Top 5 Most BANNED Races In D&D 

Well let me run this by you. Warlock/Sorcerer. Pact of the Tome. Aspect of the Moon Invocation. You can use a bonus action to turn sorcery points into spell slots. These spell slots last until you finish a long rest. So convert your sorcery points into spell slots. Then turn your sorcerer spell slots into sorcery points and then into spell slots. Do the same with your warlock spell slots. Take a short rest and recover your warlock spell slots. Convert again. Rinse and repeat. So, while everyone else is taking a long rest, you can take 8 short rests and end up with about 20 temporary spell slots. The next time everyone rests, you can repeat. Effectively, unlimited spell slots.

It's called a coffelock

@@theiran Now, do this as a warforged

@@Reece8u not every Dm allows warforged.

@@theiran Any experienced DM will not allow you to melt your warlock slots down for sorcery points. If you are taking advantage of an inexperienced DM to get this past them, shame on you.

Our DM hated that I had a magic item that would let me fly and eventually let it aggravate him to the point he started trying to hide info from the players that would be very obvious to the characters and it broke up the game when this happened: “On the other side of the door there seems to be some sort of wizard’s laboratory. There are stacks of notes and half potions strewn over a large workbench that circles half the room with the walls near the door you just came through covered in bookshelves packed with ancient tomes. As you step in the skittering figures of three homunculi turn toward you. Roll initiative.” Player 1(me): “Ok how high is the ceiling?” DM: “You don’t know.” Me: “Our half orc cleric isn’t doing math. I’m asking if there’s room to fly in here. Is the ceiling high or low?” DM: “You don’t know.” Other player: “are we blinded, is it dark? You just described the room I think he knows what size it is.” DM(Pissed now): “you fly to the ceiling hit your head and take (rolls) eleven damage.” Me: “I didn’t even declare an action, dude.” And like that we all got up and ended the game forever.

@@ConernicusRex holy fuck that's so cheap and poorly executed from the DM xD

@@micham6753 The ironically funny part? The DM is the one that made that item be available. He was annoyed by a magic item he himself allowed the player to obtain. Like I can get maybe he didn't understand how strong flight was, but even then he should have manned up and accepted that this situation was on him in the first place.

Lol why is this just a nice thing to think about, like yes you can play any flying race, except the ceiling is always 10ft tall and it's an underground adventure campaign 😂

Aarakocras meet fire.. lol but yeah ban them

Mine is a cleric. 😂

Def make better Rangers (or Rogues.) If you really want to take advantage of flight, you want the 600' longbow range to be able to take on anything. All you need is a high enough ceiling!

Warlocks can get 900' with eldritch spear

Mine is a fighter gunslinger, she's amazing and dm has been really creative with stopping her from flying. Annoyingly 🤣🤣

The one Aarakocra I made was a Bard/ Ranger. Very useful for a character whose main weapon was a blowgun. The main focus was on bard though, because I could just imagine a D&D version of one of Disney's 3 Amigos.

deeeeefinitely not a DM here, but can you say some of these reasons? I like everything making sense in my campaigns.

@@Dave90423 we'll just like with real world no fly zones for security reasons, and to prevent flying individuals from being able to enter locations without permission, just like with real world travel.

@@seleinathescorpio ah, thank you!

@@seleinathescorpio and sorry, that felt obvious now.

@@Dave90423 lol it's ok, to be fair the security and no fly zone rules in rl don't take an individual being able to fly themselves into account lol

Flying races are fun killers, if there is a PC without flying with them in the team it suffers a lot, I am not saying that they are impossible to handle, but that the melee Figther of the team will have a hard time against hordes of archers, flying enemies and CC.

I play a warforged forge domain cleric, and i took a feat to get the druid spell good berry. Im made out of white oak and Ivory, by an elf who was in love with a dragon. Rar.

@@GhizTheKobold yeah my dm nerfs my owlfolk and they aren't even op like aasimir or that bird orokora I can't spell. But I don't abuse flying even when I was an aasirmir life cleric I barely flew unless I failed a str check

@@BURRDAWG_ I do not limit aasimars, I find that the little flight they have is more acceptable. Personally I prefer to ban rather than limit, I find limitations more frustrating than a simple no ...

@@GhizTheKobold yes. I like that alot. I think my dm doesn't ban cause he doesn't want to ruin the RP. Idk tho

Another option could be some sort of animated armor

People who complain with them being to high tech have not looked at the monster manual...

Aren't they mostly wood already

There are dms that don't allow it. So is not that easy. Some people are really difficult to give visual tricks even if they don't change a lot the lore

Also as animated trees etc. literally says in their info that they dont have to be made out of metal. Hell it could be a warforged made from planks of a ship that got brought to life by a necromancer druid

Ah yes when you think you're going to die in a little under 2 decades, but end up with almost 200 years Must say that guy should come back as a NPC in your next campaign

Sweet! Sounds like such a cool character!

But their walking went up, I prefered their original movement

@@lukeplays9209 Same. This new version doesn't fly with me.

@@SS4Xani lol underrated comment.

@@SS4Xani Based.

@@SS4Xani you can always consult with DM to figure out what fly speed and walk speed are ok, if they say yeah 30 fly and 25 land is ok to them then so be it, 30/30 is bit much but its better than 50/25

Well, yeah, but it's an RP thing. If the DM forgets to enforce it, then there's no mechanical drawback there. Personally I'd create some custom rules for how claustrophobia works, like upon going inside a confined, windowless space make a wisdom save (with DC varying based on the environment - easy in spacious halls and caverns, medium to difficult in dungeons, impossible in a winding cave system) and on a fail you have disadvantage on attacks and saving throws until a short rest or something like that. That would enforce the claustrophobia mechanically, making it impossible to just set aside the moment the fight breaks out.

