D&D 5E What Races (classes) do you allow or disallow in your campaign?

[Ovinomancer]

No need to insult me with a troll label just because I do not like Dragonborne or Tieflings in my campaign. The question is do you allow such races in your campaign, if so kool, if not that is kool too. But I am liking some of the ideas you guys are throwing out there. Good stuff.

[MENTION=6855766]Phazonfish[/MENTION]: << I get how they might rub you the wrong way thematically, but if you say they are Munchkin races that means they are unbalanced or exploitable, right? In what way?>>

Ya they do rub me the wrong way, the reason I called the Munchkin races is because munchkin players like playing monsters and one that can breath fire, even better. I kinda wish WotC would have just put a supplement out with monsters as PC's instead of carrying over old 4E races. As for why Pally's are Human only, being old school AD&D grog, thats just the way I feel. In most fantasy literature and legends represent Paladins as human IE Charlamain, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and so on. Not angry looking orcs. (another residual from either 3E or 4E).

Scott

The breath weapon of the dragonborn is very weak. I haven't seen it be overpowered in any way, as my two dragonborn players currently never use it in combat. They've only used it in roleplaying or exploration challenges. The Black Dragonborn's acid breath has been used twice, both times in non-combat events, and the Gold's fire breath only once, in a non-combat challenge.

Not liking the concept of the race is cool - I can easily see that - but mechanically, Dragonborn are pretty weak and Tieflings are decent to good, but not the top of the list.

 

[Ketser]

Didn't we have an thread with the same topic some months ago?

I'm not going to answer what races/classes i ban or don't use, rather i'm saying why i use monstrous and exotic races. Rather i'm saying why i use them. For me fantasy has evolved past its roots and has room for far more interesting and fun stuff than just sticking to rules established by the "oldskool stuff." While there are things that i occasionally find perhaps too much or too outlandish, most of the time if i can find them a place in the world, they are in. Some stuff like firearms or psionics might be campaign dependant.

[MENTION=22387]The_Gunslinger658[/MENTION] munchkin's tend to pick the most effective race for their build, it can be an exotic race, but more often its a common race, because their bonuses are usually better than breathing fire once per day. There are exceptions of course, but in my experience, its more often common races or some of their subraces.

 

[MechaPilot]

Depends on which campaign, and which setting I run it in.

That said, you can find a reasonable excuse for almost any individual character to exist, especially if the campaign world is connected to the D&D multiverse (D&D is a lot like RIFTS in that regard). And, if we're talking about running either a homebrew setting, or another setting the players have never seen before, allowing them to come into it from the outside gives them a chance to experience the setting and learn how it's different from the world(s) they come from as their PCs interact with it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I pretty much allow any race or class. I don't see what's really to be gained by limiting those choices, unless I have a really specific theme in mind. However, since my campaign is actually a continuation of several prior campaigns, taking place in the big D&D setting worlds, there's not much reason to restrict anything. We pretty much play in the entirety of the D&D playground.

In fact, I'm very open to players coming up with new concepts. Because our campaign is also using older material we played in previous editions, we do have a few kind of out there options....we have a mind flayer PC, and a Shade PC, and a Cavalier PC, and an Assassin PC, and so on. The classes are pretty easy to fit into existing 5E mechanics (the Cavalier is a fighter, the Assassin is a Rogue/Fighter with the Assassin subclass, etc.) but the races take a little bit of work.

I primarily DM, so I can understand the desire to limit such things to only be the things I like, but that's a bit selfish, so I really try not to do it unless there's a strong reason. And doing that has actually made me like some of the concepts I previously dismissed. For example, I am not really that fond of gnomes or druids....but I've had players who like them, and have made cool characters that made me look at them in a different light.

If you label something as being bad and then never ever allow it to be used, then of course your opinion will never change.

In most fantasy literature and legends represent Paladins as human IE Charlamain, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and so on. Not angry looking orcs. (another residual from either 3E or 4E).

To be fair, most legends depict members of any class as being human because most legends are about humans. Elves and dwarves and the like aren't really portrayed as being as similar to mankind as we think of them now in most legends. Seems odd to limit the paladin and not other classes based on this criteria.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As preface, I am an old school 1E grognard that still has not shaken those particular habits off of my current 5E games.

