What's with WotC avoiding Class bloat but not Race bloat?

[KorvinStarmast]

They are so against the idea of new classes that they were even going to make the Artificer a Wizard subclass

They should have left it that way. (yes, opinions differ on this)

[PhoenixPhyre]

As someone who's done my fair share of homebrew classes (most of which have never seen the light of day), there's not actually much thematic room left. And the mechanical room
a) is tightly pigeonholed
b) ends up being super fiddly (all the implementations of incarnum, 90% of most homebrew, mine included)
c) and/or requires substantial new subsystems to make it work.

New subsystems are basically required to expand mechanically...but new subsystems also increase the support load tremendously going forward. For instance, if every martial has some sort of maneuvers (but that are class-specific), you either need to commit to adding more of those going forward...or let the class languish. But publishing new elements like that has a very limited reach (people playing that one class) for a huge amount of print space required (there's lots of boilerplate involved that takes up space).

Spells and feats are "general purpose" and independent of both each other and of the classes, so they're less prone to this--one spell on 3 lists only requires one spell entry and 3 lines in the class lists. But that makes for generic elements that don't play nicely (thematically or mechanically) with anybody but spell-casters.

4e had this bad--the Shadow power source (Assassin, Vampire) classes didn't have the feat, item, or paragon path support they needed to actually be useful. So they were basically ignored trap options.

[CIDE]

They should have left it that way. (yes, opinions differ on this)

The finished product still doesn't even feel like an Artificer to me (more like an improved Techsmith or PF Alchemist) and the Artificer as a Wizard subclass felt even less like an artificer than that.

Not that any of them are bad classes and while I didn't get to play the Wizard version it did seem fun.

[Psyren]

I love the 5e Artificer. It's a lot more streamlined compared to the 3.5 one, and while it doesn't rise to the sheer power of a full caster I don't think that's a bad thing. It's nice to have another class that can prioritize maxing out Int and still be combat effective, plus the party loremonkey, trapmonkey etc.

I definitely do think it needs to be its own class as opposed to a subclass of Wizard etc. As its 4 subclasses prove, there's enough design space within the concept that it can carry a class on its own. Too much in my opinion to make it a subclass of something else, especially once you factor in Infusions.

I did make a thread recently, collecting ideas for expanding the casting to 9th level without overpowering them relative to the other full casters. So that's an option if you want them to feel more "caster-y" but also find the UA Wizard subclass dissatisfying in some way.

[loki_ragnarock]

As someone who's done my fair share of homebrew classes (most of which have never seen the light of day), there's not actually much thematic room left. And the mechanical room
a) is tightly pigeonholed
b) ends up being super fiddly (all the implementations of incarnum, 90% of most homebrew, mine included)
c) and/or requires substantial new subsystems to make it work.

New subsystems are basically required to expand mechanically...but new subsystems also increase the support load tremendously going forward. For instance, if every martial has some sort of maneuvers (but that are class-specific), you either need to commit to adding more of those going forward...or let the class languish. But publishing new elements like that has a very limited reach (people playing that one class) for a huge amount of print space required (there's lots of boilerplate involved that takes up space).

They seem to be most comfortable introducing new subsystems in the setting books.

Which, honestly, seems like the best place for that sort of thing. They just did a similar but different enough to be legally distinct Harry Potter clone. Here's hoping the next thing is kung-fu themed so that "every martial has maneuvers" thing can come to pass.

[Psyren]

They seem to be most comfortable introducing new subsystems in the setting books.

Which, honestly, seems like the best place for that sort of thing. They just did a similar but different enough to be legally distinct Harry Potter clone. Here's hoping the next thing is kung-fu themed so that "every martial has maneuvers" thing can come to pass.

Ooh, that's not a bad idea at all. They won't call it "Oriental Adventures" of course, but...

[HPisBS]

They seem to be most comfortable introducing new subsystems in the setting books.

