D&D 5E DMG Excerpt: Creating a New Race

[Minigiant]

Because setting geeks are weird and like to follow canon.


Eladrin exist for the SOLE reason that the designers of 4th edition thought people might be confused by having two different types of elves, and pick the wrong one when making their wizard or ranger character. They wanted high elves and wood elves to be very easy to distinguish, so people would be able to pick the race appropriate to them.

All the other benefits of having a faerie race, of having a slightly different elf for non-elf fans, etc are all secondary and largely accidental. Eladrin exist because WotC thought subraces would confuse new players.

There was also another reason. Traditionally by canon, elves were good wizards, fighters, druids, and rangers. But the stats didn't match up.

But the 4e race model use +2 to X and +2 to Y (it did not use the +2 to X, +2 to Y or Z yet).

So they split the race up into two full races. They could have picked High Elf and Wood Elf.

But again I think the 4e racial structure appeared. They didn't have a better racial for High Elf at the time.

So they jacked up the feyness and snatched up Eladrin. And it had the added benefit of being simple for new players.

 

[Remathilis]

A 4e eladrin. Huh. The recycling of the 2e/3e eladrin name for the 4e blink elf continues to be problematic, and now its back. That's a genuine shame.

It will be nice to eventually get actual 2e/3e tieflings rather than the very different 4e creature, which is all 5e has shown, inexplicably so far.

As someone who on the surface agrees, this is the best compromise. They're an option in the DMG, there for those who like it and ignored by those who don't.

As for the celestials, I kinda like the notion that the true eladrin (ghales, fieres, etc) are greater eladrin and celestial/fey, while the lesser eladrin are minor and close to elves. Think of them as the lemures of the eladrin hierarchy.

 

[pemerton]

Because hijacking the name of a race of celestials from 2e and 3e as the name for a different and new 4e player race wouldn't lead to confusion in and of itself at all.

I've personally never encountered anyone who was confused, either in the flesh or online, but I remember someone once did post about some friends being confused. I can't remember who the poster was, but I think it was on the "Multiverse is Back" thread.

I personally have doubts that confusion was rife.

A 4e eladrin. Huh. The recycling of the 2e/3e eladrin name for the 4e blink elf continues to be problematic, and now its back. That's a genuine shame.

It will be nice to eventually get actual 2e/3e tieflings rather than the very different 4e creature, which is all 5e has shown, inexplicably so far.

It's not that inexplicable. WotC doesn't want to lose those customers who enjoyed playing 4e, and so has made a call. Just as its made a call with other elements of 5e.

(Also, according to d20 SRD Ghaele eladrin at least had teleport without error at will. They also have a whole lot of druid spells - weather, animals, etc. The leap from nature-oriented blink celestials to fey creatures who can step between worlds doesn't seem that big to me.)

 

[pemerton]

Because setting geeks are weird and like to follow canon.

I'm still not seeing the forcing. It's not as if the desire to follow canon is an irresistable addiction.

If you don't like the new canon, stick with the old canon!

 

[Jester David]

I'll give you that! While I think that the eladrin race was a genius addition to D&D during 4E, the way the race was retconned into the Realms was . . . awkward. I liked the eladrin citadel in the Moonshaes rising out of the lake into the material world, but the switch back-and-forth with Sun and Moon elves was jarring and not handled well. It was also confusing that some elven races were *always* eladrin, and others just entered the world for the first time. If the Realms had been completely reimagined (a la Battlestar Galactica), I would have probably been fine with the retcon of Sun elves being eladrin (or was it Moon, or both?).

I didn't mind their inclusion in Eberron, because they were an addition, not a retcon (if I remember correctly). The trapped feyspires throughout the land were an interesting addition to the world, IMO.

I believe they retconned the origin of elves in Eberron, but that was mostly additive, which was much easier. Ditto Dark Sun.
It might have been a response to the awkward retconning of the Realms. Or not. (I'm rather happy we didn't get Dragonlance after all, as they likely would have suggested the Silvanesti were from the feywild too.)

We're not talking Warcraft or LotR, we're talking D&D. And elven subraces in D&D have long been an "issue", albeit one that some folks felt strongly about and others didn't even notice. Multiple subraces that aren't all that different (high vs grey, wild vs wood) in the core and an overabundance of offshoot subraces. This "problem" (not really a problem, just a thing) did not *need* fixing, but I welcomed the cleaner break down of eladrin-drow-elf in 4E, and I was not alone at all on that one.

