Same Race Parties: Viable?

[MesiDoomstalker]

One of the great things about D&D, in my personal opinion, is the ability to choose from a huge selection of races, with a mulitude of different abilities, producing even more varied parties from game to game. However, in 3.5, this is not usually the case, as a scant selection of races are strictly better, the most notorious of which is humans.

I have always wanted to play in a campaign focused around one race and it not be Human or Drow (my D&D friends are Drow nuts, they play them all the time, it gets old). The one I want to play in, most of all, is an all Raptoran party (Races of the Wild). I love the flavor of the race and think it has good potential to make a whole game out of it. The race is general enough that it doesn't cripple certain builds and helps many (EX Flight is useful, anyway you slice it).

So Playgrounders, would a party with a single,non-human race be viable? What if the race was 'tweaked' to prevent crippling some class types (such as more freedom with ability scores, rearranging skill bonuses, etc)? What races do you believe have enough flavor that you can generate an entire campaign around them?

[Psyren]

Of course they are - class matters far more than race, and racials matter less and less as you leave low levels behind.

[Gavinfoxx]

Any of the powerful races would work...

Strongheart Halfling
Whisper Gnome
Changeling
Lesser Aasimar
Azurin
Lesser Cansin
Desert Dwarf
Silverbrow Human
Illumian
Lesser Mechanatrix

There is lots of good stuff. If you want the '4 characters' of skills / primary divine caster / primary arcane caster / meleeist, than you might have to be creative about WHICH classes to use -- especially if the race has a wisdom penalty, or a dex penalty or something -- but there is always a class that can do the job for a single race based group...

Look at this list of LA+0/0RHD races:

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1281.0

And there are LOTS of races that would work great for (for example), a class of Warblade, Factotum, Archivist, Wizard (which would be a party for anything with a +2 int without a -2 con or a -2 wis, like Lesser Axani, Lesser Cansin, Deep Imaskari, Lesser Fire Genasi, Wild Gnome, Lesser Mechanatrix, Lesser Smoke Para-Genasi, or Lesser Tiefling).

[Toliudar]

+1. Race barely matters, and if an adventure focuses on one race, the DM can tailor the campaign accordingly. All goblins? No problem. All half-dragons? No problem. All Pseudonatural pixies? Ew, but no problem.

[nedz]

I've run a successful all Dwarf party from level 1 to 18+

We don't see many Sorcerers or Bards, but so what.

[Edea]

Actually, the problems start cropping up when you get players wanting to use -different- races (especially races from different sources, or heaven forbid from Dragon magazine), because then you get into Level Adjustments. The LA system in 3.5 D&D is not executed well, being rife with balance issues (particularly if buyoff's allowed).

An ideal scenario for a DM is, in fact, to have everyone playing the same race. As mentioned previously, it doesn't really matter what the race is. You could all use Titans right out of the Monster Manual, for example, and just start the game as 20 HD outsiders; it'd still be able to work, just as long as all the players use the same thing.

The problem is when one person wants a Titan, another wants a Bronze Dragon, the third wants a Vampire, and a last one wants a regular High Elf.

[Answerer]

Race is an exceptionally minor part of a character in the overwhelming majority of cases. The ability score modifiers are the biggest problem; you can easily solve that by simply picking a race that doesn't have them.

Or one with -Con, since everyone needs Con about the same. +2 Str, -2 Con would actually be ideal in my mind, if I had to have ability modifiers.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I think it would be better to keep it to a certain race; but allow for variants, so if for example you decided on an all gnome party you could have: Whisper Gnomes, Stonehunter Gnomes, Rock Gnome, Forest Gnome, etc.
This way you keep to a theme and still have some variety, the problem is that you would need to keep to mostly core races, as they are the ones with the most variety.

[Yora]

I almost always start all of my campaigns with having the players decide on their shared home community and then start thinking about their race.

If it's a human village on the edge of the elven lands, that makes half-elves okay and there can even be a gnome or two who also are living there.
If they start in an orc camp, than everyone is going to be orc, half-orc, or maybe even a goblin or hobgoblin.
Even in the more drastic case of "you all have to be members of the same elven clan who get send on special missions by the chieftain", you can still make room for one elven-raised human adopted by the chieftains sister or a gnome that has been working as thecastles alchemist for years.

But I never have "An elf, a dwarf, a half-orc, and a tiefling are sitting in a tavern where everyone else is human and 99% of the whole town are humans". That's not how the world that the campaigns are set in works.

[Psyren]

I think it would be better to keep it to a certain race; but allow for variants, so if for example you decided on an all gnome party you could have: Whisper Gnomes, Stonehunter Gnomes, Rock Gnome, Forest Gnome, etc.
This way you keep to a theme and still have some variety, the problem is that you would need to keep to mostly core races, as they are the ones with the most variety.

