Absolutely. The only real issue (and it isn't much of one) is figuring out when certain level based racial abilities should kick in (e.g. Celestial Revelation for an Aasimar).
Well, there's a bit of a balance hassle. If you have a Goliath with Ancestry (Fire Giant) so that guard is doing 10 damage (1d6+1+1d10) instead of 4.5, your players might have reason to complain if you still call it CR 1/8.
Ideally that would be balanced out. The guard stat block is meant to represent a human guard, who then gets certain advantages for being human. For PCs that's an extra origin feat, an extra skill, and Heroic Inspiration. Since we don't want to actually use those abilities we would probably come up with some other tweak (e.g. stat blocks for non-humans have fewer total points. Goliaths are +2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, and -2 Intelligence. The goliath is stronger and does an extra point of damage and gets an extra +1 on their melee attacks, but they have to sacrifice both Dex and Intelligence, making them a little slower in Initiative and a little easier to sneak past, and they lose a point of AC)
So while the Goliath gains two attacks with extra damage (it is limited to their Proficiency Bonus) they will be missing out on something else.
Alternately, and perhaps a better idea, would be to modify the ability even further. Let them do an extra 2 points of Fire all the time. That means their spear is now +4 to hit, 5 Piercing/2 Fire instead of +3 to hit, 4 Piercing, but using it no longer needs to be tracked. That is balanced against a worse Initiative, Perception, and AC than the standard Human.
edit: Since the use of the bonus damage is no longer tied to Proficiency Bonus the damage could be tied to directly to CR. Giving the lower constant damage at CR of 1/8 would help balance the fact that a higher CR creature would be able to use it more often. This still carries through the idea that because of their lineage they are igniting their weapons, but without as much bookkeeping or the imbalances that might occur at lower CRs.
There’s no reason to assume the Guard statblock is specifically built to read as a human. How would you even identify that in a mechanically significant way for a mook?
It takes a fairly significant power change to actually affect CR; if you give level-dependent traits at the same CR rather than the same HD (so you don't have that tough suddenly using hellish rebuke) you can probably use aasimar, dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, and tiefling as is. The main problem cases are
Dragonborn: set breath weapon die type to the average damage of its melee attack (so a guard would have a d4 or d6 breath weapon), guards breathing fire for a d10 is excessive.
Goliath: change some of its existing damage to the damage type of its ancestry. Or add +1 damage, that's probably a rounding error.
Human: don't give them an origin feat (ignore, or figure they have something not combat relevant). They can keep resourceful; it's not nothing, but it's not enough to change CR.
Orc: adrenaline rush becomes bonus action dash (no limited uses, no temp hp), relentless endurance only applies if CR 1+.
There’s no reason to assume the Guard statblock is specifically built to read as a human. How would you even identify that in a mechanically significant way for a mook?
The guard statblock and CR is clearly not set for someone doing an additional 1d10 on 2 of their hits. Additionally, we need to establish a baseline somewhere so that we can then adjust Attributes to make the Goliath Guard feel more like a Goliath.
So if we are giving something (even if it is just +2 fire on all attacks and +2 Strength) we need to either take something else away or adjust the CR.
Since we probably want to use the stat block as-is the majority of the time, and since the majority of the population of most campaigns are human, it makes sense to assume that all humanoid stat blocks are humans and unmodified for humans. Besides, how would you modify the stat block to make them 'human'? Give them an extra skill, a feat, and Heroic Inspiration?
The fact that PC humans get those while, it is generally assumed, NPC don't makes me a bit more comfortable in not doing a straight 1 to 1 copy of the traits of the other species (e.g., transforming the additional damage die of Fire Giant Lineage Goliaths with a limited number of uses to straight additional damage based on their CR, no roll, no use limit).
I realized yesterday it is practically a necessity to tweak things because for a PC Goliath they really have to decide whether to use that ability even once in a fight since they only get a couple of uses through all the combats of the day while an NPC is most likely only going to have the single combat they are in.
Why +2 STR? None of the 2024 races do that stuff. And I don’t see why we have to assume and treat the NPC blocks like they’re automatically human.
Correct. They don't, but I would still bet you that if you did a statistical analysis of all Goliath characters people are playing you would find the average Strength slightly higher because Goliath players tend to migrate to builds where that is a more important stat.
We aren't talking about making PCs for the players to fight. If you want to do that, knock yourself out. I'll even admit that you probably should do that for significant NPCs, but for nameless mooks you probably want a more streamline system that will result in a 'Goliath Guard' still filling the same role as 'Human Guard' (i.e. CR 1/8 mook) that feels like they are actually a different race while not overly complicating running a combat with them or unbalancing things because of their 'single use' economy.
