D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

Minigiant said:

The Way 2024 is being built, if 5e were made today most stuff would be a Spell or Mastery.

The big issue with 5e design was the lack of futureproofing. That's why WOTC tried to do Spell Source lists and Exclusive Class Spells but they couldn't recreate old characters after the fact.

A bunch of racial features could have been spells with no VSM components or race based weapon masteries.

Like I could see dwarves being divinely blessed to be good with axes and hammers to get a axe or hammer weapon mastery for free.
Orcs would axes and clubs via Grummush or their long armed overhead strikes.
Halfling subclasses could be the sneaky dagger Lightfoots or the tough Stout slingers.

Stonecunning now that it's Tremorsense could be a natural Dwarf spell with no V or M component. Just them touching the earth and the vibrations echoing through their hands.
Tabaxis getting Weapon mastery on their claws.
Tiefling having exclusive fiend spells.

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But none of these things are expressly magical though. Even Tremorsense isn't. Not in the way that teleporting or shooting fire from your hand is. But, even then, it's not so much having supernatural abilities that I find the problem. Most of the supernatural abilities, like tremorsense, for example, aren't really a big deal.

But, it's the stuff that is specifically copying the effects of a spell - like teleportation - but making it a "not spell" so that it ignores the limitations of the spell system that bugs the heck out of me. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then well, make it a duck. Don't make it something else just so you can shoot it outside of duck hunting season.

Let's remember in the real life there are blind people who have learnt echolocalitation, and this is not sci-fi.

In 3.5 UA sourcebook there was variant races, even for humans: aquatic, jungle, dessert, artic or elementals.

Azurins from Magic of Incarnum are humans with an afinity for incarnum.

The blues were in 3.5 a goblin "bloodline" with an innate talent for psionic.

Now I miss the raptorans from "Races of the Wild". I like the 5ed aarokas but.. and the spellscales from Races of Dragon (where the dragoborns appeared in 3.5).

Winged humanoids can fly, or at least glide, without magic. And wings can help to jump, or to avoid damage by fall.... if they can use their wings.



Magical tatoos and talismans were designed in 3.5 as single-use magic item... but what if they could be rechargeable spending a spell slot, or a spell-like racial trait.

Jer said:

Let's see - it covers my players' Human Fighter and Half-Elf Warlock.

It's missing their Changeling Bard, Kenku Druid, Elf Sorcerer, and Gnome Ranger.

So 2 out of 6. (Though I'm not terribly surprised that this particular group is an outlier.).

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I think most groups are outliers. My current group has one of those, or zero if you distinguish between dragonmarked human and regular human.

jmartkdr2 said:

Isn’t that the new 40k lore for dwarves?

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I posted a picture of Sontarans from Doctor Who earlier, and the idea that they are "space dwarves" has been floating around for a while. And one suspects that, both being British, Doctor Who tends to feed back into Warhammer.

Remathilis said:

I felt MotM was a perfectly fine way to handle it. All races since Tasha were designed like that and the only outliers were the PHB races and a few setting specific ones like warforged. Now we're going to revise everything again.

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The UA Elf is significantly less powerful than the Mordenkainen Elves and the Spelljammer Astral Elf.

The main reason for this is probably because the UA grants a free half-feat for the background.

Moreorless, part of the species design space is reallocating to the background design space.


Astral Elf backgrounds can grant features that are part of the Astral Elf culture.

Elves build magical cultures. Elven backgrounds can grant magical features, even to Nonelf members.

One of the Astral Elf background feats can easily grant a 1-hour Trance, two extra proficiencies with skill, tool, or weapon, and a proficiency swap after each Trance.


Regarding Misty Step. In Xanathars, the Fey Teleportation feat grants Misty Step per Short Rest. This is a level 4 feat, and powerful one. To do Misty Step per proficiency per Long Rest is extraordinarily powerful. I love its flavor, tho it seems more comparable to a higher tier, akin to flight.

