D&D 5E PC races that a DM has specifically excluded from their campaign and why

[jmartkdr2]

Aarakokra are a tough one for me. I don't find flight, alone, to be an issue, but I worry about a base speed of 50 feet. That's very fast.

But the more common issue is: a lot of players will pick the race for pure powergaming reasons. They might roleplay the choice (with the occasional verbal tic), but many will do so only to a limited degree, and the race doesn't provide a ton of really interesting, distinctive hooks for rp anyways. So if someone says they've never seen a player pick aarakokra except to powergame - I totally believe them.

I don't believe banning the race is an ideal solution to that problem, however. Powergamers aren't going to stop powergaming because you remove a strong option; they'll just pick the best option of the remaining choices. And some people will roleplay out the whole bird-man thing and are more interested in having feathers than flight. But those people are rare and/or playing kenku already.

So banning the race is the simplest solution: it reigns in the spotlight-hogging of powergamers and probably won't bother anyone else.

 

[J.Quondam]

So banning the race is the simplest solution: it reigns in the spotlight-hogging of powergamers and probably won't bother anyone else.

What's probably going through my head in this situation:

"Hmm... Should I ban the race or ban the powergamer?"​

​

.

 

[Deset Gled]

Aarakokra are a tough one for me. I don't find flight, alone, to be an issue, but I worry about a base speed of 50 feet. That's very fast.

But the more common issue is: a lot of players will pick the race for pure powergaming reasons.

One of my worst experiences with winged races had the opposite problem.

I let new player talk me into allowing them to be a "special" race because they really wanted to stand out. I allowed a winged race in, despite the fact that the party was only around level 2-3. From that point on, I had to plan in flight as a variable. No one else had access to it yet, so it meant redesigning lots of low level challenges around that character. I spent significant time making sure locations and encounters allowed flying to be useful, but not overpowering.

They never flew. Ever. Even when it was completely obvious that going up would be the simplest way to solve a problem, they just never did. Plenty of nice reminders were given. They even watched another player climb a tree once.

It's probably the worst experience I've had in terms of effort discrepancy between player and DM, and it really lowered my enjoyment level for the campaign.

 

[tetrasodium]

My group has a person who usually plays Tabaxi, and another player who often does. I've never noticed any problems with their movement either. Maybe it's because we usually do Theater of the Mind or use limited battlemats instead of a full VTT or similar?

Probably. It was already somewhat of a hazy likely that wotc neither plays or considers grid combat anything but a thing of derision that they were not able to completely remove. The poison pill flanking & facing rules The rabbit d12 feet hop* made the it painfully obvious that wotc does not consider grid combat. a tabaxi roague bing able to move 24 squares,18 squares & still attack, or 12 squares & still disengage is rather problematic in grid combat.

* Grid combat takes place on 5 foot squares, it's impossible to model anything but multiples of five so any ability that grants movement in speeds other than multiples of 5 should obviously never have made it past the initial "hmm..." by anyone who considers grid combat a valid style of gameplay

 

[Eltab]

PS. Thanks to all for refraining from making a "this argument is for the birds" joke.

The conversation has been interesting informative and positive, so the opportunity to make light of it just kinda flew the coop.

 

[Hussar]

One of my worst experiences with winged races had the opposite problem.

I let new player talk me into allowing them to be a "special" race because they really wanted to stand out. I allowed a winged race in, despite the fact that the party was only around level 2-3. From that point on, I had to plan in flight as a variable. No one else had access to it yet, so it meant redesigning lots of low level challenges around that character. I spent significant time making sure locations and encounters allowed flying to be useful, but not overpowering.

They never flew. Ever. Even when it was completely obvious that going up would be the simplest way to solve a problem, they just never did. Plenty of nice reminders were given. They even watched another player climb a tree once.

It's probably the worst experience I've had in terms of effort discrepancy between player and DM, and it really lowered my enjoyment level for the campaign.

Sorry, @Deset Gled - I laughed because of what you said. I wasn't laughing at you. But, having been in very similar situations SOOO many times, it just made me giggle. You can lead the horse to water ...

