| My problem with subraces is the same as players who insisted on being Dragons, Liches, etc., when I tabletop gamed. The various subraces in the AD&D system are simply too powerful as player characters if played alongside normal PCs. Let's face it - most people who want to be, say, Drow, want to be so because they get 50% MR. There are many ways to bend/break the current BG game engine to give yourself ridiculously unbalanced powers. I see no reason for the game designers to hand out cheese on a silver platter though, because the idea of a well-designed game is to balance gameplay somehow, and that is blatently impossible if you have the option of starting either as a normal race with average powers, or as a cheesed race with super-abilities.
Note that games where the only option is to be cheesed (i.e.: PS:T) work fine - because game balance assumes those abilities. |