The 10 Player Races in Volo's Guide Revealed

On its Volo's Guide to Monsters product page, Fantasy Grounds has a screenshot up listing the 10 playable races - Aasimar, Bugbear, Firbolg, Goblin, Goliath, Hobgoblin, Kenku, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Orc, Tabaxi, Triton, Yuan-ti Pureblood.

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Product Page: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=WOTC5EVGM
Screenshot: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/images/screenshots/Screenshots/WOTC5EVGM/New-Monstrous-Races.jpg

Biggest surprise for me is Kenku. Bugbear is also unexpected.

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[gyor]

Orcs actually make good Avengers more then Barbarians, which oddly fits with the more religious shift in 5e.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It could've just been worded more like the Assassin's abilities, which also trigger in similar conditions (requiring you to hit a surprised combatant). After that just limit it to once on your turn and you'd achieve basically the same thing as what 1/combat was going for.

The assassin's ability is already borderline problematic though--it could probably benefit from a rewrite itself. 1/minute is more elegant and doesn't rely on arbitrary distinctions between combat/non-combat.

 

[Parmandur]

It might not harm the finnesse users, but it does have an impact on somebody who wants to use heavy armour, or heavy use of spells that require saves or attacks (like most offensive spells).

If it's an experiment it should have been in an Unearthed Arcana article, not a published product.



You can also have silly or lazy characters that do play to type, however. Neither of them specifically are bad, so why should one be discouraged over the other?

And it's not the viability I'm concerned about, (that much. It does admittedly bother me how many points you have to invest for a mere +1 in a point buy system). It's the perception. Inexperienced players aren't going to look at an orc and say "it won't be optimal, but it can work," they're going to look at it and say "Ew, it makes a terrible wizard. Pass." I'm arguing that players shouldn't need system familiarity to play against type. It should be an option right out of the box.



1) it's as optional as feats or multiclassing, and you see people talk about them like they were the default.

2) It's the default for AL, which while wotc doesn't design for, is an important consideration.

3) As soon as you leave ENworld, you start to see a lot more communities that either disparage or outright ban rolling for stats. If anything the more popular belief is that wotc balanced the game for point buy/fixed stats, and rolling was merely kept for tradition.

In the end, no. Point Buy is an important factor into the way the game works, and should be accounted for when designing races/classes.



I never advocated for never making new features. just keep them reasonable. I've never seen this "add level to damage" before as a feature, and I like it. There's no reason new features entirely can't be explored before "add piles and piles of features, but then add all these drawbacks that probably don't matter anyway" should be accounted for.

1.) Eh, maybe, maybe not; the forums are weird.

2.) I presume that makes if a feature, preventing the Moonsea from being overrun with Orc Wizards.

3.) Once you get away from the Internet, in my experience, people ignore the point bit option entirely. I presume rolling was kept as the default because people prefer it by and large, just like people like the option of having feats or mixing Xlasses.

 

[flametitan]

The assassin's ability is already borderline problematic though--it could probably benefit from a rewrite itself. 1/minute is more elegant and doesn't rely on arbitrary distinctions between combat/non-combat.

1/minute seems more elegant, but it's also a break from the more traditional short/long rest paradigm, while basing it off the assassination feature explains it neatly by tying it to a condition limited to the beginning of combat.

The only "problem" with the assassination feature is the weird timing of when surprise ends and what that means if it ends before any of the attackers get to go. If anything people are looking for a rewrite to the surprise rules rather than the assassin.

 

[Jester David]

It might not harm the finnesse users, but it does have an impact on somebody who wants to use heavy armour, or heavy use of spells that require saves or attacks (like most offensive spells).

So will being a hafling barbarian trying to wield greatswords.

How much is the impact anyway? Oh yeah, 5%. They'll miss 5% more and enemies will save that 5% more. Hardly game breaking. Especially if the other abilities make up for that.

If it's an experiment it should have been in an Unearthed Arcana article, not a published product.

Negative ability score modifiers were part of a survey some time ago.

You can also have silly or lazy characters that do play to type, however. Neither of them specifically are bad, so why should one be discouraged over the other?

Again, to encourage people to play to type.

People's first thought when they see the orc shouldn't be "I want to play the wizard!" You play one of the other ten classes instead. Or, again, roll a sorcerer or warlock, which fit the flavour so much better.

And it's not the viability I'm concerned about, (that much. It does admittedly bother me how many points you have to invest for a mere +1 in a point buy system). It's the perception. Inexperienced players aren't going to look at an orc and say "it won't be optimal, but it can work," they're going to look at it and say "Ew, it makes a terrible wizard. Pass."

Inexperienced players aren't likely going to be looking in accessories.
Inexperienced players are also a very small minority that don't exist for long. They have a tendency to quickly become experienced players.

Not what I'd use for the baseline.
(But, if they're really inexperienced, they won't realize it's inoptimal.

I'm arguing that players shouldn't need system familiarity to play against type. It should be an option right out of the box.