Which, honestly, seems like the best place for that sort of thing. They just did a similar but different enough to be legally distinct Harry Potter clone. Here's hoping the next thing is kung-fu themed so that "every martial has maneuvers" thing can come to pass.

Idk what you're referencing, but I'd definitely be down for whatever gets us an official martial revamp (assuming they don't putz it up somehow, of course).

-- Especially if it tied in to "Martial Arts" somehow. (And I don't mean just bumping up the Monk's damage die, though I certainly wouldn't complain about that happening, too.)


Edit:
For that matter, I'd probably like an extra condition or two to be added to the game -- something like Dazed, or maybe Off-Balance that is easier to apply (at least for certain martials) but that quickly wears off and is just more minor overall. Maybe disadvantage only on the next attack or check, or any check or save to avoid forced movement or being knocked prone is made at disadvantage. Something like that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

They seem to be most comfortable introducing new subsystems in the setting books.

Which, honestly, seems like the best place for that sort of thing. They just did a similar but different enough to be legally distinct Harry Potter clone. Here's hoping the next thing is kung-fu themed so that "every martial has maneuvers" thing can come to pass.

From what I understand, most of those have been general access ones (like strixhaven's colleges or the gods favors from the Greek myth one). I was talking about class specific subsystems, like maneuvers, vestiges, incarnum, etc. Those have been much fewer and further between, and tend to boil down to "you can cast (spell) now".

[Dork_Forge]

You can make a better monk as a fighter, or barbarian too, but there's a certain amount of flavor with the abilities. Half the time, my party doesn't know what I'm playing, because I can build classes any way I like with RAW with a little imagination, and the rest is flavor. I can almost build a paladin with fighter 11/cleric 9, but no one is going to want to get rid of a paladin.

Technically, you could have fighter, bard, and wizard, and you've got everything covered and don't need more classes. You have martial who hits stuff, wizard's bs spells, and healing & skill monkey in bard. What, really, is there otherwise? We have 13 classes.

I didn't make a reductionist argument (we shouldn't go back to three or four classes), but the opposite end of that logic isn't that every concept needs to be explored as a class. Could you not only fill an entire class, and multiple subclasses, with a Warlord but also have mechanical and thematic space left to support them ongoingly? Because I'm not seeing it. I can kind of see justification for a class, but it starts to struggle at multiple subclasses initially and certainly going forwards.

To look at your examples:

-How can you make a better Monk as a Fighter? How are you shoehorning all of the defining features into a subclass template?

Or is this a claim that you can do that RAW? Taking Unarmed Fighting doesn't make you a Monk and, I'm assuming the intended direction of, taking Battle Master doesn't change that.

-Presenting a 20th level split doesn't make an argument for the Paladin not existing, especially when you're not advancing both aspects of the character at the same time and losing design space to redundant aspects like proficiencies.

As far as reaction based class, it's pretty well possible. For example, one homebrew is The Savant, which is based around reactions. Just one of many reaction based HB.
https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M0ZVK6ndhFyImQPF_aJ

Based around reactions? It doesn't even get a new use for its reaction until 5th level. How is a class based on something that doesn't start to emerge until a quarter of the way through its progression? And then the subsequent two features at 7th and 9th level have nothing to do with reactions at all?

It's a class that incorporates reactions into what it does, but it is by no stretch defined by that. It just looks like someone wanted to make a hybrid of the Inquisitive and Mastermind concepts.

And to be honest, breaking established action economy in a way that is ripe for abuse does not sound like something that should exist, nevermind have an entire class paving the way for it.

Warlord, not quite a fighter. It's about commanding allies and buffing them for being nearby. There are few takes on this, apparently a popular class from 3.5 called the marshal. It's about giving bonus to teammates without being magical. Imagine a paladin's aura, but that was the entire class, giving up smites and spell casting and nova damage, but everyone around you gets benefits. One HB of this.
https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LW4agTNJcbwe6kSv4H2

Sacrificing your own attacks and a dicepool to fuel stuff? That sounds exactly like the kind of thing that already exists in the game as subclasses. I mean reading what those Leadership Dice fuel it just looks like Battle Master maneuvers slammed together and one of them is just the Mastermind Rogues ability.

