Opinions on the non-PHB races?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If there's a race easier to integrate into ongoing campaigns than the Changeling, I'd like to see it. Honestly, even if you just use them as monsters, they make a great addition, especially as dopplegangers are too powerful for many uses of actual dopplegangers in games. (A doppleganger replacing someone in a low-level party can kill every single one of them if discovered, even if he's surrounded.) Changelings, especially as used in Eberron -- the descendants of true dopplegangers with whom they have little or no contact -- are a great replacement.

Their powers are awfully subtle and really not any more imbalancing in play than a well-played illusionist would be. I'd love to play a changeling and never tell my group, in fact, just to see how long I could pull it off.

And, of course, changelings are able to take the warshaper PrC from Complete Warrior, making them a fairly flavorful combatant in return for five levels of play.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I like having many races in my campaigns, and loved Savage Species (which was left off the list) when it came out.

Some are better than others, or are more difficult to integrate, but overall, I favor a wide variety of options.

I have 3 general gripes about non-PHB races:

1) If only they had made racial levels the standard way of dealing with variant races instead of all that LA crap! I was playing a Minotaur in 2Ed that was totally awesome, but couldn't convert him to 3Ed and still have him be a member of the group he was a part of due to LA. With racial levels, conversion would have been a snap!

2) I'm a little tired of retreads- the game doesn't need more races that are minor variants of extant ones. Granted, its more common among races not traditionally used for PCs, like Sahaugin/Kuo-Toa/Locathah. Instead of 3 races, they just as easily could have been subcultures of one creature type, devotees of different gods, etc. Still...Hill Dwarves or Mountain Dwarves? Wood vs Wild Elves? Not needed!

If you want something that's similar but still unique, change something in a meaninful way! In the campaign I'm designing right now, dwarves are earth elementals (native to the Prime Material plane) that reproduce by carving new dwarves from stone, and the stone used to create them affects their stats... Elves will be replaced by beings that have the same general build, culture and features as the elves we know & love, but are actually plants! They still retain many of the same features- long life, affinity for bow & sword- but instead of Wizard favored class, they are natural Sorcerers,* and are physically tougher than the elves you know...

3) I'm also tired of most of the exotic half-breeds, you know...all that template stuff. Blech!

Other than those particular gripes, I'll let almost anything in my own campaigns as long as you can justify the PC concept in a way I can fit into my game world.

*This, I think, makes more sense than WOTC's take..Elves are supposed to be inherently magical ("Wizardry comes naturally to elves[they sometimes claim to have invented it]...PHB p16), yet must study it when there's a PC class that is noted for being inherent magic users?

 

[Romnipotent]

PHB races are bread
Non PHB races are salt and pepper, some are balsamic vineger. Some are crushed oiled chillis! They add flavour, depth... and thri kreen are freaking jumpy

 

[Woas]

I really like all the races from Arcana Evolved. Except maybe the Litorians.

 

[wakedown]

For the most part I cringed at the addition of new races to the game. When I first saw the Illumians and Raptorans I thought to myself those will NEVER see any light in my campaign. I am honestly probably a purist, but have bent my own personal code and brought some of these races in.

I was honestly impressed with Goliaths from Races of Stone. In working the Age Of Worms campaign setting, I wanted a race from the Cairn Hills that could be "taken from their native world and forced to work the mines"... I was tired of half-orcs and wanted a half-giant, maybe half stone giant. Goliath fit in here and added a lot of flavor as well. The ability to randomly generate names with meaning, their culture in terms of being tribal and being fierce competitiors all just sort of fell together and have made goliaths a great addition to the game as "big nice guys" that you felt sorry for being sent to the mines (which you wouldn't feel for a half-orc).

Elans have also been great, not so much from the munchkin aspect, but as an interesting pale race that you can utilize as a small click/cult to introduce psionics a little more into a group.

 

[Samuel Leming]

If you want something that's similar but still unique, change something in a meaninful way! In the campaign I'm designing right now, dwarves are earth elementals (native to the Prime Material plane) that reproduce by carving new dwarves from stone, and the stone used to create them affects their stats... Elves will be replaced by beings that have the same general build, culture and features as the elves we know & love, but are actually plants! They still retain many of the same features- long life, affinity for bow & sword- but instead of Wizard favored class, they are natural Sorcerers,* and are physically tougher than the elves you know...

These remind me of the Mostali(dwarves created from stone) and Aldryami(elves that are actually plants) from RuneQuest's old Glorantha setting. These could be very interesting in D&D.

What kind of plant are the drow related to? Kudzu?

Sam

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The only one that instantly leaped to mind was the Goliath. I really like the concept. I've looked for an interesting race to fill just such a niche.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Races series: Goliaths, Illumians, Raptorrans

None of these races is so interesting that I just have to play one, but I like each of them to varying degrees. Goliaths and raptorans both have quite interesting cultures, and I think it would be fascinating to have a campaign where PCs must spend a great deal of time in a mountain range inhabited by goliaths on the peaks and raptorans in the valleys.

Eberron Campaign Setting: Changelings, Kalashtar, Shifters, Warforged (well I guess the question would be about outside of Eberron)

I'd be perfectly happy to use changelings, warforged, and shifters outside of Eberron. Changelings and shifters work fine in a core D&D setting, and warforged could be the product of any recent war; much as I like kalashtar they're so strongly tied to the quori and what they mean for Eberron that I'd be hesitant to extract them from it. That may just be because I'm too lazy to do the work of rewriting their history.

Expanded Psionics Handbook: Mainly interested about Dromites, Maenads, Elan and Xeph since they're completely new. The Duergar, Half-Giants, Githzerai, Githyanki and Thri-Kreen are old established races.

Dromites are fun - caste-based societies for the win! - but the other three need some serious cultural treatment to be worthwhile. If only they could have a Races series-style workup.

Magic of Incarnum: Skarn, Duskling, Rilkan, Azurins.
Environment Series: I'm drawing a blank here on what belongs in what, but I guess it would be the ones that aren't an environmentally adapted version of a PHB/MM race, or appeared in previous editions of D&D (ie not the Hadozee).

Can't really contribute on this point.

 

[Hairfoot]

Most of the exotic races are nice as ideas, but I don't like them as PCs.

D&D 3.x leans toward a Star-Trek-with-swords flavour (Eberron's already there).

It's nice when a PC can meet an illumian or a githyanki under exceptional circumstances, but these days it seems like even the street sweepers are celestial half-thri-kreen warforged illithids.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I favour the use of less Tolkienesque races, personally. I like my fantasy to be strange and weird; the same-old same-old Middle Earth tropes turn me right off.

That's not to say I favour celestial half-thri-kreen warforged illithids . . . I mean, that's not even legal under the rules!