My issue isn't really with having aasimar or not. It's why not just have a beastfolk race?
WIth the current idea for playing someone of mixed ancestry, a player could combine beastfolk with aasimar (or whatever) and have what WoTC produced.
But a distinct BEASTFOLK type race would mean a player could pick an animal and not have to be tied to an angelic heritage. They could just play a squirrelfolk or a birdfolk or whatever. It would allow a lot of flexibility, without needing to introduce later animal-specific races (owlin, grung, harengon, etc). WoTC could easily then give some generic feats for mammal, bird (fly speed), aquatic (swim speed, can breathe water), etc. Players could then flavor their character in different ways. WoTC could even say "adopt a trait from the animal as found in the MM or consulting with your DM."
Players can already choose size (so they can be a Small squirrelfolk or a Medium badgerfolk). This seems like a no-brainer.
FYI: I say this as someone who regulary DMs tables with kids 8-12, and invariably I've had to create rabbitfolk (before harengon was a thing), badgerfolk, a playable unicorn necromancer, a frogfolk (we reskinned grung), an axolotl, and various other beastfolk characters. Kids (and adults) love playing animalfolk. Just make a generic but flexible race and let people do it.
Technically with the ardling being celestial you can get both with half races. You can half ardling/ human, halfling, dwarf, orc and make them look more animal while using the Human, Orc, halfing or Dwarf stat block which makes them more "mundane". Or vice versa, use the human, elf, dwarf, orc, or what ever looks with some angelic factors and use the ardling stat block if you want a celestial heritage character without the animal heads.
My issue isn't really with having aasimar or not. It's why not just have a beastfolk race?
WIth the current idea for playing someone of mixed ancestry, a player could combine beastfolk with aasimar (or whatever) and have what WoTC produced.
But a distinct BEASTFOLK type race would mean a player could pick an animal and not have to be tied to an angelic heritage. They could just play a squirrelfolk or a birdfolk or whatever. It would allow a lot of flexibility, without needing to introduce later animal-specific races (owlin, grung, harengon, etc). WoTC could easily then give some generic feats for mammal, bird (fly speed), aquatic (swim speed, can breathe water), etc. Players could then flavor their character in different ways. WoTC could even say "adopt a trait from the animal as found in the MM or consulting with your DM."
Players can already choose size (so they can be a Small squirrelfolk or a Medium badgerfolk). This seems like a no-brainer.
FYI: I say this as someone who regulary DMs tables with kids 8-12, and invariably I've had to create rabbitfolk (before harengon was a thing), badgerfolk, a playable unicorn necromancer, a frogfolk (we reskinned grung), an axolotl, and various other beastfolk characters. Kids (and adults) love playing animalfolk. Just make a generic but flexible race and let people do it.
I already mentioned this before but "beastfolk" is just a generic fantasy race, it literally brings nothing interesting to the table. Others have already mentioned it but "beastfolk" would also invalidate some much more interesting and pre-existing races like Lizardfolk and Tabaxi. Beastfolk would NOT be a good addition to D&D, D&D needs interesting races, not generic and boring races; that is already the issue that affects Aasimar and the last thing we need is another Aasimar.
To clarify my earlier post, I understand where WOTC is trying to go with inclusion and free-style design so players can create the characters they want and that they can relate to. Unlike earlier additions where Paladins were all LG, not so anymore. Everyone can be anything now. Aasimar can be evil. Tieflings can be good. You can mix races and choose your abilities. I can understand the "D&D is for Everyone" concept. I think Ardlings were an effort to meet the beast folk niche, and that is fine, but I just believe they put it in the wrong place. You can create a new race without displacing or competing with one that a lot of people already enjoy.
There are many ways to do this. They could draw their power from the elemental plane. Tagging on to the new (old) concept of schools of magic their source could be primal. This would help develop those schools. This is UA. Spell lists aren't set in stone. Nothing is. If you want to make the primal school more than just Rangers and Druids, add a race that can lean into it as well. As far as the arcane comment, we have precedent with the draconic sorcerer changing and adapting as it went up in levels. Some races get spells as they go up in level, why not abilities. Limited flight or other beast like capabilities (speed, jumping, vision enhancement) at higher levels might not OP.
My point was Ardlings are a good concept poorly executed. Don't just reskin an Aasimar and call it good. It takes away from both races. Take advantages of the new changes and make the race something more that people will want to play and builds on the new concepts.
Personally I feel like making them generic beastfolk is a terrible idea. I think that connecting them to all of the animalistic/animal-headed deities and divine creatures in myth is a pretty decent niche that hasn't been touched upon much so far.
Personally, I would probably go with Aasimar as the race name, classical angel-people as LG, animal people as NG, and nymphs/dryads/neriads/etc as the CG. There's got to be spells and movement abilities we can use to represent all three
That's what I offered in another thread, and people didn't like it) Even though it's a very sound compromise. Although nymphs, dryads and eladrin belong to the feywild, not outer planes. I'd say that LG could be blind "judges" representing the law with blindsight and spells like thaumaturgy, command and zone of truth, NG could be inspired by hinduist and buddhist saints and gods, like with vibrant colorful skin and extra eyes or hands, with a mission of spreading joy and peace (light, sanctuary and calm emotions, perhaps), while CG could have noble animal traits like lion's mane, crown-shaped antlers, or feathers instead of hair, and be enforcers of divine will, avengers and rebels (resistance, compelled duel, enhance ability). I'd avoid giving them healing racial spells as that might tip the balance.
