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."

 

[Hurin70]

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.

That's totally cool, and I want you to be able to play the game you want.

But, consider this:

If Wizards keeps racial ASI's and gives players the option of ignoring them, we can both play the way we want.

If Wizards eliminates racial ASIs altogether, only you can play the way you want; we can't (at least not without a lot of legwork trying to re-impose ASIs).

The ideal solution to me is to keep racial ASIs in the game but to say that groups can decide to keep them or float them.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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.

One of my least favorite things about the 3.X system was having to GM at higher levels of play. This mostly stemmed from the expectation that to create NPCs, you should use normal character creation rules to do so. This is because it allows the players to engage with the NPC on an equal ground as far as how the rules interrelated to each other. At a certain point I began to avoid NPCs as much as possible because I didn't want to take 30 minutes out of my day to build a 13th level troglodyte druid/oozemaster complete with spell list, magic items, etc etc... for a guy that was going to show up, fight for 5 rounds, and be dead.

With 5e, I still CAN use the PC creation rules to create an NPC if I like, or I can use the premade monster-style NPCs in the back of the MM, or I can just grab whatever I want to twist things around to fit what I need at the time. It isn't so much that with 3.X I couldn't do this, but that there was an expectation that everyone had to work under the same framework so its was sort of "GM Cheating" when you winged it. 5e, with the built in "the GM can do whatever they want, NPCs aren't PCs and dont have the same rules" allows me to add low light vision to a human necromancer because I think thats how it should be, not because I had to find a certain feat or magic item to allow it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Yes, it is a matter of preference. You're not wrong to want what you want. But I feel the game should be built to support both approaches. And I really doubt my preference is particularly rare. From zero to hero is a D&D thing, and that works best when the beginning characters are rather 'normal'. I don't even have anything against 'PCs are special' games, Exalted is one of my all time favourite RPGs; I just don't want that in D&D. Furthermore, I would suggest that Geralt of Rivia is not a first level character; if you want to begin as a character like that, then it is super easy to just start at the higher level.

As for playing moisture farmers, I obviously don't want that, but like the hobbits in LotR, I want the beginning characters in D&D to be relatively 'normal' in their capabilities, being heroes because the things they choose to do, not because being destined to greatness by possessing special powers.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think if you want optimization to be less important, I think you're looking for a game where character growth is essentially random or outside of the player's control. Or where the player's choices really only impact the narrative, and not the game mechanics.

This seems really important to the debate.

I mean, I have always thought there were four pillars when playing the game, not three: exploration, roleplaying, combat and character creation/growth.

D&D is a game built on this. It is also one of the games that made character growth the mainstay of most computer games out there. When you consider it a fourth pillar, I feel that it should be viewed as such. Hence, rule changes are seismic shifts, like introducing THACO or coming up with skills for the first time.

 

[Scott Christian]

Personally, I'm probably going to replace the spell raise dead with a couple spells that make you a reborn (or one of the other options. (Reincarnate will still be available as well.)

A cash price, or even a four-day hangover, just isn't a real cost for dying and coming back. I want to let you still play your character, but you should be changed by the experience of death.

Aside from the sidebar, they're all cool, interesting and genuinely new ideas for 5e, something I've been waiting for for some time.

In mine, there is a table. It is not good. Permanent loss of HP, movement, attribute points, etc. But, it is also random, so it might not effect your character that much. And even if it does, it doesn't completely gimp you, just make you not want to die again. One dwarf that died twice was down to 15' of movement. The player roleplayed it as his hip was smashed on one occasion (it was a giant that killed him) and the front part of his foot was cut off (he was fighting something with big pinchers). Now it is just a roleplaying effect, and he is on a hunt for some boots of speed that might get him that speed back.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yes, it is a matter of preference. You're not wrong to want what you want. But I feel the game should be built to support both approaches.

