Non-Humanoid Types for PCs

[Malimar]

So I've noticed that, at least for awhile, PC-available races were pretty much limited to Humanoid.

In their originating 3.5e, Warforged had the Construct type and they solved the Constructs-can't-be-resurrected problem by inventing the [Living Construct] subtype -- because if there's anything 3.5e loved, it's making everything complicated.

In 5e, all the specifics that your type previously granted you are stripped away, all types are the same now, the only difference is some spells and effects have different (or no) effects on different types. You'd think, problem solved, you can resurrect a Construct now, Warforged can just be Constructs, no biggie.

But then, bam! 5e Warforged are just straight-up Humanoid. I assumed this reflected a design policy that all PC races are Humanoid in type. But then I started reading The Wild Beyond The Witchlight and one of the race options there has the Fey type -- I'm sure there's loads of other exceptions.

So... can anybody shed any light on the design decisions that went into Warforged being Humanoid?

---

Also imagine in 3.5e I had an NPC working on inventing a spell/curse/disease that would (permanently or instantaneously) give an elf the Plant type (probably as a template that carried a level adjustment because of the boss stuff the Plant type gave you, but never mind that). Imagine that, in the shift from 3.5e to 5e, I had a 30-year timeskip, meaning that NPC has probably long since succeeded at inventing his spell, meaning that Plant elves are now a setting possibility. Would it break anything for me to start allowing elf PCs to choose the Plant type?

Would it break anything for me as DM to generally broaden the available options of type beyond the 'all Humanoid all the time' of early 5e? (eg make Warforged be Constructs, let Tieflings pick Humanoid or Fiend, let Aasimar pick Humanoid or Celestial, bring necropolitans back as a Human subrace with the Undead type, etc).

[Ehcks]

And then they went and added Autognomes that are full constructs but with the special feature that lets most healing spells that can't target constructs work on them anyway. They can't make up their mind, but it works I guess.

[gloryblaze]

So I've noticed that, at least for awhile, PC-available races were pretty much limited to Humanoid.

In their originating 3.5e, Warforged had the Construct type and they solved the Constructs-can't-be-resurrected problem by inventing the [Living Construct] subtype -- because if there's anything 3.5e loved, it's making everything complicated.

In 5e, all the specifics that your type previously granted you are stripped away, all types are the same now, the only difference is some spells and effects have different (or no) effects on different types. You'd think, problem solved, you can resurrect a Construct now, Warforged can just be Constructs, no biggie.

But then, bam! 5e Warforged are just straight-up Humanoid. I assumed this reflected a design policy that all PC races are Humanoid in type. But then I started reading The Wild Beyond The Witchlight and one of the race options there has the Fey type -- I'm sure there's loads of other exceptions.

So... can anybody shed any light on the design decisions that went into Warforged being Humanoid?


(emphasis added)

This right there is the problem. Cure wounds doesn't work on Constructs, nor does healing word or most other forms of healing. Undead have it even worse, as raise dead and its family of spells fail for them (though not revivify, interestingly enough). The designers probably didn't want the warforged player to go down in a goblin fight at level 1 and have the cleric be like "sorry pal, good luck with those death saves, I can't healing word you."

As Ehcks pointed out, they seem to have come up with a workaround for the autognome by just writing in that healing spells work on it even though it's a Construct, which would hypothetically solve the issue. But who knows if that will see print—they tried something similar with Reborn in its UA version (saying that you count as both a Construct and a Humanoid, and that any spell that would affect either creature type will affect you), but everyone hated the concept of dual typed creatures, so the concept was scrapped when Reborn actually got printed.

All in all, if you want non-humanoid PCs in your games, any type except Construct and Undead will basically be fine. There will be some weird interactions (like, a fairy paladin that swears the Oath of the Ancients turns themself when the use Channel Divinity: Turn the Faithless), but the game won't break. And if you're fine with some players not being able to be healed by magic (or raised, in the case of Undead), then even Construct and Undead would work.

[Joe the Rat]

As Ehcks pointed out, they seem to have come up with a workaround for the autognome by just writing in that healing spells work on it even though it's a Construct, which would hypothetically solve the issue. But who knows if that will see print—they tried something similar with Reborn in its UA version (saying that you count as both a Construct and a Humanoid, and that any spell that would affect either creature type will affect you), but everyone hated the concept of dual typed creatures, so the concept was scrapped when Reborn actually got printed.

...And that's why we can't have nice things. Dual Typing would give you the best (and worst) of all worlds. Hell, isn't that what we do for the half-humans?

