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."

 

[Krachek]

IMO the Phb is there to create PC, not to extrapolate silly rules on fantasy world population.
If the PC meet a dwarf commoner, do they really care about its constitution score?
if the dwarf is an adventurer, the DM might use the MM template, a veteran to have a concrete case, is it an important issue to adjust its ability Scores? A bunch of hit points more or less, no players will even see the difference.
And the more silly thing about this thread, is that all those rules on racial adjustment are optional material handle at will by the DM.

 

[Faolyn]

Can you show me where, in core 5E, it recommends another way to represent nonhuman versions of generic NPCs? You can ignore their recommendation, obviously, and I doubt they would offer such advice now. But when 5E was created, that was how it worked. The idea that they always intended PC and NPC ASIs to be different isn't borne out by the evidence.

Consider this: a halfling commoner and a human commoner use the same hit die (d8). They didn't create Small Commoner and Medium Commoner. If you wanted to make a halfling commoner use a d6 hit die, you'd have to make a separate statblock. When they did create halfling statblocks, for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, they remembered the d6, but they were also very much not Halfling Commoners.

Also consider some of the nonhuman Commoners from various adventures. In Out of the Abyss, the Drow Commoner has all six stats at 10. It should have Dex 12 and Cha 11.

In Tales from the Yawning Portal adventures, Goblin Commoners have Strength 8 and all other stats at 10. If they were based on their Volo's stats, they should have Strength 10, Dex 12, Con 11, and Int, Wis, and Cha either at 10 or the same as in the MM. Ditto kobolds, who despite having Commoner stats in the same book, have all stats at 10, including Dex, which should have been 12--and in Volo's, which came before TftYP, kobolds were given a Strength penalty. Strangely, TftYP kobolds are stronger than goblins! Orc Commoners are treated the same way, with 10s across the board, with neither an Int penalty or Strength and Con bonus. Each of these Commoners has a one or more racial traits, but no racial ASIs.

The Lizardfolk Commoner from Ghosts of Saltmarsh has the same stats as its MM kin, except, oddly, it's Constitution is lower than the one in the MM (12 instead of 13), even though Lizardfolk, the PC race, gets a +2 to Con. It also has one fewer Hit Dice (3d8 instead of 4d8). However, it lack alls of the lizardfolk traits except for Hold Breath.

Obviously, this is because the adventure was written in such a way to say "you need orc commoners? Use the commoner statblock from the MM and give it this particular trait" so as to save room. But this also shows that WotC didn't feel that giving these nameless NPCs a racial ASI was too important.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Can you show me where, in core 5E, it recommends another way to represent nonhuman versions of generic NPCs? You can ignore their recommendation, obviously, and I doubt they would offer such advice now. But when 5E was created, that was how it worked. The idea that they always intended PC and NPC ASIs to be different isn't borne out by the evidence.

You mean this part right here, immediately before they tell you how to customize the statblocks in the MM

"This appendix contains statistics for various humanoid nonplayer characters (NPCs) that adventurers might encounter during a D&D campaign, including lowly commoners and mighty archmages. These stat blocks can be used to represent both human and nonhuman NPCs."

It does after all, literally say that the statblocks can be used for nonhumans. It then tells you how to, optionally, homebrew them. But the default is clearly to just grab 'em

There's a difference between a NPC created from the ground up to represent a specialist from a nonhuman race, and a generic NPC statblock that's expected to have nonhuman ASIs (and other traits) additionally applied.

EDIT: Also, how do you know they didn't quietly incorporate the default ASIs for that nonhuman race when they were designing the nonhuman specialist NPCs?

It isn't just the ASIs.

I showed the Commoner Statblocks for Lizardfolk, Goblins and Kobolds, as well as a Gardener Bugbear. Those clearly show that the NPC blocks are way different between the "specialist" and the "generic"

They straight say that they don't expect you to add the ASIs or traits

This whole line of discussion started when I mentioned how my friend told me that he would find it difficult to intentionally design a sub-optimal character, like his halfling barbarian. And you're seriously going to suggest I'm making this problem up?

Have you considered the possibility that your experiences and preferences in character design are not universal?

