An alternative to Iconic Classes

[Daedalus]

Any Iconic Class penalty has to have certain features, in my mind:
1.  It needs to be approximately as bad as any other -1 point quality, or slightly worse.  (Losing predictability does seem to be a benefit, whereas being constricted in build types is a penalty, since options are what players tend to crave.) 
2. The penalty needs to be equally important to all concepts, as to not unequally favor certain builds.
3. It needs to diminish in importance over the character's career, so they can eventually be "almost as good" as normal.  This is very important.
4.  They need to be correctable, so that a Species member that sees the "err of his ways" can have it removed.  We don't need things getting messy with multi-classing and whatnot.  In this way they can be conditions.

Removing 2 Action Dice is "perfect" by these conditions, which is why it's a hard penalty to replace.  Changing formulas for other aspects of the characters could work too, but it needs to be ubiquitous in the same way as Action Dice; it has to be a real penalty for any character.  It should probably be a condition in this case, but nothing quite like the conditions that already exist, since those have differential effects based on what characters have them.  It would have to effectively be as important as action dice reduction, which is a (virtual) penalty to combat, skills and saves.

Anyway, other than those strictures I don't have a great idea of what this penalty should be.

[paddyfool]

As I dislike removing players' options, dislike stereotypes, and dislike docking them action dice for avoiding stereotypes, I'd be tempted to have a forgiving houserule... perhaps along the lines of giving the characters the choice of docking interests as an alternative to action dice (making the atypical class be the character's interest, effectively; this could be fluffed as the difficulty of learning/studying unusual methods getting in the way of opportunities to gather knowledge and learn languages).  Unfortunately, I like the interests part of a character sheet too, so it's hardly an ideal solution.

[Krensky]

Personally, if I thought my players were going to have issues, I'd either rebuild the talents, or use Bill's suggestion. Anything else is to complicated.

[Mister Andersen]

Any Iconic Class penalty has to have certain features, in my mind:
1.  It needs to be approximately as bad as any other -1 point quality

Clearly
 

2. The penalty needs to be equally important to all concepts, as to not unequally favor certain builds.

That's an oxymoron -- you don't get the penalty if your concept meets the accepted norms of your species

3. It needs to diminish in importance over the character's career, so they can eventually be "almost as good" as normal.  This is very important.

All non scaling penalties diminish in effectiveness.

4.  They need to be correctable, so that a Species member that sees the "err of his ways" can have it removed.  We don't need things getting messy with multi-classing and whatnot.  In this way they can be conditions.

Iconic Classes as it stands requires multiclassing to correct.

[Morganti]

Iconic Classes as it stands requires multiclassing to correct.

Or the appropriate splinter race feat.
Which while there aren't as many as in Origins of the Species, most of those can be adapted with minimal issue, or used straight across in a pinch.

[Daedalus]

That's an oxymoron -- you don't get the penalty if your concept meets the accepted norms of your species

The penalty for conformity is predictability.  Although I know you disagree with Morgenstern on this account.

4.  They need to be correctable, so that a Species member that sees the "err of his ways" can have it removed.  We don't need things getting messy with multi-classing and whatnot.  In this way they can be conditions.

Iconic Classes as it stands requires multiclassing to correct.

To be clear, I mean that the penalties shouldn't affect things that are complicated to undo, like lowering skill points, lowering Vitality, removing racial features that seem to be innate.  This is intuitive to me but a few of the ideas here violated that premise.  Complicated with multiclassing meant (though I said it ambiguously) that multiclassing needs no further complication.

[Mister Andersen]

That's an oxymoron -- you don't get the penalty if your concept meets the accepted norms of your species

The penalty for conformity is predictability.  Although I know you disagree with Morgenstern on this account.

Well technically I disagree that it will ever reliably be enough of a factor in play to be meaningful rather than with the basic idea

[Daedalus]

I think that instead of Iconic Classes you could come up with iconic flaws that are worth 1 point.  Here's a few ideas.  This assumes iconic specialties stick around, of course.  I'm taking some 2 point bonuses, for example, reversing them, and calling them 1 point flaws.