Welp, my Aarcrokra druid is in a campaign in the Underdark so....im just gonna not do anything!

That WAS a mechanical Drawback in earlier editions. It was the same for Avariel (Winged Elves). In 5e, However, this mechanic has not been applied to either 'species' as a mechanical drawback. So, unless a DM wants to make it a House restriction, it's not normally an issue.

As a dm i enforce that with semi-arbitrary will/wisdom checks and saving throws

They need a certain amount of space to actually use their flight, so low ceilings and thick woods means they're now just a giant chicken.

Yup, read that and shook my head.

I actually didn't know that they had that as a playable race now. It's kinda Kool. I think that I might try a Satyr ranger/bard multi class

Lore wise they aren't "immune" to the charm effect. It just doesn't do what it should. Basically if you're a woman, the Satyr just becomes *even more* horny for you If you're a guy they decide to beat you up for dominance reasons, cause that's just the way of the goat bro.

@@--Cat-- I didn't say they were immune to charm effect. I said they were immune to spells reserved to humanoids. Charm Monster still works as usual.

@@bouboulroz I was just dropping some lore knowledge my dude. I just thought it was a funny thing that charm *works* just in the exact opposite way it should. That includes charm monster. Goat bros are just either trying to sleep with you, or kick your ass then have a pint with you. There are no in-betweens. I just wanted to share that. 😔.

Now this, this puts a smile on my face

Yay! Good Yuan-ti

It would certainly explain why your Yuan Ti Pureblood is away from all the other Yuan Ti it grew up with.

@@mikeunderwood734yes of course, you don't get something away of common lore without working for it in your character backstory

If it is an official race it is therefore allowed in my game as well. I don't like when DMs ban too many things. The whole idea of D&D is to be diverse and have fun with what you have or are dealing with. In Monsters of the Multiverse Yuan-Ti got nerfed. I think the nerf was justified. Magic resistance to all things magical and immunity to poison (including the condition) at any level without magic items or spells as a passive ability is pretty broken. In Monsters of the Multiverse their magic resistance is now spell resistance and poison immunity is now poison resistance (advantage on saves against poison) which to me is a very fair trade. Still powerful but not broken. Just because your race is mostly evil doesn't mean you are evil. I like the idea of defying that nature and stereotype. It makes for excellent role playing. I think the custom origin of Tasha's is a fantastic way to bring that out. Having an half-orc raised among scholars and being book smart is a more interesting story to tell. I think the reason a lot of DMs ban custom origins is because they fear many players will abuse this feature and min/max like crazy. I can understand custom lineage being banned because having a free feat and darkvision is very strong. The idea of custom lineage is to allow a player or DM to officially homebrew a race without it being homebrew. It allows creative players to really have fun and feel unique. I have never met a DM who banned variant human. Variant human is good but it has its limitations (you are human after all). You naturally don't have darkvision, you need to rest full 8 hours, no resistances, or any other racial perks. As for Aarakocras I don't find them overpowered. Yes flight is powerful and helpful but it is not everything. It also depends on the environment you are in. Aarakocras don't have darkvision so that is something DMs can use to their advantage. Also flight comes at its own risks. If you get knocked to 0 hit points depending how high you are flying you could fail a death saving throw on top of the ones you need to roll. If you are subjected to wind effects such as a dragons beating wings then as a DM I would make you roll at disadvantage since you have nothing grounding you.

Villain campaign, party is hunting dragons (flying ranged enemy with good magic and physical mix). Aracokra is fighting because dragons took over their ancestral lands, yuan ti is after the glory and materials, the construct was sent by a wizard to gather reagents, sayter is here because the dragons are burning down the Forrest and the variant human is pulling a Leroy Jenkins here.

We have 2 of these races and 1 with the "choose +2 +1 or three +1s" and we have no issues finding ways to almost die, the variety is quite fun

I only play races banned from Adventurer's League. Git gud Adventure League scrub DM plebs.

Now I'm getting whiffs of a "Nanny" Warforged character. A guide who ushers people through dangerous survival landscapes precisely because they're so well-suited to it.

Completely agree, I don't see the argument of banning them in survival games because the point is that the whole party survives.

Could play with the extreme cold making the limbs and specifically the joints on warforged to seize up. Ice and snow building up where all their joints are connected to one another. Doesn't say a single thing in their description that they're immune to things as extreme cold.

That is actually a really cool idea, I can imagine the face of the warforged player when you tell him his shoulder joint is slowly rusting shut, and he won't be able to use one of his arms, or any other scenario of that kind. I'm absolutely giving my DM this idea lol

I think that my favorite character was my Warforged Druid/Ranger that would shapeshift run ahead then stealth back in robotic ranger form.

That is how you are supposed to deal with overpowered races for sure. The best players are those who know when a character needs to be changed, either because they are overpowered or underpowered in some critical way. A good-sounding character in one's head does not always work in practice. The downside, however, is that some groups will not forgive a player that intentionally nerfs a character when the nerf ensures everyone suffers. Sounds like you managed to avoid that by getting the good rolls that saved the day even when your refusal to fly would have solved everything much easier. Kudos!

