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]

You can try to justify it with strained arguments, but I've never heard of a chimp who was stronger than a bull. Relative strength is not absolute strength.

We are talking about the same game where a human with a sword can kill a T-rex, right?

 

[Scribe]

I would phrase it as “accept that it’s a poor abstraction and stop letting it get in the way of character build flexibility,” but yes. I do think we should do that.

Right, but that's already the reality. So your position is already supported.

It's mine that's losing out, and everyone spending 60 pages telling me I'm wrong and a 3 foot tall slim (vs dwarf, thick) being is going to be as strong as an 8 foot tall (seriously folks, go stand beside someone who is 6'8) powerfully athletic being makes sense?

It's a non starter. It's honestly absurd. It's like training children (and I have) and training heavyweights (and I have).

For you, this new system is fine.

For me, it never will be.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get to have your system to tell your stories.

I'm consistently being told 'no it's fine'.

It isn't. It's not remotely close to fine.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm all for caps, and negative modifiers, but I think that's not going to see traction.

I'd cap Halflings at 16.
I'd cap Goliath's at 18.

But that's just initial gut reaction.

ULTIMATELY I would prefer rules make it clear that a halfling isn't as strong as a goliath, in some capacity.

Again though, your line in the sand won't match mine, perhaps.

But this still leaves a middle ground when the 3ft halfling fighter with 16 Str would be evenly matched with the 8 ft goliath fighter with a 16 strength. You'd have to cap and floor the strength scores so that the strongest halfling couldn't match the weakest goliath if we want strength and size to correspond.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You don't think Tolkien actually meant to say that Golfimbul's head really flew through the air that far though, right?

Tolkien even gives a hint by introducing the quote with 'According to a legend'. And he ultimately adds that this was how golf was invented. You don't perceive any humor, irony, or skepticism in this passage -- you take it as a literal account?

When your halfling barbarian chops off the dragon's head, you don't take it as literal account, do you?

 

[Umbran]

I love this comment and wish to highlight it, because you rarely see people optimize their characters for what is supposed to be 2/3rds of the game.

ALL of the optimization discussion as relates to race and lineage focuses on combat. How boring.

This thought brought to you by the dwarven rogue that I just started playing. My first concept was a kobold wizard... but someone else wanted the wizard spot. So, then I thought kobold rogue. The GM decided she wanted ot limit the books in use, which was fine.

I could have gone with a race that got more Dex. But, I went with dwarf, instead, and I now have a character with only a 15 in his primary stat, but two other 15s, and a 14. Not optimal for combat, but the dude has some breadth.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I prefer my solution, which is "Recognize that stats are an historical artifact whose only real use is as a game balance tool, and not use them to derive any sort of world-building or simulative rules."

If I accept that then next step for me is tossing the rules in the trash bin. I have no use for rules that do not represent anything.

 

[TwoSix]

You don't think Tolkien actually meant to say that Golfimbul's head really flew through the air that far though, right?

Tolkien even gives a hint by introducing the quote with 'According to a legend'. And he ultimately adds that this was how golf was invented. You don't perceive any humor, irony, or skepticism in this passage -- you take it as a literal account?

I hope we're not so far gone we're taking a passage in Tolkien as being a literal account of anything.

 

[Jack Daniel]

After reading through this thread, I think I can come to a couple of personal conclusions. (1) I'm really, really happy to have long since leapt off the edition treadmill. It's a pretty nice feeling, to play a game that a corporation has no relevance to and no power over. (2) This thread is only reinforcing one aspect of my personal D&D philosophy, that ability scores should be interpreted as narrow in scope (e.g. "Strength" is just an unfortunate name for the "Fighter prime requisite and mêlée prowess" stat) rather than broad and totalizing (e.g. your Strength score literally measures your character's strength). You don't actually need for ability scores to measure how strong, fast, smart, charming, etc. characters are, and I find that it really improves the game to do away with the notion.

 

[Dire Bare]

Really? I'll admit that I'm not expert on classical cultures, but my impression was that the Spartans emphasized military training more than the other city states, and had fewer philosophers and artists. So if you actually measured the strength of each member of each society, by whatever measure you choose (how far you can throw a rock?), I would expect the Athenian average to be lower.

Your comparison is fair, because D&D is less a historical simulation and more a mythological simulation.

The myth that Spartans were near inhumanly bad-ass warriors is more important here than the reality that they likely weren't all that different from their Athenian neighbors.

 

[Hurin70]

We are talking about the same game where a human with a sword can kill a T-rex, right?

Shh.... the anti-ASI people might use that to argue that Humans should get more strength bonuses than T-rexes, if only their players come up with the character concept of playing a 'human stronger than any T-Rex' at first level.