it's not like no one's thought of it or like the setting's never addressed it.

Look, it's not that archvillains need to genocide the entire race. That's...over the top.

It's more that they should consistently end up on the wrong side of conflicts because stealing provokes punishment. As a race, they should be actively dying the hell off.

In a world filled with danger, their reaction to strange things is to go up and poke them, or wander off with it's shiny things. This is the opposite of a survival skill.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-12, 12:40 PM
They have no concept of ownership, and it says as much in the fluff. In their society, everything belongs to everyone. They have no sense of personal boundaries. There are examples of real-world cultures with these beliefs, too. I believe some sects of Buddhist monks follow them.

The issues that arise between kender and non-kender are (presumably) that the vastly more materialistic and proprietal humanoid societies don't follow these beliefs, and the kender cannot grasp the concept of not sharing everything without thinking about it.


That in no way counters my point. The way you worded your post was that Kender always just find things on the ground and are persecuted for it. Kender steal most anything that catches their eye, they just rationalize it else wise and have the attention span to completely forget their crime at the drop of a hat.




No, it doesn't. It says they're more likely to be interested in the feather of a goat-sucker bird than a sapphire. Actually, the precise wording is nonsense, but I think that's the gist of it.

The precise wording is non-sense, but I still read it as framing a Kender's behavior to be attracted both to the feather and the sapphire and would lead them to appropriate either given the window of opportunity and the interest.


Edit:




At least the Kender aren't outclassed in every way by Humans.

If you're talking crunch here...this should be blue text.

JoeMac307
2012-07-12, 01:05 PM
I wasn't even aware that people still play in the Dragonlance setting, let alone still play Kender.

Is there still a lot of interest in Dragonlance out there? I loved the novels growing up, but I never actually purchased or played the campaign, for any edition.

How is the 3rd edition sourcebook? Is it well written? (It's third party, right? Sovereign Press?)

Morithias
2012-07-12, 01:11 PM
If you're talking crunch here...this should be blue text.

I thought blue text was for sarcasm....in my opinion a Kender makes a better sniper/assassin than a human. Unlike the high elves who quite frankly SUCK for any kind of optimization, and the only reason they rule half of the settings like Faerun is that the writers have a creator's pet mentality for them.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-12, 01:13 PM
I thought blue text was for sarcasm....in my opinion a Kender makes a better sniper/assassin than a human. Unlike the high elves who quite frankly SUCK for any kind of optimization, and the only reason they rule half of the settings like Faerun is that the writers have a creator's pet mentality for them.

Humans pretty much curb nearly any race when it comes from an optimization stand point. Thus my comment over sarcasm being required, but there are always a few exceptions to the rule. *shrug*

Morithias
2012-07-12, 01:17 PM
Humans pretty much curb nearly any race when it comes from an optimization stand point. Thus my comment over sarcasm being required, but there are always a few exceptions to the rule. *shrug*

Well I'm just saying, a 10th level human rogue sniping you takes a -20 penalty to hide and has to hide a move action (and therefore can only get one attack off).

A 10th level halfling rogue with the sniper subtitute level takes a -10 penalty, has a natural +6 bonus to hide to contract that, and can hide as a FREE action, meaning they can full attack.

True it is a VERY rare case, and one of the few cases where the affected Kender beats the human, but at least it is a case. I cannot think of a single elf-only prestige class, or class option that isn't easily outdone by something similar but better.

Plus when you're a wizard the -2 to con hurts.

nweismuller
2012-07-13, 07:22 AM
As an addendum to the issues with kender survival: not only are they prone to drift to danger like moths to flame, can you really imagine kender maintaining interest through a plant and harvest cycle? Their personalities are spectacularly poorly suited to a settled economy, and you'd have to be a madman to head to Kendermore to trade. Which more or less disqualifies their homeland from either producing or importing its own food.

Kendermore should have starved to death long ago.

Milo v3
2012-07-13, 08:28 AM
As an addendum to the issues with kender survival: not only are they prone to drift to danger like moths to flame, can you really imagine kender maintaining interest through a plant and harvest cycle? Their personalities are spectacularly poorly suited to a settled economy, and you'd have to be a madman to head to Kendermore to trade. Which more or less disqualifies their homeland from either producing or importing its own food.

