The Elf race is... awkward to me. They're supposed to be iconic spellswords and archers. As it is, you're not capturing that essence at all, imho. Instead, you're shoehorning them into being CHA classes, it seems like.
I would recommend merging all the different goblin tribes and giant variants into two race instead of separate ones for each. Otherwise, what's the point of simplifying things? You're just going back to the 3e way of doing things - every thing is a different race block.
Lacking dragonborn for a reason?
..............................
]No. At best, your argument would fit for a single type of elf (the star elf, if we go by Faerun standards). We had this discussion before.
The original elf, in d&d, was a fighter/rogue/wizard hybrid.
Then, we got the woodsy elves, who spent their time as ranger types.
The half-elf really fits the bard trope of elves as well.
This has expanded over time, but the root of it is still there. That's why we see things like perception bonuses and innate elf weapons of sword and bow.
There's a wide variety of areas that elves as a culture delve into.
And that's just D&D. There's a wide variety of elven archetypes you see outside, in other games, in stories, in movies and shows. Archetypes that do NOT involve bards, or even sorcerers.
The whole point of this exercise is to merge all these different race variants into one super-race. The OP is eliminating all those other elf races on purpose into one single.
THIS is why elves would get a charisma bonus.
Because you think it is reasonable that there should be a special elf version who is 100% ideally suited to be the singular best race for every single class.
In your mind they are the supermen. The ones who are automatically superior to all other people and are flat out the best at everything, should have the best everything and should be far superior to any other race across the board on any field. This absolute worship of the concept as living deities and granting them special boons and gifts in the mechanics... well, that is why a Charisma bonus is the singular best fit.
It really breaks down this way for you.... if you are an elf, what is your class?
Oh, ranger? Well then NATURALLY you are the greenish-brown skinned elves because that's the extra special elf type that is designed to be ranger.
Oh, a wizard? Well then, of course you are the grayish skin elf type that gets all of the bonuses necessary to make them the master wizard variety.
Oh, you are a cleric? Well then, of course you are the purple skinned ones because those are the ones that get the wisdom bonus and free spells to make you the ideally customized wizard.
A fighter? Of course there is an elf flavor for that!!
And then you will talk out of both sides of your mouth about how this is somehow "justified" by there being distinct cultures that don't interact and have totally evolved to be different and definitely have a fully fleshed out society that fills all the roles....
You know... even though you only ever see one or two of them at a time. And they are always PCs. And they only ever appear as one of the 3 classes they are stated up to be super specialized for-- if you had an elf of any other type, obviously you would be the specialist class for that type.
And none of these differences at ALL manifest themselves physically in any way so that they can maintain their perfect flawless beauty and perfection and clear physical superiority to all other peoples.
And you find this all perfectly reasonable. In fact, you find it SO perfectly reasonable that you would compare combining them to combining a 3.5' tall sneaky race, a 6' tall samurai/spartan race and a 8' tall bear-like barbarian race into the same thing.... because just slightly shifting the shade of skin tone of your master race and doing nothing else is somehow comparable to these vast physical differences to you.
Being able to inspire this kind of fanatical adoration and unhinged devotion that just over-rides all sense and reason and rationality, to be able to get people to just entirely overlook all their flaws-- insist they couldn't possibly have any-- and buy in on seeing them as betters that deserve to be groveled before as surely they could never possibly be less than the best and surely the most ideally suited in all of the many worlds to whatever task they undertake....
Well, this just SCREAMS "master charisma race". The more and more you deny it and insist they ought to be super specialized for every single class and have wildly swinging attribute bonuses determined by small shifts in their skin tone so that among the rainbow of elves there is the perfect custom match for every single class in the game (and they only ever appear as that one class and never as any other). Well, that is because you have been swept up by and taken in by their charm and deception, just like an old granny handing over her life-savings to the Sunday morning televangelist.
The whole "special elf subrace customized to be mechanically superior for every class in the game" thing never made any sense at all. Elves are far too long lived and breed far too rarely to be so adapted to different enviroments in the first place-- but the fact that all but one of these cultures is totally friendly with one another tells you there would be FAR too much inter-mingling and cross-breeding to create such wildly different gene pools to justify them having different stats at all.
It really just makes all too much sense that the D&D worlds are filled with people like you who see them as some sort of living divine master race and just view everything they do, no matter how mundane, as extraordinarily, mystical and, of course, perfect-- creating this whole illusion for them that they regularly get to take advantage of.
