D&D 5E Warforged, Changelings, and Thri Kreen in the PHB?

[pemerton]

I have to agree - Realms is a Train-wreck of a setting to build on. The only reason to tie it to Core is to try and leverage the novels. Grey hawk and Blackmoor are much simpler and more traditional foundations for a Core brand, but they don't have a useful existing product base.

Agreed. If WotC want to use FR as their core, of course that's their prerogative, and I can see why they would do that.

Krynn has a product-base too, but it's fundamental assumptions are even further askew than the Realms (kender, gully dwarves, tinker gnomes, etc)

If you took out those things you mention, Krynn might have a claim on being as generic as FR - the inherent moral orientation of the world at one and the same time subtracts from genericness (by mandating a focus) and adds to it (because generic fantasy has an inherent moral orientation in the core plotline).

 

[Sunseeker]

I wonder if the only "core" race was human and every other player race was pointedly optional, how well that'd go over for the D&D crowd?

I'd happily burn the book in protest....after ya know, paying full retail price. >.>

It kinda defeats the point of "fantasy" when you're playing humans in a low-magic quasi-medieval setting. I'm pretty sure that counts as playing "history".

They should do the classic 5 or 6 races, then a couple of pages on how to make your own PC in the DMG. Then published campaigns get their own races worked up (but you can do it yourself if you just have to convert NOW!!).

With the release of the Race-building book by Pathfinder, I think it demonstrates that it's a little more complciated to make your own PC race. Not to mention there's always the bigger issue of the DM trying to figure out if it's actually balanced(even if it's points or whatever match up).

I mean I personally don't find race building that complicated, and I don't think it needs to be as complicated as it is in the Advanced Race Guide(or whatever Paizo called it). But I think it's certainly more complicated than it appears, especially to new players who might get frustrated.

Personally I think the PHB1 should keep it simple, but diverse.

Core 4-5 races:
Human
Elf
Halfling/Gnome(don't care which, but only one of the two, I mean, Halfling is basically a mini-human, and gnome a mini-elf)
Dwarf
Half-elf(or provide rules for racial hybrids along the lines of 4e's hybrid class system. Half-elf-half-dwarf!? OH YEAH!)
---
Non-core "fantastic" races
Dragonborn
Tiefling
Changeling(or something)
---
"Evil" race
Drow(unless they're being included under elven-subraces, subraces are always a nice way to add variety and save space)
*whatever*

That gives you 10 races, which I think is a fair number for a $40+ book. Assuming they keep the racial crunch and fluff minimal, it shouldn't take up more than 20 pages at most, and that's being generous.

Really if your players are whining at you to play a race you've already said can't be played, get better players or just say "NO."

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

why not include support in the PHB for settings other than Forgotten Realms, like Dark Sun and Eberron?

Because demand is not inelastic.

 

[RACER_X?HAHAHA]

Personally, I rather approve of WotC's premise of having only 4 core races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling) with a number of optional races, perhaps only those represented in past PHB1s. Along with monster races in the MMs.

 

[Li Shenron]

Huh? FR is not very generic at all - it makes all sorts of assumptions about demography, sociology, politics, myth, religion etc.

I've been running mainstream fantasy RPG games for nearly 30 years, and I don't think any of my games could have taken place in the Forgotten Realms without major changes.

When it comes to potential PHB stuff, like races and classes, yes FR is very generic.

All the things you mention, and also all the uber-NPC and their worldwide organizations, are not stuff for the core PHB but go directly into the campaign setting sourcebook, thus they don't affect how well FR can be used as default setting, unless they decide to give the default setting a much bigger role than previously... but e.g. in 3ed the default setting was Greyhawk, but this did not impose anything at all to everybody's games except the religions (and a few spell names), while there wasn't even anything geographyical about GH in the PHB.

You can't do the same with Eberron, Ravenloft or Dark Sun. If you use Eberron as default setting, you can't not have Warforged in the PHB because they are a key race, and you can't not impose a "pulp" flavor. If you use Dark Sun, you can't not have psionics, and some races are heavily different from their most common and traditional concept.

But FR basically has the standard races in their most common form, plus Drow, which could be added as a playable race or not, it's not that important IMO since they are primarily an antagonist race. There is also no base class from FR that needs to be in the PHB, beyond those that most likely would be there anyway (unlike other settings which may need the likes of Artificer, Psion etc.).

This leaves only the religion stuff debatable IMHO... I think FR still has a very traditional D&D take on religions as a whole: they have the traditional deity ranking, demigods, the 9 alignments, avatars, racial pantheons, outer planes... fairly normal concepts. But of course the specific deities may not be everybody's taste, and while some of them are fairly standard and thererefore can easily work as e.g. god of justice, god of the sun, goddess of nature, goddess of beauty etc., others are not so obvious (e.g. CN god of war, LN god of death - at least as they were in 3e).

