Honestly I'm usually infavor of "Race as a Class" when there's a feat progression for racial abilities/traits.
the reason I'm pretty neutral towards either is because in my experience the minmaxer is gonna look at the numbers first (and then argue about it), the roleplayer is looking at the fluff first and numbers second, so in the end whatever they wanna call it for whatever reason doesn't really matter.
I do however like the backgrounds even if they feel "tacked on" because it gives the second group something to look at and choose, which for a lot of people is much easier then coming up with it on their own (and since I'm lazy it makes it easier for me to see what they're going for to give them situations where they can macgyver themselves out of it with a little hint of "you're a carpenter, what can you do?" etc.).
another reason I prefer 4e/pf2 for certain groups (or rather players) because it curbs a lot of the rules-lawyering. I have very little to change or homebrew (and then put it in writing so everybody knows about it) and everybody knows the numbers, they're all out in the open. after that it's mostly either rolls or tactics that gets people killed without having discussions about fudge etc.
I assume lot of groups probably care less about it, but if they treat combat like a competitive wargame, rules being pretty solid and most of all
being there is a boon in that case. if they suck I can still ignore/change it anyway, less so the other way around.
I think the idea of it is great, in practice it's normal Paizo shit where it's completely inconstant in execution. Like take the Grippli, who are frog people. You probably think they'd get stuff like swim speed/ water breathing, climb speed, big jumps, maybe camouflage a which is totally in line with what other heritages get.
yeah that's the downside of the crunch, it needs to be a) novel/different (to not be perceived as "lazy copy of X" and b) be "balanced", even if the effect is highly situational.
it's one of those things whatever you do you're screwed either way, either you have nothing, be a copy, or be "shit" (because there's really only ever one "meta" option).
however at the end of the day I rather have rules than not, because even when I use them as is, everybody can see them and we all "play by the same rules". and even then I can just copy it from somewhere else if it's there. if there's hardly any rules I'd have to come up with my own or have to look for it elsewhere ("just buy this thing on dmsguild bro") and possibly have to adapt it myself, which I'm not really buying and playing a crunchy system for.
Yeah, I have no idea where this notion that 5e players rely on "DM fiat" to beat encounters comes from. If anything 5e, as its CR system tells you to build encounters, is too easy. And I'll give it some credit: it's much easier and more satisfying to increase difficulty because your players are clamoring for more challenge than it is to have to lower difficulty because they keep wiping and getting frustrated. Would it be better if 5e was more challenging out of the box and actually taught DMs how to build encounters rather than just leaning on a single numerical value for monsters? Absolutely. But when it comes to difficulty on a low-lethality game like 5e it's best to err on the side of "easy" and let experienced players make the enemies smarter/more numerous if they want a challenge.
you answered it yourself. what's the inevitably feedback to easy combat? "it's boring", and most DMs try not to be boring. which means they try to make combat harder, with the go to solution throwing more enemies at the group, which doesn't necessarily make the combat more exciting. "smarter" only works so far because either it's a number problem (which especially new DMs don't understand or don't know how to solve) or more likely gets you complaints like "that zombie isn't that clever, that's bullshit".
so they overshoot, new DM doesn't see where it's going to pull back in time, and even if the party doesn't necessarily see the out (besides some asspull "the enemy who was just wiping the floor with you suddenly runs off while laughing like a saturday morning cartoon villain"), the party dies and everybody's sad and angry - which, for most people would be no big deal, but this is dnd 5e with a very special snowflake playerbase; you're supposed to be that epic character that's supposed to go on that grand adventure, not die in a ditch somewhere to some mooks. this is nothing like critical role!
it's not like back then where that was accepted or even expected, where rolling up a new char takes a minute and you probably have a whole stack of them prepared already, people are very attached to their character, and once they die the blame game starts. and now, which rules you gonna point to? how would you expect a especially new DM to explain himself in that case? "I eyeballed it but guess I was wrong" easily gets you a "man you suck" or bad review, especially online where it's easy to shit on people. that's where the "dm fiat" comes from which people perceive as "rocks fall, everybody dies".
and that's the reason for me 5e simply sucks. not only does it offer less than other systems, it's also often crap. want (somewhat) solid combat? 4e or pf2. want a high lethality game where it's much easier to fill the gaps yourself with a better framework that brings along the right expectation? some retroclone or rules-light. or go even further and go full narrative. 5e (again, for me) is no solution to any problem I have, especially not for that price and time-investment. it's like selling someone a hammer and when you open the box you find a block of wood and a chunk of ore. can you drive a nail into a wall with that? sure, but you bought a tool, not the ikea-version.
5e isn't "unplayable", any good DM can make any system work, even FATAL, so that argument has always been moot. but imho they shouldn't have to (and not for that price, nowhere else that shit would fly), and more importantly in a general sense the burden it puts on new DMs. any system that expects you to run a gauntlet to "git gud" is a shit system in my book, and that's even before you get into how it's played and by whom.
and let's face it, the only reason it's gets a pass is because "it's THE dungeons & dragons!". it's BRAND, nothing else.
