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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaffis" data-source="post: 3949516" data-attributes="member: 10305">That would be true, if you weren't trying to build mechanical bonuses based on the culture and image of the race into the race's stats.You can overlook this with humans because the mechanical bonus for humans is "they are really diverse and adaptable." Thus, they have room for a barbaric culture here, and a technological culture there, and get racial feats and abilities that let you take whatever you want.When you declare that a race is not merely adaptable, but inherently magical, or not merely adaptable, but intrinsically connected to nature, you don't have the luxury of saying "well, some cultures run with that, others don't." If something is core to your very being, it will affect all of your subcultures' racial identities. So, take a 3.x edition elf. Now, tell me, sir, why the ranger (and elven rangers are a deeply ingrained and very iconic archetype amongst D&D and fantasy of all kinds, so they should be sensibly represented) doesn't practice arcane magic, because he's innately connected to magic. That's like a dwarf who eschews stonework and metalcraft, it makes no sense and dilutes the character of the race as a whole. And now, turn ye to the elven wizard who builds his majestic and graceful tower... out of stone. Why? Isn't it a scar upon the forest?There's plenty of call for dividing the race to account for the different archetypes that D&D is meant to draw upon and account for.Gnomes have their niche, too, to be sure. However, it's a matter of popularity when it comes to what you make core as a playable race with PHB real estate. It's not a matter of "Are X and Y more compelling than Z? Okay, let's put X and Y in the PHB instead of Z." It's "Will players use and demand X and Y more than Z? Okay, then we need to make sure they're accessible to them." And having distinct, focussed, and differentiated X's and Y's is far preferable than making a clumsy, less-cohesive, and disjointed amalgamation, XY.I mean, how would you feel if we combined the halfling and the gnome? After all, who's to say that some cultures of gnomelings don't just like to farm, steal, and make boats, and other cultures like to practice magic and invent things? Isn't that what you just said about the merged elf?</blockquote>

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