Grakor Grumbles: Race/Class Expansions

[Grakor456]

Ever wanted to play a gnome hunter? An orc paladin? What about a blood elf druid? Well, perhaps that can happen in the future. Posting this custom lore idea in my blog, because in a couple ways this is sort of the project I'll be looking at, assuming we go ahead with it.

With the discussions of custom lore, as well as a few consultations with Kretol, the GM team started joking about opening up new race/class combinations...and that joke turned into serious discussion. Now, we have the opportunity to actually do this, and make use of the stance on custom lore to boot. Not only would this open up some RP opportunities, but it'd potentially create storylines and new organizations.

How Will This Work?

The idea is not just to create more character combinations, but also to create roleplay situations and storylines. New potential combinations may rely on additional, added lore to explain: for example, everyone already knows about Sunwalkers, who are Tauren "sun druids" that happen to use the paladin class. They are paladins who use the magic of the sun to explain their powers. In a similar vein, new race/class combinations may have their own organizations or explanations to create roleplay: for example, an orc paladin may call upon the ancestral power of the spirits to be a sort of spirit champion, and be a "paladin" that way. Gnomes may create a new organization expressly to help them survive in the cold wilds outside of Ironforge, and create hunters. More thought would need to go into it than just these things, but you get an idea.

After an idea has been born, then a storyline is made of a character, either old or new for this express purpose, undergoes the trials and hardships of learning and discovering a new path for his/her people. At this point, the GMs work with the player and craft a story for that and other interested characters, which then concludes in a new combination being "unlocked" for future characters to take.

Note that due to the actual implementation, new combinations may take special profiles and the like in the future.

In short, this is a way to go on quests to discover new forms of magic, and actually create organizations that may interact with future lore.

What Combinations Will Be Eligible?

Due to the difficulty of explaining certain combinations, some ideas will be more readily accepted than others. Undead druids may be almost impossible to explain, as an example. Of course, any combination can be proposed...you may just need a particularly excellent proposal to sway opinions.

But This Depends On You!

What do you think about this idea? Do you want to see storylines of this nature? Or do you think the combinations are fine as-is?

Do you have any questions? Suggestions on how to implement these ideas? Post.

Note: we're not starting with this just yet, this post is to help gauge interest.

[Maarten]

*Pops in* Dropping this here. Some race/class combos would be nice to see, as long as they all can be explained ICly. Orc Paladins, for one. How? I mean, they generally don't believe in the Light or the Naaru. Perhaps as some sort of Sunwalker? But, due to their rarity, even if they did, I'd say special profile. (This is just an example, mind!)

Stuff such as, for example, a Gnome Hunter... Well, that would make sense to me. They have Warriors. And guns. And bows. Why not use mail instead and a gun? They are, after all, some of the best engineers on Azeroth!

TL;DR, stuff that makes sense, do freely. Stuff that doesn't/is rare, special profile it!

[Grakor456]

Part of the idea here would be to -create- explanations for combinations that don't make sense on first look. Sunwalkers are an example because Tauren also don't believe in the Light or Naaru...but they believe in the sun, and that gives them paladin-like abilities. Different, but close enough to work for the class.

So, we want to make these ideas work. Some of them require some effort, but I think those combinations are actually the most interesting ones, because they give the best story potential.

[Mathias]

GOBLIN
PALADINS

Edit: Goblin paladins are viable because goblins started Light worship on Azeroth.

[Dizzyeye]

Well it could be possible that for the Orc Paladin, either a Sunwalker taught an orc in his ways, becoming a "Sunwalker" as well (Obviously would of taken time). I see it like how the orcs learned to be shaman again with the help of the tauren in Warcraft 3 I think it was. Same idea could be applied to an Orc learning about the Light in the Argent Crusade and wanted to learn more. A paladin/priest could then decide to guide them.

Gnome hunters are easy. Instead of using magic abilities they have made special rounds which count as the spells the hunter usually have.

Trolls could use classes such as Paladin as a form of the Loa.

My thoughts on the matter anyway, I don't know everything on each race but I have ideas anyway

[CappnRob]

I am mostly not ok with this. WoW has expanded so many of its class and race rules now that there is almost TOO much flexibility for the most part regarding certain things. (Seruously, troll mages/warlocks? Why? And orc mages too durrr.)

Some combinations are alright. Gnomes should've always had hunter imo, given their penchant for guns and Hunter being the shooty-tooty class. Blood Elf druids... maybe ok, if they can't shapeshift, given Blood Elf "druids" are pretty much just nature wizards (much like pre-Worgen Gilnean harvest withces).

Anything paladin? Pls no. Sunwalker was a stretch already and is already confirmed by Blizzard to be an OOC class meant to represent something else entirely in lore. Same for shamans. These are both classes that are designed to fit into a race's culture and spirituality, passed down by generations as heritage.

[flammos200]

I desire this, deeply and fondly. I say, make it so.

[Krent]

I wouldn't mind seeing the stuff expanded on, so long as we're able to make it "make sense." As Dae mentioned before, a gnome hunter makes sense 'cause it's basically just a gnome with a ranged weapon and lighter armor. And they probably know how to domesticate animals well enough, so yeah, why not?

Gnome priests and paladins also make sense, considering how long Gnomes and Dwarves have lived in close proximity to one another. I feel like the cultural and intellectual exchange between the two leads both races kind of blending together. I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination to speculate that, in the many years after the Gnomeregan catastrophe, a number of gnomes picked up worship of the holy light during their time in Ironforge. Heck, many probably turned to the Light because of the Gnomeregan tragedy.

