D&D General What it means for a race to end up in the PHB, its has huge significance

[Dannyalcatraz]

What do you think is the effect of a race getting added to the PHB?

IME, the most significant thing about races, classes or whatever being included in a D&D core 3 book is that it makes it less likely that a DM will completely excise it from their table/campaign.

 

[Horwath]

I believe they're referring to their PC representation. Which, yes, objectively dragonborn have exploded in popularity since the days of mid-3.5e, when they were an obscure racial template (or, rather, a pair thereof, one for Bahamut and the other for Tiamat.)

Personally, I have not seen 1 dragonborn PC in 10 years of 5E, but I did play draconic creature template(halfling) in 3.5e.

Problem IMHO with dragornborn in 5E is that they are too un-human like, you really cannot disguise yourself if you want to blend into humans.

2nd, before Fizbans, their racial trait completely sucked, now they just partially suck, but some very good combos can be made.

 

[Hussar]

IIRC Dragon Heist has at least one dragonborn (in the winter track).

Hoard may not have tieflings or dragonborn, but it does have severa half-dragons, and Rise of Tiamat has tieflings.

Half dragons are not dragonborn. Particularly not in Forgotten Realms. They are very different things. I must have missed the tieflings in Rise. I was a player, to be honest, so, it's entirely possible that I missed.

But, I think my point does stand though. While among players, both Tieflings and Dragonborn are very popular, as far as having much impact on the settings or the adventures, they are very, very rare.

 

[Hussar]

Personally, I have not seen 1 dragonborn PC in 10 years of 5E, but I did play draconic creature template(halfling) in 3.5e.

Problem IMHO with dragornborn in 5E is that they are too un-human like, you really cannot disguise yourself if you want to blend into humans.

2nd, before Fizbans, their racial trait completely sucked, now they just partially suck, but some very good combos can be made.

There is a danger is presuming experience is universal. I've had multiple dragonborn at my table over the years.

But, the point is, if you look at the actual representation statistics in things like D&D Beyond and whatnot, Dragonborn are one of the most popular races out there. If you haven't had them at your table, it's more likely you're simply an outlier to the statistics than the statistics are totally wrong.

 

[Horwath]

There is a danger is presuming experience is universal. I've had multiple dragonborn at my table over the years.

But, the point is, if you look at the actual representation statistics in things like D&D Beyond and whatnot, Dragonborn are one of the most popular races out there. If you haven't had them at your table, it's more likely you're simply an outlier to the statistics than the statistics are totally wrong.

Ofc, I can only present my personal experience with various groups.

But, I would not trust DDB for stats, how many of those characters are really played and how many are just created as concepts?

I have created several dragonborn PCs in PDF, but all lost in competition of what to play next.

 

[GrimCo]

Picking race and racial features is one of the very few choices for mechanical character customisation. Not so small amount picked race based on features and ability score boosts needed for some concept. After TCoE introduced custom lineage, most races became just flavour choice outside very niche builds.

If they include custom lineage as a PHB option, i see that as a very popular option. That one would be true game changer.

And dragonborns in phb are garbagio, ones from fitzbans are slightly less (floating asi). I mean seriously, no darkvision? 3.5 had template half dragon which was damn good with all the goodies it gave you on top of base race. Dragonborns are Hlaf Dragons from Wish.

 

[Horwath]

And dragonborns in phb are garbagio, ones from fitzbans are slightly less (floating asi). I mean seriously, no darkvision? 3.5 had template half dragon which was damn good with all the goodies it gave you on top of base race. Dragonborns are Hlaf Dragons from Wish.

you had to pay for it with +1 LA.
It's was a very steep cost, especially for a caster.

 

[pukunui]

Ofc, I can only present my personal experience with various groups.

But, I would not trust DDB for stats, how many of those characters are really played and how many are just created as concepts?

I have created several dragonborn PCs in PDF, but all lost in competition of what to play next.

They can filter out the concept characters. I believe they can track which characters are used by seeing which ones have taken short / long rests, been leveled up, etc.

 

[Hussar]

Ofc, I can only present my personal experience with various groups.

But, I would not trust DDB for stats, how many of those characters are really played and how many are just created as concepts?

I have created several dragonborn PCs in PDF, but all lost in competition of what to play next.

This has been asked and answered many, many times.

They can filter for this. How often is the sheet updated over a period of time is a pretty easy way to see if it's a real character or not.

And, never minding that, every single other source - such as online polling - matches up with this. And it's matched up over time as well - it's not like Dragonborn suddenly became popular for a month and vanished again. They've consistently scored high every single time.

I would trust DDB for stats far more than one person's individual experience.

I mean, hell, I barely see halflings played. I guess that means that no one plays halflings right? Same as gnomes?

 

[Clint_L]

You said species doesn't really matter much anymore. The premise of the thread is inclusion of a race in the PHB has huge significance.

Well, first off the thread is rather willfully ignoring the fact that "race" is being discarded as a term for reasons that have been carefully explained by WotC. So there will be no races in the PHB ever again. "Half-races" are even more problematic, and are also gone.

So I'm not going to discuss the inclusion of "races." Since there won't be any.

Species are being intentionally downplayed in terms of their impact on character abilities. They no longer affect ability scores or skills, and are mostly there for aesthetic reasons, narrative reasons, and some biological differences (e.g. darkvision, stone's endurance, etc.). I imagine that we'll see more players choosing non-traditional species+class combinations, since they won't be nearly as incentivized to seek out optimal ones. I particularly expect that we'll see far fewer mountain dwarves.

Hybrid species can be whatever the player wants, but given that they are not being delineated as offering any unique abilities, they will only be chosen by players who have a particular aesthetic or narrative reason. So there'll likely be fewer of them.