Asheras wrote on Jan 26
th, 2016 at 4:18pm:
I'd like to see them get away from needing to make the skins too different for the Iconics. To me, the Iconic is more of a "well known in lore" build. They don't have to be physically different races from the base races. Just a specific faction.
Humans for example could be:
Harper Bard (or Ranger)
Red Wizard of Thay
Order of the Yellow Rose Monk
Tribe of the Elk (Icewind Dale) Barbarian
None of which would need different racial skins. Maybe slight modifications to hairstyles, facial hair and such. But custom armor would be more important.
For me, personally, the PDK would be better if it was a regular human appearance. It makes me not want to play one, except for the IPL. I find the Shadar-Kai to be similarly limiting. The Bladeforged, I enjoy and the Morninglord is so close to elf it doesn't matter.
They can't do everything with Faerun, they have their hand tied by how Hasbro/WoTC split the IP between them and Neverwinter ( among other things, there might be more splits ), and by who has the rights to what.
Stuff like Red Wizards of Thay might actually be owned by the creator of the campaign set up there ( forgot the book name ), and WoTC/Hasbro can only use it with his/her approval. ( the older it gets the more muddy the IP is... and in some early books it's muddy enough that it's almost impossible to reprint them without the agreement of 4/5 people ( that might moved on to other stuff or died ) on everything )
Just look at the mess the Dragonlance IP is : WoTC/Hasbro can't do anything without the consent of Weiss and Hickman. Weiss and Hickman can't do shit without the agreement from WoTC/Hasbro. A lot of the Faerun stuff is also like that.
That's also one of the reason ( maybe the main one ) why they went to a new support world for 3rd Ed, they made crystal clear that the IP of the world that won would be bought by WoTC/Hasbro and it's creator would not have any rights left over it. ( beyond having his name one the books )