D&D General What it means for a race to end up in the PHB, its has huge significance

[LuisCarlos17f]

I guess Hasbro wants PC species to be merchandising articles, for example LEGO minifigures, waifu pillows...

Other point is we may see more subraces in future sourcebooks. And WotC needs to change because when something is too "known" then it becomes "old-fashioned", to avoid saturation or satiation. Aasimars are necessary if some day in the future the elves become too "burnt". Hasbro needs D&D to show new elements to prove being enoughly fresh and original.

* About the gnome, halflings and smaller humanoids: Richard James "the giant killer" Flaherty was the smallest soldier in USA army, 4 feet 9 inches / 1.45 m and he was captain.

 

[Shardstone]

you can have expanded lore for aasimars of any race or who communities of the same.

Tieflings by 5E are human based only with infernal blood.
why not have elven tieflings or variation of 3.5e fey'ri?
If you take elven features and paste tiefling features on it you can have elven tiefling by both lore and mechanics.

warforged/autognome can just be mind transferred to mechanical animated half living construct body.

shifter can be any humanoid bitten by lycan. and depending on base species, have it's unique features.

and outside lore, there is little difference between eladrin, shadar-kai and astral elf. teleport+something else, other completely the same.

If you have an issue with the mechanics, I'd rather see better mechanics as opposed to limiting concepts to templates and orc.

 

[Mecheon]

why?

do we really need 15+ races in PHB that differ one from another by:
+/- 60ft of darkvision
one different starting skill
one different cantrip
+/- 5ft of walk speed

Races are more than their stats. I don't play orcs for a stat block, I play an orc because Times Change. If you removed stats entirely and broke it down to "Orc: You're an ORC' folks will still be playing these races. If all the difference between elves was "Pick WOODS, MAGIC or UNDERGROUND", folks will still play all three

and outside lore, there is little difference between eladrin, shadar-kai and astral elf. teleport+something else, other completely the same.

Lore sells people on races. The lore absolutely matters

 

[Kobold Stew]

This is a great post, @EzekielRaiden

I'll pull out just a few small things to reinforce.

According to the above statistics (despite the terrible, AWFUL graph design), aasimar are only slightly behind goliaths in 11th place, at about 85k, meaning they're about 1/8th as common as humans, overall.

Bad data visualization should always be called out.

Ah, but there's a twist to that. Looking evil is cooler. Being evil is not.

And here, in half a line, you summarize the appeal of playing non-humans in D&D for me. I want to play goblins and orcs and lizardfolk and all those non-magical, low level monsters that are fodder in the early game and turn them into heroes.

You go on to explain exactly the appeal.

All the perks, none of the drawbacks. Angels? Angels can only play it straight, being obviously good people who do obviously good things, or subvert it by becoming boringly actual-evil people despite looking like a good person.

The movie Michael (1996) dealt with this explicitly.

It's always interesting to me the pushback I guet when I try to subvert something that is supposed to be good. I want my paladins to be slovenly -- to be good, but have to work at being good, despite having a failed marriage or whatever.

Anyways, great post.

 

[Horwath]

Races are more than their stats. I don't play orcs for a stat block, I play an orc because Times Change. If you removed stats entirely and broke it down to "Orc: You're an ORC' folks will still be playing these races. If all the difference between elves was "Pick WOODS, MAGIC or UNDERGROUND", folks will still play all three


Lore sells people on races. The lore absolutely matters

I'm not against lore, I'm against that all tieflings are the same, and human based.
IF anything, my idea of templates would add more diversity and lore to aasimars, tiefling and changelings and what not.

sure, halflings could be a species of their own, or just small subspecies of humans, gnomes could be just small elves or dwarves that either got their own culture as they splitted form their parent race long ago, or just be integrated with default elves.

and, I made sure that Orcs are in the Core4, because orcs are awesome, free willed or just irredeemably evil or corrupt.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

To the best of my knowledge, goliaths started in 4e. Aasimar, like tieflings, have been around since 2e.

Is this not true?

No its not true, Goliaths started in 3.5e in the Races of Stone book, its where their nomadic hyper competitive libertarian culture got established as well as the Goliath Pantheon of Gods, which we have not heard about since.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Goliaths were in 3.5 Races of Stone. They had a Powerful Build trait that made them count as Large where it was advantageous, so they were useful for some specific strength based builds, including making it easier to get into Hulking Hurler so you could throw moons around.

You Ninja'd me.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Alright. So they're also "new," but in more or less the way dragonborn were "new." Still a lot newer than tieflings.

Not by a lot. Tieflings and Aasimar were really only a Planescape thing until 3e, it was in 3.5e that they really became playable without level adjustment, in the Forgotten Realms, which post 2e most of their lore comes from now.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I guess Hasbro wants PC species to be merchandising articles, for example LEGO minifigures, waifu pillows...

Other point is we may see more subraces in future sourcebooks. And WotC needs to change because when something is too "known" then it becomes "old-fashioned", to avoid saturation or satiation. Aasimars are necessary if some day in the future the elves become too "burnt". Hasbro needs D&D to show new elements to prove being enoughly fresh and original.

* About the gnome, halflings and smaller humanoids: Richard James "the giant killer" Flaherty was the smallest soldier in USA army, 4 feet 9 inches / 1.45 m and he was captain.

.i'd buy an Aasimar waifu pillow.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, hell, I barely see halflings played. I guess that means that no one plays halflings right? Same as gnomes?

Until you decide to remove Halflings or Gnomes from the PHB, then the smallfolk players will come out of the woodwork in droves.