D&D 5E PC races that a DM has specifically excluded from their campaign and why

[DammitVictor]

my problem with kender I guess is the (rather narrow) niche they occupy between gnomes and halflings...in an already crowded small-folk field.....

Not to mention Dragonlance having three different small (or short) "joke" races that were... essentially... really bad jokes.

Kender and Tinkers are obnoxious and self-destructive, but man, Gully Dwarves really aged like fine milk for anyone who cares about ableism.

 

[Hussar]

Tabaxi because 30 ft move+30ft dash+30ft feline agility e>end turn>attack while barry allen resets speed force>repeat or continue attacking if target remains up.

5e already tries to remove the tactical grid game from relevance but tabaxi has so much move that theycan just circle opponents while not getting in reach to bypass front line types

I'll admit, I haven't really paid much attention to Tabaxi, no one's tried to play one, but, isn't that just what rogues do? 30 foot move, bonus action dash, and then either dash or attack? How is this different or am I missing something? I know the scout rogue/monk in my last campaign did something pretty similar to this and it wasn't that big of a deal.

Again, am I missing something here? The stuff you guys find really OP I just don't.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Apropos of other threads (with all the halfling-bashing ), a question for all DMs out there - are there any races that people have excluded from their campaign for any reason - too boring/duplicative/don't fulfil a storyline - or have they radically changed them to fit the campaign.

I created a campaign where the only choice of race was--Human or Halfling.

I did this because I wanted to. I created a world where elves, dwarves, and gnomes were just different versions of the same thing. They were only one to two feet tall, very magical, and very rare. Some people called them elves while others called them dwarves, and halflings referred to them as gnomes (in that part of the world they were no more than 18 inches in height, and they did in fact wear little conical red hats).

I can't say everybody was pleased with the decision, but they came back to the gaming table week after week for over five years. It was countered, in a subsequent campaign run by one of those Players, by a world where the only race available were elves. Touche, Bill, touche.

We had a lot of fun.

 

[Grakarg]

I really want to run a campaign that is just Human only for the players. Plenty of other races for the player to encounter, but they can only be humans.

I think its kind of weird to assume that 5 wildly different and weird races would all go adventuring together and waltz into every human town and expect no one to react.

But sadly, I haven't managed to ban all races from my current campaign and am going the opposite direction, everything is available including unearthed arcana races. Or monsters even.

Current party? A Bearfolk barbarian, a Kenku rogue, an amethyst Dragonborn battlemaster, a Githzerai cleric, and a Halfling necromancer. Oh... and 5 happy players... so that worth something too i guess.

 

[Dire Bare]

As a player, I'm wary of DMs who run fairly standard D&D campaigns but restrict certain races, often for seemingly arbitrary reasons. No dragonborn in my game! Why? Because . . . I don't like'em!

Now, if a DM is using a specific campaign setting, published or home-brew, or is going for a particular genre feel to the game . . . I can dig reasonable restrictions on character options. It's just that most of the DMs I've run into who are adamant about restrictions . . . run very bland settings. World-building by restriction alone is not my cuppa tea.

Ideally, I'm cool with a DM providing a whitelist (a list of appropriate options) for their campaign idea . . . but being open and willing to go off that list if a player asks and has a cool character concept. DMs with strict blacklists (banned options) and no room for divergence . . . eh, I'll find another table, thanks.

Of course, with the variety of character options available today, if you play with no restrictions you can easily end up with a party looking like @Hussar's group! (I kid, your game sounds fun). If an eclectic party of different anthropomorphic animals (a tabaxi, harrengon, tortles, kenku, loxodon, and a dragonborn) wanders into a typical D&D town populated by humans and demihumans, it can be off-genre for the DM. Of course, nothing really wrong with crazy party make-ups, if that's what everyone at the table is into!

What I'd like to try, but haven't yet . . . is a lottery system. Something that would have all options on the table, but result in a more traditional party make-up. Think of the "party" for the OT Star Wars films . . . mostly human, with one exotic alien and two quirky droid NPCs. For classes, players would draw cards randomly for a hat. Each card would have a category, perhaps arcane, divine, warrior, or rogue. Players could choose any class that fits within the category drawn. Next, draw cards on ancestry, with categories like human, demihuman, non-human. As the DM, I could ensure that there will be at least one of each class group for a balanced party, and most of the ancestry cards would be human, maybe two labeled demi-human, and only one labeled non-human. If you draw the non-human card, you can play just about any race from the table's bookshelf (or D&D Beyond). Before character creation, players could trade cards! Depending on what kind of genre the DM is going for, the cards that go into the hat can be varied.