Cool, so your games are still awesome, then?

I also really like how 5E really has much in common with 1E, ease of character generation and a good system in general. I tried to get back into 3,5 earlier this year, but it was just a bit much to really DM.

3.5 was all about system-mastery, even for the DM, in self-defense (campaign-defense, I guess) and there was a lot of system to master.

Skipped over 4E since it was not D&D, only in name.

4e was remarkably different from all other editions, breaking with tradition and dropping sacred cows faster than BSE...

So with that said, as an old grog, I really do not like the way some races and classes are presented in D&D, thankfully I can nix certain races and classes without effecting the system in general. So here is a list of what I disallow in my campaigns and why:

Dragonborne- Really? A munchkin gamers wet dream race come true, and a DM's nightmare on how to handle such a race in their campaigns. These are monsters after all, not heroic core race types.

Tiefling- Gee, really? really? Why on gawds green earth would a demonic creature such as tiefling want to be among-st the prime plane rabble? Another Munchkin gamers dream race come true lol.

Well, the Dragonborn is just the bowdlerized/nerfed 3.x-half-dragon or Dragonlance Draconian, but with a decidedly 'heroic' (if it had been 3.x, their favored class would've been Paladin) backstory, and the Tieflling, likewise, toned down significantly from the planescape/3.x version, though sinister as ever.

Warlock- OMG shades of WoW lol! I nixed this class right off the bat, pacts just do not jive with my campaigns personally and seems better suited as a class for villainous NPC's.

Sounds like mostly a flavor issue, and it's been with the class since it's inception in 3.5, Complete Arcane.
At least any actual satanists wanting to play 'that satanic game, D&D' might be less disappointed than they would've been in 1985, when they find that the Warlock is now available... ;P

Paladin- I did not nix this class but went old school. The artwork in the PHB for the pally is so wrong on so many levels lol. So what I did do with this class was just make it for Humans only, Lawfull Good and Oathbreakers are N/A.

That'd be a quick old-school-flavor fix, yeah.

As I said upstream, 5E is probably the best version of D&D I have played

Well you did say you skipped 4e, and aren't up to the challenge of 3.5/PF...
... so, excluding those two, sure, easy call. I think 3.5/PF, though in a very different - player-entitled, rather than DM-Empowering - way, may be too close to call.

, not too complicated, not too simple, it hits that sweet spot for RPG's just right.

Once you cut all that 21st century crap out of it, anyway. ;> And, y'know, RPGs really are /very/ complex, and usually even more complicated than they are complex, anyway. 'Too simple' too easily shades over into 'not an RPG...'

No need to insult me with a troll label just because I do not like Dragonborne or Tieflings in my campaign.

No need for you to insult people who play them with the 'munchkin' label. See how that works?

I kinda wish WotC would have just put a supplement out with monsters as PC's

Volos, came out pretty recently with a number of traditionally-monstrous races...

instead of carrying over old 4E races.

The Tiefling was introduced in planescape and playable in 3.x, half-dragons 3.x, draconians back to Dragonlance. So, 'old,' yes, 4e, not so much. That said, I agree they could've waited for a supplement like Volos, and Warforged for an Ebberon book.

As for why Pally's are Human only, being old school AD&D grog, thats just the way I feel.

And that's all the reason we need!

In most fantasy literature and legends represent Paladins as human IE Charlamain, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and so on. Not angry looking orcs. (another residual from either 3E or 4E).

The iconic 3.x Paladin was Alhandra, she was human. The full-page Paladin illo in the 4e PH was of a half-elf, but the stereotypical race for it was Dragonborn, typically worshiping Bahamut.

The half-orc paladin was a notorious 'against type' build you saw in 3.x & (once half-orcs became available) 4e, I suppose, though it should have been getting a little tired by then.

FWIW.

What Races (classes) do you allow or disallow in your campaign?

Typically when I run 5e, it's a 1st level introductory game at a convention, hoping to introduce the game to some new players. For those, I use the optoins in the basic pdf, so that cuts all but 4 classes and uses only one sub-class each. Slashes D&D right down to its essence. Likewise, no funky races, no variant humans. KISS.

