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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 9411070" data-attributes="member: 7023887">I am disappointed by most of the changes to the races. I thought that the UA was a promising start, but wanted them to do more. Wizards of the Coast has a strange habit of creating cool new systems for mechanics and then either forgetting about them a couple books down the line (lineages, vehicle action stations, expanded spell lists through backgrounds/race) or over/misusing them (Proficiency Bonus per long rest abilities, innate spellcasting, bonus action temporary features). There’s just so many baffling changes and choices with these versions of the races.I do not understand why they simply did not reprint the Fizban’s Dragonborn races. Those were already basically perfectly designed and the “spectral wings” feature at least kind of made sense for Gem Dragonborn.I do not understand why Dwarves have to activate their tremor sense.I like the Goliath “subraces” (I came up with a similar idea a while back), but the “temporary grow to Large” feature baffles me, mechanically and thematically. There’s no basis in the lore, I doubt that the new lore will say anything beyond “they can do this now,” and it’s overall just a bizarre and unnecessary feature. It reeks of WotC trying to have their cake and eat it too on the topic of “should Goliaths be Large instead of Medium.” It is the sort of lazy design choice I’ve grown to hate with recent WotC products.The removal of Orcs’ Powerful Build is weird, but I honestly don’t care that much. I’m more curious why they felt the need to change that instead of upset that it was removed. That’s kind of how I feel about a lot of these changes. I don’t think it’s “change for the sake of change,” but more that it was an unnecessary change that I cannot imagine anyone asked for. I’m sure WotC has their own weird justification.I like to think of Tieflings and Aasimar as reflections of one another and I wish that was represented in the mechanics and lore. While the mechanical representation of both is pretty mediocre, the Tieflings being especially boring mechanically. My most recent versions of Aasimar are an inversion of Tieflings. Tieflings are oppressed, Aasimar are the racist oppressors. Tieflings are typically good despite their fiendish heritage (or as good as humans, at least), Aasimar are typically evil despite their celestial heritage (well, more because of it. My Aasimar use their angelic blood as an excuse for why they think they’re the best race and oppress others because of it). Aasimar and Tieflings being mirrors mechanically could make this theme stronger. I also wish they had made it so Aasimar can look like non-Angelic celestials, like Guardinals and Archons, like how Tieflings can look like Demons, Devils, and Yugoloths. That would be another interesting parallel between the two.The other races are so bland and similarly designed that there’s not really anything worth saying about them. Humans are boring because they always are. Elves and Gnomes are boring because most of their features are spells. Halflings are boring because they exist.And I’m not really a fan of moving ASIs to Backgrounds. I’m glad Backgrounds have a bit more mechanical weight than in the 2014 books, but I preferred the Floating ASIs system from Tasha’s. Man, WotC design is just not consistent.</blockquote>

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