Like I said, I've found that many of the "problems" That people talk about just don't happen for me. So the Tabaxi moves fast, so what? It's not it's going to make a difference most of the time - you still only move so far to get to the enemy. Being on a grid or not shouldn't make a difference. Most combats start around 50 feet away at most anyway. It's pretty rare that you have 300 foot combat areas - mostly because people don't play on ping pong table sized battlemaps. And, as far as fliers go, there's a lot of flying monsters. Currently I'm doing a Candlekeep adventure where the big combat features a wight and two gargoyles. The previous adventure didn't have fliers, but, everyone had ranged weapons, so, flying didn't matter that much. And the first Candlekeep adventure is indoors. Which, frankly, about half of all adventures happen indoors - whether it's a castle, dungeon, or whatever. It's pretty rare to have wide open spaces for combat. Heck, even trees make flying combat very difficult, particularly now that you can add line of sight obstacle blocking in Fantasy Grounds. The fliers can't see the targets or are shooting through serious cover nearly all the time.

Like I said, I'm just not seeing the issue here.

 

[Mad_Jack]

You can't really place 100% of the blame on kender players when that is how the race is canonically depicted and Word of God is that anyone who retaliates against kender in-character and in-universe for this behavior is Objectively Evil. Kender players are obnoxious because the authors' Mary Sue BS enables and encourages them to be.

See, the problem with Kender is that playing them requires massive effort and finesse on the part of the player to play them well... By which I mean that it's easy to play up the annoying aspects...but hard to ensure that you're playing them up at the right times and in a way that it's making the story more interesting for everyone. The Kender's personality quirks need to be used as tools to enable the other party members, which requires constant effort and awareness of when those "opportune moments" are coming. And a good rapport with a DM who is willing to give you the opportunities and leeway to run with them.
Much like any one of the other common "offenders" in the game's history - Drow, Aarocockra, Pixies, Chaotic Neutral, etc. - it's easy to play one, but requires a much more involved and nuanced performance to play a character who is a good party member first and a good <insert X here> second.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sorry, @Deset Gled - I laughed because of what you said. I wasn't laughing at you. But, having been in very similar situations SOOO many times, it just made me giggle. You can lead the horse to water ...

Like I said, I've found that many of the "problems" That people talk about just don't happen for me. So the Tabaxi moves fast, so what? It's not it's going to make a difference most of the time - you still only move so far to get to the enemy. Being on a grid or not shouldn't make a difference. Most combats start around 50 feet away at most anyway. It's pretty rare that you have 300 foot combat areas - mostly because people don't play on ping pong table sized battlemaps. And, as far as fliers go, there's a lot of flying monsters. Currently I'm doing a Candlekeep adventure where the big combat features a wight and two gargoyles. The previous adventure didn't have fliers, but, everyone had ranged weapons, so, flying didn't matter that much. And the first Candlekeep adventure is indoors. Which, frankly, about half of all adventures happen indoors - whether it's a castle, dungeon, or whatever. It's pretty rare to have wide open spaces for combat. Heck, even trees make flying combat very difficult, particularly now that you can add line of sight obstacle blocking in Fantasy Grounds. The fliers can't see the targets or are shooting through serious cover nearly all the time.

Like I said, I'm just not seeing the issue here.

That bolded bit is something that changed in the last 7-8 years since 5e was released.

• Roll20 starts melting down some player computers around 50x50 sized grids, which is on par with chessex maps. That imposes some limitations on players
  • For these types of combat going beyond that is pretty much "well bob you are off the map so nehnenenehnhneh" & bob is forced to avoid doing things that go beyond the map edge.
• With VTTs like arkenforge& such that run locally on the GM's PC pumping the map to a tvbox or whatever the max size of a grid map is dictated by 32/64bit floating point giving a max size somewhere absurd in the millions of squares.
  • Bob no longer needs to worry about moving off the map so his tabaxi rogue can close to melee from sort range of bows.. & the party wants to start from those ranges because sharpshooter spell sniper & eldritch lance make it possible to attack with no penalty at a range of hundreds of feet.... It doesn't stop there because the warlock & ranged characters want to start combat with a crossfire 240 300 480 or 600 feet from the target while Barry Allen the tabaxi is literally the flash weaving around the victims of d&d's equivalent of rods from god who probably can't take cover thanks to the cross fire. Even if they can take cover, barry allen can stab & run out of reach to ensure they can't counter him unless spending at least a round* getting hit by crossfire before closing in next round when barry attacks & zips away
    