And I'm disagreeing... for accessories.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'll counter your perspective with an anecdote about the perspective I first entered the game through. I didn't really care about versmilitude when I first picked up the rules. I just wanted to find something that was cool to play as for when I got a chance to join a group. I didn't know every spell in the PHB, I didn't even possess a PHB! All I knew was that wizards required high INT. You know what I saw? The Mountain Dwarf. It's key ability was that it could wear armour. Armour, something wizards lacked proficiency in.

Yes, I thought. I can be a dwarf wizard and wear armour. That sounds so cool. If I pick up the criminal background, I can also get thieves' tools. That would allow me to do most things competently.

I didn't care that it lacked an INT bonus, but I would've scrapped the idea immediately if it had an arbitrary INT penalty or limits on how much of a wizard it could be. What good is an oddball idea if you were just going to be punished for it? But it didn't have any of those, and I was so happy to play a Mountain Dwarf Wizard for my first character. Of course, this was right before the Elemental Evil season, and the group I was in immediately showed itself to be slightly creepy, so I never got to play Urist McLightningfist for more than a handful of sessions, but it was fun.

That's the angle I'm coming from. I want people to be encouraged to do strange things, and not penalized for it, because that's how I got my start in the game, was with an oddball idea. Versmilitude comes second to fun.

EDIT: Besides, Halflings and gnomes aren't significantly larger than kobolds, but they don't get an STR penalty.

Your anecdote suggests that you ought to be 100% okay with kobolds being penalized on Str, because you were motivated by a synergy (wizards + armor + background = awesome and versatile!) whereas kobolds and GWM already have an anti-synergy: they get disadvantage with heavy weapons for being small. How is that not a more severe "penalty" than -2 Str?

As an aside: when I'm in the mood to play a strange and quirky character, a stat penalty wouldn't dissuade me from anything. An Orc wizard with -2 to Int actually becomes more interesting from a challenge perspective if he has an Int penalty. Obviously he's not interesting when I'm in the mood to play a maximally-effective character, but in my book it doesn't count as a "strange thing" in the first place if you're not willingly accepting some kind of "penalties", even if it's just opportunity cost. It's kind of like how I'd like to give that crippled old cranky Str 6 Barbarian from the other thread a shot. A Barbarian with Str 15 instead of 17 due to lack of racial Str bonus isn't interesting, but playing Old Man Henderson as a Str 6 Barbarian--now that is "strange and interesting" to me.

In any case, I understand your point. It doesn't add anything that you personally find interesting. It adds something that other people find interesting, though, me among them.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

And where are you getting that 14 from? That 14 you want to be a competent evocation wizard is physically impossible using 27 point buy (15-2=13), and while not unlikely from rolling is not a guarantee either.

I think you just answered your own question there. The majority of rolled characters (55% or so) will have at least one 16 or higher.

 

[Parmandur]

I think you just answered your own question there. The majority of rolled characters (55% or so) will have at least one 16 or higher.

Yeah, they will be exceptional, but totally fine.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The assassin's ability is already borderline problematic though--it could probably benefit from a rewrite itself. 1/minute is more elegant and doesn't rely on arbitrary distinctions between combat/non-combat.

Perhaps this is me being slightly dense... but the ability is to deal extra damage correct? When are you dealing damage, from surprise, where you wouldn't call it combat?

And, if you are in an incredibly long combat, or war/siege situation, how does it make more sense that every 10 rounds they are suddenly sneaky damage dealers again? Plus, in my experience, with those scenarios you either don't have a lot of hiding, or you break it into smaller combats, which would refresh the ability....


So... is this just an "I don't like the word choice here" type of situation, because it seems that in practice it will work perfectly fine as written?

 

[MiraMels]

Perhaps this is me being slightly dense... but the ability is to deal extra damage correct? When are you dealing damage, from surprise, where you wouldn't call it combat?

And, if you are in an incredibly long combat, or war/siege situation, how does it make more sense that every 10 rounds they are suddenly sneaky damage dealers again? Plus, in my experience, with those scenarios you either don't have a lot of hiding, or you break it into smaller combats, which would refresh the ability....


So... is this just an "I don't like the word choice here" type of situation, because it seems that in practice it will work perfectly fine as written?

It's okay, the concerns that I (and others) have raised about the wording can easily be read as trifling over semantics. I'll try to explain better.

The issue isn't that I'm envisioning use of the Surprise Attack ability in a situation that you wouldn't consider to be 'combat', or even that I want to have it happen multiple times in a particularly drawn out scene.

The issue is that this game isn't Dragon Age. This isn't a video game. I don't want to canonize a 'combat'/'non-combat' dichotomy within the rules through the creation of features and abilities that reference 'combat' as a game-state. Combat is not a game-state in 5th edition, it is a thing that frequently occurs during the course of gameplay (it's one of the three pillars of gameplay!). But this isn't a video game, so DMs don't need rigidly defined game-states in order to interpret the rules and apply them to gameplay.

Basically, it'd be weird if a race or class had a feature that could only be used "once per social interaction". It's just as weird to have something limited to "once per combat".