Eladrins, Tieflings, Dragonborn Too Far Outside Standard Fantasy?

[Tervin]

By changelings, what do you mean?

Because the MM will have doppelganger-lites to play at 1st level.

I second werewolf, insect and undead.

I know they will have the doppelgangers, but I wish they would have chosen the changeling name instead. It simply feels less monstrous and more fairylike. I guess the MM versions of shifters and doppelgangers are better than nothing, but a PH treatment means stuff like racial feats which I think perhaps has he potential of being the most important part of a race writeup for a game.

Of course I can make those things myself, but it will take a while before I feel like I know the system well enough to do a good enough job at it.

 

[samursus]

The idea I've been tossing around is having them be the first and only matriarchal society EVER in D&D not to be hideously evil. The males will also have brightly colored scales to show off their masculinity.

I like this idea... methinks I will steal it!!!

Theft is the sincerest form of flattery ya know

 

[Blackeagle]

Werewolves are a big part of my homebrew, so I want to see a full race writeup for them too. I'm guessing we'll see a full writeup of Shifters in PHB2 or the Eberron book. A lot of the shifter racial feats may be adaptable to werewolves without too much work. That will mean waiting until next year though.

 

[Rechan]

Werewolves are a big part of my homebrew, so I want to see a full race writeup for them too. I'm guessing we'll see a full writeup of Shifters in PHB2 or the Eberron book. A lot of the shifter racial feats may be adaptable to werewolves without too much work. That will mean waiting until next year though.

You'll see a full writeup of Shifters when the Eberron book comes out in 2009.

 

[theNater]

As to what I consider classic fantasy, I would probably point to Tolkien, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, etc.

Maybe it's just a generational thing.

It may be generational. I'm not old enough to have read those authors(except a little Tolkien), but I am old enough to be embarrassed that I haven't.

Let me ask: how common are what races among those authors' works? Tolkien has dwarves, elves, and hobbits as common major characters, and they have large-scale societies in his world. For the others, do nonhuman characters occur often, rarely, or never in major or minor roles in the stories? Do they have large societies(500+ population) or small societies(50-500 population), or are they one of a very few(less than 50 in the whole world)?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

You'll see a full writeup of Shifters when the Eberron book comes out in 2009.

Though you never know, Shifters may get a DDI writeup even sooner too. Seeing how Warforged are going to be getting a full writeup on DDI.

 

[Blackeagle]

You'll see a full writeup of Shifters when the Eberron book comes out in 2009.

So are we going to get both Shifters and Warforged in the Eberron book? That's starting to look like a must-buy for me, even though I'm not planning to run Eberron.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Side note, and minor joke that will immidiately be mis-read and used to attack me;

Can we really call 4e "Sword and Sorcery" if there's no Sorcerer in core?

 

[Rechan]

So are we going to get both Shifters and Warforged in the Eberron book? That's starting to look like a must-buy for me, even though I'm not planning to run Eberron.

We have confirmation that the Forgotten Realms player book has full racial rules for Drow, Genasi and the Swordmage class.

I would assume that a 4e Eberron player book would have all the rules necessary to play Eberron with 4e. Artificers, Dragonmarks, Kalasthar (hey, 2009 coincides with Psionics in PHBII, look at that) and anything else I'm forgetting. James Wyatt and Keith Baker are working on it; I would expect nothing less from those guys.

 

[delericho]

How many of you feel that races such as Eladrins, Tieflings, and Dragonborn are too far beyond the scope of standard fantasy fare to be included as base races?

Nope. None of them would have made my list of core races, but I object to their inclusion either. If D&D isn't open to such things, then we'll always and only ever have humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, half-elves, half-orcs and gnomes as our core races. Except, of course, few people actually use half-orcs and gnomes (and half-elves to a lesser extent), so we're really only talking four races.

At least by mixing things up they are trying to expand the options people will use. And it's not as if you can't use gnomes or orcs or warforged - you'll just need to do some work with your DM to achieve that.

It remains to be seen whether any of these will manage to achieve any sort of traction amongst the player base. My totally unfounded prediction is that none of them will make it to 5th Edition. But I'm probably wrong about that.