Of course they aren't universal. But neither are yours or his. And while I try and talk through this issue, it really comes back to some basic basic things.

He doesn't want to be an optimal barbarian by getting Strength and Con like the Quick Build suggests? Then... do literally any other stats. That's it. I'm sorry that he feels it would be difficult for him to actually go through with it, but since you know what is optimal, you already know what is sub-optimal. You don't need halflings to have a +2 Dex and +1 Cha to tell you that if you want to be sub-optimal, you just don't put the bonuses in Strength or Con. That's it. There is your default and your way to play against it.

I'm glad that players who were preventing themselves from choosing sub-optimal race-class combinations no longer feel prevented from doing so. I don't think it has to be a choice between giving them freedom or keeping things simple for others. We can, and should, see both approaches supported.

My real solution is that... Wizards should continue to provide defaults so they don't have to.

And it would be great if they do. But, if they don't, this system really isn't complicated. It is already just as simple, they just need to look at a different measure.

 

[Krachek]

5ed is not good dealing with mass of population. We don’t have any large scale battle system, and the playtest one I saw was base on Xp value of armies, negating all effects of racial adjustment.
once in a while we will have a funny player that will make a better orc wizard, but even with actual rules it is possible to play a decent character of any races for any classes.
but what make laugh more, it’s the analysis of the Tasha change for race, we the same care of changes in a card game. What will be the new meta now, really very silly. It is only some +1, some better AC, DC, hit points, nothing to break any game.

 

[JEB]

Consider this: a halfling commoner and a human commoner use the same hit die (d8). They didn't create Small Commoner and Medium Commoner. If you wanted to make a halfling commoner use a d6 hit die, you'd have to make a separate statblock. When they did create halfling statblocks, for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, they remembered the d6, but they were also very much not Halfling Commoners.

It is interesting that they don't mention adjusting the Hit Die in the DMG, but the DMG doesn't suggest another other way to make a halfling version of a NPC such as a commoner, other than applying the halfling ASI and traits. And the ASIs they suggest match those for PCs in the PHB.

Also consider some of the nonhuman Commoners from various adventures. In Out of the Abyss, the Drow Commoner has all six stats at 10. It should have Dex 12 and Cha 11.

In Tales from the Yawning Portal adventures, Goblin Commoners have Strength 8 and all other stats at 10. If they were based on their Volo's stats, they should have Strength 10, Dex 12, Con 11, and Int, Wis, and Cha either at 10 or the same as in the MM. Ditto kobolds, who despite having Commoner stats in the same book, have all stats at 10, including Dex, which should have been 12--and in Volo's, which came before TftYP, kobolds were given a Strength penalty. Strangely, TftYP kobolds are stronger than goblins! Orc Commoners are treated the same way, with 10s across the board, with neither an Int penalty or Strength and Con bonus. Each of these Commoners has a one or more racial traits, but no racial ASIs.

Where are you getting the ability scores for these? I just looked, and all it says is "drow commoner" and "goblin commoner" and "kobold commoner" and "orc commoner". Seems to me they're assuming you'd follow the guidelines from the DMG, and apply the ASIs for those races to the commoner statblock. In which case they would be Dex 12, etc.

However, you do indicate something interesting, that the DMG ASIs for goblins, kobolds, and orcs are slightly different from the ones provided in Volo's:

• DMG goblins are -2 Str, +2 Dex; Volo's goblins are also +2 Dex, but swap -2 Str for +1 Con.
• DMG kobolds are -4 Str, +2 Dex; Volo's kobolds have -2 Str, +2 Dex.
• DMG orcs are +2 Str, -2 Int; Volo's orcs are +2 Str, -2 Int, +1 Con.

However, this isn't evidence that they originally intended ASIs to reflect only PCs and not the race as a whole. It does, however, suggest that "PCs are special" might have older roots than the 2020 rethink. On the other hand, it might just suggest they rethought their default ASIs, but not the fundamental idea that ASIs are inherent to the race.

The Lizardfolk Commoner from Ghosts of Saltmarsh has the same stats as its MM kin, except, oddly, it's Constitution is lower than the one in the MM (12 instead of 13), even though Lizardfolk, the PC race, gets a +2 to Con. It also has one fewer Hit Dice (3d8 instead of 4d8). However, it lack alls of the lizardfolk traits except for Hold Breath.