    * assuming the tabaxi rogue remains still for them rather than shoting a shortbow/light xbow while moving away to make it 2 rounds of crossfire exposure

 

[teitan]

Drow. I don't generally allow Drow because they might not even exist in my homebrew. My next campaign will probably disclude dragonborn, halflings, gnomes, elves, & dwarves as well with Half Elves being called Feytouched, eladrin being elves (but not PCs), half orcs being a cursed race of men that are called Half-orcs but aren't. Dwarves will be more akin to their lore and not PCs but using Duergar stats to emulate them. Bringing in some Ratfolk PCs, Trollkin from Midgard as standard trolls but also PCs. It's a more dark fantasy setting.

 

[Hussar]

That bolded bit is something that changed in the last 7-8 years since 5e was released.

• Roll20 starts melting down some player computers around 50x50 sized grids, which is on par with chessex maps. That imposes some limitations on players
  • For these types of combat going beyond that is pretty much "well bob you are off the map so nehnenenehnhneh" & bob is forced to avoid doing things that go beyond the map edge.
• With VTTs like arkenforge& such that run locally on the GM's PC pumping the map to a tvbox or whatever the max size of a grid map is dictated by 32/64bit floating point giving a max size somewhere absurd in the millions of squares.
  • Bob no longer needs to worry about moving off the map so his tabaxi rogue can close to melee from sort range of bows.. & the party wants to start from those ranges because sharpshooter spell sniper & eldritch lance make it possible to attack with no penalty at a range of hundreds of feet.... It doesn't stop there because the warlock & ranged characters want to start combat with a crossfire 240 300 480 or 600 feet from the target while Barry Allen the tabaxi is literally the flash weaving around the victims of d&d's equivalent of rods from god who probably can't take cover thanks to the cross fire. Even if they can take cover, barry allen can stab & run out of reach to ensure they can't counter him unless spending at least a round* getting hit by crossfire before closing in next round when barry attacks & zips away
    
    * assuming the tabaxi rogue remains still for them rather than shoting a shortbow/light xbow while moving away to make it 2 rounds of crossfire exposure

Again, yes and no. Because, sure, your map in Arkenforge can be massive, you're still limited by other people's connections and, IME, any image over 1 meg and you're starting to have issues. So, yeah, you're looking at about (presuming 50 pixel grids) about 50x50 maps tend to be about is big as it gets. Plus, again, in play, combat almost never happens at more than about 100 feet between combatants and that's pretty rare. Typically combat starts up around 50 feet apart (ish). So, sure, the party can start up the fight at hundreds of feet away, but, there are so many impediments to that:

• Line of sight. It's nearly impossible to have lines of sight that far. For one, night fighting limits you to 60 feet or less. Indoor never has areas that big. So, right off the bat, the majority of encounters are closer. Even outdoors, unless you're fighting in flat, open fields, you rarely have sight lines of more than a couple of hundred feet at the absolute outside and most of the time, it's far, far shorter.
• Most of the time, the party isn't hunting the bad guys. So, the encounter, which may or may not be a combat encounter, typically starts within talking distance.

So, no, it almost never works that way in play. Unless you're fighting on water, battlefields in D&D are virtually never that large. You simply can't see that far.

 

[tetrasodium]

Again, yes and no. Because, sure, your map in Arkenforge can be massive, you're still limited by other people's connections and, IME, any image over 1 meg and you're starting to have issues. So, yeah, you're looking at about (presuming 50 pixel grids) about 50x50 maps tend to be about is big as it gets. Plus, again, in play, combat almost never happens at more than about 100 feet between combatants and that's pretty rare. Typically combat starts up around 50 feet apart (ish). So, sure, the party can start up the fight at hundreds of feet away, but, there are so many impediments to that:

• Line of sight. It's nearly impossible to have lines of sight that far. For one, night fighting limits you to 60 feet or less. Indoor never has areas that big. So, right off the bat, the majority of encounters are closer. Even outdoors, unless you're fighting in flat, open fields, you rarely have sight lines of more than a couple of hundred feet at the absolute outside and most of the time, it's far, far shorter.
• Most of the time, the party isn't hunting the bad guys. So, the encounter, which may or may not be a combat encounter, typically starts within talking distance.

So, no, it almost never works that way in play. Unless you're fighting on water, battlefields in D&D are virtually never that large. You simply can't see that far.

