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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 1:05AM
#1
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So, I should admit first that I have the most experience with 2nd edition and 3.0/3.5, and that my usual gaming group only picked up 4th edition once for a campaign we aborted after about three games as nobody liked it, so specific statements on 4th edition are coming from a place of relative ignorance.
But it seems to me that having two separate races for elves based, near as I can tell, on how closely they individually resemble Tolkien's elves is pretty redundant, particularly when gnomes have been essentially turned into a third, Keebler-esque variety. Add half-elves into the mix and it seems like a good half of the races in 4th edition are the same thing.
Earlier editions didn't exactly skip this, what with drow elves, wood elves, sun elves, moon elves, winged elves, aquatic elves, wild elves, gray elves, rock elves, etc, but at least they weren't all presented as playable races in the player's handbook. I'm not saying they shouldn't exist, anymore than the dozens (hundreds?) of variant human races shouldn't exist, just that they shouldn't be half of the list of core races. At least, not unless they're also going to start listing mountain dwarves, hill dwarves, deep dwarves, stone dwarves, gold dwarves, etc.
Also, regarding half-orcs... why not just let people play orcs? They're iconic enough as brutal and savage, they don't have to all be evil all the time. Having an entire playable race of only-half-orcs that basically have all the traits of orcs just seems odd, particularly given how they seem to outnumber their parent race, as virtually every party has one (at least in all the 3rd edition games I've played). Orcs can still go on raids and be bad guys just like human bandits can... just desegregate and let 'em play already.
It's time to set aside old hatreds and let the mighty Orc into our hearts and into our parties, friends.
*
... Also, I don't much like the new kids in the core races, the dragonborn and the tieflings. Not because the races are bad, mind, just because half-dragon and half-demon seem oddly specific to include in the core races when there are so many other cool half-somethingorother that don't make the cut. Why tieflings and not aasimar? Why dragonborn and not raptorans? Why specific half-monsters anyway? And if that's the way we're going, where my Loxo at?
Long story short; My proposal for core races would be Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Gnomes, which I think could be merged with halflings fairly easily. And then half-breeds between the core races as desired. That way you'd have your archetypal bases covered: the regular guy, the durable underground guy, the skinny nature connection fey guy, the big scary bestial guy, and the cute little sneaky guy. Half-elves for angst. And then dozens and dozens of imaginative and bizarre races like dragon people and demon people and golem people and bird people and shapechanger people and whatever one's heart could desire in the expansions.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 2:28AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2012
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I think the reason for avoiding the full orc as a player race, is the power level issue. If you power them down, you get...a half orc. I think the core races of 3e were fine. Except. 1/2 elves became pointless very little of the advantage of being an elf, none of the advantage of being human. I say this after years of watching people build characters and seeing them never choose a 1/2 elf without it being their plan to do something a little less obvious like the 1/2 orc bard.
As for merging gnomes and 1/2lings, they fill different niches with the different ability modifiers even if you ignore everything else. Plus, I kind of like both halflings and gnomes as they are...were.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 10:38AM
#3
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I've been thinking lately that I would like to see two sets of playable races in 5e phb1. You have: Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings (keep gnomes and halflings separate). Then also include: Orcs, Lizardfolks, Goblins, Kolbolds, minotaurs, and Gnolls. Then its up to the DM whether to mix the races in a campaign or make a more primal or standard campaign.
This all stems from the idea I have about running a campaign where Humans are conquering a land mass and deciding to eliminate all races they deem "monstrous"
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 2:00PM
#4
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I think they should combine the elves, and their different colors and temperments being fluff and not crunch.
I would love for them to replace Half-Orc with just Orc. The power level issue is a relative one that can be different for 5th edition.
Not a fan of Half-anythings.
If the other races are so "well defined", why not define Humans more? Either open up all the races to be cave dwelling primitives to cloud city elitists, or pick a niche for Humans and hedge them up as well.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 2:45PM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2009
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I'm not a fan of the word "races", and as i wrote in other thread about divine/arcane division in prayers/spells (and it's differences), i primarily focus on keeping in-character expressions outside of character.
I think races it's completely misused and, of course, my complain is utterly nonsense as "everybody" understand that's not really refering to races... or is it?
Humans and elves are two different SPECIES, but both are in the same GENDER (they may breed in order to obtain a hybrid). That's systematics, of course; but i'm pretty sure no human or elf refers to his/her kind as a "race".
So, even it's an absurd complain and will never get any echo. Not here in the forums, not even in the community least... in the PHB. But i would go as far to use: "CORE SPECIES" as a separate chapter from "CORE SPECIES hybridation" and "RACES related to core species".
Humans, elves and dwarves has been core species since the beginning. Half-elf has been a core species hybrid almost from a very close time than that. Mul (Half-dwarf) is another core species hybrid that appeared in 2E Darksun.