Goblin Priests and Paladins also kind of make sense in my mind...but for a reason that might offend some people. Religious institutions have a tendency to be corrupted by human individuals. We've witnessed this historically, across all religions. I'm not saying religion as a whole is corrupt in of itself, but rather that there are instances where the individuals in charge become more concerned with money and power, rather than helping the masses through spiritual enlightenment. It has happened in the past, and still continues on in some religious sects.

....and I can totally imagine a Goblin Church of the Holy Light operating this way. Or at least, starting out this way. Some Mogul looked at the Church of the Holy Light in human lands and was all like "Whoooooaaaa! You mean, if you build a church and wave around a collection box, people will throw money into it just to hear a few fancy words?! Count me in!" But then, who knows--maybe the Goblin Church of Making Money™ ended up getting a revelation down the line, and they became true-worshippers.

I dunno, I'm just kinda spitballing here. I'm not concerned with sifting through pages upon pages of lore, looking for the magic sentence that says "X race has X affinity for X thing." Because, in regards to custom-lore, the whole point is that we're trying to emancipate ourselves from Blizzard's messy texts, right? Ergo, I think so long as we apply a sort of "logic" towards something (i.e-- Goblin Priests and Paladins being playable because there was a goblin Mogul who started a Church of the Holy Light as a quick get-rich scheme but somehow it ended up getting a divine revelation and now there are earnest believers of the Light operating in the Church), it should be able to fly.

Also--I'm not saying we should completely ignore previous lore or Blizzard texts...it's just, I don't think we should be completely reliant on them. We're making custom-lore now, right? So, as long as we can connect the dots ourselves and have it make logical sense, I don't think we necessarily need a piece of "hard evidence" in existing lore to justify it.

[Sorum]

Hm.. It can work as long it doesn't become weird and silly.

[Mathias]

Goblin Priests and Paladins also kind of make sense in my mind...but for a reason that might offend some people. Religious institutions have a tendency to be corrupted by human individuals. We've witnessed this historically, across all religions. I'm not saying religion as a whole is corrupt in of itself, but rather that there are instances where the individuals in charge become more concerned with money and power, rather than helping the masses through spiritual enlightenment. It has happened in the past, and still continues on in some religious sects.

....and I can totally imagine a Goblin Church of the Holy Light operating this way. Or at least, starting out this way. Some Mogul looked at the Church of the Holy Light in human lands and was all like "Whoooooaaaa! You mean, if you build a church and wave around a collection box, people will throw money into it just to hear a few fancy words?! Count me in!" But then, who knows--maybe the Goblin Church of Making Money™ ended up getting a revelation down the line, and they became true-worshippers.

Well, goblins are already Light worshipers, since they got Light-using goblin priests, but priest powers are based more on willpower. I tend to think goblin powers are based on money, however. The more you pay them, the more powerful the healing spell, but since they can't waste time thinking of a figure for each job, they just have pre-made rates. Look at one of the quests in Azshara, where you summon plane-diving priests to heal the injured. The just send the ressed guy a tab to be paid in the future.

Also, go away, Norell already made the get-rich-quick First New Goblin Church of Gol, Ver, and Ron and that failed. Don't need no mogul stealing his plans.

[c0rzilla]

Blood Elf druids... maybe ok, if they can't shapeshift, given Blood Elf "druids" are pretty much just nature wizards (much like pre-Worgen Gilnean harvest withces).

Popping in to note that these two are nothing alike. The Old Ways were a sort of druidism, however limited it was. A blood elf "druid" like High Botanist Freywinn would be forcing nature magic with arcane, most likely.

On the wider topic, I'm alright with poking into this on a limited basis.

[Dae]

Mmm...
I like everything about this except the "unlocking for the whole race" thing. I feel like any atypical class/race combo (save the few remaining common sense ones like gnome hunter) are going to be so rare that they should at least be a special profile character.

Also, for a lot of these, I could never get behind unlocking *all* of the class trees for certain race/class combos. It takes the approval of the centurion circle, the Ancients and other divine entities to allow a race to become a druid of the wild, for example.

But with, say, the Lost One druids existing, I feel that "druids" mimicking the form of non Ancient animals would be feesable for a character to mimic the form and nature of a non Ancient animal.
Likewise, belf botanists and human harvest witches would make sense, sans tree form

[Xigo]

SURE

Gnome Paladin
Gnome Hunter

NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE

Everything else

[Grakor456]

Mmm...
I like everything about this except the "unlocking for the whole race" thing.

Just noting, this is for fairness. It'd be a bit harsh to say "X can be a Y/Z, but you can't because X isn't sharing." So, often the first person will also be founding the organization/group that pioneers this unusual combination.

This would, of course, open up more guild ideas and PCs having some legit power, since they'll be leading these groups.

Thanks for the opinions so far, folks.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I like the idea.

On the thought of Orcish Paladins; I do think that Spirit Champions would be the best way to go about this, with Spirit Walkers perhaps being priests of a sort. As a bit of lore for backing this up.

Over the next several centuries, K'ure became friends with the spirits of the orc ancestors, who were attracted to K'ure's energies. The ancestors took up residence in Oshu'gun, the Orcish name for K'ure's dimensional ship, and structured the orcish religion in such a way that the shamans would unknowingly care for K'ure.

The majority of Orcish religion is structured around taking care of a Naaru. I don't think it would be a stretch.