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

[Weiley31]

So, the most popular character is Human fighter Bob...

aren't we creative as a community, haha!

Blame whoever came up with the saying "K.I.S.S."

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Races are more than their stats. I don't play orcs for a stat block, I play an orc because Times Change. If you removed stats entirely and broke it down to "Orc: You're an ORC' folks will still be playing these races. If all the difference between elves was "Pick WOODS, MAGIC or UNDERGROUND", folks will still play all three


Lore sells people on races. The lore absolutely matters

Lores most important, mechanics are supposed to be a balanced reflection of the lore, no matter what minmaxers say.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Autognomes are a better example of construct touched.

i mean, they're not really any more gnome-like than your average warforged besides from being small, they're basically one of the 'the same but slightly to the left' variant-species that didn't really need to be it's own entry, and warforged were already mentioned in the discussion, but conceptually yes, warforged variants that are designed to mimic other species.

construct touched sounds like it would be some cyborg template, which is, well, not what i was talking about.

 

[Mecheon]

I'm not against lore, I'm against that all tieflings are the same, and human based.
IF anything, my idea of templates would add more diversity and lore to aasimars, tiefling and changelings and what not.

sure, halflings could be a species of their own, or just small subspecies of humans, gnomes could be just small elves or dwarves that either got their own culture as they splitted form their parent race long ago, or just be integrated with default elves.

and, I made sure that Orcs are in the Core4, because orcs are awesome, free willed or just irredeemably evil or corrupt.

They're going to handle it with "Yeah pick medium or small" ,just like they did for a bunch of other races. Not perfect, sure, but its basic enough a solution. Its not really adding more diversity or lore though beucase.... Templates are boring. Let's be completely honest here, templates are boring. They don't catch the imagination like a full fleshed out stat block. They have their place, sure, but I'd argue that place isn't the PHB, where new players come to play the game and you want to sell them on the options at hand.

Making halflings subspecies of humans or gnomes subspecies of elves and dwarves is just going to piss off the halfling and gnome fans. I can confirm this, because as a gnome fan, I don't want no stinking elf, and both races offer nothing I want or need in my gnomish ways. There's no benefit to this except pissing off shortfolk fans and giving me a boring statblock rhat I had to go back and read because when I originally saw your post? My eyes glazed over the stats. I had to go back and read it, that's how boring a pure templated statblock can be.

Suggesting you want gnomes integrated with elves is suggesting you don't want me as a customer

 

[James Gasik]

.That having been said, Halflings in many settings live in or near Human communities, so it's quite possible they have coexisted for some time, and perhaps evolved from similar ancestors. Halflings as a Human subrace isn't the worst idea ever. Though given how Halflings worked in AD&D, there is a case for the race being able to adapt to their neighbors- Stouts were certainly Dwarf-like, and Tallfellows were more Elf-like, as examples. So perhaps any similarities to Humans is simply the result of some sort of Halfling mimicry (like they're discount Changelings or something) and they are, in fact, a completely separate species.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

.i'd buy an Aasimar waifu pillow.

I'd buy a dragonborn husbando pillow, assuming I had the money.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'd buy a dragonborn husbando pillow, assuming I had the money.

Dat's a big pillow.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

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.

Going to be a real issue if/when they revisit Eberron in earnest, if they keep to this approach...

 

[Clint_L]

Every kid I know (ages 8-12) chooses to play Dragonborn as their first character.

My current newbie campaign, Grades 9-12, has:

1 shifter barbarian
1 kenku artificer
1 gnome rogue
1 goliath fighter
1 human paladin
1 dragonborn cleric
1 tabaxi bard

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

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.