Broke: New race/class combos. Woke: Unlockable race/class combos

[Amnaught]

Making this argument again because eventually it needs to happen.

Undead Paladins are cool. Theyre cool, alright? But just throwing them on as an available class would diminish what it means to be undead AND what it means to be a paladin. Theyd be incredibly popular, and there would have to be a new ingame subfaction similar to the Sunwalkers to justify their existence.

To add more combinations, we'd have this endless stream of watering down of the races, and the classes, to ultimately mean nothing. Which just doesnt flow right with me. Draenei hate warlocks, Tauren aren't sneaky, and goblins are not friends of nature.

Unless....

We had to unlock them. Instead of an entire subfaction, there's a side-quest in a random zone that explains the existence of ONE member of a race who has become an unlikely class. Instead of the entire racial city accepting these as an everyday occurrence, we get more characters like that Night Elf Paladin in Legion, who would then appear as class trainers for a small number of like-minded individuals.

The Draenei would still canonically hate warlocks, but a lone "fight-fire-with-fire" mage dabbles in Fel in a hidden workshop, and she's not above sharing her knowledge at the encouragement of Void Elf allies. Complete the quest, boom, unlock Draenei Warlocks.

Given the precedent of Allied Race Death Knights receiving an alternate starting experience, even Demon Hunters would be on the table for non-elf races, specifically locked behind a Demon-Hunter exclusive questline where a post-Legion Illidari trains some unlikely recruits.

Undead paladins regaining their true connection to the Light. Blood Elf botanist druids from Tempest Keep. Goblin Druids who find profit in Going Green. The possibilities are endless, without stepping on any toes or spitting in any faces.

Another thing is that it'd be a lot easier to continually add these, like one per patch. Because they don't need to create new hairstyles and such like a race, just shoehorn in an extra quest that introduces one of these strange characters.

[Zankai27]

I agree with this; it's a really interesting idea, it'd just need to be accessible

Orcs/Draenei training with the Illidari (and those other elves I guess) and having a whole questline for that

Undead Paladins stemming from training via Callia and Alonsus, and reconnecting with the Light that way

Lightforged Monks actively training in Jed'hin

Worgen and Goblins becoming Monks...literally any way

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Unless....

We had to unlock them.

No. Same problem with allied races and the original DK requirements: locked races/classes means that you have to weeks of homework you don't enjoy so you can unlock the race/class that you actually wanted to play as in the first place. You should be able to play as the thing you wanted to play as from the get go.

[Syegfryed]

i imagine that you start as level 0.

Then, the race start a quest for X class, so you unlock the class for yourself.

it would be a rly small one, maybe the same for all races just changing the NPC(to the one the same of your class) so you become lv 1, and that class, and you go normally, doesn't need to be huge thing.

[Stickiler]

Broke: Unlockable race/class combos, Woke: New Class/Race combos given to everyone with optional story quests explaining why.

[Directionalk9]

Hard stance here, but nah. Give us class skins, at least then it's a psuedo-new experience.

[Usernameforforums]

What if the undead in life was a paladin? Its the same as a undead priest, just with a sword and board.

[FossilFree]

I'm patiently waiting for Pandaren druids!

[Directionalk9]

What if the undead in life was a paladin? Its the same as a undead priest, just with a sword and board.

Not always, it’s usually an exception to the rule when it happens.

[AngerFork]

You are basically asking for Allied Races, part 2 here. Only this time instead of getting a character to max level to unlock the new race we want, we have a character unlocking the new race/class combo so that we can then level again to play what we want.

You bring up the Sunwalkers, which were added as you may recall in a pre-patch as a side bit of dialog in Thunder Bluff. I still remember Aponi looking up at the Sun & thinking of it in a new way, which led to Tauren Paladins/Priests. We had other race story seeds throughout that same patch, such as the representative from the Highborne asking to let their people back into Teldrassil. This IMO is the best way to do it. Unlocking everything for all races absolutely would water down the races to your point, but you could probably add a class or two per race with similar NPCs to make the story easier to understand. Perhaps a Draenei is discovered practicing demonic arts & brought before Velen who gives his blessing, saying he had a vision their power would be needed in the days ahead. Maybe Bolvar revives Sir Zeliek for the Forsaken to teach them how to fight with the Light despite the pain it causes.

[Steelangel]

Pandaren Paladins. The Pandaren don't have a connection to the light per se, but they do have the sense of honor and duty that comes with being a Shado-Pan. Add light? Paladin.

[Ersula]

Undead Paladins are cool. Theyre cool, alright? But just throwing them on as an available class would diminish what it means to be undead AND what it means to be a paladin. Theyd be incredibly popular, and there would have to be a new ingame subfaction similar to the Sunwalkers to justify their existence.

Tired: Lore imposing on gameplay. Wired: Letting what players want to play inform the lore, instead of the other way around.

To add more combinations, we'd have this endless stream of watering down of the races, and the classes, to ultimately mean nothing. Which just doesnt flow right with me. Draenei hate warlocks, Tauren aren't sneaky, and goblins are not friends of nature.