The UA species designs are clearly pulling the breaks on higher level features. To even cast Misty Step once per Long Rest, delays until level 5. This delay feels a bit excessive, compared to every other Elf design that can cast it several times at level 1.

Even so, there UA demonstrates a strong effort to balance the player species with each other. This is an important goal, and the UA does a solid job of it.

For me, the UA feels fair. All the player species are in the same boat.

Hussar said:

But none of these things are expressly magical though. Even Tremorsense isn't. Not in the way that teleporting or shooting fire from your hand is. But, even then, it's not so much having supernatural abilities that I find the problem. Most of the supernatural abilities, like tremorsense, for example, aren't really a big deal.

But, it's the stuff that is specifically copying the effects of a spell - like teleportation - but making it a "not spell" so that it ignores the limitations of the spell system that bugs the heck out of me. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then well, make it a duck. Don't make it something else just so you can shoot it outside of duck hunting season.

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The "not spells" annoy me too.

Misty Step and Fey Step flavorwise nearly identical. Why is one a spell and the other a racial nonspell. Just give Eladrin and Shadar Kai Misty Step. Then have them add to it if you must

Some characters can become very loved not because the audience feels identified but because they are the type of people you would like to be their friend in the real life. For example those lolitass (said in the good sense) from isekai animes.



Dragon Magazine #328 in the article "Nobody's perfect" pag 41 had got several flaws (anti-feats) for non-humans.

Faerun Player's Handbook had got "regional feats", more powerful but only once be chosen in the first level. "Oriental Adventures" also had got ancestor feats, working in the same way.

What if a player asks to play with two PCs, and one of them a ghostwise halfling with the racial trait "silent speech"? Maybe this trait should be to the psionic PC species (elans, maenads, xephes..) and the buommans from 3.5 planar handbook.

* Humanoids with horns shouldn't can wear most of hats and helms designed for normal humanoid heads.

* What racial traits should be lost after a reincarnation spell?

Hussar said:

But, it's the stuff that is specifically copying the effects of a spell - like teleportation - but making it a "not spell" so that it ignores the limitations of the spell system that bugs the heck out of me. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then well, make it a duck. Don't make it something else just so you can shoot it outside of duck hunting season.

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I think you have the problem kind of upside-down, here.

Like, I get what you're complaining about, but the real idiocy is that in non-4E editions of D&D, abilities that shouldn't be "spells" frequently are, de facto, spells, just because that's easiest way, in D&D terms to convey them. Races that can teleport shouldn't have the spell "Misty Step", they should have their own thing - if anything, the spell should be said to an attempt to copy what they do, or something, just like there's a Darkvision spell and so on.

The limitations of the spell system are a genuine long-term problem with D&D, not a good thing.

Hussar said:

That was a debate? Since it requires the paladin to actually attack, a paladin couldn't cast anything other than bonus action spells - so, nicely balanced all the way through. Works fine.

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Yes, it was the playtest idea of turning paladin divine smite into a bonus action spell that you cast when you hit something, making it work like the other smite spells but forcing the spell limitations on them (components, antimagic, etc). It was soundly rejected in the playtests for that exact reason.

Though to be fair, they could have gone even farther. Make wild shape a series of spells druids cast for free. Make warlock evocations free at will spells. Maybe channel divinity could be a spell clerics get a free casting of. You could also change many of the monster abilities into a spell equivalent (vampire charm casts charm person, doppelgangers use polymorph). We could make spells the currency of power like feats in PF or powers in 4e.

tetrasodium said:

Tolkien's dwarves have too much plot armor holding together a single theme for those two to be meaningfully different.

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tetrasodium said:

I was talking about their society/civilization in that quote & explained why I feel that way back in 776. If your players are playing an actual society or civilization I think our d&d experience is going to differ too much for common ground since mine are playing individual people who inherit values & culture from the civilization they hail from.

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What does that even mean, practically speaking?

Will Tolkien fanboys come and prevent me from playing Hans and Volomyra?

Given the massive influx of new players with more diverse cultural touchstones, are there even enoughTolkien fanboys to make a difference?