Also, why didn't anyone mention Shifter race from Eberron? They're basically your beastfolk, with beasthide, longtooth, swiftstride, and wildhunt subraces.
Also, why didn't anyone mention Shifter race from Eberron? They're basically your beastfolk, with beasthide, longtooth, swiftstride, and wildhunt subraces.
Shifter is such an awesome race. Aardlings (or Aardvarkimar as I like to think of them) seem more like an avatar like a manifestation of Ganeesha or Bast than a beastfolk. Their appearance seems a lot like how gods were represented in Egyptian mythology and I don't see a good connection between that and what I think of as beastfolk. Edit: Shifter doesn't really embody a beastfolk which is a full-time beast.
Making Ardlings beastfolk completely misses the point of what ardlings are, which are beings associated with the Upper Planes that act as the "heavenly" equivalent to the tiefling. And as others have pointed out, ardlings (at least flavour-wise) fill a niche we haven't had in 5e with aasimar, which are a celestial race that plays up the animal themes a number of mythological beings in the real world have.
While I don't necessarily approve of how the race's mechanics have been implemented, as I think there is a lot of room for improvement there, the flavour has a lot of potential.
EDIT: If anything, this thread is an example of precisely why I think this ardling race ought to exist in this game. Because it has the potential to provide a refreshing take on the usual angel trope that has been done to death in popular culture.
I agree that the ardling sounds really interesting. And the animal heads are pretty much just flavor, so making it optional.
But why not just have a beastfolk race that can give a lot of flexibility to lots of players? It would make for an easier "new" race while also allowing to incorporate a variety of preexisting races (aarakocra, owlin, harengon, grung, etc.) into one single package.
I agree that the ardling sounds really interesting. And the animal heads are pretty much just flavor, so making it optional.
But why not just have a beastfolk race that can give a lot of flexibility to lots of players? It would make for an easier "new" race while also allowing to incorporate a variety of preexisting races (aarakocra, owlin, harengon, grung, etc.) into one single package.
you sort of answered this with your own question, because those races already exist and have deeper lore than "we are a bunch of beast folk", in such ways that they shouldn't be incorporated together. Aarakocra for example come from the elemental plane of air while Owlin & Harengon comes from the fey wilds and Grung (and kenku for that matter) come from Toril, there isn't a commonality amongst them with the exception of them resembling some type of animal and so to group them as something like "beastfolk" risks damaging just what they actually are.
I agree that the ardling sounds really interesting. And the animal heads are pretty much just flavor, so making it optional.
But why not just have a beastfolk race that can give a lot of flexibility to lots of players? It would make for an easier "new" race while also allowing to incorporate a variety of preexisting races (aarakocra, owlin, harengon, grung, etc.) into one single package.
Are you asking why we can't have a generic beastfolk race that replaces a bunch of races that are very distinct from each other, instead of a celestial-type race (which I've hoped they'd put in the next PHB) to be alongside the tiefling?
I think the aasimar is great (I'm currently playing one as an eldritch knight). They should be included in the PHB.
I'm saying that, yes, there should be a generic beastfolk race that gives some general guidelines for players to create any variety of animal folk. This is for the PHB. A separate thing like Volo's Guide to Creatures or whatever could then give more detail on specific ones and even use their previous names (grung, owlin, harengon, etc.).
I think the aasimar is great (I'm currently playing one as an eldritch knight). They should be included in the PHB.
I'm saying that, yes, there should be a generic beastfolk race that gives some general guidelines for players to create any variety of animal folk. This is for the PHB. A separate thing like Volo's Guide to Creatures or whatever could then give more detail on specific ones and even use their previous names (grung, owlin, harengon, etc.).
There already is a generic beastfolk race in DnD: shifters, from Eberron, and they can have any beast's blood in them.
I think the aasimar is great (I'm currently playing one as an eldritch knight). They should be included in the PHB.
The problem with the aasimar I've always had is that it has very little other than the angelic guide, which they pretty much ditch in Monsters of the Multiverse, to make it really stand out. The transformation is a brief 1 minute thing that you can only do once per long rest, but what about the rest of the time? People have had to homebrew the aasimar here and there to make it something that isn't just human+.
What ardling does is that it not only makes the celestial race something actually distinct, but it also has a nod to lore that isn't just angels. You still haven't really explained what your problem with that is.
What I wouldn't mind is aasimar and ardling both being variants of the same race, since their mechanical features have the same basic structure. But I do think the mechanics themselves need some work, especially with regards to how the animal heads factor into things. In mythology, different animal heads tend to represent different ideals, so they could try to play that up more in the mechanics.
