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Jul 30, 2012 -- 7:05AM, diversionArchitect wrote:

What I don't want to see is another thing like 4e's half elf "delitante" that shouldn't have been a racial ability.  a feat maybe, or a class feature, but as a racial it meant that only half elves had that ability which was silly imo.

dilattante is a racial encounter power, on 4e most races have a encounter power exclusive to their race, the exception to it was humans, who can choose an 3rd level 1 atwill from their own class (then they added a option for heroic effort during essentials, because some of those classes don't get at-will powers), dilattante it's using an at-will from another class as encounter, it's a mix of human's extra at-will and a representation of mixed blood on the half elf and the possibility of being raised between 2 diferent cultures.  You like it or not, it make complete sense for them to have it and only them

Imho, mechanics and background should be as much separated as they can be. Which means I'd like to see a character generation system that replaces races by traits - the player himself chooses traits and announces what his character is. If he plays something usual as an elf, he looks in a chapter or book about background, looks up what traits elves have in any case and what traits fit and then add traits accordingly. What is allowed in the long run is DMs decision.
As for abilities, they are not influenced by traits at all.
Two other advantages this has are
1) noone will ever again play a race for the reason that it is best for some class and noone will discard his concept because the race/class combination is just inefficient (like dwarven wizard) which is good since if a player wants to play a combination and everyone at the table agrees, why not?
2) these traits could be accompanied by merits and flaws which are just amiss in D&D. Merits & flaws allow for nice character customization, background and plot device.
3) no system can include all possible exotic choices. Your player wants to play a Satyr? No problem, you don't need to have stats for that in the MHB.

Jul 29, 2012 -- 2:15PM, Darth_Versity wrote:

My problem with half races isn't anything like unbelievability or dislike, its inconsistency. Obviously not every race can be shown in the phb so why are half races in there? And why those two? Why not a half elf/dwarf or orc/halfling race. What makes human/elf, human/orc more important than other races? There's nothing really, its just limiting creativity by insisting they're a race and others are not.

Easy question. What makes them more important is that players want to play one. Look at 4E - gnomes where removed as standard, tieflings included (though I don't get why PHB1 got no half-orcs).
Also humans tend to be the dominating race speaking of numbers and they are nearly everywhere, which means that the probability of a halfbreed being half human is quite high (unlike elf/dwarf)

Jul 29, 2012 -- 8:57PM, Reg06 wrote:

I'm not saying we can't have things that duplicate other things, but there's no need for X when Y already does everything X can do. Half-Orcs were created to give players a big, ugly, brute of a race without being one of those evil orcs. Mechanically, they're filling the same mechanical niche (just like most half-breeds I'm aware of).
Thus, there's no mechanical need for half-breeds. It's not like OD&D when there was a mechanical void for a skilled character who can do lots of non-combat stuff really well, and thus the Rogue was born. Or when 4E lacked a defender tha worked at range and was best when kept mobile, and thus the Swordmage was born.

Mechanics come after background, not counterwise.

 
That's a hilariously terrible point, and you know it. The point is that casting spells is okay, because that's how the world works. But until we're given an explanation for why half-breeds exist when they're separate species (such as, a Wizard did it), the suspension of disbelief is broken (because again, it is easy to accept magic exists because it is magic and we know why our disbelief has been suspended).

 
But you just assume that they are separate species. Gish are basically humans but they look far less human than elves do.
Why does interbreeding destroy the suspension of disbelief? They look like each other, don't they? Your original argument was science. Mythology knows halfbreeds (men lying with Selkies, Kitsune, Gigants... Loki even had a child with a horse!)

 
How are half-orcs created? It's either not mentioned, or it's an extremely uncomfortable scenario that players don't want to deal with.

 
Second one I'd say. I don't know, Song of Ice and Fire included sex and violence. Do we really need to assume that in our gaming world stuff like rape doesn't happen for the sake of some political correctness? You don't have to mention that if you play with children but one a table with adults, what's the deal?

 
What is the flavor for most half-breeds? Woe is me because I look different and people treat me weird is kind of cool, but literally any other race can tell that story.

 
Halfelves are just a niche - something between men and elves. If your elves are pretty much human alike, then you don't need them, yes.
Halforcs are for people who like to play orcs at heart but think of the standard D&D orcs as far too savage and dumb.

Jul 31, 2012 -- 11:42AM, Monsieur_Moustache wrote:

I think the half-orc problem would have been solved since 2nd edition if the PHB has proposed a violent and savage looking race accepted by other player races.

I think that 4e dragonborn mught have been partly an alternative to half-orcs. I feel they night have been a miss.
Orcs are just more iconic and evocative even if someone doesn't play dnd. Even half of an orc would be easier to relate to and make people feel cool than some other race. Imho. Though I wouldn't be averse to giving orcs to pcs and describing the PC orcs as some fairly reasonable tribe unlike the rest.