Silverbolt from G1 Transformers was a jet with fear of heights. I always thought that was awesome. Your DnD character is awesome in the same way!

How did your DM handle the flight abillity when your character got over his fear enough to fly during none strong winds etc. or in caves?

@@BrotherHood-xh9sg sounds like they didn't. People don't just stop being afraid of things

@@mothichorror446 weird, cause yeah they basically do. I had a character who was terrified of the ocean. But in time he trusted his friends enough to sail over it. And eventually his sevond best friend was drowning, so as the healer of the group, he had to go in. This stuff is called character development mate. Fearless is feeling the fear, yet do it anyway.

Funnily enough, I built an aarokocra without realizing the life expectancy and put his age at 27. Once I realized the age thing, i ended up making him a crotchety old man who's adventuring to pad out his pension plan and to find the perfect retirement home on the way. it was the most fun I've had in a while

@@burningcole2538lol!

That is actually a really good idea. I would have had the player pick either Single Target spells or AoE spells to have advantage on but your's allows options which I like better

They're hilariously useful for the same reason in several adventures in DDO...so many water puzzles that are trivialized by having a warforged in the party

I feel like its also ignores the part where is says that warforged doesnt have to be made from metal. It can be a wooden warforged made by a druid, maybe its a tree brought to life and instead of eatong or sleeping it needs water once a week and sunlight etc

Robots don't have souls.

Haah! great points Galaxy

@@Ston247 In D&D some do.

and winged tieflings

I'm a owlfolk rn. And my dm hates it

those problems can be made more difficult by following the prejustic people have against rare exotic and monstrous races. A angry mob stands before the inn the party sleeps in. "HANG THE DEVIL AND THE BIRD, HANG THE DEVIL AND THE BIRD, HANG THE DEVIL AND THE BIRD!!! they sing.

You can homebrew it like, when target is flying, every range attack have advantage against him. Or, when you end your turn in mid air, you must make dex save on the start of your next turn, to maintain balance, otherwise you will fall. Something like that. Feel free to think about it.

@@boku-bokuchagama6157 Or ignore the flyers entirely and hit the squishies with their share of the attacks as well. If they are not their to soak up some of the damage, the rest of the party needs to do it.

I was about to comment this as well

Just checked, looks like a grammar issue.

Per the Changeling page from Eberron: Rising from the Last War: "Your Charisma score increases by 2. In addition, one other ability score of your choice increases by 1." Per the new changeling from Mordenkainen Multiverse: "When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1." In both cases, RAW indicates any OTHER stat, not ANY stat.

@@Metrion77 Looking it up and the Rising From the Last War was errataed and originally did allow stacking CHA. It was given an errata due to Tasha's and I had only read the pre-Tasha's version.

@@ratoh1710 Like I mentioned, looks like a grammar issue at the time.

Love that too :D

my pride and joy of my deck. not to my friends though...shame

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed

Satyr are actually better anti-casters because they count as fey instead of humanoid for spell targeting, which means they're immune to Hold Person and the like! If you wanna be the ultimate anti-caster go Satyr Oath of the Ancients Paladin 8 (Feats: Resilient CON, Warcaster), College of Lore Bard 10 (Both ASI: +2 CHA; 6th Level Magical Secrets: Counterspell, Blinding Smite; 10th Level Magical Secrets: Circle of Power, Find Greater Steed), Hexblade Warlock 2 (Invocations: Eldritch Sight, Devil's Sight).

@@clarioneversole9013 I will use this idea one day.

Just watch out for protection from evil and good, magic circle, forbiddance and planar binding.

Fun fact, before I knew anything about DnD, the absolute first character I imagined was a Satyr Paladin (that really hated music). It's also one of the first character I created on DnDBeyond (and I chose Oath of the Ancient cause it was thematic). I never played him in a real DnD Game so I only just now realize it's an absolutely broken combo lol.

Add in 2 levels of Hexblade Warlock and you can attack with CHA, have 2 short rest spell slots for extra smites, get the best ranged spell attack in the game (circumventing the paladin's weakness to deal ranged damage) and 2 invocations of your choice to further customise your middle finger towards enemy spellcasters.

Also when in the air -2 dex as you can't turn that fast

@@connormcgehee9349 what? bro, have you ever seen a bird fly?

@@curioussavagery802 some birds are extremely agile in the air. But as a general rule the larger the bird the slower they can change directions. Aaracocra are human sized so a -2 to dex while In the air is good in my opinion

@@connormcgehee9349 you know even the largest birds can turn very quickly right? it simply doesn't make sense lmao. it'd make more sense to have detriments based on the weather. is the weather going colder? can't fly as well, takes a lot of stamina. is there a warm front with updrafts? congrats, you can fly longer easier. otherwise, start giving them exhaustion if they fly too long.

@@curioussavagery802 whatever you say man.

Imagine them being Monks and Rogues. The DM would want to die, probably

Absolute nightmare fuel for any DM

A campaign with flying ships, and all aarakocra, would be great!

@@GhizTheKobold I mean sure, it does sound great. But personally, I think three dimensional combat will be a pain to handle...