I'm saying that, yes, there should be a generic beastfolk race that gives some general guidelines for players to create any variety of animal folk. This is for the PHB. A separate thing like Volo's Guide to Creatures or whatever could then give more detail on specific ones and even use their previous names (grung, owlin, harengon, etc.).
What we're trying to say to you is that these different specific beastfolk are very different from each other, and trying to pigeonhole all of them into one race is like trying to pigeonhole humans, elves, and dwarves into one race.
The biggest thing about the Aasimar/Ardling thing is that it feels like an attempt to mash together two very different themes that don't really fit together.
People who are attracted to Aasimar are in it for the angel/divine being fantasy. People who want to play animal characters are in it for... a variety of other reasons, but for now let's go with the thematic associations with the animals in question. (Look at my profile picture, guess which camp I fall into.)
So why is it that when they add a race that lets me say, "I'm playing a cool bear dude," I'm forced to also have angelic flight for some reason? Why is it that my only option for "I'm an angelic adventurer sent to make the world a better place" heavily suggests having the head of a cat or jackal? Yes, historically there have been a lot of elements of animal imagery in religion/mythology. That doesn't mean it makes any sense to mesh the two in the modern day. They're two wildly different niches and nobody from either camp necessarily wants to be forced to play with one foot in the other.
inb4 "you can just choose not to use angelic flight," sure, I could also reflavor the Rock Gnome to be a mouse person from the clockwork dimension, and in fact that would probably fit better thematically than Ardlings as a beast race. It doesn't change the fact that I'd need to change or ignore rules in a game I'm playing with 4-5 other people in order to do so, and by making Ardlings, they're implicitly saying "we've done the angel thing and we've done the animal-person thing, so we don't need to revisit it." We won't get modernized Aasimar or beast-races for a while, if ever, because of this; they're more likely to put energy toward stuff like tritons, or even more slightly-different elves.
The most frustrating thing about this is that even with the weak-ass subrace ("lineage/legacy") system they're using, they could still EASILY have made Aasimar and animal-types into different categories with less overlap while still putting them both down as Ardlings. But noooo, subraces do nothing but give you random-ass spells now! God, I hope they get their heads out of their butts and change that.
The biggest thing about the Aasimar/Ardling thing is that it feels like an attempt to mash together two very different themes that don't really fit together.
People who are attracted to Aasimar are in it for the angel/divine being fantasy. People who want to play animal characters are in it for... a variety of other reasons, but for now let's go with the thematic associations with the animals in question. (Look at my profile picture, guess which camp I fall into.)
So why is it that when they add a race that lets me say, "I'm playing a cool bear dude," I'm forced to also have angelic flight for some reason? Why is it that my only option for "I'm an angelic adventurer sent to make the world a better place" heavily suggests having the head of a cat or jackal? Yes, historically there have been a lot of elements of animal imagery in religion/mythology. That doesn't mean it makes any sense to mesh the two in the modern day. They're two wildly different niches and nobody from either camp necessarily wants to be forced to play with one foot in the other.
inb4 "you can just choose not to use angelic flight," sure, I could also reflavor the Rock Gnome to be a mouse person from the clockwork dimension, and in fact that would probably fit better thematically than Ardlings as a beast race. It doesn't change the fact that I'd need to change or ignore rules in a game I'm playing with 4-5 other people in order to do so, and by making Ardlings, they're implicitly saying "we've done the angel thing and we've done the animal-person thing, so we don't need to revisit it." We won't get modernized Aasimar or beast-races for a while, if ever, because of this; they're more likely to put energy toward stuff like tritons, or even more slightly-different elves.
The most frustrating thing about this is that even with the weak-ass subrace ("lineage/legacy") system they're using, they could still EASILY have made Aasimar and animal-types into different categories with less overlap while still putting them both down as Ardlings. But noooo, subraces do nothing but give you random-ass spells now! God, I hope they get their heads out of their butts and change that.
My only real issue with your post is that the spells "subraces" give you in this One D&D playtest aren't entirely random.
There's a theme with some of them.
In any case, after thinking on it for a little bit, I think what they could do is something like this for a combination of the two:
Both Aasimar and Ardling: Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage, darkvision, knows Celestial as a language, the Celestial Legacy spells from the playtest to represent which planes they come from
Aasimar: Humanoid head, you choose between Protector, Scourge, and Fallen as before with maybe some adjustments to their abilities.
Ardling: You choose between bull, eagle, or lion in terms of the head you get. If you choose bull, you get something like the minotaur's horns and goring rush, and you get Powerful Build. If you choose eagle, you get advantage on Perception checks that rely on sight, and permanent wings that give you an innate flying speed (this would need to be tweaked to not make it strictly better than Protector Aasimar). If you choose lion, you get a magical roar (somewhat reminiscent of the sphinx's roar), claws as natural weapons, and maybe advantage on Strength checks/saves or saves against being frightened to represent how lions are often associated with courage/strength.
I didn't randomly choose the animal heads either. If you look up the cherub (as in, the Biblical cherub, not the cute baby cherub), these are three of the heads it has, with the fourth being that of a human. Also birbs, bulls, and lions are heavily represented in Near Eastern mythologies. It doesn't have to be these heads specifically or these abilities, but I'm just showing how it can present a more coherent theme.
