D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[Ruin Explorer]

I beg to differ. They did try to keep it balanced when they published the PHB. They did exactly what they set out to do: make the wood elf a good ranger, make the half-orc a good fighter, make the dwarf a good cleric, etc. So it was balanced, just not how you wanted it.

The PHB?

It's incredibly unbalanced. You've got Mountain Dwarves with +2/+2 to great stats and really strong abilities and darkvision, you've got High Elves and Wood Elves with excellent abilities, free Perception, and darkvision, you've got Half-Elves with +2/+1/+1, two skills of choice (!!!), crazy nonsense like the Wood Elf speed boost, and of course darkvision.

The at the other end, you have humans, with +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1 which sounds nice but is nearly entirely worthless in practice (certainly for most characters it is worth less than just +2/+1 - there are some corner-case point-buy situations, though even those work better with V-Humans +1/+1/+1 and Feat), and a single extra language, and Dragonborn, with their absolutely mediocre full-action breath attack, and single, specific damage resistance (most of which rarely come up, and even Fire ain't that great).

That a vast gamut. And that's just the PHB. There are races later on that go even further.

The class balance is much, much better. The worst class is about 70% as good as the best class, which is really pretty surprisingly good balance. Whereas the worst races are an absolute joke next to the best ones.

What you've described by the way, isn't balance. It's not even arguable as "balance". That's just pigeonholing. It's fine to like pigeonholing, but you can't lie and call it balance. That's me picking up a pork sausage and saying "A mushroom!". They're just entirely different things.

I am not obviating anything. I am merely making a statement about the argument at hand. The claim is valid.

The claim that people picking the "wrong" race ruins games?

No, that's not valid. If you were willing to say "I absolutely WRECKED both those games by playing that Yuan-ti!", you would at least have an anecdote that supported your claim. But you don't even have that. You have an entirely imaginary situation. You imagine, that in another group, some other person, picking that Yuan-ti, might possibly, theoretically, in some unexplained way, have wrecked that group.

Let me put this to you - either you're a person who enjoys ruining groups (unlikely!) or more likely, you knew playing Yuan-ti would be just fine in both those groups.

And the the same true for virtually all race choices. That the vast majority of D&D players just simply don't pick ones that'll cause a problem for that specific group. Indeed most players run them by the DM first if they're anything outside the PHB, in my experience.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I actually liked the idea of different species having different stats. I just think that it didn't work in 5e due to how this edition worked.

A combination of bounded accuracy, and this editions maths needing a 16 to have a half decent chance of even hitting starter enemies, meant that picking the correct species for the correct class was basically required to have fun in the combat side of the game.

I suspect if things were balanced around requiring a 14 in your highest stat at level 1, and each species had a single +1 in one stat, there would have been slightly less push for flexible ASIs.

 

[Scott Christian]

The PHB?

It's incredibly unbalanced. You've got Mountain Dwarves with +2/+2 to great stats and really strong abilities and darkvision, you've got High Elves and Wood Elves with excellent abilities, free Perception, and darkvision, you've got Half-Elves with +2/+1/+1, two skills of choice (!!!), crazy nonsense like the Wood Elf speed boost, and of course darkvision.

The at the other end, you have humans, with +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1 which sounds nice but is nearly entirely worthless in practice (certainly for most characters it is worth less than just +2/+1 - there are some corner-case point-buy situations, though even those work better with V-Humans +1/+1/+1 and Feat), and a single extra language, and Dragonborn, with their absolutely mediocre full-action breath attack, and single, specific damage resistance (most of which rarely come up, and even Fire ain't that great).

That a vast gamut. And that's just the PHB. There are races later on that go even further.

The class balance is much, much better. The worst class is about 70% as good as the best class, which is really pretty surprisingly good balance. Whereas the worst races are an absolute joke next to the best ones.

What you've described by the way, isn't balance. It's not even arguable as "balance". That's just pigeonholing. It's fine to like pigeonholing, but you can't lie and call it balance. That's me picking up a pork sausage and saying "A mushroom!". They're just entirely different things.

Again, I beg to differ. If you are saying the classes have a 30% differential in how good they are, then the races are at 10% differential. That +1 across the board goes a long way for people who roll abilities. Heck, it goes a long way for point buy. Unless of course, you have a player that absolutely-must-cannotlivewithout- have a 17 for their starting ability. Which is the same as 16, which a human can get. On top of that, that +1 goes great for certain classes, such as a paladin who needs strength, charisma, con, and sometimes wisdom.
And pigeonholing is a part of balance. Although what the PHB is not really pigeonholing anyways. It was a slight nod to the traditional trope. Although, at the table, if you were playing a half-orc champion and someone else was playing a human champion, I doubt, unless told specifically, anyone could really tell the difference. A circumstance here or there does not destroy balance. I mean, the dice rolls have greater swing than any racial feat.

The claim that people picking the "wrong" race ruins games?

No, that's not valid. If you were willing to say "I absolutely WRECKED both those games by playing that Yuan-ti!", you would at least have an anecdote that supported your claim. But you don't even have that. You have an entirely imaginary situation. You imagine, that in another group, some other person, picking that Yuan-ti, might possibly, theoretically, in some unexplained way, have wrecked that group.

Let me put this to you - either you're a person who enjoys ruining groups (unlikely!) or more likely, you knew playing Yuan-ti would be just fine in both those groups.

And the the same true for virtually all race choices. That the vast majority of D&D players just simply don't pick ones that'll cause a problem for that specific group. Indeed most players run them by the DM first if they're anything outside the PHB, in my experience.