@@dudelsackonator4494 oh, yes

When did they do that, they'd removed the EEPC from it (along with the SCAG) from character creation. The Aarokocra and Gensasi were only there for Faerun stuff...can't remember if Deep Gnomes were elsewhere as a race though. Still glad that older characters are available for things, so my Aasimaar Crown Paladin is legal...since Crown Paladins are SCAG

I think the reason Adventurer's League is unbanning it is now there are several races and classes with base flight, meaning you'd have to ban so much for something that could be easily countered with a "the cave isn't tall enough for that" or just... discussing things

@@AzraelThanatos Deep Gnomes are reprinted in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

@@LdyVder Then SCAG still has the Ghostwise Halfling which is fun to play with for being a spooky character. Telepathy for the win there

I remember there was a rule where if you DM'ed a certain module, usually at events, you got a credit to make an arrakokra character in AL. They got rid of that now did they? Interesting... Now lets see if they let us play Plasmoid xD.

Honestly that's all it is, the people who hate it severely are the same people who get angry at other people for "not acting there race." They don't understand experiences shape us as much or more then bloodline!

The custom origin on a war forged however makes sense as they were made to preform a specific task so a war forged with a custom origin makes perfect sense

Its unbalanced , bad for world building and the in unvierse explanations for it don't make any sense,..but it does resolve a bit 5e problems around atribute socres evolution,so we use still use in our table

@@rodrigobueno8652 It opens up world building. The canon races are bad for world building, as they force you to keep those races exactly how they are in the Forgotten Realms setting. With this, you can have a world full of academic orcs and savage gnomes, if you want. And there is no "in universe explanation". You make your own explanation. They only give examples of what the explanation can be.

To each their own. I don't care for it. Zoologically speaking, I like the idea of biological specialization when it comes to "races" and subsequent ability scores and other quirks that can be chalked up to physiology. [allegory time] A greyhound can be raised by malamutes, but it's never going to perform like a malamute. It'll have to learn to use its inherent differences to overcome and adapt, making it unique and a standout among its people. The "fish out of water" trope may be hackneyed, but it makes for memorable characters.

Being broken at level 20 is meaningless.

Bro, that’s level 20. *You’re supposed to be broken at level 20.* Also 30 damage is nothing, that’s average damage for some classes levels 6-8.

Level 20 is irrelevant, as the vast majority of games don’t go past level 12, everyone is broken at that level. 30 Damage is standard for a mid level character, that’s laughably pathetic for a max level character.

"Do it!" ~Emperor Palpatine

You could do it anyway if you didn't do standard array

You could always do that. It was always allowed. Deadass with rolling you could still get 18 intelligence at the start.

@@himedo1512 Make sure that the strength score was still really high though, just in case Goliath Wizard needs to cast FIST!

@@screamingopossum7809 You could do it with a home brewed standard array, because the regular one is clearly crap.

I like the free feat too! As a DM I give my players a free feat! I will allow variant humans and custom lineage to still get their feat on top of the freebie so they don't feel worthless. I give my players 85 points to spread out among their stats. I hate the idea of wasting feats for ability score boosts. Earning a feat is far more rewarding than getting a +1 or +2 stat boost.

Yeah I used that at one point to make Kitsune… I eventually just ended up reskinning the changelings but it was fun to mess with

That's not the part of it that makes it powerful. That's a neat thing that lets you get some different stuff with a bit of investment, but you still end up with every single one of the skills you doubled up on. Where it gets a bit bonkers is doing something like switching weapon or armor proficiencies into tool proficiencies. Suddenly, a mountain dwarf can get 7 tool proficiencies, for free if they take a class that already gets the armor and weapon proficiencies they do. With all that on top of 2 +2's that can go anywhere, the only thing keeping them from being the most versatile and powerful race is the 25 foot walking speed. It's nothing entirely game-breaking, but it is a little silly to go rune knight or artificer and end up with expertise in half of all the tools, especially in combination with the stuff you can do in Xanathar's.

@@Pancakeli Where are you getting two +2's? Neither of the rules in Tasha's allow you to do that.

@@TheOnceandFutureJake dwarf gets +2 constitution as a base, and the mountain subrace gets +2 strength. With Tasha's, you can instead put those anywhere else.

@@Pancakeli So it sounds like your problem is actually with the Mountain Dwarf.

@@TheOnceandFutureJake I don't have a problem with it in the slightest, I just think that one thing you can do is silly, and I enjoy that it's a possibility. Like having a long jump that's a fifth of a mile or drawing 8 javelins in a turn. Custom origins is a good concept in general. I don't think it should be the standard like it's becoming, but I think it's a good option for every style of play. Whether you want to be an outlier from others for story reasons, or do some wacky stuff, like having proficiency in a huge amount of tools.

Right????!!!

That's why i get so annoyed when people bring up 'Elves should be able to finish a long rest in 4 hours since they only trance' You're already playing one of the strongest races. You don't need an extra buff

@@kharnthebetrayer8251 Except that IS how the RAW works. Every PHB printed since 2020 and all up to date digital sources describe trance as 'giving the same benefits as a human gains from 8 hours of sleep.' If you or your DM don't like how that plays out in your setting, that's fine. At the end of the day though, unless the entire party are elves, what are they really going to accomplish in those four 'extra' hours?

@@TheHunter_2525 A long rest isn't just sleeping. Humans only need 6 hours, and can spend the other 2 on watch. So Elves only spend 4 hours of it sleeping, and can spend the other 4 on watch, just chilling, reading a book, etc. But they should NOT get to finish a long rest in half the time. Part of a long rest represents taking some time, repairing equipment, bandaging wounds.