No I'm literally not limited by a connection because the only connection between my laptop & the players is an HDMI cable connected to the tvbox where a chessex battlemat might be. I run my games like that in person meatspace ttrpg gaming on a real in person table. Yes line of sight should have been an issue considered in the ranges of ranged weapons & feats that extend ranges... but it wasn't.


edit: I mentioned fantasy grounds earlier because I'm pretty sure it cam be configured to run locally like I do with arkenforge

 

[Hussar]

No I'm literally not limited by a connection because the only connection between my laptop & the players is an HDMI cable connected to the tvbox where a chessex battlemat might be. I run my games like that in person meatspace ttrpg gaming on a real in person table. Yes line of sight should have been an issue considered in the ranges of ranged weapons & feats that extend ranges... but it wasn't.


edit: I mentioned fantasy grounds earlier because I'm pretty sure it cam be configured to run locally like I do with arkenforge

Ah, sorry, misunderstood your setup. Was thinking VTT, not face to face. My bad.

But, again, seriously, who made your maps then? Because I have never even heard of this sort of problem in D&D. Heck, my problem has always been the other way - the maps are just too freaking small as soon as you move away from the standard D&D setup. Try running ship to ship combat on a 5 foot per square scale. It really doesn't work.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ah, sorry, misunderstood your setup. Was thinking VTT, not face to face. My bad.

But, again, seriously, who made your maps then? Because I have never even heard of this sort of problem in D&D. Heck, my problem has always been the other way - the maps are just too freaking small as soon as you move away from the standard D&D setup. Try running ship to ship combat on a 5 foot per square scale. It really doesn't work.

I use a variety of maps, some I make myself, some I use from the arkenforge premade ones, some from cze & peku, other times I generate things direct from flowscape like described in this post. The key difference between arkenforge & something like roll20's maps is that Instead of setting the map as 20x20 50x50 or whatever I can just scroll over/out & there is more room. It's kinda like taking a mini off a battlemat but having the grid continue forever so the only real loss is that the mini is on a blank space with grid if a token is moved off whatever the "map" is.

For example,

Spoiler: here is *all* of argenvostholt from CoS

I could have kept scrolling till those individal levels of the map were a single pixel & kept going. That little speck on the left is a dragon that's off the map.

The squares start merging five or ten to one as you scroll out, I'm not sure the exact merge rate. Here is the black dragon on the left beside a PC in a 5 ft square, both are technically off the map. I ca mousewheel to scroll in/out or middle click drag to scroll around but I think there are keyboard commands for them too

I can independently control what part of the map is displayed on my screen & what part is displayed on the tvbox to players using an overlay box thing so can do stuff in different parts of the map as needed without giving it away like this video shows.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, I get that. No problems, but, that map is exactly what I mean. None of the encounters for that map should be happening at hundreds of feet away. I'm just sure I really think that the enhanced movement of a Tabaxi is all that much of an issue. Not that many encounters will occur at the ranges where it will matter much.

Not that it can't mind you. I do recall that a lot of the Storm King's Thunder maps are pretty darn big. Fair enough. But, that's somewhat of an exception IMO.

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh, I get that. No problems, but, that map is exactly what I mean. None of the encounters for that map should be happening at hundreds of feet away. I'm just sure I really think that the enhanced movement of a Tabaxi is all that much of an issue. Not that many encounters will occur at the ranges where it will matter much.

Not that it can't mind you. I do recall that a lot of the Storm King's Thunder maps are pretty darn big. Fair enough. But, that's somewhat of an exception IMO.

That was just a random map I chose & loaded because it is one that others can look up to see scale. Remember though, I make a lot of my own maps & use maps used by others rather than exclusively using Wotc hardcover maps. If a race requires that only indoor maps be used to avoid trivializing 5e's already god awful grid combat it should be a giant red flag for that race

 

[Hussar]

That was just a random map I chose & loaded because it is one that others can look up to see scale. Remember though, I make a lot of my own maps & use maps used by others rather than exclusively using Wotc hardcover maps. If a race requires that only indoor maps be used to avoid trivializing 5e's already god awful grid combat it should be a giant red flag for that race

But, that's not what I said.

