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."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's a fair question. I would say no, I am not trying to push D&D towards Rolemaster. I am just saying that I think Rolemaster handles this issue better than D&D is trying to handle it. So I think D&D would be better if it went with the Rolemaster solution rather than the one I see in Tasha's and the UA. That's really all I'm saying.

Fair enough.

But that type of solution would basically be a move to a less-accessible, more complex game, with more noob traps, at least in every way I can think of for D&D to implement that type of solution (and all the ones of that type which have been suggested). I also really think that anything that lowered HP, for example, or made a PC otherwise significantly more vulnerable is so extremely bad in 5E-style rules that would be almost impossible to balance reasonably.

That's mostly opinion, to be clear, I'm not really arguing it because it would be a whole other thread, but my experience in 5E is that HP is really a vital stat, and negative CON mod vs a positive one is a huge difference, and lowering HP would be really severe. Indeed, the same for melee/ranged damage. You'd basically be pigeon-holing all small races as spellcasters in D&D-type rules by doing that. Which might be fine in theory, in some games, but doesn't fit D&D's history, which is full of pretty-deadly Halfling Rogues and so on.

The Tasha solution is a more straightforward one that maintains accessibility and avoids noob traps, so I'd say that it's a lot more forward-looking, and more aligned with D&D 5E's general philosophy. The philosophy you're proposing doesn't really line up with any edition, but is perhaps most aligned with 1E/2E.

 

[Hurin70]

Yes, I've done so already a couple of times, but one more won't hurt.

The claim was that "You can't any longer describe a Dwarf as 'hardy', because as a race they are no hardier than any other."

And that this was specifically an issue in 5E, and 5E's language needed to be changed as a result. This is not true. If we ignore non-ASI abilities, as the poster was doing at that point (and indeed has to do in order to make that argument), then as soon as stat minimums went out the window, it became, by that token, false to say that "Dwarves are hardy", because it became possible to have a CON 5 Dwarf or the like.

When stat minimums existed, it was a valid argument - if a race had a minimum of 9 or more in a stat, for example, you could fairly say that none of them had less than average constitution, and necessarily because of the way minimums work, the vast majority would be above-average in that stat.

Now, what you could say, and appreciate that this is a neat point, but still, is that "Dwarves tend to be hardy". But that can remain true with fixed ASIs gone. A tendency isn't the same as a hard modifier, or a fixed alignment or the like. Saying "Dwarves tend to be hardy" is absolutely compatible with the +CON mod situation, and with a no-fixed-mod situation.

This is a misrepresentation of my argument.

I never said that this was a problem specifically with 5e. I said it would be a problem with 5e if you dispensed with fixed ASIs.

The fact that you can have a 5 Con Dwarf individual does not prevent you from saying 'Dwarves are hardy.' The statement 'Dwarves are hardy' does not mean literally that 'Every single Dwarf in the world is hardy', or else you could never have had a Dwarf affected by disease, or never have had one made frail by old age. So the statement 'Dwarves are hardy' is clearly intended to mean simply that 'On the whole, the Dwarven race is hardy.' And the ASI ensured this was true -- because every Dwarf character got a Con bonus, raising the average level of hardiness of the Dwarf population. Dwarves were, on average, a hardy race.

So yes, I would indeed accept that one can reasonably say both that 'Dwarves are hardy' and 'Dwarves tend to be hardy' so long as they have a fixed ASI for Con.

Once you remove that fixed ASI, though, there is no longer any justification for continuing to say either 'Dwarves are hardy' or 'Dwarves tend to be hardy.' That becomes false... the minute you remove the ASI.

 

[Vaalingrade]

interesting you got any other ideas for them?

Granted, I don't really do 5e, but things I've done in my system:

• Extra Reaction
• Recharge encounter power (recharge Short rest powers or per proficiency?)
• Bloody-state bonuses (when you reach 50% HP, you get something like a free heal, a reroll, etc
• Extra saving throw vs ongoing effects
• Conditional bonuses to attack/Spell DC (rolled together, so the race can choose either/or)
• Advantage-style effect on skills (I don't use Advantage, so the roll twice effect is a pretty powerful knock-on)
• Ability to knock on +1d4 to a skill or save.
• Bonus Backgrounds (Expertises in my system) for long-lived races.
• elemental affinity which comes with DR and a knock-on spell-like.
• bonus feats chosen from a list
• natural armor
• biological equipment such as spider-folk spinning rope, catfolk using their claws as tools, etc

 

[Arial Black]

What’s inherently unfair is the player’s choice of race leading to meaningful discrepancies in their efficacy as a member of their class. Your choice of class doesn’t lead to meaningful discrepancies in your efficacy as a member of your class, nor as a member of your race for that matter.

A player's choice in everything affects their PC's efficacy in their chosen role: race, class, ability scores, feats, skills, which of the available magic items to use....

Why do you believe that their choice of race should be the only thing that has no impact! And what's the point of choosing a race if that choice has no impact?

Do you think the game would be better if the Races chapter just read: "Imagine your PC is whatever species you want. That choice has zero impact on how your PC affects the game"?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is a misrepresentation of my argument.

I never said that this was a problem specifically with 5e. I said it would be a problem with 5e if you dispensed with fixed ASIs.

