Plea to traditionalist fans: No more “half” races?

[delericho]

Why do you have that feeling? I presume it was hinted or mentioned upon?

Over on Circvs Maximvs, Klaus noted that humans are the most played race by a long way, then Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling. Once you move beyond those the frequency apparently drops massively again.

There is also what I term "the Dragonborn Question" - specifically, do you include them or not? Omitting them (while including other 'fringe' races) is likely to be seen as a snub to 4e players, but a number of old-edition players really don't want them in the PHB (to the point where their inclusion would be a deal-breaker).

However, WotC can easily duck that issue by including only the "Big 4", and saying that they just didn't have room for anything else - in effect, dropping any and all 'controversial' choices.

(Now, all that said, the playtest materials specifically include a High Elf, which suggests that what 4e termed Eladrin are in, in turn suggesting they're not taking that route. So, we'll see.)

 

[Dausuul]

I'm the opposite. I want an array of "half" races in the game, and I want them to be competitive with their full-blooded parents. (Is it too much to ask D&DN to give us a half-elf race that isn't a waste of space? The last time we had a half-elf race that didn't utterly suck was 2E.)

I'm not a fan of "cantina" settings. Halfbreed races allow me to give my players options besides straight-up human, yet keep the campaign centered on human culture. My next campaign will probably allow humans, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings* as PCs.

[size=-2]*Nope, no dragonborn. No self-respecting dragon in my world would deign to assume human form, let alone mate with one. Sorry.[/size]

 

[Herschel]

Just have templates like in 3E.
That way you do not need half-races at all, but instead can create every mix you want to.

Dear god no, that was a TERRIBLE cluster#$@! of a system of Humans In Funny Suits. I prefer Dragonborn and Tieflings to that mess.

 

[Lwaxy]

Over on Circvs Maximvs, Klaus noted that humans are the most played race by a long way, then Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling. Once you move beyond those the frequency apparently drops massively again.

Really? Humans are the least played race here. Dwarf, gnome, anything half, orc, kobold, halfling, goblins, felines, canines, elf and a few others all rank before human. I sometimes need to make extra incentives for having humans in the group, or I get them when people make secondary characters.

I'm glad for the Birthright campaign, it keeps the human level somewhat up

 

[renau1g]

IIRC Human Fighter is the most common race/class combo. At least in the 4e CB PC's.

 

[Lwaxy]

And that with so many people complaining about the fighter

 

[Herschel]

Actually, the 4E Fighter is what many point to as finally doing the Fighter/Spellcaster balance right. Fighter is the most popular class in the game these days, either using CB data or even polls online. Humans also make very good ones as the defensive boosts are really nice as is the feat support and you don't need a co-primary stat to make it optimised even.

 

[Haldrik]

It occurs to me,

The 3e Monster Manual treats “Half” races like sub-races. For example, the Half-Elf lists under the Elf entry, alongside other Elf sub-races such as High-Elf, Gray-Elf, Wild-Elf, Wood-Elf, Aquatic-Elf, Drow, and so on.

It seems optimal to organize Half races as one of the sub-races of a particular race (or alternatively as sub-races of the Human race).

As such, if DDN will use “backgrounds” and “themes” to organize the mechanics for sub-races, then it seems appropriate to use themes likewise for the Half races among theses sub-races.



Occasionally, a Half race evolves as a defacto species. These hybrids may mechanically display abilities that differentiate them from either parentage, and narratively self-propagate independent communities. Such can merit entries in the Monster Manual as a separate race. Probably it deserves a unique racial name with the alternate “Half” race name in parentheses.

 

[Stormonu]

Half-orcs should be replaced by Orcs. Half-orcs should be rare, more rare than Dragonborn.

Looking at D&D art I can't think a human being too much attracted to an orc, so Half-orcs would born in rare cases where that happens, or rapes.

Half-elf on the other hand, it's easier to figure out.

Hah! I bet the elves see humanity about as ugly as humanity sees orcs as ugly. Why should half-elves be any more common?

This is a simply silly argument of the "only the pretty races should be mate." As if humanity would only choose to have beautiful babies and didn't have it's Calibans, Ephialtes, SNL's goat boy - or even the original myth of the Minotaur. Spend five minutes on the seedier places of the net and I'll bet you'll find more than enough evidence to prove that, were cross-species fertilization possible, there'd be plenty of half-what-ever-the-hell-that-is.

In the end though, I'm always left wondering why all the half-races are half-human. If ever a template should have been made in 3E, it should have been half-human. In D&D, it appears that humans are more fecund that the goblinoids; possibly even more than fiends.

 

[OmegaMan950]

The traditionalists are saying "Don't take away the half-elf and half-orc! They've always been here with the other demi-humans!" while the new wave says "Don't take away the dragonborn and the tiefling! They're helping to bring more life into the game!"

It looks like we all want options besides the elf, dwarf, and halfling for racial choices, but we just can't agree on the flavour. What's worse is that we've brought in wierd biological arguments into a game of make-believe.