And yes, I consider having unusual party members affected by both Hold Person and Protection from Good and Evil a reasonable boon for the game.


Type-with-special-rules (a la Autognome) is a reasonable solution - the specific-beats-general approach. I suppose that's something you could do with the x-blooded types - a racial feature of "Counts as X."
Did they not revisit this with Warforged in Mordenkainen II: Multiversal Boogaloo?

[False God]

I suspect because, in short, it's easier to change 1 race to "humanoid" against all logic, rather than altering 100 spells and abilities to be compatible with warforged.

Personally, I think the game has lost something with both the lack of multi-typing and not allowing players to play with the "risk" of non-normal races not being affected the same way as the "normal"(human, elf, dwarf, etc...) races.

I DO however think it has gained something with not presuming that every plant-type or every construct-type thing operates exactly the same way.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I DO however think it has gained something with not presuming that every plant-type or every construct-type thing operates exactly the same way.

This.

I have a homebrew class that gains a feature at level 13, making them count as Aberration for spell targeting/valid targets. Whether it helps or not. But that's rather the exception, not the rule.

[Luccan]

I believe originally they thought non-Humanoid typings would overcomplicate the game. Particularly in the case of Construct. Keep in mind Living Construct didn't just allow Warforged to be rez'd, it also made them more compatible as PCs in other ways. But in 5e creature types barely have rules, so all Construct typing does is give immunity to certain spells, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad (probably more bad than good since there aren't that many "humanoid-only" offensive spells and effects anymore and those that exist will likely only come up at lower levels). But now they don't seem to have an issue with word-y workarounds. I'd also argue dual-typing in 5e was confusing and either gave you the best or worst of both worlds, not both. And there was some DM fiat in there that made it hard to predict which you would get.

[False God]

This.

I have a homebrew class that gains a feature at level 13, making them count as Aberration for spell targeting/valid targets. Whether it helps or not. But that's rather the exception, not the rule.

To contradict what I said just a moment though, I do feel like that as mechanical elements of the game every type ought to mean something beyond simple targeting parameters. One of my longest running complaints about D&D is the repetition of the same spell, except at higher levels but slightly different, often with the ability to target something else. Now, to 5E's credit it has made some progress in this area.

I'm not sure about your class in particular, but I'm assuming them gaining the Aberration *coughsubcough* type is a result of some other elements of the class that have caused them to deviate from the norm.

BUT, if functionally all aberration means in D&D is "it's significantly different from the norm", but doesn't grant any other benefits or penalties, what is the purpose of it's mechanical existence? Is this just another point where "fluff" (IMO irritatingly) gets integrated into the "crunch"? It's fine to describe a 7'ft tall gnome as an aberration, but what does assigning it the type really do?

And at that point it begs the question: do we even need mechanical "types" at all? Can they all just become descriptive so we have a common language to know what the DM is on about? "Undead Dragon Construct Aberration" COULD mean a a whole bunch of things mechanically, OR it could just be there to get us all on the same page that it's some freaky draco-lich.

[PhoenixPhyre]

To contradict what I said just a moment though, I do feel like that as mechanical elements of the game every type ought to mean something beyond simple targeting parameters. One of my longest running complaints about D&D is the repetition of the same spell, except at higher levels but slightly different, often with the ability to target something else. Now, to 5E's credit it has made some progress in this area.

I'm not sure about your class in particular, but I'm assuming them gaining the Aberration *coughsubcough* type is a result of some other elements of the class that have caused them to deviate from the norm.

BUT, if functionally all aberration means in D&D is "it's significantly different from the norm", but doesn't grant any other benefits or penalties, what is the purpose of it's mechanical existence? Is this just another point where "fluff" (IMO irritatingly) gets integrated into the "crunch"? It's fine to describe a 7'ft tall gnome as an aberration, but what does assigning it the type really do?

And at that point it begs the question: do we even need mechanical "types" at all? Can they all just become descriptive so we have a common language to know what the DM is on about? "Undead Dragon Construct Aberration" COULD mean a a whole bunch of things mechanically, OR it could just be there to get us all on the same page that it's some freaky draco-lich.

It's not a sub-type at all. They're a humanoid, but when spells try to target them, they're an aberration. For spells only. The person has slipped so far into the chaos plague that spells (which target the aura) don't recognize them as people at all.

I don't think that describing types works very well except as a label to hang effects on. Especially for things like demons and aberrations, beings of such chaos and raw difference that there aren't shared mechanical traits.

