Tiefling and half-orc should not be in the PHB

[MoonSong]

Personally, every PHB should have 4-5 races in it. There's not a particularly large sum of material needed to add the base material for the race and a short fluff article. And I really don't wnat to pay 20-30 bucks for a manuale that only provides info on one race.


HOWEVER: what I would REALLY like to see is the PHB present the "base" races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, and then provide "variants", sun elf, moon elf, drow, halfling(small human), tiefling(demonic human), dragonbon, aasimir(celestial human). ect... as just small additional stat blocks. Then they could later publish entire mini-manuals focused on expanding upon just a single one of those variants with feats, abilities, powers, "options", history, ect... I would be fine with that.

There shouldn't be 'many' PHBs, just one with a possible second one released about halfway through the game's lifespan, and it should provide support for about 11-12 races and a similar number of classes, having more than one just encourages what happened in 4e: few races and classes per book with lots of extra unnescessary stuff, which meant that some playstyles went over supported while the rest had none for a year or two.

Iconic Half-breeds (Tieflings and Half-orcs) and the Halflings, should be included as is and not as subraces, they are distinct enough from regular humans (and Halflings are truly different, not just humans-but-shorter), and the extra complexity of them being a subsystem just punishes new players wanting to use them or players that want both simplicity and play as them, however I'm all in for some way to decide the level of elfness or humaness of a Half-Elf as an option. The subrace and personalization stuff should go in an appendix.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I don't mind if the players have the option of playing more "exotic" races. But if having a race means that there's a dozen or so race-specific feats or options, than having 10-12 races means the PHB has over a hundred feats that are not available to 90% of players, and the problem gets worse in future books.

The more races they want to support, the simpler the racial benefits need to be.

 

[Sunseeker]

There shouldn't be 'many' PHBs, just one with a possible second one released about halfway through the game's lifespan, and it should provide support for about 11-12 races and a similar number of classes, having more than one just encourages what happened in 4e: few races and classes per book with lots of extra unnescessary stuff, which meant that some playstyles went over supported while the rest had none for a year or two.

I have no problem with multiple PHB's with fewer races and classes provided that each one gets a lot of support in each book. I do agree that I do not want to see a lot of PHBs with only barebones material on classes and races.

The subrace and personalization stuff should go in an appendix.

Personally I would present it right along side the race just for comparison and noticing it. I enjoy subraces and really don't want to see them sent to the back of the bus.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I really don't like the PHB telling me which races are going to populate my world. What if I want to play a campaign set in the battle between Tieflings and Dragonborn? Neither are going to be rare in that situation. Wizards should NEVER be telling me what should or shouldn't be in my game, or what my players should or shouldn't be playing.

Then do so. This isn't telling you what should or shouldn't be in your game. It's merely setting up a series of common baselines. It's supposed to be a tool, not a shackle. Still, the language could be improved a little. Add

"For a classic game, the DM might limit PCs to common races. A more exotic setting might have different set of permitted and restricted races."

The point is to make establishing the available races and classes a standard part of any campaign, and to give tools for doing so.

 

[avin]

Also, just this month I started a game for my 14 yr old daughter and two friends. Elves were the CLEAR race of choice. Admittedly, dragonborn were not presented as an option.

That seems to happen everywhere: Humans > Elves > everything else.

 

[avin]

A rule of thumb so you can gauge it, if you have interacted with less than 30 other players it means nothing, if it is more than 120 then you have a pretty good panorame. Anything in between is in the realm of speculation.

Personaly I hope they leave gnomes and half-orcs on the core, and since I stated I don't have anything against them, Tieflings and Dragonborn are cool to have too anything between 10-12 races would be ideal (probably with the added common/uncommon/rare distinction)

More than 30, less than 120.

Of course I'm on the realm of speculation, still, I can only talk about what I see

 

[Tallifer]

Of course you can always say "I just don't use that race", but it's not the same thing as not using a mechanic, which (if 5e does modularity properly) means you will have to ignore a bunch of feats/spells/etc per book. To eliminate a race from a setting and its adventures you'll have a harder job ahead IMHO.

That is one of the most baffling and unfounded statements I have read here. There is nothing easier than refluffing races and other stuff in a campaign setting or adventure. I started runnign the Scales of War adventure path in my own fantastic version of India: I just renamed everything, often as I went. I used google to print out pictures of buildings, rooms, people and monsters which come from Hindoo mythology.

In a different game, the dungeon master decided to run a campaign in Eberron using an Old School retroclone. I decided to play a Kalashtar Disciple of the Light: I just rolled up an Elfin Cleric and refluffed all the prayers as psionic mind disciplines. The entire sum of my effort was writing Kalashtar on the top of my character sheet.

In another campaign which unfortunataely fizzled, I set the whole thing in a sort of anachronistic Mediaeval/Renaissance/Thirty Years War Germany and I allowed any race with the proviso that it was refluffed as a human.

 

[Incenjucar]

Personally, I'd like for there to eventually be one (and, when possible, exactly one) race for every major biological race concept. Once you have that, you can tack on whatever culture as needed.

From my blog on monster races for 4E:

Here's what 4E has:

Concept.....Race
Amphibian.....Bullywug
Angel.....Deva
Beast.....Minotaur, Gnoll
Bird.....Kenku
Arthropod.....Thri-Kreen
Dragon.....Dragonborn
Elemental.....Genasi
Fey..... Elf, Gnome, Eladrin, Drow, Half-Elf, Wilden
Fiend.....Tiefling, Duergar
Giant.....Goliath
Construct.....Warforged, Shardmind
Plant.....Wilden
Mutant.....Bladeling, Githyanki, Githzerai
Reptile.....Dragonborn, Kobold
Savage Humanoid..... Half-Orc, Bugbear, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Orc
Shadow.....Shadar-Kai, Shade
Shape Shifter.....Changeling, Shifter
Short.....Halfling, Gnome, Goblin, Kobold
Spirit.....Kalashtar
Stocky..... Dwarf, Duergar, Mul
Undead.....Revenant, Vryloka


Here's what 4E is missing, with suggested races:

Concept.....Race
Aberrant.....Foulspawn
Fish.....Kuo-toa, Sahuagin
Fungus.....Myconid
Mollusk.....??? (mind flayers don’t really belong here)
Ooze.....Keeper
Primal.....Shifters? Otherwise Tulgar or Werejackal
Worm.....Psurlon

 

[Tallifer]

I don't mind if the players have the option of playing more "exotic" races. But if having a race means that there's a dozen or so race-specific feats or options, than having 10-12 races means the PHB has over a hundred feats that are not available to 90% of players, and the problem gets worse in future books.

The more races they want to support, the simpler the racial benefits need to be.

Death to all racial feats!

I agree that they are the worst sort of rules bloat. I love having all the races available. But racial feats and powers mean that vast stretches of print are completely irrelevant for most players in any one group.

Class features, feats and powers can always provide some interest, because players can multi-class. But your race is fixed.

Besides which, racial feats and powers only reinforce the min-max approach to races.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm sure it's way to late in this thread (and I stopped reading after a few pages so it might have been mentioned) to point out that there's evidence that 5e will have a stronger "rule zero" than ever before.

There's evidence to suggest that race and class (and perhaps other things) will come with a built-in "rarity" with the idea that only "common" races and classes would be expected to be allowed by a DM without consultation, and "Rare" races and classes one would expect to clear with their DM (unless they know the DM well and she's already cleared 'em, 'natch.)

I'd expect Tieflings to list as rare, though Half-Orcs might only be uncommon. (Though in the latter case that would still give even a passive DM the needed clout to limit them if so desired.)

Seems easy to me.