So... why can't that fit into a subclass? They still get Extra Attack despite not being cut out to use it well, so it's not like that part of the Fighter is a problem and I doubt the Experise's granted are what makes or breaks this.

They are both unique and bring a flavor that takes difficulty using vanilla Dnd, which, I think is enough to build a class around. Homebrewing is hard, don't trust 80% of it, but it does give good ideas at the very least. Artificer proved, even if albeit badly, wizards CAN add more classes to the game. Twilight cleric proved that apparently being busted isn't enough to stop it getting into Dnd :eyeroll:. {That may have been my breaking point for reaching outside of official material.}

That flavour takes work with what is already published, that doesn't mean that it warrants an entire class. And even if you wanted to do it with stock D&D options I don't see how you're not getting there with a Banneret/Mastermind mix with Superior Technique and Martial Adept.

You seem to be inferring that the Artificer is bad, I hold the opposite opinion of it's actually designed near perfectly, interesting and competitive without being OP and it does what it's meant to: make magical stuff and use magical stuff.

Throwing out a class for every concept like this is exactly how you end up with the bloat older editions are infamous for.

The finished product still doesn't even feel like an Artificer to me (more like an improved Techsmith or PF Alchemist) and the Artificer as a Wizard subclass felt even less like an artificer than that.

So what feels like an Artificer to you? What conceptual space is it not hitting?

Which, honestly, seems like the best place for that sort of thing. They just did a similar but different enough to be legally distinct Harry Potter clone. Here's hoping the next thing is kung-fu themed so that "every martial has maneuvers" thing can come to pass.

JK Rowling neither invented the concept of a magical school, nor owns any rights to anything but the school she created.

Magical schools are natural extensions of worlds where magic exists, actually providing support for that mechanically is not a HP clone and Strixhaven has nothing in common with Hogwarts apart from being 'a magical school.'

[False God]

IMO: a race takes much less effort and provides more more to the game than another ultra-niche class.

[Grod_The_Giant]

People griped about class bloat; no-one really talked about race bloat.

Pretty sure that's at least 50% of it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

People griped about class bloat; no-one really talked about race bloat.

Pretty sure that's at least 50% of it.

I've complained about both, so...

I'd not mind at all if race bloat were setting-specific. You want 52 kinds of elves[1]? Ok, make a setting where that makes sense. Don't bloat the core game with that. Races, for me, are so tightly bound to settings that an expectation of cross-setting races (in any sane sort of way that would share characteristics) is, frankly, harmful to my verisimilitude. But then again, I'm also hard against this whole "multiverse" thing they're pushing. Because it's just homogenization on a huge scale. No, your elves really were created by Corel-whosit and some spider chick must really matter. And those annoying Great Wheel-style planes force their way into everything. Ugh.

I can see giving really generic races and showing DMs how to customize those races for their setting, but then leaving the rest up to setting writers.

[Psyren]

Is it really "bloat" if almost none of the races are new to D&D?

All this book is doing is what a lot of groups were doing anyway - letting you take something setting-specific, or that originally appeared in some kind of monster manual with a "X as PCs" sidebar, and compiling it in one place as a general player option. It's giving DMs the freedom to say "setting-specific is banned" without curtailing a bunch of options unnecessarily. Minotaurs and Centaurs for example exist in a lot of settings besides Ravnica.

[tokek]

Race bloat doesn't really have much more impact on the game than Background bloat. Its essentially simple static stuff. A few races have an ability or spell that comes online at a certain level but again that's usually quite a simple thing.

