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

[The_Gunslinger658]

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.

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.

Do I use the optional stuff from UA online stuff? That is pretty much a case by case situation. I do allow the Gunslinger, one of my personal favorite classes in my campaigns. So I am not all old school all the time lol.

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

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Pretty much all of them, although since I run Eberron, some of the flavour changes for some of them. About the only thing that doesn't have a definite place would be a Kenku or Tabaxi, but no one has wanted to play one yet, so not an issue.

I've not had an issue with any of the UA stuff that any of my players wanted to use, although I did adjust the thunder cannon of the artificer to a wand/staff to fit in the setting.

I've not noticed Dragonborn as being particularly OP, or had issues fitting them into the game. What trouble did you run into?

Tieflings' extraplanar heritage hasn't really caused any problems. I never really saw them as having any more issues with prime plane creatures than half-elves do. Or found them excessively overpowered.

Had a couple of Warlocks, although haven't had one with an evil or malevolent patron yet.

What did you not like about the Paladin artwork?

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

I just do not feel the Dragonborne is a proper fit in my Campaign, it just does not seem or feel right. As for the PHB pally, a screaming orc that looks constipated just does not look Paladin like to me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

When I put together every new campaign I decide which races and classes to allow based upon the theme of the campaign. My two current Curse of Strahd games allowed for all the PHB classes plus a couple UA/3PP ones (the Mystic, the Blood Hunter), but everyone had to be human. When I did my tribal-based Gates of Firestorm Peak campaign I put together race/class combos suitable for the archetype backgrounds I created for it, and only allowed those combos to be selected. So if you wanted to play an elf... there might only be a couple archetype backgrounds that would allow for it, and even then you'd only have three or four possibly class options to then select.

As I'm prepping my next campaign-- a Nerathi points-of-light setting game that may or may not use Tomb of Annihilation as a central adventure conceit... I'm looking to bring in some new game subsystems for jungle exploration and might restrict races, backgrounds and classes again to better suit them for the game. We shall see.

 

[Imaculata]

I allow all of it, but since I play 3rd edition, we always discuss certain prestige classes with the group. Third edition is notorious for having prestige classes that are just straight up overpowered. At the start of the campaign I informed my players that elves and orcs are not native to my campaign setting, but they wanted to play an elf and a half-elf anyway, so I allowed it, and figured out some way to write them in. Player enjoyment comes first.

 

[Li Shenron]

It obviously depends on the fantasy setting...

In one-shot games without a setting defined, any race or class is allowed. But if the players don't ask for it, I usually just present the four classic races.

In a campaign, the fantasy setting determines what exists and what doesn't. If it's presented by the books as a playable race or class, it is allowed.

In my homebrews all classes are allowed, as well as non-core subclasses. As for races, I typically favor the classic four minus drow (plus sometimes gnomes and half-orcs), but I allow the others as long as the player accepts that she's probably going to be the only one in a long range.

 

[Dorian_Grey]

I absolutely positively hate elves and usually ban them from games I'm running. I've held that grudge for 22 years now and have no plans on stopping anytime soon. But yeah I usually only allow: Humans, Half-orcs, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes. Maybe some homebrewed races where appropriate. Since I usually rule Goblins, Orcs and Kobolds aren't evil, I will sometimes allow them too - though I haven't done that in 5th edition yet.

 

[Draegn]

In my game world there are

Dwarves
Elves (light, grey, dark, each Tolkien/Norse based)
Faeries
Gnomes
Halflings
Humans

Bugbears
Giants (Game of Thrones)
Goblins
Hobgoblins
Ogres
Orcs
Trolls

and half races.

 

[iserith]

All races and classes are available in my current campaign including UA content.

That might not be so in my next campaign. I like to change it up.

 

[guachi]

I'm currently running a Known World/Mystara campaign. The older the setting gets without an official update, the more it looks like an alternate universe D&D. So many differences big and small.

It's the type of world where there are all sorts of sentient races that a PC could play. If Dragonborn or Tieflings existed at the time, they'd have been in the setting. However, they didn't so they don't. There are so many other choices that I feel it adds some flavor. The easiest to add have been rakasta (catmen. Tabaxi, basically) and lupins (dogmen). Many of the others, like tortles (turtles!) and sidhe are excluded from PC races. It's also the setting that had an entire supplement on playing various evil humanoids.

Also, there are no half races. Though if a player wanted to play a human barbarian with half-orc stats (minus the darkvision) it's fine by me. If a player wanted to play a human or elf with half-elf stats, it's fine by me.

Dwarves and halflings can't be arcane casters (no warlocks, bards, wizards, or sorcerers).

Only one sorcerer allowed on the planet. So if a PC wants to be a sorcerer, he's the only one and he has to understand what that means.

Only gnomes (fey) and Glantrians can be warlocks. Only the cleric-hating Immortal-eschewing Glantrians would make deals with other-planar entities instead of the Immortals. Gnomes use Intelligence.

All elves must be casters of some type.

No one but elves can be EKs, ATs, or spell-casting Rangers (others can be the spell-less Ranger from UA) except in rare circumstances.

Only Ochaleans (which includes humans, lupins, and rakasta) can be monks with one exception. Halflings can be shadow monks as they use Halfling Blackflame for their shadow tricks.

Demihuman subraces don't exist. If a player wants to be a hill dwarf because of the wisdom bonus it doesn't affect anything else about the PC. If a player wants to swap the high elf +1 to intelligence with the wood elf +1 to wisdom, it's fine by me. (This happened in my current campaign. Player liked the wood elf flavor but wanted to be an EK).