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

[RoughCoronet0]

I think with all this talk of racial/species abilities and debates on subraces/subspecies, it's really made me want to create a more involved species system for character creation where both the main species and subspecies get a variety of abilities and choices that they can chose from as they level up. No idea how I will go about it, but watching and reading up on the lore of the various species across D&D history has given me a lot of ideas.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think with all this talk of racial/species abilities and debates on subraces/subspecies, it's really made me want to create a more involved species system for character creation where both the main species and subspecies get a variety of abilities and choices that they can chose from as they level up. No idea how I will go about it, but watching and reading up on the lore of the various species across D&D history has given me a lot of ideas.

Racial feats is probably the easiest. Lots of examples from the 3E era to lift ideas from.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Man, could you imagine if antimagic stopped dragon breath (and flight), killed undead, elementals and constructs, banished fey, fiends and celestials, and caused many impossible species to obey the laws of physics? That stuff would be OP.

It would be OP if it were anything other than a natural phenomenon, yes. As such a thing, the setting implications are boundless.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dragonlance was another setting designed to incorporate dragonborn from the start. The 2014 PHB explicitly states that drocanians are a type of dragonborn.

A setting can't be designed to incorporate something that didn't exist when it was created. That statement in the 2014 PH is a clear retcon. Draconians are notably different, mechanically, from dragonborn.

 

[Minigiant]

Not that again...

My elf casts the breathe air cantrip, then he uses the brush teeth cantrip and the create dump cantrip.

Personally I think that's how WOTC sees elves.

It's their low book count that caused breathe air to not be printed and they have to give sea elves gills.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A setting can't be designed to incorporate something that didn't exist when it was created. That statement in the 2014 PH is a clear retcon. Draconians are notably different, mechanically, from dragonborn.

How?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's no more a retcon than calling beholders Aberrations. Beholders existed before there was a broader category called "Aberrations." When the Aberrations category was added as a rules object, beholders were assigned to that category. No recon. Just new rules terminology.

Dragonborn have a mechanical expression. Draconians have a different one.

 

[Yaarel]

Dragonborn have a mechanical expression. Draconians have a different one.

Where are the 5e stats for the Draconian species?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's just semantics. I am sure people on Krynn still call them draconians. Like they're a species of dragon people, it is the same thing, nothing got changed. All that happened was that the designers said "hey, we have these rules for dragon people, so you can use them for draconians." It's like saying that the kender are a type of an halfling.

Also not true. Kender and Halflings just fill a similar narrative/worldbuilding niche.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not rhetorical, actually curious: Do you also object to tinker gnomes being categorized as a type of rock gnome in the 2014 PHB?

Kinda. They have a completely different origin. The 2014 PH was just trying to be all-encompassing (with both statements) at the time, and painted with too broad a brush IMO.