The subrace problem was mostly a greyhawk one as the difference between high vs. grey vs. wood was subtle. And Dragonlance did the same by renaming but making them all unpronounceable (silvanesti, qualinesti, and kagonesti). I thought forgotten realms with its sun/gold elves, moon/silver elves, and copper elves was a little more memorable.

The reasoning made sense. High, grey, wood equals Eldrond, Galadriel, and Legolas. But it is one too many. I'm happy with the 5e overlapping of high and grey.

On the other hand, many not-all-that-different subraces of elves is a part of D&D history just like the wild Great Wheel cosmology and calling a class "fighter" when a much better name would be "warrior". Change it at your own risk, which, of course, was part of why 4E was so divisive among fans.

It's certainly emblematic of 4e's attitude to the game's history. But I think you can like/hate eladrin on their own merits. Or, such as me, like the concept but hate the reasoning.

No, no it wasn't. Not in the slightest. Absolutely no one's intelligence was insulted by the elven subrace change in 4E. Love or hate the race and the various reasons behind the change, but the change itself was in no way insulting. Jeesh.

I felt a little insulted. There were too many subraces but the solution is to reduce and streamline, not dump the whole idea.
"People are confused by our 52 flavours of iced cream. Let's just serve vanilla. And chocolate frozen yoghourt for cocoa fans.

It was a lot like the metallic dragons.
"People find brass, bronze, and copper confusing and interchangeable."
"Well, we could emphasise their differences and think of mnemonic ways of making them distinct."
"Naw, let's just replace them with mithril and adamantine."

That's insulting and annoying regardless of the edition the change is being done for.

5e gets it just right. There are three major tropes of elf in D&D so there are three types of elf: high, wood, and drow. Those don't need to be different races, but neither do we need grey and wild.
But, really, you need not even go that far. Essentials showed eladrin were kinda superflous when it gave elves the stats of +2 Dex, +2 Wis/Int, as they could easily be a wizard or a ranger with no confusion and the racial power worked for both. Eladrin pretty much existed because the designers couldn't give elves a choice in ability scores but wanted the race to be equally perfect for wizard and ranger.

 

[Jester David]

There was also another reason. Traditionally by canon, elves were good wizards, fighters, druids, and rangers. But the stats didn't match up.

But the 4e race model use +2 to X and +2 to Y (it did not use the +2 to X, +2 to Y or Z yet).

So they split the race up into two full races. They could have picked High Elf and Wood Elf.

But again I think the 4e racial structure appeared. They didn't have a better racial for High Elf at the time.

So they jacked up the feyness and snatched up Eladrin. And it had the added benefit of being simple for new players.

This was true. At least until Essentials when each race got one static bonus and a choice of two other bonuses. Elves had +2 Dex and +2Int/Wis.

So, in this scenario, Wizards of the Coast created an entire new race and did major retconning to three of their campaign settings because they didn't want to confuse people by having to choose between +2 Int or +2 Wis.

 

[Dire Bare]

A 4e eladrin. Huh. The recycling of the 2e/3e eladrin name for the 4e blink elf continues to be problematic, and now its back. That's a genuine shame.

I know, (*scottish accent*), if it's not Planescape, it's craaap!

No, it's not problematic, nor a shame. Not everybody loves the eladrin, I get that, but jeesh. 4E certainly appropriated several names for new(ish) races and creatures that already *belonged* somewhere else, and this did rub some fans the wrong way, obviously. If you're a Planescape-lovin' dude who loves the traditional bestiary and cosmology of D&D that culminated in the wild and awesome Planescape setting, keep on gaming with what you got and stop begrudging the rest of us what we like.

Personally, I loved the new eladrin, *stolen* name and all. I didn't like how 4E handled the various 3E subraces of eladrin (if subraces is even the right word) like bralani and ghaele, however. It wasn't horrible, just not to my tastes and not very well detailed. In my campaign, I blended the two concepts so I could keep what I felt was the best of both official cosmologies. The "lowest" eladrin were the PC race and there were "higher" subraces that pretty much only lived in the feywild or Arborea, the classic 3E subraces. I merged the trulani with the Seldarine as the rulers of the eladrin races. Not sure I'll stay with that next time around, but it worked well for me.

And, just from this thread alone, I am officially tired of the (mildly) demeaning term "blink elf". Although, I'll probably use it later as a great racial epithet in-game at some point.

It will be nice to eventually get actual 2e/3e tieflings rather than the very different 4e creature, which is all 5e has shown, inexplicably so far

Inexplicably? The DMG isn't even out yet for Pelor's sake! How dare WotC not accommodate ALL tastes within the first six months and the 3 core book releases!?!?! My gods man, there is only so much space in those books, you know!

