D&D 5E Player Races in Upcoming Volo's Guide to Monsters

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, and I think they would be cool as far as it goes; but the cultural baggage is actually one of the Dryads advantages for RPing purposes over an invented race.

I don't care about dryads.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What?

Oh, those guys. Not me.

You did a Wilden for 5e?


edit: I can't adequately express my annoyance with autocorrect, because this forum has rules.

 

[IchneumonWasp]

I hope the book will feature the Thri-kreen. Either way, I'll buy the book. I have to support more race options.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't care about dryads.

Oookay, you brought them into the discussion, and juxtaposed them with Wildeb; doubt either of them will be playable in this book, but the Wilden will be seen in action anytime soon at all, I wager.

 

[Mercule]

I'm pretty much the opposite, I guess.

I don't care if humans even exist in a given world. I'd rather have a bunch of other races, of varying degrees of "alien".

FWIW, I could probably have fun in that sort of world. It's not what I'd prefer or what I think the core of the D&D game should be. But, it's a totally fine play style that I won't knock other than to say "not my personal flavor". Also, this isn't a "core" product, so I'm fine if it caters to a different niche style.

But when I talk about race niche overlap, i'm talking mechanics more than thematics. I don't care, at all, if orcs and half-orcs serve different mechanical niches. They fill different story roles, which is more than enough reason to have them both, IMO.

Gotcha. I think the objection might be more based on perceived product value. If you have statistically identical races, and they're presented as separate, full write-ups, then people would complain about wasted pages because Firbolgs are just a reprint/reskin of Goliaths, which we got with PotA, for free.

I'm sympathetic to this objection. Fluff is a double-edged sword. I've been complaining about the explicit tie in the UA Mystic class write-up between psionics and the Far Realm and the constant inclusion of the Forgotten Realms in core books and adventures grates on me to no end. On the other hand, one of the coolest things about D&D has always been the idea generator aspect of the Monster Manuals. I love the ala carte nature of being able to create several worlds, all using the same rules set and all being rather different.

Odds are that I'm not going to use both goliaths and firbolg in the same campaign, so them having identical stats would be rather irrelevant. Your suggestion of a "giantkin" race with goliath and firbolg sub-races sounds like a nice middle ground, to me. Both races should probably get the bonus strength and ability to use oversized weapons. The firbolg might be a bit more sturdy and also get resistance to cold (making stuff up) while the goliath gets the athleticism, etc.

Maybe the question is: What constitutes mechanical overlap?

Half-elves and tieflings both get a +2 to Charisma. Does that count? What about a hypothetical orc that got the same ability modifiers as a hill dwarf, but different "bullet point" abilities? I definitely wouldn't consider that last one to be redundant.

Now, let's say they published a "beastfolk" that was statistically identical to orc, including bullet abilities and then just described them as being "hairy, primitive, and vaguely bear-like in appearance" and "organized into insular clans which adhere to a superstitious form of tribal solipsism, causing them to treat non-beastfolk as apparitions without souls who are sent to challenge them". That's a reasonably interesting idea (for something that came as train-of-thought). It's not really something that needs a full MM entry, though. That's something that could be done as an example variation of orc in a setting book, a UA entry, or a sidebar somewhere. I might actually buy a 250ish page hardcover of neat ideas like that, but it'd feel like they were padding their page count if they actually reprinted the stat block for orc, rather than refer to "see orc, p. xx of the Monster Manual, especially if they had 6-8 variations.

 

[CapnZapp]

All the better because it lacks FR references, but is strongly anchored to the D&D brand.

I think they went with Volo precisely because of the Forgotten Realms references. And not only that: the nostalgic Forgotten Realms references!

After all more than half their customer base plays either homebrew or in the Realms. So by betting on the hope that stuff set in FR is still useful to homebrewers (which you may agree or disagree with, but that's their call) they can capture the larger part of their customer base without splitting out into different settings.

Then they can pay lip service to those other settings via quick freebies, such as the monster thing for Magic the Gathering.

