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."

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I was thinking about some racial traits, they may very useful....some times, but not the most of days. Players want racial traits they know they are going to use almost always.

* If dhampires and reborn are canon in D&D, does this mean WotC is going to publish anytime any D&D supernatural romance?

* How do you imagine the hexbloods in pictures by fan artists? I guess the males would be the look of bad boy parents don't want him to be near their daughters, somebody who would drink a beer with a tielfling, like the hexblade 3.5 Ed. class, and the females as gothic lolitas (with a little chibi touch), with a variable height between halflings and elves, with a face like the background characters from Monster High cartoon, or Mal, from Disney's Descedants.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I was thinking about some racial traits, they may very useful....some times, but not the most of days. Players want racial traits they know they are going to use almost always.

* If dhampires and reborn are canon in D&D, does this mean WotC is going to publish anytime any D&D supernatural romance?

* How do you imagine the hexbloods in pictures by fan artists? I guess the males would be the look of bad boy parents don't want him to be near their daughters, somebody who would drink a beer with a tielfling, like the hexblade 3.5 Ed. class, and the females as gothic lolitas (with a little chibi touch), with a variable height between halflings and elves, with a face like the background characters from Monster High cartoon, or Mal, from Disney's Descedants.

Re racial traits, yeah it's true a lot won't be of use "most days", but that's true for most races. I don't really agree that players particularly pick races with reliably-useful racial traits. I think ones that are more rarely used but conceptually-cool also tend to draw players.

Also, in my experience, most players, even min-maxers, tend to take a "cool first" approach to PC creation, which is they won't select a race they don't think is cool, and if they think one is super-cool, they'll ignore drawbacks to select it. Serious min-maxers may hesitate at this, but unless their entire build requires a specific race (i.e. Savage Attacks, or that elf triple-advantage nonsense), they still often take races primarily on the cool value.

Appearance-wise, I'm quite sure it's intentionally not stated because it could vary a huge amount, and that allows the player and DM to decide on what the PC looks like. I think fan art will likewise vary pretty wildly. I mean, we all know what fan-artists are like, so fan-depictions are likely to lean towards "cute" and "anime", rather than anything interesting or daring, but there's really nothing limited them to that.

Re: supernatural romance, I doubt it. More likely just more Ravenloft.

 

[Azzy]

I don't hate the idea of having, say, racial traits represented by more features in the vein of Powerful Build - "agile build" rather than Dex +2, for example. But my question at that point is, what IS Strength? What is Dexterity? If its functions are now taken over by racial features, what's the point of them?

Powerful Build doesn't take the place of Strength, though. Instead, it modifies Str in a way that is meaningful in an in-game perspective (a character with that trait can carry/lift/etc. more than a character without it could)—thus an average Goliath with a 10 Str could carry/lift/pull/drag as much (300 lb.) as the strongest Halfling with a 20 Str.

Now, how would one go about providing a similar modification to other abilitie scores through a equivalent feature would definitely require thought.

 

[Remathilis]

We've been so fixated on Strength as an ability score, let's look at a few OTHER ability scores and see if they make as much sense...

A group of adventurers (an elf, an orc, a human, and a goliath) are trying to sneak past an inattentive guard. None of them are trained in stealth or are wearing heavy armor. Which should have the greatest chance of sneaking?

A group of adventurers (a dwarf, an orc, a human, and a halfling) all eat some tainted food. Which of them is most likely going to be poisoned by it?

A group of adventurers (an elf, a goblin, an orc, and a human) all have to complete a complex math problem. Which should be able to complete it in the shortest amount of time?

A group of adventurers (an elf, an orc, a tiefling and a dragonborn) are composing a sonnet to be read by a princess of indeterminate lineage. None are proficient in Performance. Which is most likely going to win the princesses heart?

 

[Remathilis]

Because the PCs and NPCs are just people in the setting, belong to the same species, are made of the same stuff. I understand that some people want the PCs to be some sort of unique superheroes that are not bound by normal limitations, but not everyone wants to play like that.

Have you played D&D past 3rd level? The game where fighters shrug off hits from ballista bolts, wizards can fly, teleport, and summon walls of pure magic, rogues can avoid 50' wide dragon breath without so much as a singed hair, and clerics can literally raise someone from the dead?