Elves have been treated like they're just better humans ever since the lord of the rings books glorified them so blatantly, along with halflings. Yet dwarvs in dnd have been repeatedly nerfed between editions . . . Is wizards of the coast racist? lol

Same! I played an aarakocra druid (fuck only living 30 years), to fit into society they were wearing a plague doctors mask and a big cloack(as a combined non atuned "magical"item), which restricted flight but was a buff to social encounters which lead to some great roleplay

@@slinelol love this idea!!

This. I agree entirely, though it might be because I enjoy running high powered games. I love flying races and Yuan-ti, and every character I build uses Custom Origin, because NOT EVERY MEMBER OF THE SAME RACE IS GOING TO BE GOOD AT THE EXACT SAME THINGS. Otherwise whole societies would collapse as needed roles couldn't be filled.

I saw someone do a half orc/half Goliath race. And he had all of the race features from both. He tried to agrue that he was only combining half of the features. He was counting age, size, alignment, and language as race features.

@@dragonhearthx8369 I still would not allow it but I can wrap my head around it, I once had goliaths explained to me as "mountain orcs" so the idea of them having viable offspring is more believable

@@troperhghar9898 I wasn't the dm. But I agree that it was over powered. Stone endurance AND relentless endurance. Yeah that's to much. Plus, savage attack and powerful build.

@@natashasurvivallady8021 I mean... You didn't really got what stat increases are for then... Don't get me wrong having variety while remainimg "optimal" is nice, no reason not to have it gameplay wise, but the increases only speak well... Of your race. Not all orcs are strong right, but a smart orc would still be stroner than a smart human (ie 8 str orc gets 10 str but 8 str human gets 8), adventurers are all exceptions to their ow races and your stat distribution speaks of your own specific story. The racial bonus is just that, a racial bonus comes from your race just for being that, its like complaining "why are all sharks able to swim good?" They are sharks... Their bodies are made to swim. Orcs and other races are usually made by the literal hand of one of their gods for a general purpose, they are all meant to be good at roughly the same thing

I don't think Goodberry is all that overpowered. Sure, it provides you enough nourishment for 24 hours, but it costs a spell slot to use it. Now, if it were a cantrip, that would be a different matter.

@@Nyrufa That only applies if DM limit time. GB > Long Rest = No Cost Survival. As doing this recovers the spell slot used.

Well if you didn't want to break things you shouldn't have been a Twilight Cleric

@@kendrajade6688 He said the DM “made sure not to tell them” it was going to be a dark survival story, so he couldn’t have known beforehand he was “breaking” things by making that character.

@@NicxCoay No Twilight Cleric breaks things in every kind of game

I could have sword there were no fourth edition dragon magazines. I'll have to recheck

@@sralow They were weekly during 4e, and free online content. It was like UA is now, but more content more often with more lore as well.

Warforged have been made for Eberron. There their mark is called a Ghulra and they are all different. They are indeed "golems" made from various materials (in one warforged).

There's a manga about golems called Clay Lord, in which the mark is required to be a kill-switch, in case the golem goes rogue -- the initial 'e' of the word "emeth" must be breakable, and breaking it destroys the golem by changing the meaning of the word from "truth" to "death".

Trust me, I had a player who refused to play anything but a variant human because of how much he could break it.

Shoot them with arrows

I've never had a problem with aarakocra PCs in my games, maybe more than one would be an issue but a single doesn't require that many changes.

Really just shoot the guy with a bow dude

Right?? Who wouldn't want wings which let you jump? :-/

My suggestion is looking at the Simic Hybrid's "glide" ability for levels 1-3.

Uh, humans have had a Feat as their racial bonus since 3.0 what editions are you talking about? They actually just initially took it away in 5e (for some reason). On top of that they have been generally thought of as the BEST race because they get the extra feat and can get in to many more options earlier than other races. I’m genuinely confused about your comment.

@@DisingenuousJely feats are technically options the DM can decide isn't used in their game, therefor they needed to balance the basic Human race around feats not existing. The fact 99.9999% of tables do use feats is irrelevant to that baseline assupmtion.

@@HenshinFanatic My confusion comes from the "many editions over the decades" part of their statement, nothing in relation to 5e's ruleset, I'm well aware of how 5e works. Either they are talking about different errata about 5e specifically, which doesn't seem likely because 5e isn't even a single decade old yet OR they are confused about the older editions of the game they have played because Feats aren't options in older editions (at least from 4e back to 3e I haven't played before that) they are a hard requirements. I appreciate your attempt at answering what you thought was my confusion but it is literally something only they could answer if they felt so inclined.

@@DisingenuousJely well you did write that the bonus feat was "taken away for some reason" in 5E. I gave you that reason. I wasn't at all presuming to speak for the OP.

@@DisingenuousJely Hi! I can't speak for 4th ed as I missed out almost entirely on that. In 3rd edition EVERYONE started out with a feat, humans just got a bonus one. Since you got feats every three levels, that bonus, to me, feels significantly inferior to the abilities other races got. 2nd edition, which is when i did a lot of my playing, humans were just pointless. Possibly not fair to go back that far, but it's just my personal perspective on how far humans have come as a great playable race. :)

This is exactly my Neutral divine soul sorceress's philosophy. Fiends aren't "evil" inherently; they are simply planar beings who do what they do. Same with Angels. Those who are "Good" often call themselves that to disguise crimes. No one identifies with the term "evil" and if they do, its because "Good" has purposefully alienated them- not a particularly "Good" act.

