Subtype

A human and several Forgotten Realms elves: a sun elf, wood elf, moon elf, drow, and wild elf. None are member of the humanoid creature type, but each are members either of human subtype or the elf subtype, which are all in turn members of the humanoid type.

A Subtype is a member of a creature type that is sharing its general aspects. Subtypes usually share very little with the other members their specific creature type (e.g. human, orc, dwarf and halfling are all subtypes of humanoids).

DDO vs. D&D: On many occasions DDO incorrectly uses a creature's type as its race name instead of using its D&D Eberron/Forgotten Realms race name, thus leading to confusion. For example, there is no race called "elf" in D&D (see image text, right). The race "Drow" is a member of the subtype "elf", which in turn is a member of the creature type "humanoid".

However, in DDO, since there are a limited number of player-character races, terms like "elf", "half-elf" and "drow" are seen and used as an equivalent (in that sense) to "human", "dragonborn" and even "warforged".