And despite everything you said EnvyDragon, I still find Ardlings a more interesting concept than either Aasimar or Beastfolk; I mean Beastfolk are literally the most generic of generic isekai fantasy anime troops going. I like anime and manga, but I don't think they have a particular place in baseline D&D (homebrew sure, but not vanilla). So let's not try and shoehorn in literally the most generic of concepts from fantasy anime going. D&D is built on decades of lore building which should not be replaced with "lols, we beast people." Reading over the Ardlings in the Play Test, it is obvious that WotC have some interesting concepts regarding the Ardlings and how two of the three groups have connections to the "beastlands", which is not something new but is an upperplane, meaning it'd be something more inline with a celestial nature.
Aasimar I've already repeated enough times about how boring and uninteresting as a race they actually are... so instead lets actually look at some of the races that could be Adversely effected by "beastmen"
Dragonborn, literally a PHB race, most of them came from Abeir, a primal world which became ruled by Dragons and whom the main occupants came to resemble dragons; Dragonborns likely born of the intermingling of humans and dragons on Abeir; during the spell plague an entire city of Dragonborn were moved from Abeir to it's twin, Toril.
Lizardfolk, are a tribal and often cannibalistic race with strong hunter-gather tendancies; they believe in strength rather than intelligence or wit. Most members of a Lizardfolk tribe are usually barbarians or fighters but may rarely be druids or clerics(shaman). Lizardfolk often worship Semuanya and are likely descended from the Sarrukh, one of the creator races (being The Sarrukh, the Batrachi, the Aearee, the Fey and Humans)
Aarakocra, a group of flying birdmen who are found in multiple realms but in some form of another were either created by the Aearee or are the descendants of the Aearee, the creator race from Abeir-Toril. It is noted within 5E that they originate from the Elemental Plane of Air, altho their actual origins to the Aearee would place them back on Abeir-Toril where they likely originated from Maztica and have from there travelled around.
Kenku, are another group of birdmen like Aarakocra but are flightless in comparison. Kenku are like a creation of the Aearee. Kenku primarily live with other races, esp. Humans, and often are motivated by greed making many of them work as spies, assassins and thieves. Kenku's almost always want to act in small groups as doing so is more progressive towards their goals.
Kobolds, If you don't know who these little repitiles are, you haven't play enough D&D. They are essentially dragons, as they are one of the dragonspawn races created by Tiamat, with Dragonspawn being Tiamats answer to Dragonborn of Bahamut (not to be confused with the Dragonborn mentioned above, which is the PHB Dragonborn)
I think I've done pretty much as, much as I feel like doing for now but other races likely to be effected are Satyrs (goat-human people), Tabaxi (cat-like people), Yuan-ti (Human-snake hybrids that become more snake like as they become more powerful), Tortle (human-tortoise like creatures), Shfiter (a race that literally covers most of the common "beastfolk" races, and better than any anime/manga/LN ever will, essentially the descendants of Lycantrophes whom can shift in bestial forms matching those ancestors lycantrohpy), Loxodon (elephand people), Minotaur (yes Minotaurs, as in bull/cow people, obviously a lot of ancient stories have Minotaurs, like Theseus), Centaurs (they are horse people after all), Locathah (fish people) and Grung (toad humanoids).
There is probably more, but just so many races that there isn't a need for any type of "beastman" or "beastfolk" race what-so-ever since most choices are already covered. Ardling isn't that, they are not beastfolk, they are celestial and more in-line with say the gods of ancient egypt; a vastly more interesting idea than the most generic isekai anime race around.
Ardling: You choose between bull, eagle, or lion in terms of the head you get. If you choose bull, you get something like the minotaur's horns and goring rush, and you get Powerful Build. If you choose eagle, you get advantage on Perception checks that rely on sight, and permanent wings that give you an innate flying speed (this would need to be tweaked to not make it strictly better than Protector Aasimar). If you choose lion, you get a magical roar (somewhat reminiscent of the sphinx's roar), claws as natural weapons, and maybe advantage on Strength checks/saves or saves against being frightened to represent how lions are often associated with courage/strength.
Minotaur, aarakocra, and leonin already exist. That's the main problemm with ardlings, IMO - however you look at them, there's redundancy. Beast race? There's enough beastlike races as it is already. Bird people, cat people, lion people, bull people, horse people, hyppo people, elephant people, lizard people, snake people, turtle people, fish people, you name it. And they're all distinct enough to not be merged into a single catch-all beastfolk race. Even though it kinda extsts, the shifter race from Eberron. Angelic race? There's aasimar already, and ardling traits have too much in common with an already existing race.
The most frustrating thing about this is that even with the weak-ass subrace ("lineage/legacy") system they're using, they could still EASILY have made Aasimar and animal-types into different categories with less overlap while still putting them both down as Ardlings. But noooo, subraces do nothing but give you random-ass spells now! God, I hope they get their heads out of their butts and change that.
My only real issue with your post is that the spells "subraces" give you in this One D&D playtest aren't entirely random.
