Do you want Tieflings in the phb?

[Kae'Yoss]

So, a tiefling (as pictured on the front of the PHB) is just a Human who's taken the first couple Fiendish Blood talents instead of the Human talents?

I hope so. I think races that are instantly customisable would be cool and sell like hot cakes.


That way they could do several bloodlines - fey, demon, devil, archon, eladrin....


As for orcs: D&D usually defines them as bloodthirsty savages who gather in hordes to be slaughtered by low-level heroes raid the goodly races' nations. The origin of half-orcs is never spelled out in the core rules (though Midnight all but does it), but I don't think the average D&D scenario allows for drunken passion or harmonious mixed-race marriages as the major cause for those half-breeds.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Your orcs are homebrewed, and you are welcome to them. Bye now.

I mulled this over a bit, tossing a couple replies around in my head, variations of "well of course they are; I'm the DM", and "adherence to fluff doesn't make you not rude" largely, but I decided eventually that I don't want to play the rhetorical points game on the internet any more.

So I'll concede that they are, and that 'Always Chaotic Evil' doesn't really mean always (sure sets a good baseline assumption though), and invite you to drown me and everybody else in all the condescension you can muster in the name of the Orcish Civil Liberties Union. Because ultimately, none of this matters if it doesn't go down at the table, polyhedrons flying.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Continuing along ...

I notice that one of the big design drivers of 4E is to have race matter more than in 3E (where whatever racial bonuses you have are swamped by your class bonuses before long).

As mentioned in a different thread, this may take the form of some kind of "Racial Talent Trees." As in, there's a Dwarf talent tree, an Elf Talent tree, etc.

Well, what if there's also a Fiendish Blood, a Fey Blood, and a Celestial Blood talent tree, which is available to all races?

So, a tiefling (as pictured on the front of the PHB) is just a Human who's taken the first couple Fiendish Blood talents instead of the Human talents?

See now, that would be awesome.

And further proof my last computer crashed because the WotC design team stole my house rules document from it with evil magic.

 

[The Souljourner]

They're probably dropping Gnomes, which I think is a good thing. They're not different enough from halflings or dwarves to be significant. I'd say drop the Half Elf as a mechanic as well. No one ever plays them, they have absolutely no flavor of their own. If you want to play a half elf, pick one of your parent races, take those stats, and say you're half the other thing. Bam, done. Drop Half Orcs, they're not appropriate as generic PCs, in my opinion. If you later want them in an expansion, fine. but there's no need for them in the PHB.

So, that leaves us with Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing. All very distinct and very playable. The problem is that that's only 4. If it were up to me, I'd leave it at 4 and give racial feats/talent trees to uniquify them... Let the expansions give unusual races, hell, have a whole book of unusual PC Races.... I bet it would sell like hotcakes. Leave core D&D core D&D. Tieflings are not core D&D.

-Nate

 

[Kae'Yoss]

So I'll concede that they are, and that 'Always Chaotic Evil' doesn't really mean always

They're just "often chaotic evil".

Still, I can't count the stories I've read or heard of of friendly orcs falling in love with humans. And that's because I cannot count to nothing.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

They're probably dropping Gnomes, which I think is a good thing. They're not different enough from halflings or dwarves to be significant.

So let's drop the dwarves.

No one ever plays them, they have absolutely no flavor of their own. If you want to play a half elf, pick one of your parent races, take those stats, and say you're half the other thing. Bam, done.

I wouldn't call "best of both worlds" or "being caught between two stools" no flavour, and I'm not against half-races, especially if they have a long history in D&D and other stories as well.

 

[GreatLemur]

Mine are born in deep holes in the earth, mockeries of men crafted by the hate and rage of the Horned Lord, Breaker of Walls and Reaver of Cities, an ancient horror buried under the bleak mountain range known to the world as The Crags. They take what they want when they want, regard humans roughly as a steak you get to torture to death first, and they don't have womenfolk.

But, wait, why would things like that even be interested in womenfolk? Except as food, of course.

That's a big part of my problem with half-orcs, actually: Even in campaigns where orcs are normal, biological creatures, they generally look pretty different from humans. Really different. So, reasonably, human women would look about as appealing to them as vice versa.

 

[Blind Azathoth]

Yugoloth is a name from Call of Cthulhu. Or I think it is. I could be wrong.
I hate the way most of the demons look in D&D. They seem so removed from what we view demons as that they are more like just another monster that you have to kill and not a FREAKIN DEMON.

Sorry, I ranted. But it's my birthday. I think I am allowed.

Yugoloth isn't exactly a Cthulhu Mythos name, although it definitely is evocative of the style of naming for Lovecraft's "gods," and of some specific entities, like Y'golonoc (as Kesh pointed dout) or Yog-Sothoth, though it's actually closest to the name of a planet, Yuggoth. It's one of the reasons I like the name Yugoloth so much better than "Daemon."

(And happy birthday!)

 

[Kahuna Burger]

They're just "often chaotic evil".

Still, I can't count the stories I've read or heard of of friendly orcs falling in love with humans. And that's because I cannot count to nothing.

I can't count the stories I've read about D&D characters mining for gold or silver, so I'll just assume that all precious metals in the world comes from dragon's hordes... Yes, it's perfectly legitamate to say that your half* was born from war rape and be angsty about it. The idea that this is therefore the only explanation when orcs in the current edition are an "often evil" race (less commonly evil than drow), not a demon spawned abomination is what's silly to me.

*Tanis half elven was a war rape child, but thats not the default half elf explaination - because elves are pretty and humans must be acceptable to them?

edit : And why the false dicotomy between "rape" and "falling in love"? You think human mercaneries turn down the orcish camp followers when they stop to trade? You think an orc's gold is any worse than a stinky dwarf's who hasn't changed his armor since he got back from campaign to a whore in a port city? I'm not skipping the "gritty" explainations for halfbreeds, I'm just aknowledging all of them.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

They're just "often chaotic evil".

Still, I can't count the stories I've read or heard of of friendly orcs falling in love with humans. And that's because I cannot count to nothing.

That'll learn me to read the MM more often. Since I can stat an orc up to about level 5 in my sleep - I like fights with orcs, what can I say - I just don't read the entries any more.



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And I'd miss half-elves a lot, having made about a quarter of my characters in that middle space between the Elder Races and the world of men. They strike me as the most likely to adventure - hell, my favorite was a third generation professional adventurer! Plus, we know they're in, so calls for their deletion are just sour grapes.