And the Yuan Ti even mention that "they have no problems being friendly and helpful if it means achieving their goals." They're not over-the-top monsters who burst into flame if they do a nice thing. They're sociopaths who have to question which will improve their chances of world domination, sacrificing an orphan to a demon, or raising the orphan and getting a loyal servant that they can always sacrifice to the demon later. Evil in DnD is the willingness to hurt others to achieve your selflish goals. Good in DnD is basically altruism, the willingness to sacrifice one's own resources for other people, not expecting a reward. Lawful is the belief that goals can be accomplished through the system and following a code. Chaotic is the disregard of systems and codes. A chaotic good creature can steal money from the mob and donate it to charity, because they want the poor to have a chance at a good life and the law isn't going to help. A lawful evil creature can also steal money from the mob and donate it to charity, because they want to control the city by bankrupting the existing mobs and want to run for mayor so donating the money is good publicity. A lawful good creature can also steal money from the mob and donate it to charity because they want to punish the lawbreakers and make sure that the poor don't have to steal to have a good life. A chaotic evil creature can also steal from the mob and donate to charity, because they get their jollies from stealing and don't care who gets the money, and may even plan to steal the money from the charity afterwards.

As long as your players are on board, yeah, evil can work. I... have experiences ranging from silly to terrible with PCs that have "evil" written anywhere on their character sheet. I should add that I'm friends with all the players in question: Our Cleric in Curse of Strahd - "Hmm, I'm gonna murder Ireena Kolyana and steal her soul because a Devil told me he'd let me learn Eldritch Blast." Campaign fell apart. A Necromancer in the first campaign I DM'd - "Ah, new player, do I make friends? Nah, Vampiric Touch because my character lost a magic item in combat, feels vindictive, and wants to take it out on someone." Campaign fell apart. Chaotic Evil Drow Fighter - actually not too bad, because the player didn't engage much. But it was difficult to keep immersion and not laugh when we had a Dwarf Cleric of Moradin who seemed perfectly fine with all the symbols of Lolth on her armour. One shot, so didn't matter. Maybe it's just me. xD

Truly the Yuan Ti are no better than a Satyrs, plus DM's that abuse poison only get mad at Yuan Ti player... Then the whole manipulation aspect that's no different from any Bard or Cha/leaning Rogue. If the "snake person" is "evil" then any chromatic dragonborn are too just to be petty...

@@Metrion77 Ironically Lizardfolk kinda roll "lore" wise like Yuan Ti they think WAY different than "civilized" races. Doesn't mean evil, yes eating falln foes in the town is a no-no yet you cannot call cannibal on one that isn't human

This

This! Like limiting a race to only ever having bonus in fex strength and constitution is boring and ignore the diversity you can find in a species. But having no lore or story whatsoever with what's more common in one? equally boring

Pathfinder solved this by giving races their standard array of ability increases AND one that can go wherever you want. So a Dwarf has +2con/+2wis/-2cha and +2 to any stat, while a human gets two +2ability increases to whatever they want.

@@Tulkash01 and that's why Pathfinder is just better.

I think people forget its an actual 'race'. This is not just a differently colored human, its a totally different species. You can still have a human with a higher con than a dwarf, its just that on AVERAGE dwarves have higher cons. On average, races with certain stats boosted exceed the average of races without that stat boost. Different races would have different genetic makeups, different brain chemistry even (alignments influence here). Too often I see people treating alien races in fiction as if they were just funny colored/shaped humans when the biology is TOTALLY different. Can there be outliers? Sure. But the average still exists and their genetics will play a large part. If you want a weak race with a +2 str, then leave that stat at 10, bam, your kinda weak now, racially speaking your nearly a cripple among your kind. Despite what some people think, genetics is a thing.

one of my players reflavored their warforged to be a mech suit powered by a Axolotl, Isn't D&D fun? :D

The one feat makes them one of the best races in the game lol

and dont get darkvision

this is just non-sense The reason people rate human variant higher than those races and racial features you mentioned is because they're much fucking better Getting a cantrip is nowhere close to getting sharpshooter at lvl 1, or lucky, or any powerful feat for that matter ( nor is getting one or two lvled spells) . Sure half-elves, yuan ti and some other races have comparable racial features but plz don't act like fucking slow aging is a relevant mechanic in game, specially when balanced against feats

@@Booklat1 you're wrong, also halflings

@@Booklat1 A lot of race abilities are better then a feat. Elves get a bunch of goodies same with Dwarfs. Aasimar get a bunch of goodies to so do teiflings. I guess my point is humans get the feat since a lot of others get abilities as good as a feat.

I just wanted to be an elf that started with a feat (elven accuracy).

I agree baseline human is the equivelant of blogna w/ mayo on white bread (not a bad choice, but rather boring) My cuff rule; I'll allow things as long as it has a consistent internal logic & isn't a min/max mad dash. E.G. If a character's back story is they grew up on a small island I'm fine with them having faster swim speed+breath holding duration & starting off aces at using a spear.

@@Madwand99 does not work, you need to be of the elven race to get that feat, not through the custom origin. You may look like an elf, but you are not one.

@@KimKimeraKimes Suffice to say I disagree, and so apparently does my DM. If my parents are elves, then my PC is also an elf.

Ban lucky, sharpshooter, HWM and tough should do it

Gnome cunning only hits 1 of the 3 important saving throws, while magical resistance hits 3. Gnome cunning is already excellent, so being 3x as good is ban worthy imo

It was overpowered because it was just outright better, but they also got a bunch of other abilities, whereas Gnomes only had slightly less movement and Darkvision. Their sub races were neat but ultimately really meh, so that didn’t help. So Yuan-it were basically just better in every way, which isn’t exactly balanced.

