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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9025358" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Yes, it's a tough fight for our group (Wizard 4, Ranger 4, Cleric 4, Monk 4), and if we could have avoided it, we would have (stupid burrowing monsters).  But it's not actually unusual in printed modules; a good example of this is the final battle of the Adventure League mod DDEX1-4: Dues for the Dead.  In an adventure for characters of level 1-4, you get a Red Wizard (CR 2), a Knight (CR 3), a Cultist (CR 1/8), 2 Kobolds (CR 1/8), and a Zombie (CR 1/4).  Just the Knight by themselves is beyond Deadly (500 xp) for a level 4 character; the whole encounter is worth 2,550 xp, a little above a Deadly Encounter for a level 4 group with five players!  And sure, it can be adjusted, this is just the default encounter, it scales all the way up to 4,500 xp by adding another 3 zombies and 3 kobolds if the DM decides the party is "very strong", lol.Oh and that Bulette definitely did not die on round 3; sure, it only has 94 hit points, but given that are attack bonuses are +6, that 17 AC was a pain in the butt, not to mention it was able to open with it's deadly leap, so we had several severely wounded characters in the first turn to deal with.Thankfully it had a lousy Wisdom saving throw, so we got lucky when the Wizard hit it with Nathair's Mischief and we were treated to a round of a giggling Bulette while we got everyone up and finished it off at the top of round 5 (after it knocked the Ranger down a second time and he had to be revived).Anyways, it just goes to show what my 5e experience has been like; obviously others have had different experiences.  As to the thread's topic (yes, back to that at last), it feels like there's two driving forces at work when it comes to the subject of what species should be in the PHB.People who want familiar things vs. people who want exotic things.  Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, etc., are familiar to a lot of people.  It might be easier on a DM when world-building to start with the known, and put those races front and center.On the other hand, players wanting to try new and different options is a constant in gaming, and it's not unreasonable to find someone turning up their nose at seven kinds of Elf and want to play a Githzerai or something.So on the player side, the more fantastical and varied the races are, the better.  On the DM side, unless they planned for it in world-building, now they have to figure out what to do with this weird alien guy from the Astral Sea, lol.If all people want is mechanics, you could fit a dozen races easily in the PHB, but there are people who want lore as well.  Who are these guys?  What does one play like?  What is their culture like?  What niche do they occupy in the world?  How do other people see them?  It seems a bit foreboding to put that on a new DM, so some of this is necessary.  And the less familiar the race, the more of this lore needs to exist for a race- there's a pretty huge divide between "explain Dwarves" and "explain Shadar-Kai".So what you need to remember is, what races would be great for you to see in a PHB might not be great for everyone.  You need a balance of "tried and true" and "interesting and creative" to make the game work.</blockquote>

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