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."

 

[Laurefindel]

I must say: I love these. I wish they would give us a small PDF for the legacy races changed to lineage. I think the devs put to much emphasis and weight on the ASI and not enough on the rest of the features.

As for the proficiencies that are not considered biological but more societal, just put more weight on the backgrounds! As of now, most backgrounds are occupational, but there's nothing preventing the devs to make them a little more robust and have them cover the origin of a character in terms of society.

Ex:
Background
Elven Blade Dancer
Proficiency: Performance, Acrobatics
Proficiency: Short sword, long sword
Proficiency: Elvish or Sylvan
Feature: fancy stuff yadayada

Yes, I was thinking something among those lines too; let the background take on the cultural aspect of things.

I'm ok with an elf who grew as a street urchin doesn't have proficiency with longsword. I'm ok with the human ambassador's son growing in the dwarven citadel be trained with medium armours. It would allow a more diversified and more impactful background design in a character-generation addendum or 6th edition.

Three choices - race, background, class - is a perfect number of steps for character creation.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm struggling to see a way to make the ability more than occasionally useful for the empower effect, let alone see some broken combo.

The paladin bites you and smites you with his bite for 35 points of damage.

As a simple melee weapon its eligible for smite.

He then adds +35 to his next attack roll, or heals 35 points of damage.

 

[Remathilis]

and hornier than the weakest Elf.

So they'd both be bards?

 

[Flamestrike]

It is all about preference.

I would prefer Strength to work the way it has always worked. The maximum strength for a strong Elf at creation would be something like 15 or 16 (point buy). That's still far stronger than the average Elf, or even the average Minotaur. That seems sufficient to me.

The maximum Strength for a Minotaur at creation would be 17 or 18. That is because Minotaurs are unnaturally big and strong. You could still have a Minotaur who is weak for a Minotaur, with only a 10 Strength, but that weak Minotaur is still stronger than a weak Elf.

My character concept is an Elf that is stronger than the strongest Minotaur.

Why should I be denied that option, for no valid mechanical or game reason other than for some silly assumption of 'no Minotaurs are always stronger'

 

[TwoSix]

I must say: I love these. I wish they would give us a small PDF for the legacy races changed to lineage. I think the devs put to much emphasis and weight on the ASI and not enough on the rest of the features.

As for the proficiencies that are not considered biological but more societal, just put more weight on the backgrounds! As of now, most backgrounds are occupational, but there's nothing preventing the devs to make them a little more robust and have them cover the origin of a character in terms of society.

Ex:
Background
Elven Blade Dancer
Proficiency: Performance, Acrobatics
Proficiency: Short sword, long sword
Proficiency: Elvish or Sylvan
Feature: fancy stuff yadayada

Yea, I think that's the right path forward for a future evolution of the game (whether that's a 5.5 or a 6e). You bundle various starting packages into backgrounds, most of which are cultural, a few of which are racial/biological. Everyone starts with 2 backgrounds. The default rules are that race/lineage aesthetics (what the character look like, age ranges, size, etc.) are fundamentally narrative, and that it's up to the player to decide what "race" their character is based on the setting parameters. It's an optional rule that the DM can require certain race aesthetics to be tied to certain backgrounds (e.g. your character isn't an elf in the setting unless they take the Elven Racial background), but it's generally assumed you can take Sailor and Outlander as your 2 backgrounds and still describe your character as an elf or halfling.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yes, I was thinking something among those lines too; let the background take on the cultural aspect of things.

I'm ok with an elf who grew as a street urchin doesn't have proficiency with longsword. I'm ok with the human ambassador's son growing in the dwarven citadel be trained with medium armours. It would allow a more diversified and more impactful background design in a character-generation addendum or 6th edition.

Three choices - race, background, class - is a perfect number of steps for character creation.

Exactly.

And, about those floating +2/+1 ASI, the devs should insist that they are the LAST step of character creation, once you've taken into consideration your character's story that came from the junction of your Lineage, Background and Class.

- Step 4 -
With the help of your DM, go over the choices you made in steps 1 to 3. Pick two ability scores influenced by the story created by those previous steps. You can raise one of those ability by +1 and one by +2; they cant be in the same ability.

• Include both players and DM in the character creation.
• Empower the DM to add its worldbuilding element into the characters.
• Takes into consideration the STORY element of those +'s and not just the mechanical logic behind them.

 

[Hurin70]

My character concept is an Elf that is stronger than the strongest Minotaur.

Why should I be denied that option, for no valid mechanical or game reason other than for some silly assumption of 'no Minotaurs are always stronger'

The assumption is not that 'Minotaurs are always stronger'. It is that Minotaurs are stronger on average.

If you have an Elf that is stronger than the strongest Minotaur, doesn't that prevent the player who wants to play a Minotaur that is stronger than the strongest Elf from playing the character she wants to play?

 

[TwoSix]

The assumption is not that 'Minotaurs are always stronger'. It is that Minotaurs are stronger on average.

If you have an Elf that is stronger than the strongest Minotaur, doesn't that prevent the player who wants to play a Minotaur that is stronger than the strongest Elf from playing the character she wants to play?

If you have 2 players that want to play concepts that create paradoxes, you're going to have trouble no matter what the rules are.

You'd run into the same issue if you had 2 players who both wanted to play the "world's shortest halfling".

 

[PsyzhranV2]

BTW, does anyone know what "Esoteric Humors" are? Are they like jokes that are so clever that no one understands them?

I'd assume black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood.

 

[Laurefindel]

My character concept is an Elf that is stronger than the strongest Minotaur.

Why should I be denied that option, for no valid mechanical or game reason other than for some silly assumption of 'no Minotaurs are always stronger'

Because there should be a balance between what the archetypes that define the game dictates and how players can embrace or break these archetypes.

Is this enough to disallow an elf stronger than a minotaur? Probably not. But fantasy, as a genre, comes with its own set of references. Elves are gracious, minotaurs are strong, etc. Every fantasy universe/setting will tweak these references to fit its themes and create its own flavour, but these references lose their ability to define the setting if they aren't represented in some ways.

I don't think denying the option of a strong elf is enough to make the fantasy archetypal references obsolete, but I don't think breaking all references for the sake of breaking them doesn't serve the game in the end.