D&D 5E A Compilation of all the Race Changes in Monsters of the Multiverse

Over on Reddit, user KingJackel went through the video leak which came out a few days ago and manually compiled a list of all the changes to races in the book. The changes are quite extensive, with only the fairy and harengon remaining unchanged. The book contains 33 races in total, compiled and updated from previous Dungeons & Dragons books.

D&D 5E - List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains 33 races compiled from previous Dungeons & Dragons books. Aarackocra Assimar Bugbear Centaur Changeling Deep Gnome Duergar Eladrin Fairy Firbolg Genasi, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fire Gennasi, Water Githyanki Githzerai Goblin Goliath...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Full List of Monsters in Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains revamped stat blocks for 260 monsters previously published in previous Dungeons & Dragons 5E books. The list was compiled by YouTuber Bob Worldbuilder based on some blurry screenshots originally shared by Nerd Immersion (see the video...

www.enworld.org

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think you’re assuming, erroneously, that a difference between a +1 modifier and a +2 needs to mean or simulate something other or more sophisticated than the latter is more likely to succeed at a specific strength feat or hit harder than the former. It doesn’t need to. It simulates that aspect of varying strength just fine.

No. It does not. And here is a fundamental disagreement. You are slightly stronger, but not enough of a variation that it is worth noting.
And when you have to give every "big" race +2 Str, you necessarily lower their other stats. Which makes them less intelligent or so on.
A little +2 modifier is just not enough to simulate anything.

 

[Cadence]

But we should not forget that we are in fantasy worlds.
in a world with dragon, demon, undead, suddenly we care very much about the relation about the size and the strength?
if you deny a halfling have 20 strength, why not deny a dragon ability to fly, it is no more logic on pure anatomic point of view.

As has been noted above, because the inspirational literature didn't have halflings be 3-4x stronger per pound than humans.

To me, the easiest fix is to reorient the fiction. Show a picture of a halfling beating a goliath at arm wrestling on one of the pages and it's all good.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One of the wider tropes that D&D is embracing, though, is that everybody is capable in their own way and that just because you are different in some way doesn't mean you are in any way less capable. That is what D&D is embracing in an overarching way, along with new interpretations of old archetypes and completely new ideas. And it's a net good, i think, even if I personally like my halflings chubby little hobbits with hearts of steal and my goblins monsters from the dark that die in droves on heroes' swords.

Yes, I'm all on board with everyone being capable in their own way! But that's not what's happening, what's happening is that everyone must be capable in the same way!

I want both halflings and goliaths to be able to be capable melee warriors, but I want them to feel and play differently! I want goliaths to overpower enemies with their strength and bulk, whilst halflings nimbly use their size and agility for advantage.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not here. But it definitely was a major argument in ASI threads around the release of Tasha's.

Where then? I didn't see any real difference between the arguments here and on /r/dndnext and Twitter, except more people supported change in those latter two.

Pick what? I am talking about 5e, mostly. I'm not some grognard that is in love with old editions of D&D, they were mostly incoherent rubbish.

Pick whether you're going to engage in whataboutery or dismiss it. You can't rationally do both.

They absolutely are smarter in the sense D&D intelligence measures. i.e. memory and reasoning. They may not do so well in lateral thinking and creativity, but that's not what we're talking about.

I don't know if I really agree that they are, because trying to say "lateral thinking isn't reasoning" is incredibly tortured thinking, frankly. Smarter people are better at lateral thinking, period. It's not even an argument. I guess it's beside the point though, because they're not a D&D race, and nobody is assessing them as such.

Complaints about 'biological essentialism' were a a huge thing in the threads around Tashas'. I am definitely not making this up. But I am also not particularly interested in relitigating that, and if you don't think that it is a sensible angle, then great!

I think it's a relevant angle with some races where D&D was ending up in a gross place, but I think it's only a key issue when negative stuff is asserted (like mental stat penalties and/or universal negative personality traits), but yeah I don't think it's a broad issue. I think people talked about it because the worst stuff 5E was doing with races involved it.

The rules tell you what it measures.

But the actual usage of the stat is absolutely not consistent with the brief blurbs 5E offers, nor with the more complex explanations previous editions offered. And pretending previous editions don't matter is incompatible with stuff like claiming 1E was attempting verisimilitude. And indeed your entire issue is reliant on it having been done differently in the past.

So you think splats like races and classes only exist for balance reason? I don't buy that. They're thematic archetypes with rules that support those themes. And that's how it should be.