Yeah I like this idea. Or Elves, and have Moon Elves, Grey Elves, Wild Elves, Fire Elves, etc. Or Goblins, and allow regular, Hob-, Blues etc.

[Heatwizard]

For maximum laughs, do same race AND same class, building to simulate the traditional party. Four gnome clerics walk into a bar...

[Keld Denar]

A whole group of Lesser Mecanatixes would be interesting. They could be a research pay sent from Mechanus to catalogue some event or another and get stuck. Kinda like an all Warforged party, there is no downtime. 24 hour adventuring day. A wand of Shocking Grasp its your Wand of Cute Light Wounds, or better yet, someone shapes the soulmeld that gives a lightning touch attack. Make sure all classes are stuff like Dragonfire Adepts or Warblades with infinite combat resources, and you could literally adventure non-stop.

EDIT: There was a project a while back to build an all Cleric party to cover all 4 archetypes. It worked very well.

[Heatwizard]

A whole group of Lesser Mecanatixes would be interesting. They could be a research pay sent from Mechanus to catalogue some event or another and get stuck. Kinda like an all Warforged party, there is no downtime. 24 hour adventuring day. A wand of Shocking Grasp its your Wand of Cute Light Wounds, or better yet, someone shapes the soulmeld that gives a lightning touch attack. Make sure all classes are stuff like Dragonfire Adepts or Warblades with infinite combat resources, and you could literally adventure non-stop.

Warblade, Factotum, Incarnate, Warlock?

I should stop reading ideas like this, it just makes me want to play a bunch of goofy one/two-shots.

e: Wait, Factotum has spells to reload. Man, this is trickier then I thought.

[Dusk Eclipse]

So ToB classes, Invocation users, Incarnum users (though IIRC they would need an hour or so to change their soulmelds IIRC), binders, Factotum, rogue(?), non-spellcasting ranger and psionic with recharge tricks? Sounds really fun to be honest.

[TuggyNE]

No one has yet posted a link to AGC's all-dwarf all-cleric party (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=247)? Son I am disappoint!

(Obligatory warning: within that link lurks the dreaded Wall of Text, CR 13.)

[Andorax]

I've done variations on this theme...though both have been "all human".

Ran in a human "barbarian" campaign once. Same tribe, youths just ready to get out and make something of themselves. 4th level, but all of us had Barbarian as our 1st level (Bar 1/Cle 3, Bar 1/Sorc 3, Bar 4, Bar 1/Ran 1/Dru 2). Had a grand time of it.



Way back in 2E, during the Birthright setting, I ran a campaign where the players were all human (though of different nationalities, with +1/-1s to some ability scores) and were all Paladins of different deities. Believe it or not, it actually went rather well.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As has been said, race is a pretty small portion of your character, with a few exceptions.

Those exeptions are: the occasional changeling, shifter, or warforged; and races with a few racial HD and/or more than a couple points of level adjustment.

[danzibr]

I'm currently running an all-Voldur campaign (homebrew race). I have mixed feelings on it. I think if you make a general campaign and then later restrict it to a single race... then that's no good. However if you make the campaign with the race in mind (for example I read about a campaign where every player has like 3 Kobolds and your sole purpose is to escape the underdark) then it can work fine.

[toapat]

were all Paladins of different deities.

that is pretty impressive, considering the actual plural of Paladin is Strife

also, obviously it was a group of gimps. the only Diety worth worshiping as a paladin is Mystra

[Dusk Eclipse]

Dude 2e, Paladins where awesome back then.

[toapat]

Dude 2e, Paladins where awesome back then.

woops, missed that part, ya, then that would have been awesome

[Zaq]

I remember once reading a campaign journal where everyone was a full-blood orc with very high STR (including the arcane caster). I forget the specifics (I think it was either minimum 18 post-racial, or else 18 pre-racial, because WAAAAAUGH), but I remember it being quite amusing. I don't remember where I read it, though, and I don't feel like taking the effort to go find it again, sorry.

[hoverfrog]

I'm currently running an all halfling campaign and I'm involved in an all human and all voldur (danzibr's game above) campaign and an all underholme (dwarf, gnome, duergar) campaign. I actually notice less of a disparity with sticking to one race that with having mixed races. Being the only halfling in a group comprising humans, tieflings and other such giants really makes you notice that lower movement rate and lower strength score. Who wants to carry much in the way of equipment anyway, eh?

[Xaragos]

I would love to play in an all Goliath campaign. That race is pretty interesting.

[Andorax]

woops, missed that part, ya, then that would have been awesome

As I recall (it's been a while), the Birthright setting had three Paladin-sponsoring deities...one of which allowed CG instead of LG paladins. Still, all three were essentially on the same side of anti-evil-bad-thing smiting, so it worked out fairly well.

Had a separate full sheet of their character records for their "oaths"...to kingdom, to deity, to the ideals of the paladin, and their own personal oath.