D&D General What it means for a race to end up in the PHB, its has huge significance

[Undrave]

Personally, we do not need anything but fantasy core 4 races: to make it simpler
Human,
Elf,
Dwarf,
Orc,

BOOOORING.

We don't "need" anything, but we WANT more than the 4 core races. That's enough justification.

 

[Yaarel]

I’m about to culture shock my group because we are going from 5E to BECMI.

I can hear it now “What do mean a Wizard can only be human? Elf is a class?”

Setting decisions are legitimate, even in 5e!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm certain there's also a corporate push to elevate races they can actually trademark.

Aasimar were already in the 3.5e SRD as monster level adjusted race and in fact Aasimar are in Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous as playable races.

 

[Yaarel]

Celestials are more then just Angels, and even with Angels their personalities, goals, and understanding of good can very greatly depending on what God or Pantheon they serve, or ideal. Remember its not focused upon much, but Angels and other Celestials of different alignments have fought wars against each other, leaving resentments and other issues so Celestials are more complicated then at first glance.

In my head canon, Aasimar are playable angels.

The main difference between Angel and Aasimar is, Angels lack free will, while Aasimar have free will. Angels are personifications of the tropes of an alignment plane, mainly "robot Good". There are rare cases where a freewill Humanoid becomes an angel (or a devil), but in these case it is because one coheres and expresses the alignment paradigm and tropes so well.

Angels gain and lose power relative to each other while mirroring and directly depending on the behaviors of Humans in the Material Plane. Extreme pervasive Evil among Humans causes Angels to fall, and oppositely extreme pervasive Good causes Fiends to become redeemed.

 

[Yaarel]

They seem to be outright retconning half elves out of the lore altogether. Established half elf characters are being turned into full elves in newer content.

In 2024, Half Elves are still in the lore, but absent from special mechanics. A Human-Elf ancestry can choose either Human or Elf for the character stats.

It is true that some Half-Elves have been retconned out of existence. But I suspect this has more to do with locations to make certain Human species not-necessarily-evil. For example, one "silver haired" Half-Elf was rewritten explicitly as a Non-Evil Drow Elf. Plausibly it was earlier a Half-Drow.

 

[Yaarel]

Half elves originate in Tolkien. In Tolkien, half elves have to choose between the life of an elf and the life of a human. Elrond chose to be an elf, his twin brother Elros chose to be human. Although he is known as Elrond Half-Elven, for all mechanical purposes, he is an elf.

D&D is just being brought back into line with the original source material.

Half Elves originate in Norse animism. In Norse Sagas, these Half-Humans are beautiful in a light complexion way, and are innately talented in every kind of magic.

(The Half Risar are beautiful in a dark complexion way.)

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah no clue how they handle this with Eberron.

A: They retcon khoravar and jhorgun'taal into full elves/orcs.
B: They create separate species for khoravar and jhorgun'taal, and treat them as completely their own thing.
or
C: They declare Eberron is problematic, and state that they won't be covering it again. Artificer is also never updated for 5.5e, and is eventually moved to legacy content and not allowed in official play.

What issue?

All 2024 Eberron Half Elves will use either Elf or Human for player stats. The monster statblocks use different rules anyway.

There will still be Half Elves.

All the "Houses" will be a background feats.

All the Human species are already Any alignment anyway.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

What issue?

All 2024 Eberron Half Elves will use either Elf or Human for player stats. The monster statblocks use different rules anyway.

There will still be Half Elves.

All the "Houses" will be a background feats.

All the Human species are already Any alignment anyway.

Eberron half-elves aren't 'half elves'. They're a unique species which has its own nation and rarely interbreeds with humans or elves.

I'm not sure how 'we deleted any mechanical representation and are going retconning out half-elf NPCs from the lore' is somehow improving things for the people who enjoy playing human-elf hybrids.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Oh god, this would make character creation paralyzing for some players, especially new ones. "Here's 900 combinations to sort through."

That's why I said it should be a variant rule.

 

[Yaarel]

Eberron half-elves aren't 'half elves'. They're a unique species which has its own nation and rarely interbreeds with humans or elves.

I'm not sure how 'we deleted any mechanical representation and are going retconning out half-elf NPCs from the lore' is somehow improving things for the people who enjoy playing human-elf hybrids.

Eberron Half Elves are mechanically equivalent to a 2024 Elf with cultural background. The 2024 background adds even more design space for the unique culture.

The 2024 Half Elf is alive and well.