 

[Hussar]

To be honest, @Dire Bare, I've leaned into the whole thing. Half of the Avowed in Candlekeep are now offbeat races and everywhere they've gone they meet stuff that looks like them. My Forgotten Realms is a LOT more diverse than I expected it to be. Why not? If the players want it, and, really, it doesn't hurt anything, roll with it.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'll admit, I haven't really paid much attention to Tabaxi, no one's tried to play one, but, isn't that just what rogues do? 30 foot move, bonus action dash, and then either dash or attack? How is this different or am I missing something? I know the scout rogue/monk in my last campaign did something pretty similar to this and it wasn't that big of a deal.

Again, am I missing something here? The stuff you guys find really OP I just don't.

Not even close to what a rogue csn do. A rogue needs a bonus section they typically want to use for offhand attacks or disengage in order to cunning action dash. You can see just how bad it is though by keeping in mind that cunning action dash works with the tabsxi thing because the tabaxi thing does not actually have any action cost and just happens so part of their move.

They can treat combat like the flash to the point that I literally saw one named Barry Allen at one of my al tables shortly after volvos came out. Enemies far away? No they aren't enemies running away? No they won't and there is no risk of getting stuck. Due to 120 foot or 90ft+cunning action disengage move speed.with each option capable of making an attack that round. Obstacles? Lolno.

 

[Norton]

No, it really isn't. And, how are you dropping familiars so often. Never minding the ones that can flat out turn invisible at will, it isn't exactly hard to replace the normal ones. And, if by "limited range", you mean 100 feet, well, I guess that's limited. Note, how do you deal with Chainlocks who get unlimited range and invisible, flying familiars?



What? No, they don't. They can speak and there's nothing in the lore to suggest otherwise. They're not any more monsters than any other humanoid and have been a playable race since 2e at least. Heck, we HAD aarocockra PC's in 2e. Where does this "they don't like to come out of the air, only to lay eggs" thing come from? That's not part of the description of the race in any edition, and especially not 5e. I think you've internalized some pretty esoteric write ups of the race that isn't part of the game.


Why don't they like mingling with other humanoids? Nothing in the racial description even hints at that. --Ahh, I just read the 2e description.

Now, I see where you're coming from. You are insisting on lore that is not canon and hasn't been part of the game for twenty years or more. Fair enough.

Firstly, Find Familiar is a spell so you spend something to have them and losing them costs you an hour to recast. It's rarely something cast to do recon, because most want to keep their spell powder dry, in particular if they're low on slots. It rarely becomes a problem.

As for your comments regarding Aarokocra, I'll save time and refer to this page and add that they've only just recently been added to 5e as a playable race, at least with DnD Beyond.

 

[Mecheon]

Firstly, Find Familiar is a spell so you spend something to have them and losing them costs you an hour to recast. It's rarely something cast to do recon, because most want to keep their spell powder dry, in particular if they're low on slots. It rarely becomes a problem.

... Recon's a fine thing they should be able to do? There's multiple entire classes devoted to this

I'm also a bit worried on how regularly you're taking out familliers. Do you just have folks sniping every raven out of the sky or something like that? "You send your raven out to scout out the area so you have a bit of an idea what's up" is a regular famillier thing they do

As for your comments regarding Aarokocra, I'll save time and refer to this page and add that they've only just recently been added to 5e as a playable race, at least with DnD Beyond.

They've been in the game since 1E, playable since 2E at least (One of the few races playable in both reg and Dark Sun, albeit more vulture-like), and they've been in 5E since that side part to Princes of the Apocalypse so, like, over 5 years at this point.

 

[Norton]

... Recon's a fine thing they should be able to do? There's multiple entire classes devoted to this

I'm also a bit worried on how regularly you're taking out familliers. Do you just have folks sniping every raven out of the sky or something like that? "You send your raven out to scout out the area so you have a bit of an idea what's up" is a regular famillier thing they do

They've been in the game since 1E, playable since 2E at least (One of the few races playable in both reg and Dark Sun, albeit more vulture-like), and they've been in 5E since that side part to Princes of the Apocalypse so, like, over 5 years at this point.

I never said recon isn't fine, I said it's rarely worth wasting a spell slot for in most cases, especially if you're low. It costs something. That's the point.

And when I say Aarokocra's have not been available to play, I mean as a choosable race in DND Beyond which is what everyone is using these days. More to the point which is clearly getting lost, is that they tend to attract a certain kind of player in my experience who is damage-shy and power-gamey.