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]

I thought the 5e default setting was the child of FR and Greywalk who FR has custody of, lets Greyhawk see every other weekend, and puts in school with all the MTG settings.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that may be why I assumed FR was the default. Most of the examples given appear to be from FR, with other examples given after.

@Charlaquin

Perhaps newer books make the multiverse connection more obvious. Books, such as ...Yawning Portal (which Crawford himself helped to write) appear to assume Forgotten Realms.

Certainly, the material can be used anywhere. I would never debate that. I'm simply saying that -if the multiverse is intended to be the default setting- I do not feel that is obvious from the content of the books which I own.

I'm trying to imagine what a setting agnostic Monster Manual might look like. Some of the later 3rd Edition material started to go that route. Sidebars and additional information were given to explain how the creatures were different in the settings which were commonly used during that time.

Yeah, most published adventurers have been in the forgotten realms, except Ghosts of Saltmarsh (which is in Grayhawk) and Curse of Strahd (which is in Barovia, though all the sample hooks have the characters being transported there from Forgotten Realms). But, like, the PHB makes references to other settings.

 

[see]

My personal view of how the next edition/revision should do it:

1) Actual Monster Manual entries for the PC ancestries, where the entry ability scores actually reflect the "typical", to provide the worldbuilding baseline.

2) Default PC ancestry entries having both physio-magical and cultural components (for new/casual player simplicity), but marked separately with PC-facing customization options for the latter.

3) PC ability scores decoupled from PC ancestries. If DMs decide they want them, they can draw on the Monster Manual entries.

As far as people referencing previous editions, I'll note that even though AD&D 1st Edition's Monster Manual entries listed dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings all as "very" intelligent versus a human "average to very" and orcs as "average (low)", there were no Intelligence or Wisdom bonuses/penalties to any races in the PHB.

Similarly, though gnomes were explicitly the same height as halflings, they had no penalty to Strength scores, and the same 18 maximum (if male) on "Character Race Table III: Ability Score Minimums & Maximums" as dwarves, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, and humans.

 

[Charlaquin]

My personal view of how the next edition/revision should do it:

1) Actual Monster Manual entries for the PC ancestries, where the entry ability scores actually reflect the "typical", to provide the worldbuilding baseline.

2) Default PC ancestry entries having both physio-magical and cultural components (for new/casual player simplicity), but marked separately with PC-facing customization options for the latter.

3) PC ability scores decoupled from PC ancestries. If DMs decide they want them, they can draw on the Monster Manual entries.

I’d be satisfied with that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t think anyone is trying to take that away. I’m pretty sure everyone on the anti-ASI side would agree that we like races having distinct identities, we just think ASIs are the least interesting (not to mention least effective) way to achieve that, and mostly only serve to make certain race/class combos less appealing. Most, if not all of us, would be in favor of more unique racial features in place of ASIs.

I would agree, however I would also LOVE it if we actually got to see some of these "more unique racial features" everyone (including me) keeps saying they want.

 

[tetrasodium]

0

Unfortunately, Wizards is in the unenvious position that most people believe D&D is a generic fantasy simulator and howl and wail whenever a default setting influences the core rules. Check out how many people (wrongly) say the 5e PHB is Forgotten Realms inspired, or who hated the Nerath setting of 4e rewriting the lore.

Other settings can have a default setting, like Pathfinder has Golarion. But not D&D; people will scream bloody murder if any setting (new or old) becomes a default. The only two options D&D has is Straddle the line using the multiverse as the metasetting or utterly remove all setting elements and be a fairly bland SRD/rule compendium rules reference.

The level of specificity differs by orders of magnitude. The PHB race pages wouldn't be all that out of place in a forgotten realms campaign setting. My pathfinder APG has setting neutral base races & only gets into anything remotely specific when you get to alternate racial traits. eRven those are genericized. 3.5 was similar to pf in this regard. The 5e phb having a higher level of setting specific stuff baked in becomes all the more problematic because stuff from other settings that differs from FR to any notable degree is just left out. I can find better compatibility for some darksun & eberron style gnomes elves & even halflings in the apg alternative racial traits than 5e phb & that's a horrible level of support for the phb.

I am trying to think of all the official Wizards sanctioned adventures, and it sure does seem like the vast majority are set in the Forgotten Realms. Someone can probably give a full list, but off the top of my head i think of:

--Tyranny of Dragons
--Out of the Abyss
--Princes of the Apocalypse
--Rime
--Descent

Not sure about Storm King but I think so too.

The only one I can think of not in FR for sure is Strahd, and maybe Saltmarsh.

Sure seems like most stuff is set in FR.

I think you can add ToA, STK, HotDQ, RoT(?), Both Waterdeep HC adventures (dragonheist/domm). The start of DiA is in FR & the rest is especially notable in this context because settings like darksun & eberron that notably differ from FR also have a very different planar structure + different role & lore for fiends. Also CoS is heavily faerunized in 5e & a lot of what makes ravenloft Ravenloft rather than gothic FR with a vampire bbeg is played down.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I would agree, however I would also LOVE it if we actually got to see some of these "more unique racial features" everyone (including me) keeps saying they want.

Well, you just got a bunch of examples...for "lineage", not races...in the UA.

 

[Umbran]

People claim that 4e wasn't D&D. 4e never made changes to the game for political reasons. Sure they focused 4e in a different, more tactical way, but it was more D&D than what 5e is turning into.

5e is not D&D anymore.

Mod Note:

Good grief. Can we tone down the melodrama folks?

Some of you are backing yourselves into a corner - smaller and smaller things leading you to grander and grander statements of how a change is the end of the world. That eventually ends in folks going overboard, and getting themselves banned from threads and the site.

 

[Charlaquin]

I would agree, however I would also LOVE it if we actually got to see some of these "more unique racial features" everyone (including me) keeps saying they want.

I remember in an earlier iteration of this same argument someone proposed a version of the dwarf with such features in place of ASIs that was pretty cool. I don’t remember what all it had, but I think Tremorsense and a burrow speed were among them. Also, check out the A5e race playtest packets.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, you just got a bunch of examples...for "lineage", not races...in the UA.

Fair enough, but all three of those examples were clearly designed to be usuable after character creation. I'd like to see the same treatment for traditional races, so we can see what you would be replacing the cultural stuff with.