Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6896540" data-attributes="member: 5100">FWIW, I could probably have fun in that sort of world. It's not what I'd prefer or what I think the core of the D&D game should be. But, it's a totally fine play style that I won't knock other than to say "not my personal flavor". Also, this isn't a "core" product, so I'm fine if it caters to a different niche style.Gotcha. I think the objection might be more based on perceived product value. If you have statistically identical races, and they're presented as separate, full write-ups, then people would complain about wasted pages because Firbolgs are just a reprint/reskin of Goliaths, which we got with PotA, for free.I'm sympathetic to this objection. Fluff is a double-edged sword. I've been complaining about the explicit tie in the UA Mystic class write-up between psionics and the Far Realm and the constant inclusion of the Forgotten Realms in core books and adventures grates on me to no end. On the other hand, one of the coolest things about D&D has always been the idea generator aspect of the Monster Manuals. I love the ala carte nature of being able to create several worlds, all using the same rules set and all being rather different.Odds are that I'm not going to use both goliaths and firbolg in the same campaign, so them having identical stats would be rather irrelevant. Your suggestion of a "giantkin" race with goliath and firbolg sub-races sounds like a nice middle ground, to me. Both races should probably get the bonus strength and ability to use oversized weapons. The firbolg might be a bit more sturdy and also get resistance to cold (making stuff up) while the goliath gets the athleticism, etc.Maybe the question is: What constitutes mechanical overlap?Half-elves and tieflings both get a +2 to Charisma. Does that count? What about a hypothetical orc that got the same ability modifiers as a hill dwarf, but different "bullet point" abilities? I definitely wouldn't consider that last one to be redundant. Now, let's say they published a "beastfolk" that was statistically identical to orc, including bullet abilities and then just described them as being "hairy, primitive, and vaguely bear-like in appearance" and "organized into insular clans which adhere to a superstitious form of tribal solipsism, causing them to treat non-beastfolk as apparitions without souls who are sent to challenge them". That's a reasonably interesting idea (for something that came as train-of-thought). It's not really something that needs a full MM entry, though. That's something that could be done as an example variation of orc in a setting book, a UA entry, or a sidebar somewhere. I might actually buy a 250ish page hardcover of neat ideas like that, but it'd feel like they were padding their page count if they actually reprinted the stat block for orc, rather than refer to "see orc, p. xx of the Monster Manual, especially if they had 6-8 variations.</blockquote>

Verification