So at some point a book Fizban's Treasury of Dragons was released and it changed dragonborn some and added tons more and stuff.
This rolled that in. Originally breath attacks were an action to execute and dealt 2d6 (average 7 damage) to 5d6 (average 22.5 damage) depending on your level.
Dragon breath may now be used as a substitute for one of your attacks during an attack action. The damage is now d10 (average 5.5 damage) to 4d10 (average 22 damage) depending on your level. This is a strong boost to high level fighters who found a single breath lack-luster compared to a full-round beatdown. The rather particular wording of once per attack action instead of the usual once per turn means those wacky fighters with their action surge can perform the ultra-power forbidden technique of the double belch.
Also level 5+ dragonborn can fly, it's fluffed as elemental wings sprouting from their back for 10 minutes once a day. However I wouldn't fault a dragonborn character if they just had permanent wings but weren't very good at using them for long if I were a GM. This matches the wizard spell fly, which becomes available at the same level.
Any accusations of WotC having a thing against subraces stem from this thing. Mountain dwarves 2014 grant a ability score bonus and an equipment proficiency. Two things dropped. So rather then make a new thing for mountain dwarves wotc just dropped them. All dwarves now just get the hill dwarf +1 hp per HD, making dwarves the best racial choice if you want to min-max for increadibly high HP still.
Their darkvision increased to 120. Their speed is now 30, up from 25, dwarves in mirror are closer then they appear.
It was found that stone cunning was almost never used, so it was rewritten. Instead of granting advantage to history checks in a very specific situation, stone cunning allows a dwarf who is in contact with a stone surface to gain tremorsense for 10 minutes as a bonus action, they must remain in contact with the stone surface to continue to get this bonus and they may only do so a number of times equal to their proficiency bonus.
With these changes in mind I advise you to avoid trying to sneak up on a dwarf in a cave.
Whole lot of compression on abilities and text makes them look so stripped down compared to 2014 elves. Amazingly not as much changed.
Fey ancestry used to give an advantage on saves to avoid bieng charmed. It still does, but it ALSO gives an advantage on saves to break out of it as well. The sleep immunity was moved to trance.
Trance was significantly reworded to more clearly state what it does. It explicitly states an elvish long rest is 4 hours and the elf is conscious during these meditations. The sleep immunity is now listed here.
Keen sense got buffed, used to give just perception prof, now it gives insight and survival.
Drow lost the sunlight sensitivity, kept the 120 darkvision and kept their drow magic.
High elves now start with prestidigiation... but they may change it
to any other wizard cantrip on a long rest. They also get detect
magic (at level 3) and misty step (at level 5) as they levleup in
order to stay competitive with drow.
Wood elves remain fast as fuck with a 35 base speed, lost their
ability to hide in lightly obscuring natural phenomenon in forests,
but gained the druidcraft cantrip, longstrider spell (at level 3) and
pass without trace (at level 5) in return.
If you were playing a martial class elf, like a wood elf ranger, you pretty much got a straight up buff.
This is probably the least played race. I had to look them up to even remember what the hell they even get.
So, they got buffed slightly.
Their speed is now 30, gnome in mirror is closer then they appear.
Gnomish cunning used to give a cha/int/wis save advantage vs magic. Now it gives a cha/int/wis save full stop, no qualifies, you just are good at cha/int/wis saves. Seems powerful until you realize it's rare to be making one of those saves without magic involved. One edge case I found that useful was resisting a dragon's fearful presence.
Forest gnome, in 2014 they could use simple gestures and sounds to convey rather basic concepts to woodland creatures. 2024 allows them to cast "speak with animals" a number of times equal to their prof bonus (that grants the ability to fully communicate with animals for 10 mintues). This is a nerf/buff. It's no longer on 24/7 but it gives better communication ability. They still got minor illusion
Rock Gnome, they gained mending and prestidigation cantrips. They can still make small gadgets but instead of them being limited to 3 effects, they may now reproduce any single thing prestidigiation can do that is determined at creation, it's a bonus action to activate a gadget. So this is a straight buff. You have no reason to not have a zippo analog as a gnome, just saying.
If being put in the PHB wasn't a big enough change, these big bois got a serious rework.
They now got subraces, 6 of the fucking things. Anyone who said 2014 was against subraces clearly didn't read the fucking book.
They lost athletics training but gained a bonus to get out of grapples (whose rules of changed because just as Savage Worlds can't release a new version without redoing chase rules, D&D can't release a new version without redoing grapple rules). Still count as a big boy for carrying capacity and stuff.
Mountain born was dropped (Acclimated to high altitude living). Considering the rules lack consequences for high altitude exploration I could see it as not affecting anything beyond exploring in the arctic where the cold weather acclimation will help. Let's face it, this is a conspiracy by wotc to force you to cover those abs with a winter coat.
Stone's endurance is now a subrace feature.
You gain something called large form. Starting level 5 you can change your size class to large as a bonus action to gain +10 speed and advantage on all strength checks and a no, no bonus damage.