What I said was that nearly all the maps in adventures wouldn't have this problem. Extremely few encounters begin at hundreds of feet away. Most start within a single double move distance - so say 50-100 feet at the most. Add in any weather, lighting conditions, trees and hills, etc, and having a 90 foot movement doesn't really matter. I mean, if you're using these wide open maps where having this sort of movement rate matters, why don't you have problems with a mount? A warhorse has a base speed of 60 feet. Why isn't that a problem? A tabaxi at best can only move 60 feet for one round, well 90 with a double move. The next round, it can't move at all if it wants to use it's speed again.

A warhorse moves 120 feet with a double move and never has to recharge. Again, I'm really not seeing the problem here. A 2nd level monk can move 80 feet every round and that certainly doesn't break the game. Why is this an issue?

 

[Casimir Liber]

Thanks for you reply. It seems to match my experience, as well.

I was considering some kind of resource spend with flying to at least make players think tactically before they take off. A point of exhaustion if misused is one idea, but I haven't yet figured out how to define misuse. A cool down period every other round due to the rigors of flying in combat? A 5% chance of getting winged while in the air which will require a long rest to heal? Perhaps the right player doesn't need these things, but the temptation to avoid combat and focus on exploits I'm learning is pretty great.

I think there are plenty of ways to make flying challenging - essentially any adventure that is not open country becomes tricky - tangled forests, underground...maybe a swampy region which is covered by mist severely limiting range of vision - warning people that fly too high that they might attract flying monsters....incompatibility of armour with flying....weather...rain might make it hard, maybe very windy above 10 metres in height...

Fascinating discussion about flying PC races as I could see both sides of the argument.

I think maybe also that aarakocra could be considered one of those concocted races like goliaths, tieflings, dragonborn, kender, tortles and others that don't have a body of folklore behind them. The race came first and the stories after, though really old ones like drow and aarakocra have been around so long that they have 40+ years of lore behind them.

 

[tetrasodium]

But, that's not what I said.

What I said was that nearly all the maps in adventures wouldn't have this problem. Extremely few encounters begin at hundreds of feet away. Most start within a single double move distance - so say 50-100 feet at the most. Add in any weather, lighting conditions, trees and hills, etc, and having a 90 foot movement doesn't really matter. I mean, if you're using these wide open maps where having this sort of movement rate matters, why don't you have problems with a mount? A warhorse has a base speed of 60 feet. Why isn't that a problem? A tabaxi at best can only move 60 feet for one round, well 90 with a double move. The next round, it can't move at all if it wants to use it's speed again.

A warhorse moves 120 feet with a double move and never has to recharge. Again, I'm really not seeing the problem here. A 2nd level monk can move 80 feet every round and that certainly doesn't break the game. Why is this an issue?

Any time the pcs get to go on the offensive after someone or yo on the offensive after scouting initiative can start where the players do something to appear hostile... And 5e gives them ample tools to make that happen at a range of hundreds of feet, that was why I mentioned ranges. Every time reinforcements are coming or opponents are running that move speed trivializes things. Likewise with every chase scene is simply "no I win" unless the distance is extreme or reasons are created to duesexmschina the whole thing if the nontabaxi players ever had a chance. There is also like I said before the fact that the tabaxi speed allows them to completely bypass front line types if indoor rooms aren't filled like a clown car, I think you missed the significance of that because you likely take a different view of 5e's unforgivably atrocious grid combat support than I do.

Mounts are not an issue because unlike the legs of a playerthey have so many weakness including being very obvious low hp bad saves can be spooked are big have grazing or similar needs etc.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I haven't banned any official races from a game yet, though I did have someone want to play a homebrew skeleton "race" and rejected it.

One player in my current campaign is a dragonborn, which are rare in that part of the world, so I had a bit of fun with many NPCs initially assuming he was either a full-blown half-dragon or an unusually tall kobold.

 

[Eltab]

Oh, I get that. No problems, but, that map is exactly what I mean. None of the encounters for that map should be happening at hundreds of feet away. I'm just sure I really think that the enhanced movement of a Tabaxi is all that much of an issue. Not that many encounters will occur at the ranges where it will matter much.

Not that it can't mind you. I do recall that a lot of the Storm King's Thunder maps are pretty darn big. Fair enough. But, that's somewhat of an exception IMO.

Best use I got out of a Tabaxi's "cheetah sprint" was to run down a fleeing enemy from behind.