I actually like this idea, and I might steal it in case some player decides they really want to play a warforged. One of my major problems with the race was from 3rd edition, where normal healing wouldn't work on them, and they required repair spells to fix damage. That seems to have been fixed in 4E, though, so I might take a chance and see how it goes.
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Campaign Choices You've Made On Races
- Thread starter ourchair
- Start date
I'll design my world around the races players pick, I don't really care too much. So I don't feel a need to ban a race for flavor reasons. I've changed the flavor of some races for my champaign, but this doesn't affect their mechanics. For instance I've removed the shifter association with lycanthropes, they are just races of their own.
I don't allow MM races because I don't feel they are fleshed out (rules-wise) or meant to be used as PC races.
And as a side note, I really don't want anyone playing Changelings. Changeling Disguise is more headache than I want to deal with. I've been fortunate enough that no one has asked to play one so I haven't had to say no. If I allowed it, I wouldn't allow duplicating the shape of another individual, but changing appearance to look like a member of a different race might be fine.
I don't allow MM races because I don't feel they are fleshed out (rules-wise) or meant to be used as PC races.
And as a side note, I really don't want anyone playing Changelings. Changeling Disguise is more headache than I want to deal with. I've been fortunate enough that no one has asked to play one so I haven't had to say no. If I allowed it, I wouldn't allow duplicating the shape of another individual, but changing appearance to look like a member of a different race might be fine.
Shin Okada
Explorer
Usually, I do not prohibit something designed as a PC race, even if that one is originally for a particular world setting. In most of the cases my "campaign world" is a loose one, and there is not much difficulty on introducing something new.
Regarding true monster races and evil races (I do not put 4e drow and minotaur in this category), I do examine it as a DM before allowing them. This is mainly because,
1. Monsters may not be well-balanced against core races.
When playing 3.5e (or 3.0e after some adjustment regarding ECL was done), I did not prohibit players from playing monsters. But none actually did. That is mainly because LA +X races were actually weaker in overall.
In 4e, basically, I have not yet allowed monster races shown in MMs. Even WotC designers are admitting that those stats may not be well-balanced. So I have waited the release of Eberron PG to allow Warforged as a PC, and PHB 3 to allow Minotaur as a PC.
2. True evil race and role playing
I allow true evil race, only when he is willing to play some, say, traitor or misfits in evil race, AND other players agreed to accept such individual as their character's teammate. Especially in case when the said race appears as popular monster in official adventures (say, hobgoblin). I do use a lot of pre-made adventures.
Regarding true monster races and evil races (I do not put 4e drow and minotaur in this category), I do examine it as a DM before allowing them. This is mainly because,
1. Monsters may not be well-balanced against core races.
When playing 3.5e (or 3.0e after some adjustment regarding ECL was done), I did not prohibit players from playing monsters. But none actually did. That is mainly because LA +X races were actually weaker in overall.
In 4e, basically, I have not yet allowed monster races shown in MMs. Even WotC designers are admitting that those stats may not be well-balanced. So I have waited the release of Eberron PG to allow Warforged as a PC, and PHB 3 to allow Minotaur as a PC.
2. True evil race and role playing
I allow true evil race, only when he is willing to play some, say, traitor or misfits in evil race, AND other players agreed to accept such individual as their character's teammate. Especially in case when the said race appears as popular monster in official adventures (say, hobgoblin). I do use a lot of pre-made adventures.
ZephyrTR
First Post
No Eladrian or Tieflings or Dragonborn, sorry I just can't stomach it. I just remember back to when Eladrian were Outsiders, and Tieflings and Dragonborn were LA+2. All of these races should be phenomenally rare. I'm more of a 3rd Ed purist, so Gnomes and Half-Orcs remain. I also added Goblins and 'Half-Drow' as 8th and 9th 'basic' races for added flavor, since I love morally ambiguous races.
I keep specs for Orcs, Hobs, Minotaurs, Kobolds, Kenku bla bla bla but nobody ever wants to use it. Go figure.
I keep specs for Orcs, Hobs, Minotaurs, Kobolds, Kenku bla bla bla but nobody ever wants to use it. Go figure.
I'm kind of glad that even though I've known bits and pieces of D&D mechanics and lore since the late 80s, I didn't really get into it until 4th Edition, where the designers assume that ALL things have a place in a campaign, whereas past editions designed the fluff in such a way that they served as crunch even when you use your own setting. ("Minotaurs and drow are evil, whether in Faerun, Greyhawk, Mystara or your homebrew")
As such, I don't really see "Warforged" as a race inextricably bound to Eberron or "Genasi" as a race mired in Faerun lore, but as stand-ins for 'sentient golem' and 'element-infused humanoid' and in a setting we're currently home-brewing those qualities have rich potential for adapting into new fluff.
