D&D (2024) The 10 Species in "Your Ideal 2024 PHB"

[Horwath]

I'm again bewildered by the number of people who take a half-dozen different species and cram them into one mechanical expression. For example, a beastfolk option that is supposed to encapsulate everything from aarakorca to tortles somehow, or a planetouched option that I assume would just be swapping which spells you cast for free.

I suspect it comes from the same desire to combine every spellcaster class into a single option or other class compressions. The ability to fit the whole of D&D into a medium sized sourcebook. I just don't think that a beastfolk magic-user is as evocative as a tortle warlock, reverb if they share similar mechanics. Ymmv.

Sometimes less is more.

Shifter species more than enough to describe all semi-lycans.

Same with beastskin:

Attack:
Pick one natural weapon, it deals d8 damage or d6 if it's finesse,
Make one natural attack as a Bonus action

Armor:
+1 AC or
13+dex AC or
17 fixed AC

Darkvision maybe,
Scent maybe,

swim or climb speed maybe,
bonus move speed maybe,

proficiency in one or two skills that fit the theme of the animal.

possible limited ability for X times per long rest


then you can proceed to make any description how your semi-beast characters looks like.
No need for 10 racial blocks for cat-people, dog-people, rabbit-people, turtle-people, owl-people, lizard-people, lion-people, bat-people, etc...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm again bewildered by the number of people who take a half-dozen different species and cram them into one mechanical expression. For example, a beastfolk option that is supposed to encapsulate everything from aarakorca to tortles somehow, or a planetouched option that I assume would just be swapping which spells you cast for free.

Not for me, but that's because I would use the 4e approach, not the 5e one.

I suspect it comes from the same desire to combine every spellcaster class into a single option or other class compressions. The ability to fit the whole of D&D into a medium sized sourcebook. I just don't think that a beastfolk magic-user is as evocative as a tortle warlock, reverb if they share similar mechanics. Ymmv.

I can promise you that, for me, it does not stem from such preferences, I'm very much opposed to class reductionism in general.

Mostly, I'm just trying to cover as many options as possible with only 10 entries. The point of the list is to be an exact length, which necessarily induces a desire to squeeze the most out of each spot.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm again bewildered by the number of people who take a half-dozen different species and cram them into one mechanical expression. For example, a beastfolk option that is supposed to encapsulate everything from aarakorca to tortles somehow, or a planetouched option that I assume would just be swapping which spells you cast for free.

Funny thing is that Fantasy AGE has both of these things in its AGE Companion book right next to each other, though the Planetouched option is called "Blooded" and it can be used for things other than planar monsters, and it mentions using a half-gargoyle as an example.

I suspect it comes from the same desire to combine every spellcaster class into a single option or other class compressions. The ability to fit the whole of D&D into a medium sized sourcebook. I just don't think that a beastfolk magic-user is as evocative as a tortle warlock, reverb if they share similar mechanics. Ymmv.

If you are genuinely curious from a place of good faith, it seems like the best way to find out is to ask these people rather than just let your suspicions confirm your preconceived biases.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Human (Homo Sapiens, Half Orc, Half Elf, Mul lineages)
Dragonborn (All the Chromatic, Gem, Metallic, Catosphophic, Deep Linages)
Elf (Wild, Wood, High, Drow, Shadar Kai, Eldarin, Sea, Astral)
Dwarf (Shield, Gold, Duergar, Wild, Azor)
Gnomes (Forest, Tinker, Deep, and Auto)
Halfling (Stout, Lightfoot, Ghostwise, Andar, Jarrin)
Goliath (Fire, Frost, Hill, Stone, Cloud, Storm, Ettin, Death)
Tiefling (Hell, Abyss, Hades, Cacari, Archeron, Pandomium, Gehanna)
Aasimar (Arboria, Heaven, Elysium, Bytopia, Ysgard, Arcadia, Beastlands)
Gensi (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Para, Quasi, Chaos)

 

[Remathilis]

Sometimes less is more.

