D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."

 

[Minigiant]

Only thing I just realized that I forgot.

I really wish there more senses/vison options than darkvision.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Only thing I just realized that I forgot.

I really wish there more senses/vison options than darkvision.

Definitely. There should be a tree-ish race with Tremorsense, a Grimlock race with Blindsight, and other options.

 

[FireLance]

We can do both. I agree with you that +2/+1 is boring. But even with the PHB mods we can give every single race a feat and a half of more stuff - it doesn't upset the balance because they all get it, and now there's enough design space to do things like actual large or tiny PCs, or flying or whatever.

I think I would prefer to move to a system of racial feats so that every race gets one racial feat in place of the +2 ASI. Then it would be trivially easy for those of us who want it to house-rule in Elven Dexterity (+2 Dex), Dwarven Constitution (+2 Con) and so on.

 

[Argyle King]

Well, of course there are optional rules. Now we get to quibble over whose preferred rules get to be "standard" and which are "optional".

I was thinking about both this and the target audience comment.

I believe there's a way to honor the history and foundations of the brand while also building a bridge to newer ideas.

Allegedly, that was the entire idea behind 5E.

I think it's an easy trap for companies to fall into throwing out what came before because of some perceived need to capture the audience of right now. Obviously, yes, a brand should evolve and meet the needs of new customers. At the same time, I think there is value in retaining an identity and acknowledging what came before to help build what have that identity value in the first place.

This is something which has been tough for a franchise like Star Wars. The race to throw out the old and kill it, rather than learning from it and using the knowledge gained to inform the direction forward is something that worked well for immediate box office but had an overall negative impact on how the franchise was viewed. (Arguably, Star Trek is having a similar problem, with STD's ratings appearing to struggle.)

How does that relate to D&D and the topic at hand?

I believe D&D also has the unenviable task of trying to both stay relevant to a newer audience and maintain an established identity.

I think it's good to change how the "races" are portrayed and quantified. I very much support changing that aspect of how D&D works. Simultaneously, I believe there is value to be found in the lore and history of the game. I believe it is possible to better suit the audiences of today and tomorrow, by learning from yesterday and what came before rather than ignoring it.

In regards to 5th Edition, I'm glad to see efforts to change. Though, I'm inclined to believe that a new edition might be better able to make the changes. I'm not sure how any of the target audience would respond to a 5.5 (like third edition,) and -despite popularity- 4th's Essentials signaled the death of that edition.

I don't know where 5E goes from here.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I gotta say I love these new options. Lots...lots more of these, please.

My only complaint is that it's yet more race options with Darkvision.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Sounds like the Tasha’s “optional” rules about racial bonuses are no longer really optional:

“Design Note: Changes to Racial Traits

In 2020, the book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduced the option to customize several of your character’s racial traits, specifically the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, and traits that give skill, armor, weapon, or tool proficiencies.
Following in that book’s footsteps, the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage.

Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage.

Finally, going forward, the term “race” in D&D refers only to the suite of game features used by player characters. Said features don’t have any bearing on monsters and NPCs who are members of the same species or lineage, since monsters and NPCs in D&D don’t rely on race or class to function. Moreover, DMs are empowered to customize the features of the creatures in their game as they wish.”

I don't think that's actually the case. The design note states that any new race options they create will go in this direction, which implicitly states that already existing race options, which will almost certainly be the majority of all available race options for the entirety of this edition's life, will continue to work as is by default.

It doesn't seem very likely that they're going to update all the race options found in the PHB, Volo's, Ravnica, Eberron, etc. in future printings (Wizards seems pretty adamant that they're not going to make those sorts of sweeping changes to originally published material).

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Agreed on that.

For example, let's imagine that you aren't using the various custom options from Tasha's. Then what are you supposed to do with this UA Material?

If you look, they have the Design Note. So, going forward, Tasha's custom options ... aren't options. And if you want to ignore the custom options, going forward, you'll have to homebrew what the ability score, languages, and skill/armor/weapons of every new race is.

So what is the default is now an option, and the Tasha's option is not the default, but only moving forward.

I imagine that in a game where the DM decides that they're not going to use the Tasha's way of handling the existing race options, it's going to be left to the DM to determine what the default ASIs, languages, and skills are going to be for any future race options since Wizards has explicitly stated that they will not provide these. So in that scenario anyone playing an elf, dwarf, tabaxi, loxodon, etc. sticks with the defined ASIs and such, and anyone playing a dhampir either gets to choose their own or accepts whatever the DM gives them. I guess?

 

[Argyle King]

Regarding the lineages:

I don't see anything which appears to be bad.

My gut feeling from a quick reading is that this is basically 4th Edition's way of approaching "backgrounds" updated to 5th edition.

It's been a while, but I believe they started popping up somewhere around 4E's PHB2.

It was an interesting concept. I'm open to seeing where it goes. I do think it changes the power level of PCs a little bit, and alters some underlying assumptions about how the game works: assuming what we see in the playtest becomes more common.

In a game where some characters choose available extra features and others do not, I would be interested to see if the difference is noticeable.


Edit: Reborn's knowledge from past lives looks to be the 4th Edition Diva (what most people would call a version of an aasimar). I'm intrigued by the ability to count as a construct.

 

[Weiley31]

I wonder: what would be the next Lineages to come after these three if the feedback is positive. We got the Dhampir, Hexblood(Hagspawn), and Reborn. Would be neat to see Half Dragon/Draconic or a few other popular options. Could Half-Elf and Half-Orc somehow be changed because of this and that they somehow end up becoming a type of Lineage?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But it should be. That's more important here. I don't care what it used to be. That's a sacred cow that deserves dumping. Like I stated above, an Elf could still have the typical training with bows and longswords, but they wouldn't be required to take that if they were raised in a different culture. It would be a real and good fix of what the Customize your Origin section of Tasha's was trying to do. Race/Lineage should be your species' genetic traits and Culture should be your nurture-based traits.

No, it shouldn’t. This also throws out actual genetic stuff like being physically stronger or more agile, so I don’t even buy that argument to begin with.

Presenting races as in the PHB, with Tasha’s options to swap ability score bonuses and proficiencies, accomplishes exactly what you describe above, while still actually presenting a people that can be used without the DM having to homebrew a culture for every race from scratch. As it is right now, Elves have training in traditional weapons, but aren’t required to take that if they were raised in a different culture.
Your proposed cultures are just as stereotypical as the PHB races, so I don’t buy that they’d be more inclusive, which is the actual goal, here. And, the elf would still have to choose a culture, gaining proficiencies from it, leading to the same situation where everyone from a given culture has the same skills. If you’d allow swapping proficiencies...then what is the point of the change, you’ve just added an extra step to exactly where we are now!

Almost always. There are just about a handful of exceptions to this (Celebrity Adventurer's Scion, Hermit, Far Traveler, and Noble are the ones that come to mind). Most of the "non-occupational" backgrounds are related to occupation enough to be occupations.

There are plenty. Those, Haunted One and various other from adventures (something or other refugee from some adventure, I recall), etc. and they are examples, not an exhaustive list. You can make your own, which can be anything.