Stumblewyk
Adventurer
I nearly had fits when Eladrin, Tiefling, and Dragonborn were included in the 4e PHB simply because I didn't know how to fit them into my homebrew game, because I didn't want to be the guy who says "the PHB is legal, except for X, Y, and Z." After giving it some thought, I was able to squeeze Eladrin in pretty easily - I had already created 2 distinctly different elven communities in my world - the one we're familiar with (fey humanoids prancing about in the leafy forest), and one that lived a hardscrabble existence in a ruined, demon-warped, blasted desert landscape. I decided that the elves were the progenitor race, and when the destruction of their homeland began, they fled to the untainted, forested lands to the north. Those who were left behind were changed out of necessity - to survive, they became the Eladrin. Very, very little ret-conning was necessary.
Dragonborn required more thought - I ended up making them natives of a small part of a recently "discovered" continent and thus were very rare in the wide world, but still easily explainable.
Tieflings...I hate them. I readily admit that. I. just. don't. like. them. Can't say why. But they leave a bad taste in my mouth. Even so, I just decided they weren't a race. Like someone posted above, I shoehorned them in as specific individuals - the offspring of the twisting mating of a human and a demon. If you want to be a Tielfing, you can be a Tiefling. But know that you've got some nasty baggage that you're carrying with you.
PHB II races really weren't so bad after I figured out how to handle the PHB I oddballs. Goliaths live in the frozen far-northern mountains and they comprise a tiny, tiny, tiny population. Gnomes were always there, but they resemble their 2e incarnation. Devas are angels who have chosen to dwell with mortals. If you're a Deva, you're a one-a-million. Don't expect to see another one in my world unless it's for story reasons. Half-orcs were always there, they weren't an issue.
I don't like monster races, and the PHB III really seems like it's tailored to the player who wants to be a real off-the-wall character. But, if a player came up with a REALLY, REALLY good justification for why your minotaur isn't raiding a mountain village with his brethren, then we can probably make it work. If you can justify why your Gith isn't struggling to just NOT DIE in the Abyss, then we can probably make it work. I won't like it, but we can probably make something jive. That being said...if it's a deal-breaker and I think it will destroy the flavor and tenor of my world, I'll say no. I hope I never have to do that, but I'm prepared to.
TLDR: I have had to give it some thought, but I've had good luck fitting most things in. I don't want to out-right ban something, but I'm prepared to do so if need be.
Dragonborn required more thought - I ended up making them natives of a small part of a recently "discovered" continent and thus were very rare in the wide world, but still easily explainable.
Tieflings...I hate them. I readily admit that. I. just. don't. like. them. Can't say why. But they leave a bad taste in my mouth. Even so, I just decided they weren't a race. Like someone posted above, I shoehorned them in as specific individuals - the offspring of the twisting mating of a human and a demon. If you want to be a Tielfing, you can be a Tiefling. But know that you've got some nasty baggage that you're carrying with you.
PHB II races really weren't so bad after I figured out how to handle the PHB I oddballs. Goliaths live in the frozen far-northern mountains and they comprise a tiny, tiny, tiny population. Gnomes were always there, but they resemble their 2e incarnation. Devas are angels who have chosen to dwell with mortals. If you're a Deva, you're a one-a-million. Don't expect to see another one in my world unless it's for story reasons. Half-orcs were always there, they weren't an issue.
I don't like monster races, and the PHB III really seems like it's tailored to the player who wants to be a real off-the-wall character. But, if a player came up with a REALLY, REALLY good justification for why your minotaur isn't raiding a mountain village with his brethren, then we can probably make it work. If you can justify why your Gith isn't struggling to just NOT DIE in the Abyss, then we can probably make it work. I won't like it, but we can probably make something jive. That being said...if it's a deal-breaker and I think it will destroy the flavor and tenor of my world, I'll say no. I hope I never have to do that, but I'm prepared to.
TLDR: I have had to give it some thought, but I've had good luck fitting most things in. I don't want to out-right ban something, but I'm prepared to do so if need be.
Lord Ernie
First Post
I started a new homebrew setting when 4E first came out, and since I predicted this exact issue would come up, I designed the setting with this in mind. The players started the game in a city-state of millions, and there is very little known of the world outside said city. Historically speaking, the city is all that is known to remain from the largest empire in the world, which spanned continents and had access to planar travel.
While a tad cliché (a fact I intend to subvert with what happens in later tiers), this setup allows the players to play more or less anything. Not that they've really made use of it, since most made their character around the time the PHB was published, although we do have a Shifter Warden and a Drow Sorcerer (one rebuilt their character, the other joined later).
While a tad cliché (a fact I intend to subvert with what happens in later tiers), this setup allows the players to play more or less anything. Not that they've really made use of it, since most made their character around the time the PHB was published, although we do have a Shifter Warden and a Drow Sorcerer (one rebuilt their character, the other joined later).
