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."

 

[Alzrius]

Factual reporting, however...

"They're probably not worth engaging with directly" is a negative value judgment, not a fact.

Do not speak to me or about me in this thread again.

 

[Scribe]

Look, fella, I'm not the one that capitalised "Race" repeatedly earlier, despite it not being a thing in D&D vernacular English... I can only judge the evidence before me.

Apologize if capitalization makes me a racist.

"Race" clearly is something in the D&D vernacular, its in every 5e book I own, and the SRD. So if you just want to say 'yes I think you are a racist.' that is fine and I can move on from the discussion with you.

 

[Faolyn]

They will be significantly worse in that even with floating ASIs. Small creatures can't use heavy weapons. The solution would be to amend the barbarian class to better support dex builds, not homogenise all PC species.

Battleaxes, warhammers, war picks, morningstars, and longswords aren't heavy weapons, and are all perfectly viable barbarian weapons. The orc barbarian in my game uses a longsword, even though he's had access to greatswords. So what's wrong with a halfling barbarian?

 

[Scribe]

@Catulle

Urban Dictionary: biotruth

A term usually used in leftist circles to derisively refer to someone who uses their misunderstood notions of human biology and/or evolutionary psychology to justify their heinous, ignorant, and/or bigoted views.

www.urbandictionary.com

Ah, I see. Thanks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

What biological race is a construct made in a lab?

What race is a person who was petrified and came back to life?

What race is an partially undead "hungry dead"?

What race is "infused with fey magic"

These are the lineages we have in this UA, this is what we should be discussing. Not goliaths, not halflings, not gnomes, only Hexbloods, Dhampir, and Reborn.

 

[Catulle]

@Catulle

Urban Dictionary: biotruth

A term usually used in leftist circles to derisively refer to someone who uses their misunderstood notions of human biology and/or evolutionary psychology to justify their heinous, ignorant, and/or bigoted views.

www.urbandictionary.com

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Best to avoid it, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Show me a canonical PC race that has flight without wings. Go on. Closest I can think of is air genasi and their 1/rest levitation.

So what? It could be magic. Or they could just flap their arms very fast. Who knows. Makes about as much sense than halflings being just as strong than much larger species.

The only distinction is that wings, horns, and the rest are actually physically part of a character.

So is their muscle mass.

I could draw a picture of a PC race with wings or horns. I have, in fact, done so. I can't draw a +2 to an attribute.

I think you can. I kinda can. I've been drawing bunch of concept sketches for my new setting; size comparison charts, stuff like that. When I have my orcs and elflings side by side, it is super clear which ones should be stronger.

Why shouldn't a halfling get a Strength bonus at first level? So far, the answer has been "I don't like it." And that's not a convincing answer.

They're small.

Also, every race has a +2 in one attribute, except humans. So if you take a halfling's +2 in Dex and turn it into a +2 in Strength, there's been no change to the halfling: it continues to have a +2 in one attribute.

If you give a dwarf a flying speed, you're actually giving it a new ability, which is entirely different than merely altering an existing one.

Nah, they can trade it for their armour proficiency or some other trait.

So then if halfling fighter rolled a 13 for Strength, it would be perfectly fine for them to put a floating +2 ASI into Strength, to raise it to 15. Yes?

Well, a random character generation is a mistake in the first place. But sure, it would bother me less as the total still was 15. In many ways stat caps would probably be a better system than bonuses. That's what I did for my character creation houserules.

 

[Catulle]

Apologize if capitalization makes me a racist.

"Race" clearly is something in the D&D vernacular, its in every 5e book I own, and the SRD. So if you just want to say 'yes I think you are a racist.' that is fine and I can move on from the discussion with you.

Captial-R race mid-sentence is not. And yet...

 

[Catulle]

"They're probably not worth engaging with directly" is a negative value judgment, not a fact.

Do not speak to me or about me in this thread again.

You do you, kitten.

 

[Scribe]

Captial-R race mid-sentence is not. And yet...

Apologies, I have issues with capitalization around people/place/thing and putting it in the wrong place.

Regardless, you are calling me a racist essentially out of capitalization errors, and in believing a 3 foot tall being should not be as strong at level 1, than a 7 foot tall being.

So...I guess we are done.