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."

 

[Faolyn]

They can be significantly stronger than average, they can be extraordinary. 15 means that. How hard can this be to get? And whatever special justifications you might apply to the halfling, you could apply to the goliath as well, and logically they would then be even stronger.

So why not a 16?

And sure, I can give a +2 bonus to a goliath's Strength. But the maximum is still 20 across the board.

And you're still focused on stat array, despite the fact that lots of tables still roll for stats. Heck, I'd be fine with using stat arrays at my table but the rest of the players enjoy the randomness.

Also the game has rules for representing special godly favours, they're in Theros. They should not be part of standard character generation method, they should be something intentionally chosen to be used in the campaign.

Right, the godly favors from Theros should probably not be used unless the DM is willing to go through their list of gods and come up with full write-up for every deity in their campaign.

Fortunately, there are many other ways to justify godly favors or curses outside of doing that, from feats to using that as an explanation for a high or low stat.

And seriously, completely irrespective of how one feels about the end results, having point buy and then freely assignable ASIs on top of that is just ugly confused design. The point buy already represents individual variation, adding another separate system on top of that that also represents the same thing is just kludgy as hell.

Well, then get rid of racial ASIs all together and simply allow extra points in point buy. And adjust the stats in the stat array. And allow a +2/+1 when rolling for stats.

(Remember: there's at least three different ways to generate stats.)

Then why you play a rigid class based game in the first place? The whole bloody concept relies on choosing predetermined archetypical splats.

To answer for myself: because D&D has a certain flavor that's enjoyable? Because many games rely on choosing predetermined archetypical splats? Because it's perfectly legal to change things up and rewrite classes in D&D, in any (post Gygax?) edition?

 

[Faolyn]

If I can interject here, Faolyn has been consistent with this message. He and I just disagree on the height the outlier reaches.

She, actually. No biggie because it's not like I've written my gender anywhere. Just FYI.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I don't like PC races to be too typecasted into certain type of classes, but neither the opposite side. I like PC races with their special traits, their own "special field". D&D was designed to be an asysmetric cooperative. This means all PCs have got strong and weak points. If the halfling can became too strong, then you are quitting her weak point, and all the PC races in the end may become too homogeneus, at least the gameplay.

Too perfect characters become boring and annoying "Mary Sue". Good characters should have got some flaw or touch of "little ugly duckling". Rookies players and munchkins want to be Superman since the zero minute but good players want to start from zero, being Robin, the sidekick and upgrading until to be Nightwing, Red Hood or even as good as Batman himself.

 

[Scott Christian]

You can't seem to imagine a halfling with a Strength of 16. That's what I'm talking about.

How many times does this qualifier need to be attached?

Some people can't imagine a halfling with a 16 strength at first level.

In the end, they all reach the same number. No one has declared a war against that. It just doesn't happen at the same progression rate.

Same old thing: "But I want it now - and refuse to look at the other benefits and/or whole character until I get it now."

 

[Scribe]

If we havent been already (we have), its just retreading the same ground at this point.

I'm going with 3 pillars of character definition. (EDIT: And not rolling, just standard matrix.)

Lineage: +1 ASI where I deem it appropriate (in line with Pre-Tashas race/subrace), special rules, Paragon rules (UA 3.5 SRD), and exclusive feats.
Background: +1 ASI aligned with the skills presented in the background with some modification and additions.
Class: +1 ASI aligned with the basic concepts of the class.

One can play whatever combination of lineage, background, and class they like, you can get your precious +2 in your main attribute if you wish, and it simply is not because you tied it to your lineage, but because everything else you put into your character before Level 1, got you there.

You just have to differentiate the lineages in a different way, or with additional detail.

Everyone gets what they want, there's just more of a system around it that one has to work through.

 

[Scott Christian]

She, actually. No biggie because it's not like I've written my gender anywhere. Just FYI.

My apologies.

And again, for the record, I am not dead-set against floating ASIs. It is just too clunky for me. Then again, I am not a fan of errata either.

