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."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fortunately, the bard, druid, and paladin can find themselves adapted to other cultures fairly easily—there's always lorekeepers and entertainers, shamans, and religious warriors in most cultures. It's lamentable that the names of said classes are are very Euro-specific, but they come from a time when D&D was decidedly more Eurocentric. The monk... Well, that's an interesting case. At least 5e is trying to bend it beyond Kwai Chang Caine and Remo Williams, if only barely.



To each their own. I just want D&D to be more adept in accomodating more than Psuedo-European cultures. I just don't think that making <insert specific culture here> classes or subclasses is the best way to achieve that, though. This is largely influenced by the track record of both Oriental Adventures, which... there's a lot to say about. 5e's Kensei isn't so bad (there's room for dedicated weapon masters in pretty much all cultures), but samurai just falls into the "why bother" pile since we have existing warrior classes and there is no one-size-fits-all samurai archetype (as evinced by the variety of samurai depictions just within Japanese media).

I do think there is room to split the fighter into a couple classes and give both an actual identity, but I’ve accepted that I’m a minority in that.

One of those classes would basically be the samurai, though I’d call it the Captain. The noble warrior of peerless skill, grace, bearing, and honor. The Paladin does not model this, pretty much at all, IMO, and anyway it deserves a mundane expression with some real depth.

But the captain would have options for archery, heavy weapons, light quick weapons, mounted combat, as well as being the person who can turn the tide simply by calling and leading a charge, who people gravitate to in social settings and who inspires others to find their own best selves. Basically, the knight and the samurai washed of all thier really problematic social class oppression baggage.

 

[Scribe]

Well, goodbye bard, druid, paladin and monk classes...

Bard, Druid, Paladin, no issue to me. While Western religious orders didnt lean into the Monastery as a physical/martial center to the level of trope development like the East, you could work one up without a terrible amount of effort. Get those stereotypical robes going, base the martial art aspect around straight up boxing...its salvageable I think.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

proper consultation groups would be nice plus mashing every light cavalry together would probably end up worse both mechanically and culturally.

Agreed. Mongol riders, Crow and other plains Indian skirmishers, and South Asian/Arabic hit and run skirmishers under folk like Khalid, are all quite different, and that’s just looking at light cavalry.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Bard, Druid, Paladin, no issue to me. While Western religious orders didnt lean into the Monastery as a physical/martial center to the level of trope development like the East, you could work one up without a terrible amount of effort. Get those stereotypical robes going, base the martial art aspect around straight up boxing...its salvageable I think.

it really does not work that way the metaphysics would be off it could be done but there are reasons that clerics were very Christian in past editions.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Bard, Druid, Paladin, no issue to me. While Western religious orders didnt lean into the Monastery as a physical/martial center to the level of trope development like the East, you could work one up without a terrible amount of effort. Get those stereotypical robes going, base the martial art aspect around straight up boxing...its salvageable I think.

My only issue with the Monk is that a lot of the stuff in the base class is oddly specific. I'd make the base class a lot thinner, and make the subclasses do more of the heavy lifting.

 

[Mind of tempest]

My only issue with the Monk is that a lot of the stuff in the base class is oddly specific. I'd make the base class a lot thinner, and make the subclasses do more of the heavy lifting.

we have similar opinions then.
to clear up any possible confusion of my above post I am not anti monk, monk is my main I get the guy is a badly made class but I love it and I will always want it to do better.

give me six months and people who know how to homebrew and I can get the base class to work near perfect.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Paladin is literally the Arthurian "knight in shining armor" and the bard is highly influenced by the western idea of the traveling minstrel and skald. I'd be hard pressed to find a Chinese or Aztec or First Nation equivalent to these, and Azzy specifically stated "any real-world culture".

The name "paladin" has no connection to Arthurian legends, correct me if I'm wrong. The current paladin class is way more open than a "knight in shining armor" (Oath of Devotion), it can include an ancient Greek Hero that uses a spear and shield (Oath of Glory), a warrior sworn on vengeance (Oath of Vengeance), a warlord dedicated to conquering all that stand in their way (Oath of Conquest), a knight dedicated to protecting the wildlands (Oath of the Ancients), a bulwark that despises otherworldly beings (Oath of the Watchers), a holyman that believes that all deserve redemption (Oath of Redemption), and a divine warrior devout to a monarchy (Oath of the Crown). Through all of these diveres subclasses, there's a ton of different cultures that can be represented by the Paladin class; Greco-Roman Heroes, Aztec Eagle/Jaguar Warriors, Japanese Sōhei, the Einherjar, and many other holy warriors from various cultures.

