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."

 

[TwoSix]

Hexblood feels like a miss to me. Anyone have thoughts on it for or against?

Hexblood are probably my favorite out of the three. Seriously, how do you not look the "hand someone a toe and tell them to use it to page you" feature. That's just phenomenal.

And mechanically, the race is giving hex to every caster than doesn't get it. There's a lot of builds that would appreciate the damage bump.

 

[Scribe]

Seriously, how do you not look the "hand someone a toe and tell them to use it to page you" feature. That's just phenomenal.

Its funny. Its creepy, but it's not resonating with me to actually play. Fair point on hex though.

 

[TwoSix]

Its funny. Its creepy, but it's not resonating with me to actually play. Fair point on hex though.

Fair. We tend to have large parties (6-7 PCs) that like to split up, so being able to message each other comes up quite a bit.

 

[Remathilis]

Funny thought. By the RAW, reborn can be affected as a construct, but warforged can't. I smell an errata change...

 

[Charlaquin]

Also, there's a very big question about what you are optimizing for. We usually think of this as "combat", and even more specifically, "Damage per round".

This, of course, will hose you if, in order to succeed, the party needs broad skill bases beyond their primary damage stats.

How much of the need to optimize is rooted in limited vision in adventure design?

The thing is, there are only 6 abilities and the average party size is 4. So, even if everyone in the party focuses on their class’s primary attribute, if they all choose classes with different primary attributes, they will have most of their bases covered, and they can use their proficiencies and/or magic to help shore up the areas they aren’t specialized in. So you really don’t have to choose between optimizing for damage per round or optimizing for non-combat challenges if you’re working as a group.

 

[Scribe]

The thing is, there are only 6 abilities and the average party size is 4. So, even if everyone in the party focuses on their class’s primary attribute, if they all choose classes with different primary attributes, they will have most of their bases covered, and they can use their proficiencies and/or magic to help shore up the areas they aren’t specialized in. So you really don’t have to choose between optimizing for damage per round or optimizing for non-combat challenges if you’re working as a group.

Yeah, a dream team I'm thinking of with a Barbarian, Paladin, Bard, and Sorcerer (Divine Soul) can cover any base I want, when looked at as a whole.

 

[Kannik]

For additional consideration, a quick(ish) look at strength in more detail, as it appears to be a prime lighting rod in this thread…

What, primarily, does the STR score provide in 5e?

• How well you melee things
• How strong your melee hits are
• How well you athletic (running, climbing, jumping, playing dragonball)
• How much you can lift
• How much you can carry

As a martial artist, rock climber, tough mudderer, and etc, I will say that the first three are not entirely dependent on the amount of meat you have (ie, how big or dense you are). Here, how well you use your body is more important than how much of your body there is. A big person who hasn’t learned how to recruit their muscles well is carrying around more dead weight than anything else. (In certain cases, like in climbing, the more meat you have the worst off you often are, though height can be a counterbalancing factor.) Those who have learned how to best use their structure, recruit their muscles, incorporate proper leverage, and etc, can perform much better in those tasks than even a bodybuilder who has focused solely on getting as big as they can. Which means that in some cases a smaller person can hit harder (ie, generate force and effectively transfer it into the target) than a larger person.

And these three uses for the STR attribute are the ones that arise the most in the game; areas where development of body is of prime importance and thus areas where a racial bonus to the attribute isn’t strongly called for. Especially given that PCs are often a break the typical. (And if you want to play a campaign where the PCs are average and fit the typical cultural mold that is still entirely doable without needing racial attribute mods.)

But what about the areas lifting or carrying things? Or grappling or shoving, where being larger plays an outsized (heh) role? That’s where the existing size modifications come in: in these cases, a halfling will have less overall ability there for the same ability score than that of a giant.

(Also worth noting that these size mods, and through them weapon size restrictions, also mean that a halfling will already be a bit less effective in melee as well, even with the same STR score.)

As most PC race options are limited to small or medium characters (for the same reasons as the weapon size restrictions, only the reverse of the halfling), to model an 8’ tall goliath having extra lifting greatness and advantage in grappling and shoving is where traits such as “You are considered large for the purposes of…” or “You gain advantage on rolls to…” or “Multiply your lifting and carrying capacity by 1.5…” or similar come in highlight that difference. All while leaving hitting and athleticing within the purview of the raw STR score.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, a dream team I'm thinking of with a Barbarian, Paladin, Bard, and Sorcerer (Divine Soul) can cover any base I want, when looked at as a whole.

Interesting! It looks to me like that set up has a lot of overlap - the bard, the sorcerer, and the Paladin all use Charisma for their spellcasting ability. I assume the intent is to use a combination of the bard’s skills and the three casters’ spells to cover most non-combat situations though?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Do you think that the average Spartan would have had the same strength score as the average Athenian?

Yes. The average Str score of Athenians and Spartans would be the same. You know fighting isn’t the only reason people get strong, and that able bodied Athenians trained to fight, right?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Lets not dance around the various associations. We all know what they are, and it will just get the thread locked out.

I find the 'orc's being evil is racist' absolutely comical, I've been reading fantasy since I was a child, and the whole point is there is Good (tm) and there is Evil (tm) and yes that gets applied at a racial level within the fantasy framework. It does NOT get applied to the real world, by anyone with a working brain.

I probably shouldn’t have brought this topic into it. The only point I was trying to make is that it seems bizarre to me to think the orc debate is a manufactured thing, but then to worry that superstrong halflings will cause real world problems. But whatever.