There's a theme with some of them.
Oh, I know there's a theme. My issue is that instead of giving me a tangible thing that no other race can do, they're like, "here, have these specific options that you could just take anyway if you were playing a cleric or wizard."
In 5e, that basically describes Tieflings... except that Tieflings have a ton of lineage options, and it makes sense for them to have inherent magic due to infernal corruption, plus being able to pick which specific archdevil you take after means the spells feel a little more special.
So not only have they made Tieflings way less interesting by 1) giving that same feature to three other races and 2) reducing Tiefling lineage options from 9+Feral to 3, but they've missed the whole point of WHY it worked for Tieflings. As a Tiefling, you're taking this taint upon your existence and channeling it into something useful. As a Wood Elf, I... can cast a spell that makes me walk slightly faster at level 3. Because woods.
It just dilutes what used to be a fairly unique Tiefling feature. The only other races that got free spells like that are Gith (because it's really just psionics), High Elves (which makes sense if you think of them as treating magic like literacy), and Genasi (which are literally elemental creatures). Of those, only Tieflings and Gith could level-up their racial casting, because for them it's a form of personal growth rather than inherent skill or basic education.
...So it just feels wrong to me that a Drow Barbarian will hit level 5 and go "now I can attack twice, and also cast a 2nd-level wizard spell."
And despite everything you said EnvyDragon, I still find Ardlings a more interesting concept than either Aasimar or Beastfolk; I mean Beastfolk are literally the most generic of generic isekai fantasy anime troops going. I like anime and manga, but I don't think they have a particular place in baseline D&D (homebrew sure, but not vanilla). So let's not try and shoehorn in literally the most generic of concepts from fantasy anime going. D&D is built on decades of lore building which should not be replaced with "lols, we beast people." Reading over the Ardlings in the Play Test, it is obvious that WotC have some interesting concepts regarding the Ardlings and how two of the three groups have connections to the "beastlands", which is not something new but is an upperplane, meaning it'd be something more inline with a celestial nature.
Aasimar I've already repeated enough times about how boring and uninteresting as a race they actually are...
Agreed on most of this, I don't like the idea of generic Beastfolk especially when they've already proven they can do specific parts of the concept justice with Tabaxi/Harengon/etc. I do think it's unfair of you to hammer on about how "uninteresting" Aasimar are just because you don't like them; there are a bunch of people in this thread who very clearly DO like them, and it's unfair to dismiss them like that.
To reiterate, my stance is:
-Aasimar aren't my thing, but it doesn't make sense to paint over them with a mechanically-identical but thematically-distinct race the way they did with Ardlings.
-I like the idea of Ardlings being a broader umbrella that refers to characters touched by positive-energy plains beyond just angelic figures.
-It is nonetheless dumb to say Aasimar aren't a subset of Ardling. There are people who like that race option and they should be allowed to play them without the rest of the party going, "Oh, you're an Ardling? Neat. What kind of animal head do you have?"
-It is similarly dumb to say "Ardlings allow you to represent religious imagery beyond angelic options" and then shoehorn angelic wings onto them anyway. It literally makes me less interested in playing an Ardling.
-A single beastfolk race is not something I'm interested in. Additional races inspired by animal entities are, and I'm frequently frustrated by WotC's apparent reluctance to go in that direction compared to what, say, Pathfinder is willing to do. Ardling animal-features are a concern for me because I worry it's WotC's attempt to say, "here you are, freaks, now stop asking."
Ardling: You choose between bull, eagle, or lion in terms of the head you get. If you choose bull, you get something like the minotaur's horns and goring rush, and you get Powerful Build. If you choose eagle, you get advantage on Perception checks that rely on sight, and permanent wings that give you an innate flying speed (this would need to be tweaked to not make it strictly better than Protector Aasimar). If you choose lion, you get a magical roar (somewhat reminiscent of the sphinx's roar), claws as natural weapons, and maybe advantage on Strength checks/saves or saves against being frightened to represent how lions are often associated with courage/strength.
Minotaur, aarakocra, and leonin already exist. That's the main problemm with ardlings, IMO - however you look at them, there's redundancy. Beast race? There's enough beastlike races as it is already. Bird people, cat people, lion people, bull people, horse people, hyppo people, elephant people, lizard people, snake people, turtle people, fish people, you name it. And they're all distinct enough to not be merged into a single catch-all beastfolk race. Even though it kinda extsts, the shifter race from Eberron. Angelic race? There's aasimar already, and ardling traits have too much in common with an already existing race.
As I have said, it doesn't have to be those abilities. I was just giving an example to illustrate how you can potentially mesh the two together.
It would take some creativity on WoTC's part to distinguish them from the beast-folk races that already exist, but I'm not going to say it's impossible for them.
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Technically with the ardling being celestial you can get both with half races. You can half ardling/ human, halfling, dwarf, orc and make them look more animal while using the Human, Orc, halfing or Dwarf stat block which makes them more "mundane". Or vice versa, use the human, elf, dwarf, orc, or what ever looks with some angelic factors and use the ardling stat block if you want a celestial heritage character without the animal heads.
