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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6941941" data-attributes="member: 996">But, they are for monsters, and that's what you said, monster, not race, you drifted to race later... Not going to fight you on that one, built-in mechanical balance is virtually moot in the context of 5e.  The tough choice, would have been 'trust the DM with Balance ' after that each individual instance is just following a design philosophy.And, it is the easy way, whether we label easy 'lazy' or 'efficient' (it could well be an efficient use of design resources, for instance, and WotC has fewer designers dedicated to D&D than in the past).Complexity isn't the issue, the kind of decisions ECL enables on the player side and what they imply about the game's dynamic would undermine DM empowerment.   You could famously play a Balrog in 0e, 'if you started as a young one,' if the DM let you, and could probably play almost anything in 5e, you just need the DM to accept or stat it out for you, like he would a background, only more work on his end. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />   The key in both cases is that the DM plays a very active role in enabling and exercising judgement.  With ECL, the player can handle building a non-standard-race PC on his own, 'RAW,' and the DM is left with just the not always attractive option of vetoing it.</blockquote>

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