Kendermore should have starved to death long ago.

I thought most the Kender in Kendermore were frightened into having normal attention spans by one of those giant dragons.

MrRigger
2012-07-13, 10:04 AM
True it is a VERY rare case, and one of the few cases where the affected Kender beats the human, but at least it is a case. I cannot think of a single elf-only prestige class, or class option that isn't easily outdone by something similar but better.


Eternal Blade from Tome of Battle is pretty awesome, and it's Elf only.

MrRigger

Milo v3
2012-07-13, 10:23 AM
I cannot think of a single elf-only prestige class, or class option that isn't easily outdone by something similar but better.
It is homebrew, but to take levels of Spider Blood Assassin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13089069#post13089069)in the Blades of Blood Campaign you have to be an elf.

Forum Explorer
2012-07-13, 11:17 AM
And adventurers DO tend to die swift, horribly messy deaths on a routine basis.

Combining the "loud, pesky, intrusive, sticky fingered pest" with the adventuring profession should only do terrible things to the projected lifespan.


The way I see it, the problem with Kender and consistency is that in a world where Beholders and Dragons are much real stuff, a race that combines curiosity and fearlessness should have a lifespan in the order of minutes.

That's the main problem, imho.

I think a theory presented in the books by a gnome was that the Kender were not affected by other means of population control. Thus the curiosity+fearlessness was to prevent them from overrunning everything.


"Wipe out or enslave the kender" has been a pretty consistent goal of all the major villains of the setting.

It appears some people here have a problem with that goal being treated as villainous, but it's not like no one's thought of it or like the setting's never addressed it.
When one two of the villains tried the Kender actually fought back enough to either win or make it too difficult to exterminate them. Only the epic dragon succeeded.

Afterall every Kender has class levels :smallbiggrin:


As an addendum to the issues with kender survival: not only are they prone to drift to danger like moths to flame, can you really imagine kender maintaining interest through a plant and harvest cycle? Their personalities are spectacularly poorly suited to a settled economy, and you'd have to be a madman to head to Kendermore to trade. Which more or less disqualifies their homeland from either producing or importing its own food.

Kendermore should have starved to death long ago.

Kender tend to settle down after a while. (Though some like Tasslehoff never do) I know in at least one town the Kender actually formed a guild known as the Finder's Guild. Overall though it is just glazed over and not really discussed. I imagine that all Kender get some skill in living off the land during their travels. Once they settle they use those skills to support themselves and their families.




This is just an anecdote I once heard, and I can in no way verify the validity of it; but I once heard it was because Hickman had a moral objection to a race of thieves (not that all halflings must be thieves, but they do tend to get typecast as such, just as dwarves are usually warriors and gnomes are usually illusionists). So he came up with a race that had thief-like abilities, but didn't actually 'steal.' They just 'borrowed.'

I had heard something similar where it wasn't so much a moral objection as uncomfortable with making. Then somebody else cracked a joke about his neighbor who had 'borrowed' his rake and never gave it back. Everyone loved the idea and they rolled with it.

Morithias
2012-07-13, 01:40 PM
Eternal Blade from Tome of Battle is pretty awesome, and it's Elf only.

MrRigger

Okay I'll give you that one. I don't read ToB much (although ironically I do own it), so I wouldn't know of this one, cause it's not in my databanks from crystal keep.


It is homebrew, but to take levels of Spider Blood Assassin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13089069#post13089069)in the Blades of Blood Campaign you have to be an elf.

Oh yes because home-brew is so legit as examples, give me 5 minutes and I will write up a human only prestige class whose capstone is "touch a person and everyone who is of that race dies without a save".

I call it the "Screw you elves, the humans are in charge now"

Tyndmyr
2012-07-13, 01:47 PM
Grey/fire elves are decent...but I agree, a homebrew class doesn't mean much for this discussion.

Morithias
2012-07-13, 02:17 PM
Grey/fire elves are decent...but I agree, a homebrew class doesn't mean much for this discussion.

