Oh! I am not questioning the weapon selection for their "Duergar Training" [to borrow terminology used for others gaining weapon profs]. Picks an crossbows and that are all good/make sense.fit the underdark & fluff.
I'm questioning adding/building in a medium armor and shields prof. I think Duergar mages with shields and ring mail on....why? Duergar thieves in chain with a shield? It doesn't...to me....fit or seem necessary for their fluff. So, to your question on "with/without medium armor & shields" I am firmly on the opinion to go "without."
Apart from that, yep, I also thought about resistances and resilience, just wanted to hear others' opinion. Furhtermore, I do not think that all PC's have to be so balanced that it would make them somewhat forcedly down- or upgraded. To me, D&D's flavour should really give all that distinction that makes it interesting to them to play. Therefore, it would not always be necessary to give a +2 and a +1 to Ability scores. What if my PC's want to play a fey campaign? Would sprites and pixies still have that minimum of 8 STR? Of course, not! Just a thought. Currently I'm working on a "band of misfits" campaign, where I'd put medusa, yan-ti purebloods, and many others as playable races. Will they be so balanced in stats - definitely not. I already had a pixie in one of my campaigns, and her ability scores were very weird, which was compensated by more spells, based on pixie dust, which was a per-day resource, and so on and so forth.
Cheers, mate and thanks for the opinion.
Well, on that point, I think for races that are, essentially, variations on what we already have such as a "Dwarf, Grey" subrace to add to the list of Dwarf subraces we already have. Then, yeah. There is no reason to not follow the "+2 from race, +1 from subrace" model. Some other races might not fit into those. But if you have something that can...I see no reason not to use the established framework that has been presented to keep/make comparable races...well, comparable. [and whether one wants to claim that makes them "balanced" or "the same" would be a broader/further debate I'm not particularly interested in having
]But, for your pixie/sprite example, if you are going to do something that the system does not currently do [i.e. take out the +2/+1] you could just as easily add in a "-2" to something. Or, to avoid bringing the dreaded "-" into the game at all, simply flat out state an upper limit, as I've seen some homebrew pixie/sprite PC races state, like, "Size: Tiny. Your Strength score can not, naturally, be over a 5 and you can only use weapons of the small/light descriptor and weapons constructed for your size (pixie-made "short bows" and "long swords", for example) can not deal more than d4 + mods." or some such.
Things like goliaths or minotaurs, maybe, just get a +3 to their strength (instead of +2/+1). Nobody's getting a +3 to anything, right? That makes them different/"big strong." But that is still looking at them, and fitting them with, in relation to the other existing races.
Otherwise you start down that ever-so slippery slope of getting to a Justice League adventuring with Frodo Baggins [or a Fellowship of the Ring adventuring with Superman] kind of game...and that, simply can't be sustained. Can be FUN! Don't get me wrong. At least for some people/limited time. But it doesn't make for a sustained campaign.
I fully agree that part of the joy of D&D is to experience and enjoy all of the variety and the crazy/creative possibilities. But I do not think that can/should be used as a justification to create deliberately exceptional beings from the start. That's for the Players to do, with their character, through role-play/the game/story.
Just to use as example again, the pixie PC race, I would make sure they have as much/many of the magical abilities as their entry in the MM has. But some things might get left out because no race has more than, let's say 4 traits (I don't know what it actually is). And, based on the very neat and simple "Racial Magic" traits of "cantrip at will, 1st level spell art 3rd level, 2nd level spell [mostly] at 5th level", your PC is not going to automatically going to get all of the magic an NPC pixie can do right off the bat.
Abilities, particularly powerful magical ones, might be further limited by short or long rests.
You're a PC, you're "different" than the racial normal. That suits me just fine in terms of both mechanics and flavor.
Least that's where I'm coming from/my opinion -philosophy, if you want to call it that- for homebrewing races.
Cheers back at'cha. Have a good one.