Those are superheroes my friend. They wear cloaks instead of capes.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I find the idea that there's something offensive about modelling the difference between a 3ft Halfling and a 8ft Goliath or Minotaur somewhat absurd.

I'm receptive to the idea that the game-play consequence of this modelling can be anti-fun, especially when if it leads to some races being unsuitable for some classes and other classes ubiquitous. (And that PCs are the exceptions)

But frankly I think if someone considers that the modelling the difference in size in practical ways that follow on expressly from the fiction is offensive in itself then I don't see why one would have Halflings and Goliaths at all. If the idea that different species in a game in general have different levels of strength is offensive, then by all means just get rid of them and play humans.

Yes, it would indeed be absurd if people were insisting that halflings and Minotaurs had the same stats. If, for instance, they demanded that all npc halflings and Minotaurs had the same six attributes.

If you see anybody doing that, let me know so that I can mock them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, it would indeed be absurd if people were insisting that halflings and Minotaurs had the same stats. If, for instance, they demanded that all npc halflings and Minotaurs had the same six attributes.

If you see anybody doing that, let me know so that I can mock them.

Well, there are people who think (or at least claim that they think) that the races having differnt ASIs is problematic biological essentialism, and logically that would apply to NPCs too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We've been so fixated on Strength as an ability score, let's look at a few OTHER ability scores and see if they make as much sense...

A group of adventurers (an elf, an orc, a human, and a goliath) are trying to sneak past an inattentive guard. None of them are trained in stealth or are wearing heavy armor. Which should have the greatest chance of sneaking?

A group of adventurers (a dwarf, an orc, a human, and a halfling) all eat some tainted food. Which of them is most likely going to be poisoned by it?

A group of adventurers (an elf, a goblin, an orc, and a human) all have to complete a complex math problem. Which should be able to complete it in the shortest amount of time?

A group of adventurers (an elf, an orc, a tiefling and a dragonborn) are composing a sonnet to be read by a princess of indeterminate lineage. None are proficient in Performance. Which is most likely going to win the princesses heart?

I don't think these are as obvious as I suspect you think they are:

Re: Stealth - I think it'd be very much down to the exact terrain and situation and so on, but it's quite likely it would be about equal between all of them. The Goliath is larger but isn't necessarily much louder or more obvious. In some settings the elves would be much better, but standard D&D elves are only very slightly better. If anything, perhaps elven light-footed-ness needs a representation here. But perhaps the scenario is one where noise matters less, and sight more (especially if there's a feast going on in the castle or something), in which case the elf realistically wouldn't have much advantage.

Re: tainted food, well the Dwarf has Advantage on saves vs Poison and resistance to Poison damage, and it's very likely at least one of those is coming into play, esp. as you're describing the PC as being "poisoned", so that's already modeled in D&D.

Re: Math problem uhhhh, realistically? We have no way to know between that lot. It's not like Orcs have dyscalculia or something.

Re: Charm the princess? That depends pretty much entirely on the princess and what she's into. I don't think any of those races are, realistically, inherently better sonnet-writers, and using CHA for a written sonnet wouldn't make a lot of sense if you're thinking about it in this level of detail. I'd probably ask the players to come up with what subject matter the sonnet should cover and any particular ideas/approaches they wanted to incorporate (which could result in Advantage or Disadvantage to the roll), and have them write it with an INT or WIS check. I've certainly met terrible nerds who can write an incredible poem or love letter but are absolutely hopeless and actively anti-charismatic in person. I mean I think this is a place 5E falls down pretty hard - this is the sort of thing that should really be a 4E-style Skill Challenge.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, there are people who think (or at least claim that they think) that the races having differnt ASIs is problematic biological essentialism, and logically that would apply to NPCs too.

Funny, I haven’t seen that. Link?

EDIT: I have seen lots of assumptions that that's the underlying motivation, but it seems to be a straw man because I haven't seen anybody actually argue that racial ASIs should go for that reason, at least in 5e. I have seen the argument that penalties, specifically to Int, in previous editions, were problematic. And even that was part of the overall problem with describing an irredeemably evil race using language that has historically been used to justify exploitation.

 

[SkidAce]

There are at least 103 races and variants currently in the game. Do you want to create a chart of ASIs (usually two) for 103 races and variants?

And more importantly, do you want to try to balance those, both with the other ASIs and with racial feats?

Honest question, dont we only have to be concerned about new races going forward?

The stats for the existing "103" are already listed.