Even the grey and fire elves have problems in my opinion. Everyone quotes the grey elf as some awesome wizard cause it has +2 int and +2 dex ignoring it's -2 con even though there is a MUCH MUCH better race out there for wizards.

...the lesser tiefling, no con pen, and no la, still gets the +2 dex and +2 int, and only hit it takes is to charisma, which let's face it 99% of wizard don't need.

I don't know the fire elves stats, I'll check them out and say what I think on them in second.

Edit: +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma

Again, lesser tiefling does all that without the crappy -2 con.

I'm just saying, at least the halfling kender have a situation where they are the best of the best of the best, sniping. Even the elves people use to defend the elves are easily outdone by the lesser tiefling. There is a reason why the court mage of the biggest country in my setting is a tiefling and not an elf. Tieflings make better wizard than elves.

LibraryOgre
2012-07-13, 02:17 PM
I thought blue text was for sarcasm....in my opinion a Kender makes a better sniper/assassin than a human. Unlike the high elves who quite frankly SUCK for any kind of optimization, and the only reason they rule half of the settings like Faerun is that the writers have a creator's pet mentality for them.

You are confusing game stats... of one edition of the game... for the game world reality, most of which was written before that edition of the game was conceived.

In the case of Dragonlance? Elves were the first or second race (aside from Dragons). They didn't have meaningful level limits in the earlier editions of the game... a cap on some fighter-class levels, but everyone had a level 18 cap in 1st edition. They started with a massive head start over humans, who tended to decimate their own populations every so often.

In Forgotten Realms? They built upon the ruined Giant and Dragon kingdoms, having come to the Realms from another world... meaning they got to start fresh, with good technology (mundane and magical), and relatively little organized opposition. While they eventually (in 2e) hit level caps, they also had a couple special types of magic, including Elven High Magic, which was a potent force in the world.

View the worlds from a 1st/2nd edition perspective, for which they were primarily developed. With the relatively lower importance of stats in 1e and 2e (and the wide "no effect" sections in stats), their +1 Dex -1 to Con was frequently of no issue, especially if you could arrange your stats at will. Remember that, in 2nd edition, playing a 7 Constitution was statistically quite similar to a 14 Constitution... there were no HP modifiers, and the larger gaps in System Shock and Ressurection Survival percentages (about 30%) seldom came up. Elves even had a minimum Constitution score, which ensured that only the weakest had HP penalties.
On top of this, they got bonuses with some of the most powerful weapons in the game (Long swords, short swords, and bows... bows being the ticket to 2 attacks a round at 1st level, and doing the same damage as a sword in the hands of anyone of a strength between 8 and 15), near-invisibility in wilderness settings (their stealth skills were functionally the same as being invisible), and near-immunity to spells that knocked people out or caused them to change sides (90% immunity, PLUS a saving if everyone else got them). Oh, and they could be multi-classed, and their fighter/mages could wear armor without penalty (in 2e, this was scaled back to just two specific types of racial armor).
Yes, they had level limits. In 1e, they topped out at 11th level magic-user. In 2e, it was 15 (but that was a "soft 15", given the number of core suggestions for ignoring or overcoming level limits). But they started from such a radically powerful base that elves would have a hard time NOT being a dominant race wherever they went.

In 1e and 2e, the rules under which these settings were developed, elves were powerful creatures, especially compared to humans. If we'd seen those elves in 3e... a free +1 to four weapons, instead of a free proficiency (useless to those who train in weapons, and not terribly useful to those with other abilities). SR 18 vs. several useful spells instead of a generic +2. An effective invisibility at will if they don't wear metal armor. ... then elves wouldn't be sneered at because they have -1 to HP and one save, but a +1 to AC, another save, and to-hit with ranged or finessable weapons.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-13, 02:37 PM
Even the grey and fire elves have problems in my opinion. Everyone quotes the grey elf as some awesome wizard cause it has +2 int and +2 dex ignoring it's -2 con even though there is a MUCH MUCH better race out there for wizards.

I've played one as a wizard, and I admit I took improved toughness to balance out the con score(rolled poorly). It was quite a viable choice, but being two feats down from a human is...pretty noticeable at times. The human can select Spellcasting Prodigy as it's first level feat and basically be straight up better than the grey elf.

