D&D (2024) Which races would YOU put into the 50th anniversary Players Handbook?
jmartkdr2
Hero
I believe the worst thing WotC could do is remove any races from the PHB. They will revise and might add, but all the stuff in the 5.0 PHB will still be in the 5.5 PHB and that's the right call. All of the PHB races have their fans.
(I do hope they remove subraces from races that don't need them like dwarves and halflings. I mentioned before that elves do need them, and I can see the argument either way on gnomes, but other than that the PHB races shouldn't have them.)
If they do add, I think the most likely candidates are orcs, goblinoids, and kolbolds - in that order, although kolbolds should be in front of goblins. Goliaths and tabaxi are in the next tier, along with other planetouched and more elves. Custom Linage is very likely to get in via sidebar.
(I do hope they remove subraces from races that don't need them like dwarves and halflings. I mentioned before that elves do need them, and I can see the argument either way on gnomes, but other than that the PHB races shouldn't have them.)
If they do add, I think the most likely candidates are orcs, goblinoids, and kolbolds - in that order, although kolbolds should be in front of goblins. Goliaths and tabaxi are in the next tier, along with other planetouched and more elves. Custom Linage is very likely to get in via sidebar.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
By that definition of powergaming, classes are also powergaming. This is a heroic game - these are the PCs. Those stat blocks are not the race, the mechanics of which are in the MM.
Which is true but entirely meaningless. People want to play these tropes in a game that is designed to allow people to play characters that aren't themselves. Being truly alien is not a prerequisite in the slightest.
Of course we can - in a setting book that defines cultures. Take a look at Eberron. Multiple cultures of elves, multiple cultures of halflings, multiple cultures of dwarves. You complain about not truly alien but imply that a core book should push monoculture races across all settings? No, culture isn't what belongs in the base rules, except maybe a dusting for the default setting.
Of course we can. That we don't does not mean we can't. In previous editions we have. And frankly, in many cases lack of a strength is a weakness - look how the non-Darkvision races are treated right now among some groups. Even in a "no weakness" view we have small creatures who have problems with heavy weapons, we have centaurs who can't climb well.
"Truly unique" is not a requirement either. We're looking to fill tropes and archetypes that people are looking for - truly unique is not an advantage, it's a penalty.
You said we can't have weaknesses, yet now you say we can make someone underpowered. Pick one side of the story and stick to it.
If everyone has abilities, then everyone has abilities. And yes, that may mean the centaur can carry more than the sprite and run faster than the dwarf. But the sprite and the dwarf each have their own advantages. Yes, a combonation of class & race may play different than other combinations - something that has been part of D&D since it's inception.
But again, people want and expect races that differentiate themselves mechanically. As long as it says D&D, that'll be part of it. I can't see no mechanical effects for races as something they pick for the 50th Anniversary PHB.
Professor Murder
Hero
~on reading the One DnD Doc for character origins~
Someone pick up that phone.
Because I called it.
Corinnguard
Hero
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition has it where the subraces are represented by a particular culture. If you are playing a Dwarf, you pick the Dwarven heritage. Then you have the choice of Mountain Dwarf, Hill Dwarf, or Deep Dwarf as your culture. 
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
A rather jaundiced view of the situation. Particularly because if everything is "human+” including actual humans...doesn't that just reset where the baseline is? It sounds to me like you are passing off a normative argument ("races should always be weak and have few powers, it is wrong that 5e is not written this way") as a much easier-to-defend descriptive one ("these options are imbalanced and need to be brought back into balance in order to fit with the game.")
I also find it curious that you invoke power gaming and other balance-related concepts. Are you of the opinion that 5e is supposed to be a pretty strongly balanced game? That's not generally what I have understood 5e fans to think.
It is very nearly impossible for us to imagine truly, totally alien races, let alone roleplay them. This should not surprise you. People want characters they can relate to and enjoy. That means there will be many points in common with humanity, because the players are human. Your desire for "truly alien/inhuman" options is, frankly, silly; you are asking for things that most people will not want to play. Why would WotC make things most people definitely won't want to play?