@@MayHugger Yeah but lore wise they are above ground Drow. In Example they should be killed on sight cause they're all Slavers and Demon Worshipers. So you'd have to deal with NPC's not trusting your charater. And if your Yuan-ti had a heart of Gold every other Yuan-ti should hate them and hunt them down to the ends of the earth.

If you're looking at some of the unearthed arcana rules then going through salt water slowly turns you into the tin man. Also i had one in a DND campaign where mending healed me and cure wounds healed the others. Made it more fair since i got the racial feats that made my level one armor 35 but i couldn't use armors like the others.

Sharpshooter rangers can get out of hand, true. But, that's when you get to have fun with weather, air access, and unrelated flying predators that's see a lone meal hovering in the air. Personally I've found a rainy day to be the best way to humble the player that ttys to get that high up.

@@natashasurvivallady8021 oh for sure.

only 600? I can get 900 with my aracockra sor/lock with eldritch spear, spell sniper and distant spell [technically, you don't even need the sorcerer with metamagic initiate]

Then someone casts summon construct or animate object and everyone goes "oh wait a minute!!"

Or maybe ranged attacks suffer a penalty because, you know, you're flying at like a 100 feet per turn.

Yeah but...maybe you can find something to change a little bit their mimic so its not that much irritating to play. Maybe to change that they can copy/cut words they heard. Just an Idea. Still, the Kenku is a very good race and i do not think it should be banished

Don't ban it. You run the world. Just change up the lore with Kenku so they can talk or be more able to talk. Kenku are cute... and a lot of people may want to play one.

Well that's just a limit of imagination. Ever thought of running a campaign of ONLY Kenku bards? The party is a cover band that has to adventure while also making ends meet covering better bands in the taverns they go to.

Simple, have the Kenku start with about 10 less gold but they can speak normally. The reason? They paid someone to read out a dictionary to them and stole their voice.

I tend to have my Kenku write/draw instead of speak. Much more fun and lets me describe my tiny crow man very intently scribbling in his little notebook and then turning it around to reveal crude scribbles of him stealing shiny objects with "good" written above it

Isnt there gravity magic already?

I gave some knights biplanes

Baloon pirates

@@MouldMadeMind ... BALOON PIRATES! :D

Indeed...I was listening to this and just thinking, "Why are they b*tching about golems?"

I've always had the idea in the back of my head to flavor them as bug people in a campaign.

Yeah, it would easyer to just say they are powered by magic. Like an artficer, they seem as a high technology, but are actualy just a part of a magic.

You could also rebrand warforged as homunculi. Creatures created by alchemy just like the clone, create homunculus and create magen spells do. Now one is just a PC. The only problem I see is how to go about the warforged trait of Integrated armor.

Yeah. Thats not the problem. Look a bit more into warforged. Yes, they're powered by magic but their bodies are still quite technological and a decent work of engineering

How you play Warforged is more accurate to what they are than "technologically advanced". They're wood, vines, and alchemical fluid working much the same way our muscles, organs, and blood work that have a metal or hard wood exterior. They're constructs with souls and emotions, not robots.

That's what they canonically are, but people just reflavor them as robots all the time because robots are cool and I like them

Heck you could do a completely different origin to. Like Druids are made out of food by druids to protect the forest. Brought to life through nature magic and have plants for hair. I think a lot of DM just have a stick up there ass about being overly selective with player choices.

So much this. In a few years (5.5), it won't matter anyway - they'll make all the "set" races more "fluid" in their stat bonuses, like the more recent racial options...

See that's the thing: If you want to roleplay something unique that isn't optimized for the class... go for it anyway! I made a half-orc sorcerer. Dumb as a box of rocks, was convinced he was a wizard, had an absolute blast with him. Someday soon, planning on playing a goliath wizard who's spells are all 'fist' flavored. The thing people never seem to get is that what those bonuses mean is that the 'average' member of that race is going to be better that that stat than the 'average' human. Half-orc gets a +2 Str? There will still be members with an 8 Str and humans that are stronger than the 'average' half-orc. So you can play whatever the heck you want to play. The 'penalty' for not being optimized isn't that big if you're more interested in just playing something fun and unique rather than min-maxing.

Yep. The fact that some races are just mathematically better at some classes and therefore if you want to play those you are required to pick those combinations is honestly garbage and I'm glad it's going away. Like, some people yell "powerbuilder" at that, but is it actually fun to have an 11 in strength for your Orc Wizard instead of a 9? I think it isn't. It doesn't really help you live out your race's fantasy, it just makes you worse at being the character you want to be. I'd be okay with a middle ground of like picking from maybe three for the +2, like okay your Half-Orc can either have +2 Con, Wis, or Strength, whatever the devs feel are flavorful. But that's kind of a lot of retroactive work, always debatable for any given race, and probably just falls victim to the middle ground fallacy; maybe it's just best to leave it fully customizable, I dunno. I also don't know what percent of people prefer which. People are also resistant to change in general so there's that, too.

Yeah nothing wrong with a strong gnome or nimble dwarf or anything combined of that floating +2/+1 in your lineage. It doesn't change anything other than they are your stereotypical version of that lineage.