The lizardfolk commoner is an anomaly, but one that doesn't really prove either of our points...

 

[Faolyn]

It is interesting that they don't mention adjusting the Hit Die in the DMG, but the DMG doesn't suggest another other way to make a halfling version of a NPC such as a commoner, other than applying the halfling ASI and traits. And the ASIs they suggest match those for PCs in the PHB.

That's because adjusting Hit Die size often adjusts CR (not for a Commoner, of course), which in turn can adjust save DCs, attack rolls, etc.

Where are you getting the ability scores for these? I just looked, and all it says is "drow commoner" and "goblin commoner" and "kobold commoner" and "orc commoner". Seems to me they're assuming you'd follow the guidelines from the DMG, and apply the ASIs for those races to the commoner statblock. In which case they would be Dex 12, etc.

5etools.

And no. Having bought 5e modules, they don't expect you to switch the stats around. They tell you to use the statblocks in the back of the MM or the back of the adventure.

 

[JEB]

You mean this part right here, immediately before they tell you how to customize the statblocks in the MM

"This appendix contains statistics for various humanoid nonplayer characters (NPCs) that adventurers might encounter during a D&D campaign, including lowly commoners and mighty archmages. These stat blocks can be used to represent both human and nonhuman NPCs."

It does after all, literally say that the statblocks can be used for nonhumans. It then tells you how to, optionally, homebrew them. But the default is clearly to just grab 'em

Of course you can use the default statblock to represent a nonhuman NPC. As long as you're fine not having racial traits reflected.

But if you do want to customize them with racial traits, the MM points you to the PHB's traits, and the DMG expands on that with more specifics. In both cases, racial traits for PC races follow the same rules used for those races in the PHB. So once again, ASIs were not originally different between PCs and NPCs.

It isn't just the ASIs.

I showed the Commoner Statblocks for Lizardfolk, Goblins and Kobolds, as well as a Gardener Bugbear. Those clearly show that the NPC blocks are way different between the "specialist" and the "generic"

They straight say that they don't expect you to add the ASIs or traits

No, they don't say they don't expect you to add the ASIs or traits. They just say you can use the default statblock if you want to, or you can choose to customize the stat block to represent their racial traits. It's not the same thing.

Of course they aren't universal. But neither are yours or his. And while I try and talk through this issue, it really comes back to some basic basic things.

He doesn't want to be an optimal barbarian by getting Strength and Con like the Quick Build suggests? Then... do literally any other stats. That's it. I'm sorry that he feels it would be difficult for him to actually go through with it, but since you know what is optimal, you already know what is sub-optimal. You don't need halflings to have a +2 Dex and +1 Cha to tell you that if you want to be sub-optimal, you just don't put the bonuses in Strength or Con. That's it. There is your default and your way to play against it.

My friend doesn't want to do "literally any other stats". He wants to create a typical halfling. Which means suggested defaults are helpful to him.

You don't think it's a problem. He does. You have your subjective opinion. He has his.

 

[JEB]

5etools.

5etools is not official. (In fact, I suspect Wizards would be rather cross with them, if someone were to bring the site to their attention.)

And no. Having bought 5e modules, they don't expect you to switch the stats around. They tell you to use the statblocks in the back of the MM or the back of the adventure.

The modules point you to Appendix C, which includes the suggestions about modifying the statblocks to reflect character races. (I suppose they don't point you to the DMG, though Appendix C does point you to the PHB.) Though as @Chaosmancer indicated, you certainly don't have to.

Point is, this doesn't really indicate anything about PC vs NPC ASIs, as intended by core 5E.

 

[Faolyn]

Point is, this doesn't really indicate anything about PC vs NPC ASIs, as intended by core 5E.

It does: it indicates that WotC didn't feel the need to create separate statblocks for each race, or even a sidebar in the back of the MM telling people to go to the DMG to find out the racials ASIs. As far as they were concerned, a generic statblock was perfectly acceptable regardless of the race.

 

[Scribe]

I must have missed something, but the DMG page 282 tells you how to create NPCs with the Ability Modifiers...