I guess I will never agree with you that limiting a PC halfling to a 15STR at character creation is zero to hero acceptable, but allowing them to have a 17STR turns the world into superheroic from the first day on the job. The fundamental reasoning is the hard 20 cap which very unrealistically levels everyone off to the same point (about midgame for a full 1-20 campaign) and makes it odd for me to consider that 15 vs. 17 is crazy as 1st level but 20 vs. 20 is doable at 12th.

 

[Kannik]

Wow this thread moves fast (or at least faster than I can keep up with while at work! ) and it seems to be winding down, so I’ll do likewise with these last little bits…

Firstly, to those who responded to my last post, thank you for noting that this is a case between trained/training individuals, and that development is the important key compared to the idea of applying a blanket bonus as a racial modifier.

Secondly, I’ll quickly note that boxing/wrestling/etc are sports, and as such have limits on participant actions in order to create a contest. I’ve felt the impact from the kick of someone larger than me, and, for sure, it’s a thing! Freeform however, one shouldn’t try to fight a larger foe the way one fights same size or smaller opponents. Also, the disparities narrow even further once you have weapons that can cause hot bleeding (or cold bludgeoning?) death.

But this is getting deep into the weeds, which is the crux for me: within the confines of the granularity of the game and the fiction therein, racial attribute mods don’t do a great job of what they’re trying to do and come with unintended downsides. Letting them fade away to me is a boon.

Besides, if we were to get deep into the weeds, the real debate ought to be how improper it is that spears are not given their proper advantage against sword wielders!

(To be clear, I am very much joking about needing to be a debate about this– yes it’s an accurate thing but I’ve no issue about it in-game! Though does anyone remember the good ol’ Weapon vs AC table on page 38 of the 1e PHB? )

 

[Faolyn]

My son asked me: pa why orcs are so cruel? My response was: "because in this story (LOTR), orcs are perverted by evil that make them greedy, rabid and ultimately stupid, do you know that once upon a time they were elves?" (eyes and mouth wide open) "In real world things a little more messy, because people like them exist but are not easily recognizable as green horrid guys. Fortunately this is a story and it is simple to know who the bad ones are".

The issue of finding a phrase like "ASI is a cultural attribute" is very much more problematic, because it is something that pass before your eyes and you don't immediately recognize the error. It is more insidious and it is tossed on the page without explanation. A young guy could absorb it without thinking too much upon it and assimilate the error.

So the answer is yes, seriously.

So all you need to do is teach your child the difference between reality and fantasy and critical thinking skills. It's better that, since these are important for everything, than to require writers to police themselves because you didn't.

 

[Scott Christian]

This. Fundamentally, decoupling race/lineage and ability scores is anti-optimization. What the decoupling restricts is the ability to demonstrate your commitment to character concept over dirty optimizing by choosing a suboptimal race/lineage for your class.

Yes, everyone on the pro racial ASI side understands that point. But optimization is the key word here. The floating ASI crowd seems to not look at the other benefits associated with choosing a less optimized character. It is always, and instantly, I am down +1. And that seems to be the sole focus, not on the character overall. That is what has been disregarded in this debate.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

That's totally cool, and I want you to be able to play the game you want.

But, consider this:

If Wizards keeps racial ASI's and gives players the option of ignoring them, we can both play the way we want.

If Wizards eliminates racial ASIs altogether, only you can play the way you want; we can't (at least not without a lot of legwork trying to re-impose ASIs).

The ideal solution to me is to keep racial ASIs in the game but to say that groups can decide to keep them or float them.

I can respect that restatement of things, and can even meet you in the middle with this thought. It is probably just as easy for someone like myself to say "You can move around your stats in my game and we will figure out how to explain it" as it would be for me to create a table of assigned ASIs for a list of races if I wanted to go that direction.

Ultimately this is probably a lot of argument over not that big of a deal, because realistically the game still limits you to a 20, so we are only talking about a couple points over a couple levels of difference either way.