Tiefling and half-orc should not be in the PHB

[BryonD]

Even counting only 4E players my bet remains: I bet there's more people playing Dragonborn than Halflings. Or gnomes.

I think you misunderstood me.

Part of my point was that if you count *only* 4E fans then PERHAPS you are correct. I don't know.

But if you don't limit it to that group then I am quite certain the count would shift well away from you.

Dragons fascinate some people. Half-dragons and Disciple of Dragons were popular choices on 3.5.

Moving the goal posts already, eh?

Agreed.
But gnomes and halflings were *more* popular.

 

[Libramarian]

And D&D needs to move away from strict adherence to Tolkien. And the argument "well they should be milking the Hobbit" is not a good one either, because what if it doesn't do as well as they think. Where does that leave them? Should they just drop clerics that heal, and barbarians because that's not Tolkien? Or do away with monsters such as Beholders and Mind Flayers because they're not Tolkien? Same argument applies for races that aren't Humans, Elves, Dwarves or Halflings.

As with most with arguments that start with "same argument applies for", it doesn't. I like the contrast of vanilla Tolkienesque PCs vs. weird, wacky D&D monsters.

They should instead include races that are D&D because it's D&D.

I say the more races the better.

Nah I would much rather have centaurs, minotaurs or even pixies/fairies rather than some new IP cut from whole cloth.

I know it's crazy, what with D&D being nearly 40 years old and all, but I'm pretty conservative in my preferences for the elements in the game.

I think relentless bloat and faddish "updating" got us into the current edition warzone.

It's time to "age gracefully". Like uh...Meryl Streep. 4e felt like it was just trying too hard at times. More like Joan Rivers. Or that weird cat lady.

When you're pushing 40 you don't need to try to cram yourself into the hippest clothes anymore. It's ok to have a classic look.

I would be happy if 1e AD&D set the basic game concepts in stone forever.

(Of course individual home campaigns can go wild).

 

[Estlor]

I've always been a fan of this 7 race dynamic:

Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, Dragonborn, and Goliath.

You're not going to get D&D without the first five. Even if you've never played one of those and you don't know someone who has, there's just something... wrong... about those races not being in the PHB. (And yes, gnomes belong. They've been trying to get rid of them for two editions and it hasn't worked.)

I really liked the 3e fluff for goliaths in Races of Stone. The fact that they slide into the otherwise largely ignored "big race" design space just makes it sweeter.

The half- races never did much for me, but I understand why they exist. Personally, what I would do is design up the races as two tiers of complexity - a base level and an (optional) subrace level. If you only play with base races, you end up with a picture that looks a lot like BECMI or AD&D. Add in subraces and you start to get more of a 4e look to the races. To that end, here's an example of how it would work.

Human - Mankind, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Tiefling, Deva, Shadar-Kai
Elf - High, Wood, Dark
Dwarf - Hill, Duergar
Halfling - Shire, Kender
Gnome - Earth, Forest, Tinker
etc.

So, speaking in 4e terms, if you play a dwarf, regardless of subrace you'd get +2 Con, +2 to Dungeoneering, +5 bonus to poison saves, and the ability to move at your base speed in heavy armor/load. If you're DM uses subraces and you pick Hill, you also get a +2 to Endurance, proficiency with throwing and war hammers, stand your ground, and the minor action second wind. If your buddy picks duergar, he gets deep speech, infernal quills, +2 to some other skill - that kind of thing. You're both dwarves, you just have different (yet balanced) optional packages on top of the core.

 

[avin]

I think you misunderstood me.

Part of my point was that if you count *only* 4E fans then PERHAPS you are correct. I don't know.

But if you don't limit it to that group then I am quite certain the count would shift well away from you.

Experience may vary. But around here Gnomes and Halflings have been less than unpopular.

Maybe Wotc has some real data in their pockets... but I can only speak about what I've seen.

Moving the goal posts already, eh?

Agreed.
But gnomes and halflings were *more* popular.

Have seen 3 Disciple of Dragons and 2 Half Dragons on what I consider my biggest D&D experience, years playing 3E.

One Gnome.
Zero Hobbits.

Well, all in all, Wotc will probably extend "all PHB classes" to "all PHB races" for DDN. Just hope they go back to 2E's Tieflings.

 

[BryonD]

Experience may vary. But around here Gnomes and Halflings have been less than unpopular.

Maybe Wotc has some real data in their pockets... but I can only speak about what I've seen.

Have seen 3 Disciple of Dragons and 2 Half Dragons on what I consider my biggest D&D experience, years playing 3E.

One Gnome.
Zero Hobbits.

In the interest of sharing personal anecdotes.

I've seen one half dragon in the past 12 years.
I've seen around 5 halflings and probably a dozen gnomes.

Humans are by far #1.