Classes are a whole different level of complexity altogether. Which imposes a learning curve on DMs in particular. One of the clear objectives of 5e was to be an easier game to pick up and play than 3/3.5/4 were. Restricting the number of classes is part of that as they form a large part of the complexity of the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

They seem to be most comfortable introducing new subsystems in the setting books.

Like the piety feature in Theros.

(we shouldn't go back to three or four classes), but the opposite end of that logic isn't that every concept needs to be explored as a class. {snip} And to be honest, breaking established action economy in a way that is ripe for abuse does not sound like something that should exist, nevermind have an entire class paving the way for it.

Agree, and particularly with your second point.

You seem to be inferring that the Artificer is bad, I hold the opposite opinion of it's actually designed near perfectly, interesting and competitive without being OP and it does what it's meant to: make magical stuff and use magical stuff.

Which is a great fit for a magitech world.

Throwing out a class for every concept like this is exactly how you end up with the bloat older editions are infamous for.

Needs to be displayed in 200' foot tall burning letters.

JK Rowling neither invented the concept of a magical school, nor owns any rights to anything but the school she created.

Ursula K LeGuin (protagonist Ged) attended a magic academy in A Wizard of Earthsea - which IIRC was published in the 1968. Rowling's Hogwarts is a vapid imitation, at best (but she is from a different 'school' of world building in any case). Caveat/Note:

Spoiler: LeGuin's World Building is orders of magnitude better the Rowling's

Show

LeGuin's world building approach informs my own and has since I first tried to build a world for a D&D campaign back in the late 70's.

Magic is a central part of life in most of Earthsea, with the exception of the Kargish lands, where it is banned. There are weather workers on ships, fixers who repair boats and buildings, entertainers, and court sorcerers. Magic is an inborn talent which can be developed with training. The most gifted are sent to the school on Roke, where, if their skill and their discipline prove sufficient, they can become staff-carrying wizards. A strong theme of the stories is the connection between power and responsibility. There is often a Taoist message: "good" wizardry tries to be in harmony with the world, while "bad" wizardry, such as necromancy, can lead to an upsetting of the "balance" and threaten catastrophe. While the dragons are more powerful, they act instinctively to preserve the balance. Only humans pose a threat to it.

Magical schools are natural extensions of worlds where magic exists, actually providing support for that mechanically is not a HP clone and Strixhaven has nothing in common with Hogwarts apart from being 'a magical school.'

But perhaps inspired by it (in terms of to whom the devs pander ~ market research is a thing).

People griped about class bloat; no-one really talked about race bloat. Pretty sure that's at least 50% of it.

I am with PhoenixPhyre as regards "playable races need to fit the world/setting that they are in" and I take that a step further to "enough different varieties of elves already!"

One of the clear objectives of 5e was to be an easier game to pick up and play than 3/3.5/4 were. Restricting the number of classes is part of that as they form a large part of the complexity of the game.

We have a winner, give that poster a cigar. (Or a nice cup of tea). I'll argue that we can trim the number of classes considerably and still have a very playable game. (Ranger as a half caster Fighter sub class, or as a half caster Barbarian sub class is a place where I'd start). Barbarian as a Fighter Sub class is another way to approach this.

[Pooky the Imp]

To those saying race-bloat doesn't matter because race has so little impact, perhaps that is a problem in and of itself?

I certainly think it's a shame that we seem to be heading in the direction of making races more homogenous, rather than more distinct.

[Amechra]

Race bloat is... frustrating... to me, but that's mostly because my preference is for 3-5 playable races per setting (so you can go deep with their cultures and actually make them mechanically distinct/interesting)¹. But that's not the game D&D is, so meh to that I guess.

And yeah, I think the fact that they go crazy on races (and spells) while mostly leaving the classes alone is entirely because of how much more effort a class takes to make, both mechanically and conceptually.

¹ In my latest campaign, I offered 7 races to start and players have since "unlocked" 1 more. The thing is that 3 of those races (think humans, half-orcs, and sea elves) are considered to be humans in-setting, and another 3 races (think gnomes, dwarves, and goliaths) are different age-categories of the same creature.

