This also leads to the question about what should be counted as a race for stats purposes.
IMO, the only fair way to do it, since some races simply don't
have subraces, is to release two lists, one only with agglomerated, one only with subraces (with Dragonborn having "baseline," Ravenite, and Draconblood, or whatever the Critical Role ones are called). Then people can make their own hybrid lists if they like.
Interesting. Given how weak (mechanically speaking) dragonborn are, I find interesting that they are among the top 5 most played races in the official site...
Makes you wonder if they wouldn't have topped even Elves if they were actually GOOD.
Once the +2/+2 becomes floating, that plus the free medium armor proficiency will make them much more popular for lightly armored casters, I think that will be enough to push them over half-orcs. Dragonborn and tieflings will stay popular purely on the strength on their aesthetics.
It's certainly possible, but it's hard to tell. Elves and half-elves are a perennial favorite for both mechanics and thematics. They're arguably the nearest to looking the same as humans, and they're generally held to be fairly attractive. And the combined Elf probably edges out the (arguably) stronger half-elf due to theme and look, as others have noted with the greater internal variation between wood and high elves.
Also I'm reminded of how many attempts there were to get a playable dragonborn into 3.X.
Yep. People act like this was a sudden development but it really was in the works since at least 3e's launch, and arguably grew out of the 2e draconian. Guess I owe a libation to Dragonlance.
Not surprised at all. People have been wanted to a dragonman for a long while. If Shifters had actual alternate form, they'd crack top 10 easy.
It still surprises me how reluctant D&D authors are to make playable werewolves and the like. The demand is there. Video games do it all the time.
Would be curious if a survey could be attached ranking why a particular race was chosen.
Could be very interesting if actually well-designed and properly conducted. Unfortunately, I don't trust WotC to know its butt from its elbow when it comes to survey design.
Dwarves have been getting taller with each successive edition, oddly enough.
AD&D: 44-53 inches (3'8" to 4'6" tall)
D&D 3.5/Pathfinder: 49-55 inches (4'1" to 4'7" tall)
5E: 4 to 5 feet tall
You forgot an edition (not that I'm surprised), but it did very slightly continue the pattern.
4e: 51-57 in (4'3" - 4'9")
Though you could argue that 5e, in trying for a looser and more "word-based" style, simply took the 4e measurements and expanded them in both directions to account for unusually tall/short dwarves, e.g. 4'11" is pretty much 5 feet, and 4'1" is pretty much 4 feet, even though that's only two inches outside the usual range from 4e, so just shorthanding that to "four to five feet" is reasonable. If the pattern continues into 6e, we'd be looking at dwarves with a
minimum typical height (4'5"-4'7") equivalent to their AD&D
maximum typical height (4'6").
