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]

I am perfectly fine with people playing differently than me. It is you who is adamantly refusing to understand why some people like fixed ASIs and thus would want to retain that as an supported option alongside with customisation.

I do understand, and as I have repeatedly say, you can have your racial ASI. It is literally built into the floating ASI. As a player, you can always make strong orcs and dexterous halflings. As a DM, you can build your NPC orcs and halflings anyway you want. A new player can be told "Halflings are often very dexterous so it definitely makes sense to put the +2 in Dex, and that give you a higher armor class and will help you be a better fighter with some weapons. But you said you were interested in playing a spellcaster, so it also makes sense to put the +2 in whatever your spellcasting attribute would be, and that will help make your spells more effective. Which sounds more interesting to you?" As a worldbuilder, you can look at the writeups for each race and figure out their cultures based on that or based on some biological trait you make up (for instance, I came up with a couple of potentially ideas based solely on the idea that orcs are non-obligate carnivores; they need fleshing out, but they're there if I need them).

You currently have racial ASIs for close to 100 races and subraces in this edition, so you know what goes where for any of them. And it's likely that many of the races that will eventually be made are going to be races that were available in earlier editions (e.g., thri-kreen or hengeyokai) which means that you can adapt from those write-ups if you can't figure it out from the writeup.

What you don't seem to understand is that every single one of your objections has been taken care of.

Yes, me too. Truly. I just don't think that this means that they cannot be differnt from each other.

And for the bazillionth time, they are different from each other.

• A halfling has Lucky and Brave and Agile (which refers to their ability to move and not to fine motor skills).
• A kobold has Grovel, Cower, and Beg and Pack Tactics and Sunlight Sensitivity.
• A wood elf has Keen Senses and Fey Heritage and Trance and Fleet of Foot and Mask of the Wild.

Those abilities do an amazing job of distinguishing them not only from every other race but from each other, as halflings, kobolds, and elves all have +2 to Dex.

• A goliath has Mountain Born and Stone's Endurance and Powerful Build.
• A githyanki has Decadent Mastery and Martial Training and Githyanki Psionics.
• A half-orc has Menacing and Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks.

And again, they all have the same +2 to Strength (even though githyanki are "slender") but are very much distinguished from each other.

Even if there were no racial ASIs at all--for instance, if ASIs were tied to background and class--there would be plenty to distinguish and give flavor to each of the races. So again, your objections, that the races aren't dissimilar enough from each other, has already been taken care of--and in this case, long before Tasha's came out.

 

[Arial Black]

PCs are exceptions in the game world and players should have the final say in how they play their PCs. A strong halfling PC does not mean every halfling in the world is strong..

I think this is the crux of the matter!

For me, and I believe those on my side of this debate, the game mechanics of 'Race' in D&D really do apply to every member of that race, and not just to that one halfling/orc/whatever that happens to be a PC in the metagame.

In this understanding, ALL of that race's game mechanics really do represent something about the concept of that race. Yes, even racial ability score modifiers.

They tell us if, compared to humans, they are stronger or wiser or more dextrous as a whole.

Even humans, with their floating bonuses, represent that the thing that sets humans apart is not their strength or their intelligence, but their adaptability.

Making all racial modifiers floating means that they do not describe the race at all. This means that floating bonuses being compulsory for every race are not fit for purpose.

But for you and your side of the debate, those race game mechanics don't apply to anyone except the six or so PCs in the whole world!

This does not compute.

Are PC elves the only elves in the world that can see in the dark?

Are PC halflings the only halflings in the world that are Lucky? Or Brave? Or have Halfling Nimbleness? Or are....Small?

Do you think that PC halflings are the only halflings in the world that are more dextrous on average than humans? Represented by +2 Dex?

If they are, then what are NPC halflings, orcs or dragonborn like? We have no idea, because those Race mechanics are ONLY for PCs, right?

But if those mechanics DO represent the race as a whole, then +2 Str is....wrong!

For us, a PC halfling with higher Strength than the average orc is fine, because it doesn't mess with how ALL orcs and ALL halflings are modelled in game mechanics.

That's why I'm okay with a houserule that says players can swap a racial +2 for a feat at character creation. It allows a 16 Str halfling (at 1st level using point buy) by choosing the right half feat, because it leaves the racial bonuses for the race as a whole, and therefore the concept of each race, intact!

 

[TwoSix]

I think this is the crux of the matter!

For me, and I believe those on my side of this debate, the game mechanics of 'Race' in D&D really do apply to every member of that race, and not just to that one halfling/orc/whatever that happens to be a PC in the metagame.

It's been the crux of the matter for at least 3 different threads now. Most everyone in the thread realizes this is the major difference in viewpoints, it's just some people are still hung up on trying to convince their viewpoint is the correct one.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's been the crux of the matter for at least 3 different threads now. Most everyone in the thread realizes this is the major difference in viewpoints, it's just some people are still hung up on trying to convince their viewpoint is the correct one.

in the end it will be the viewpoint that survives that will matter.