 

[Satyrn]

You did a Wilden for 5e?


edit: I can't adequately express my annoyance with autocorrect, because this forum has rules.

No. Sorry, I was jokingly misreading your mention of satyrs as a reference to me.


(Also, I laughed at your post, because I know exactly how you feel. I no longer use autocorrect on my tablet.)

 

[Demetrios1453]

Some more musing now that we have the four artwork pictures released...

I doubt that they will confine themselves to just a single beholder kin in the book (as beholders are prominently mentioned in the book description), so, seeing one likely means we'll see others. That's great as I have several other beholder kin in my list of "monsters I want to see updated for 5e". The same can be said of yuan-to if our mysterious Pit Master does turn out to be a yuan-ti as we suspect.

Seeing the ki-rin does hint at more celestials, which were woefully underrepresented in the MM. I'm not sure if we'll see the full slate if archons, guardinals, and eladrin, but we can hope for at least some extra material on celestials.

No fey in the art, conversy, does leave me a bit worried that they will continue to be underrepresented. I hope this isn't the case, but if it is, hopefully we'll at least see some classic fey like quicklings appear...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

FWIW, I could probably have fun in that sort of world. It's not what I'd prefer or what I think the core of the D&D game should be. But, it's a totally fine play style that I won't knock other than to say "not my personal flavor". Also, this isn't a "core" product, so I'm fine if it caters to a different niche style.


Gotcha. I think the objection might be more based on perceived product value. If you have statistically identical races, and they're presented as separate, full write-ups, then people would complain about wasted pages because Firbolgs are just a reprint/reskin of Goliaths, which we got with PotA, for free.

I'm sympathetic to this objection. Fluff is a double-edged sword. I've been complaining about the explicit tie in the UA Mystic class write-up between psionics and the Far Realm and the constant inclusion of the Forgotten Realms in core books and adventures grates on me to no end. On the other hand, one of the coolest things about D&D has always been the idea generator aspect of the Monster Manuals. I love the ala carte nature of being able to create several worlds, all using the same rules set and all being rather different.

Odds are that I'm not going to use both goliaths and firbolg in the same campaign, so them having identical stats would be rather irrelevant. Your suggestion of a "giantkin" race with goliath and firbolg sub-races sounds like a nice middle ground, to me. Both races should probably get the bonus strength and ability to use oversized weapons. The firbolg might be a bit more sturdy and also get resistance to cold (making stuff up) while the goliath gets the athleticism, etc.

Maybe the question is: What constitutes mechanical overlap?

Half-elves and tieflings both get a +2 to Charisma. Does that count? What about a hypothetical orc that got the same ability modifiers as a hill dwarf, but different "bullet point" abilities? I definitely wouldn't consider that last one to be redundant.

Now, let's say they published a "beastfolk" that was statistically identical to orc, including bullet abilities and then just described them as being "hairy, primitive, and vaguely bear-like in appearance" and "organized into insular clans which adhere to a superstitious form of tribal solipsism, causing them to treat non-beastfolk as apparitions without souls who are sent to challenge them". That's a reasonably interesting idea (for something that came as train-of-thought). It's not really something that needs a full MM entry, though. That's something that could be done as an example variation of orc in a setting book, a UA entry, or a sidebar somewhere. I might actually buy a 250ish page hardcover of neat ideas like that, but it'd feel like they were padding their page count if they actually reprinted the stat block for orc, rather than refer to "see orc, p. xx of the Monster Manual, especially if they had 6-8 variations.

Great points! For me, mechanical overlap is a wide range, but becomes something else when the whole stateblock is the same. But I'm totally fine with orcs, goliaths, bugbears, firbolg, and minotaurs, for instance. They're all different, even if they are all big +str heavy hitters.

Gotta get back to work, or I'd go into more detail.

 

[Dualazi]

Kenku, really? Do we not currently have Aarokocra? Is there really that much demand that we need 2 bird races? Most of other other picks seem fine, but this one seems like a genuine waste of ink. The only explanation I can come up with for it is if they really, really wanted an AL legal bird race.