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."

 

[Faolyn]

Making floating racial bonuses to ability scores means that no race is stronger or weaker on average than any other race. This fails! As a way to model the difference is races, this fails!

No, it doesn't. What it means is that your PC is stronger or weaker than others. Unless you go out of your way to fully stat out every single NPC, you're going to use the same basic commoner stats for all of them, regardless of race. And then, if you really need to, give that NPC a +1 on some roll you make for it, because you decided that it's stronger than a typical NPC commoner.

(Also, it proves that just because a race is physically small doesn't mean they also have to be weak. For all we know, halflings are built like chimps.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

Again...

"so many" not "all"

It's irrefutable...just read through this thread; it comes up again and again and again.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Unless you go out of your way to fully stat out every single NPC,

And if you do....just put the floating ASI wherever you think it should go!

Right?

 

[Scott Christian]

Not everyone uses point buy!

And? Rolling 4d6 already has an average greater than that of point buy. Roll 5d6. Roll seven times instead of six. It does not matter as the two are not comparable - not even close.
And if you are rolling, then the entire ASI debate isn't even for your table. It specifically is about one race starting with a +1 advantage over another. When you roll, that all goes out the window.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

It's already been done. The stat block for Ape (sorry, no Chimp) gives them a 16 Strength. The stat block for Commoner gives them a 10 Strength. No ASIs needed.



Not all humans (or dwarves, or chimpanzees) are player characters. In fact, very, very, very few of them are.

There is no evidence in the rules that PC are special in this sense. Apes has 16 instead of 10 exactly for the same reason Orc has +2 STR. And is perfectly coherent with the assumption of the physics of the game world. So, again: why ASI is bad?

 

[Scribe]

This is when I like to point out that in the real world, chimpanzees, despite being generally smaller and lighter than humans, a lot stronger than us (depending on the source, from half-again as strong to four times as strong), because of how their muscles are built and attached to their bones. Now imagine a chimp that's decided to work out.

Yes, but there is a biological reason, their muscles are fundamentally different. Almost as if by default, their species has a +X modifier to Str, which we do not.

Now imagine its a male Gorilla...

 

[Faolyn]

And if you do....just put the floating ASI wherever you think it should go!

Right?

Yes! If you even go that far. I personally just write up whatever stats I want for an NPC and give it whatever racial traits I want, because NPCs are built like monsters, not PCs, in 5e.

 

[Hurin70]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't think you ever answered my question of whether this bothers you in the description of elves:

I wouldn't say 'bothers', because appearance has no mechanical effect. But I would say that it would be better (more accurate) to not talk of races as 'hauntingly beautiful' if they have the exact same Charisma bonus as every other race.

I don't want players, especially new players, to get confused when they read the plain language description of a race only to find that the mechanics don't actually represent that description at all.

Rolemaster for example has an 'Appearance' stat, where things like this could be represented. Unless you're willing to give Elves a Charisma bonus, then just don't suggest they are more beautiful than other races. Because mechanically, they're really not.

There's no mechanics to support that statement.

Exactly.

If you put your 8 in Con, then add the +2 ASI, you get a 10 Con. So, no, not all Dwarves are "hardier than any other races" even with the current rules. Sure, they're hardier on average, but that's already true because of the NPC stat block.

Yes... because the stat block gives them a +2 Con. That's what makes them hardier on average. That's the mechanic.

Please note my earlier post about why the statement 'Dwarves are hardy' was never intended as an absolute statement about every individual, and why it can still be true, but only so long as fixed racial ASI's are maintained.

 

[Arial Black]

'Combat' is not a monolith. There is ranged combat. There is melee combat. there is mobility combat.

Docking HP, as the original exchange was about make melee and a lot of mobility unfeasible for no actually good reason.

Just telling the player to choose a style they don't want to play is not justified by a demand for realism in a game where reality is the thing we should laugh at --and which half the classes do on a per-turn basis.

"Reality is the thing we should laugh at"?

Should we laugh at internal coherence too? Should we pursue a game where nothing makes sense!

 

[Umbran]

The books say Dwarves are 'hardy'.

So, you may be being a tad too inflexible in how you read this.

"Dwarves are hardy," has two ways to read it: 1) Dwarves, in general, are hardy, or 2) Absolutely every single dwarf is hardy.

Now, we can show the latter is an incorrect reading, insofar as one could already, with a standard array, make a dwarf with a 10 Con, which is not particularly hardy. Ergo, the statement is a generalization, speaking to a broad average, and we must, perforce accept that there will be some individuals who aren't all that hardy.

You are arguing, then, on exactly how much of that generalization is explicitly forced to appear in PCs. In a game where most of the fictional dwarf population is not governed by the PC creation rules, this seems like a precarious position to take.

"Dwarves in general are hardy, but you can play what you want," is too far a reach for you?