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."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think that's the follow.

The next step is to make classes rely/utilize on more ability scores.

Because that's the whole crux of the issue, isn't it.

That if you want to play a wizard, you want high INT. So your race choices are constrained to races of certain adjustments depending on the difficulty of the campaign.

Yes, I fully agree that this would be a desirable direction.

 

[Aldarc]

Following this logic, should classes be eliminated too? Instead of having classes, just have a list of traits and features you can choose at given level.

It continues to amaze me how commonly "following this logic" in online discussion serves as a red flag preceding a fallacious argument, often an ad absurdum.

Ah so is this the root of it then? People are afraid that if presented with 2 options, that the DM will pick against them? So truly the only solution is to remove choice and force floating on everyone?

There are some actual pertinent examples of this in play with real life political issues, but discussing them would definitely go against board policies. So I will leave at encouraging you to think (on your own time) about various political issues where, for example, choosing on a state-by-state level to affirm or deny certain rights or privileges could ruffle a few feathers for those who want the freedom to choose for themselves.

If your ability to choose rests on my ability to choose for or against your own ability to choose, then to what extent are you actually free to choose said choices?

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, I fully agree that this would be a desirable direction.

I mean look at it now.

If someone says "Sure. You can play an orc wizard. You are the loremasterapprentice for an orc tribe". Sure. However getting that +2 Strength to matter for your orc wizard is a doozy. Strength is usually leveraged via heavy armor, martial weapons, and Athletics skill. Stuff wizards don't have. So you have to multiclass and take feats just to use your +2 to Strength. Sucking even more power out your already underoptimized PC.

OR

The game could have wizard subclass that lets the orc wizard use Strength in come way.

 

[Scribe]

There are some actual pertinent examples of this in play with real life political issues, but discussing them would definitely go against board policies. So I will leave at encouraging you to think (on your own time) about various political issues where, for example, choosing on a state-by-state level to affirm or deny certain rights or privileges could ruffle a few feathers for those who want the freedom to choose for themselves.

If your ability to choose rests on my ability to choose for or against your own ability to choose, then to what extent are you actually free to choose said choices?

I'm sure you have noticed many of us have danced around this being a social/political stance the whole time. Its not about game mechanics, never was.

While I am comfortable having both options, clearly other's are not for whatever reasons they wont admit to, because nobody has shown how this is a mechanics or balance issue at all.

Threads exhausted itself for me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It continues to amaze me how commonly "following this logic" in online discussion serves as a red flag preceding a fallacious argument, often an ad absurdum.

D&D has always been a splat based game. You choose race and class. Now race is being dismantled in the name of freedom to choose. Why not do the same to classes? There are a lot of games that work like that.

But speaking of fallacious arguments:

There are some actual pertinent examples of this in play with real life political issues, but discussing them would definitely go against board policies. So I will leave at encouraging you to think (on your own time) about various political issues where, for example, choosing on a state-by-state level to affirm or deny certain rights or privileges could ruffle a few feathers for those who want the freedom to choose for themselves.

If your ability to choose rests on my ability to choose for or against your own ability to choose, then to what extent are you actually free to choose said choices?

Elf game preferences are not a political issue; a GM getting to decide certain things about the game is not tyranny.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean look at it now.

If someone says "Sure. You can play an orc wizard. You are the loremasterapprentice for an orc tribe". Sure. However getting that +2 Strength to matter for your orc wizard is a doozy. Strength is usually leveraged via heavy armor, martial weapons, and Athletics skill. Stuff wizards don't have. So you have to multiclass and take feats just to use your +2 to Strength. Sucking even more power out your already underoptimized PC.

OR

The game could have wizard subclass that lets the orc wizard use Strength in come way.

Yes, that is exactly what I have been advocation for a while. Instead of homogenisation have the abilities actually matter and power differnt builds. But this is not the direction we're going.

 

[Chaosmancer]

...

I've said the entire time, let both options exist. How in any way shape or form, does that deny people who want floating?

And both options do exist.

But you keep insisting that now they don't. That now, with no evidence that they won't do something like a recommended quick build, your option is gone.

You are insisting we have entered into a zero sum situation. We have not.

And, even if, even if, they don't publish a quick build recommendation for the races, we've had floating ASI races before. Humans, Half-Elves Changelings, Warforged. Sure, only humans were "truly floating" and the rest only had a single floater, but those races were designed just fine right? They didn't make it so that your preferred system ceased to exist?

So, if we have a book with racial options designed like humans were... why would that force your system to cease to exist? You are declaring yourself harmed, but even in the worst scenario you paint... they are just a new race like humans. And that wasn't a problem before.

 

[bedir than]

Now race is being dismantled in the name of freedom to choose.