Most RPGs don't do this. Race/Class restrictions existed in the original Dungeons & Dragons but they got rid of that over 20 years ago. Restricting your class by race is quite literally, old-fashioned.

We had to unlock them. Instead of an entire subfaction, there's a side-quest in a random zone that explains the existence of ONE member of a race who has become an unlikely class. Instead of the entire racial city accepting these as an everyday occurrence, we get more characters like that Night Elf Paladin in Legion, who would then appear as class trainers for a small number of like-minded individuals.

Okay but you basically just described Allied Races. Allied races aren't really new races, but existing races with new customization & class options. IE, Orc Priests, Troll Paladins, Human Druids. I guess we get this if we just encourage them to make more allied races. Remember those scarlet crusaders who got turned undead? Undead Paladins. There were Draenei lurkers on Draenor. Draenei Rogues. There was that 4 year questline about Delas Moonfang becoming a paladin that they didn't do anything with? Night Elf Paladin, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

What if the undead in life was a paladin? Its the same as a undead priest, just with a sword and board.

They explained Paladins were naturally immune to the plague of lordaeron. But even then that doesn't include ones that were raised by Valkyr.

[Jokubas]

No. Same problem with allied races and the original DK requirements: locked races/classes means that you have to weeks of homework you don't enjoy so you can unlock the race/class that you actually wanted to play as in the first place. You should be able to play as the thing you wanted to play as from the get go.

Yeah, this is why I was surprised Blizzard did elaborate unlock requirements for Allied Races. It was a thing other games had experimented with but never worked out because it locks a character option behind playing another character, which sort of defeats the purpose. Even then, however, they've massively backpedaled on the unlock requirement for Allied Races.

I think having story arcs for something like this is great, just not gating the option behind it as a veteran-only thing. Maybe a compromise could be a short Hero Class-inspired starting quest when you make special race/class combinations?

[kizcrew]

Yeah let's make people waste more time with odd jobs just so they can get what they want. It was so popular with Allied Races.

[bruxx]

I think it'd make more sense to just see those new combos start appearing through npcs throghout 9.2 and 9.2.5, similar to how it was done in cata

[Myradin]

Yeah let's make people waste more time with odd jobs just so they can get what they want. It was so popular with Allied Races.

This. It's really dumb to force people to play something they don't want, in order to play something they do want.

Its different from normal progression because what you're effectively doing is wasting time to effectively start over again.

Any DM in D&D who told a player he couldn't play X until he'd leveled to max level and done a bunch of extra stuff, wouldn't have players.

[Amnaught]

Most RPGs don't do this. Race/Class restrictions existed in the original Dungeons & Dragons but they got rid of that over 20 years ago. Restricting your class by race is quite literally, old-fashioned.
.

Battleragers in 5e are restricted to Dwarves, and Bladesingers are only available to Elves. You can homebrew anything in D&D, but in the Forgotten Realms, there are no dwarven Bladesingers. It'd be an odd man out, it would conflict with their fantasy, and it should be gated to enforce the rarity in game. In Adventurer's League, WotC's organized play, at least as far as the last time I played in like 2019, you even needed to play certain questlines in order to be able to play certain races.

[Ersula]

Battleragers in 5e are restricted to Dwarves, and Bladesingers are only available to Elves. You can homebrew anything in D&D, but in the Forgotten Realms, there are no dwarven Bladesingers. It'd be an odd man out, it would conflict with their fantasy, and it should be gated to enforce the rarity in game. In Adventurer's League, WotC's organized play, at least as far as the last time I played in like 2019, you even needed to play certain questlines in order to be able to play certain races.

Subclasses

are

not

classes

[Amnaught]

This. It's really dumb to force people to play something they don't want, in order to play something they do want.

Its different from normal progression because what you're effectively doing is wasting time to effectively start over again.

Any DM in D&D who told a player he couldn't play X until he'd leveled to max level and done a bunch of extra stuff, wouldn't have players.

So nobody would play WotC's official D&D Adventurer's League because you had to unlock the privilege to create an aaracokra character?

It's not a "level to max level and do a shit tone of stuff" but like just having everything unlocked right off the bat would really water everything down in my opinion. Like why not just let everyone wield all weapons, warglaives included? Why not let them wear all armor? Why not let every character pick their own racial abilities and heritage armor regardless of race? Why not allow us to play with any bipedal creature in the game files, on any faction? Why not just replace all of the raid graphics with red lines and green dots to simplify mechanics, why have spell effects at all?

Flavor is important. If people want to play as a goblin druid, they can accept that that is a rare case by doing a simple questline first. Like the night elf paladin in Legion. Boom, unlocked. Now you have a reason to level an alt of the same class.

All of those wacky outlier things *could* be in the game, but if theyre ever added, they should be special. Like, let all Night Elves wield warglaives because that makes sense, like Tyrande. Let all orcs wear plate, like Thrall. But just letting everyone go crazy with whatever they want gives those special things no weight.

Give it the Green Fire treatment.

[Alanar]

Broke: Unlockable race/class combos, Woke: New Class/Race combos given to everyone with optional story quests explaining why.

omg, okey you nailed it there. i got the joke

Anyway, I like the idea. Lets expand on it.