Opinions on the non-PHB races?

[Gold Roger]

Races series: The new races didn't exite me enough to buy
Eberron Campaign Setting: Love them. My next homebrew will have Warforged, Shifters and Changelings. Though they'll have a tweaked background, I don't like the half-breed approach either. I've played several games with warforged and they never struck me as imbalanced.
Expanded Psionics Handbook: Dromites seem flavorfull, but altogether I'm not exited about any of the new XPH races (Gith are a whole different story, loved them the first time I saw them)
Magic of Incarnum: Don't have the book, but strikes me as: New rules need new races that use them. That approach sucks
Environment Series: Delaphones (or what they are called), the Orca-people from Stormwrack are a really nicely done LA +0 aquatic race, with nice flavor.

 

[the Jester]

I hate/ban most of them.

Warforged? Got a cool backstory and origin for my campaign- ok.

Most all the rest? Too hard to integrate/too lame.

 

[lior_shapira]

I'll only give my opinion on what I played, a Kalashtar (Eberron). I played a Kalashtar Psion in an eberron campaign for about half a year (levels 1-7) and really enjoyed it. The Kalashtar are balanced as a race in my opinion and are unique enough to differentiate them from playing a human (to which they are quite similar).

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm just wondering what's the opinion on all of the non-PHB races from WotC.

...

So how do races from the following stack up? Whether in play or for flavor and story potential?

Goliaths, Illumians, Raptorrans
Changelings, Kalashtar, Shifters, Warforged
Dromites, Maenads, Elan and Xeph
Duergar, Half-Giants, Githzerai, Githyanki and Thri-Kreen
Skarn, Duskling, Rilkan, Azurins.

...

Which ones have the best story or role-playing potential, by different books or whatever?

I don't know some of the above, and however I have never used any of them so far. Those which I know seem to me basically all equal in story potential, with Warforged (and Thri-Kreen) being the most problematic to integrate.

Generally speaking, all concepts above are interesting, and all could make a strong addition to a setting.
When one or two noncore races are put together with 3-4 core races to make the "available set" for PCs, it usually works well no matter what the races exactly are, as long as each has an important role in the setting.
Otherwise there's the "cosmopolitan-type setting" where there's hundreds of races, all mixed up and none truly standing out, but I don't like that approach very much.

 

[Soel]

I love the Dromites, and the mechanics behind the Elan, but not the fluff, or asthetic design (I hate when the race looks just like a human, but really isn't.)

Goliaths are done well, and the only "big" race I care for. Whisper Gnomes are kinda cool too. I don't get anything from any of the other races in the races series except for maybe the Skulk.

The Eberron races don't wow me over. I did play a Shifter and had some fun, but really was never enamored with the race itself (I hate lycanthropes!) Originally wasn't so keen on the Warforged, as it just feels clunky mechanics-wise. (alive, but not really alive when you get down to it.) I dig the fluff behind the Kalashtar, but again, they're humans-who-aren't-humans. Just give them a different look at least...

Don't get me started on the races in the Incarnum book...Not only do they fit the humans, but- not-really thing (can you sense that this bother me?) but they just plain fail to inspire me in any way...They seem like an add-on to satisfy some racial quota that demands a new race in every book...

 

[Yair]

I like the Elan. In fact, I wrote some fluff about them, making them into Guold-like unbodies aberrations with Indian mystic overtones. I never got to play one, though; the campaign folded.
I don't have experience with any non-PH race, really. I'll have to change that.

 

[Ashanderai]

I don't have any of the environment series books, but the idea of the neanderthals intrigues me; I would probably use them in a campaign even though I haven't seen them yet. The orca-like race looks really cool and I like the culture from the preview I read online. I either dislike or don't really know about any of the others from this series of books.

The psionic races I find the most interesting are the dromites, maenad, elan, githyanki, githzerai, and thri-kreen. Half-giants and duergar I can do without. The xeph could have been so much better, but weren't. I like the dromite the best and find them the most flavorful; I just wish they were EL+0 with racial levels. I dislike the EL/LA mechanic in general.

From the race books I find that the illumians have some interesting mechanics with some flavor that had potential, but fell short - and what is with the neon signpost? If I were to use them, I would definitely change their neon signpost into a glowing tattoo/birthmark that slowly moves about their face and neck with the same game effects as the floating neon thing they have now. I find the killoren from the Wild book pretty interesting. The goliath and raptorans are bland to me though with the goliaths only slightly more interesting by a miniscule amount.

I like all the new Eberron races. The warforged flavor I always liked, but was instantly wary of their racial mechanics. I have yet to see one in play, but I hear from everyone that has played in a game with one that they are not imbalanced. The others are very nice and could make cool additions to a game I think.

The Incarnum races fall short of being cool. The azurin is just a race of human made to have an affinity with Incarnum, while the duskling just don't do a thing for me. The skarn and rilkans could have been a lot cooler if they were made more non-human I think.

I am an old school gamer, but I am bored with the same old races from the PH with the possible exceptions of the gnome and half-orc because I have not been in many games where these two races were played much. Forget about the various sub-races, too - I don't want to see them anymore either. Except for the new take on the drow from Eberron. I like the new feel for the more tribal drow. Aasimar, tieflings, and genasi are cool, but I wish they didn't have those blasted EL+1s and just had racial levels instead so you could play them at 1st level without imbalancing the party and not fall somewhat behind other players in power as the party advances in level.

 

[Estlor]

I'm a big fan of repackaging racial mechanics that get me "almost" to where I'm going.

For example, I was working on a psuedo sci-fi setting based on Phantasy Star. They have a race (numans) that are a cross between human and bio-monster genes. Shifters got me close, so I stole their crunch and redid all the fluff. Now they're no longer animalistic because of lycanthrope ancestry but because of genetic crossbreeding.

 

[radferth]

I am running established campaigns, so I don't need a bunch more humanoid races popping up. Most of the races I found uninteresting or silly, but I did like the little blue guys from Frostburn.

 

[Klaus]

I am a bit jaded by bog standard PHB demihuman races and thus have been pretty receptive to new races.

I like the psionics races (except half-giants) and the new races and subraces in the Races book. The illumians, whisper gnomes, goliaths, and so forth. Raptorians are the dullest of the bunch to me.

Didn't really care for the races of eberron. Kalashtar are decent; warforged are okay. I'm not a big fan of hybrid races and find the idea of "hybrid lycanthropes" counter to the concept, so the changelings and especially shifter don't do it for me.

Just a quick sidenote: the connection between shifters and lycanthropes is purely theoretical in Eberron. They may be descendants of true lycanthropes, or they may be ancestors of lycanthropes, or they may be third cousins twice removed, or...