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."

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

You do realize that even in the PHB, an elf's grace is equal to a halflings, gnomes have keener minds than elves, and your non-variant human is inferior to other races in one score, equal in another, and superior in four others? It's almost like ability scores were arbitrary and the lore came after to justify them...

Ok but... try to be honest. Is clear that the ASI and the races in PHB are largely built around tolkien heritage.
There is nothing wrong to feel comfortable with this kind of construction. And there is nothing wrong to want a more flexible game. But the price you pay (and if you want to pay it it's ok!) is that physical appearance and traditional mood of a race does not reflect a game mechanic anymore. If you are honest in admit this price has to be payed, the discussion go on without problems or friction.

 

[Minigiant]

What amuses me the most about seeing you post this (and I give you props for it) is that this is exactly what you should be doing... deciding that what is in the books are not sufficient for your personal needs and coming up with your own alternate method. Which is exactly what everybody else should be doing as well.

Despite some other poster's protestations... WotC's books going forward do not actually have to include a secondary listing of a "default" choice of where the +2/+1 lies for those that feel like they need it (in addition to the new decision of choose any ability scores for them)... because they, as their own thinking DM, can just decide when setting up their next campaign to choose which ability scores get them for themselves and tell the players this is how it will be for this upcoming game.

This once again highlights something I've been trying to get across to everybody for years now... which is that the entire game is optional-- trying to insist on playing "Rules As Written" is unnecessary and a waste of time-- and none of you get brownie points or a pat on the back or a Good Job! from ANYONE if you try and do so. Nobody cares if you play RAW or don't play RAW. You are striving for some ideal that that only matters to yourself in this bizarre narrative you have written about how you should play D&D. But it doesn't matter. It never has. So by extension... getting so up in arms with WotC that they keep making new rules that will "force" you to NOT play RAW just so you can play the game with the rules you want is ridiculous.

Oh darn... you're going to have to tell your players that in this next campaign that if they want to play a Hexborn, that lineage gets a +2 CON / +1 CHA... despite the fact that in the written pages it says put them wherever your want. You've decide that for this upcoming game, it's CON/CHA.

And there you go. That's all you need to do. You get what you want, and you didn't need WotC to "write it down for you". Because WotC realizes just the like a lot of the rest of us that they don't need to write all these little micro-rules down because there's absolutely no reason to waste the ink when you as a player of D&D are meant to do this on your own if you really think it that important to your enjoyment of the game. So do it. And then have fun.

Nah.

I think it's more the difference of scrutiny of on the spot adjudication and pre-campaign house rules.

 

[Scott Christian]

Reinforcing a point I made earlier, the previous three posters all seem to believe that the real reason for eliminating ASIs is for "inclusivity" or "politics" or something of that nature.

Can't it be both?

This linear vision instead of field of vision happens all the time with debates on here.

For example, character creation and ASIs. There are only so many knobs that players can turn during character creation. Some can't seem to see that when one knob gets turned up, another might get turned down. It is as if they can only focus on the one knob, and not the panel of knobs. The ASI knob doesn't let my half-orc start with a 16 intelligence. There are other knobs the half orc gets that are just as nice. Unless, you only focus on the one knob, then it seems unfair.

Let's try looking at the entire panel instead of a single knob during character creation.

Same is true for the reasons Wizards might want change. There might be a panel they are adjusting, not just a single reason.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, they literally have the Keen Senses feature, so I don't know what to tell you.

Senses aren't minds. Any idiot (literally) can have the Perception proficiency. Indeed, some Elf with 7 WIS and 7 INT (and I have indeed seen such a fellow) will have it, right now, but... ain't no-one saying he's got a keen mind.

 

[ART!]

Since that is a skill proficiency, Tasha's has altered it to "choose a skill proficiency". It no longer has to have anything to do with keen senses.

It no longer has to, no. Tasha's offers the option to choose a different proficiency. So, the Keen Senses stands, unless you want to change it at your table or whatever.