Obviously, when I run AL, it's the virtually-anything-goes AL guidelines. Meh. Tolerable for the most part.

Once I wrap the pre-5e campaign I'm currently finishing out (campaigns take a while in a 2-hr weekly time slot!), I'll most likely start a 5e campaign. I'm already mulling over the character creation, and it will definitely be restricted, because it's a focused campaign concept. It's not just a matter of cutting classes and races, but of limiting the number of PCs (typically to 1) for many choices. So no two PCs can be the same sub-class, no two can be the same non-human race ('cept halfing & variant human, but they're limited, as well), and no more than half can be human.
Yeah, variety.

I'm also toying with a last-ed Gamma World variation on random stat generation - your choice of class determines one high stat, your choice of race the other - the rest are 3d6, in order...

 

[Shiroiken]

Races
By defualt: No Drow, Dragonborn, Teifling or non-PHB (players can make requests if there is a workable opportunity during the campaign). Gnomes got an overhaul (removed sub-race). Added Tallfellow Halflings (homebrew). Appearances reverted to 1E non-Forgotten Realms.

Classes
Allowed SCAG. Opened Battlerager to Human and Half-Orc. Restricted Oath of Ancients Paladin to non-humans. Restricted Way of the Open Hand to Humans and Way of the Elements to non-humans. No Way of Shadows (future potential, but restricted). Considered removing Warlock, but decided to leave it in.

 

[steeldragons]

Humans: 7 ethnicities & nations/cultures to choose from. 1) Norse/Viking/barbarian analogue; 2) desert empire Egyptian/Arab analogue; 3) magocratic/magic-use centric nation; 4) Mediterranean analogue sea-faring/trading benevolent monarchy/feudal system; 5) ancient fading/failing high-kingdom, celtic/gaelic analogue (See Half-elf option #1 below); 6) region of individual free-cities and city-states; 7) dark skinned/African analogue sea-faring tropical islands nation. There are also 2 human realms (1 remnants of a formerly great/all-but-destroyed exiled empire, and 1 completely lost people/civilization) that are not available for PCs.

Half-elves: choose 1) half-elfin "humans" from an ancient nation mixed with enough centuries of elvin ancestry to be genetically stable "half-elves"; 2) a 1st generation human/elf, half-elf/elf, or half-elf/half-elf progeny.

Elves: campaign world equivalent of "high" [default], more rarely "wood" equivalent, what I call "mist" or "cloud" elves (a general "valley elf" analog), extraordinarily rarely "aquatic" elf equivalent. Not for PCs: drow or "star/grey" elf equivalent.

Dwarf
Gnome: "Rock" gnomes -who are basically innate illusion-users 1e gnomes. They are NOT "tinkers/mechanists."
Halfling: Hairfooted only.

Satyr
Centaur
Homebrew Winged humanoids

Half-orcs are not be explicitly disallowed, but would be rare and and highly unusual and have not been seen in play.

Have also had/used, but generally not included in the "basic" campaign world list: sprites, lizardmen, homebrewed felinoids, homebrewed shapeshifting "werebear/Beorn-equivalent" type folk ...and in one very specific and special case a half-[aquatic]elf seductive swashbuckling scallywag.

Dragonborn and Tieflings do not exist in the campaign world (created well before the arrival of these PC race options). Such a character might be possible for a PC with the right story/reasoning: the existence of a half-demon or "dragon-man" in a fantasy world of magic is certainly possible. But the player would need to understand they'd be extraordinarily unusual [if not unique] individuals who were readily obvious (under most circumstances) and attract undue attention -almost certainly fear and disdain, if not outright hatred and panic.

 

[The Human Target]

None.

I try not to get too precious with my magical make believe fun time.

 

[Caliban]

I was going to take this seriously, then you called the Dragonborn and the Tieflings a "Munchkin's wet dream". ....And that's just ridiculous.

There doesn't really seem to be a question in your post, just a series of opinions and house rules for your own game combined with implied insults for anyone who does it differently.

Either you are messing with us or you really don't understand how the game works.