[diplomancer]

The truth is, apart from some nice synergies between race and class (for example, fear-causing racials on a Conquest Paladin), race has a small impact on combat mechanics compared to class. Now, though I'm not sure that's a good thing, I don't think Tasha's is to blame, nor do I think this is because "all races feel the same". I think races should be more an aid to roleplaying than a list of combat features.

So, Racial Bloat almost never creates balancing issues. Though it DOES create world-building issues, they are by far much easier for DMs to ban-hammer than classes.

[HPisBS]

To those saying race-bloat doesn't matter because race has so little impact, perhaps that is a problem in and of itself?

I certainly think it's a shame that we seem to be heading in the direction of making races more homogenous, rather than more distinct.

When a few people want to pretend that DnD races represent irl "races," and there's a culture of {Scrubbed}pandering, "more homogenous" is, unfortunately, the only direction it's gonna go.

[Composer99]

The strict answer to the question has already been answered - adding a new PC race simply doesn't impact the mechanical side of the game the way adding a new class does. It's much simpler (on that score).

I think that it's just fine that the game includes a wide variety of playable PC races. I do think the DMG should have provided more guidance on including races in your setting if you wanted to have restricted options. There's nothing wrong with either kitchen sink settings or settings with restricted options, but the DMG should have more to say for DMs interested in either. (I don't recall offhand what the PHB has to say on the topic, but something like "your DM might not include all the character races in this chapter in their setting - consult with your DM for more details" would have been valuable.)

[P. G. Macer]

Now that I have some more time on my hands, I’ll offer my two copper pieces.

I agree with the posters who have said that race bloat is in fact a problem. Part of the issue stems from many casual tables allowing any and all official WotC content, even if that means playing a githyanki in Theros. This policy I believe stems from the earlier days of 5e when there was a dearth of official content, so DMs could easily moderate what was allowed, but restrictions seemed punitive due to how few choices there were to begin with.

That said, counting UA we now have 11 varieties of elf, and D&D 5e now has an entry for the TVTropes pages Loads and Loads of Races and Massive Race Selection. It would be far more reasonable for DMs to limit race selection to what is allowed in the setting they’re playing in (or not making a place for every race in their homebrew setting), yet that is still relatively rare.

Class bloat, meanwhile, I cannot speak to in terms of firsthand experience, having started D&D with 5e, but from what I can tell has a much more immediate impact on the game than race bloat, due to D&D being a class-based system.

@HPisBS: I agree that the current trend is towards homogenization, and that is awful, though what I can say within the forum rules about the rest of your comment is that the situation is somewhat more complicated than you present it, though the lamentable result is the same.

P.S. @KorvinStarmast: Glad to see another Earthsea fan around! Such an underrated series! Le Guin also made some choice remarks about Harry Potter back when it was first rocketing in popularity, but since they could be seen as rather incendiary and off topic, I won’t reproduce them here.

[Dalinar]

For what it's worth, my DM's world has about 60-70 playable race options in it (though many are subraces or half-breeds of other races). I wouldn't say it feels "bloated" or "kitchen sink" so much as it just makes his world feel huge. (It helps that some things are definitely *not* present, as well, most notably dwarves.)

Notably, there is no Tasha's ASI rule, and we don't shy away too much from the occasional racial stat penalty, or common pet peeve traits like flight speeds. This leaves a ton of design space open to make them feel distinct from each other, even if you look at the half-dozen or so different types of bird people. Regardless of how you feel about the gradual conversion to floating ASIs WOTC seems headed for, I think that that's the tradeoff you make by having or not having such rules, from a solely game design perspective. If you have no floating racial ASIs, you can have more race options that feel distinct from each other. If you do have Tasha's ASIs, your races feel more similar, but you have more flexibility within a given race. (I'm not going to derail things here and talk about the social commentary side, even if it were within forum rules to do so.)

