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.

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

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."

 

[Faolyn]

No, but I DO see validity around certain races being better predisposed to a particular profession or role. I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Which goes right back to the biological determinism that a lot of us have a major problem with.

It's also dumb. Let's say I'm a halfling and I really want to be a strength-based Fighter. So I'm going to practice with weapons, toughen myself up, lift heavy things to tone my muscles, and go out of my way to be as strong as I can. Mind over matter; in this case, the mind focuses the matter. If Bob the player wants to play a strength-based halfling fighter, then make Bob write a background that explains why. It's as simple as that.

If there was a Halfling Race in the real world, do you think they would be in the NBA or NFL?

Yes.

First off, in the real world, there are women's divisions because of physical differences between men and women. There is no reason why there wouldn't be Small Lineages football division. In that case, strength would be still useful, even if all the players were under four feet tall. And if there weren't Small Lineages divisions, then strength would be even more useful.

Secondly, also as an example from real life, basketball used to be a "Jewish sport"--there's at least one book about that--and there were all sorts of (bigoted, biologically determined) reasons as to why. Here's an article, with one of the slightly less bigoted reasons being "Coaches back then [1920s-1940s] also tended to view Jewish players — who were perceived as shorter — as better suited for the game, because the game's rules at that time actually disadvantaged taller players."

Thirdly, to quote Terry Pratchett: Until an unfortunate ax incident, Gloria had been captain of the school basketball team. Dwarfs don’t have height but they do have acceleration, and many a visiting team member got a nasty shock when Gloria appeared rising vertically out of the depths.

Fourth... you're again assuming that there will be a bazillion big muscular halflings when in reality, there's only going maybe a PC and maybe an important named NPC. You still haven't said why there can't be one or two halflings in the entire world who are super-muscular due to spending their early lives lifting weights, or who, due to a genetic quirk, are the halfling equivalent of Wendy the Whippet. Your only reason seems to be "I don't like it."

And as for firefighters... I think that halfling Luck and Bravery would really come in handy in a dangerous and frightening situation like battling an inferno.

 

[Aldarc]

Chin up, let me know when your called a racist and a mysoginist.

Sure, I'll keep you up to date on that. Thankfully it hasn't happened yet. My personal tip is that I try not to argue in favor of things that racists and misogynists may agree with or are drawn towards liking. So far it has kept such accusations away from my person.

Interesting concept there from a game design perspective, but if the assumption is 'minmax must take place' and that is what the game is balanced around, then good luck in keeping variety and diversity in your play options. No game that I have played at a 'hardcore' level holds up under that pressure, without flattening the players options into an illusion of choice.

Not "must," but naturally "will" take place when character creation/building is an aspect of play. It's not necessarily what the game is balanced around or even what most people will do. It's simply stating that people will look for ways to optimize their character's effectiveness in various ways. But it certainly doesn't somehow have a logical connection to the purported ease of 5e. I don't think that's a good argument at all, since I don't see how it can be substantiated or verified.

 

[Minigiant]

Interesting concept there from a game design perspective, but if the assumption is 'minmax must take place' and that is what the game is balanced around, then good luck in keeping variety and diversity in your play options. No game that I have played at a 'hardcore' level holds up under that pressure, without flattening the players options into an illusion of choice.

After 4 editions of "you must minmax this much to survive", it would not be a shocker that the game is flooded with minmaxers desperate to diversify.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The Atribute Score Increase has been linked with the racial traits for too long time. I don't want totally fixed racial ASIs neither totally floating, but in the middle, optional. And even the ASIs can be different thanks special bloodline or background, for example a dwarf without armor training because she is from an old dinasty of prestigous phamarcists, or roc riders, where armors are too heavy for flying mounts, or a special civilitation more used to steampunk exosuits.

Floating ASIs are like wearing clothing from different urban tribes, and you feel these don't match very well. Maybe I could allow floating for bloodlines/lineages to be "universal subraces", something like subraces but avaliables for all the races/ancestries. Is possible an elf-hexblood, human-hexblood, halfling-hexblood (a cute magical girl!) or a firblog-hexblood (hags are so nasty even they would dare with four-legged creatures, and I don't mean centaurs).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well then what is it?

The only reason for floating racial asi is to great specific arrays or to mitigate bad rolls in order to create competent PCs.

If bad rolling or strict arrays aren't allowed at your table, then there isn't a real need for floating racial ASI on the player side.

Right, there is no need, but that's not stopping certain section of players from optimising, and possibly by doing so making the game 'too easy.'

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which goes right back to the biological determinism that a lot of us have a major problem with.

And I understand why one might be uncomfortable with that. But in that case one simply should not have a setting with sapient non-human species, as the concept simply requires certain amount of biological determinism. Aarakocra simply are biologically wired to be better flyers than humans, Sahaquins better swimmers. Differnt species are biologically differnt from each other, that's what makes them different species. If you don't want that in your game, it is super easy to just play in a human-only setting.

It's also dumb. Let's say I'm a halfling and I really want to be a strength-based Fighter. So I'm going to practice with weapons, toughen myself up, lift heavy things to tone my muscles, and go out of my way to be as strong as I can. Mind over matter; in this case, the mind focuses the matter. If Bob the player wants to play a strength-based halfling fighter, then make Bob write a background that explains why. It's as simple as that.

And a half-orc who does all the same things would logically still be stronger, because they're not three feet tall. You might not care to have that sort of verisimilitude in your game, but the concept itself certainly is not dumb at all.

 

[Minigiant]

Right, there is no need, but that's not stopping certain section of players from optimising, and possibly by doing so making the game 'too easy.'

Exactly.

However +2 is also a weird hill.

It's just a +1 modifier.


That's why get both sides.

Float Abilitiy Adjustments are not needed in 5e as the importance of ability score beyond your primary is lower. It just should be a cool option.
BUT...
Ability Score Adjustments are the worst way to mechanize racial differences. Racial traits now take over for it.

 

[Azzy]

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.

No, it isn't. Races are being given more moving parts that allow for more customization.

Why not do the same to classes? There are a lot of games that work like that.

They already did—it's called subclasses.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Who has more choice, a person presented with 2 options, or a person provided with 1?

So, the problem is that the DM has “lost” the option to say, specifically, “Your Hexblood has +2 Charisma and +1 Int because the book says so”?

I mean...it’s hard to really take that seriously as a problem.

Especially when it’s literally only new lineages going forward that work that way.

 

[Azzy]

Personally, I'd be fine with losing the species based ASIs if it meant more unique stuff that extended over the life of the character. Floating initial ASIs (and level based ones for that matter) can die in a fire.

Ability Score Adjustments are the worst way to mechanize racial differences. Racial traits now take over for it.

This. Racial traits are the real determiner of "racial uniqueness, not ASIs. Racial ASIs were a thing in the original game and non-existent in half of the game's lineage. If we're going to have ASIs at first level, it should be in the class, not race.