Now that I've done my fairly exhaustive rundown of all the changes with the races reprinted in Monsters of the Multiverse, I think we've got a very clear model of how WotC is approaching playable races moving forward.
Big caveat: while these changes seem fairly thought-through and consistent (consistent as well with other revisions like the Dragonborn in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons), and I think will provide a pretty strong balance between the many race options, we are talking about books that are not coming out for two years, and a lot can change in two years (think about this: if you're in the US, two years ago, you had maybe or maybe not heard about a new virus going around in China, but probably didn't think it was going to be a big problem here in the States any more than Bird Flu or SARS had been).
What has become pretty clear over the course of looking through all the races is that certain patterns have emerged:
The first is that racial spellcasting abilities have been given a consistent new format. With each, you choose an ability (Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma) to use with the feature's spells, and you always get to cast it leveled spells once for free, but can then spend spell slots to do it again if you have them. There are some idiosyncrasies - welcome wrinkles that are flavorful to specific races (like the two Gith getting to cast them psionically - i.e. without any spell components, or Yuan-Ti getting to use Animal Friendship any number of times for free on snakes) but the format is otherwise very consistent.
Next, natural weapons are now formatted more as an option for unarmed strikes, and they've all been upgraded from a d4 to a d6.
Most animal-people, like Tortles, Tabaxi, and Yuan-Ti, can now choose to be either Small or Medium sized.
Also, no one has a speed of less than 30 feet anymore - so Dwarves, Halflings, and Gnomes rejoice.
What I think will likely be most relevant for the PHB races is that things like tool, weapon, or armor proficiencies aren't really found in racial features anymore.
Lastly, the idea of "sub-races" seems to have been done away with. Much as we saw the Chromatic and Metallic (and new Gem) Dragonborn simply listed as three separate races, we've seen a similar approach to Githyanki and Githzerai, as well as the various elf, dwarf, and gnome subraces that were published in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
Initially, I thought this might simply be because we wouldn't have the updated baseline elf, dwarf, or gnome race stats for another two years. But, given the Gith, I think they may have decided to just format it this way, even though every elf, for example, shares traits like darkvision, fey ancestry, and trance, and even has a specific "tag" that indicates that in addition to being humanoid, they count as elves.
While I'm still crossing my fingers that we get a setting-agnostic publication of the Warforged as a playable race (basically so that I can play one in all the campaigns my DM friends never seem to allow them in) I suspect that the 2024 PHB will simply have the same line-up of races as the 2014 one did.
Regarding Dragonborn, I think we're probably just going to see the Fizban options reprinted without any significant changes. The real question is if Gem dragonborn are included among them - while Gem Dragons are pre-5th Edition D&D canon, I think they've always been treated as the less common versions. So I would not be shocked if we only get Chromatic and Metallic options.
Interestingly, Humans actually might have to change somewhat. As it stands, the main reason to go with a human character is the level 1 feat from the variant option. Humans are, of course, meant to be the most versatile race, but the changes to ability score rules have diluted that niche somewhat outside of the "variant" option. I don't really know how that will go, though it might simply manifest as more bonus skills. I think 5th Edition is conservative enough with feats that I've never seen any DM disallow them, so I don't think it would be too bad if the 2024 PHB just made them a base rule option and made the "variant" human the baseline one.
Dwarves I think will need a bit of love, because I think a lot of their racial features are probably going to be removed, as they're more cultural than physiological - Dwarven Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, Stonecunning, the Mountain Dwarf's Dwarven Armor Training - all seem to fall into that category that's being removed. Likewise, Mountain Dwarves are unique right now in that they get two +2 bonuses to ability scores, but with those bonuses de-coupled from race, they'll need to have some stuff to compensate them. I think skill proficiencies (which haven't been removed as racial traits) could patch some of those holes, but I think we're going to need to see a few brand-new features added in. I was also somewhat mortified to see Duergar (and thus, one assumes, dwarves in general) lose the ability to wear heavy armor regardless of their Strength score, which is a really nice bonus for your Dwarven clerics out there, but if the Duergar don't get it, I assume the same is true for the Mountain and Hill dwarves.
Elves are clearly all going to get the new buff to Trance. High Elves will likely lose Elf Weapon Training, though I could imagine them retaining the bonus Cantrip - only this time getting to choose a mental stat rather than only using Intelligence. Wood Elves will also lose Elf Weapon Training (it's identical to the High Elf one) but I think their Fleet of Foot and Mask of the Wild features will probably stay. I could even imagine them getting a Druid cantrip like the High Elves get a wizard one - though giving them Shillelagh would potentially make them the only possible choice for any number of melee/magic hybrid classes. Drow will almost certainly retain Drow Magic and simply have it formatted like the new racial spellcasting features. They're also probably going to lose Sunlight Sensitivity and Drow Weapon Training. As such, I think that High Elves in particular will need to get some new stuff to compensate them for otherwise having pretty strictly worse features than Drow. I could imagine them getting a similar suite of spells at 3rd and 5th level in addition to the chosen cantrip.
With the example of the new Deep Gnomes to extrapolate on, I think we're going to see all Gnomes retain their base racial features. I imagine we might see the Forest Gnome's Natural Illusionist expanded to add more spells, but they'll probably retain their Speak wtih Small Beasts. On the other hand, the Rock Gnomes' Artificer's Lore and Tinker abilities, while totally classic gnome stuff, are also more on a cultural side than physiological, so I suspect we might see some new features here - possibly some racial spellcasting.
Half-Elves I honestly don't really see getting much of a change, apart from the ability score bonus changes (and they're halfway there anyway).
With Half-Orcs, the one change I really expect is that "Savage Attacks," if it remains, will be renamed ("savage" has some connotations that I think WotC is trying to get away from). With Orcs becoming a little closer to Half-Orcs, I wonder if we might get a similar skill versatility trait that half-elves get, to reflect the human side (and replace "Menacing.")
For Halflings, I'm not sure if you'd consider Brave a physiological or a cultural trait, but I think they'd be likely to retain Halfling Nimbleness and Lucky. Also, they'll get a 30-ft movement speed. Lightfoot Halflings might retain Naturally Stealthy (though they might get a different name for that, like "easily overlooked") and Stouts could easily keep Stout Resilience.
Finally, I think Tieflings will probably remain nearly unchanged except to update Infernal Legacy to work like the other racial spellcasting abilities.
And, you know, fingers crossed for Warforged.
Actually, I do think Warforged would be pretty easy to adapt to these new standards - basically just adopting the new rules for ability score bonuses, you wouldn't really have to change anything. I think I'd get rid of the notion that you have to integrate armor into your body over the course of an hour, but in the case of the Warforged, I think the bonus tool proficiency can actually count as physiological rather than cultural.
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