This is either outright false, or correct and a very good thing, depending on what you mean by it.
If what you mean is, "it is literally impossible to develop cultures in 5e D&D now," then you are straight-up wrong, and I suspect arguing in bad faith. It is in fact easier to do this sort of thing, because we are not chained to the notion that culture and race must be precisely equivalent; we can have polyracial cultures and polycultural races, which is more grounded, provides greater freedom for world building, and enables a wider variety of characters than before, without removing anything whatsoever. We can have Carrot Ironfoundersson, the six-foot-plus "dwarf" who is secretly the human heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork. Or the elf who was raised in a traditional Remnant Arkhosia enclave, carrying on the proud traditions of Lost Arkhosia. Etc., etc.
Of course, what you could be meaning is "we can't rely on the crutch of racial monocultures and monoracial cultures." In which case, you are 100% correct. This is a very good thing, as already outlined.
Why not? I genuinely don't understand the argument you're making here.
Ah yes, because dragon breath is definitely something everyone can do. Come on, at least TRY to make an argument that isn't a CR -1 Straw Golem.
You have demonstrated nothing of the kind other than by assertion. Back up that assertion, if you would please. Show how this is the case. Show how choosing hill dwarf or dragonborn makes you "useless" as a Wizard or how being a halfling makes you "useless" as a Barbarian.
Because otherwise you're just using hyperbole and proof by assertion here.
Last edited:
Mod Note:
I think you will find that incidents in which an accusation of bad faith makes the discussion better are scarcer than hen's teeth. Please don't do this. If you figure that's what is happening, there is no further point in discussing with them anyway, so quietly disengaging is your best bet.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Not so much imbalanced as power-creeping.
Human used to be the baseline. Now Human+ becomes the baseline.
Other species gained strengths and compensatory weaknesses compared to this baseline, resulting in a vaguely-balanced set of playable species. Now those compensatory weaknesses have been largely removed, the only option is to also remove those gained strengths, thus making all the species much more similar in play.
They've been making Gnomes since the TSR days, so clearly this isn't really an issue for them.
You can have that now, only Carrot is statted out as a Human (which makes sense, as that's what he in fact is). The problems come if the system lets you stat him out as a Dwarf and give him Dwarven abilities when in fact he's not a Dwarf at all.
Can't speak for @MoonSong here but for my part the bolded is exactly what I want - that some species naturally trend toward some classes and away from others. If every species can be every class equally well then much of the point of even having different playable species is lost.
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Pod races.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
More or less the same, as I keep saying I'm old school for mechanics, modern(pre-modern?) for flavor. I'm fine with halfling barbarians, what I'm not fine with is them working the same as a half-orc barbarian.Not so much imbalanced as power-creeping.
Human used to be the baseline. Now Human+ becomes the baseline.
Other species gained strengths and compensatory weaknesses compared to this baseline, resulting in a vaguely-balanced set of playable species. Now those compensatory weaknesses have been largely removed, the only option is to also remove those gained strengths, thus making all the species much more similar in play.
They've been making Gnomes since the TSR days, so clearly this isn't really an issue for them.
You can have that now, only Carrot is statted out as a Human (which makes sense, as that's what he in fact is). The problems come if the system lets you stat him out as a Dwarf and give him Dwarven abilities when in fact he's not a Dwarf at all.
Can't speak for @MoonSong here but for my part the bolded is exactly what I want - that some species naturally trend toward some classes and away from others. If every species can be every class equally well then much of the point of even having different playable species is lost.
I don't have any problem with special snowflake characters, in fact the opposite -just read my tag line!-, but they become a problem for me when they are but a thinly veiled excuse for powergaming, for squeezing every last plus possible out of the system. And the way we are going, races are becoming blander and blander to the point there is like no longer a point to them. If a dwarf isn't meaningfully different from a human, and doesn't have anything strongly culturally understood as dwarfish, the choice between one or the other becomes basically a choice of superpower, and hey I like Legion of Superheroes, but not on my D&D.