LibraryOgre
2012-07-13, 03:41 PM
FWIW, I threw together a 2e version of elves in 3e terms on Homebrew (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13549923#post13549923), to illustrate my point regarding why elves in earlier editions were pretty awesome.

Yukitsu
2012-07-13, 03:57 PM
I'd rather take the -2 con over the -2 charisma honestly. If I don't do anything retarded, I don't need the HP, and I need high charisma to properly bind things.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-13, 06:52 PM
Oh yes because home-brew is so legit as examples, give me 5 minutes and I will write up a human only prestige class whose capstone is "touch a person and everyone who is of that race dies without a save".

I call it the "Screw you elves, the humans are in charge now"

That was ridiculously uncalled for. :smallannoyed:

Milo v3
2012-07-13, 07:23 PM
Oh yes because home-brew is so legit as examples, give me 5 minutes and I will write up a human only prestige class whose capstone is "touch a person and everyone who is of that race dies without a save".

I call it the "Screw you elves, the humans are in charge now"

Firstly, I said that it is homebrew, knowing it doesn't have much grounds.
Secondly, the class I linked is actually balanced not an instant win.
Thirdly, the reason it is Elf only is because of Fluff.
Lastly, there is no reason to be rude.

Morithias
2012-07-13, 07:41 PM
That was ridiculously uncalled for. :smallannoyed:

Sorry


Firstly, I said that it is homebrew, knowing it doesn't have much grounds.
Secondly, the class I linked is actually balanced not an instant win.
Thirdly, the reason it is Elf only is because of Fluff.
Lastly, there is no reason to be rude.

Firstly: I can't read sarcasm on the internet. That's why we use blue text.
Secondly: I don't really have an argument to that.
Thirdly: If it's only elf because of fluff, and I'm not allowed to dislike it based on that fluff, why is everyone else allowed to hate Kender due to fluff? Hypocritical much?

Okay, I was a bit rude, but I was going more for snark. I think I need to work on my typing and grammar before I try Spoony-style sarcastic replies on this forum.

Still people hate Kender due to fluff, I hate Elves due to fluff and crunch. Mainly the fact that a lot of fluff an crunch doesn't add up. Which in my opinion makes my hatred of elves more justified. Not that all elves are bad character, I'm just saying. You can say not every elf is an arrogant racist bastard, I can say not every Kender is an insane OCD kleptomaniac.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-13, 07:47 PM
SThirdly: If it's only elf because of fluff, and I'm not allowed to dislike it based on that fluff, why is everyone else allowed to hate Kender due to fluff? Hypocritical much?

I don't see the hypocrisy in it anywhere. That campaign setting limited the class to being used by elves for fluff reasons, he was pointing it out as an example of elves getting nice things (which, as homebrew, doesn't hold as much ground as written published material, but most GiTP homebrew ends up being better than published materials regardless).

No one said you can't dislike Elves and Milo never said he disliked Kender and loved Elves and you were wrong for saying "Elves suck". He was pointing out how a setting he knew had something nice for elves. Absolutely no hypocrisy.



Still people hate Kender due to fluff, I hate Elves due to fluff and crunch. Mainly the fact that a lot of fluff an crunch doesn't add up. Which in my opinion makes my hatred of elves more justified. Not that all elves are bad character, I'm just saying. You can say not every elf is an arrogant racist bastard, I can say not every Kender is an insane OCD kleptomaniac.

Once again, no one here said you were wrong in disliking elves.

Milo v3
2012-07-13, 08:28 PM
Firstly: I can't read sarcasm on the internet. That's why we use blue text.
I wasn't being sarcastic.


Thirdly: If it's only elf because of fluff, and I'm not allowed to dislike it based on that fluff, why is everyone else allowed to hate Kender due to fluff? Hypocritical much?
Firstly, you can dislike the fluff, I never said you can't. Its campaign specific fluff because other people might not like that. If your not playing the Blades of Keran setting you can disregard that bit of fluff. Thats why it is at the End of the post.


