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."

 

[Guest 6801328]

That's how the mountain dwarf is designed: no class that makes prominent use of Strength needs the armor proficiency, and conversely, no class that lacks the armor proficiency demands a high Strength. In nearly all cases, a mountain dwarf PC makes good use of one or the other feature, not both. The subrace presents a mechanical tradeoff.

Just want to add that in general I think you are exactly right about the above: it's really good design. I just would prefer that neither of those benefits be an ASI.

Upthread I talked about this sort of thing: give each class a smorgasbord of benefits, each of which helps a different character type. If that can be achieved I think it's a great solution. An alternative...which I suspect is simpler, in the sense of better avoiding unintended power builds...is to design abilities that minimize the differential benefit. But, again, both approaches can work.

 

[Scribe]

I wish more players made choices like you.

But what's awesome about floating ASIs is that you can still do all the above.

Cool, huh?

The argument is not that you can intentionally build your character weaker.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It's not particularly over the top, but if 15 is the normal halfling starting maximum, then it obviously is noticeably better.

And if the rules change so that ASIs are floating, then 15 isn't the normal halfling starting maximum. Right?

(I mean if it weren't, then certainly you wouldn't care about having it so much, right?)

It's a good point that has been made in these debates before. Each side exaggerates the importance when making their own point, and diminishes it when attacking the other. I'll do both down below.

This tangent was started by you wondering how people don't get that PCs are special and not need to follow the same limitations than the rest of the populace, and I am trying to explain to you that not everyone wants PCs to start 'special'.

Great. They don't have to assign their floating ASIs in ways that break their immersion. (Or, if they talk to their DM, I'm sure they could use fewer than 27 points and give their PC the same low stats as an NPC.)

I mean earlier in the thread someone literally used halfling with the Superman's backstory as an example to explain their greater than normal strength. They presumably were at least semi-serious with that, and I'm sure there are campaigns in which that would work. But I am not interested in either playing in or running such. I want starting characters in D&D to be gifted but ultimately rather 'normal' members of their species; they may become mythic heroes with superpowers later at higher levels, should they survive that long. That was my issue with Zidi the halfling titan, or whatever they were called that was brought up as an character concept earlier. Halfling that goes around routinely overpowering minotaurs in contests of strength simply doesn't match my image of a low-level D&D character; as a high level concept it is more understandable.

Well, again, the +1 bonus is statistically significant, but it's not the difference between overpowering minotaurs or not. It will merely skew the frequency with which you succeed. If you walked up to a table just as a halfling were attempting to wrestle minotaurs, and you knew he had either 15 or 16 Strength, you would not be able to tell which it was (if you couldn't see the die rolls). You'd have to watch a bunch of repeat matches, keeping careful track of the results, to figure it out.

But let's dig further into that. Minotaurs have 18 Str but not Athletics proficiency, so a level 1 halfling with 15 Str and profiency is already going to have the same modifier as the minotaur, which means they're about evenly matched.

Level 1 halfing vs. CR 3 minotaur. Existing rules. 50:50 odds. (And if the halfling is a barbarian then he's going to have advantage on the checks.) If that doesn't already break your immersion, I'm not sure why even more gonzo situations would suddenly cross that line.

 

[Faolyn]

* Do you think a revival of 3.5 "the ghost walk" mini-setting would mix good with gothic horror?

Was it gothic horror? It's been ages since I read the book, and it can definitely do horror and undead PCs. But there's the hag race from the UA which I don't think would fit.

It's definitely a setting that could be worth reinventing for 5e.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The argument is not that you can intentionally build your character weaker.

You're right. He was making some argument that he once had a really good time picking a non-optimized combination (Dwarf warlock) and that the armor proficiency was, to him, worth sacrificing the ASI. Ummm....great?

The existence of some stories where people do this doesn't negate the fact that many, many people choose race purely based on ASIs. So I was making the point that with floating ASIs both kinds of people get what they want.

 

[Faolyn]

Totally agree, and I wish there was a middle ground between rolling dice in order and using Point Buy/Standard Array.

Point buy, roll a dX and divide those extra points to your stats as you decide.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And if the rules change so that ASIs are floating, then 15 isn't the normal halfling starting maximum. Right?

Sure. And that is the situation some of us do not want. Also how strong would the NPC halflings be now? If they can't have strength 16 too, that would make the PC halfling a 'superhero' and I don't want that.

It's a good point that has been made in these debates before. Each side exaggerates the importance when making their own point, and diminishes it when attacking the other. I'll do both down below.

Good to know!

Great. They don't have to assign their floating ASIs in ways that break their immersion. (Or, if they talk to their DM, I'm sure they could use fewer than 27 points and give their PC the same low stats as an NPC.)

This is a thing that should be agreed to be on certain way on the campaign level. It is not just about the one character, it is about how the whole world works and everyone needs to be on the same page.