At the end of the day the best result would be for the DM to just create a new 'humanoid' whole cloth as opposed to templates and overlays. All I'm speaking of is a quick and dirty system to help less experienced DMs get roughly in the ball park (kind of like how experienced DMs will lay out an encounter based on their skills and experience rather than just a CR total since CR effectiveness can swing wildly depending on party makeup)
Well, there's a bit of a balance hassle. If you have a Goliath with Ancestry (Fire Giant) so that guard is doing 10 damage (1d6+1+1d10) instead of 4.5, your players might have reason to complain if you still call it CR 1/8.
Ideally that would be balanced out. The guard stat block is meant to represent a human guard, who then gets certain advantages for being human. For PCs that's an extra origin feat, an extra skill, and Heroic Inspiration. Since we don't want to actually use those abilities we would probably come up with some other tweak (e.g. stat blocks for non-humans have fewer total points. Goliaths are +2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, and -2 Intelligence. The goliath is stronger and does an extra point of damage and gets an extra +1 on their melee attacks, but they have to sacrifice both Dex and Intelligence, making them a little slower in Initiative and a little easier to sneak past, and they lose a point of AC)
So while the Goliath gains two attacks with extra damage (it is limited to their Proficiency Bonus) they will be missing out on something else.
Alternately, and perhaps a better idea, would be to modify the ability even further. Let them do an extra 2 points of Fire all the time. That means their spear is now +4 to hit, 5 Piercing/2 Fire instead of +3 to hit, 4 Piercing, but using it no longer needs to be tracked. That is balanced against a worse Initiative, Perception, and AC than the standard Human.
edit: Since the use of the bonus damage is no longer tied to Proficiency Bonus the damage could be tied to directly to CR. Giving the lower constant damage at CR of 1/8 would help balance the fact that a higher CR creature would be able to use it more often. This still carries through the idea that because of their lineage they are igniting their weapons, but without as much bookkeeping or the imbalances that might occur at lower CRs.
There’s no reason to assume the Guard statblock is specifically built to read as a human. How would you even identify that in a mechanically significant way for a mook?
It takes a fairly significant power change to actually affect CR; if you give level-dependent traits at the same CR rather than the same HD (so you don't have that tough suddenly using hellish rebuke) you can probably use aasimar, dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, and tiefling as is. The main problem cases are
The guard statblock and CR is clearly not set for someone doing an additional 1d10 on 2 of their hits. Additionally, we need to establish a baseline somewhere so that we can then adjust Attributes to make the Goliath Guard feel more like a Goliath.
So if we are giving something (even if it is just +2 fire on all attacks and +2 Strength) we need to either take something else away or adjust the CR.
Since we probably want to use the stat block as-is the majority of the time, and since the majority of the population of most campaigns are human, it makes sense to assume that all humanoid stat blocks are humans and unmodified for humans. Besides, how would you modify the stat block to make them 'human'? Give them an extra skill, a feat, and Heroic Inspiration?
The fact that PC humans get those while, it is generally assumed, NPC don't makes me a bit more comfortable in not doing a straight 1 to 1 copy of the traits of the other species (e.g., transforming the additional damage die of Fire Giant Lineage Goliaths with a limited number of uses to straight additional damage based on their CR, no roll, no use limit).
I realized yesterday it is practically a necessity to tweak things because for a PC Goliath they really have to decide whether to use that ability even once in a fight since they only get a couple of uses through all the combats of the day while an NPC is most likely only going to have the single combat they are in.
Why +2 STR? None of the 2024 races do that stuff. And I don’t see why we have to assume and treat the NPC blocks like they’re automatically human.
Correct. They don't, but I would still bet you that if you did a statistical analysis of all Goliath characters people are playing you would find the average Strength slightly higher because Goliath players tend to migrate to builds where that is a more important stat.
We aren't talking about making PCs for the players to fight. If you want to do that, knock yourself out. I'll even admit that you probably should do that for significant NPCs, but for nameless mooks you probably want a more streamline system that will result in a 'Goliath Guard' still filling the same role as 'Human Guard' (i.e. CR 1/8 mook) that feels like they are actually a different race while not overly complicating running a combat with them or unbalancing things because of their 'single use' economy.
At the end of the day the best result would be for the DM to just create a new 'humanoid' whole cloth as opposed to templates and overlays. All I'm speaking of is a quick and dirty system to help less experienced DMs get roughly in the ball park (kind of like how experienced DMs will lay out an encounter based on their skills and experience rather than just a CR total since CR effectiveness can swing wildly depending on party makeup)