There are, however, very clear narrative differences. And that, to me, is more important.

* Aberrations don't participate in the natural cycles. They're all one-offs. Their reproduction is completely unlike normal creatures, and many don't reproduce as such, but are spawned by corruption.
* Beasts are normal things that came about in normal ways, but are not humanoid in form. They participate in the natural order and are part of all the food chains. They're things that (mostly, except for size) could occur on Earth.
* Celestials are, well, celestial. They're servants of the good gods or the good-aligned planes.
* Constructs are artificial and not alive in the normal way; they lack souls and are powered by mechanisms or embedded elemental spirits. They're built, not grown.
* Dragons are, well, dragons.
* Elementals are home on the elemental planes and partake strongly of that nature. Their intrusion into the material is usually the result of summoning, but they're "natural" in that sense.
* Fey are home on the feywild and partake of nature, while not being animal. They don't reproduce in normal ways and have alien mindsets, but aren't contrary to the natural order. In a sense, aberrations and fey are "opposites".
* Fiends are home on the evil-aligned planes.
* Giants are dual to humanoids, basically being "those that are super big". The default setting has the Ordung.
* Humanoids are all the "normal player races". The "civilized folk", the "city builders". Every member of this type is intelligent and sociable enough to form a society (even if some choose not to).
* Monstrosities are things that came about unnaturally in their beginnings, but now participate in the natural order, reproducing naturally. Plus beasts that can talk "normal" languages or have fantastic abilities.
* Oozes are, well, ameboid.
* Plants are, well, plants.
* Undead are pretty obvious; the walking (or floating) dead.

Not everything needs to be mechanical; mechanics are secondary.

[False God]

It's not a sub-type at all. They're a humanoid, but when spells try to target them, they're an aberration. For spells only. The person has slipped so far into the chaos plague that spells (which target the aura) don't recognize them as people at all.

I don't think that describing types works very well except as a label to hang effects on. Especially for things like demons and aberrations, beings of such chaos and raw difference that there aren't shared mechanical traits.

There are, however, very clear narrative differences. And that, to me, is more important.

* Aberrations don't participate in the natural cycles. They're all one-offs. Their reproduction is completely unlike normal creatures, and many don't reproduce as such, but are spawned by corruption.
* Beasts are normal things that came about in normal ways, but are not humanoid in form. They participate in the natural order and are part of all the food chains. They're things that (mostly, except for size) could occur on Earth.
* Celestials are, well, celestial. They're servants of the good gods or the good-aligned planes.
* Constructs are artificial and not alive in the normal way; they lack souls and are powered by mechanisms or embedded elemental spirits. They're built, not grown.
* Dragons are, well, dragons.
* Elementals are home on the elemental planes and partake strongly of that nature. Their intrusion into the material is usually the result of summoning, but they're "natural" in that sense.
* Fey are home on the feywild and partake of nature, while not being animal. They don't reproduce in normal ways and have alien mindsets, but aren't contrary to the natural order. In a sense, aberrations and fey are "opposites".
* Fiends are home on the evil-aligned planes.
* Giants are dual to humanoids, basically being "those that are super big". The default setting has the Ordung.
* Humanoids are all the "normal player races". The "civilized folk", the "city builders". Every member of this type is intelligent and sociable enough to form a society (even if some choose not to).
* Monstrosities are things that came about unnaturally in their beginnings, but now participate in the natural order, reproducing naturally. Plus beasts that can talk "normal" languages or have fantastic abilities.
* Oozes are, well, ameboid.
* Plants are, well, plants.
* Undead are pretty obvious; the walking (or floating) dead.

Not everything needs to be mechanical; mechanics are secondary.

I guess this is where we disagree. IMO, the point of a game is to provide me with rules and mechanics and leave the fluff up to me. I don't need D&D (or any other system) to do some roleplaying with friends. We can pretend to be elves and pretend to fight goblins and LARP our little hearts out without any specific rule system.

The primary purpose of a game system is to provide rules for a game. Fluff is secondary, especially if the game is highly flexible. I can bring the fluff. If the primary purpose of the book I'm reading is fluff, I'm not reading a game system, I'm reading a novel.

Again, just IMO. I don't need the system to provide fluff. I need it to provide rules.

The only exception is when a game presents highly specific and highly detailed fluff that couldn't be learned from 5 minutes googling LOTR.

[Psyren]

So... can anybody shed any light on the design decisions that went into Warforged being Humanoid?


