D&D 5E Wow! No more subraces. The Players Handbook races reformat to the new race format going forward.

[Maxperson]

And there is zero mechanical difference between a 16 and a 17. They might as well be the same number.

So you think that nobody ever rolls an even stat? It's only going to be 15+1 and 15+2? Because from where I sit, 16+2 is better than 16+1 AND even 15+2 is mechanically better than 15+1, since it only takes a +1 to get from 17 to 18. You can pick a feat AND get the 18 if you're the elf. The human is screwed with his measly +1.

Nothing in the rules says that I can't have a level 4 dwarven NPC

That's not how NPCs are designed. You have to as DM opt into that for specific NPCs.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yes, we are talking about PCs who are a part of the race and would get the same bonuses.

Yes, I understand that. The point is PCs are the very rare exceptions (that make them PCs) - so maybe they sometimes (and really, there is a very low chance that someone is dropping, say an 8 Dex on an elf, or an 8 Str on an orc, for example, at least not without a major character plot-point to go with it!) don't fit the standard racial mold?

At any rate, I understand your position - I didn't like it at first either - but I'm comin' around. In the very least, I don't think it's a big deal that WotC wants to go that way. At best, there might be a few more characters that break the standard mold. (Some of them will be great; some of them will suck, I'm sure. So what else is new?)

 

[Scribe]

I think you got Autognomes and Hadozee right, but everything else wrong.

Plasmoids should absolutely get some bonus to Dexterity. Probably a +2 Dex, +1 Con.
Astral Elves obviously should get a +2 Dex and +1 Int. They live on a mental plane where Intelligence determines how quickly you can move in it. They'd adapt to that.
And Thri-Kreen should get a bonus to Constitution. Probably a +2 Con and +1 Dex, or a +1 Con, +1 Dex, and +1 to Wis.
And Giff should get a +1 to Dex, Con, and Str.

Imagine if instead of a bunch of 2/1 stats, they actually got weird, 2/2, 1/1/1, 2221, -4....

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Imagine if instead of a bunch of 2/1 stats, they actually got weird, 2/2, 1/1/1, 2221, -4....

That wouldn't make me like them any more.

 

[Scribe]

That wouldn't make me like them any more.

I would.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So you think that nobody ever rolls an even stat? It's only going to be 15+1 and 15+2? Because from where I sit, 16+2 is better than 16+1 AND even 15+2 is mechanically better than 15+1, since it only takes a +1 to get from 17 to 18. You can pick a feat AND get the 18 if you're the elf. The human is screwed with his measly +1.

OF course people roll stats, but the moment you start rolling stats you can throw your "biological superiority" out the window. Sure, maybe that elf rolls a 16 Dexterity and gets a +2. Or maybe they roll an 8 and the human rolls a 17. Or maybe they roll a 16 and the human rolls an 18.

You end up moving from "elves are more dexterous than humans" to "Elves are temporarily more dexterous than humans if you roll stats, and they both roll the same even number for their dexterity score" which is a rather weaker claim

That's not how NPCs are designed. You have to as DM opt into that for specific NPCs.

So, actually, I was a bit wrong in what I said when I said "Nothing in the rules says that I can't have a level 4 dwarven NPC" what I should have said was "There are explicitly rules for having leveled npcs who get ASIs". Because I forgot about Tasha's Sidekick rules.

And, therefore, again, to your assertion that "The dwarf had to be a PC to do it," you are flat wrong. You do not need to be a PC to have ASIs.

Now, do you need to opt-in to using those rules? Yes. You also need to opt-in to actually giving you NPC ability scores in the first place. And you need to opt-in to giving them racial asi's. So, we are somehow fine opting in to two other rule sets, but as soon as it challenges your position, it is suddenly bad to opt-in to rules?

Color me surprised.

 

[Maxperson]

OF course people roll stats, but the moment you start rolling stats you can throw your "biological superiority" out the window.

You can take YOUR biological superiority and shove it. Nothing I'm saying is about superiority. After that I'm not even going to read the rest of your post. You crossed the line in a huge way there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can take YOUR biological superiority and shove it. Nothing I'm saying is about superiority. After that I'm not even going to read the rest of your post. You crossed the line in a huge way there.

The other poster was saying this was about biology. But hey, ignore an entire post that refutes the points. Because "I'm better at this thing" can't possibly mean "I'm superior at this thing" It isn't like those are synonyms and I just picked a synonym instead of saying "biological better than"

 

[Maxperson]

The other poster was saying this was about biology. But hey, ignore an entire post that refutes the points. Because "I'm better at this thing" can't possibly mean "I'm superior at this thing" It isn't like those are synonyms and I just picked a synonym instead of saying "biological better than"

Then take that crap to your discussion with him. Nothing I said involves any sort of biological superiority. You can't tell me if +2 dex(elf) is superior to +2 con(dwarf) or +2 str(goliath). None of the races is superior to any others in any argument of mine. Don't accuse me of that again.

 

[Azuresun]

If your standard is "doesn't act in any way like a human" - yeah, no one's going to meet that because they're being played by humans. But I've found very average roleplayers can make races distinct enough that I don't forget what race they're playing - but very rarely make subraces that distinct.

I think it's implicitly left to settings to provide a distinction (like gold dwarves and shield dwarves in FR, which have quite different cultures), but a lot of them don't really do that.

And there is a sweet spot where a non-human race feels non-human in some important ways, but isn't incomprehensible. Tolkein managed it just fine.