 

[Faolyn]

That's what the 15 already represents! And of course any character with great score already focused on that thing. You say your halfling trained super hard to be really strong. OK. What you think that half-orc fighter did then? Slacked around? No, they of course trained just as hard, and as a result, would be even stronger than that halfling, as they are not three feet tall!

So again, what's wrong with a 16? Or higher, if the table rolls for stats. I mean, this whole argument is moot when you realize that anybody can roll an 18 and put it in any stat they want, and this is a perfectly acceptable form of chargen until WotC decides to remove it entirely from a later edition.

And hey, maybe the half-orc did something other than work out. Imagine this: Player 1 is playing a halfling Strength-based fighter, Bobbo. Player 2 is playing a half-orc Strength-based fighter, Vrol. Bobbo worked his ass off in the gym and is basically made of muscles, and, pissed off at a world that has decided he can never be the strongest, flies into a rage whenever anyone suggests that he's weak. He puts the +2 in Strength and becomes a Berserker Barbarian. Vrol is simply naturally really strong, but he didn't deliberately hone his muscles. Instead, he studies the blade and the ways to best use it to his advantage. He puts the +2 in Strength and becomes a Battlemaster Fighter. Together, they fight crime.

I don't like PC races to be too typecasted into certain type of classes, but neither the opposite side. I like PC races with their special traits, their own "special field". D&D was designed to be an asysmetric cooperative. This means all PCs have got strong and weak points. If the halfling can became too strong, then you are quitting her weak point, and all the PC races in the end may become too homogeneus, at least the gameplay.

All the races have special traits already. Halflings are Brave and Lucky and small enough to move through other creature's spaces (strangely, kobolds are smaller than halflings but can't do that).

 

[Faolyn]

How many times does this qualifier need to be attached?

Some people can't imagine a halfling with a 16 strength at first level.

In the end, they all reach the same number. No one has declared a war against that. It just doesn't happen at the same progression rate.

Same old thing: "But I want it now - and refuse to look at the other benefits and/or whole character until I get it now."

You know, not every game starts at 1st level, especially if they're not using a bought adventure. It seems more and more common to start games at 3rd level. Everyone has their archetype and there's enough room in your background that if you wrote your character performing any sort of heroics or gaining any sort of unusual knowledge, it makes sense.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And hey, maybe the half-orc did something other than work out. Imagine this: Player 1 is playing a halfling Strength-based fighter, Bobbo. Player 2 is playing a half-orc Strength-based fighter, Vrol. Bobbo worked his ass off in the gym and is basically made of muscles, and, pissed off at a world that has decided he can never be the strongest, flies into a rage whenever anyone suggests that he's weak. He puts the +2 in Strength and becomes a Berserker Barbarian. Vrol is simply naturally really strong, but he didn't deliberately hone his muscles. Instead, he studies the blade and the ways to best use it to his advantage. He puts the +2 in Strength and becomes a Battlemaster Fighter. Together, they fight crime.

And if third person's character concept is that they're an half-orc that worked their ass off in the gym and is basically made of muscles? What then? Your approach cannot mechanically represent that, as that score is already occupied by the strongest halfling/rather strong half-orc. There is no longer room for exceptionally strong half-orc. Now if you don't care about that, then that's perfectly fine, but some people do and the approach is perfectly logical.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So really, I just read this as 'the mechanical expression of ability modifiers is insufficient to express the perceived reality of the game.'

Your deception example is great. It just demonstrates that being above average isn't even good enough, that training on top of that isn't good enough, and that to be truly effective you must be both exceptional (immediately at level 1) AND trained.

That is a failure of the framework, or DM setting the DC, imo.

Or, and just here me out.

That is how the game works.

Because to give the player a decent chance with a +4, the DC needs to be around 8 to a 10. Which is generally easy enough that DMs don't bother. Because it is also 50/50 or better for someone completely average with no training.

And that also would drop "near impossible" to a 20, which considering a maxed out character can get a +17, is a far far cry from Impossible. Heck, the current 25 DC is better than even odds for that character.

So either we need for the "average" to be closer to 14/16 or we need to completely rewrite every single DC in the game to show what people want. OR we can accept that what is "average" for a PC is far above average for your normal person, statwise