@Ian Jones you also aren't required to use optional class features right now. No but seriously, while it's obviously not required, for me personally if I'm playing a really useless race for my class, I will feel worse. I like the idea of playing a character that's at least a bit optimized. I don't go crazy with it, personally. That's just me, but I gather others feel similarly. And on a different note, the prospect that everyone from a race is identically good at some specific things is absurd. Look how varied humans are in real life. There's no reason for D&D races not to reflect something similar. I think when a large portion of the community feels like something is limiting creativity, it might be time to dump it, or you know, give us the option to dump it, like they just did.

Or another thing for warforged Dm: you fall from the ship Warforged: i swim back Dm: no you cant Warforged: why Dm: because you ar made of metal so you drown and because you dosent need breath you dosent die good luck find your party

@@uiuelite they can attempt to swim, they just have major penalties depending on how they have built the character.

@@seanziegler477 yeah but your speed his 0 and you have a -2 you can just float so if your teammate dosent save you you ar dead

In a game I ran a player wanted to be a living Macross Valkyrie; I said sure, switched out his Specialized Design for a flight form that could be activated with a bonus action. [I figured that was HIS Specialized Design.

What's the reasoning for now allowing skills to be changed? Just wondering, that seems like one of the lesser impactful ones overall. I don't see an issue in a high-elf having proficiency in acrobatics or something instead of perception to start with.

@@real_evin I guess the reasoning I had was that many skills are something you acquire through practicing (background and class) rather than just getting it because of your race. So if your race is naturally perceptive (with your example of an elf) I would probably stick with that. But maybe that doesn't make much sense now that I think about it, it did make sense to me when I thought of the system though :D

@@dudelsackonator4494 AH yeah I hear you. I think most players just like to use racial features as an additional way of building their character - it doesn't make much sense that some races are just born with the knowledge to cast certain spells too xD

​@@dudelsackonator4494 i like that, fixes my biggest problems with post-tasha races (the fact wotc can't differentiate biological and cultural features) tabaxi are stealthy and perceptive because that's cat instincts, not because they grew up in a rogue family or whatever. What justifies a tabaxi having Arcana from their race instead? Shouldn't my background or class give me that if that's an acquired trait? It worked ok when they did subraces with cultural skills but adding them on the main race feels fucking bizarre oh and btw, we can change stats but not casting ability of innate casting features, because fuck players i guess. Tasha's rules are fucking half-assed

@@Booklat1 Glad I could help :). I am a big fan of Tasha's myself, but there is plenty of stuff in there that I rule differently in my campaign, way more than any other source book.

I think a Yuan-Ti that is both entirely selfish, but also uses that selfishness to drive their "good" actions would be interesting. There's a huge reward for saving the orphans from the witch? Let's do it. Finding the selfish benefit from following the party is fun roleplay opportunity. Plus there's often moments where the party needs to do something evil for their quest to continue, and the Yuan-Ti would do it without hesitation, while the rest might ponder. Evil characters are great additions to parties, so long as they're played correctly.

I think its cool because it lets you make almost anything you could ever want to play without asking the DM to make a homebrew. The game is balanced around character starting with a +3 to their primary stat, but if you don't roll a 16 and the race doesn't give you the right ability score, you either gotta change race or hope your DM lets you reroll. With custom origin, you don't have worry about that anymore

I don't play, but it seems exceptionally stupid that things are banned in a role playing game that's entirely based on RNG. I mean, I understand you can optimize. But isn't the point of DnD the roleplaying and socialization? Like the combat is only important because it gets you more story. Not the other way around.

@@HauntingSpectre Yes and no. Roleplay is a big part of DND, but a lot of groups like to have combat. "Minmaxers" are players who want to make a character who can do all this awesome stuff, like 1v1 against the big bad evil guy, and make it hard to balance against other characters who are building more realistically. If your variant human rogue fighter gets 5 crits and deal 150 damage on his first turn, it can be hard to build an encounter that's fun for the the tabaxi warlock who built her character to be a servant of the jaguar archfey, and her strongest attack is a 3d6 per turn.

Have you ever DMed with random people as players? Most players get butthurt if you say "I'll allow anything!" at the start, and then keep stepping on their plans as they play "oh, that seems a bit overpowered. Take another feat." or "Uh, this cavern designed to make you climb through traps has a magic field that prevents flight, even natural flight..." Especially if you don't have the self-confidence to speak up. If you have to use your DM arsenal to nerf your OP players, you need to re-examine your DM'ing.

@@Metrion77 As the DM (or any managerial position) should be able to read and tailor a plan based on the team. No player is good at everything. A 1 dimensional character would be easily dealt with in other areas. So the big bad combo rogue fails a trap save and finds himself knocked unconscious for the first few rounds. Fails a persuasion roll and gets arrested / kidnapped. Angers a melee resistant creature with High AC who basically pins him combat wise until the casters deal with it. Etc. If the player can min max, the DM can and should as well. If the player complains about that. They probably aren't worth keeping in the group because their enjoyment obviously outranks everyone elses. Idk. Never DM'd but seems pretty simple to work around. I imagine DMing is a work heavy role. So whats another 15 minutes to make the encounter actually challenging?

@@Metrion77 If you haven't got the self-confidence to speak up when you are the DM then why are you the DM in the first place? More importantly, the whole point of having the DM arsenal is to make sure that the campaign doesn't get trivialised. As a DM you should always have some sort of retort to whatever the players throw at you, and vice versa. If there's no challenge to the player then what's the point of playing?