The PC races is one of thins I love most from the sourcebooks, and I would like to suggest a thread about possible future PC races.
- Celadrins: the 4th eladrins, high elves with eladrin ancestor, planetouched subrace.
- Deva/aasimar: why not, if tienfling are core race they should be in the second player handbook.
- Centaurs, bariuaurs and another quadruped humanoid. They need special traits because they can´t ride, wear boots or climb walls like the biped humanoids.
- Genasi and planetouched. I imagine genasies as humanoids with genie ancestors. I feel curiosity about possible subraces, for example special genasi subrace for Ravenloft (blood, mist, grave and pyre). why not subraces for paraelementals and quasielementals?
- I didn´t like the wildren from Planar Handbook 3.5. Neraph (from same book) weren´t interesting for me.
The melfphlings really were a cool race. I would add to the spiker race some racial traits to retract stickers or they could.... enjoy conceiving children.
- All the monster humanoids should be designed like potential future PC races: goblins, bugbears, githyankis, hobgloblings, kobolds. (gnolls are too wild and stupy to be interesting characters but canon fodder)
- Avariels, the winged elves, are special, because they can fly... we need a way to change the XP rewards if PC have got "superpowers".
- Raptorans, from "Races of the wild" are interesting for me. I missed them in the third ed. But... they need a variant fighter class because to fly they can´t wear medium or heavy armour. They need to be light-armour warriors like hexblade or swashbuckler.
- Minotaurs. ¡PLEASE! the humanoids can´t use hornes for the combat, worse if the enemy is shorter.
- I hate the name "scro" for the spelljammer race.
- the jerren, the evil men-eater halfling could be interesting enemies. They should come back.
- the shardminds were reallly..... exotic. About living contructs... they don´t need air or food... they can be too powerful to travel across deserts or fighting undeads.
- the fraals, the classic little gray men, were a canon AD&D creature, they could be a psionic D&D race.
- The hellseed from Fiendish Codex II... could they be a tienfling subrace?
- The springans are good to be the archenemies of the gnomes.
- I feel the with to link the background of illuminians from "Races of Destiny" and the Truename magic from "Tome of Magic".
- The Sharakim from "Races of Destinty" are a interesting background, but the racial traits are too... how to explain it? Racial traits should be for different classes (warrior, spellcaster, rogue)... if a race is good to be only rogue or spellcaster, it is wrong. Better some racial traits could be replaced with a optional racial feat.
- The mongrefolks have a great potential to be a PC, to be the little ugly duck of the humanoid races.
Your missing the "n" in "non" actually gave this thread a more interesting title than what you wrote suggests.
No Core Races!!
That is a legitimate sentiment. Why should races be divided into "core" and "non-core" with the implication of "If it was a hero in Lord of the Rings, it MUST be included in your world!!"
I mean... what if I feel the Halfling who amounts to nothing more than the unbearably dull concept of "short human" whose racial abilities are just general things that would arise simply from being small and the totally unjustifiable "lucky" ability?
Why should that race be included in every game world? Why should it receive special treatment of being CORE?
You know what? Goblins and Gnomes are more interesting small humanoid options. You got one that is ugly, physical and tends towards mischieviousness and another that is intelligent, magical and tends towards obsessive-compulsive behavior. Those who make for much more interesting characters than simply "short human".
Or what if I feel that I want my game world to be slightly more grounded and I just cannot justify putting a 100+ year old beauty queen whose people live until they are 1000+ years old and have all the best... everything... is functional as a PC race. What if such people of ultimate power and perfection seem like something that ought to be totally relegated to the position of NPCs, either as lords of the world either assigning missions to the PCs or serving as their antagonists? Why should one be forced to include century-old PCs who conveniently don't know a lick more than the 16-year old one as a player option? Just because elves are CORE?
And what if my entire game world involves sailing across the seas and visiting various islands rather than delving into the bowels of the Earth? Well, suddenly the Dwarf doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a player option, do they? They hate boats and their whole gimmick is that they are short people who live inside the earth. They're going to need a major overhaul in the very least to fit into my Asian Pirate-theme campaign world! So I can't use the D&D system for this world without using their Dwarves because they are CORE?
And if that's not what core means, then what does core mean? What's even the point of making such a division if one is encouraged to jettison core races if they don't fit the story they want to tell as easily as they can jettison non-core ones?
But.... again... I don't think that was the discussion you meant to start with this thread.
I've decided to be proactive and throw down the challenge to WotC to design some races better than I can before they finalize the Monster Manual.
I've already created the Orcs
http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threads/4107696
and the Goblins
http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threads/4109286
Before next Monday, I'll have the Hobgoblins up for review. Any other races will be up to others.
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Our homebrews are defined as much by what's not included as what is.
Our 4e homebrew for instance, makes a nod to the *re-imagined* races of that game (so, no classic dwarves, elves, or halflings).
Our D&D Essentials homebrew was just the opposite; that is, no dragonborn or tieflings (just dwarves, eladrin, elves, and halflings --and humans). It was a tip o' the hat to old-school D&D. Oh, and we played corrupt/evil city guards 
.
Our v3.5 homebrew narrowed the field a bit (by removing half-elves and halflings) but introduced muls (as a replacement for half-elves).
