I'm adding a new line to several racial write-ups: Alternate Names and Reflavoring. For example, the living golem write-up includes: "Alternate Names and Reflavoring: Modron, Warforged."
I think most races will have a fan somewhere. My favorites are dwarves, half-orcs, humans, half-elves, elves (the woodsy kind), deva and warforged, all for flavor-reasons.
I'm curious what you like about half orcs and half elves; is it the half-breed identity crisis appeal?
One thing that has always bugged me, is that tieflings don't have optimal stat adjustments for being infernal warlocks. What with their entire background being based on an infernal pact, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Don't worry, I got ya covered!
I love the genasi, but I wish there was a more setting un-specific name for them. I don't want to call them elementals, cause those are something entirely different!
Which setting would you like genasi to be unassociated with? Planescape, FR or another?
The githzerai have always seemed to me like they don't fit. They're just monk people without anything really distinctive that cements them in the setting.
It's interesting how the races tend to change over the editions. Before WotC, githzerai couldn't be monks -- in fact they were barred from even being lawful!
But I agree that there's nothing really distinctive about them. They seem to exist to be a slightly less fanatical contrast to their githyanki cousins.
I love the racial abilities that are useful out of combat. They help make the character unique much more than combat ones, they often fuel roleplaying and (from the DM's side of table) they shape racial cultures.
Agreed! A prime example of this are the players I've had who like anthropomorphic races. I usually end up homebrewing something for them because shifters are pretty uninspiring. Nothing about them shouts "I have the keen nose of a wolf!" or "I have the camouflage and stealth of a jaguar!"
So I've gotten on a shifter kick; redesigning the wolf dudes and the cat dudes with flavorful out-of-combat perks, and adding a raven shifter...because there's always a player who wants to fly. I'm just stuck on what perk the wolf shifter should get out-of-combat-wise...I gave them a bonus to tracking checks, but those don't come up very often.