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]

You do you, kitten.

I've already told you to leave me alone. This is now harassment.

@Morrus @Dannyalcatraz @Umbran this person's refusal to stop interacting with me when told to do so is impacting my ability to feel safe in this community. Please do something.

 

[Catulle]

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.

I understand that is what you profess to believe, despite my never doing that, and rather drawing your attention to the problem. If that's your takeaway, well, it's certainly yours.

 

[Scribe]

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.

The answer here would be 'something different, and magically infused'.

Vampires as tropes are often fast and strong. Physically they dominate as a different being than what they were before turning into Vampires. While not quite the same, thats what I would have had them templated under.

The Hexblood would be under Wis/Int/Cha.

The Reborn, would be tough, with some perception (Wisdom as was being discussed earlier) type bonus.

All imo of course.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Yes, and that's why I said earlier that floating ASIs kinda make sense for them. These are things that are 'converted' from other living things, so you can match the ASIs (and size) to the type of creature you were converted from. Though it would be nice if they could also gains some ribbony racial traits from the originating species too, and as they don't, the system seems a bit incomplete. Like reborn 'tabaxi' has no claws, hexblood 'elf' has no trance etc.

 

[Catulle]

I've already told you to leave me alone. This is now harassment.

@Morrus @Dannyalcatraz @Umbran this person's refusal to stop interacting with me when told to do so is impacting my ability to feel safe in this community. Please do something.

Is this like your refusal to stop badgering Morrus about the halfling thing earlier? You poor dove. Use your ignore button. There's a big boy. Easy, isn't it?

 

[Alzrius]

Is this like your refusal to stop badgering Morrus about the halfling thing earlier? You poor dove. Use your ignore button.

STOP HARASSING ME!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Insulting other posters is not allowed on EN World. Moderation has been alerted to your infraction.

Neither is yelling about how you’ve reported someone. Report and ignore, and stop making a scene in the thread, please.

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

That’s a long walk. I capitalize game terms all the time, because regardless or the wotc style guide, it makes more sense to me to do so. I’m hardly alone in that.

 

[Alzrius]

Neither is yelling about how you’ve reported someone. Report and ignore, and stop making a scene in the thread, please.

You don't think this message is better sent towards the person who's insulted and harassed me, despite being repeatedly asked to stop?

Wow...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You don't think this message is better sent towards the person who's insulted and harassed me, despite being repeatedly asked to stop?

Wow...

I'm not supporting @Catulle here, I have no stake in this debacle, but from my experience on online forums, I can tell you that it is best to just ignore someone (or capital I "Ignore") if you think they're harassing you instead of making a scene. Let the mods deal with it and stop replying to their posts. It's the better thing to do, both for you and for everyone else in the thread.

 

[Scribe]

That’s a long walk. I capitalize game terms all the time, because regardless or the wotc style guide, it makes more sense to me to do so. I’m hardly alone in that.

If that is some racist 'call out' then I will endeavor to not do so in the future, it's an easy change and I apologize if like the '88' we saw earlier thats something I am just not aware of, thats my mistake, sorry.