The fact that you can have a 5 Con Dwarf does not prevent you from saying 'Dwarves are hardy.' The statement 'Dwarves are hardy' does not mean literally that 'Every single Dwarf in the world is hardy.' It just means that 'On the whole, the Dwarven race is hardy.' And the ASI ensured this was true -- because every Dwarf character got a Con bonus, raising the average level of hardiness of the Dwarf population.

So yes, I would indeed accept that one can reasonably say 'Dwarves tend to be hardy' so long as they have a fixed ASI for Con. Once you remove that fixed ASI, though, there is no justification for continuing to say either 'Dwarves are hardy' or 'Dwarves tend to be hardy.' That becomes false... once you remove the ASI.

I disagree, and it's easy to argue, too. You cannot say an absolute like "Dwarves are hardy" if you can have a 5 CON Dwarf. That's already limiting you to "tend to be". And "tend to be" is compatible, in English, with some of them not being that way. If you remove the ASIs, as a whole, Dwarves can still "tend to be hardy", but PCs can be an exception. I'm afraid there's no way around that - PCs are exceptional. The rules they follow are not the rules all members of the race follow, nor are necessarily typical members of that race.

 

[Arial Black]

Assuming one thinks it's good. I mean, I don't. alot of people don't. That's why we're here picking fights with each other over it.

My magic elf can clap bat poop between her hands and make people explode from two rooms away.

Multi-ton hexapods are the mascots.

Drow society managed to last more than a year.

Strong mice are the least of our problems if we start pretending 'absurd' is bad. Also, why shouldn't elephants not have a high INT? They mourn their dead, the females select mates in response to not only the environment but to poachers, they actively hunt said poachers for revenge, they get jobs and paint... how is 'smart' not their thing instead of Strongliness? Is it because they're fat?

My problem is not that I think elephants can't be smart.

The problem is that elephants cannot fail to be stronger than a mouse and the new system doesn't even reflect that in the smallest way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A player's choice in everything affects their PC's efficacy in their chosen role: race, class, ability scores, feats, skills, which of the available magic items to use....

Why do you believe that their choice of race should be the only thing that has no impact! And what's the point of choosing a race if that choice has no impact?

Do you think the game would be better if the Races chapter just read: "Imagine your PC is whatever species you want. That choice has zero impact on how your PC affects the game"?

That's a strawman, Arial. He's not arguing "no impact", but rather "meaningful discrepancies", as he says.

The problem with ASIs in 5E is really simple and more extreme than previous editions. The likely majority of rolls you make in the game are to hit and damage (or people saving against your spells, which have a DC set by your primary stat, let's not overcomplicate this though), which your primary stat tends to apply to. So a small stat difference, can, in very real terms, have a impact over the course of an adventure.

People tend to think because it's only +1 or whatever, it doesn't matter, but that's obviously not true, and playing 5E shows it to be untrue. The more rolls you make, the more it matters. Eventually, if the campaign lasts long enough, you do catch up, quite likely, but having been behind for the majority of your levels, is going to have left you feeling a bit crummy.

This gets worse if a race has two useful ASI, not just one, as compared to another race.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My problem is not that I think elephants can't be smart.

The problem is that elephants cannot fail to be stronger than a mouse and the new system doesn't even reflect that in the smallest way.

The current system doesn't either. I've proven this with the Halfling vs Loxodon example.

 

[Hurin70]

I disagree, and it's easy to argue, too. You cannot say an absolute like "Dwarves are hardy" if you can have a 5 CON Dwarf. That's already limiting you to "tend to be". And "tend to be" is compatible, in English, with some of them not being that way. If you remove the ASIs, as a whole, Dwarves can still "tend to be hardy", but PCs can be an exception. I'm afraid there's no way around that - PCs are exceptional. The rules they follow are not the rules all members of the race follow, nor are necessarily typical members of that race.

That's easy to argue if you don't care about logic. I explained how the phrase 'Dwarves are hardy' is specifically not an absolute statement about every individual; it is a general trend about a race. Thus your 5 Con Dwarf does not refute the general trend.

If you remove the ASIs, then I'm sorry but no, according to the rules of logic, Dwarves will not 'tend to be hardy'. Their tendencies will be the exact same as every other race. That's literally what removing the ASI's does: it alters the tendency to be exactly the same for all races.

The math is literally exactly the same.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's easy to argue if you don't care about logic. I explained how the phrase 'Dwarves are hardy' is specifically not an absolute statement about every individual; it is a general trend about a race. Thus your 5 Con Dwarf does not refute the general trend.

If you remove the ASIs, then I'm sorry but no, according to the rules of logic, Dwarves will not 'tend to be hardy'. Their tendencies will be the exact same as every other race. That's literally what removing the ASI's does.

No.

That argument is nonsensical. You cannot claim that the stat mods a PC possesses are necessarily representative of the race as a whole. That's part of what the entire approach of Tasha's is doing. That you don't understand this is perhaps your key problem here. Tasha's is not saying "Dwarves, as a race, in a fantasy world, are no longer hardy!", Tasha's is saying "PC examples of Dwarves, do not have to select +CON as one of their racial ASIs". Whether the race a whole continues to typically have high CON is separate from that.

This is a failure of comprehension on your part. You're thinking of D&D as a simulationist game - this is an abstraction, not a simulation. You're making a category error.

Further, all Dwarves still have Dwarven Resilience, which one could argue was enough to count as "hardy".