1 - Race isn't being dismantled. There are still numerous differences for every race/lineage that have nothing to do with an ability score adjustment. This is so obvious that ignoring it demonstrates something.
2 - It's also not about "freedom to choose." The primary reason, according to Wizards of the Coast and the individual designers, is that D&D is for everyone - not just white dudes. This is obviously stated and has been true for sometime. Misrepresenting this as "freedom to choose" ignores the game's legacy of racism and gender discrimination.

Are there other ways D&D could do these things? Sure.
Is this what they are doing according to their words and actions? Absolutely.

D&D is a game that demonstrates that a diverse group is a strong group - Jeremy Crawford.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There it is. The dragon argument. It took awhile, but it has finally appeared.

If I can interject, it is not about the possibility of a halfling being stronger. It is the probability of the halfling being stronger.

I think we can all agree that character creation and development is integral to the game. Most posts on these boards revolve around it in one way or another. It is a step that must be done. Without, you cannot play the game. That being said, there is a group that wants the character creation/development to follow their own internal logic. That's it. D&D 5e advanced this internal logic. They wrote the rules regarding culture and ASIs, and said here is our game. Now, they want that to change without changing any other rulesets.

People have a right and a justification to say:

• This goes against what you sold me
• I don't like this change
• This breaks my internal logic

For others it does nothing. Like literally, nothing. And for others, now they can finally have that halfling 16 strength at first level, because they couldn't bear to play it earlier with a 15. (In a sense, it ruined the race/class combo.)

If you view it this way, both sides are (in my humble opinion) being a bit petty. That said, both sides have the right to debate their side should be the one to stay in the ruleset. Because both can be backed up with sound arguments.

This does not go against anything we were sold. We were sold that some races have floating ASIs, they have since the beginning. We were sold that Tasha's would be optional for the currently existing races. It is.

You can not like that future lineages are designed to have floating ASIs, that's fine, but as has been said, there was really no other way to design these particular options. They are too broad to be given static ASIs. This design is new, and you can not like new things, but that is all.

And, you really can't sit here and tell us that this US breaks your internal logic. The lineages are not halflings. Do a command+F search of the entire document, you won't find Halfling, human, elf, dwarf, Goliath except for this single line "At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of one of the game’s fantastical races."

That is it. So, every discussion of "but halflings are now stronger than goliaths" has nothing to do with this UA. This UA doesn't care if you are a firbolg, a minotaur, a flumph, a human or a sentient sandwich. So, your internal logic can not be effected by a Dhampir having floating scores, unless you chose to make them small, and even then much like creatures like the Korred, being small alone doesn't make you weak.


This is the thing that is frustrating me. People are arguing against Tasha's, not against this UA. Or they are assuming that going forward they are going to re-release gnomes and halflings, instead of new things. Or they are arguing that now 6e, something not being released or designed, is now ruined for them.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm sure you have noticed many of us have danced around this being a social/political stance the whole time. Its not about game mechanics, never was.

I don't agree with this characterization at all, and I have said as much earlier in this thread. There are a variety of reasons why people may like or dislike a design choice, and people may have one or multiple reasons for said preference. Trying to characterize this as purely being about a "social/political stance the whole time" attempts to reduce a variety of complex individual preferences and viewpoints down to a monolithic argument. I don't think that's particularly respectful of the various arguments that have been presented thus far, regardless of which angle they may be coming from in this debate.

D&D has always been a splat based game. You choose race and class. Now race is being dismantled in the name of freedom to choose. Why not do the same to classes? There are a lot of games that work like that.

I'm not inherently opposed to that, as I quite liked it in games like True20, but I don't think that it logically follows from what I said, at least not without (as is quite popular on this board) the usual slippery slope fallacy. We could definitely have a discussion about this in the context of class features and the like, but this discussion has (primarily) been about ASIs in the context of lineages going forward from this point.

But speaking of fallacious arguments:

Elf game preferences are not a political issue; a GM getting to decide certain things about the game is not tyranny.

Except when they are. In this case, however, my intent in bringing up political issues was to illustrate the problem of falsely equating the "moar choice" crowd as being hypocritical "anti-choosers" if they are opposed to leaving that choice to the DM's fiat. I didn't even address whether this was an accurate characterization of the "pro-floater" position in the first place, simply this framing of the debate.

I mean look at it now.

If someone says "Sure. You can play an orc wizard. You are the loremasterapprentice for an orc tribe". Sure. However getting that +2 Strength to matter for your orc wizard is a doozy. Strength is usually leveraged via heavy armor, martial weapons, and Athletics skill. Stuff wizards don't have. So you have to multiclass and take feats just to use your +2 to Strength. Sucking even more power out your already underoptimized PC.

OR

The game could have wizard subclass that lets the orc wizard use Strength in come way.

OR choosing the Wizard class at 1st level is what provides the +2 Intelligence rather than your lineage. Not saying that this is my particular preference, but this has been proposed by others as well in this thread.