Unearthed Arcana Four New Elf Subraces in Unearthed Arcana

This month's Unearthed Arcana article gives us four new elf subraces to playtest. "After the positive response to the eladrin a couple of months ago in Unearthed Arcana, we decided to explore four more elf subraces: avariel (winged elves), grugach (the wild elves of Greyhawk), sea elves, and shadar-kai (deathly servants of the Raven Queen)."

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[pukunui]

Kind of reminds me of 2e's elf-problem...

 

[cbwjm]

Grugach Elf should be +2 Dexterity, +2 Strength.

(Compare Mountain Dwarf +2 Constitution, +2 Strength.)

You need to also compare the other abilities the subrace gets. If the mountain dwarf picks a class that will benefit more from that +2 strength then they likely also gain armour proficiency that makes their racial ability worthless. The Grugach doesn't have any abilities that becomes redundant in picking a strength class.

 

[Yaarel]

WotC isn't likely to touch that third rail with a ten foot pole.

A ‘Human subrace’ would be like Homo Neanderthalensis (Half-Orc) or Homo Floresiensis (Halfling).

But rather than ‘subrace’, I would rather have ‘race’ + ‘culture’.

 

[Yaarel]

You need to also compare the other abilities the subrace gets. If the mountain dwarf picks a class that will benefit more from that +2 strength then they likely also gain armour proficiency that makes their racial ability worthless. The Grugach doesn't have any abilities that becomes redundant in picking a strength class.

A super strong Grugach Elf (as per D&D tradition) gets a Druid cantrip, which tends to be modest, and generally inferior to Fighter weapons.

Heh, I frown on weapon and armor proficiencies as ‘race traits’.

 

[Ketser]

I always thought the Raven Queen was kind of a rebranded Wee Jas in the first place? At least, that was always my impression.

Same here. I think when they were "porting" gods to 4e, they decided that Wee Jas is a better death deity than Nerull (for many obvious reasons ) and decided that when they are focusing her solely on the death part of her portfolio, they felt that maybe renaming and re-imagining might be necessary (the magic and probably also vanity have given a nod in RQ-s background).

 

[Xeviat]

My only complaint about the Avariel is my inability to wrap my head around a 30 ft fly speed. 6 miles per hour sounds really slow for anything to fly since 5E doesn’t have a run action; even with 3E run, you’d have a 12 mph fly speed as top and that just seems slow.

The flying races should have some kind of overland flight action for when they don’t need to turn and maneuver.


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[Yaarel]

The problem is, 5e pigeon holes all of these many different (and very different) kinds of Elf to the same ‘Base’ Tolkien Elf with +2 Dexterity.

Dexterity is too constraining. It ends up silly when there fifteen different kinds of +2 Dex +1 Wis Elf.

The Elf must have drastically more flexibility with regard to customizing the race ability score improvements.

The D&D tradition includes kind of Elf whose 5e equivalent is +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, +2 Strength, +2 Wisdom.

A +2 for every ability score is possible for an Elf to have!

The base Elf ‘race’ needs to be +2 Any. The cultures can add whatever else.

 

[cbwjm]

A super strong Grugach Elf (as per D&D tradition) gets a Druid cantrip, which tends to be modest, and generally inferior to Fighter weapons.

Heh, I frown on weapon and armor proficiencies as ‘race traits’.

Honestly, I feel the same, at least about armour. I'm fine with weapon training in a handful of weapons but armour for some reason doesn't sit as well for me.

 

[Yaarel]

My only complaint about the Avariel is my inability to wrap my head around a 30 ft fly speed. 6 miles per hour sounds really slow for anything to fly since 5E doesn’t have a run action; even with 3E run, you’d have a 12 mph fly speed as top and that just seems slow.

The flying races should have some kind of overland flight action for when they don’t need to turn and maneuver.


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Actually overland flight (= noncombat flying!) is a great kind of limited flight for low tiers. Maybe allowing Strength Athletics skill checks for strong wing stunts. At higher tiers, the more trained use of flight for combat can become available.

Regarding the ability scores. Avariel Elf with +2 Dexterity (full stop.) feels right. Since tradition emphasizes their outsize Dexterity.

 

[Yaarel]

This thread has only been up for what, 20 minutes and already many pages!

Many players care about the Elf. WotC needs to make sure the race design satisfies such a huge segment of the D&D community.