"Only"? No, I didn't say that, did I?

But balance is why you can change races like this but not classes. It's not very complicated.

My 5e PHB relatively clearly tells what the ability scores measure. Seems coherent enough.

I disagree I guess, and it's particularly not a great match to previous editions.

What you omit here is that by this logic a halfling (equated to a weak human) should definitely never be as strong as a strong human. So ability modifiers should exist.

It doesn't actually follow in a fantasy setting that a Halfling should be weaker than a human. They already have "chimp strength". They should have less leverage and reach. But leverage and reach are not well-represented by ASIs - they're better represented by specific size-related rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As has been noted above, because the inspirational literature didn't have halflings be 3-4x stronger per pound than humans.

I actually disagree. Tolkien's Halflings are clearly pound-for-pound stronger than humans just based on stuff that happens in LotR (the books), especially towards the end. They have chimp strength to some degree. Might be more like 2-3x than 3-4x times.

 

[Cadence]

No. It does not. And here is a fundamental disagreement. You are slightly stronger, but not enough of a variation that it is worth noting.
And when you have to give every "big" race +2 Str, you necessarily lower their other stats. Which makes them less intelligent or so on.
A little +2 modifier is just not enough to simulate anything.

Just because a +2 doesn't mean anything to you doesn't mean it isn't a sign-post to others. (Is a little +1 bonus enough to simulate a sword being magical?).

Pathfinder didn't have negative modifiers. Does 5e in the PhB?

An alternative for someone who wanted physical stats to tie into roughly human physiology as a baseline could have different maximums based on size and the fiction associated with the race. Halflings can go to 14, Elves to 18, Dwarves and Humans to 20, Half-Orcs to 22, and Goliaths to 24, or whatnot. The differing upper limits, instead of a fixed bonus, takes away the inability to play a very undextrous Halfling or very unstrong Goliath.

As was noted by other posters above, some games have a size stat, if one wanted I could imagine a size and build descriptor that would put limits on Str and Dex (with some races being outside humanocentric physiology and differing).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No. It does not. And here is a fundamental disagreement. You are slightly stronger, but not enough of a variation that it is worth noting.
And when you have to give every "big" race +2 Str, you necessarily lower their other stats. Which makes them less intelligent or so on.
A little +2 modifier is just not enough to simulate anything.

So if difference in ability score is not noticeable and doesn't simulate anything, why we have variable ability scores in the first place? I don't get it it, why we have pointless mechanics that do not represent anything and do not do anything noticeable?

Also, you don't need to balance strength with intelligence. You can balance it with dex, other species getting more traits, feats etc.

 

[Cadence]

I actually disagree. Tolkien's Halflings are clearly pound-for-pound stronger than humans just based on stuff that happens in LotR (the books), especially towards the end. They have chimp strength to some degree. Might be more like 2-3x than 3-4x times.

Nit-pickiness, because Tolkien discussion.

And Chimp strength is 1.5x per pound, not 3-4x as the hobbits would need to be, and chimps are apparently not as strong as humans in the later google findable materials.

Was that Merry and Pippen who had drank the Ent-water and grown. I still don't picture a single halfling putting Boromir on their shoulders to carry through the pass or beating him at arm wrestling.

 

[Krachek]

the PhB race definition are mainly for use by the players to create heroic characters.
In the MM, Adding racial trait to npc, is a thing you “can” do but it is not mandatory.
Commoners of all races are equally powerless.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just because a +2 doesn't mean anything to you doesn't mean it isn't a sign-post to others. (Is a little +1 bonus enough to simulate a sword being magical?).

Pathfinder didn't have negative modifiers. Does 5e in the PhB?

If you put your +2 always in str, you don´t have it for other stats. So that limits design space a lot.

I don´t disagree with size stats (3e had something like that). If you just give every big creature +8 Str and +4 con butt apply a -4 penalty to hit and AC to compensate, it would be totally ok. You deal more damage and tougher, but are a lot easier to be hit to compensate.

Now when you are at it, you add power attack which allows you to trade to hit bonuses for damage on a 1 by 1.5 basis. And boom, everything is balanced and you don´t lose design space. But when you calculate bonuses and penalties, it is more or less nil.

The easier method is just doubling carrying capacity and live with a slight disconnect.

Both methods are good. 5e is trying the simpler approach.

Using 2 of your 3 ASI´s for str and 1 for con makes big and tough races incredibly dull.