 

[pemerton]

When it comes to potential PHB stuff, like races and classes, yes FR is very generic.

Only in the sense that it uses the traditional AD&D races.

But many D&D games don't use those (or only those) races. Which was the OP's point, I think.

 

[Li Shenron]

Only in the sense that it uses the traditional AD&D races.

But many D&D games don't use those (or only those) races. Which was the OP's point, I think.

Yes only in that sense.

The majority of D&D games definitely use dwarves and elves at least. If "many" games don't use them, "many more" use them, and "quite a lot many more" don't use thri-kreen, warforged and changelings (even in more generic terms giant insects, robots, and shapechangers) as basic races.

I went back to check the OP. Yes, it would be nice if core D&D could support those, but then how about a giant race, a small fey-like race, a draconic race, an evil planetouched race, a good planetouched race, an elemental-touched race, a dark elven counterpart race, a playable undead race, a savage orc-type race... All these are IMHO more common in D&D than robots, giant insects and shapechangers (the latter may be more common as a concept, but carries serious mechanical and balance issues), so why should core D&D support these less-common concepts and not the more common ones?

It's just a matter of limited resources for core. If you put too much stuff in the PHB, then each character option receives less material. They have to keep the number of races to a reasonable number. It might be possible to squeeze 1-2 extras in, or it might be not, it depends on what other stuff is wanted in the core game.

Furthermore, what is in the core will be (a) generally accepted as available by default by players and (b) featured in all published adventures. If you put a shapechanger or robot race in the PHB, you have to expect that all (generic) published adventures will assume there are such PCs, and will adjust accordingly, and will feature them as NPCs for instance. Featuring elves and dwarves is much easier, and their presence in the game is much more widely accepted than robots.

Anyway, I disagree with OP's interpretation of WotC concept of being "inclusive". That applies to gaming styles, which are a different thing compared to campaign settings. You may disagree but I think that there are many more campaign settings than gaming styles. But either way, to support different gaming styles you also need to address the rules of the game, so they better do it since the start i.e. the PHB. Campaign settings are first and foremost (but not only) a matter of material available, most of which can just be added on top of existing core mechanics in the form of additional classes, races, spells, monsters - sometimes requires an additional mechanic, but at least it rarely requires to remove or change an existing mechanic. Which is why it has always worked pretty well to publish it in campaign settings sourcebooks after all.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION], agreed for elves and dwarves. In my experience, at least, halflings and gnomes are pretty boutique, and a giant-ish race (goliath, half-ogre, whatever) would have more pull than either of them.

Warforged and thri-keen I feel less strongly about. But part of the problem is the amount of real-estate the current playtest document commits to each race. Trim the text, and you can fit more races in!

 

[amerigoV]

With the release of the Race-building book by Pathfinder, I think it demonstrates that it's a little more complciated to make your own PC race. Not to mention there's always the bigger issue of the DM trying to figure out if it's actually balanced(even if it's points or whatever match up).

I mean I personally don't find race building that complicated, and I don't think it needs to be as complicated as it is in the Advanced Race Guide(or whatever Paizo called it). But I think it's certainly more complicated than it appears, especially to new players who might get frustrated.

I guess I am spoiled by Savage Worlds -- its like one page in a book. Hopefully, 5E will be simpler than 3e/Pathfinder (if you need a book just to make races, your system probably needs pared back IMO*).


* I'm talking more more "normal" humanionish races and not something like Savage Spicies from 3e where you are trying to de/reconstruct monsters as PCs.

 

[delericho]

The 5e PHB should have one of two sets of races represented:

Option 1: The 'big four'. Include only Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling in the PHB. Everything else should be covered in supplements/the MM/DDI.

Option 2: The "inclusive core". Include every race that has appeared in a PHB (1) for any of the editions: Human, Dwarf, Dragonborn, Eladrin (bah!), Elf, Gnome, Half-elf, Half-orc, Halfling, Tiefling. Everything else should be covered in supplements/the MM/DDI.

Either way, there's not really a place for Warforged, Changelings, or Thri-kreen in the book.

But those two are easily-defended, relatively non-controversial choices. Option 1 is really the "bare bones" option, which can be defended on the grounds of space. Option 2 is the all-inclusive option that caters to fans of all editions without offending either.

But going for anything between options 1 and 2 (say the 'big four' plus Gnomes) will inevitably lead to complaints about supporting one faction over another. And adding any races beyond option 2 will inevitably lead to complaints about people "not wanting insects/robots/whatever in their fantasy".

(Of course, whatever set they choose to include, they'll want to provide support for a huge range of other options as quickly as possible.)