Still people hate Kender due to fluff, I hate Elves due to fluff and crunch. Mainly the fact that a lot of fluff an crunch doesn't add up. Which in my opinion makes my hatred of elves more justified. Not that all elves are bad character, I'm just saying. You can say not every elf is an arrogant racist bastard, I can say not every Kender is an insane OCD kleptomaniac.
I never said you can't hate elves, and I actually love the Kender Fluff and Crunch and would allow One of my players to use the race (He is the only one I'd trust to not try and abuse it).

Tyndmyr
2012-07-16, 10:14 AM
I don't see the hypocrisy in it anywhere. That campaign setting limited the class to being used by elves for fluff reasons, he was pointing it out as an example of elves getting nice things (which, as homebrew, doesn't hold as much ground as written published material, but most GiTP homebrew ends up being better than published materials regardless).

No one said you can't dislike Elves and Milo never said he disliked Kender and loved Elves and you were wrong for saying "Elves suck". He was pointing out how a setting he knew had something nice for elves. Absolutely no hypocrisy.

Yeah, but it's not an official setting, so it doesn't really matter much for a discussion of "why are elves so dominant in the published settings" discussion.

It's...just irrelevant.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 11:58 AM
Yeah, but it's not an official setting, so it doesn't really matter much for a discussion of "why are elves so dominant in the published settings" discussion.

It's...just irrelevant.

And?

The argument was over claimed hypocrisy.

And since this thread is in the Roleplaying subforum and not one of its specific sub-sub-forums, the thread is, by definition, open for all roleplaying games and editions for discussion.

So while, as I already noted, in a discussion of just printed campaign settings and materials Milo's anecdote holds little to no ground, in a larger scope it's as valid a point as any to make.

Kish
2012-07-16, 12:20 PM
I'm not even clear on what the point is supposed to be. "The writer of this homebrew prestige class likes elves"?

Understand, I like, or at least am neutral on, elves. I only hate one D&D race, one obnoxiously overpowered, bland, personality-free D&D race who most players don't even question should get to run everything just because they do...and that race is humans. I still don't know what "There exists this homebrew elf-only prestige class" is supposed to prove.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 01:27 PM
I'm not even clear on what the point is supposed to be. "The writer of this homebrew prestige class likes elves"?

Understand, I like, or at least am neutral on, elves. I only hate one D&D race, one obnoxiously overpowered, bland, personality-free D&D race who most players don't even question should get to run everything just because they do...and that race is humans. I still don't know what "There exists this homebrew elf-only prestige class" is supposed to prove.



I cannot think of a single elf-only prestige class, or class option that isn't easily outdone by something similar but better.

Those were Mori's exact words. Note how he didn't explicitly say that he was talking about printed only material, even though one could infer that.

Milo then linked to a base class he had created that, in a specific setting, was limited to elves via fluff.

Thus, his anecdotal evidence proved contrary to Mori's generalized, nondescript comment concerning options for elves.

Mori then jumped down Milo's throat, said something that was an unfair blanket statement concerning homebrew in general and then accused Milo of perceived hypocrisy that just wasn't there.

What was proven was that saying "Nothing good for just elves exists" is untrue.
But the folks waving away anything homebrew are thinking along the lines of "Nothing good for elves was officially printed", which was never explicitly originally said and has only come out through further discussion.

HunterOfJello
2012-07-16, 01:37 PM
My players killed a highly helpful Half-Orc Fighter/Rogue with slight anger issues after he attacked the druid's badger in our last session. I think they'd attempt to kill a Kender much faster.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-16, 01:53 PM
Those were Mori's exact words. Note how he didn't explicitly say that he was talking about printed only material, even though one could infer that.

Milo then linked to a base class he had created that, in a specific setting, was limited to elves via fluff.

Thus, his anecdotal evidence proved contrary to Mori's generalized, nondescript comment concerning options for elves.

Given that we were talking about extant settings, the context is clearly one that homebrew would not apply to.


Mori then jumped down Milo's throat, said something that was an unfair blanket statement concerning homebrew in general and then accused Milo of perceived hypocrisy that just wasn't there.