All subraces grant an ability that you may do as many times per long rest as your proficiency bonus
New subraces:
Cloud, you get to teleport 30 feet as a bonus action.
Fire, When dealing damage via something delivered with an attack roll staple +d10 damage to it (again, this is limited to prof bonus per day see above).
Frost, When dealing damage via an attack roll staple +d6 damage on and reduce their speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn.
Hill, When dealing damage to something large size or smaller via an attack roll knock it flat on its ass.
Stone, Stone's endurance is now in here
Storm, when something hits you burn a reaction to hammer them with d8 thundering damage for their impudence.
Ok, I suppose claims of not liking subraces might have some merit in halfling because the stouts were dropped. No clue why, would be easy to edit them back in (I mean dwarves already have the same resilience vs poison).
Their speed is now 30, halfling in mirror is also closer then they appear.
Brave now gives a advantage to break out of frightened as well as being frightened.
Nimble added wording that requires you to stop you movement outside of the creature's square
Luck and naturally stealthy (lightfoot quality) remain as they ever were.
So basically instead of choosing between stealth-ops or poison resistances you are now forced to be stealthy unless you talk your GM into allow you pick a poison resistant halfling, I certainly wouldn't resist as a GM.
Feats and skills are now considered core (and really every GM I known did the rules that way). So the "+1 to all stats" human is no longer a thing.
Your bonus feat from variant human is now limited to origin feats, so no free stat points for you and a limited feat selection. Bonus skill is still there.
I'd consider them nerfed if they didn't get inspiration every time they fuckin' rested.
Orcs are no longer considered one size larger for carrying capacity, but now have 120 darksight. This is probably more than a fair trade.
I got a long history with this race. Played a tiefling warlock in 3.5e days. Back then tieflings were described as two variants of the planetouched race in the monster manual. Tieflings had the blood of a fiend (abyssal or infernal) and might have slight tells of that heritage from horns or the eyes maybe a tail. It wasn't set in stone exactly how they looked.
Then 4e came around and just table flipped so much lore. Tieflings with it. Now tieflings were part of some ancient pact with the devil and all people who were progeny of those pact makers look fiendish with obligate horns and skin color.
People kinda vibed with that and it was sorta kept with 5e but the wording was toned down to make it more cross-breeding related and 5e 2024 rolled back things to more 3.5e style, giving it a step more towards the PF2e's planetouched ancestry (which is actually a pretty decent move on paizo's part, but I'm talking D&D). Tieflings are the result of fiendish heritage. There are 3 lineages listed for them, infernal, Cthonic, and abyssal. The different features common for people with lineage to that plane are listed, but they aren't stated as definites. though the artwork of them sticks close to 4e theming of very colorful and horny.
But that is all fluff, how do they play?
Darkvision is unchanged.
All subraces have thaumaturgy as a cantrip.
That resistance to fire damage is now based on subrace.
Subraces:
Abyssal, aesthetics lean into fangs fur and tusks and of course horns. Though every illustration I've seen of them so far hasn't even gone remotely furry, just gnarly horned punks. Resista poison damage, get poison spray cantrip and ray of sickness (level 3) and hold person (level 5).
Chthonic range from strange unearthy succuboid beauty to cadaverous or even haggish depending on your blood. Resist necrotic damage, get till touch as a cantrip and false life (level 3) and ray of enfeeblement (level 5)
Infernal are the closest to the 4e classic tiefling the hellfire and brimstone sorta people who resist fire and have fire bolt as a cantrip, hellish rebuke (level 3) and darkness (level 5).
You might notice that if you pick an infernal tiefling you'll get exactly a 2014 tiefling, but with firebolt added to your spell list.
Honestly I like this particular shake up a lot.
Honestly if you pick most races your gameplay won't change a huge amount. Harder to make a potent human build out of the box but you'll be spending more inspiration as a human. If you were that one weirdo who made an elf wizard and fight with a longsword, congratulations, you got nerfed. Someone in the back is no doubt jumping up and down going "but bladesingers..." and I'm going to complete that thought by saying "...gain a one handed martial weapon proficiency of their choice."
Since tasha rules made it possible to slap any class on a race without penalty on stat allocation you aren't really hindered there. The abilities tend to still make you more focused on specific things. Dwarves and Orcs have baked in very solid surviveability features which get flexed more if they are in the front lines eating hits. Elves get spellcasting and 2024 added one quirk in that you can use your spellcasting slots to cast racial granted spells additional times, so there's a baked in synergy with comboing elves with a class that can use magic, like wizard or ranger, which fits theme. Halflings can hide much more easily then any other race (except goblins) and therefore can do terrifying things with rogue, but they could do that since 2014, nothing changed there.
As you noticed very few abilities were removed or added, minor tweaks that made some things more powerful, but wotc was very light handed on nerfs, instead opting to buff things slightly that made.
A huge change was just the sheer amount of words cut while still saying the same thing. This makes races look very strip down, when in fact they had nearly the same amount of features/abilities if not more.