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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6155687" data-attributes="member: 58197">Am I the only one who has more interest in "truly monstrous" PCs (demons, giants, dragons) than in "ordinary" humanoid races like hobgoblins and bugbears?From where I'm standing, hobgoblins and bugbears are not all that different from elves and dwarves. They're just humans in funny suits and <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats" target="_blank">hats</a>. A hobgoblin PC played according to type is more or less indistinguishable from a human with a military background and a nasty attitude. A hobgoblin PC played against type is more or less indistinguishable from... well, a human. The diversity of human cultures, and of individuals within those cultures, is so great that it's almost impossible to make a truly "non-human" PC with only culture to set them apart. Elves, dwarves, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, gnolls... speaking just for myself, I'd be quite happy to chuck 'em all in the bin, though I grudgingly acknowledge the demand for elves'n'dwarves as PC options.It's when you start adding special abilities and limitations that nonhuman races become interesting to me. Vampires are a classic example; a vampire has both special abilities (shapechanging, animal control, undead immunities, can't be killed by normal means) and limitations (vulnerability to sunlight, reaction to holy symbols and virtuous herbs, need to return to its coffin or home earth) that no human possesses unless powerful magic is involved. If I'm playing a vampire, the non-humanness of my character is going to be front and center every time I hide from the sun or turn into a bat. A less extreme case are drow, with their sun blindness, spell resistance, and innate powers. Most PC treatments of drow deprive them of these traits in the name of making them "more playable," which IMO deprives them of some of their most distinctive characteristics.The traditional PC races' distinctive nonhuman traits are mostly limited to "can see in the dark." I rather like that 5E has been expanding this a bit, with things like dwarves having poison immunity.Of course, introducing vampire PCs, or even non-sanitized drow PCs, is going to screw with the campaign and challenge the DM, which is why I'm firmly in the "monstrous PCs with explicit DM permission only" camp. And I agree that this is not a feature in high demand. But I do hope they tackle it eventually, at least to the extent of providing a framework that would make it possible.</blockquote>

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