Tiefling and half-orc should not be in the PHB

[Sunseeker]

Then do so. This isn't telling you what should or shouldn't be in your game. It's merely setting up a series of common baselines. It's supposed to be a tool, not a shackle. Still, the language could be improved a little. Add

"For a classic game, the DM might limit PCs to common races. A more exotic setting might have different set of permitted and restricted races."

The point is to make establishing the available races and classes a standard part of any campaign, and to give tools for doing so.

I still don't like it, for one, "exotic" races tend to be more powerful, and I neither want to see popular races shackled with level adjustments nor do I want to see them gain stupidly over-powered abilities because they are "rare".

I mean lets take 3e Drow for example, a pretty good look at what Wziards does with something they consider "exotic", huge +2LA combined with crippling drawbacks(light sensitivity I'm looking at you!) and a couple stupidly over-rated abilities that should have been fairly powerful. Really how difficult was it to just do what Pathfinder did? Sure they still got light sensitivity, but they were really no more or less powerful than their core-race counterparts. Handwaving one drawback if the DM wants to is much better than attempting to entirely re-balance the race to make up for stupid LA bs.

I would much rather have Wizards leave what constitutes an "exotic race" up to the DM, rather than attempt to balance "exoticness" in a mechanical manner as they've done in the past.

 

[IanB]

I mean lets take 3e Drow for example, a pretty good look at what Wziards does with something they consider "exotic", huge +2LA combined with crippling drawbacks(light sensitivity I'm looking at you!) and a couple stupidly over-rated abilities that should have been fairly powerful.

I think you're significantly underrating how good spell resistance and 4 points of extra stat boosts are. On top of all the regular elf traits, and the other miscellaneous bonuses they have.

LA is an annoying kludgy way to deal with it, but they really are just flat out better by a good amount than a regular character as written.

The Pathfinder solution really isn't a solution, they don't actually have rules for playing drow PCs at all other than "we don't really recommend this".

 

[tuxgeo]

Don't tell 'em my secrets. (The hlfact that my home setting is New York City as a giant city-plane with each neighborhood as their own minikingdom has noting to do with this)

I just don't want to be forced to play racial stereotypes for a year as I wait for the Race book because I am only given a small batch of shoehorned, poorly supported, similar races and the modular options are low.

If you "just don't want to be forced . . . for a year as I wait for" certain races, then why not agree that the PHB could be organized into sections: PART 1 = "Core," PART 2 = "Options Module 1," PART 3 = "Options Module 2," and so forth -- all contained within the same physical book.
("Modules" don't have to mean physically separate volumes.)

That way, many races could be included in the first (or even only) PHB, but without having all of them needing to be considered equally "core."
That way, you wouldn't have to "wait" for the rest of the races at all; but, at the same time, the people who don't want every race there ever was to be part of "core" wouldn't have to have them all be included in the core.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Come July, I'll have been playing D&D for 30 years, and if there's one thing I feel like I can say definitively, it is that nobody ever plays haflings. I've played with dozens of people, I expect I've seen close to a thousand characters all told, and I can think of exactly 3 (EDIT: 4! I just remembered another one) halflings, in all that time. The idea that they're 'popular' just baffles me.

Who knows? I've been playing 27 years (at least twice a week), the last 18 at my own store with a few hundred people over the years and I've seen tons of halflings. I've seen everything from Kender-types to Hobbits. I've seen whole parties of halflings. I've seen more halflings than I've seen gnomes or even probably half-elves. (Certainly more than half-orcs or tieflings). So maybe your experience is just a fluke.

I've only played one or two myself, though, so maybe my experience is a fluke.

 

[Incenjucar]

Regarding racial feats, depending on how many feats a player even gets, I would think that three feats per race would be just fine. Add more when needed, but a three-feat investment into a concept should be plenty to fill most desires for racial depth.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think you're significantly underrating how good spell resistance and 4 points of extra stat boosts are. On top of all the regular elf traits, and the other miscellaneous bonuses they have.

LA is an annoying kludgy way to deal with it, but they really are just flat out better by a good amount than a regular character as written.

The Pathfinder solution really isn't a solution, they don't actually have rules for playing drow PCs at all other than "we don't really recommend this".

I don't really need rules for how to play Drow. Their stat-block in the PFSRD is all I really need. My campaign will decide how drow are played.

But that's the thing too, I don't want any playable race to be better than others, I want them all to be within a certain range of variance, with most of their difference coming from racial abilities and flavor. Like how Aasamir and Tieflings were handled in the Forgotten Realms books, slightly reduced power to get rid of the +1LA and most of their "why would I play this?" factor came from flavor.

Honestly a race is defined only minorly by it's statblock, and mostly by it's flavor, which is really all I want to see when I look it up in the PHB, a statblock and some flavor. Beyond that it's up to the DM and the player how that race is going to work out in the given setting.

 

[Minigiant]

If you "just don't want to be forced . . . for a year as I wait for" certain races, then why not agree that the PHB could be organized into sections: PART 1 = "Core," PART 2 = "Options Module 1," PART 3 = "Options Module 2," and so forth -- all contained within the same physical book.
("Modules" don't have to mean physically separate volumes.)

That way, many races could be included in the first (or even only) PHB, but without having all of them needing to be considered equally "core."
That way, you wouldn't have to "wait" for the rest of the races at all; but, at the same time, the people who don't want every race there ever was to be part of "core" wouldn't have to have them all be included in the core.

I have no problem with that. It just that some people don't even want these "uncommon" races playable in the first core books.

 

[TrippyHippy]

In my view, there should be a mechanism within the Monster Manual that highlights and makes playable a multitude of different races, including Gnomes, Tieflings, Centaurs and whatever. In the core Players book, though, I'd just stick with the Tolkienesque Races, although I'd include the Orc and Goblin in this. I can actually see a lot if fun in playing an all Goblin/Orc party....

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Based on the preponderance of D&D History, I say: 1/2 orc yes; tiefling no.

 

[variant]

I honestly think all half-races should be an optional template found in the DMG. How many "vagabonds who don't fit into society" races do we actually need?