UA: New Race Options, Eladrin and Gith

The Eladrin ability score adjustment needs to be: +2 Charisma, +1 any other.

Charisma and all of its connotations [charm, innate magic, bardic song, etcetera] is what best represents the Fey Elf concept.

Intelligence is an accident of D&D only having Wizard class in the beginning, but it has merit in folklore too.

Dexterity is irrelevant.

Maybe handsized sprites connote Dexterity, but humansized spirits of magic, less so.



Edit.

Elves can work better this way:

Wood Elf: +2 Dexterity
High Elf: +2 Intelligence
Eladrin Elf: +2 Charisma

That is what the Elf feels like.



Edit.

High Elf
+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence (!)
Trance
Investigation skill proficiency
Languages: Elven, Sylvan, and Common
Cantrip
Elven Armor (permanent Mage Armor, appears as supple chain armor or as invisible force)
High Elf Weapon Training (longsword proficiency, treat as finesse weapon and spell focus)
(Darkvision too?)



Edit.

Eladrin are a group of elves that are native to the Fey Plane. They feel like a separate race of Elf with their own four subraces. The concept of the Eladrin evolves across the editions, and their association with the four seasons seems to enjoy traction. They consolidate well into four kinds of Eladrin, each one corresponding to a season.

Eladrin Elf
• Spring: +2 Charisma, +1 Dexterity (Ghael, Coure)
• Summer: +2 Charisma, +1 Strength (Firre, Bralani)
• Autumn: +2 Charisma, +1 Intelligence (Tulani)
• Winter: +2 Charisma, +1 Wisdom (Noviere, Shiere)

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

This month's Unearthed Arcana column from WotC's Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford introduces two new race options. "Two race options debut in this month’s Unearthed Arcana: eladrin (an elf subrace) and gith. This eladrin is an alternative to the version of the subrace that appears in the Dungeon Master’s Guide."

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[gyor]

I like them.

 

[nswanson27]

References to "psionics" in the race description, and then later release the Psionics class. I smell lots of unnecessary rules questions and quibbling on the horizon...

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

The Eladrin ability score adjustment needs to be: +2 any ability score, +1 any other.

Charisma and all of its connotations [charm, innate magic, etcetera] is what best represents the Fey Elf concept.

Intelligence is an accident of D&D only having Wizard class in the beginning, but it has merit in folklore too.

Dexterity is irrelevant.

Maybe handsized sprites connote Dexterity, but humansized spirits of magic, less so.

Eladrin are elves, and all elves get Dexterity- I think int/cha is fine, it makes them excellent at all kinds of arcane magic and the int option is especially necessary since Eladrin were the archetypal wizard race last edition. They also were one of the two archetypal swordmages, so I'm glad they kept dexterity- keeps them excellent for gishes.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

The Eladrin ability score adjustment needs to be: +2 any ability score, +1 any other.

Charisma and all of its connotations [charm, innate magic, etcetera] is what best represents the Fey Elf concept.

Intelligence is an accident of D&D only having Wizard class in the beginning, but it has merit in folklore too.

Dexterity is irrelevant.

Maybe handsized sprites connote Dexterity, but humansized spirits of magic, less so.

Eladrin's a Subrace of Elf - they just aren't 100% clear about it in the playtest document - as elves, they have the +2 to Dexterity, and it makes sense, from that standpoint, with elves always being described as a physically graceful people. The Charisma or Intelligence bonus is referential to the race/subrace's history of being inherently tied to arcane magic - it works for arcane trickster, bard, eldritch knight, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard.
The original take in the Dungeon Master Guide was relatively bland for a subrace, so it's at least more interesting with the Shifting Seasons trait granting a semi-flexible cantrip, making it different from High Elves with both that and the Fey Step feature. It's also interesting that they stepped back from the Misty Step as racial spell feature.

 

[Coroc]

Quite ok - for playtesting. I quite like the season concept that is a cool RP aid.

But - why does everybody and his mother ned access to short range teleportation?

It makes the life of a DM unnecessary difficult.

No natural obstacles anymore your monk / eladrin / warlock / gith just teleports around bars of a prison cell / out of his manacles / restrains / locked rooms up/down cliffs windows roofs etc etc yadda yadda yadda.

BAN

No not so funny. C'mon now, teleportation and flying is gained much to easy in this edition. That only works with certain type of campaigns with others it just does not.

Quintessence for me as a DM I houserule or restrict it if I have something in my mind which would be totally cool without those superpowers but trivial without.

Oki time I start a thread on this please discuss there.

 

[jaelis]

Eladrin getting teleport is pretty much baked in from the 4e version. If you don't like it you'd best just ban the race.

The gith teleport option comes late enough that it doesn't have any real impact. Wizards have already being misty stepping for two levels, and they have fly now.

If you don't want any teleport or flight in your campaign, then you just have to make some bigger adjustments.

 

[Ketser]

So question... considering that we have a subrace option that is strongly tied to feywild and a race that is strongly tied to planes and planar travel? So is ita hint that they are working on something planar or worlds of D&D related?

[MENTION=6895991]Coroc[/MENTION] most of obstacles and limitations you describe matter only for the first few levels anyway, so really not a big thing.

 

[Coroc]

So question... considering that we have a subrace option that is strongly tied to feywild and a race that is strongly tied to planes and planar travel? So is ita hint that they are working on something planar or worlds of D&D related?

[MENTION=6895991]Coroc[/MENTION] most of obstacles and limitations you describe matter only for the first few levels anyway, so really not a big thing. EDIT And even on Eladrin's 1st level teleport... well you can still play around line of sight.

I would like if they did some more adaptive work for other campaigns worlds than FR given they do not touch my beloved classic modules to much.

But I fear they rather put Sigil somewhere into Faerun.

My thread on the topic is up, please read and comment there. Vertical movement is not an issue of level imho.