Well, again, the +1 bonus is statistically significant, but it's not the difference between overpowering minotaurs or not. It will merely skew the frequency with which you succeed. If you walked up to a table just as a halfling were attempting to wrestle minotaurs, and you knew he had either 15 or 16 Strength, you would not be able to tell which it was (if you couldn't see the die rolls). You'd have to watch a bunch of repeat matches, keeping careful track of the results, to figure it out.

But let's dig further into that. Minotaurs have 18 Str but not Athletics proficiency, so a level 1 halfling with 15 Str and profiency is already going to have the same modifier as the minotaur, which means they're about evenly matched.

Good. So you just proved that you don't need the floating ASIs to play such a character and strength 15 will do just fine!

Level 1 halfing vs. CR 3 minotaur. Existing rules. 50:50 odds. (And if the halfling is a barbarian then he's going to have advantage on the checks.) If that doesn't already break your immersion, I'm not sure why even more gonzo situations would suddenly cross that line.

My conclusion from this is that minotaurs should have athletics proficiency (MM is too stingy with skills) though as a large creatures they have advantage on certain contexts. (PC minotaurs are victims of forcing all playable races into the same mould which makes them weedy and unsatisfactory.) But yeah, this "it is already kinda silly, so instead making it less silly we should make it more silly" tactic really isn't gonna convince me.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

This tangent was started by you wondering how people don't get that PCs are special and not need to follow the same limitations than the rest of the populace, and I am trying to explain to you that not everyone wants PCs to start 'special'. I mean earlier in the thread someone literally used halfling with the Superman's backstory as an example to explain their greater than normal strength. They presumably were at least semi-serious with that, and I'm sure there are campaigns in which that would work. But I am not interested in either playing in or running such.

I'm just echoing what @Elfcrusher is building up to with their logic chain...but I want to reply to this statement specifically as I was the "superman halfling" creator.

You very much recognize that YOU are the one that doesn't want your PCs to be special at low levels. That is the world that YOU like to play in. I, on the other hand, like to emulate the worlds of the fantasy that myself and my friends are currently enjoying outside of D&D.

In those worlds, the main characters are not just regular joes. They are the super talented, the chosen ones, the destined. In Witcher, there is one "normal" main character, the bard, who serves the role of being the everyman in the presence of mutant monster hunters and sorcerer supremes. In Harry Potter, the story doesn't focus on muggles, it focuses on the rare wizards. In The Mandalorian we aren't following the tale of some moisture farmers, we are encountering awesome long lost jedi and bounty hunters. Even in LotR the 5 hobbits are abnormal as soon as they leave their village.

I view the PCs in D&D to be these heros of story....not Jim the Elf who just picked up a sword and might get lucky enough to live 3 months to get a better one. I want the ability to play a hero from the beginning of the story, not hope that I live through 3 years of a campaign so I can be a hero later. By allowing ASI to be assigned as desired, I can make Jim the Bull, Halfling barbarian gifted with the strength of the gods (as a concept) and you can make Jim the Sneaky, paragon rogue (as a concept) using a single printed rules set.

 

[Hurin70]

I hated that in 2e, until I played 10 years of 3e and had to account for every skill point, feat and magic item for every bandit, chieftain, or cultist the PCs had to fight. Yeah, 5e would have made it easier with bounded accuracy, but the allure just grabbing a stat block of an appropriate challenge npc and tossing on darkvision and a few minor racial traits is enough to not want to go back to building NPCs like that again...

I've gone back and forth. I actually didn't mind that NPCs and monsters followed different rules than PCs in 4th edition, since that whole system was based more on powers, and it was cool that monsters got unique powers; my players never knew exactly what tricks the bad guys had up their sleeves.

For some reason though, the way 5e does it just doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because 5e characters, especially the lower level ones, are so simple, often with no real powers at all, that I don't see why you couldn't just use the same rules for both PCs and NPCs.

TLR: I get where you're coming from.

 

[Hurin70]

It's not particularly over the top, but if 15 is the normal halfling starting maximum, then it obviously is noticeably better. (I mean if it weren't, then certainly you wouldn't care about having it so much, right?) This tangent was started by you wondering how people don't get that PCs are special and not need to follow the same limitations than the rest of the populace, and I am trying to explain to you that not everyone wants PCs to start 'special'. ... I want starting characters in D&D to be gifted but ultimately rather 'normal' members of their species; they may become mythic heroes with superpowers later at higher levels, should they survive that long. That was my issue with Zidi the halfling titan, or whatever they were called that was brought up as an character concept earlier. Halfling that goes around routinely overpowering minotaurs in contests of strength simply doesn't match my image of a low-level D&D character; as a high level concept it is more understandable.

This perfectly encapsulates my perspective too.

I see myself as more on the simulationist, 'fantasy Vietnam' end of the spectrum. Halflings stronger than Minotaurs rain on my parade.