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."

 

[Chaosmancer]

Dhampir seems like a great way to play a Ghoul, or even just a Zombie. Most people go for Vampires and Liches, but those middle ground undead need love too!

Completely agreed. I saw the "raw meat" and immediately thought a doing a goblin ghoul, Beast Barbarian to get that full horror monster vibe.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Completely agreed. I saw the "raw meat" and immediately thought a doing a goblin ghoul, Beast Barbarian to get that full horror monster vibe.

now that is a good thematic build.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Yep. But, we are dedicated hobbyists. Gaming nerds. Fiber arts nerds wrangle over how knitting patterns are best written. Car nerds argue over carbureator differences that have little impact on car performance. It is a fact of nerdlife.

Lowkey, "nerds gonna nerd" seems less a counter-point and more a reminder that "nerd" can be a fraught label to use on a person.

 

[Faolyn]

Why on earth you play a class based game in the first place? Seriously, there are plenty of games without rigid splats and you just get to choose the sort of capabilities you want. Ultimately it seems to me that a lot of players are dissatisfied with D&D being a splat based game but are unable to articulate it. And not liking splats is fine, they are not my favourite design principle; they however are on of those core pillars of 'D&Dness'.

So wait: because my friends and I are willing to modify the rules to make it more fun, we shouldn't play D&D at all? Even though the game itself is perfectly OK with you modifying its rules? Wow. All I can say is that your table must not allow for a lot of creativity.

But apparently the inverse is true? Me getting to put +2 on my half-orc's strength means your halfling has to be allowed to do it too.

Because again we're not talking All Halflings. We're talking about that one PC halfling. If Bob the halfling has a 16 Strength, how does that affect you?

It sounds like you get upset if anyone threatens your niche. Did nobody teach you how to share? Or maybe you would prefer PbtA games, where only one playbook of a particular type is allowed at a time, so you can always be assured that you're the only strong person.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Because again we're not talking All Halflings. We're talking about that one PC halfling. If Bob the halfling has a 16 Strength, how does that affect you?

Because, specifically to spite anyone who wants to play a halfling meleeist who isn't a rogue, it is intrinsic to my character that they are 'stronger than any halfling'.

 

[Scribe]

... In terms of "medium sized" there are a few.

In terms of PC options... I can't think of any

I'm surprised there would be no template for that. Book of Aberrations? At work now but I can confirm after.

 

[Faolyn]

Of course if you played a halfling warrior in earlier editions you were special, because you were overcoming some mechanical disadvantage, and not a lot of people were willing to do that. Now anyone could be a halfling warrior without any trouble at all, how is that special?

Well, the real question is, does a halfling fighter need to be special?

I mean, halflings are small and live in nice, bucolic areas that are surrounded by places where there are likely to be tons of predators and vicious monsters and people who want to take their land or enslave them. A lot of them are going to learn to fight. The only thing "special" is that some of them might prefer to use strength-based weapons.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

SRD: https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf
Sage Advice: https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
Errata for PHB: https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf

But the most relevant to this discussion is from the PHB



Emphasis added as it has been ignored for 100+ pages

This speaks directly to what I have a problem with. The PHB writeup should always have included options for mechanical variation from the presented norms, but it is an unnecessary change to invalidate the part where it basically says “this represents the average member of your race, but you might deviate from that.” That first part is also important, and the sidebar in the UA invalidates it and attempts to pretend it was never the case.

 

[Umbran]

Lowkey, "nerds gonna nerd" seems less a counter-point and more a reminder that "nerd" can be a fraught label to use on a person.

It isn't a counter point. It is a reminder of who the audience is. Suggesting that a messageboard of rules-discussion not discuss rules points... is kind of a non-starter.

 

[Umbran]

Well, the real question is, does a halfling fighter need to be special?

Whether a hafling fighter needs to be special isn't relevant - that's the route of "if you aren't going to play one of the optimal builds, don't bother playing the concept". The question is whether it should be okay and supported for a player to play one halfling who is different than the described norm, but still effective.