Available Races: Human, Dray, Tiefling, Deva, Shifter, Minotaur, Wilden, Genasi, Changeling
Unavailable Races: Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-elf, Halfling, Gnome, Goliath, Half-orc, Githzerai, Shardmind, Drow, Kalashtar, Warforged
Available Classes: Any
The Shield (DDE)
Available Races: Human, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Halfling; (supplemental) Drow, Half-elf, Half-orc, Hobgoblin
Unavailable Races: Dragonborn, Tiefling
Core Classes: Warpriest (Cleric), Knight, Slayer (Fighter), Thief (Rogue), Mage (Wizard)
Expanded Classes (supplemental): Executioner (Assassin), Sentinel (Druid), Cavalier (Paladin) (Unaligned only), Hunter, Scout (Ranger)
Unavailable Classes: Hexblade (Warlock)
Knights of Everest (v3.5)
Available Races: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Half-orc, Mul
Unavailable Races: Gnome, Half-elf, Halfling
Core Classes: Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Rogue, Sorcerer
Prestige Classes (optional): As DMG plus Prestige Bard, Paladin, and Ranger
Expanded Classes (supplemental): Hexblade, Knight, Scout, Spirit Shaman, Swashbuckler, Warlock
Unavailable Classes: Monk, Wizard
Artifact wrote:
I never went in that much detail. Muls and half-orcs were described as 'dual-heritage' races; my way of glossing over the messy details. Players decided for themselves if they wanted to go into more detail.
I picked up on the term 'dual-heritage race' sometime in 4e (from one of the designers I believe). Haven't been able to find a referrence to it since however. It serves my purposes .
Edit: To answer the question, why half-dwarves but no half-elves? There was the possibility of 'half-elves' in the setting but they would have been PC only (one of a kind). The player would choose whether to be fully human or elf but with a 'half-elf' backround. No one ever asked to play a half-elf though . Elves were outsiders in the setting (not the game term, a story term); no half-elves (the race) was just a way to highlight the story.
Thanks for your participation.
For me the core races are the showed in the player´s handbook.
When I create my campaing, I choose what races are common. If I want there are gnomes and shardmins in Dark Suns and orcs and drows in Dragonlance, warforged and shadar-kais in Ravenloft.
* The half-dwarfs are the mul from Dark Sun, with the elfings...
* I wish a goblin subrace to be a steampunk civiliation and the archnemesis of tinker gnomes.
* I would like the option of a subrace with goblinoid subtype for orcs and kobolds
* I miss the races from Oriental Adventures. I would like some clever subraces for bakemono and tasloi. Why? and what if I want to create a D&D of rise of planet of apes?
I think that core just means you assume it's there unless your DM let's you know. So if you were planning a character for a campaign someone was running you could assume reasonably that elves or dwarves wwere allowed unless the DM has let you know otherwise. Non-core means you should ask the DM whether said raise exists in his campaign. Basically no assumption is made about a non-core race.
I am a big advocate of a lengthy invitation to a game. Include all houserules, races, classes. and world intro that the DM feels is necessary for the group to get started. So it's kind of a moot point.
I believe they think right or wrong that the core races are the ones most likely to appear across many campaigns. That though does not mean they appear in every campaign or even frequently in some DMs campaigns. It's just a social convention.
I assume at least the new DMG will point out that it's the campaign setting and/or DM that has final say as to what PC races and classes are allowed. Another thing that should be made apparent, especially to new players, is that 'race' is a set of mechanics and fluff that can be separated. ie: you could homebrew a setting where everyone is a 'human' but still use various D&D races' mechanics to represent different cultures or ethnicities of human.
I don't like the 'core' assumption either. I am glad the 5e PHB isn't 100% tolkien like the Starter Set.
What I really dislike is some of the race flavor text. Statements like "Dwarves tend to be lawful good" or "Drow tend to be evil and they worship Lolth" stunt creativity, and perpetuate dumb/outdated fantasy stereotypes. It seems 5e is still doing at least some of that.
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
Personally, I'd be happy if none of my players ever requested to play any of those races. I certainly don't want em as PCs.
The problem I find, is that when some players are creating their special snowflake character, they want to use the race oddity part as their "uniqueness".
Personally, I think that 5 players could all decide to play middle aged male humans, and still come up with 5 wildly different characters (by which I mean personalities, traits, backgrounds, etc.)
Create a CHARACTER first. A person with a unique background, friends, family, enemies. That should be the focus of the snowflake part, not the "isn't it weird that I'm a genasai?"
Why any players want a PC race what isn´t in the player handbook? Because playing monsters is fun as a Halloween costume or because only the "classic" races is too boring.
And about background of a PC.... don´t make a great effort if you PC will die the next month because the rogue didn´t find the hidden trap.
When I saw the blue, the goblin subrace from 3.5 psionic handbook, I wanted to create a blue PC who was in the tribe like a nerd in the high school, a potential master Joda, but the racial traits for blue weren´t right for a PC race. What a pity.
* I would like the return of half-ogre.
* For me the shadar-kais are "cousins" of elves, drows and "celadrins" (planetouched race), and the oriental shens are too cousins of the elves.
* The nezumi from Oriental Adventures were "Legend of Five Rings" copyright, weren´t it? Can WotC create a rat-like humanoid race, or to get races from Gamma World, Star*Drive and Star Frontier? For example the hoops from Gamma World,the hummas from Star Frontiers
* My own version of warforged for Ravenloft is special. Some vampires use "Iron Maidens" (a fake in the real life, they never were used in the dark age) to get blood from prisoners. The evolution of Iron Maiden was from the coffin to be a armour, or powered exosuit. These warforged wouldn´t be like ones of Eberron, but more a gothic fantasy version of Rococop, a evolution of half-golems, living constructs, not undeads... living armours with a almost-dead humanoid body within. How to explain better? Like the bid daddies and big sisters from Bioshock game.
* My own version of Gith from Dark Sun use opposable dumbs.. really the three fingers are opposables.
Luis_Carlos wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
Mecheon wrote: