Full roster of PHB3 races known yet?

[Felon]

I know about minotaurs, githzerai, and wilden making it into the PHB3. Anyone know of anything else? I can't believe a fourth race hasn't been spoilered by now.

P.S. This is one of those threads don't seem to belong anywhere, because there are only D&D-specific forums for rules and house rules, yet the forum descriptions make it sound as if we're not supposed to discuss D&D specifically elsewhere.

 

[Angellis_ater]

The last word I heard are either speculations, or teneous at best. Going by what has been said, I believe there has been a WotC reference to Goblins as a suggested race.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There have been a lot of suggestions but no word on what WotC is actually putting in. Its always possible that PHB3 will only include the 3 known races. I think this IS a possibility. Consider, they've already done a pretty good set of core races. Several others have come out in FR and Eberron. A couple of others have been released as DDI content. Obviously in theory you can keep releasing monstrous races or just entirely new races forever, but at some point they become redundant and not really needed in the core system. Further I'd think they want to keep something for PHB4 next year. So they could easily limit it to 3 races, the number 4 is not special.

Honestly one has to begin to wonder about other content as well. It sounds like there will be enough material left unexplored after PHB3 to eek out a PHB4 but its getting to the point now where pretty much everything mapped out at 4e launch is likely to be in our hands at that point in terms of mechanics and in fact PHB3 looks like it will be there to a substantial degree less perhaps a couple psionic classes and the rest of shadow. One begins to wonder how they'll fill enough page content for these later books. Given that WotC cut back on staff that may well signal that they too are a bit short of ideas for more core material beyond PHB3.

 

[Camelot]

I have heard that there are definitely only 4 races, but I'm not sure on my sources.

As for goblins, the beach mages have specifically said that making drow was pushing it with the monster races, and now minotaurs are coming too. They will definitely not put any other monstrous races in the PH3, because according to them, "that niche has been filled."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have heard that there are definitely only 4 races, but I'm not sure on my sources.

As for goblins, the beach mages have specifically said that making drow was pushing it with the monster races, and now minotaurs are coming too. They will definitely not put any other monstrous races in the PH3, because according to them, "that niche has been filled."

Hmmm, yeah, but that leaves the question open as to what else you CAN put in. I mean we have all the standard tropes already. Goliath and minotaur would seem to pretty well fill up the "big strong brute" area pretty well. Its a bit hard to imagine too much more in the "little people" category beyond gnomes and halflings as well. The classic fantasy races seem to be covered. Spirit races, pretty well covered. Furries, pretty well covered by shifters. I suppose they could introduce a couple more shifter types.

Beyond that it seems like the choices are essentially either EXISTING monsters as races, or entirely new races that are still monstrous in general aspect and thus kind of silly in terms of considering them part of a "no more monsters" policy. The only other untapped area I can think of really would be a couple of moderately distinctive oriental type spirit/animal races.

Personally I can't think of much else. That was what was really leading me to wonder if they would actually drop in a 4th race or hold off and leave SOMETHING for PHB4 since otherwise its getting hard to imagine what would go in there race-wise at all. I suppose perhaps some kind of planescape/spelljammer oriented races assuming they are not planning to do either of those as a whole setting.

 

[abyssaldeath]

I find it odd that the Minotaur is in the PHB3 since they had a really nice write up in Dragon. As for the 4th race the only thing I can think of would be another monster race(Gnoll?) or maybe a Darksun race(Mule or Thri-kreen?).


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[AbdulAlhazred]

I would assume the DS races will be in the DSPG. No setting specific races have ever yet appeared in a PHB. The Dragon Minotaur writeup was a preview I believe. The Gnoll writeup on the other hand was supplemental DDI exclusive material. Of course they could republish DDI exclusive stuff in a future book, but it seems like they've essentially promised that it will be stuff DDI subscribers will have that nobody else will.

Personally I would think the top contenders would be some new types of shifter or some one of the humanoid monster races. Kobolds in particular have a lot of fans these days and while they don't seem to want to do monster races they have to do SOMETHING and there has not yet been an official humanoid PC race outside of Dragon. Seems to me there is room in the game for one. Goblin, hobgoblin, and orc seem to be a good bit less popular than kobolds. I suppose a goblin would be a possibility if they don't want to do another small sized race.

 

[Turtlejay]

Saying there won't be new races becaues all the tropes have been covered is like saying there won't be new classes because the tropes have been covered.

We already have stabby guys and magic guys, what do we need with more of that? Another ranged character? Jeez guys! </sarcasm>

The more races, the more options. The fully supported races (not MM races) have feats and powers specific to them, so even though as you say, the small race trope has been taken by halflings and gnomes, I would argue that they play very differently. Racial powers/abilities, and feats, differentiate these two races.

I doubt goblin for a different reason. They share the same stat boosts as halflings. Unless they do like they did with Doppelgangers/Changelings and alter the race significantly from it's MM blurb, goblins don't bring much out of the box, mechanics-wise. If they give them some nice, unique racial feats, I could buy it.

Also, I don't think wotc is running out of ideas, necissarily. They have not even cracked the Elemental power source. There is nothing to say that once they have introduced all their planned power sources, they can't do a PHB 8 with new Martial and Arcane classes, either. As long as there is material to be mined, I think we will be getting books.

Jay

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not really. The class and race design spaces are different. Its also very easy to reskin races, so there is less motivation to make similar ones. Classes on the other hand cover more ground and there's practically always some unique new mechanic or something that can be brought to the table. Races are much more mechanically simple and thus while you can drop in a new racial power sooner or later it gets rather redundant.

What new race is going to provide a new set of stat boosts either. There are only 15 possible combinations, of which 3 overlap on a defense. Now, there's probably room for more than one race with the same boosts, but some combinations aren't all that appealing (CON/DEX for instance). No doubt a few more races won't hurt, but races also have a substantial need to be well distinguished fluff-wise. Yes, its possible to invent an infinite number of different xenomorphic races but they soon start to be forgettable. I think 20 or so races is going to be as many as we really need. Heck, we didn't even get past 6 official PC races until late in 2e (admittedly people home brewed their own and Dragon presented a number of options, but still).

 

[Camelot]

I think Mul is a very good possibility for PH3. It fits the Dark Sun setting but it is broad enough (no pun intended) to be added into any campaign, and therefore is justified to be in a PH.

Also, there will not be a Dark Sun Campaign Guide and DS Player's Guide. They split it into the Dark Sun Campaing Setting (which I think will include the races and maybe class) and the Dark Sun Creature Catalog (which obviously has the monsters). It's a tad different than normal, and I wonder why they aren't sticking to their "this is for players" and "this is for DMs" trend. But, this is off topic, so I digress.