If I had to guess, because it's easier to say "they're humanoids that have these robotic traits" than to say "They're robots! Except they're alive and healing magic works on them and medical kits work on them and goodberries work on them and they can be charmed and they can be feared and they can be incapacitated and they can be confused and they can be poisoned and they can over-exert themselves and a bunch of other stuff we haven't designed yet...

[loki_ragnarock]

To date the only race they've introduced I've actually been excited about is the Plasmoids from that one UA.

Give me some weird $%^&, WotC. This game needs more weird $%^&.

*insert pawnstars meme*

"Best we can do is another type of elf."

[Malimar]

Thanks for the answers, all, I think I'm growing in comprehension. Also, I didn't realize healing spells don't work on Constructs; that definitively answers why warforged are Humanoid (though if they subsequently introduced a "Construct-but-we're-reinventing-[Living Construct]" with Autognome, then that de-answers half the question).

Would homebrewing dual-typing in break anything? It would clearly have to break type-based immunities, which you have to leave out (do it like "if an effect would affect either of your types, it affects you") or else Cure Wounds still doesn't work if Construct or Undead is one of the types (conveying an explicit immunity, as written). Would it break anything else?

It's looking to me, based on your answers, that having the option to be a Plant-type (or dual-typed) elf would be A-OK; Plant isn't one of the types that breaks anything important for an adventurer, that's pretty much just Undead and Construct (Susceptibility or immunity to more niche effects like Turning is fine; healing and resurrection are the main issues). Same deal for Fiend Tieflings and Celestial Aasimar. I'm still open to Necropolitan if it's got a flashing red CAUTION sticker on it.

How would these work best? I haven't been able to quite figure out the (non?)existence/status of templates in 5e. Would these work as Backgrounds? As Feats (getting your first Feat at 4th level puts a bit of a damper on it, outside of Variant Human, though it would work for Necropolitan)? As subraces?

[Phhase]

If I had to guess, because it's easier to say "they're humanoids that have these robotic traits" than to say "They're robots! Except they're alive and healing magic works on them and medical kits work on them and goodberries work on them and they can be charmed and they can be feared and they can be incapacitated and they can be confused and they can be poisoned and they can over-exert themselves and a bunch of other stuff we haven't designed yet...

Hard disagree I'm afraid, I guess I see it as "They're robots, healing magic works on them because it is magic (It's "Cure Wounds" not "Repair Flesh", and I justify waiving the construct clause by pointing to their sentience), they can process organic materials for energy like anything else, and they have all the baggage that a sentient mind implies (charm, fear, etc, they're not emotionless)." The poison thing is my one sticking point. I just really hate the other angle because it makes them feel more like improved humans in a robot costume.

[Psyren]

Hard disagree I'm afraid, I guess I see it as "They're robots, healing magic works on them because it is magic (It's "Cure Wounds" not "Repair Flesh", and I justify waiving the construct clause by pointing to their sentience), they can process organic materials for energy like anything else, and they have all the baggage that a sentient mind implies (charm, fear, etc, they're not emotionless)." The poison thing is my one sticking point. I just really hate the other angle because it makes them feel more like improved humans in a robot costume.

To be clear, I'm specifically speaking to what their thought process likely was 4 years ago when WGtE was printed and they were more conservative around non-humanoid races. They appear to be coming around more to the way of thinking you prefer, judging by the Autognome UA (https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/UA2021_TravelersoftheMultiverse.pdf) from less than a year ago. I wasn't opining on my own preference.

[Phhase]

To be clear, I'm specifically speaking to what their thought process likely was 4 years ago when WGtE was printed and they were more conservative around non-humanoid races. They appear to be coming around more to the way of thinking you prefer, judging by the Autognome UA (https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/downloads/UA2021_TravelersoftheMultiverse.pdf) from less than a year ago. I wasn't opining on my own preference.

Ah, fair 'nuff.

[Naanomi]

I would suggest some fey indeed reproduce naturally

[Spore]

* Constructs are artificial and not alive in the normal way; they lack souls and are powered by mechanisms or embedded elemental spirits. They're built, not grown.


I am pretty sure Eberron lore implies Warforged have implanted souls, or at the very least memories from a time before. Of course Keith Baker loves to obscure the details so the DMs can make up their minds about it for their own version of Eberron, but at least the Dreaming Dark trilogy casts Pierce in a light that makes it not clear-cut if Warforged are just sentient war robots.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am pretty sure Eberron lore implies Warforged have implanted souls, or at the very least memories from a time before. Of course Keith Baker loves to obscure the details so the DMs can make up their minds about it for their own version of Eberron, but at least the Dreaming Dark trilogy casts Pierce in a light that makes it not clear-cut if Warforged are just sentient war robots.

