Does anyone actually like Dragonborn and Tieflings?

[Rechan]

You know. Maybe people are just scarred from the Drizzt days, because I don't see anything "emo" about the tief. In all honest, they look more "I'm so *awesome* because I'm the devil" rather than "Woe, I am not awesome, for I am devil tainted".

They make me think of the villain from Highlander. Bad, with no excuses, no apologies.

I get a Hell's Angels vibe, not a weepy vampire one.

 

[Tarek]

I don't have a problem with the *idea* of either as a race. What I have problems with are the specific background fluff elements that Wizards put in for the races.

"Paragons of honor" for Dragonborn? You're talking about sapient reptiles who are closely related to DRAGONS. "Paragons of self-centeredness" would have been far more appropriate, given the way the old vestiges of the reptile-brain influence mammalian behavior, much less those of a race that's entirely reptile.

Tieflings aren't a "race" in my opinion, they're individuals who have demon-tainted blood. We're talking supernatural evil here. The purest example of the tiefling, the proper examples, are the Alu-demon and Cambion from 1st edition.

 

[Ahglock]

You know. Maybe people are just scarred from the Drizzt days, because I don't see anything "emo" about the tief. In all honest, they look more "I'm so *awesome* because I'm the devil" rather than "Woe, I am not awesome, for I am devil tainted".

They make me think of the villain from Highlander. Bad, with no excuses, no apologies.

I get a Hell's Angels vibe, not a weepy vampire one.

Emo is probably one of the most misused new words out there. Any time someone has some kind of negative event in there history and its brought up they are emo. It doesn't matter if they tough up and work through it, it doesn't matter if its just a momentary woe is me moment they are emo. Someone is dark and goth like yo its emo.

For a while I really wasn't sure what it meant, sure i had a guess since its like have of emotion, but with it being applied to basically everything someone doesn't like it was hard to tell.

I got nothing against there back story I just I think they look devil lame like in Tom Cruise fantasy movie devil lame way, what was that movie called Legend or something.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Dnd also lacks a big non-furry/scaley pc race. If possible a toned down ogre rather than a half-whatever.

The goliath looks like it's making a return in Player's Handbook 2, so if you can handle a big race with mottled skin and a few stone-like patches of hardened flesh, you only have to wait until March.

"Paragons of honor" for Dragonborn? You're talking about sapient reptiles who are closely related to DRAGONS. "Paragons of self-centeredness" would have been far more appropriate, given the way the old vestiges of the reptile-brain influence mammalian behavior, much less those of a race that's entirely reptile.

Well, maybe, but a) trying to use science to draw conclusions about D&D is pretty silly, and b) dragonborn are supposed to be associated closely with Bahamut, who is the god of honour and justice.

Besides, dragonborn are clearly scaly monotremes, not reptiles!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I love the Dragonborn- sans boobies- but much preferred the 3Ed take on Tieflings.

I just don't like them outside of the context of otherplanar bastardbabies- gimmie my Aasimars, Genasi, Fey'ri and all those guys!

 

[Shemeska]

FR has had something similar to the tieflings around for a while, the Fey'ri which are pretty equivalent.

The Fey'ri were a specific group of elven tieflings that bred true and had a specific, common origin/bloodline. FR also had normal tieflings as well, of all sorts of origins in terms of their mortal stock and what particular sort of fiendish blood they had.

That said, 4e in my opinion has, to an extent, hamstrung themselves by presenting a single origin for 4e tieflings that rather precludes having the racial ambiguity of the confused, sullied bloodlines of 2e/3e tieflings. Now you've got a specific race rather than individuals whose fiendish blood might be a single generation old, or the result of a tryst eons ago that manifested in them out of nowhere.

They look the same now too, which is a far cry from the fiendish grab-bag of traits they've had previously. For instance, I loved the table of tiefling variant traits in the 2e Planewalkers Handbook, and WotC would do well to look back at that book and introduce that level of diversity for 4e tieflings (otherwise a different name for the 4e race would have been better, given the strict origin definition in 4e).

 

[The Green Adam]

That said, 4e in my opinion has, to an extent, hamstrung themselves by presenting a single origin for 4e tieflings that rather precludes having the racial ambiguity of the confused, sullied bloodlines of 2e/3e tieflings. Now you've got a specific race rather than individuals whose fiendish blood might be a single generation old, or the result of a tryst eons ago that manifested in them out of nowhere.

They look the same now too, which is a far cry from the fiendish grab-bag of traits they've had previously. For instance, I loved the table of tiefling variant traits in the 2e Planewalkers Handbook, and WotC would do well to look back at that book and introduce that level of diversity for 4e tieflings (otherwise a different name for the 4e race would have been better, given the strict origin definition in 4e).

Now that sounds considerably more interesting. I missed a lot of the 2E stuff as my group wasn't playing much if any D&D around that time. I'll go look it up. Maybe I can create a version of the Tiefling that I can really get into.

AD

 

[Nifft]

That said, 4e in my opinion has, to an extent, hamstrung themselves by presenting a single origin for 4e tieflings that rather precludes having the racial ambiguity of the confused, sullied bloodlines of 2e/3e tieflings. Now you've got a specific race rather than individuals whose fiendish blood might be a single generation old, or the result of a tryst eons ago that manifested in them out of nowhere.

I expect each setting will give its own particular origin story. My homebrew certainly will.

I also expect to see a pile of feats & racial options to allow significant customization in some upcoming product. Certainly not random, though. Randomness in character generation isn't nearly as acceptable as it was back in 1e/2e.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Byronic]

Oh god, you finally gave me a reason to play a tiefling. I want to play an orthodox-religious tiefling of a lawful good god. He's not "making up for his ancestor's deeds" or wallowing in self-loathing. He just thinks his path is the right one, and is somewhat annoyed when people make the evil eye sign at him. "Really, as if that would protect you if I were demonspawn…"

Glad to be of service

 

[MerricB]

In my two groups, we have three tieflings and one dragonborn. The one player playing a Dragonborn really, really loves them - he used to play a Dragon Disciple back during 3e.

For my groups, Wizards made the right call. (Number of half-orcs and gnomes in 8 years of two 3e campaigns? None).

Cheers!