Character Ancestry - Add into character creation

Hello all,

 

Just a thought that would add a lot of detail into character creation... What if we could choose the race of the parents and grandparents of your character, to produce a more diverse character? Ex - human and elf grandparents, human and human parents = 1/4 elvenkind. Thoughts?

Also, if this change affected character models/stats in moderate ways. Ex - 1/4 elf would be taller/stronger than a half elf, but perhaps without the dark vision.

I could see this being done with background traits, like in Arcanum, e.g. raised by monks, feral child ect. but otherwise I would think it would just get to confusing and not really add much. I doubt that ancestry in such a diluted form would really even have any noticeable effect anyway.

I have a feeling this is how they'll differentiate between the various Human and Elven factions. Being Elf, Dwarf or Orc-blooded could be just another template.

Just want to say that I definitely agree with this, both for purposes of creating a more fully realized character right at the start and also for using some of those details to seed story content in different parts of the world.

There's a potential tradeoff here between character freedom for the players and plot freedom for the developers. I'd not mind this kind of detail though if they thought they could manage it.

NWN2: Storm of Zehir had Heritage Feats, which were basically Fallout-/Arcanum-esque traits that you could pick on level 1

I could see this being done with background traits, like in Arcanum, e.g. raised by monks, feral child ect. but otherwise I would think it would just get to confusing and not really add much. I doubt that ancestry in such a diluted form would really even have any noticeable effect anyway.

 

This.

Like the "Heritage Feats" (Fey and Fiendish) from NWN2: Storm of Zehir. A character with the Fiendish Heritage feat had a small amount of Baatezu or Tanar'ri blood coursing through their veins, granting resistances to poison and spells cast by Good foes, but not enough to be considered Tieflings. It didn't affect the character's appearance in any way, and I'm not sure if it was ever mentioned in dialogue.

If you picked a heritage feat at level one, that would unlock more Fey or Fiendish feats further down the line.

Edited November 17, 2012 by Agelastos