Oct 22

Oct 22 Fun Facts - Race Edition

I love lists.

Stephen abhors lists and deletes them whenever I put one in my draft of our Deep Dive articles. Since our unwritten rule is never to touch each other’s articles the joke is on him since I decided to start a series of lists. So let’s start off with a list of fun, strange and interesting things (mostly) about the races in D&D.

There are 45 playable races to choose from if you have access to D&D Beyond. Whether or not anyone has ever played a grung is unknown.
Of these 45 races, only 5 have a innate Intelligence racial trait increase. The feral tiefling is still just a tiefling, so those numbers are actually 44/4.
The hobgoblin is one of those creatures.
Intelligence is a measure of your character’s mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason. Wisdom is a reflection of how attuned your character is to the world around them and is a representation of your character’s perceptiveness and intuition.
In a nutshell, Intelligence equals book smarts and Wisdom equals street smarts.
Hobgoblins use their book smarts to strategize ways to kill you, your family, friends, neighbors, and everyone that lives in the same town as you.
But with swords, not fireballs.
Of course, if you’re playing a hobgoblin and just have to scream fireball every session, you can build a super tanky wizard.
Kobolds have an entire section in their racial description dedicated to being arcane magic users. Kobolds get a +2 Dexterity racial bonus and as we all know, Dexterity is not used as a spellcasting ability. Ever.
It takes a gnom e twice as much movement to travel 30 feet as a human.
The following races are Small size: fairy, gnome, goblin, halfling, harengon, and kobold. There are no playable races above Medium.
The centaur and minotaur as both listed as Large size monsters, but Medium size playable races, with a maximum height of 8 feet tall.
A Large size creature is 8 feet or taller.
A bugbear has a 10 foot reach on melee attacks due to it’s Long-Limbed racial feature which states:
When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal.
So they can slice you open with their longsword from 10 feet away, but you’ll still have to pass them the salt when eating at a banquet table.
Bugbears also have proficiency in Stealth and a racial Surprise Attack, the latter saying if you surprise your foe and hit it with an attack on your first turn in combat, you’ll deal an extra 2d6 damage. You can do this once per combat.
A bugbear assassin will ruin your day.
In the 1st edition, Charisma is described as the measure of the character's combined physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism. In 5e, Charisma ability to interact effectively with others. It includes such factors as confidence and eloquence, and it can represent a charming or commanding personality.
It’s nice to know that you are no longer rewarded if you are a good looking asshole.
Gary Gygax often claimed that J.R.R. Tolkien and his books had just a "superficial" influence on D&D. According to Gygax, such authors as Paul Anderson, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, and Roger Zelazny were used as inspiration more than Tolkien.
Of course, Gygax's was forced to remove the terms hobbit and ent from all D&D texts after being threatened by legal action by Tolkien’s estate.
I’m still waiting for a suitably awesome RPG that was absolutely not influenced at all by Frank Herbert’s Dune books.
The Aquatic Elf, Locathah, Triton, Water Genasi are the only races with a natural swim speed. The Tortle does not, making them from the reptile species of the family Testudinidae, better known as the tortoise.
There are now 2 races with a natural flight speed; Aarakocra and Fairy. The Aarackocra has a flight speed of 50 feet. The Fairy has a flight speed of 30 feet.
The Aarackocra has the following disclaimer at the beginning of the race’s Traits section:
As an aarakocra, you have certain traits in common with your people. Being able to fly at high speed starting at 1st level is exceptionally effective in certain circumstances and exceedingly dangerous in others. As a result, playing an aarakocra requires special consideration by your DM.
At least they tell you from the start that you’ll be OP.
The kenku could fly up until the 3rd edition, at which point its wings were literally clipped. It was made a playable race in 4e, via a Dragon Magazine article. Then in 5th edition it goes mainstream in, but is stripped of it’s ability to speak. Sounds like a conspiracy against the kenku to me.
The firbolg was introduced in the 1st edition Monster Manual 2 as a type of giant. In the 5th edition it only appears as a playable character race in Volo’s. There is no mention of being related to giants.
A firbolg is now, for all intensive purposes, the Lorax.
So you can currently play a bird (aarakocra/kenku), cat (tabaxi), elephant (loxodon), fish (locathah), lion (leonin), lizard (lizardfolk), rabbit (harengon), and turtle (tortle). There is still no canine (dog) race.
We are all in agreement that Stephen should create playable dog race.
With all 195 breeds as possible subclasses.

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