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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[Olgar Shiverstone]

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.

Throg stick to Magic Missile. Is magic; is missile. Is gut!

 

[gyor]

An orc necromancer actually sounds pretty cool.

Yeah, basically a wizard that can beat the snot out of in hand to hand combat and raise your corpse as a ghoul for one last defilement of your body. Necromancer/Eldrich Knight for a Death Knight feel. Focus the wizard spells mostly on Necromancy and Conjuration, with maybe a few choice illusion spells like mirror image, plus Green Flame Blade. Black plate Armour, with like skull ornaments of it and a massive black great sword.

 

[Jester David]

Svirfneblin (curse their impossible to pronounce name!)

"svirf" like in "smurf" (likely the source) + neblin.
Simple.

 

[bleezy]

It says right on the page that "some of these races are more or less powerful than the typical D&D races" and should be used with care.

 

[Curmudjinn]

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.

What the hell is the bad language for? If it isn't what you like, DON'T BUY IT and simply make your own version of those monsters. It is literally no sweat nor harm to you.

I could care less about monstrous races. I want things that better a campaign, like ecologies and details like that.

 

[Zaukrie]

I for one think races and classes should have more penalties and niches....if everything is good at everything...what is the point? I realize most disagree

 

[gyor]

The - modifiers were a bad idea, they will be wildly unpopular, but its far from crippling, no matter what your class.

Pack tactics makes up for the -2 to strength. A Kobold Champion Fighter with a dex build and good team mates will be brutal. A Kobold BM Ranger with a Mastiff companion will both have pack tactics, weirdly poetic. Really the part that bugs me most about the Kobold is the flavour Coward, Beg, and Grovel, not the kind of ability that screams champion.

 

[flametitan]

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.

Honestly I rather enjoy the hobgoblin ability. An extra +3 (assuming the average party size is 4 people and that you have no NPC allies) to help guarantee that an attack lands or to avoid another effect that stacks with every other bonus is pretty decent, especially because it recharges fairly quickly.

The bugbear's traits are amazing but they're worded very specifically. Long limbed does not allow for any opportunity attack cheese. The surprise attack damage is only once per combat, and like the Assassin's abilities, requires an extremely specific chain of events to go off before they trigger (You have to both surprise an opponent, and then you have to win the initiative bid). And it's only 7 damage to open a fight with. Sure, you'll take out something low level pretty quickly, but as monsters scale by HP, it does taper off unless you crit.

I will agree that the penalties to stats are unnecessary, but not because the chosen stats are "useless." Instead it's because it punishes players who want to be the heavy armoured Kobold or the Illusionist orc while doing nothing to "balance" their actual abilities when put onto their stereotypical class, upon which the orc is *loaded* (getting some abilities from the half-orc, which are already great STR fighters and then some more to help close the distance to the ranged attackers).

In fact, why does the kobold have a stat penalty at all? Looking at its abilities, sunlight sensitivity and pack tactics cancel each other out rather nicely, leaving it's only real ability being a 1/short rest ability that forces kobolds to be within melee weapon attack range. And if that seems strong enough to be penalized, don't forget that being small in 5e is almost all penalties too.

 

[gyor]

What the hell is the bad language for? If it isn't what you like, DON'T BUY IT and simply make your own version of those monsters. It is literally no sweat nor harm to you.

I could care less about monstrous races. I want things that better a campaign, like ecologies and details like that.

You do realize that you swore (hell) when you gave him crap for swearing?

I don't blame him for being upset, they ignored the fans on this one, most of whom said no negative modifiers.

That being said, its just two races, and neither negative modifier is crippling, there is no class they can't rock, abit as long as one avoids trap options. Not ideal, but not crippling either. Heck when playing to their wheel houses (Dex Rogues, Rangers, Fighters, Monks, Bladelocks, TWF/Archer builds for Kobolds, and Fighters, Rangers, Barbarians, Monks, Paladins for Orcs), both are very powerful.

 

[pukunui]

Really the part that bugs me most about the Kobold is the flavour Coward, Beg, and Grovel, not the kind of ability that screams champion.

Agreed. I even advocated for a name change for this one in my playtest feedback, but it looks like they ignored me ...