Do We Really Need Half-Elves and Half-Orcs?

James Grover said:

RAW, it simply comes down to if you don't use and role-play the social aspect of being a Half-Elf or Half-Orc, I don't see many people picking humans over the two other races.

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The thing is, a Feat is HUGE in 5e. Starting play with Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, Crossbow Expert, or Sharpshooter puts combat characters at a huge advantage compared to non-humans of the same role. Resilient (Constitution) is the best 1st level feature a caster could ask for, with War Caster and Spell Sniper being great alternatives. You can use a Feat that gives +1 to an ability along with the two floating +1s to get any +2 +1 combo you want. Half-orcs make good barbarians and half-elves are great charisma casters, but variant human is one of the best options for any type of character you could possibly want to play. They pay a small power tax for their versatility, but it is WELL worth it.

Charlaquin said:

The thing is, a Feat is HUGE in 5e. Starting play with Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, Crossbow Expert, or Sharpshooter puts combat characters at a huge advantage compared to non-humans of the same role. Resilient (Constitution) is the best 1st level feature a caster could ask for, with War Caster and Spell Sniper being great alternatives. You can use a Feat that gives +1 to an ability along with the two floating +1s to get any +2 +1 combo you want. Half-orcs make good barbarians and half-elves are great charisma casters, but variant human is one of the best options for any type of character you could possibly want to play. They pay a small power tax for their versatility, but it is WELL worth it.

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Too good, imo.

Everybody should get a level 1 Feat, and Humans should have been given something like Expertise in a skill of their choice.

Beowülf said:

Too good, imo.

Everybody should get a level 1 Feat, and Humans should have been given something like Expertise in a skill of their choice.

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I feel the same, it's one reason why I don't like variant human. I'd much rather they instead be actual variants which fit a location or culture rather than pretty much just a power upgrade for a build.

hawkeyefan said:

As for cliche, you seem in favor of it in some ways, and not in others. If an outcast drow is cliche, then certainly the monolithically evil drow is as well. And so is the gruff dwarf and the serene elf and the stoic knight and the mysterious wizard. Sure, these things are archetypical, but they can still all be used to say something. I think this is where you're really moving into personal preference; you find X to be cliche, so it shouldn't be in a game.

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I actually don't like any cliches including the examples you have put forth. What I look at is how is the culture presented in that setting. So in the Forgotten Realms, Drow have a certain cultural tendency (at least in the North). I my own homebrew setting (which I haven't run in awhile), I have drow as a surface race with a different culture that doesn't tie specifically to Lolth.

I agree that if I find something cliche isn't sufficient reason to exclude it, but I also never indicated that was the case either.

When special exceptions to the setting are carved out it creates dissonance. All of the suggestions you made create that. Klingons are so tied to the Star Trek universe that when included in any other setting turn it into a Benny Hill skit instead of a serious game -- especially in Stradh.

I already indicated that a reskin of someones' idea to fit the setting works.

Personally, I've found that when a player comes to me and says something kind of crazy like "I want to play a Yuan-Ti", it's an exercise in creativity to ask why would there by a Yuan-Ti adventurer? Is he different from his fellow Yuan-Ti? Does he share some goal with the rest of the party? These kinds of questions or the ones that I've found lead to truly memorable characters and games, and that's a large part of why I tend to not restrict players in their choices.

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This so depends on the player. Some players really rise to the challenge of this. Others just get discouraged because you think that you are shooting down their idea.

Finally, this isn't just a DM vs. player thing. I personally hate it when another player at the table demands their snowflake carve out. Ultimately D&D is a team co-op game. If players aren't trying to make characters that work within the setting and the other player concepts it can totally ruin a game.

