D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[CreamCloud0]

Unfortunately runes have gone to giants and through them the elemental goliaths. Which doesn't separate them as the big, beefy races. And primal + orcs needs handling with care and sensitivity.

oh i agree that it wouldn't directly distingush them from their peers of kind but it might give them more directions to branch out in, and yes primal theming orcs does need to be handled with care but they've already started in that direction with the mark of finding subspecies, i mean, no one has issues with wood elves being all nature-y.

 

[Neonchameleon]

We could always have the Gnome being an Elemental. Elemental - Wikipedia

We could - but that would be pretty much entirely different to the gnome through all 50 years of D&D history to the point of only sharing a name. And salamanders aren't fire elementals in D&D either.

 

[Corinnguard]

We could - but that would be pretty much entirely different to the gnome through all 50 years of D&D history to the point of only sharing a name. And salamanders aren't fire elementals in D&D either.

I am not sure if that is a bad thing or not given that every edition of D&D has reinvented the races in order to make them compatible with each edition's set of game mechanics.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I’ve never personally had a strong opinion on gnomes but i wonder if the idea of folding them into other species might have some merit to it, but not as a single species, have them as this cross-species species that manifests as a bunch of subspecies, the rock gnome is under dwarves, forest gnomes come from halflings, mark of scribing are elf derivatives, and so on.

 

[tetrasodium]

I’ve never personally had a strong opinion on gnomes but i wonder if the idea of folding them into other species might have some merit to it, but not as a single species, have them as this cross-species species that manifests as a bunch of subspecies, the rock gnome is under dwarves, forest gnomes come from halflings, mark of scribing are elf derivatives, and so on.

I don't think that moving eberron gnomes under elf would work too well for the setting. Elves have some pretty distinct lore in that setting & gnome society is both connected to other races and rather extreme in it's unique structure.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh please. "Discriminate"? Seriously?

Since the two similar options are basically never getting anything like traction why is it bonkers to eject them both? Note, we've already gotten rid of half-elves as well, and folded them into "mixed heritage" lineages. Poof. Half-orcs and half-elves have already been folded together into a single entry that includes all other mixed lineages.

But, sure, spin this as "discrimination". Gimme a break.

Sheesh.

I mean it is obviously some sort of personal hang up. As the rapid goalpost shifting has shown, it is not based on facts. And that's fine, it is OK to hate halflings, they're no real. I hate centaurs. I am just not trying to pretend that this is anything more than a personal preference.

And it should be obvious why removing all the species that represent a broad archetype is bad idea. Halflings are somewhat popular, gnomes not so much but a lot of people still like them. But their combined popularity is quite high. Halfling lovers might be fine with playing a gnome in a pinch and vice versa, but if neither option is present they're out of luck.

PHB cannot have everything, but it should have good selection of different archetypes. That's why I am not sure that it is necessarily great idea to have both orcs and goliaths, as their archetypes are quite similar.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don't think that moving eberron gnomes under elf would work too well for the setting. Elves have some pretty distinct lore in that setting & gnome society is both connected to other races and rather extreme in it's unique structure.

fair enough, i don't really know much any of the lore of any of the settings, i was just grabbing gnome types off a wiki and making quick examples out of what i had and the other species, ideally they'd be more properly designed as offshoot derivatives of the relevant 'parent species'

 

[Crimson Longinus]

With an established IP it is always an issue how much backwards combatable you want the things to be conceptually. Like if we were designing things from scratch, I don't think it would be a good idea to make halflings and gnomes as separate species, but as they have been so for decades, it might be a tad awkward to combine them at this point.

For my own settings I always do some serious pruning and combining, but I am not really expecting WotC to do so, especially as they have incentive to have million playable species so that they can sell their rules to the players.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I have 5 subspecies of Dwarves and 4 subspecies Halflings.

Dwarves

• Arctic/Lunar Dwarves
• Azerblood Dwarves
• Duergar Dwarves
• Standard Dwarves (Mountain and Hill combined)
• Urdunnir/Gem Dwarves

Hailflings

• Greenwise Halflings (modified Lotusden)
• Lightfoot Halflings
• Havaras/Traveller Halflings (modified Ghostwise)
• Stout Halflings

I only have one species of Orc however.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Oh no they can’t ever say something doesn’t exist in a setting! That means the content people buy would be implied to be worthless for that campaign and if it’s worthless then they might not buy it! and that means we get less money!

well given we have at least three presently viable settings with halflings as well as endless homebrew I do not think they would be worried if we had a few more oddball settings where some bit are not included strategically, maybe also three settings.

Halflings aren't hard to use. They are just there, getting on with their lives. And rarely seen in palaces (other than as servants) or major players. And they work really well for some character types.

The problem people have using halflings is wanting to make everything cool. Part of the point of halflings is not being cool.

yeah that is hard for world-building they do not do anything, a world of nothing but halflings is strangely too sane and dull for a setting idea, the other old big names want to build things of size and importance and will happily do stuff for good or ill.
a setting needs things happening and an endless cheery small village seems unworkable as a setting for dnd,(fantasy harvest moon or animal crossing they would be great for).

the halfling has nothing to do with being uncool it is a semi-literal metaphor of the small folk of the world(those who are not normally noted in history) and the concept of merry England (a now very dead idea), they were designed to be unimportant on the large macro scale as a deliberate point and it is not something you can lift from Tolkien without a lot of setting baggage.

I wonder if orcs could better lean into the primal caster themes than the arcane ones, I don’t think there’s strong opposition in their themes and lore for a more divine caster direction but probably not as a subspecies, runes would work for them imo

so just Thrall from warcraft?

I’ve never personally had a strong opinion on gnomes but i wonder if the idea of folding them into other species might have some merit to it, but not as a single species, have them as this cross-species species that manifests as a bunch of subspecies, the rock gnome is under dwarves, forest gnomes come from halflings, mark of scribing are elf derivatives, and so on.

we could just merge dwarf, gnome and halfling as subraces of something?