Bards are not a culture. They're similar to the paladin, in the sense that though they were heavily inspired by minstrels and William Shakespeare, they are not limited by that original source of inspiration. The College of Valor and College of Swords are singing warriors, the College of Lore is the more Shakespeare type of bards, the College of Glamour is a fey-type bard, the College of Whispers is a unique idea mostly devoid of cultural inspiration, and so is the College of Creation. The class can include multiple different cultures of characters, basically just restricted to the vast different types of music across the world. You could have a College of Valor Bard that performs the haka in battle to bolster their allies and scare their foes, a College of Glamour Bard could be a sort of pied piper type character, and a College of Eloquence Bard could be a Hamilton-style rapper.

And this really goes back to what I said to @Faolyn a page or so back; borrowing from any real-world culture is going to, in effect, appropriate an element of it since that is what we know. Personally, I love that I can have samurai, monks, druids, paladins, witches, cavaliers, skalds, ninjas, and shamans all running around at the same time in the same place. I think it makes the game stronger to borrow (respectfully) from these cultures. However, if we intend to walk on eggshells about removing anything that has a clear ethnic origin on the fear or appropriation or offending people, then go the next step and disassociate ALL the classes from any real-world archetyping akin to what Arcana Unearthed/Evolved did. Turn classes into generic pools of related mechanics that players flavor the way they want. Nobody is going to be upset with Greenbonds, Magisters, Unfettereds, or Oathsworns.

There's a difference between cultural appropriation and multiculturalism. To take inspiration from a culture for a character class can be multiculturalism or cultural appropriation, and it must be approached with caution. Samurai martial architype in 5e are done well and inoffensively (I have not seen anyone complaining about the Samurai subclass being offensive and don't see any part of it that would be seen as offensive to Japanese culture). However, the Monk class in 5e does seem to step on/over the line a bit, perpetuating some stereotypes and being very obviously based around a very specific type of Asian warrior. It's locked itself into a cultural bubble. If it was opened up a bit more, it would not have this issue. If, like the Paladin, its basic idea was less culturally confined and had the subclasses determined more of its theme, that would solve most of its problem.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The name "paladin" has no connection to Arthurian legends, correct me if I'm wrong. The current paladin class is way more open than a "knight in shining armor" (Oath of Devotion), it can include an ancient Greek Hero that uses a spear and shield (Oath of Glory), a warrior sworn on vengeance (Oath of Vengeance), a warlord dedicated to conquering all that stand in their way (Oath of Conquest), a knight dedicated to protecting the wildlands (Oath of the Ancients), a bulwark that despises otherworldly beings (Oath of the Watchers), a holyman that believes that all deserve redemption (Oath of Redemption), and a divine warrior devout to a monarchy (Oath of the Crown). Through all of these diveres subclasses, there's a ton of different cultures that can be represented by the Paladin class; Greco-Roman Heroes, Aztec Eagle/Jaguar Warriors, Japanese Sōhei, the Einherjar, and many other holy warriors from various cultures.

Bards are not a culture. They're similar to the paladin, in the sense that though they were heavily inspired by minstrels and William Shakespeare, they are not limited by that original source of inspiration. The College of Valor and College of Swords are singing warriors, the College of Lore is the more Shakespeare type of bards, the College of Glamour is a fey-type bard, the College of Whispers is a unique idea mostly devoid of cultural inspiration, and so is the College of Creation. The class can include multiple different cultures of characters, basically just restricted to the vast different types of music across the world. You could have a College of Valor Bard that performs the haka in battle to bolster their allies and scare their foes, a College of Glamour Bard could be a sort of pied piper type character, and a College of Eloquence Bard could be a Hamilton-style rapper.

There's a difference between cultural appropriation and multiculturalism. To take inspiration from a culture for a character class can be multiculturalism or cultural appropriation, and it must be approached with caution. Samurai martial architype in 5e are done well and inoffensively (I have not seen anyone complaining about the Samurai subclass being offensive and don't see any part of it that would be seen as offensive to Japanese culture). However, the Monk class in 5e does seem to step on/over the line a bit, perpetuating some stereotypes and being very obviously based around a very specific type of Asian warrior. It's locked itself into a cultural bubble. If it was opened up a bit more, it would not have this issue. If, like the Paladin, its basic idea was less culturally confined and had the subclasses determined more of its theme, that would solve most of this problem.

the problem being, of course, being what it honestly is, as in what are we trying to make?
plus to correct some of the stereotypes we have to avoid M.A.D or making it stupid powerful to avoid that.
hence the difficulty of that task.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Impressive hijacking of a thread derailment.

 

[Mind of tempest]

what do you mean?