Festivus
First Post
I am gearing up to run a Greyhawk game and considered limiting races, but then decided that I would let folks take whatever they wanted for races and we could just re-skin them to be humanoinds but with that flair, so for example a Warforged might end up being a human with a particularly thick hide, or a Wilden to be more like an elf who is very much in tune with nature around them. What doesn't make sense to me anyhow is a peaceful village of Hommlet with a Minotaur, Warforged, Wilden, and whatever else roaming the streets with the populace not being at all in panic.
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
It's depended on my campaigns.
In my first 3.5 campaign I was fairly open-ended; I had a shifter ranger and a goblin scout, and these were probably those players' favorite characters in that run (we went through a LOT of characters in that run.)
My last 3.5 campaign was also pretty open-ended, one player made a kenku which I worked into a major role in the campaign (servants of Hades) though I had to draw the line at centaurs (even though it was a very Greek-themed world)... I usually drew the line at any race with a level adjustment. Dwarves were generally disallowed in the campaign since they were isolationist jerks and filled a minor villain role.
When I updated my first campaign into 4.0 I didn't have a lot of trouble working the new PHB1 races into the world.
My new 4.0 campaign I'm being a bit more restrictive... I've been trying to either create feats and equipment (or reskin disallowed races) to flesh out monster races that play a major role in the campaign (it's easy enough to reskin Half-Orcs as Orcs, and at least for this campaign world Kobolds with Gnomes and Goblins with Halflings, but I'm still trying to give them their own feel.) Eladrin are the BBEGs so they're naturally disallowed, and Elves are fallen primal Eladrin who actually reskinned Shifters. Given the "planeshifted metropolis" setting I'm using I'm debating whether adding an "immigrant quarter" so my players can play their weird hodge-podge "one-in-a-million" races.
Then again our group tends to love playing the less-traditional races so whenever we trade off DMing it's usually going to be open-ended. We had one campaign where we were restricted to humans and dwarves, but that was about it. Across all our campaigns we've had a goblin, a satyr, a minotaur, a socialist kobold ninja (dual-wielding a knife and fork, no less), a sahuagin, a Xanth-esque naga, and a gnomish aberration dubbed Experiment 626 (that's Stitch for those of you playing the home-game; I'd have never allowed it myself but seeing as how were we playing pirates it ended up being more trouble than it was worth.)
So generally, unless it goes against the spirit of the campaign world, I'm apt to allow it. I'm usually even apt to allowing MM or self-created races (as long as they seem properly balanced) since it means the player is purposefully limiting their options (generally feats) for the purpose of playing their concept; I don't really have a problem with that.
In my first 3.5 campaign I was fairly open-ended; I had a shifter ranger and a goblin scout, and these were probably those players' favorite characters in that run (we went through a LOT of characters in that run.)
My last 3.5 campaign was also pretty open-ended, one player made a kenku which I worked into a major role in the campaign (servants of Hades) though I had to draw the line at centaurs (even though it was a very Greek-themed world)... I usually drew the line at any race with a level adjustment. Dwarves were generally disallowed in the campaign since they were isolationist jerks and filled a minor villain role.
When I updated my first campaign into 4.0 I didn't have a lot of trouble working the new PHB1 races into the world.
My new 4.0 campaign I'm being a bit more restrictive... I've been trying to either create feats and equipment (or reskin disallowed races) to flesh out monster races that play a major role in the campaign (it's easy enough to reskin Half-Orcs as Orcs, and at least for this campaign world Kobolds with Gnomes and Goblins with Halflings, but I'm still trying to give them their own feel.) Eladrin are the BBEGs so they're naturally disallowed, and Elves are fallen primal Eladrin who actually reskinned Shifters. Given the "planeshifted metropolis" setting I'm using I'm debating whether adding an "immigrant quarter" so my players can play their weird hodge-podge "one-in-a-million" races.
Then again our group tends to love playing the less-traditional races so whenever we trade off DMing it's usually going to be open-ended. We had one campaign where we were restricted to humans and dwarves, but that was about it. Across all our campaigns we've had a goblin, a satyr, a minotaur, a socialist kobold ninja (dual-wielding a knife and fork, no less), a sahuagin, a Xanth-esque naga, and a gnomish aberration dubbed Experiment 626 (that's Stitch for those of you playing the home-game; I'd have never allowed it myself but seeing as how were we playing pirates it ended up being more trouble than it was worth.)
So generally, unless it goes against the spirit of the campaign world, I'm apt to allow it. I'm usually even apt to allowing MM or self-created races (as long as they seem properly balanced) since it means the player is purposefully limiting their options (generally feats) for the purpose of playing their concept; I don't really have a problem with that.