So, it's not valid for a player to have the opinion of they want a more consistent world, and not have hundreds of mechagodzillas running around?
And, to be clear, I did not play the yuan-ti. Two separate players chose to make a yuan-ti. They didn't care about the table. They cared about making the strongest character they could.

 

[Scott Christian]

I actually liked the idea of different species having different stats. I just think that it didn't work in 5e due to how this edition worked.

A combination of bounded accuracy, and this editions maths needing a 16 to have a half decent chance of even hitting starter enemies, meant that picking the correct species for the correct class was basically required to have fun in the combat side of the game.

I suspect if things were balanced around requiring a 14 in your highest stat at level 1, and each species had a single +1 in one stat, there would have been slightly less push for flexible ASIs.

I agree with the sentiment. But the 16 was pushed and pushed by the same group that will play mechagodzilla if they do the pick and choose your feats from each lineage.
And the terrible thing about the "I need a 16" is it wasn't even true. It was made up. A silly pretend problem that people wanted in order to get what they wanted.
If I record ten hours of combat, and don't tell you what the rolls are or the character's ability scores, you will have no idea which PC has a 16 or a 15.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Again, I beg to differ. If you are saying the classes have a 30% differential in how good they are, then the races are at 10% differential. That +1 across the board goes a long way for people who roll abilities. Heck, it goes a long way for point buy. Unless of course, you have a player that absolutely-must-cannotlivewithout- have a 17 for their starting ability. Which is the same as 16, which a human can get. On top of that, that +1 goes great for certain classes, such as a paladin who needs strength, charisma, con, and sometimes wisdom.
And pigeonholing is a part of balance. Although what the PHB is not really pigeonholing anyways. It was a slight nod to the traditional trope. Although, at the table, if you were playing a half-orc champion and someone else was playing a human champion, I doubt, unless told specifically, anyone could really tell the difference. A circumstance here or there does not destroy balance. I mean, the dice rolls have greater swing than any racial feat.

I'm sorry, you're not making any kind of consistent argument here, so I'm not sure what you're even trying to say. You're just talking circles.

So, it's not valid for a player to have the opinion of they want a more consistent world, and not have hundreds of mechagodzillas running around?
And, to be clear, I did not play the yuan-ti. Two separate players chose to make a yuan-ti. They didn't care about the table. They cared about making the strongest character they could.

So those guys ruined your game, right? That's what you're saying? Even though you've contradicted the whole strongest thing by claiming that none of these races is "unbalanced"?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If I record ten hours of combat, and don't tell you what the rolls are or the character's ability scores, you will have no idea which PC has a 16 or a 15.

I mean, you probably could tell that from 10 hours of solid combat. A +1 to hit and damage is going to show up in that. Especially if you know what weapons/armour people have.

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm sorry, you're not making any kind of consistent argument here, so I'm not sure what you're even trying to say. You're just talking circles.

First, I'm not arguing. I made a statement that if they allow people to pick and choose racial feats, you will have some really happy players and some really unhappy players. That was my claim. That is what you started arguing with me about.

So those guys ruined your game, right? That's what you're saying? Even though you've contradicted the whole strongest thing by claiming that none of these races is "unbalanced"?

Again, I stated the PHB had a focus on balance with regards to race. The PHB. I know once other source material comes out, the only way for it to sell is to keep bumping up the stakes. They learned their lesson the hard way when they released Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. It didn't make anyone stronger (because their focus was on balance) and its sales were terrible. Compare it to Tasha's, which instantly bumped up a player's ability to make a stronger character.
And, again, the players choosing to play yuan-ti did not ruin my game. I don't care because D&D is a cantina. If I were running the game, and I had the background of yuan-ti already set in lore, then I would have just said no to the players. But that's not the style of game we were playing. Now ask me if it ruined my friend's experience at one of the tables? It did. So much so, that after six months of attending every session, he started missing intermittently, and then started missing every other session. When I asked him about it, he told me that the yuan-ti was the reason.
Once the campaign was over, and we started a new one is a deeply lore-based setting, he never missed a session. Same players. So, it can ruin someone's enjoyment. I fail to see how you can say players don't feel that way.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

In my first campaign we were all mostly new players, and our character's races were half-orc, wood elf, half-elf and aasimar. Once there was a bit of a TPK and we brought in new characters after we had more knowledge of the game, we had variant human, variant human, variant human and a homebrew bug race.

The PHB already has the variant human for one of the strongest races in the game, hard to power creep that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is true, but it is all we have to go on. The data given to us is "beyond" flawed, and the data we acquire with our own eyes is too small a sample. So really, none of us know. We speculate, and some try to use it to win arguments. (Some even use it when it suits them and disregard it when it doesn't.)
The only thing we can debate is the truism of our own bubble. Unfortunately, this means you'll never lose a debate and neither will your opponent.

It’s not especially flawed, actually. It’s vastly more indicative than anyone’s anecdotal observations of extremely tiny samples.

Barring a very good reason to think there is a large difference in play habits between people who use digital tools and engage with public play and otherwise feed data to Wotc, and people who do none of this things, the data is solid. The DDB rankings are the same whether it includes accounts with access to only free content or only those with most/all content unlocked, and that data matches wotc’s data from before they bought DDB, for instance.

It also largely fits what wizards has been saying for years that their research tells them about player habits.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my first campaign we were all mostly new players, and our character's races were half-orc, wood elf, half-elf and aasimar. Once there was a bit of a TPK and we brought in new characters after we had more knowledge of the game, we had variant human, variant human, variant human and a homebrew bug race.

The PHB already has the variant human for one of the strongest races in the game, hard to power creep that.

I think I’ve seen maybe 4 variant humans in 5e, OTOH. I played a Mark of Making Human once, and had a fully statted NPC that used variant human, but even he was very nearly a half-elf instead.