 

[Remathilis]

Since that is a skill proficiency, Tasha's has altered it to "choose a skill proficiency". It no longer has to have anything to do with keen senses.

Which I think is a failing with the one-size-fits-all method of swapping proficiencies. An elf having bow proficiency is cultural, having keen senses is biological. It shouldn't be that an elf can dull his senses to become an expert in Arcana...

 

[Arial Black]

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.

We could do this be redefining the Strength ability score. Instead of the score being an absolute measure of the ability to lift weight, do damage, etc), Strength could be a relative measure of how much you can lift, how much damage you do, etc. combined with a creature's mass/size. So an average halfling/human/minotaur would all have Str 10 (so ability bonuses for race/species are totally eliminated, which is what you say you want!), but each race would have notes like, "halflings have a -2 size penalty to damage and can lift 5 lbs per point of Str; humans have no bonus or penalty to damage and can lift 15lbs per point of Str; minotaurs have a +2 bonus to damage and can lift 30lbs per point of Str".

Chaosium Games did this over 40 years ago. They had seven ability scores: Strength, Size, Constitution/Endurance, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Charisma/Appearance.

When calculating damage, for example, they added both Strength AND Size and cross-referenced on a table to give them their damage bonus.

Would something like this satisfy you? Why, or why not?

 

[Dausuul]

Unfortunately for your idea, there are a lot of coincidence in timing between this operation and the mood around in society to ignore it. But maybe I'm a foolish conspiracy theorist . We both don't have ultimate proof of our different idea so I suggest to close this topic.

That may have been the impetus that pushed Wizards to make the change. So? If Wizards makes a change that improves the rules, it's still an improvement even if they had non-rules-based reasons for making it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Can't it be both?

This linear vision instead of field of vision happens all the time with debates on here.

For example, character creation and ASIs. There are only so many knobs that players can turn during character creation. Some can't seem to see that when one knob gets turned up, another might get turned down. It is as if they can only focus on the one knob, and not the panel of knobs. The ASI knob doesn't let my half-orc start with a 16 intelligence. There are other knobs the half orc gets that are just as nice. Unless, you only focus on the one knob, then it seems unfair.

Let's try looking at the entire panel instead of a single knob during character creation.

Same is true for the reasons Wizards might want change. There might be a panel they are adjusting, not just a single reason.

Of course it can be multiple factors, but the fact is, those posters, seemingly including you, were implying that the core and dominant motivation was a purely political one.

I think what's a lot more likely is an alignment of various factors and tensions that have been building up in D&D's mechanics for, well, decades. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that a desire for more inclusivity and to move away from "bad races" as a major concept is part of it. That was always a dubious idea. I mean, it was dubious to me at 10, when I started playing D&D in 1988/1989, let alone in 2021. And so that may be the "push" or the opportunity that encourages the change.

I don't think it's the root cause, though.

Gothic Lineages supports my argument. These "lineages" could not have existed well as stand-alone "races" in 5E, because represent a condition, more an a singular point of origin. They effectively replace your race. You can be a High Elf who is a Dhampir, for example. You use the Dhampir stats and make any choices you have - like languages and stats - to reflect your High Elf background. Your race/lineage is "Dhampir", but your character is a bit more complex than that.

This isn't "merely" an inclusive thing - this is expanding the options for players - a pretty cool way actually. By attempting to claim the primary motivation is "politics" you're essentially attempting, wittingly or not, to discredit the changes, or associate them with specific people - and in fact are politicising an issue that does not need to be.

 

[Arial Black]

You do realize that even in the PHB, an elf's grace is equal to a halflings, gnomes have keener minds than elves, and your non-variant human is inferior to other races in one score, equal in another, and superior in four others? It's almost like ability scores were arbitrary and the lore came after to justify them...

But we know that is not the case!

The concepts of elves being graceful, dwarves being hardy, minotaurs being strong, and all the rest came before D&D was ever invented!

We know that the reason there are racial ability modifiers is that the designers wanted to represent these concepts in the mechanics of the game!