I couldn't care less about the hypocrisy stuff. Not interesting, or even really relevant to the elf point.


What was proven was that saying "Nothing good for just elves exists" is untrue.
But the folks waving away anything homebrew are thinking along the lines of "Nothing good for elves was officially printed", which was never explicitly originally said and has only come out through further discussion.

Homebrew is irrelevant to discussing official settings, though. And, unless you've actually published your homebrew setting, it's a bit egotistical and unfounded to think that blanket statements about existing settings include yours. Sure, I've got a setting of my own, in which elves have some non-standard stuff. Whatever. It's not important to this discussion, since it's not something everyone can reasonably have access to.

And if you include all homebrew without reservation, then all statements about the game become meaningless, because you can basically find at least SOME terrible drek out there to support whatever you want...or add it. So, no, homebrew is not at all legitimate in general "why is the game this way" discussions.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 02:05 PM
Given that we were talking about extant settings, the context is clearly one that homebrew would not apply to.

For Kender, yes. But not for Elves. He made a simple, blanket statement for elves in general.




I couldn't care less about the hypocrisy stuff. Not interesting, or even really relevant to the elf point.

Then why reply? The discussion moved past the simple "elves don't get any good options" and "elves have no reason to always be the dominant race when they're mechanically inferior to a plethora of others" to "you're being a big hypocrite because I see you saying that "Kender suck" and "elves rock" and that I'm "bad wrong" for saying "elves suck" when you're not actually saying that all".




Homebrew is irrelevant to discussing official settings, though. And, unless you've actually published your homebrew setting, it's a bit egotistical and unfounded to think that blanket statements about existing settings include yours. Sure, I've got a setting of my own, in which elves have some non-standard stuff. Whatever. It's not important to this discussion, since it's not something everyone can reasonably have access to.

It's only egotistical if you choose to project those opinions on to other people without any regard for their actual intentions or giving them proper time to explain why they have chosen to interject a comment concerning homebrew when no comments concerning homebrew had yet to be raised.

I reiterate, while the Kender part of this discussion was mostly setting specific (though only because Kender only ever appear in one setting and no one has yet to bring forth anecdotal circumstances where they used Kender in non-Dragonlance games), the elf portion of it never was. So it's quite unfair of you to automatically assume and judge others by that line of thinking when it was never originally stated.


And if you include all homebrew without reservation, then all statements about the game become meaningless, because you can basically find at least SOME terrible drek out there to support whatever you want...or add it. So, no, homebrew is not at all legitimate in general "why is the game this way" discussions.

Now you're just strawmaning.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-16, 02:35 PM
It's only egotistical if you choose to project those opinions on to other people without any regard for their actual intentions or giving them proper time to explain why they have chosen to interject a comment concerning homebrew when no comments concerning homebrew had yet to be raised.

I presume you've already read through discussions of things like why RAW is assumed unless stated otherwise? Homebrew is not RAW.

So, unless stated otherwise, homebrew is not considered part of general "state of the game" discussions. If I say that Wizard PrCs are more powerful than fighter PrCs, the introduction of your homebrew, very powerful, fighter PrC is not really relevant.


I reiterate, while the Kender part of this discussion was mostly setting specific (though only because Kender only ever appear in one setting and no one has yet to bring forth anecdotal circumstances where they used Kender in non-Dragonlance games), the elf portion of it never was. So it's quite unfair of you to automatically assume and judge others by that line of thinking when it was never originally stated.


I thought blue text was for sarcasm....in my opinion a Kender makes a better sniper/assassin than a human. Unlike the high elves who quite frankly SUCK for any kind of optimization, and the only reason they rule half of the settings like Faerun is that the writers have a creator's pet mentality for them.

'cmon...we're talking about official settings here. It was never reasonable to assume that some random homebrew setting was the topic.

Even the poster of the elvish PrC said "Granted, it is homebrew", or something to that effect. He saw an opportunity to plug his PrC, and hey, nothing wrong with that, it's on topic. He's filling a perceived need in the existing material.

But why is there a need? Because sure, the existing settings(in 3.5 only) do indeed tend to accord elves notable stature in setting without justifying this via strong mechanical options. Therefore, both of them are actually looking at the same basic issue in a very similar way.