Dwarves: Modest: Your Legend decreases by 2. (minimum 0)

Elves: Fragile: The first shaken or fatigued condition you receive during each combat is increased to the second grade.

Goblin: Impulsive: You gain one less skill point per level.

Orc: Ravenous Hunger: You require two additional common meals per day.

Rootwalker: Unfortunate: Your action dice used to boost saves are halved. (round down)


Alternatively, you can clip a 1 point benefit that each receives, and thankfully for each race there's at least one that qualifies:
Dwarf: Enlightened Skill (X), Improved Stability, Iron Gut, Low Light Vision
Elf: Natural Elegance
Goblin: Agile defense +1, Low Light Vision
Orc: Enlightened skill (either)
Rootwalker: Thick Hide 2
This actually makes races less interesting so it's my last choice. 

My final solution involves the perspective that Talent choice IS a 1 point benefit, consistent with the logic that creation choices can be benefits as well as flaws:
Humans receive nothing, since they're already an "8 point" Talent.
Drakes lose iconic specialties.
Dwarves lose iconic classes.
Elf lose iconic classes.
Giants gain an additional Origin skill.
Goblins lose iconic classes.
Ogres lose iconic specialties.
Orcs lose iconic classes.
Pech lose iconic specialties.
Rootwalkers lose iconic classes.
Saurians gain an additional Origin skill.
Unborn gain an additional Origin skill.

This final idea adds versatility to all races to bring them all up on par with humans.  The only trapping of iconic rules remains on Elves, who still have Specialties to cope with.  Naturally, you could substitute the extra Origin skill for any of the races that received them with something with more setting appropriate.  Anyway, keeping them as is works for my group (so far).  I do agree with the idea that people shouldn't be further penalized for playing sub-optimal builds.  Elves still remain limited, but that can be explained in-setting the same way as Burden of Ages, in that Elves live longer than humans and likely are less cognitively flexible.  Just look at Tortoises!

[Morgenstern]

I think that instead of Iconic Classes you could come up with iconic flaws that are worth 1 point.  Here's a few ideas.  This assumes iconic specialties stick around, of course.  I'm taking some 2 point bonuses, for example, reversing them, and calling them 1 point flaws.

Which in every single case would be worth only -.5 as a flaw .

[Daedalus]

I think that instead of Iconic Classes you could come up with iconic flaws that are worth 1 point.  Here's a few ideas.  This assumes iconic specialties stick around, of course.  I'm taking some 2 point bonuses, for example, reversing them, and calling them 1 point flaws.

Which in every single case would be worth only -.5 as a flaw .

Well as I looked it up, what I did was either take a two-point benefit (Celebrated) and turn it into a flaw (Modest).  These flaws are only worth .5?  They seem pretty severe for that.  I don't really mind iconic rules as long as there are plenty of feat selections available personally, but reversals on the 2-point talent benefits seem pretty harsh, in most cases.

[Morgenstern]

Well as I looked it up, what I did was either take a two-point benefit (Celebrated) and turn it into a flaw (Modest).  These flaws are only worth .5?  They seem pretty severe for that.

'Pretty severe' is a good description of what you are proposing. Ones that are actually offical are more like 'extremely severe', by design . The ratio for inverted benefits is 4:1.

Drawbacks are never a good deal for straight up min/max advantage - their function is to allow players who are willing to accept stiff handicaps because it's thematically approriate to have a very small benefit, ussually similarly thematic. They are much more effective when used to add texture to a package rather than to try and buy off some advantage you'd like to include.

(In other words I tend to start with the drawbacks that seem appropriate for a concept, then spend however many points that are available for the benefits that seem most fitting, rather than list out all the benefits that could be cool first, then figure out what drawbacks will let me afford them. Orcs were very interesting for that reason - they had a ton of obvious downsides, which meant the challenge was spending all the points that they had to work with!)

[Daedalus]

Thanks for the insight there.  So the potential of losing two action dice at the beginning of the game is pretty tame compared to what's available with a little multiplication.  I kind of like the idea of racial flaws that can't be avoided, though.