D&D General what is the worst race in dnd?

[James Gasik]

Part of it was their default appearance*. I mean, I know I can change the fluff for my own campaigns, but if I want to play a 1/2 Halfling, 1/2 Gold Dragon, the Dragonborn race isn't quite a good match.

That and their breath weapon is usually abysmally bad, with either poor damage (or 4e's atrocious scaling). Who would want that?

*I know I'm probably in a minority here, but I like the liminality of half-dragons, and my players seem to agree, given the kind of art I'm usually bombarded with, like this young lady.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I wish I could have played a Half-Dragon back then. The 5e Dragonborn will do. What about a Half-Dragon Dragonborn? One way to look at a Dragonborn is that they are Half-Dragon and Half-Humanoid.

It's very much not the official lore, but if you wanted a more balanced less-than-half-dragon (like a tiefling is a less-than-half-fiend) then the dragonborn rules are pretty darn good. You could just describe yourself as a human with dragon horns and maybe some shoulder scales and a tail.

 

[Ancalagon]

the pak’ma’ra

 

[Vaalingrade]

Part of it was their default appearance*. I mean, I know I can change the fluff for my own campaigns, but if I want to play a 1/2 Halfling, 1/2 Gold Dragon, the Dragonborn race isn't quite a good match.

That and their breath weapon is usually abysmally bad, with either poor damage (or 4e's atrocious scaling). Who would want that?

*I know I'm probably in a minority here, but I like the liminality of half-dragons, and my players seem to agree, given the kind of art I'm usually bombarded with, like this young lady.

View attachment 268424

Yeah, that's a half dragon.

The only note would be that my Dragonsired have inherently stupider hair because dragons don't understand what hair is for and assume more is better, elaborate is better, and because scales -- more rigid is better.

The perfect shapechanged dragon hairdo is a beehive that can house Storm Giants.

 

[Azzy]

Definitely the new Ardlings.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Since this is a general thread, IMO anything after 1E AD&D.

I just reviewed all the races (I know of anyway) in 5E, and I'm not even really fond of Dragonborn or Tiefling, forget pretty much anything else. I'd be perfectly happy without any of them.

As I (jokingly) posted upthread, so many choices--I really couldn't pick the "worst". It is about a 60-way tie.

 

[Clint_L]

Definitely the new Ardlings.

Yeah, Ardlings are super generic and boring right now. Plus, it's confusing - they specify Ardling options including "cat" and "raven" but...we already have Tabaxi and Kenku. Do we really need two different raven-folk options? Are they related?

So right now you have fully developed races like Tabaxi, Kenku, Harengon, Tortles, and so on...and then basically whatever else you want but with less lore than a Beastmaster's generic pet. I don't get it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yeah, Ardlings are super generic and boring right now. Plus, it's confusing - they specify Ardling options including "cat" and "raven" but...we already have Tabaxi and Kenku. Do we really need two different raven-folk options? Are they related?

So right now you have fully developed races like Tabaxi, Kenku, Harengon, Tortles, and so on...and then basically whatever else you want but with less lore than a Beastmaster's generic pet. I don't get it.

The generic beast-folk race is a sop to people who want to play particular animals that haven't gotten a full write-up yet. Some of them are weirdly missing like dog- or wolf-people, other are genuinely odd like axolotl-people (but I've met people who want to play exactly that).

Having a generic origin helps integrate them; having the origin be based on a plane no one interacts with anyways makes it easy: "you have an ancestor form a place we'll never go anyways" mean you really can just drop them anywhere.

On the other hand - if friendly beast-folk just plain don't fit your vision for the setting, no amount of refluffing is gonna change that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's kind of surprising the Lupin didn't appear during the early older edition pandering phase.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The generic beast-folk race is a sop to people who want to play particular animals that haven't gotten a full write-up yet. Some of them are weirdly missing like dog- or wolf-people, other are genuinely odd like axolotl-people (but I've met people who want to play exactly that).

Having a generic origin helps integrate them; having the origin be based on a plane no one interacts with anyways makes it easy: "you have an ancestor form a place we'll never go anyways" mean you really can just drop them anywhere.

On the other hand - if friendly beast-folk just plain don't fit your vision for the setting, no amount of refluffing is gonna change that.

I figured that myself plus asamar have the problem of being without anything to pull from as they have little role play potential past being angle decendents have no darkness, no culture and not a whole lot else.