Now you're just strawmaning.

Not even slightly. The originator of this elven idea had suggested a custom human only class that was even better. This is...obviously a crazy path to go down, is it not? Best we not set foot in such a silly place.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 03:04 PM
{{scrubbed}}

Tyndmyr
2012-07-16, 03:06 PM
That is a very poor defense for your case sir and is honestly very reaching. He said that there are no good prestige classes or class options for elves, never specifying he only meant published material. And while we can assume from his chosen lingo that he specifically meant 3.X edition material, that is simply an assumption and not something that was properly defined by him. The only real thing that got mentioned in the discussion concerning the specific edition being bemoaned about was when someone brought up Eternal Blade.

No...by RAW, published material IS the only material.

It's rules as WRITTEN.

The rest of this is therefore irrelevant.

Edit: As for the dragonlance bit, 3.0 stuff converts to 3.5 automatically by RAW. There's an upgrade guide. Therefore, dragonlance is an official setting for 3.5, albeit one in which some of the source books are printed by a third party.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 03:07 PM
No...by RAW, published material IS the only material.

It's rules as WRITTEN.

The rest of this is therefore irrelevant.

Concession accepted.

Ravens_cry
2012-07-16, 03:14 PM
Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with the 'Homebrew was never meant to be implied to be included.' school of thought.
As pointed out, anything can be homebrewed.
Anything.
For a reasonable discussion to take place, there has to be accepted bounds on what is permissible to be included.
Perhaps they should have been stted better, but I too made the assumption it meant official material only, so it can't be that much of a stretch.
That being said, everyone needs to go chill the <expletive redacted/> down.
Seriously, this is silly to be this contentious about.

Tanuki Tales
2012-07-16, 03:19 PM
Perhaps they should have been stted better, but I too made the assumption it meant official material only, so it can't be that much of a stretch.

Apparently not everyone had though.

I do go into discussions normally assuming most everyone will be talking about published material, but that does pertain to the topic which was at hand and the thread that it was in. And as I said, considering that we were talking about Dragonlance, which didn't even get officially updated, I would go in thinking some stretching of the mind would be at hand.

But regardless of that point, I will not condone some of the behaviors and venom that was leveled when someone innocently brought in homebrew.

Edit:

And honestly, this all started because someone started a tangent concerning the mechanical viability of niche Kender builds when the discussion had almost entirely been concerning their fluff. And then they went to point out mechanic points concerning other races and how they were deficient.



Edit Edit:

But let's just all agree to drop this here and move on and back to topic. Which I will do so here:

Has anyone ever had Kender be part of a setting other than Dragonlance?

LibraryOgre
2012-07-16, 06:20 PM
The Mod Wonder: Without limiting my ability to later come in and scrub and infract people for existing misbehavior, may I suggest that we move away from elves and back to kender?

Ravens_cry
2012-07-16, 07:14 PM
The wonderful thing about Kender,
Is how they look in on a fender,
As their guts spill,
Over yon grill,
For any bad mood they're a mender.

Dappershire
2014-11-10, 12:35 AM
When I was ten, I inherited a large trunk full of comics from the 70's and 80's, and two book series. Keepers of the Flame, and a dozen Dragonlance books. The comics turned me into a nerd, the first series turned me into a role player, and the last turned me into a Kender lover.
Now I'll admit I played it poorly at first. I was ten, thus, I didn't have to roleplay all that much.
But I think that simply having a mature player, who knows all the things everyone hates about Kender, is all you need. They aren't hard to play well. What's hard is finding a mature player who wants to play them. Most experienced RPers have other concepts in mind when they play the roguish role.
I think I'll always cherish the Kender, I'll always leap at the opportunity to play one, and I will see others attempts as the clearest judgement of a players skill and maturity.

Marlowe
2014-11-10, 12:37 AM
kenderphilic threadnomancy detected.

Dragonslave from orbit.

The Glyphstone
2014-11-10, 02:00 AM
Great Modthulhu: I don't know about Kender, but I know that everyone hates thread necromancy.