Interestingly, the half dragon was my own concoction from about 1 year before they were published. A new player got his character killed in a session in which he wasn't present. I normally take some pains to avoid that, but it was unavoidable this time just because of the way things happened. To make it up to him I had a gold dragon kinda restore / reincarnate / hand wave him back to life....




Also, just this month I started a game for my 14 yr old daughter and two friends. Elves were the CLEAR race of choice. Admittedly, dragonborn were not presented as an option.

 

[MoonSong]

Maybe Wotc has some real data in their pockets... but I can only speak about what I've seen.

Originally Posted by BryonD
Moving the goal posts already, eh?

Agreed.
But gnomes and halflings were *more* popular.

Have seen 3 Disciple of Dragons and 2 Half Dragons on what I consider my biggest D&D experience, years playing 3E.

One Gnome.
Zero Hobbits.

A rule of thumb so you can gauge it, if you have interacted with less than 30 other players it means nothing, if it is more than 120 then you have a pretty good panorame. Anything in between is in the realm of speculation.

Personaly I hope they leave gnomes and half-orcs on the core, and since I stated I don't have anything against them, Tieflings and Dragonborn are cool to have too anything between 10-12 races would be ideal (probably with the added common/uncommon/rare distinction)

 

[Dausuul]

Well, all in all, Wotc will probably extend "all PHB classes" to "all PHB races" for DDN.

If they go with their "common/uncommon/rare" scheme, I'd be cool with this. (I really like that scheme, by the way. It's a brilliant solution to the desire to support warlords and such out of the box, while making it clear that players should not assume those classes are available.)

Just hope they go back to 2E's Tieflings.

My guess is they'll have 2E-style tieflings with the 4E version as one particular family or strain. After all, 2E tieflings encompassed a wide range of fiendish traits and origins. So if there's a tiefling clan, call them "Turathi tieflings," with diabolic origins, big horns, and long tails, that should satisfy both 4E and 2E tiefling fans.

 

[Sunseeker]

I didn't like it when the half-orc appeared in 3e, and I liked it even less when i saw Tiefling in 4e. These types of half races should just be stuffed in some addon book somewhere. Give me the basic races in the PHB: Human, elf, halfling, and dwarf.

The reason is that I usually don't play with half-monster races, and I am tired of hearing "but it's in the Player's Handbook..." anytime I form a group to play in my local book store.

The starter set should include 5 races however it's assembled, assuming they maintain the 5-man party centric design they had in 4e. Everyone can play a different class and race right from the get-go.

I can appreciate that you don't like certain races, we all don't. However, Tiefling is one of my fav races pretty much well, ever. So I am staunchly against your position, unless you're willing to give up halfling, I hate halflings and will gladly compromise.

Personally, every PHB should have 4-5 races in it. There's not a particularly large sum of material needed to add the base material for the race and a short fluff article. And I really don't wnat to pay 20-30 bucks for a manuale that only provides info on one race.


HOWEVER: what I would REALLY like to see is the PHB present the "base" races: Human, Elf, Dwarf, and then provide "variants", sun elf, moon elf, drow, halfling(small human), tiefling(demonic human), dragonbon, aasimir(celestial human). ect... as just small additional stat blocks. Then they could later publish entire mini-manuals focused on expanding upon just a single one of those variants with feats, abilities, powers, "options", history, ect... I would be fine with that.

But I don't want to be limited to human, "skinny hippy human", "short, fat, drunk human" "small clever human" for months until additional race manuals are released.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

This thread got long quickly, so I didn't read all of it. Here is a solution, and I'm actually quite confident in it:

Include a lot of races in the core book, but label them.

Standard: human, elf, dwarf, halfling
Rare: half-elf, gnome, half-orc
Exotic: tiefling, warforged, ect.

In the character creation rules, specifically say, "The DM must choose which races are available for PCs to play. For example, for a classic game, the DM might choose only to allow standard races. Unless he or she says otherwise, you must always ask the DM before choosing an exotic race."

Thus, the mechanism is right there in the Players Handbook for players to see and expect. The DM gives you access to races. He doesn't take them away.

 

[Sunseeker]

This thread got long quickly, so I didn't read all of it. Here is a solution, and I'm actually quite confident in it:

Include a lot of races in the core book, but label them.

Standard: human, elf, dwarf, halfling
Rare: half-elf, gnome, half-orc
Exotic: tiefling, warforged, ect.

In the character creation rules, specifically say, "The DM must choose which races are available for PCs to play. For example, for a classic game, the DM might choose only to allow standard races. Unless he or she says otherwise, you must always ask the DM before choosing an exotic race."

Thus, the mechanism is right there in the Players Handbook for players to see and expect. The DM gives you access to races. He doesn't take them away.

I really don't like the PHB telling me which races are going to populate my world. What if I want to play a campaign set in the battle between Tieflings and Dragonborn? Neither are going to be rare in that situation. Wizards should NEVER be telling me what should or shouldn't be in my game, or what my players should or shouldn't be playing.