D&D (2024) How to import "race" flavor into D&D 2024 inclusively

[Yaarel]

@CleverNickName

Here is the feat that I made for the character that became a Werewolf. (The character became an NPC Werewolf, but this feat then replaced one of the characters feats in order to make it a playable PC.) There are separate feats for Wolf Pack and for Damage Resistance except Silvered.


WEREWOLF
Level 4 Feat

Wolf Shape. You return to your sound mind and gain control of your capacity to shapeshift into a wolf. After each Long Rest, you can innately cast the Wolf Shape spell.

Canine Olfaction. While in Wolf Shape, your sense of smell heightens preternaturally. If something exists, and you are within 5 feet of it, you smell it. You detect it even if you dont recognize what it is. You can be within 5 feet of a scent trail or downwind from the source. Typically a scent trail can linger for about two weeks (4d6 days), unless there is heavy wind or rain, and it can be interrupted by streaming water.


WOLF SHAPE
Slot 2 Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 Action (but see below)
Range: 10 feet
Components: S
Duration: until you dispel it as an Action, or until the end of your next Long Rest (when you can recast it without reversion)

Your mind visualizes your self-identity as a wolf. Your body destabilizes under the influence of your mental form. During the initial 10 minutes of transformation, you are in the Hybrid Form, experience pain, and must Concentrate in order for the spell Duration to set in. The shift never includes equipment, and your form may or may not be able to utilize it. You can cast this spell on a willing creature. A Lycanthrope even if unwilling returns to its sound mind and regains control over any of its forms, but some individuals freely choose to recontinue their Lycanthrope mentality.

Once the Duration is in effect, you become the Beast Creature Type, and lose any other Creature Type even if you choose to appear as if in your Original Form. You gain Advantage on Checks that rely on smell or hearing, and on Checks to interact with other canines, such as Wolf, Dire Wolf, Worg, Mastiff, Coyote, Jackal, and Fox. (Not Hyena.)

As a Bonus Action, you can shift between your Original Form or your Wolf Form, or mix the two into a Hybrid Form of your choice. You can also alter your height to any Medium Size from about 4 to 8 feet tall on hind legs (about 50 to 400 pounds). Both your Original Form and your Wolf Form exhibit a hint of the other. Your Original Form retains a lupine trait, such as wolflike ears, subtle fangs, clawlike fingernails, eight nipples, eyebrows of fur, or the large pupils and solid irises of wolven eyes, your choice. Your Wolf Form might retain Original eyes or speech.

Wolf Form: AC +1, Speed 40, Run x8, Bite 1d8 Piercing-Force, and if hit, Bonus Action to Grapple

Hybrid Form: AC +1, Bite 1d8 Piercing-Force or Claw 1d8 Slashing-Force

Original Form: your normal stats

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yes that's the point you could offset a lot of penalties of size by class choice, but then that's a restriction, and they got rid of racial stat mods, because it favoured certain classes so, having size modifiers favouring certain class options is going to be just as unpopular.

i think if you try to make all species equally viable for all classes you're going to end up with very bland species, or at least ones with very minimal impact on playstyle, which is kind of the opposite of what i, personally at least, want, but i do agree that making some species wholesale worse at performing particular roles isn't the way to go.

 

[Yaarel]

"Innate" is a frequent and important technical term. It needs to be in the 2024 Glossary. As far as I can tell at the moment, all the technical information is here. Heh, you can see why I dont want to keep on rewriting what "Innate" is, over and over again. The Glossary entry should look something like the following.


INNATE SPELL
When you cast an Innate Spell, you do so without a Spell Component. You have it Prepared. Your Spellcasting Ability for it is your choice of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. You cast an Innate Cantrip this way.

Additionally, if the Innate Spell has a slot level, you can cast it using any slots you have of the appropriate level, without a Spell Component.

Per Long Rest. You can cast this Innate Spell without expending a Spell Slot, and afterward regain the ability to do so when you finish the next Long Rest. Or a particular Innate Spell might specify Per Short Rest (when you finish the next Short Rest), Proficiency Times (and regain this number of times when you finish the next Long Rest), or an other frequency.

 

[Yaarel]

i think if you try to make all species equally viable for all classes you're going to end up with very bland species, or at least ones with very minimal impact on playstyle, which is kind of the opposite of what i, personally at least, want, but i do agree that making some species wholesale worse at performing particular roles isn't the way to go.

In 2014, the "Race" did the heavy lifting for cultural "stereotypes".

But in 2024, the Background does the heavy lifting. The Background is where to find the cultural "institutions" that are thematic, vivid, and impacting.

2024 takes some getting used to for how to build a character concept. But it terms of theme, actualization, and vivid details − as well as societal verisimilitude − the Background turns out way better.


The post mentions you agree that a Species shouldnt be "wholesale worse" at certain themes. But you also want each Species to be vivid (not "bland") and with maximal "impact". The Background design space is how to keep ones cake and eat it too.