Furthermore, races related to core species are also there from almost the origin. High/Sylvan/Green/Aquatic races of elves, Mountain/Hills races of dwarves. Some races had optional traits that sometimes create an entire different culture than other races of the same species.
Of course it'll be a lot of waste of detail nobody will ever use (except me... has anybody ever used Vast tome of knowledge? It's a huge program compendium in DOS format of many species/races and unusual spells/prayers), but as we are (supposedly) in Story, fluff and such subforum... it might be of some interest (a 0,01%) i guess.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 3:36PM
#6
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I think the reason for avoiding the full orc as a player race, is the power level issue. If you power them down, you get...a half orc.
...
As for merging gnomes and 1/2lings, they fill different niches with the different ability modifiers even if you ignore everything else. Plus, I kind of like both halflings and gnomes as they are...were.
I fully agree with what you're saying about orcs vs. half-orcs, but that's kind of my whole point. Why not just call half-orcs orcs, and say orcs get a +2 to strength instead of a +4. None of the NPC orcs in the monster manual (at least not until MM4) take advantage of it anyway, at least not in 2nd or 3rd edition, with the average NPC orc having physical attributes within normal human ranges anyway. Simply re-naming half-orcs "orcs" would change the mechanics of them not at all.
Yeah, I like both halflings and gnomes as they were, too, but gnomes have always seemed a little redundant. In 3rd edition they were kind of scaled down dwarves, in 4th edition they appear to be scaled down elves. Meanwhile, the halflings have lost more and more of their individual flavor, becoming, at least in 3rd edition, just small elves with a knack for survival. I'd propose dropping halflings rather than gnomes, though, simply because gnomes seem like a more iconic fantasy creature than halflings, which have been getting farther and farther away from their original purpose as ersatz Hobbits since 2nd edition anyway.
Of course, the driving principle behind that particular change is just that fewer core races seems more streamlined, which I assume was the reasoning behind removing gnomes from the core races in 4th. I would have few objections to leaving halflings in, either. I would like to see them get their hairy feet and pudge back, though. These just-little-elves guys seem to miss the point.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 3:58PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2010
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I do believe that the Tieflings and the Dragonborn have a place - but take the Tieflings back to what they were - any evil outsider blood, rather than just Devils. In this case, Aasimar would also be a good edition to the core handbook - just as an opposite to the Tieflings.
The way I see it, it is important to have a wide variety of choice - and those two specifically, the Tieflings and the Aasimar cover a lot of ground in characters.
This said, I also like having the Eladrin and Elves as separate races - or perhaps High Elves and Wood Elves. They really highlighted two different styles of elf from fantasy, which means that the elves don't have to be amazing spellcasters and bowmen.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 15, 2012 - 4:26PM
#8
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I think the reason for avoiding the full orc as a player race, is the power level issue. If you power them down, you get...a half orc.
...
As for merging gnomes and 1/2lings, they fill different niches with the different ability modifiers even if you ignore everything else. Plus, I kind of like both halflings and gnomes as they are...were.
Yeah, I like both halflings and gnomes as they were, too, but gnomes have always seemed a little redundant. In 3rd edition they were kind of scaled down dwarves, in 4th edition they appear to be scaled down elves. Meanwhile, the halflings have lost more and more of their individual flavor, becoming, at least in 3rd edition, just small elves with a knack for survival. I'd propose dropping halflings rather than gnomes, though, simply because gnomes seem like a more iconic fantasy creature than halflings, which have been getting farther and farther away from their original purpose as ersatz Hobbits since 2nd edition anyway.
Of course, the driving principle behind that particular change is just that fewer core races seems more streamlined, which I assume was the reasoning behind removing gnomes from the core races in 4th. I would have few objections to leaving halflings in, either. I would like to see them get their hairy feet and pudge back, though. These just-little-elves guys seem to miss the point.
I like the 3rd edition gnome, I just think they had bogus stats. The lore made it seem like gnomes were Moradin's second creation and they were to be intelligent, charasmatic and dextrous in order to balance the strong, hardy, and wise dwarfs. So I think they should bring back the 3rd edition style gnome but give them intelligence/cha/and or dex bonuses.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 19, 2012 - 9:09AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2012
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I agree that 3e got gnomes a little wrong and intel would have, not only fit most people's idea of gnomes better, but added a more useful option to the base races. I always kind of thought Charisma suited elves better than dex too, but that's probably just me. I prefer the planetouched as level adjusted anomalies rather than a base race. If the player wants to sacrifice a little for the sake of better stats and the cool factor that's fine with be, but for some reason the idea of every PC being the great grandson of an extraplanar being seems a little...silly.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 19, 2012 - 10:10PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2011
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Full orcs? Yeah that'd be great
while we're at it, boot out half elves.
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