 

[Scribe]

in the end it will be the viewpoint that survives that will matter.

Not really. Everyone has the tools to do what they want. Ultimately it wont really matter when Wizards decides to completely remove lineage specific ASI.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Not really. Everyone has the tools to do what they want. Ultimately it wont really matter when Wizards decides to completely remove lineage specific ASI.

everyone says I am going to do it my way but few ever do or at least I have never seen them.

 

[Scribe]

Its much less work than one thinks, to make a variant character setup system. Just head to one of wiki's that list's all the races/classes/backgrounds, assign ASI to each option, and voila.

Took me a lot less time once I just sat down and did it, thanks to this thread and AcererakTriple6 sparking the idea of just breaking it out 3 ways but including race in the equation.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I think this is the crux of the matter!

For me, and I believe those on my side of this debate, the game mechanics of 'Race' in D&D really do apply to every member of that race, and not just to that one halfling/orc/whatever that happens to be a PC in the metagame.

In this understanding, ALL of that race's game mechanics really do represent something about the concept of that race. Yes, even racial ability score modifiers.

They tell us if, compared to humans, they are stronger or wiser or more dextrous as a whole.

Even humans, with their floating bonuses, represent that the thing that sets humans apart is not their strength or their intelligence, but their adaptability.

Making all racial modifiers floating means that they do not describe the race at all. This means that floating bonuses being compulsory for every race are not fit for purpose.

But for you and your side of the debate, those race game mechanics don't apply to anyone except the six or so PCs in the whole world!

This does not compute.

Are PC elves the only elves in the world that can see in the dark?

Are PC halflings the only halflings in the world that are Lucky? Or Brave? Or have Halfling Nimbleness? Or are....Small?

Do you think that PC halflings are the only halflings in the world that are more dextrous on average than humans? Represented by +2 Dex?

If they are, then what are NPC halflings, orcs or dragonborn like? We have no idea, because those Race mechanics are ONLY for PCs, right?

But if those mechanics DO represent the race as a whole, then +2 Str is....wrong!

For us, a PC halfling with higher Strength than the average orc is fine, because it doesn't mess with how ALL orcs and ALL halflings are modelled in game mechanics.

That's why I'm okay with a houserule that says players can swap a racial +2 for a feat at character creation. It allows a 16 Str halfling (at 1st level using point buy) by choosing the right half feat, because it leaves the racial bonuses for the race as a whole, and therefore the concept of each race, intact!

Honestly, I don't care about racial ASI one way or the other, so please don't lump me in to one "side" or the other. I am, however, for players playing what they like, within the rules for a given campaign as outlined at session zero.

If you roll stats and maintain ASI as is, you can still end up with a halfling that is stronger than a half-orc at your table based on the players' preferences. Is that something you drop the hammer on at your table? Does that ruin the idea of races for you? Because if racial ASI is a sacred cow for you then rolling dice might as well be, too.

 

[Faolyn]

But for you and your side of the debate, those race game mechanics don't apply to anyone except the six or so PCs in the whole world!

This does not compute.

NPCs have the traits the DM wants them to. You can sit down and modify the NPC statblocks in the back of the book, or you can write up your own NPC statblock, and you can give them whatever ability you want them to. They don't have to have every trait that in the race's description, just the ones that you, as DM, feel the need to include.

For instance, halfling PCs are Brave; they have advantage on saves against being Frightened. If for story reasons you want your PCs to meet an incredibly cowardly halfling who is at really high risk of failing his saves against being frightened, then the easiest thing to do is to not include the Brave trait. If you want to create an NPC elf who has never touched a weapon in her life, don't give her Elf Weapon Training. If you want to create an NPC goliath that's suffering from a wasting condition, then don't include Powerful Build in its statblock. If you want to create a serious and boring satyr NPC, don't give it Performance or Persuasion.

Otherwise, as the DM, you can assume that every member of that race has every trait you want them to have.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, you can. And I think that most of the time, DMs aren't going to do that. Especially since it would involve recalculating hit points (Small creatures use a d6 instead of a d8) AC, saves, attack and damage modifiers, and possibly even CR. Are you going to put that much effort into make a nameless commoner?

Instead, what you would likely do is save that for important NPCs, or for nameless NPCs your PCs strangely decided to befriend, forced you to name, and then guilted you into fleshing out.

I don't stat out commoners unless I need to, and a blacksmith is generally going to have a 16 strength, because I want the party to recognize that he is strong. If they had a 12, the party would mostly laugh at the idea they are strong, because that is a very low score for the party strongmen.

But the other point is that people like to claim that, say, a halfling commoner has a 12 Dex per default RAW. They don't. Default RAW is 10 dex for any commoner of any race. Changing that is an option, but it is not the default.