Warforged don't have the construct type in 5e. They're, like almost all other PC races up until recently, humanoid. In part specifically to dodge that question.

[Malimar]

Would homebrewing dual-typing in break anything? It would clearly have to break type-based immunities, which you have to leave out (do it like "if an effect would affect either of your types, it affects you") or else Cure Wounds still doesn't work if Construct or Undead is one of the types (conveying an explicit immunity, as written). Would it break anything else?

How would these work best? I haven't been able to quite figure out the (non?)existence/status of templates in 5e. Would these work as Backgrounds? As Feats (getting your first Feat at 4th level puts a bit of a damper on it, outside of Variant Human, though it would work for Necropolitan)? As subraces?
Re-asking once because at some point during the transition from 3.5e I lost the ability to confidently figure stuff out for myself.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Re-asking once because at some point during the transition from 3.5e I lost the ability to confidently figure stuff out for myself.

You'd need to have some rule that says "For the purposes of <spells>, X wins". There isn't a blanket rule. Not all HP healing effects don't work on constructs, for instance--that's a specific rule of Cure Wounds and Healing Word (and a few others). But a Celestial Warlock's Healing Light ability? No such restriction. And it's a core principle that you can't extrapolate a general rule from a specific one.

Basically, you'd either need a blanket rule ("Counts as whichever is more favorable" for example) or you'd need to cover all the specifics. And there are a lot of specifics. Including a crap-ton of monster abilities.

This is one major reason (I think) that non-humanoid typing has been quite rare in 5e. And dual-typing just gets even messier.

As for templates, there are a (very) few of them. For instance the half-dragon template in the MM. I don't think there's a good general rule--some templates will work well under certain circumstances and others won't. Personally, I'd say (if I were to introduce more templates)
* A set of them can only be chosen at character creation (and act basically like a variant to a race).
* A different set of them can only be chosen at narratively-appropriate points, and act as a "quest reward" or "consequence for actions", completely outside the normal character building process. More like a magic item than a feat.

I wouldn't allow them to be chosen freely a la 3e. That way lies madness IMO.

[Malimar]

Basically, you'd either need a blanket rule ("Counts as whichever is more favorable" for example) or you'd need to cover all the specifics. And there are a lot of specifics. Including a crap-ton of monster abilities.

Ooh, on first thought, I like "Counts as whichever is more favorable" -- it's simple, and generous to the PCs (unless the PCs ever try to use humanoid-target spells on a dual-typed humanoid/anything NPC, I suppose). On second thought, it does grant automatic immunity to, eg, "<effect> Person" spells, and is ultimately a strict upgrade from just having one type or the other. Hm.

Would "If any favorable effect would affect either of your types, it affects you. If any unfavorable effect would affect one of your types but not the other, you can be affected by it but you have advantage on saves against it. If any effect would affect neither of your types, you are immune to it. If any effect would affect both of your types, you do not gain immunity or resistance to it from your types." be a stupid way to go with it? I can't imagine super many edge cases coming up under that blanket rule that would require individual adjudication.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Ooh, on first thought, I like "Counts as whichever is more favorable" -- it's simple, and generous to the PCs (unless the PCs ever try to use humanoid-target spells on a dual-typed humanoid/anything NPC, I suppose). On second thought, it does grant automatic immunity to, eg, "<effect> Person" spells, and is ultimately a strict upgrade from just having one type or the other. Hm.

Would "If any favorable effect would affect either of your types, it affects you. If any unfavorable effect would affect one of your types but not the other, you can be affected by it but you have advantage on saves against it. If any effect would affect neither of your types, you are immune to it. If any effect would affect both of your types, you do not gain immunity or resistance to it from your types." be a stupid way to go with it? I can't imagine super many edge cases coming up under that blanket rule that would require individual adjudication.

Still going to take a lot of in-the-moment squinting (remembering which things a given effect affects, especially with monster effects like "any non-X has to do Y", usually "make a Z saving throw").

As I mentioned, I have a class that gains "you count as an aberration for determining the legal targets of spells" "feature" (it's a mixed bag). In that case, it's intentionally a side-grade. But aberration is a relatively safe one--not many things key off of it in either direction. Undead and construct are the two big offenders/sources of issues IIRC. Maybe fiend?