So race bloat scales as a problem depending on how many distinct features of your character are tied to their race. 100 races are fine if there's design space to make them differ from each other. 10 races are a problem if there isn't space to make the decision feel meaningful (unless you WANT purely cosmetic races, but I don't think D&D's consumers do).

As for classes: trying to balance the same number of full classes against each other would drive me mad, personally. One new class is dramatically more complexity added to the game than one new race, and I think that's the crux of the issue here.

[Psyren]

I just don't get how anyone can look at neo-race traits like Hobgoblin's Fey Gift, or Kenku Expert Duplication/Mimicry, or Bugbear Surprise Attack, or Orc Adrenaline Rush etc and conclude "wow, these races sure are all homogenous reskins of each other!" I really just don't.

[Saelethil]

I just don't get how anyone can look at neo-race traits like Hobgoblin's Fey Gift, or Kenku Expert Duplication/Mimicry, or Bugbear Surprise Attack, or Orc Adrenaline Rush etc and conclude "wow, these races sure are all homogenous reskins of each other!" I really just don't.

Right? Ability score bonuses are the shallowest racial trait in 5e and I’m glad if decoupling them from race makes WotC use a modicum of creativity.

[Composer99]

I just don't get how anyone can look at neo-race traits like Hobgoblin's Fey Gift, or Kenku Expert Duplication/Mimicry, or Bugbear Surprise Attack, or Orc Adrenaline Rush etc and conclude "wow, these races sure are all homogenous reskins of each other!" I really just don't.

I don't know what any of those are - or if I did I've quite forgotten - but just the names add very distinct flavour to each of the creatures that possess them. So +1 to this point.

[Dork_Forge]

I just don't get how anyone can look at neo-race traits like Hobgoblin's Fey Gift, or Kenku Expert Duplication/Mimicry, or Bugbear Surprise Attack, or Orc Adrenaline Rush etc and conclude "wow, these races sure are all homogenous reskins of each other!" I really just don't.

But can you see how moving to floating ASIs at the same time as ripping flavourful detail (Age, Height and Weight) out and making it 'about the same as humans' boilerplate is?

Even with the new Genasi being improved, they did so by removing some of the uniqueness between them (like how they all now get Darkvision and the red tint is gone from Fire's).

[KorvinStarmast]

I'll only say this once: the "can be small or medium" for size for all of those race options annoys me. It is not an improvement. (But as I am long since tired of the small races for PCs _ I guess it was the Kender that were the final tipping point_that was bound to annoy me. A matter of taste, I guess).

[Amdy_vill]

isn't there like 90 subs in the main books and like another 30 in those plane shift splatbooks. like 120 subs and theirs only 115 races in the game and 150 if you count the plane shift books. it kinda seems to me they is a smilier amount of options for both,

[Amechra]

But can you see how moving to floating ASIs at the same time as ripping flavourful detail (Age, Height and Weight) out and making it 'about the same as humans' boilerplate is?

That's honestly the main thing that bugs me about the Tasha's changes, far more than the ASI thing. Seriously, two of the iconic races are Bearded Humans Who Are Shorter On Average and Pointy-Eared Humans Who Live A Really Long Time!

[Psyren]

I don't know what any of those are - or if I did I've quite forgotten - but just the names add very distinct flavour to each of the creatures that possess them. So +1 to this point.

Those are the new traits they got in Monsters of the Multiverse.

But can you see how moving to floating ASIs at the same time as ripping flavourful detail (Age, Height and Weight) out and making it 'about the same as humans' boilerplate is?

No, I really don't. Age matters in almost no campaigns at all. Neither do Height and Weight as long as you're in the same size category.

Even with the new Genasi being improved, they did so by removing some of the uniqueness between them (like how they all now get Darkvision and the red tint is gone from Fire's).

Oh noes, not the red tint! Be still my heart!