The Return of Subraces?

[Remathilis]

Preston: What races will be in the play test? Do you see race or culture as being a driving force behind a characters mechanics?

Jeremy Crawford: The classic four will be in the playtest: dwarf, elf, halfling, and human.

Mearls: Halfling, human, dwarf, and elf. We're actually doing a mix of race and culture with our approach. A high elf and a wood elf share some innately elf things, but also get some things distinct to their specific culture.

Jeremy Crawford: Right out of the gate, you'll see the high elf, for instance.

...

Jeremy Crawford: While Mike answers that, I'll say something else about race. A thing I love about our current approach is that you don't just pick your race, such as dwarf. You also pick what kind of dwarf you are.

I wonder if this means we're going to see the return of subraces, mixing some cultural elements with standard biology.

It can work well if done right. I did before in 1-3e. Rather than being biologically different though, there are cultural differences between high and wood elves, or hill and deep dwarves, etc. It can even be customized into various settings-based subraces (Ravenloft dwarves, Valenar elves, tinker gnomes, etc). Likewise, they can be ignored like they were before.

Thoughts?

 

[The Red King]

Why not? If they don't inclute it now, they will later. Either through an expansion, or via another company doing it because Wizards diddnt.

 

[Lwaxy]

Good thing, otherwise people would have to house rule it in anyway.

 

[GM Dave]

I'm thinking they will have more a list of items to pick from for the different races.

An elf might have the choice of bow, spear, magical training.

They might get another choice between horsemanship, diplomacy, or stealth.

A person would then be able to be more High Elf by choosing say Spear or Magical training with Diplomacy or Horsemanship.

A person that wanted to be more Wood Elf might be more towards Bow or Spear with Horsemanship or Stealth.

Any pairing of the choices would give you a good base of flavour and allow a player to develop within a large variety of culture. At the same point a person would not look at the options and say 'that isn't an Elf to me'.

It will be more interesting on how they would like to handle the more 'radical' sub-races.

For example, the Drow would need some different elvan choices to fit them in the fold.

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It is also possible they may go like PF in giving a base list with the secondary list of options that you can trade one item for another in set trades.

An elf might trade off magical resistance to sleep or charm (or what ever the designers provide as an equivalent ability) for getting some other ability (maybe poison resistance if they play in a more drow politics environment).

 

[hafrogman]

From what they said, it did seem like each base race would assume certain shared abilities. This would certainly be a break from older editions where different types of elves got increasingly varied sets of stat adjustments. But I wonder how much of that was a real desire for wild elves to be stronger than dwarves (for example) and how much was simply a desire to not keep adding +dex/-con races over and over again.

This system will allow true sub-races to be added. In the past they might have been called "sub-races", but really they were just "races", now there's actually a base assumption to work from. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like and what makes it into the PHB.

 

[gyor]

Would drow fit in as a elf subrace? Or would drow be another seperate, but related race with its own,subraces. What subraces do you think they will have for Tiefling, Aasmir, and Dragon born? Could humans have subraces? (Not like normal races, but fantasical ones like marbled skinned, dark vision using Imaskari)

 

[steeldragons]

Would drow fit in as a elf subrace?

Gods, I hope not! I mean, I hope they are a subrace of elves...but not presented as PC race!

Or would drow be another seperate, but related race with its own,subraces.

Gods...I hope not, s'more. Drow with subraces? <shudder>

What subraces do you think they will have for Tiefling, Aasmir, and Dragon born? Could humans have subraces? (Not like normal races, but fantasical ones like marbled skinned, dark vision using Imaskari)

I would be inclined to think if it is something genetic, like darkvision, that would not be "subrace" of human. The races share certain innate/genetic qualities...darkvision is certainly outside of the human genetic profile.

I might suggest/suspect that the "half-races" are the Human "subraces." Not just Half-elves and half-orcs, but half-devils (tieflings) and half-celestials (aasimar) might be included also.

I would expect, as least for the playtest, they'd be going as "classic" as possible...so:

Elves: High Elves and Wood Elves...as they've already said.
Dwarves: Mountain Dwarves and Hill Dwarves...or Mountain/Hill Dwarves or Duergar.
Gnomes: Forest Gnomes and Rock Gnomes...or "Surface Gnomes" and "Deep Gnomes" (Svirfs)
Halflings: "Country folk hairfooted kind" and "city-fied/more active shoe-wearing kind".

Humans...as I said, I don't see having "subraces" as such...just perhaps notes for making various cultures...maybe some ability mods for different types...but not anything like "darkvision" though some might/could have things like "stonecunning" or "woodlore"...depending on the culture.

Just guesses, of course. I have no insight into what the playtests are including anymore than anyone else/what's posted here.
--SD

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I've never been a huge fan of subraces. For me extra fiddly-ness for very little benefit.

I know some people love them though.

I'm not opposed to them being in the game, but I hope that there will be an easy default so that those of us who don't like them can ignore them.

 

[Minigiant]

I am for subraces as they are a way to rip culture out of the genetics of race. You get the base race and if the DM allows it, the subrace culture. So you pick elf and at "wood" culture on top of it.

And I am only for "mostly" culture subraces. No ability adjustments on subraces.

ELF
+1 Dex +1 Con
Low light vision
See hidden doors
Trance
Immunity to sleep
Resistance to enchantments

SUBRACE MODULE:
WOOD ELF
Proficiency with A and B
Elven Accuracy
Elven Speed

HIGH ELF
Proficient with X and Y
Elven Magic
Elven Education


This way if a DM allows a player to play a tranplant character that grew up in culture outside of his race, the mix and match is clear and uses little brain power.

 

[GreyICE]

I think it's something you could handle with themes.

The 'subraces' are usually more like 'culture' anyway. What is different between Wood Elves and High Elves? Well when you strip away all the mumbo jumbo, they're the same species where one lives in forests and one doesn't.

And culture is definitely under the 'theme' umbrella.

(Also this avoids terrible, terrible things that WILL happen with subraces of humans, and the inevitable real world comparisons)