Shifter species more than enough to describe all semi-lycans.

Same with beastskin:

Attack:
Pick one natural weapon, it deals d8 damage or d6 if it's finesse,
Make one natural attack as a Bonus action

Armor:
+1 AC or
13+dex AC or
17 fixed AC

Darkvision maybe,
Scent maybe,

swim or climb speed maybe,
bonus move speed maybe,

proficiency in one or two skills that fit the theme of the animal.

possible limited ability for X times per long rest


then you can proceed to make any description how your semi-beast characters looks like.
No need for 10 racial blocks for cat-people, dog-people, rabbit-people, turtle-people, owl-people, lizard-people, lion-people, bat-people, etc...

But sometimes less is less.

Your beastkin example is a laundry list of generic traits that don't connect to a theme. You expect the player to look at this list and say "what makes sense for my wolfkin character?" When the first thing that people will do is say "what are the best choices?" And design around that, creating chimeras with a wolf's scent, a turtle's AC, a bird's wings, a fish's gills, etc. unless you're going to set up very tight choice options or packages for them, which to me is basically re-creating all the races but under one generic name.

The same is true about planetouched. Right now, the aasimar has different magical but not spells abilities while the tiefling gets spells. But a planetouched species is going to turn them all into different spell lists tied to different skins. The fire option, the wind option, the holy option, the shadow option, etc. I'm already upset they did that to the PHB elf subtypes, I certainly don't want the aasimar, tiefling, genasi, and whatever other options be reduced to a spell list option for some generic "your dad's was from the planes" species.

As a aside, I think the shifter works because it's not actually trying to be a specific animal, but a humanoid who manifests animalistic features briefly. But I would not consider a shifter a replacement for the tabaxi.

 

[Remathilis]

Funny thing is that Fantasy AGE has both of these things in its AGE Companion book right next to each other, though the Planetouched option is called "Blooded" and it can be used for things other than planar monsters, and it mentions using a half-gargoyle as an example.


If you are genuinely curious from a place of good faith, it seems like the best way to find out is to ask these people rather than just let your suspicions confirm your preconceived biases.

I merely point out a trend I see in these kinds of discussions: a generalized trend to compress as many different choices into a single complicated option with multiple choice points and tell players to build their own with the pieces provided.

 

[Aldarc]

I merely point out a trend I see in these kinds of discussions: a generalized trend to compress as many different choices into a single complicated option with multiple choice points and tell players to build their own with the pieces provided.

(1) Some people will want that for good reasons that you may not agree with. (2) Consider also that one reason may be this prompt. There will be people who naturally are trying to get 15-25 races out of 10 capped for the PHB.

 

[Remathilis]

(1) Some people will want that for good reasons that you may not agree with. (2) Consider also that one reason may be this prompt. There will be people who naturally are trying to get 15-25 races out of 10 capped for the PHB.

The prompt was for the 10 species IN THE PHB, not in the whole of the game. I would rather the PHB focus on a selection of core options and then let supplements like MotM expand the list later rather than cram 25 distinct options into 10 buckets and start carving off interesting things to make them all fit in those buckets.

 

[TwoSix]

I merely point out a trend I see in these kinds of discussions: a generalized trend to compress as many different choices into a single complicated option with multiple choice points and tell players to build their own with the pieces provided.

I mean, you can make pretty much the same argument for almost every class, as well.

There's certainly a strong argument that greater mechanical specificity, and more heterogenous design, strengthens the narrative presentation of the concept. (Not an overwhelming argument, but strong.) But greater specificity is also going to have a trade-off with less versatility.

Having a race with 3 choice points, each of which has 3 options, is simply easier to fit into a book than 27 different races.

 

[Aldarc]

The prompt was for the 10 species IN THE PHB, not in the whole of the game.

You say that as if that would stop people from trying to get as much "IN THE PHB" as they can.