D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Azzy]

Between this thread and the erosion of racial distinctiveness post-Tasha's, I'm toying with a "Wild Cards"-like setting in which all the non-human races are humans who have survived but been changed by a magical disease.

There are different nations and cultures, but they are not built around race. "Changed" humans, whether elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, dragonborn, tiefling, tabaxi, shifter, warforged, centaur, satyr, triton, loxodon, kobold, orc, goblin, or whatever, are a known quantity and are tolerated - or not - based on culture and individual preference.

With this, the default response to a player asking, "Can I play Race X?" is, "Sure, you got changed by the disease."

Shadowrun did something similar to a cool effect.

 

[Mecheon]

When are we getting an official partial undead race?

I really do wish that Revenant race from UA got made official. Bit strong, yeah, but it was a neat thing for dying and coming back. "Fulfil this one task and blappo, you're dead". That's story

There's also the two different vampire options from the MTG ones which... I think the second revision in the Ixalan books was less clunky than the original from memory.

There were also Saurials in FR 1e or 2e that were a playable race of bipedal dinosaurs. Not dragons specifically, but similar enough to mention.

A brief aside but Saurials annoy me so much as a failure of the concept. Dinosaur people? That's rad. That's amazing. I love dinosaurs. But there's problems

Why are the hadrosaurids called Finheads when they're trying to be Parasaurolophus-alikes? How can I have my Iguanodon that way? Or my Shantungosaurus-based wrestler who wants to wrestle a rex (Shantungosaurus being the largest hadrosaur)
Speaking of, why are the stegosaurs and ceratopsians bigger than them? Hadrosaurs were huge and the largest grew bigger than any ceratopsian
Where's the rex? Why are there no therapods at all? Like, I can understand the lack of a Dromaeosaur given these were before Jurassic Park, but no Tyrannosaur? Allosaurus? Ceratosaurus?
Speaking of, where's the sauropods? No long necked ones at all?
Why aren't the pterosaurs fuzzy? Also why are the pteranodon based ones so tiny? Pteranodon's whole thing is being the largest pterosaur we had good remains from in America.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You said the MM is off limits to the players. It isn't. PC use MM statistics for all kinds of things. Race would just be another similar use.

That isn't what I said at all.

I said that there is no rule that allows you to use a Monster from the Monster Manual as a Player Race.

I also said that the Monster statblocks are the purview of the DM, not the players. Meaning that the DM controls the statblocks. In fact a lot of the time if those statblocks are needed by a player character, the rules often say the same thing. "The DM has the statblocks if you need them".

As noted above, it wasn't a False Equivalence. Using the MM stats as players for PCs has been in use since the game began. Using them to make a character would just be another similar use.

A Ranger needing the Monster Stablock for their pet wolf is qualitatively different than using the statblock of a Cloud Giant to make a PC.

They are not the same thing at all.

Thank you as well.

I don't mind people disagreeing with me on whether centaurs should be able to climb a wall(medium or large), but it shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand for being homebrew. I tell you my reasoning. You tell me yours. We discuss and the discussion moves on. There's value to such discussions, because people may or may not have considered certain things and may want to adopt some portion or even all of someone's homebrew ideas and reasoning.

But again, there is nothing I can say to your homebrew, there is no where for that conversation to go. Except to point out that you are homebrewing, and any effects from that choice are the result of you making a concious decision to change the race option into something else.

And your logic is just... that's what they are in the Monster Manual, so that's what they need to be in the game. Which is clearly against the design decisions made in 5e, as pretty much no race shown in the monster manual has the same abilities in their player version. I think Drow is the only exception, and they still have the "infinite poison" that players don't get.

 

[Maxperson]

That isn't what I said at all.

I said that there is no rule that allows you to use a Monster from the Monster Manual as a Player Race.

There is. The DMG rules creating races and classes are rules. Those rules allow you to play literally anything in any monster book at a PC.

I also said that the Monster statblocks are the purview of the DM, not the players. Meaning that the DM controls the statblocks. In fact a lot of the time if those statblocks are needed by a player character, the rules often say the same thing. "The DM has the statblocks if you need them".

The DM controls everything that isn't a PC. The PC rules allow the use of those statblocks for their various class abilities.

A Ranger needing the Monster Stablock for their pet wolf is qualitatively different than using the statblock of a Cloud Giant to make a PC.

PC use of statblock = PC use of statblock. They may be using them for different reasons, but the precedent exists in multiple different instances.

But again, there is nothing I can say to your homebrew, there is no where for that conversation to go. Except to point out that you are homebrewing, and any effects from that choice are the result of you making a concious decision to change the race option into something else.

That's not true. We can debate the reasons behind my changes and your desire to keep Ravnica RAW.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Goliath.

/ducks

That is basically what Goliath are, with some human and magical genetic engineering thrown in, in my buddy’s campaign. They’re a true race these days, but their origin is pretty dark.

