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."

 

[Scribe]

It would be easy enough to think it was purely a game design choice, if one never looked at Twitter.

You can't give katanas to Spartans no matter how you remix it...

I'm actually surprised we still have Samurai, as of XGtE. I see zero value in keeping the concept so clear cut in its roots, and I say this as someone who has loved the tropes and stereotypical view of Samurai since I was young (my dad spent time in Japan and we got introduced to stuff from there really early in our lives).

 

[JEB]

I'm actually surprised we still have Samurai, as of XGtE. I see zero value in keeping the concept so clear cut in its roots, and I say this as someone who has loved the tropes and stereotypical view of Samurai since I was young (my dad spent time in Japan and we got introduced to stuff from there really early in our lives).

Agreed, it's too specific. In my campaign I tried to modify and broaden the subclass into more of an "anime swordsman" archetype, though I'm still not quite happy with it.

 

[Azzy]

I'm actually surprised we still have Samurai, as of XGtE. I see zero value in keeping the concept so clear cut in its roots, and I say this as someone who has loved the tropes and stereotypical view of Samurai since I was young (my dad spent time in Japan and we got introduced to stuff from there really early in our lives).

Agreed. 5e D&D should strive to have the mechanics generic enough to cover any real world culture (and it mostly is) rather than have a game mechanic that hyperfocuses on a specific culture (like the samurai and kensei).

 

[Guest 6801328]

You are correct. Elfcrusher already pointed it out and I immediately stated what I said was incorrect.

That said, in a darkmantle fight, it would still only be three more points of damage in the entire fight. And that does not include initiative. So, three points is three points. And it can be a big deal, so can going first. So can all the other things that can happen in a fight. The point was an extra 1 damage point per round (or 2) or an extra +1 to hit should not be the exclusive factor for what makes a PC.

I wrote a little bit of code to sim this out. Bearing in mind that the low AC of a darkmantle makes your case look better, what I did was look at how many swings (which means rounds, at levels 1-4) it takes to kill a single darkmantle. I assumed a 1d8 weapon. 10,000 iterations.

Str 15 vs. Str 16
2 swings: 0 (not possible) vs 1% (possible but highly unlikely)
3 swings: 10% vs 23%
4 swings: 22% vs 32%
5 or more swings: 77% vs 44%

As you can see*, the 16 Str fighter, all else being equal, is significantly more likely to kill the darkmantle in fewer rounds, just by being a little more likely to hit, and doing a little bit more damage. Maybe you don't think a couple points of damage are a significant difference, but how do you feel about an extra action? Or two?

*If you trust my code. Happy to share it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This is one reason that my own system doesn’t have skills (which govern all actions that require a roll) rely on an ability score, and instead ability scores are a pool of points you can spend to fuel abilities, bump a check up one success category, or spend when getting healed, etc, as well as being part of your defenses (defense DC is Ability Score +10 +any relevant buffs or penalties from magic or armor or whatever else. You can attack a stat if the attack makes sense to target that stat, with basic guidelines given for what makes sense.

Sounds cool. In general I like systems where you have a pool of resources, and you decide how much of them to gamble. (For those with elementary-aged children, Dragon Wood is an excellent game based on this concept.)

 

[Guest 6801328]

It would be easy enough to think it was purely a game design choice, if one never looked at Twitter.

I won't venture into politics, but I'm thinking of all the things that would have totally shocked me last year if I believed what I read on Twitter.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Because a combat-related ability is usually pretty powerful and probably should be limited for balance reasons. And most abilities that D&D races have are at least somewhat combat-useful.

"This species can glow with pretty colors, shedding bright light to a 5-foot radius and dim light to a further 5 feet. They can turn off the light at will."

versus

"This species can create a brilliant light. All creatures within 10 feet of it must make a Con save or be blinded for 1 minute."

This is a great example. The former ability would do a great job flavorfully illustrating the racial ability, even though it provides little mechanical (but not zero) mechanical benefit. The more powerful version doesn't do any better job at it, but all of the sudden makes race balancing, and character option decisions, that much more complicated.

Racial abilities don't need to be powerful to be evocative and fun.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I wrote a little bit of code to sim this out. Bearing in mind that the low AC of a darkmantle makes your case look better, what I did was look at how many swings (which means rounds, at levels 1-4) it takes to kill a single darkmantle. I assumed a 1H weapon doing 1d8. 10,000 iterations.

Str 15 vs. Str 16
2 swings: 0 (not possible) vs 1% (possible but highly unlikely)
3 swings: 10% vs 23%
4 swings: 22% vs 32%
5 or more swings: 77% vs 44%

As you can see*, the 16 Str fighter, all else being equal, is significantly more likely to kill the darkmantle in fewer rounds. Maybe you don't think +1 is significant, but how do you feel about an extra action? Or two?

*If you trust my code. Happy to share it.

So what? The Str 15 fighter got something that the Str 16 fighter didn't. It may or may not help them in combat but they got something.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sounds cool. In general I like systems where you have a pool of resources, and you decide how much of them to gamble. (For those with elementary-aged children, Dragon Wood is an excellent game based on this concept.)

Yeah! Thank you.
I prefer to have resources have fairly predictable outcomes, and pure chance to be more of an at-will things, as well.

Getting better at skills also means needing ability scores for succeeding at checks less often as you get better, which leaves you more room to use special abilities, active defense, etc, which causes the gameplay to gradually change from a scramble to survive, to big ass heroes, as the heroes get more reliably competent, rather than just throwing more and more epic abilities at PCs as they level.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

That's the race I want for my next PC.

Only if you accept 3 in int