Instead of thinking of some racist generalization that predestines a specific theme, think of how a particular community happens to function. What jobs, roles, and other traditions does that community have as part of its self-sustaining societal machinery? These community institutions are where to find the thematics.


Example, in a later post, I will try think about how to translate the 2014 Halfling "Race" flavors, into 2024 Background flavors. These Background flavors happen to exist in certain communities that are indigenous to the Halfling Species. Not all Halflings are members of these communities, and not all members of these community are Halflings. But it is enough to mention the community as an official default go-to to find this kind of flavor.

 

[CreamCloud0]

In 2014, the "Race" did the heavy lifting for cultural "stereotypes".

But in 2024, the Background does the heavy lifting. The Background is where to find the cultural "institutions" that are thematic, vivid, and impacting.

2024 takes some getting used to for how to build a character concept. But it terms of theme, actualization, and vivid details − as well as societal verisimilitude − the Background turns out way better.


The post mentions you agree that a Species shouldnt be "wholesale worse" at certain themes. But you also want each Species to be vivid (not "bland") and with maximal "impact". The Background design space is how to keep ones cake and eat it too.

Instead of thinking of some racist generalization that predestines a specific theme, think of how a particular community happens to function. What jobs, roles, and other traditions does that community have as part of its self-sustaining societal machinery? These community institutions are where to find the thematics.


Example, in a later post, I will try think about how to translate the 2014 Halfling "Race" flavors, into 2024 Background flavors. These Background flavors happen to exist in certain communities that are indigenous to the Halfling Species. Not all Halflings are members of these communities, and not all members of these community are Halflings. But it is enough to mention the community as an official default go-to to find this kind of flavor.

okay, but the thing is, when i talk about species and saying that i want them to have strong inherent flavour i am specifically talking about the biological aspects of them, if all the flavour for a species comes from their culture then that's not exactly anything to do with their species is it? if everything defining about them comes from a learned society

background and culture are additional ways to impart flavour to a character, not as a substitution for species flavour

i think that there should exist 'species stereotypes' because that means there is actually something that significantly stands out about them enough to be memorable, something that sets them apart from just being short or tall or scally or green humans

it is not 'racist' to say that a monkey is inherently more predisposed to being capable of climbing or that a boar is tougher and stronger, just because you've made them humanoid shape and given them some brains, the apefolk is lithe and long limbed, with narrow fingers that can find purchase in small cracks, the boarfolk has denser muscles, is stockier and a better centre of gravity.

 

[Yaarel]

@CreamCloud0, I just saw your post on "biology". This post emphasizes Halfling culture(s).


From the UA Halfling Species description and the 2014 Race description, the following flavors jump out.

• Life
• Home
• Hearth (a specific kind of home with warmth and great food at its center)
• Pragmatic Simple Lifestyle (simplicity with high quality, humbleness against elitism)
• Hardworking (no "dithering", whatever the effort)
• Bucolic (agricultural, especially pastoral herding, grazing lands, and livestock)
• Small (their Size is about a two to five year old − these are very little people)

• Benevolent Values (cheeful, sharing, family, friends, hating to see suffering)
• Brave Trouble (daring, adventurous, curious, audacious, both heroic and criminal)
• Avoid Trouble (calm, fit in, Nimbleness thru larger people, Stealth goes unnoticed)
• Luck (protects from mortal danger, with a culture that celebrates luckiness)

• Lightfoot culture (Halfling indigenous pastoral community with "hearth")
• Stout culture (Dwarf-Halfling multispecies, traditionally dwelling underground)
• Tallfellow culture (Human-Halfling multispecies, nomadic merchants in wagons/boats)
• Tallfellow subculture (Human-Halfling multispecies, urban in Human communities)


The above cultural flavors are crying out for Backgrounds to explore them in more detail.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The above cultural flavors are crying out for Backgrounds to explore them in more detail.

i'd actually say the ubove cultural flavours are crying out for Cultures to explore them in more detail, IMO the purpose a background serves is closer to the skillset of a job.

 

[Yaarel]

i'd actually say the ubove cultural flavours are crying out for Cultures to explore them in more detail, IMO the purpose a background serves is closer to the skillset of a job.

A culture is made out of jobs. Farmer, teacher, religious leader, tech engineer, politician, banker, artist celebrity, professional athlete, shopkeeper, etcetera. Backgrounds are the institutions of a culture.

 

[Corinnguard]

The above cultural flavors are crying out for Backgrounds to explore them in more detail.

Culture and Background are two completely different things. Culture is the society you grew up in, in your formative years. Background is the job you had within that culture before you decided to set off as an adventurer.

 

[Yaarel]

Culture and Background are two completely different things. Culture is the society you grew up in, in your formative years. Background is the job you had within that culture before you decided to set off as an adventurer.

But who did one grow up with? Family structures, sacred communities, teachers, camp leaders, lifeguards, coaches, police officers, etcetera.

The "society" is nothing except jobs, roles, institutions.