I already mentioned this before but "beastfolk" is just a generic fantasy race, it literally brings nothing interesting to the table. Others have already mentioned it but "beastfolk" would also invalidate some much more interesting and pre-existing races like Lizardfolk and Tabaxi. Beastfolk would NOT be a good addition to D&D, D&D needs interesting races, not generic and boring races; that is already the issue that affects Aasimar and the last thing we need is another Aasimar.
To clarify my earlier post, I understand where WOTC is trying to go with inclusion and free-style design so players can create the characters they want and that they can relate to. Unlike earlier additions where Paladins were all LG, not so anymore. Everyone can be anything now. Aasimar can be evil. Tieflings can be good. You can mix races and choose your abilities. I can understand the "D&D is for Everyone" concept. I think Ardlings were an effort to meet the beast folk niche, and that is fine, but I just believe they put it in the wrong place. You can create a new race without displacing or competing with one that a lot of people already enjoy.
There are many ways to do this. They could draw their power from the elemental plane. Tagging on to the new (old) concept of schools of magic their source could be primal. This would help develop those schools. This is UA. Spell lists aren't set in stone. Nothing is. If you want to make the primal school more than just Rangers and Druids, add a race that can lean into it as well. As far as the arcane comment, we have precedent with the draconic sorcerer changing and adapting as it went up in levels. Some races get spells as they go up in level, why not abilities. Limited flight or other beast like capabilities (speed, jumping, vision enhancement) at higher levels might not OP.
My point was Ardlings are a good concept poorly executed. Don't just reskin an Aasimar and call it good. It takes away from both races. Take advantages of the new changes and make the race something more that people will want to play and builds on the new concepts.
Personally I feel like making them generic beastfolk is a terrible idea. I think that connecting them to all of the animalistic/animal-headed deities and divine creatures in myth is a pretty decent niche that hasn't been touched upon much so far.
That's what I offered in another thread, and people didn't like it) Even though it's a very sound compromise. Although nymphs, dryads and eladrin belong to the feywild, not outer planes. I'd say that LG could be blind "judges" representing the law with blindsight and spells like thaumaturgy, command and zone of truth, NG could be inspired by hinduist and buddhist saints and gods, like with vibrant colorful skin and extra eyes or hands, with a mission of spreading joy and peace (light, sanctuary and calm emotions, perhaps), while CG could have noble animal traits like lion's mane, crown-shaped antlers, or feathers instead of hair, and be enforcers of divine will, avengers and rebels (resistance, compelled duel, enhance ability). I'd avoid giving them healing racial spells as that might tip the balance.
Also, why didn't anyone mention Shifter race from Eberron? They're basically your beastfolk, with beasthide, longtooth, swiftstride, and wildhunt subraces.
Shifter is such an awesome race. Aardlings (or Aardvarkimar as I like to think of them) seem more like an avatar like a manifestation of Ganeesha or Bast than a beastfolk. Their appearance seems a lot like how gods were represented in Egyptian mythology and I don't see a good connection between that and what I think of as beastfolk. Edit: Shifter doesn't really embody a beastfolk which is a full-time beast.
Making Ardlings beastfolk completely misses the point of what ardlings are, which are beings associated with the Upper Planes that act as the "heavenly" equivalent to the tiefling. And as others have pointed out, ardlings (at least flavour-wise) fill a niche we haven't had in 5e with aasimar, which are a celestial race that plays up the animal themes a number of mythological beings in the real world have.
While I don't necessarily approve of how the race's mechanics have been implemented, as I think there is a lot of room for improvement there, the flavour has a lot of potential.
EDIT: If anything, this thread is an example of precisely why I think this ardling race ought to exist in this game. Because it has the potential to provide a refreshing take on the usual angel trope that has been done to death in popular culture.
I agree that the ardling sounds really interesting. And the animal heads are pretty much just flavor, so making it optional.
But why not just have a beastfolk race that can give a lot of flexibility to lots of players? It would make for an easier "new" race while also allowing to incorporate a variety of preexisting races (aarakocra, owlin, harengon, grung, etc.) into one single package.
you sort of answered this with your own question, because those races already exist and have deeper lore than "we are a bunch of beast folk", in such ways that they shouldn't be incorporated together. Aarakocra for example come from the elemental plane of air while Owlin & Harengon comes from the fey wilds and Grung (and kenku for that matter) come from Toril, there isn't a commonality amongst them with the exception of them resembling some type of animal and so to group them as something like "beastfolk" risks damaging just what they actually are.
Are you asking why we can't have a generic beastfolk race that replaces a bunch of races that are very distinct from each other, instead of a celestial-type race (which I've hoped they'd put in the next PHB) to be alongside the tiefling?
I think the aasimar is great (I'm currently playing one as an eldritch knight). They should be included in the PHB.
I'm saying that, yes, there should be a generic beastfolk race that gives some general guidelines for players to create any variety of animal folk. This is for the PHB. A separate thing like Volo's Guide to Creatures or whatever could then give more detail on specific ones and even use their previous names (grung, owlin, harengon, etc.).
