Subraces - why so many?

[Remathilis]

I also forgot to mention Furchin (polar halflings from the Complete book of Gnomes and Halflings).

I use only a small selection of subs in my game: 4 dwarves, 4 elves, 3 gnomes, 2 halflings, and aquatic versions of monsters. Thats all.

 

[Blue Lantern]

Deep halflings?

For d20 DandD 3.0 from august 2000 to mid 2003 by Wizards of the Coast, there is the race of Deep halflings. I like it; I want to play a Deep halfling. The question is: for which edition or version of DandD or ADandD--and when--did Deep halflings start being available as a PC race or|and as an NPC race?

 

[Blue Lantern]

Greyhawk has human subraces: Oeridians, Baklunish, and others (forgive my spelling though).

Yes, but which rulebook for Greyhawk d20 DandD 3.0 from august 2000 to mid 2003 by Wizards of the Coast, has a subrace of human that does not like wearing body-art ornamentation such as piercings, tatoos, and|or scarification? I want my d20 DandD 3.0 Greyhawk human or Deep halfling to not wear those things.

 

[WayneLigon]

What was the reason to differentiate between hill dwarves and mountain dwarves? High elves and gray elves? Rock gnomes and forest gnomes? Lightfoot halflings and tallfellow halflings?

1. Because Tolkien did it. You had High and Grey elves, and different 'races' of hobbit.
2. Because anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Wow- there seems to be a lot of thread necromancy going around lately.

Anyway, since it's come up again, just thought I'd make a correction to the elf list:

Elves
High Elf
Aquatic Elf
Dark Elf (Drow)
Gray Elf
Wild Elf
Wood Elf
[Added]
Star Elf (Avariel)
Shadow Elf
Rockseer Elf
Valley Elf
Black Lore Elf
Moon Elf
?? (Lythari)

Star Elves and Avariel are actually two different subraces of Elf. Avariel are the winged variety of elves, and Star Elves are a subrace of Toril elves that retreated to a demiplane and gained some different abilities (they're detailed in Unapproachable East).

Also, since this list originally came up, there are some new additions- Ghost Elves (from Dragon #313), and the Eberron Shadow Elves- the Umbragen (detailed in a couple of places, notably Dragon #330).

If you're including the Blacklore Elf, you might also include the Icevale and Gentle Folk Elves from the Hollow World as well, though none of those three races is mechanically any different from "standard" elves (aside from some Hollow World quirks that affect all races), so I'm not sure they count as subraces- they are more just distinct cultures rather than subraces.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

One more thing that occurred to me- while not official WotC in any way, the d20 Blackmoor Campaign setting has subraces of Humans- High Thonians, Thonians, Peshwah, Afridhi, and Skandaharians.

I'm pretty sure that some of those old Dragon mags had some human subraces, but I can't recall which offhand (pretty sure at least one of the African articles presented pygmies as a human subrace).

Which reminds me- in Mystara there is at least one human subrace- the Karimari, who are pygmy humans.

(Never understood why they didn't just use halflings for pygmies in a fantasy setting, or dwarves or something...)

 

[Nadaka]

The cynic in me thinks that it is a case of choosing a race that gives the right bonus to the class the player wants.

That is not the whole deal but it definitely colours some players thinking.

This is why I hate elf-fanboys. IMC there are exactly 2 subraces of elf.
I call them Elves and Drow. And except for trading lowlight with darkvision and swapping a few weapon proficiencies, they are mechanically identical.

 

[Particle_Man]

Do "True Giants" count as one race with many sub-races, or many races? (I am thinking Hill Giant, Fire Giant, Frost Giant, Storm Giant, Cloud Giant, Stone Giant, etc.)

 

[the Jester]

Aren't gibberlings made from mutated dwarves?

Sometimes- they are actually connected to the Far Realms. Gibberlings come from a person infected with a gibberslug, which transforms them into a gibberling.

 

[Bardsandsages]

Hey, just for the record (and a shameless plug) there are kobold sub-races, three to be precise, in The Koboldnomicon.

I think there are too many sub-races for elves, and not enough for other races. And overall there are few sub-races that actually make sense. Most are little more than hodge-podges of extra abilities or excuses to work around what might be considered by min-maxers as a potential "weakness" in the race.

As has already been stated, a sub-race would logically only evolve in a situation where a group had been locked off from the core race for several generations. And then the evolution would be one that would make sense for the environment. A sub-race that lives in the artic would develop resistance to the cold, for example. But many sub-races don't apply that sort of logic to the design.