I'm guessing something you might not agree with and like even less . . . nobody cares about the "classic" tiefling! Well, not nobody, plenty of folks on these boards prefer the old style devil children to the new hotness. But I'm guessing that WotC's extensive market research and playtesting found that there really wasn't much of a demand for a subrace that differs only cosmetically from what they have now. And that the "new" tiefling concept is more popular than the "classic" one.

I nostalgically prefer the 2E Planescape tiefling myself, but I don't really care if WotC ever releases an official version of it. All I plan to do is take the current tiefling and the random appearance chart from 2E and call it good. If I get ambitious, I'll cobble together some sort of random subrace ability deal, as from the preview creating subraces and new races is SO FREAKING EASY.

But what I won't do is beat the dead horse in the quote above. Dislike and don't use the "modern" tiefling all you want, but can we move past the divisive language like "problematic" and "blink elf"?

 

[Minigiant]

As someone who on the surface agrees, this is the best compromise. They're an option in the DMG, there for those who like it and ignored by those who don't.

As for the celestials, I kinda like the notion that the true eladrin (ghales, fieres, etc) are greater eladrin and celestial/fey, while the lesser eladrin are minor and close to elves. Think of them as the lemures of the eladrin hierarchy.

Yeah, that's how I see it.

If eladrins end up in a book or a web article, I hope eladrins start as normal elfy elves and if they kill enough orcs, they can opt to "ascend" into celestial fey. Maybe as a ritual or contract. Fey love those. They even have a Court.

 

[Dire Bare]

The reasoning made sense. High, grey, wood equals Eldrond, Galadriel, and Legolas. But it is one too many. I'm happy with the 5e overlapping of high and grey.

5e gets it just right. There are three major tropes of elf in D&D so there are three types of elf: high, wood, and drow. Those don't need to be different races, but neither do we need grey and wild.

You do realize, that the 5E high-wood-drow split is the EXACT SAME THING as the 4E eladrin-elf-drow split, right? Not in name or in rules, but in concept. And whether we make them, in the rules, three separate races or subraces is a sort of semantics. I agree, there are three major tropes of elves in D&D, which is what they modeled in 4E and again in 5E, but using classic terms rather than re-imagining the high/grey elves.

I felt a little insulted. There were too many subraces but the solution is to reduce and streamline, not dump the whole idea.
"People are confused by our 52 flavours of iced cream. Let's just serve vanilla. And chocolate frozen yoghourt for cocoa fans.

It was a lot like the metallic dragons.
"People find brass, bronze, and copper confusing and interchangeable."
"Well, we could emphasise their differences and think of mnemonic ways of making them distinct."
"Naw, let's just replace them with mithril and adamantine."

That's insulting and annoying regardless of the edition the change is being done for.

If you felt insulted, I think that says more about you than about the D&D designers. And I'm not trying to be insulting in turn, but this common attitude among gamers has gotten me all riled up over the past few days here on ENWorld.

It's totally legit if you don't like some or all aspects of any version of D&D, or if you simply prefer one version of a thing over another. If you (not Jester personally but the more "general" you) felt 4E strayed too far away from canon and were alienated from the new game, that's totally legit and understandable. It's when gamers start complaining about being insulted, talked-down too, or that WotC (in the day) pushed "anti-3E" marketing that still makes me incredulous.

At every point on the continuum from the original game through the just released 5th Edition, the designers behind the game were fans first and awesome and nice people. And they, at no point, were forced to do mean things by the "suits" higher up (not that there weren't constraints). At no point did the designers of D&D "insult" fans of previous or current editions, intelligence or otherwise. They simply made creative decisions some fans didn't care for, and those overly sensitive fans saw insult and conspiracy where there was none. But I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, so I'll just run out of steam here . . . . . . *fsssshhh*

 

[AmerginLiath]

*looks around*

Shouldn't we wait until we see the entire section on Building New Races – heck, maybe the actual whole DMG – before casting aspersions on its success or failure regarding contents? We have here one page that isn't even an entity unto itself but begins in media res and ends likewise. Nor can we properly judge the full content of the "alternate rules" therein yet since there isn't a section simply titled Modules.

I vote for less kvetching and more going out and looking at leaves. They're colorful and pretty out there, but won't be anymore come time that the DMG comes out. Ergo, there will be plenty of inside-time to go over and roast the contents then when there aren't leaves to look at!