There already is a generic beastfolk race in DnD: shifters, from Eberron, and they can have any beast's blood in them.
The problem with the aasimar I've always had is that it has very little other than the angelic guide, which they pretty much ditch in Monsters of the Multiverse, to make it really stand out. The transformation is a brief 1 minute thing that you can only do once per long rest, but what about the rest of the time? People have had to homebrew the aasimar here and there to make it something that isn't just human+.
What ardling does is that it not only makes the celestial race something actually distinct, but it also has a nod to lore that isn't just angels. You still haven't really explained what your problem with that is.
What I wouldn't mind is aasimar and ardling both being variants of the same race, since their mechanical features have the same basic structure. But I do think the mechanics themselves need some work, especially with regards to how the animal heads factor into things. In mythology, different animal heads tend to represent different ideals, so they could try to play that up more in the mechanics.
What we're trying to say to you is that these different specific beastfolk are very different from each other, and trying to pigeonhole all of them into one race is like trying to pigeonhole humans, elves, and dwarves into one race.
The biggest thing about the Aasimar/Ardling thing is that it feels like an attempt to mash together two very different themes that don't really fit together.
People who are attracted to Aasimar are in it for the angel/divine being fantasy. People who want to play animal characters are in it for... a variety of other reasons, but for now let's go with the thematic associations with the animals in question. (Look at my profile picture, guess which camp I fall into.)
So why is it that when they add a race that lets me say, "I'm playing a cool bear dude," I'm forced to also have angelic flight for some reason? Why is it that my only option for "I'm an angelic adventurer sent to make the world a better place" heavily suggests having the head of a cat or jackal? Yes, historically there have been a lot of elements of animal imagery in religion/mythology. That doesn't mean it makes any sense to mesh the two in the modern day. They're two wildly different niches and nobody from either camp necessarily wants to be forced to play with one foot in the other.
inb4 "you can just choose not to use angelic flight," sure, I could also reflavor the Rock Gnome to be a mouse person from the clockwork dimension, and in fact that would probably fit better thematically than Ardlings as a beast race. It doesn't change the fact that I'd need to change or ignore rules in a game I'm playing with 4-5 other people in order to do so, and by making Ardlings, they're implicitly saying "we've done the angel thing and we've done the animal-person thing, so we don't need to revisit it." We won't get modernized Aasimar or beast-races for a while, if ever, because of this; they're more likely to put energy toward stuff like tritons, or even more slightly-different elves.
The most frustrating thing about this is that even with the weak-ass subrace ("lineage/legacy") system they're using, they could still EASILY have made Aasimar and animal-types into different categories with less overlap while still putting them both down as Ardlings. But noooo, subraces do nothing but give you random-ass spells now! God, I hope they get their heads out of their butts and change that.
My only real issue with your post is that the spells "subraces" give you in this One D&D playtest aren't entirely random.
There's a theme with some of them.
In any case, after thinking on it for a little bit, I think what they could do is something like this for a combination of the two:
I didn't randomly choose the animal heads either. If you look up the cherub (as in, the Biblical cherub, not the cute baby cherub), these are three of the heads it has, with the fourth being that of a human. Also birbs, bulls, and lions are heavily represented in Near Eastern mythologies. It doesn't have to be these heads specifically or these abilities, but I'm just showing how it can present a more coherent theme.
And despite everything you said EnvyDragon, I still find Ardlings a more interesting concept than either Aasimar or Beastfolk; I mean Beastfolk are literally the most generic of generic isekai fantasy anime troops going. I like anime and manga, but I don't think they have a particular place in baseline D&D (homebrew sure, but not vanilla). So let's not try and shoehorn in literally the most generic of concepts from fantasy anime going. D&D is built on decades of lore building which should not be replaced with "lols, we beast people." Reading over the Ardlings in the Play Test, it is obvious that WotC have some interesting concepts regarding the Ardlings and how two of the three groups have connections to the "beastlands", which is not something new but is an upperplane, meaning it'd be something more inline with a celestial nature.
Aasimar I've already repeated enough times about how boring and uninteresting as a race they actually are... so instead lets actually look at some of the races that could be Adversely effected by "beastmen"
Dragonborn, literally a PHB race, most of them came from Abeir, a primal world which became ruled by Dragons and whom the main occupants came to resemble dragons; Dragonborns likely born of the intermingling of humans and dragons on Abeir; during the spell plague an entire city of Dragonborn were moved from Abeir to it's twin, Toril.
Lizardfolk, are a tribal and often cannibalistic race with strong hunter-gather tendancies; they believe in strength rather than intelligence or wit. Most members of a Lizardfolk tribe are usually barbarians or fighters but may rarely be druids or clerics(shaman). Lizardfolk often worship Semuanya and are likely descended from the Sarrukh, one of the creator races (being The Sarrukh, the Batrachi, the Aearee, the Fey and Humans)
Aarakocra, a group of flying birdmen who are found in multiple realms but in some form of another were either created by the Aearee or are the descendants of the Aearee, the creator race from Abeir-Toril. It is noted within 5E that they originate from the Elemental Plane of Air, altho their actual origins to the Aearee would place them back on Abeir-Toril where they likely originated from Maztica and have from there travelled around.
