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

[Chaosmancer]

Nope, it matters to me right now.

I'm glad it doesnt matter to you, so it changes nothing.

Why does it matter? Have you played 10,000 characters?

 

[Scribe]

So, you simply ignored my very next sentence, which addresses why this exact argument is problematic. I'll post it again. I'd appreciate if you actually read the entire post.

"And any arguments to flavor [ie Story] just make people feel like they are stupid for wanting that flavor [ie story] (since it is mechanically inferior), and when they express that disconnect that their flavor is harmed by the mechanical inferiority of their choice, then they get berated for being a minmaxxed powergamer who cares nothing for story.

Which is double insulting since if they didn't care about story... they'd just take the superior option anyways."

I dont believe its stupid?

I dont believe a missing +1 renders your character concept as foolish.

 

[Scribe]

Why does it matter? Have you played 10,000 characters?

Because that 1 I do play, should be part of the species it comes from, with the same general racial modifier?

 

[JEB]

I dont believe its stupid?

I dont believe a missing +1 renders your character concept as foolish.

An awful lot of players in my last campaign must have been foolish, considering how many "bad" race-class combos were around...

 

[Maxperson]

I believe they were listed as a race in 3.X, and I thought Planescape listed them as a race.

No. Planetouched were not a race. They are a category.

Giants are a race after all, with multiple subraces.

No. Giant is a type, not a race. There are 6 varieties(races) of giant, as well as trolls and ogres. MM pages 6-7

Same with dragons.

Yep. Same with dragons.

True Dragons are a race with multiple subraces.

Wrong. Under Types in the MM

"Dragons are large reptilian creatures of ancient origin and tremendous power. True dragons, including the good metallic dragons and the evil chromatic dragons, are highly intelligent and have innate magic. Also in this category are creatures distantly related to true dragons,
but less powerful, less intelligent, and less magical, such as wyverns and pseudodragons." So there are several races of true dragons in that category and some others as well.

Other than "nuh-uh" do you have a reason that planetouched can't be considered a race like Giants or True Dragons?

Yeah mean other than the facts? No. All I have is the fact that they are all types and not races, although planetouched is no longer even a type in 5e.

 

[Maxperson]

An awful lot of players in my last campaign must have been foolish, considering how many "bad" race-class combos were around...

I have a Warforged Bard in my current 5e campaign.

 

[Umbran]

This absolutely is the conclusion which I believe we have arrived at, where Wizards is no longer willing to expose themselves to criticism which can be offloaded to the DM.

Except, as Faolyn has noted - the worldbuilding is still there - the goliath has a stack of traits that are unique to them. They have simply chosen to remove fixed ASIs for PCs as a part of that.

And, as BookTenTiger has noted, this may be less about appeasing anyone, as it is folks within WotC now being given external events they can point to that support changes they want to make anyway. If I already want a chocolate cake, I am not "appeasing" the others at the table by making chocolate cake they also want.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I have a Warforged Bard in my current 5e campaign.

Warforged have a floating +1 to any Ability Score, and CON benefits everybody. That character (if using Point Buy or Standard Array) could have easily started out with a 16 in their main ability, just like any other race that got a bonus to Charisma.

I fail to see how this is an argument against "I want to play my race-class combo without a penalty from racial ASIs!", because that is an effective combo.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is pretty much why I don't want them to abandon Lineages fully as I would like to make combinations like this.

I really like the distinction of "Race" and "Lineage" as being a species and a mutation respectively. It really encourages creativity for creating your character's identity.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Fair enough. I haven't seen that expressed explicitly in the thread. But I am detecting that sentiment loudly expressed implicitly all over the gaming world.

In other words, "No, I haven't seen anyone say that, but I think that I can read the minds of D&D players all across the world, so I based my argument off of that".