 

[Hussar]

Nah, in that case you have to make a Dex check or your ears get caught in the door. Best play a human just to be safe.

While I realize this was meant as a joke, I've seen far too many DM's go down this road not to see the grain of truth here. The DM's don't "ban" things, but, make your life so miserable for playing something that the DM doesn't like, that you may as well stick to the PHB because you are not going to win this pissing contest.

And, largely, that's what it is. A pissing contest where the DM wants to enforce his or her authority over the table.

 

[Hussar]

On the point about why we ignore B/E/C/M/I is that that edition allowed FAR weirder races than other editions. Tieflings? Pshaw, we had diabolus in 1986. Tabaxi? Meh. Rakasta in 1981. Phanatons too.

D&D was a LOT weirder back then. Shame that AD&D wound up chained to the corpse of Tolkien.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is. The DMG rules creating races and classes are rules. Those rules allow you to play literally anything in any monster book at a PC.

You mean those rules I specifically called out when I said this?

And the DMG toolkit for homebrewing a race doesn't count, because that is homebrewing, which is exactly what I am claiming you are doing.

I'll never understand how I can say something, and then people will react as though I never said it a few posts later.

The DM controls everything that isn't a PC. The PC rules allow the use of those statblocks for their various class abilities.

Use of the statblock, sure, but the contents of that statblock are still the purview of the DM, the attitude of the Beastmaster's comanion (since it is an NPC) is the purview of the DM, and no PC ability allows you to start at level 1 as a creature from the Monster Manual, and no PC ability allows you to scour the Monster Manual to pick your race.

PC use of statblock = PC use of statblock. They may be using them for different reasons, but the precedent exists in multiple different instances.

"I have a wolf, so I need the wolf statblock" =/= "I'm a level 1 Paladin Cloud Giant with +4 Natural Armor, Innate Spellcasting, Keen Senses, the ability to throw boulders for 4d10 damage, ect ect ect"

These are wildly different things. You know it.

That's not true. We can debate the reasons behind my changes and your desire to keep Ravnica RAW.

You desire to keep the changes is because you see the Large Centaur as being the one native to the other DnD worlds, and for some reason you couldn't bring yourself to change that.

My desire to keep the player race per RAW is because I don't want to homebrew it, especially since making them Large creates a slew of problems for no good reason.

 

[Maxperson]

You mean those rules I specifically called out when I said this?



I'll never understand how I can say something, and then people will react as though I never said it a few posts later.

Homebrew or not, RAW allows it. Those are rules. What results from the rules will often be homebrew. Using the combat rules results in a combat unique to the DMs world, making the combat that results from RAW a homebrew.

Use of the statblock, sure, but the contents of that statblock are still the purview of the DM, the attitude of the Beastmaster's comanion (since it is an NPC) is the purview of the DM, and no PC ability allows you to start at level 1 as a creature from the Monster Manual, and no PC ability allows you to scour the Monster Manual to pick your race.

For polymorph and Druid shapeshifting, the player controls the contents of the statblock he is using. The DM has no control over it at all.

"I have a wolf, so I need the wolf statblock" =/= "I'm a level 1 Paladin Cloud Giant with +4 Natural Armor, Innate Spellcasting, Keen Senses, the ability to throw boulders for 4d10 damage, ect ect ect"

Nobody is saying it's the same exact thing. I'm saying that a druid controlling the bear statblock is the same as someone who rolled up a bear, except the druid keeps his mental stats. Using the statblock to play = using the statblock to play.

You desire to keep the changes is because you see the Large Centaur as being the one native to the other DnD worlds, and for some reason you couldn't bring yourself to change that.

Centaurs have been large non-fey creatures since 1e(or maybe before) and that didn't change for 5e. Ravnica's change to fey isn't going to be accepted. I wouldn't mind a player playing a small(medium size) centaur, but that doesn't change any of the issues from this thread.

My desire to keep the player race per RAW is because I don't want to homebrew it, especially since making them Large creates a slew of problems for no good reason.

The "problems" don't go away with either medium size or fey. They still can't climb a wall and will have problems getting into a room at the inn due to body size and shape(horse).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There is. The DMG rules creating races and classes are rules. Those rules allow you to play literally anything in any monster book at a PC.

The DM controls everything that isn't a PC. The PC rules allow the use of those statblocks for their various class abilities.

PC use of statblock = PC use of statblock. They may be using them for different reasons, but the precedent exists in multiple different instances.

That's not true. We can debate the reasons behind my changes and your desire to keep Ravnica RAW.

You’re stretching precedent pretty far, but you don’t need to.

Tasha’s sidekick rules are a much better grounding for the argument that letting a player use a monster from the mm as a PC option isn’t homebrew.

Still, it’s odd to argue using MM centaurs as the basis of your arguments when there is a PC centaur option, and no reason to think anyone else means the MM monster when they talk about playable centaurs, all without any explanation that you’re referring to the MM until someone calls out a contradiction.