D&D (2024) D&D Survey Results and The Future of Playtest | Unearthed Arcana

[Scribe]

Again I ask, where's the contrast: why do they want goliaths and orcs in the PHB? I contend it has far more to do with CR than anything else.

As mentioned above, what about kobolds and goblins? Very popular choices eternally relegated to supplements.

I mean you cannot have all the options, and we already have 3 small options right? I'd argue PF Goblins are far more (PF1 especially) interesting, than Wizards Goblins, so they can just keep it to Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome.

As far as the 'we are not Large, but bigger than Medium somehow' we only had the Dragonborn*, and Half-Orc, with Half-X perhaps short on time.

So, if we have 3 small, lets have 3 'not Large'-large ones? Dragonborn*, Goliath, Orc?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean you cannot have all the options, and we already have 3 small options right? I'd argue PF Goblins are far more (PF1 especially) interesting, than Wizards Goblins, so they can just keep it to Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome.

As far as the 'we are not Large, but bigger than Medium somehow' we only had the Dragonkin, and Half-Orc, with Half-X perhaps short on time.

So, if we have 3 small, lets have 3 'not Large'-large ones? Dragonkin, Goliath, Orc?

I agree, the math adds up. And dragonborn are certainly unique. Still not seeing much non-marketing value in adding goliaths  and orcs. Since culture no longer matters, I don't see them as being all that different.

 

[Xamnam]

How does that contrast the orc? Unless we're going with the "orcs are pretty much humans now" current model.

The Goliath also being included here is here also to fill a bit of an aesthetic gap because we realized as we were looking at the options in the PH, we really had only one option if you wanted to- the character fantasy that you were going for was playing the sort of the burly figure. Which, you can make a member of any of the species burly if you want, but when someone just looks at pictures, usually what their eye will go to for this character archetype is the orc, and we realized we needed a second option, because for most of the choices we give you more than one option, and this was the rare case where there was really only one in the player's handbook, and that puts too much sort of aesthetic pressure on that one choice, and so we thought that we it would be good to have another option there to show that, you know, whatever the character archetype is that you're pursuing, you have several choices, and you don't feel funneled toward one thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What options do elves represent one of two choices on? Or dwarves?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think there's value in adding new stuff to the 2024 PHB, but I'd think the warlord/marshal would be a more logical choice than "here's a middle of the pack popularity race, now in the core."

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I think there's value in adding new stuff to the 2024 PHB, but I'd think the warlord/marshal would be a more logical choice than "here's a middle of the pack popularity race, now in the core."

Axe 'wizard, but hot' from the PHB. Add warlord instead.

Sorcerer can come later.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I would still like to hear the affirmative case for the ardling at all, but especially in the PHB. It feels very much like a designer's pet idea in search of an audience, rather than a response to audience demand.

My guess is that it started as a desire to have a thematic counterpoint to the Tiefling in the PHB.

Once they decided to add (back) in the "Choose your Planar Origin" aspect, they wanted an "Aasimar" type counterpart that chooses between Upper Planar options like the Tiefling choose between Lower Planar options, but they'd only just recently reworked the Aasimar in Monsters of the Multiverse and changing Aasimar "subrace" options to "Pick an Upper Plane" might mean losing the cool "Fallen" Aasimar variant. So they decided to tie Aasimar more explicitly to Angels (rather than Celestials as a whole) and created the Ardlings to pick up the ties to the rest of the Celestial races, then made the Ardlings more "bestial" to help differentiate them from their Aasimar cousins, as well as to represent ties to more "bestial" Celestials like Guardinals, Hound Archons, etc.

But, rather than seeing the Ardling as another type of planetouched like Tieflings, people fixated on the "animal person" aspect and saw them more as a unified Aarakocra/Tabaxi/etc. framework, and so that's the direction the design team drifted in as well, ditching the broader Upper Planar themes and tying them specifically to the Beastlands for the second pass.

Presumably, at some point, "animal person" became more core to the Ardling than "celestial planetouched", and thus it stopped serving the role they had intended it to in their initial design, so they decided to pull it and recalibrate.

How does that contrast the orc? Unless we're going with the "orcs are pretty much humans now" current model.

I mean that they wanted multiple options to choose between for that "big guy" visual archetype.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think there's value in adding new stuff to the 2024 PHB, but I'd think the warlord/marshal would be a more logical choice than "here's a middle of the pack popularity race, now in the core."

Unfortunately, that assumes game play was a primary concern.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Axe 'wizard, but hot' from the PHB. Add warlord instead.

Sorcerer can come later.

BOOKS ARE HOT!

 

[Scribe]

What options do elves represent one of two choices on? Or dwarves?

They are part of the righteous Tolkien branch of the tree, and as such are assumed default options.