The 10 Player Races in Volo's Guide Revealed

On its Volo's Guide to Monsters product page, Fantasy Grounds has a screenshot up listing the 10 playable races - Aasimar, Bugbear, Firbolg, Goblin, Goliath, Hobgoblin, Kenku, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Orc, Tabaxi, Triton, Yuan-ti Pureblood.

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Product Page: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=WOTC5EVGM
Screenshot: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/images/screenshots/Screenshots/WOTC5EVGM/New-Monstrous-Races.jpg

Biggest surprise for me is Kenku. Bugbear is also unexpected.

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[gyor]

I was put off by the Orc's minus 2, until I remembered that as long as you stay away from too many blaster spells and save or suck spells, then you could have a good Orc wizard, especially if you multiclass with Eldrich Knight with a couple of SCAG cantrips.

Picture an Orc Necromancer/Eldrich Knight. Could work, if you chose your spells wisely.

 

[flametitan]

The Kobold and Orc disadvantages are jarring at first, but their advantages are pretty good, and fit in to stereotypical roles for those races pretty well; an Orc Wizard will remain an oddity, though still totally doable with the right rolls, but an Orc Fighter or Barbarian is king...

That's exactly the problem though. They're incredibly powerful with certain classes, and as a "penalty" are given negatives in stats that these builds often don't concern themselves with anyway. However, if you want to go against the grain, you'll have that much harder of a time doing so. Up to now 5e races never really punished you for weird combinations. If you wanted to be a Half-Orc or Goliath Wizard, you weren't exactly rewarded for it, but you could keep up with the High Elf Wizard. But a full Orc wizard? Sorry, your abilities are neither useful for being a wizard, and you take a penalty to your primary wizard stat.

I get you can avoid spells that require saves and attack rolls, but you still end up with the problem that you have to build a certain way to not be behind, rather than simply picking up the coolest sounding things.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think it was expected that races outside the main PHB races could in fact get ability penalties, though it's something that should be used sparingly.

 

[gyor]

Its really just Orc Envokers/Enchanters and possibly illusionists that will suck. Focus on conjuration, necromancy, Aburation mustly plus green flame and Booming Blade spells and an Orc can rock as a Gish with minions.

 

[Werebat]

Did they make the Orc a little more attractive (mechanically speaking) than its DMG iteration was?

 

[GreenTengu]

Hobgoblin is good for Gishy wizards, +2 Con, +1 Intelligence, prof in martial weapons & light armour. Take the warcaster feat and use a great sword. Plus they can get a bonus to certain rolls on a failure depending on how many people see it embarrass itself.

Bugbear is basically a giant rogue, reach, surprise attack, powerful build, sneaky (free stealth prof), darkvision.

Please don't tell me this is the list of everything.

So Hobgoblins get a +2 in the universally good attribute, +1 in the trashiest and.... crap proficiency that every single class in the game gets or cannot possibly take advantage of. And is expected to... fail in front of everyone.

Bugbears however get the bar none most powerful ability in all the game (reach), plus bonus damage, plus stealth proficiency?

So they made Hobgoblins completely suck to the point of being absolutely worthless and made Bugbears super overpowered combat monsters that pretty much assures that all races in this book will be banned the moment someone runs one and destroys the adventure.

The negative penalties on Orcs and Kobolds don't hurt them. There are literally only two classes in the game that are remotely negative affected by having an intelligence above 6 and, similarly, Strength is an utterly worthless stat unless you are a Paladin... and even then you can probably find a way to make a dex build that is nearly as good. Dexterity otherwise gets to substitute in for Strength in virtually all situations you would even be asked to make a Strength roll.

 

[pukunui]

Its really just Orc Envokers/Enchanters and possibly illusionists that will suck. Focus on conjuration, necromancy, Aburation mustly plus green flame and Booming Blade spells and an Orc can rock as a Gish with minions.

An orc necromancer actually sounds pretty cool.

 

[turkeygiant]

I think something to remember is kobolds, orcs, and goblins are MONSTEROUS RACES, they aren't necessarily intended to fill the really versatile roles of traditional PC races. Yes you can play as these races, but the goal wasn't to make them playable as all classes, just those that fit their monsterous natures.

 

[GreenTengu]

I think something to remember is kobolds, orcs, and goblins are MONSTEROUS RACES, they aren't necessarily intended to fill the really versatile roles of traditional PC races. Yes you can play as these races, but the goal wasn't to make them playable as all classes, just those that fit their monsterous natures.

If Dragonborn, Tiefling, Drow, Goliath, Firbolg, Lizardfolk, Triton, Tabaxi and Kenku are not "monsterous races", there really is no god damn excuse except incompetance and laziness.

So two weeks before the book is slated to be announced, we get absolute, indisputable confirmation from the final product that indeed the primary thing people wanted the book for was completely as shitily done as it possibly could have been. That once again it has fallen into the hands of someone who smugly thought he was being clever by intentionally doing the crappiest job possible.

I am guessing it probably mostly ties back to not wanting to make the PC stats too incongruity with the monster manual entry or some complete bullcrap like that. And so appearing in the Monster Manual decided that for another god damn edition they would be absolutely functionally unplayable... while anything that didn't get shoved into the Monster Manual first gets to start with a clean slate and actually designed with the slightest bit of intelligence and common sense.

It is a good thing the spoilers warned me now not to buy the god damn book. I just feel bad for anyone who was stupid enough to pre-order it.

 

[GarrettKP]

The meaning of Monstrous here is "monster races that tend towards evil alignments."

Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Goblin and Kobold are very unlikely adventurers when compared to Goliath, Tabaxi, Triton and Kenku.

That being said I see no issue with the Hobgoblin statistics. They make great Wizards and decent melee characters. Not every race needs a bonus to the classes main stat to be effective despite what power gamers might want to think.

I mean, you're acting like they are Kobolds and only get one stat bonus alongside a negative.