 

[MechaPilot]

So with that said, as an old grog, I really do not like the way some races and classes are presented in D&D, thankfully I can nix certain races and classes without effecting the system in general. So here is a list of what I disallow in my campaigns and why:

Dragonborne- Really? A munchkin gamers wet dream race come true, and a DM's nightmare on how to handle such a race in their campaigns. These are monsters after all, not heroic core race types.

Tiefling- Gee, really? really? Why on gawds green earth would a demonic creature such as tiefling want to be among-st the prime plane rabble? Another Munchkin gamers dream race come true lol.

Warlock- OMG shades of WoW lol! I nixed this class right off the bat, pacts just do not jive with my campaigns personally and seems better suited as a class for villainous NPC's.

Paladin- I did not nix this class but went old school. The artwork in the PHB for the pally is so wrong on so many levels lol. So what I did do with this class was just make it for Humans only, Lawfull Good and Oathbreakers are N/A.

Dragonborn (note the lack of an "e" on the end there) and Tiefling are certainly non-standard races, but you have a pretty hard sell ahead of you if you want to convince us they're more prone to abuse than other races are. Variant human is widely considered one of the best races in the game (especially out of the options given in the PHB). I have two players at my table who enjoy min/maxing and the mechanical aspects of character building, and they always pick an elf or a variant human.

Also, if you are an old-school D&D player, you might recall Tieflings being introduced as a playable race in AD&D 2e's Planescape. I certainly prefer the variable appearance of the 2e Tiefling (which is easily enough to re-instate, and I have done so at my table), but the tiefling adventuring with planar races is far from new. Also, there really shouldn't be an assumption that a game will be confined to the prime material plane. If a DM wants to run a planar campaign, or just a campaign where an individual can have a fiendish ancestry, the teifling is there as a resource.

Regarding the Warlock being "shades of WoW," you must not have played a World of Warcraft Warlock, because the 5e Warlock plays almost nothing like the WoW Warlock. Heck, the 5e 'lock doesn't even get an impish familiar, much less several demon pets at her beck and call. The ranger is more of a WoW warlock than is the 5e warlock.

Do I use the optional stuff from UA online stuff? That is pretty much a case by case situation.

That's pretty much my opinion on all material, regardless of whether it's homebrew, from the DM's Guild, from the UA, or from a WotC published product.

As I said upstream, 5E is probably the best version of D&D I have played, not too complicated, not too simple, it hits that sweet spot for RPG's just right.

Scott

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I like it as well. It has it's flaws and faults, all things do, and it's not my favorite version of D&D (4e is my favorite edition of D&D), but I enjoy running and playing it much more than I did 3e, and a little more than I did AD&D 2e.

Howdy-

As preface, I am an old school 1E grognard that still has not shaken those particular habits off of my current 5E games. I also really like how 5E really has much in common with 1E, ease of character generation and a good system in general. I tried to get back into 3,5 earlier this year, but it was just a bit much to really DM. Skipped over 4E since it was not D&D, only in name.

. . .

Dragonborne- Really? A munchkin gamers wet dream race come true, and a DM's nightmare on how to handle such a race in their campaigns. These are monsters after all, not heroic core race types.

Edition warring, accusations of munchkinism, and a sweeping statement that races which appear monstrous to human sensibilities must be monsters and not heroes is probably not a great way to start out a post if you don't want adversarial responses. I get that we all have our own preferences with regard to the game, but it's pretty clear that there are a wealth of preferences and playstyles, with none of them being inherently more right than the others, or for that matter more "D&D" than the others (The very creator of the game encouraged the people who play it to alter it an make it their own, after all).

I don't begrudge you your grognard sensibilities, nor do I use the term grognard as an insult or pejorative; I use it because that's how you've chosen to refer to yourself. I had a great deal of fun in the years when I played BECMI and AD&D 2e (and 3e, 4e, and now 5e, for that matter), so I certainly see the older editions having their appeal (likewise, I don't view the newer editions with rose-tinted goggles that filter out all their flaws). If anything, I suppose I'm just weary of fans judging each other for enjoying what they enjoy, instead of simply respecting that we all have different preferences that are equally valid.