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]

But what percentage of DMs would bother creating a bunch of custom species? My hunch is that most would not. It's easier to just tell players to choose races from, for example, PHB and Volo's but no Yuan Ti, and move on to the other stuff. That said, if a DM really wanted to do that, they wouldn't need a rule book to tell them that they could (AL excepted, of course). They could do it right now.

Like I've said in previous threads, this is how I would do it if I were forced to create a system that supports a large swathe of different tastes:

Break up all species features into half-feat sized chunks. (+1 ASI is worth one, +2 two.) Every character gets equal amount of these, six might be a good number. Small characters could get one more, as being small is mostly a detriment. Then there would be prewritten packages of these traits and ASIs for various species that people just could choose from. But as the system is modular it would be super easy for GM to create new species packages, and for GMs who want to allow more flexibility it would allow easily the player's creating custom trait packages for their characters. It could also allow various hybrid options, like for example all elves having three fixed traits and then they could choose three more. It would also allow easily trading two of these traits for a feat.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Based on all you wrote there @Faolyn ... how is this thread even meaningful to you? You already clearly have a group you are solid with, that is flexible, AND the UA indicates you are going to have what you want regardless.

What are you even upset about when your position already wins by default as...Tasha's is going to be the default?

It could be that this thread is also the place to discuss the new UA, and some of us are realizing that this discussion is going to keep being a referendum on Tasha's for every single race released from now until they make 6e.

 

[FireLance]

From my reading, the fixed-ASI'ers seem truly horrified at the idea of letting even so much as a single player make a halfling that specializes in anything other than Dex.

I think the argument has gone on for so long, and both sides have become so entrenched in their respective positions that there seems to be no interest in or support for any compromise such as:

Each race has a fixed +2 ASI that could be swapped for a racial feat/Each race gets a racial feat at 1st level, and one of the feat options for each race is +2 to an ability score traditionally associated with the race.
All characters get a second +2 ASI that can be freely assigned (except to the ability score that has already been increased, if any).

This way, you can have your 16 Strength gnomes and 16 Int half-orcs, but the traditional racial tropes are still given a nod.

To make characters even more diverse, I would further propose to cap ability score bonuses to attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws, and to set spell save and other DCs at the character's proficiency bonus.

That way, a 14 Int Wizard and a 16 Int wizard will have the same spell save DCs, a Str 14 fighter and a Str 16 fighter will have the same attack bonus, and there is less pressure for characters to start with a 16 in whatever ability score is considered to be "most important".

 

[Alzrius]

Like I've said in previous threads, this is how I would do it if I were forced to create a system that supports a large swathe of different tastes:

Break up all species features into half-feat sized chunks. (+1 ASI is worth one, +2 two.) Every character gets equal amount of these, six might be a good number. Small characters could get one more, as being small is mostly a detriment. Then there would be prewritten packages of these traits and ASIs for various species that people just could choose from. But as the system is modular it would be super easy for GM to create new species packages, and for GMs who want to allow more flexibility it would allow easily the player's creating custom trait packages for their characters. It could also allow various hybrid options, like for example all elves having three fixed traits and then they could choose three more. It would also allow easily trading two of these traits for a feat.

This sounds sort of like what Paizo did for the Pathfinder 1E Advanced Race Guide. For that matter, Hybrid Blood (affiliate link) does too.

 

[IndigoTraveler]

Which, just as a note, I had heard everyone praising this, so I bought it...

And I'm kind of disappointed. It really was just the most basic version of what I thought it could be imaginable, doing exactly what I could have done myself if I had had the willpower to right it out.

For all the praise, I thought they had designed something, not just took the PHB options and pulled them apart.

I too saw it and felt it was bare boneish. Not as bare bones as Tasha's Custom Race is, but still. Again I just like though that I can do a 5E Drider PC with it though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, you mean a 'create your own species' tool? With Darkvision costing X and Fey Step costing Y ?

Yes, precisely. If you're going to make a custom lineage, give it the kind of options the existing races have.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd ... kinda hate to see that, to be honest.

It'd really promote the sort of min-maxing character optimisation attitude that caused so many problems in 3e and which 5e has deliberately avoided so far (more decision points in a character build means more scope for finding power combos), and it'd make the character build process even more frontloaded.

Not to mention that it'd be a more daunting hurdle for new players to clear. Choose a race/lineage/culture, i can deal with for a first-time player. Building your whole species from scratch from 17 pages of tables listing every imaginable trait ... not so much.

I'm not suggesting it be the way to choose lineage going forward. Tasha's already has a custom lineage as an option; I would just have liked it to be more robust, that's all.

 

[Scribe]

It could be that this thread is also the place to discuss the new UA, and some of us are realizing that this discussion is going to keep being a referendum on Tasha's for every single race released from now until they make 6e.

Not really. Once they show their hand going forward in an official release (since they already have communicated intent) it will be pointless to continue. When I'm right, there won't be any reason to discuss it, and if I'm wrong, it will be the crowd wanting only Floating, that complains.

I'll just put pen to paper on a system better suited to how I look at a setting, I started gathering my notes yesterday.

This UA version of Templates won't work for me either, it's incomplete, but that's not the concern for this thread.

 

[Faolyn]

Based on all you wrote there @Faolyn ... how is this thread even meaningful to you? You already clearly have a group you are solid with, that is flexible, AND the UA indicates you are going to have what you want regardless.

What are you even upset about when your position already wins by default as...Tasha's is going to be the default?

Honestly? Because I really want to hear reasons why people think pigeonholing all halflings as Dexterity-y or all tieflings as Charisma-y is better, either in-game or for meta-reasons, than letting players choose what their individual characters are like. There's a reason why I kept asking people, including you, that, and I'm sure there's a reason why nobody is giving me an answer. Call me petty or say I'm sealioning if you like, but I really want to know the reason. I mean, maybe you have a good reason, even if I can't think of one.

 

[Faolyn]

Break up all species features into half-feat sized chunks. (+1 ASI is worth one, +2 two.) Every character gets equal amount of these, six might be a good number. Small characters could get one more, as being small is mostly a detriment. Then there would be prewritten packages of these traits and ASIs for various species that people just could choose from. But as the system is modular it would be super easy for GM to create new species packages, and for GMs who want to allow more flexibility it would allow easily the player's creating custom trait packages for their characters. It could also allow various hybrid options, like for example all elves having three fixed traits and then they could choose three more. It would also allow easily trading two of these traits for a feat.

Well, some traits are "worth more" than others. Magic Resistance (satyrs, yuan-ti) are probably worth a lot more than advantage on saves against charm/frightened (elves), and at least a little bit more than Magic Resistance that applies to Int/Wis/Cha saves (gnomes). If you wanted to do this, you'd probably have to assign a point value to each trait. Have you seen the "detect balance" spreadsheet, by chance?