Again this should all fallout of a session 0. [On a side note I prefer the term prelude, but maybe that is because of too much VotM. ]

CrimsonCarcharodon said:

[FONT="]While pondering my Spelljammer setting I've been working on, I decided to ditch half-orcs entirely, to be replaced with full-blooded orcs, and I'm very, very tempted to do the same for half-elves. Granted, I'm using half-orc racial stats, because they're better than orc racial stats, but that's not the point.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#141414][FONT="]See, I don't get half-elves. Rather, I don't get the fascination with having half-elves and half-orcs be a thing, but half-dwarves or half-gnomes aren't. Or that half-anything races are necessarily half-human.[/FONT]

[FONT="]Half-elves and half-orcs are described often as anomalies or one-offs. That they're all searching for their place in society, or their parents don't accept them, or blah blah blah. Yeah, it worked for Dragonlance back in the 80s, but that was thirty years ago. Now it's not only cliche, but boring. Not to mention, half-orcs are portrayed a lot of the time as products of horrible assaults.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#141414][FONT="]I'm pondering ditching half-elves completely for my games with one exception: Eberron. And that's because Khoravar (their name for half-elves) are a true breeding race separate from humans and elves, and even have their own dragonmark that only manifests on half-elves. They were given a real place in the world and, to my mind, are more elf-blooded than half-elves.[/FONT]

[FONT="]So do we really need half-elves? I feel like a player that wants to play a half-elf could easily enough play either an elf or a human, whichever half is more dominant for their character. So aside from thirty-plus years of tradition, are they worth keeping around?[/FONT]

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You don't need anything.

Half-Elf and Half-Orc are there because of tradition, and THAT is definitely worth keeping around. The rules of the game evolve, and new races and classes can become new-traditional in time, but some things should stay the same of D&D will lose its identity and legacy across editions.

Then, some people want as much symmetry as possible in the game, and the fact that 2 races can offspring while other 2 can't is not good with them. Personally I like diversity and thus I am totally into this kind of lack of asymmetry.

However, I don't like the violent back-story of Half-Orcs, especially when I run the game for my kids. I decided years ago to just narrate Half-Orc as their own race that perhaps proves a common origin to both humans and orcs, but now works on its own. I still keep Half-Elves as they are in the PHB. See, it's not difficult to change the story without really changing the game. But would I want the publishers to change the official default to suit my preference and invalidate decades of lore? No.

If half-races seem uninteresting to you, it's also worth considering whether or not these half-races can be reskinned or altered as something else for your purposes. I have a variety of homebrews that I have used or keep in my back pocket, and I sometimes reflavor existing races so they fit better. This includes the aforementioned half-races.

In one of my old games, half-orcs are not actually half-anything. They are simply another variety of orcs. But because humans regarded them as more "civilized" than their more "primitive" kin, they falsely assumed and declared then that they must be a "half-human" offshoot as a (racially-biased) explanation.

In other games, I occasionally use half-elves as "feyborn." They are humans who (for one reason or another) were born infused with arcane energies (i.e. magical radiation) of the world, often of the Feywild. Some cultures may regard them as cursed, while others may seem them as a blessing, typically of their god as a sign of divine favor.

I often enjoy having my halflings as a type of goblinoid. Similarly to the half-orcs, as they look more "human" than "goblin," humans assumed they were close kin to humans and thus natural allies. Halflings were only all too happy to let humans work with that false impression due to the associated perks. Only a handful of keen scholars have noted the similarities between goblins and halflings, such as their small size, similar languages, voracious appetities, subterranean homes, fondness for large canines, and penchant for mischief-making.

Aldarc said:

If half-races seem uninteresting to you, it's also worth considering whether or not these half-races can be reskinned or altered as something else for your purposes.

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Yep.

I often enjoy having my halflings as a type of goblinoid...

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For me it's gnomes who are, essentially, goblins.

delericho said:

For me it's gnomes who are, essentially, goblins.

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I can most definitely see that. I have grown a fondness for Golarion's fey-based gnomes so I would be more inclined to adopt that approach. And another part of me would have them return to being more akin to mythical earth spirits

My halflings as goblinoids idea originally came about from musing whether there was any connection between the goblins and halflings native of Khorvaire in Eberron.

It's interesting to read through this thread and the assumption that all half-orcs are the result of violence, Especially when the PHB states "orc and human tribes sometimes form alliances, joining forces into a larger horde to the terror of civilized lands nearby. When these alliances are sealed by marriages, half-orcs are born".

Are some half-orcs the result of rape? Of course. Just like all races. But it's not the assumption, at least not in the current edition or in my home campaign.

hawkeyefan said:

Ravenloft is probably one of the best examples you can give. However, as presented, even in the 2E days, its nature left it open to all playable races and classes from just about any of the existing settings.

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Sure, if you didn't want to go into the 80% or so domains that shunned or in some cases outright killed non-humans.