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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[dave2008]

They brought back racial stat penalties. They brought back racial stat penalties?

I have to say, I am incredibly disappointed that they did this.

Three foot tall, forty pound gnomes don't have racial stat penalties.

Which is a mistake IMO. I wish they would worry less about "balance" and just make the stats match the race.

 

[Demetrios1453]

No need to feel bad for me. I don't care at all about the PC options I was always in for the fluff and monsters.

No need for him to feel bad for me either. I'm here for the fluff and monsters, and am quite happy with the PC options as well. In fact, I like the hobgoblin racial write-up...

 

[gyor]

What's the lore on The Fallen, is it for Aasimar with fallen angel ancestors, or fallen Aasimar.

Both I think. From the one page example it sounds like to me some may be born descended from a Fallen /AasimarAngel/Celestial, but potentially become Scourage or Protector through good deeds with DM permission, and a Aasimar born as a Protector or Scourage can become a Fallen Aasimar through evil deeds with DM permission.

 

[Dualazi]

Not at all a fan of stat penalties. Haven't had time to dive into the meat of the rest, but that one irks me on several fronts. First, I thought playtest and surveys found people generally didn't like them, so their inclusion is a little weird. Second, it heavily shunts players of said race into certain classes. While they can potentially buck the trend, it requires solid game knowledge to do so and is still genuinely sub-optimal, which I also thought 5th edition was trying to avoid. Lastly, it ticks me off simply from a design perspective, having all the races built with one list of assumptions and having new ones deviate from that doesn't make me hopeful for the quality of balance in future releases. Overall this kinda drives home my hunch the player section would be of little use, half of these I can likely find better made from 3rd party supplements like Kobold Press' Southland Heroes or Midgard Heroes.

Then again, I might just be yelling at clouds. Guess we'll have to see.

 

[One_Shots]

It looks like Wizards are going off the rails. If I hadn't already prepaid for a pre-order of the special cover version, I think I wouldn't have bought this judging by the information revealed so far. Lots of backwards moves lately, introducing concepts and rules design that they'd previously given very good reasons for not using.

 

[Parmandur]

No need for him to feel bad for me either. I'm here for the fluff and monsters, and am quite happy with the PC options as well. In fact, I like the hobgoblin racial write-up...

The "Saving Face" power is fantastic, actually; the armor and weapon profs are actually quite useful, and the Hobgoblin is interestingly a prime Gish build option now. Boni to Int and Str are great too, even for non-magical classes; a lot of Skills key off Int, so the Hobgoblin Rogue or Fighter will have good utility.

 

[Remathilis]

I think people are looking at this from a very skewed angle.

First, the Monster races are presented to emulate the monster, not be balanced like the other races are. The way they are presented is a bit "caveat emptor", which is why they are put at the back of the book without full write ups. (The quick stats alluded to?)

Secondly, two races have penalties. Both are on the monster list. Both are also easily avoided. Orcs take a hit to Int; the most useless stat unless you are a wizard. Orcs can make good sorcerers, bards, warlocks, clerics, and druids. Likewise, a kobold is penalized Str, which means you... have to use ranged weapons or finesse weapons? A kobold picks a rapier over a longsword. Big whoop. The only loss I guess is two-hander kobolds and even then, being small forces them disadvantage anyway.

Oh, they are so limited; one optional race doesn't work for one class and the other optional race is bad at certain builds of melee types. 5e is dead to me!

 

[TwoSix]

Oh, they are so limited; one optional race doesn't work for one class and the other optional race is bad at certain builds of melee types. 5e is dead to me!

Seriously. People's objections aren't coming from a practical angle, these objections are purely philosophical (WotC isn't following their previous build practices! Noo!). It's like a platonic ideal of pointless internet whining.

 

[Parmandur]

I think people are looking at this from a very skewed angle.

First, the Monster races are presented to emulate the monster, not be balanced like the other races are. The way they are presented is a bit "caveat emptor", which is why they are put at the back of the book without full write ups. (The quick stats alluded to?)

Secondly, two races have penalties. Both are on the monster list. Both are also easily avoided. Orcs take a hit to Int; the most useless stat unless you are a wizard. Orcs can make good sorcerers, bards, warlocks, clerics, and druids. Likewise, a kobold is penalized Str, which means you... have to use ranged weapons or finesse weapons? A kobold picks a rapier over a longsword. Big whoop. The only loss I guess is two-hander kobolds and even then, being small forces them disadvantage anyway.

Oh, they are so limited; one optional race doesn't work for one class and the other optional race is bad at certain builds of melee types. 5e is dead to me!

And both are still fully capable of fulfilling those roles, just not fully optimally. Given that the Orc has all the Half-Orcs stuff, Powerful Build and a new attack ability...something has to give.

 

[JonnyP71]

I'm very much in favour of Stat penalties and racial limitations. In my old school head, Dwarfs mistrust arcane magic and should have a charisma penalty, Halflings also have no affinity for magic and are weaker than humans, and so on...

I was looking forward to this book for the fluff - the information on monster ecology and society, lair info, and the like. However the general buzz around new playable races puts me off it. I will not play at a table with 'monster races', and I certainly will not DM one. It's probably a good thing therefore that I won't be DMing a 5E campaign for the foreseeable future - hopefully by the time we return to 5E the excitement will have died down and the playable monster races will have faded away.

Tomorrow however, we start a new campaign. It's 1E all the way , wonky xp tables, stat penalties, level limits and old style multiclassing. Gaming as it should be. Heaven.