Kenku, are another group of birdmen like Aarakocra but are flightless in comparison. Kenku are like a creation of the Aearee. Kenku primarily live with other races, esp. Humans, and often are motivated by greed making many of them work as spies, assassins and thieves. Kenku's almost always want to act in small groups as doing so is more progressive towards their goals.
Kobolds, If you don't know who these little repitiles are, you haven't play enough D&D. They are essentially dragons, as they are one of the dragonspawn races created by Tiamat, with Dragonspawn being Tiamats answer to Dragonborn of Bahamut (not to be confused with the Dragonborn mentioned above, which is the PHB Dragonborn)
I think I've done pretty much as, much as I feel like doing for now but other races likely to be effected are Satyrs (goat-human people), Tabaxi (cat-like people), Yuan-ti (Human-snake hybrids that become more snake like as they become more powerful), Tortle (human-tortoise like creatures), Shfiter (a race that literally covers most of the common "beastfolk" races, and better than any anime/manga/LN ever will, essentially the descendants of Lycantrophes whom can shift in bestial forms matching those ancestors lycantrohpy), Loxodon (elephand people), Minotaur (yes Minotaurs, as in bull/cow people, obviously a lot of ancient stories have Minotaurs, like Theseus), Centaurs (they are horse people after all), Locathah (fish people) and Grung (toad humanoids).
There is probably more, but just so many races that there isn't a need for any type of "beastman" or "beastfolk" race what-so-ever since most choices are already covered. Ardling isn't that, they are not beastfolk, they are celestial and more in-line with say the gods of ancient egypt; a vastly more interesting idea than the most generic isekai anime race around.
Minotaur, aarakocra, and leonin already exist. That's the main problemm with ardlings, IMO - however you look at them, there's redundancy. Beast race? There's enough beastlike races as it is already. Bird people, cat people, lion people, bull people, horse people, hyppo people, elephant people, lizard people, snake people, turtle people, fish people, you name it. And they're all distinct enough to not be merged into a single catch-all beastfolk race. Even though it kinda extsts, the shifter race from Eberron. Angelic race? There's aasimar already, and ardling traits have too much in common with an already existing race.
Oh, I know there's a theme. My issue is that instead of giving me a tangible thing that no other race can do, they're like, "here, have these specific options that you could just take anyway if you were playing a cleric or wizard."
In 5e, that basically describes Tieflings... except that Tieflings have a ton of lineage options, and it makes sense for them to have inherent magic due to infernal corruption, plus being able to pick which specific archdevil you take after means the spells feel a little more special.
So not only have they made Tieflings way less interesting by 1) giving that same feature to three other races and 2) reducing Tiefling lineage options from 9+Feral to 3, but they've missed the whole point of WHY it worked for Tieflings. As a Tiefling, you're taking this taint upon your existence and channeling it into something useful. As a Wood Elf, I... can cast a spell that makes me walk slightly faster at level 3. Because woods.
It just dilutes what used to be a fairly unique Tiefling feature. The only other races that got free spells like that are Gith (because it's really just psionics), High Elves (which makes sense if you think of them as treating magic like literacy), and Genasi (which are literally elemental creatures). Of those, only Tieflings and Gith could level-up their racial casting, because for them it's a form of personal growth rather than inherent skill or basic education.
...So it just feels wrong to me that a Drow Barbarian will hit level 5 and go "now I can attack twice, and also cast a 2nd-level wizard spell."
Agreed on most of this, I don't like the idea of generic Beastfolk especially when they've already proven they can do specific parts of the concept justice with Tabaxi/Harengon/etc. I do think it's unfair of you to hammer on about how "uninteresting" Aasimar are just because you don't like them; there are a bunch of people in this thread who very clearly DO like them, and it's unfair to dismiss them like that.
To reiterate, my stance is:
-Aasimar aren't my thing, but it doesn't make sense to paint over them with a mechanically-identical but thematically-distinct race the way they did with Ardlings.
-I like the idea of Ardlings being a broader umbrella that refers to characters touched by positive-energy plains beyond just angelic figures.
-It is nonetheless dumb to say Aasimar aren't a subset of Ardling. There are people who like that race option and they should be allowed to play them without the rest of the party going, "Oh, you're an Ardling? Neat. What kind of animal head do you have?"
-It is similarly dumb to say "Ardlings allow you to represent religious imagery beyond angelic options" and then shoehorn angelic wings onto them anyway. It literally makes me less interested in playing an Ardling.
-A single beastfolk race is not something I'm interested in. Additional races inspired by animal entities are, and I'm frequently frustrated by WotC's apparent reluctance to go in that direction compared to what, say, Pathfinder is willing to do. Ardling animal-features are a concern for me because I worry it's WotC's attempt to say, "here you are, freaks, now stop asking."
As I have said, it doesn't have to be those abilities. I was just giving an example to illustrate how you can potentially mesh the two together.
It would take some creativity on WoTC's part to distinguish them from the beast-folk races that already exist, but I'm not going to say it's impossible for them.