D&D 5E New Drow cultures coming in Starlight Enclave, the Lorendrow and the Aevendrow

[Yaarel]

Not really they stuck his name on the book as they noticed anything with his name sold better.

He didn't have that much to do with UA or OA afaik.

From what I understand, Gygax intended to write the Unearthed Arcana, including compiling various Dragon articles. But when he was no longer with TSR, others took over the project.

By the way, whoever is responsible for the UA Drow preferred they roll the abilities the same way the Human does. Thus Drow have mediocre Intelligence AND a max level at Magic User, making the Drow inferior at being a Magic User.

 

[Marandahir]

From what I understand, Gygax intended to write the Unearthed Arcana, including compiling various Dragon articles. But when he was no longer with TSR, others took over the project.

By the way, whoever is responsible for the UA Drow preferred they roll the abilities the same way the Human does. Thus Drow have mediocre Intelligence AND a max level at Magic User, making the Drow extremely inferior at being a Magic User.

Reasons why class max level restrictions, favoured classes, negative ability score modifiers, and honestly, locked in ability score modifiers as a whole have gone the way of the dodo. These were sacred cows that needed to be slaughtered for the sake of greater breadth of creative play.

 

[Alzrius]

From what I understand, Gygax intended to write the Unearthed Arcana, including compiling various Dragon articles. But when he was no longer with TSR, others took over the project.

Actually, UA was published in June of 1985, while Gary didn't leave TSR until December of that year.

 

[Yaarel]

Reasons why class max level restrictions, favoured classes, negative ability score modifiers, and honestly, locked in ability score modifiers as a whole have gone the way of the dodo. These were sacred cows that needed to be slaughtered for the sake of greater breadth of creative play.

Yeah, and the problem was, these "sacred cows" broke the game.

When the narrative emphasizes that the Drow are especially powerful Magic Users, the mechanics MUST facilitate this narrative. If the mechanics fail to, then the character concept becomes fail.

I am grateful 5e Tashas allows total customization of lineages. D&D too often gets the mechanics absurdly wrong compared to the narrative. I would rather just do the mechanics, officially, myself − and get it correct.

 

[Yaarel]

Actually, UA was published in June of 1985, while Gary didn't leave TSR until December of that year.

Perhaps there was some chaos toward the end. But he probably oversaw the UA, at least.

 

[Alzrius]

What? In the 1e UA, where drow were introduced as a PC race, the maximum level male drow could reach as a magic-user was 12 (or higher, with an Int of 19 or greater). That's a higher maximum level than any of the other elven subraces. (Female drow sucked as magic-users, but were better fighters or clerics).

If I might nitpick, the text of Unearthed Arcana stated (p. 8):

Important: The level limits given and implied in the sub-tables may be exceeded by 2 in all cases where (a) the character is single-classed and (b) the class in question could be a multi-classed choice for that character. Examples: A hill dwarf fighter/cleric with 18 strength can advance only to the 8th level as a fighter, while a hill dwarf with the same strength who was a fighter only could advance as high as 10th level. A hill dwarf cleric/fighter with 14 strength can attain 6th level as a fighter; if the character were single-classed as a fighter, he or she could advance to the 8th level in that class. A half-elf cleric/ranger with 18/90 strength, 18 intelligence, 18 wisdom, and 18 constitution can attain 9th level in the ranger class, but a half-elf ranger with the same ability scores can rise as high as 11th level in the class. A dwarven assassin is restricted to the level limits shown on the table, since it is not possible for a dwarf to be both an assassin and a multi-classed character.

Now, that could get your dark elf character to 14th level as a magic-user if they had an 18th Intelligence, but that still brought up the problem of increasing that ability score in order to reach higher levels.

That particular chestnut was much harder to crack...mostly because it was unclear just how strict the racial ability score maximums were. They obviously applied to modifiers applied at character generation (including for NPCs, according to the PHB errata, since NPC stat modifiers were sometimes different from PCs; notice how NPC elves received a +1 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity, instead of the -1 Constitution, +1 Dexterity that PC elves got; DMG p. 237), and they also applied to aging modifiers, as was explicitly stated on page 13 of the DMG.

Beyond those, though, there wasn't a clear indicator of whether or not those limits applied to other things that raised your stats, of which there were many. While we're all familiar with the note about how wish and alter reality spells only raise a score by 1/10 value if the ability score in question is 16 or higher (DMG p. 11), but there are also various options such as a tome of clear thought (DMG p. 155), gem of insight (UA p. 100), egg of reason (UA p. 100), a scarlet and blue ioun stone (DMG p. 147), magical pools (DMG p. 172), and similar options.

And, of course, Gary himself had ability score increases be "generally gained by adventure in which deities give such a boost to a single stat as a reward for outstanding performance, an artifact is gaines, [sic] or a wish used."

Presuming your DM didn't have the racial maximums be utterly impermeable limits, it wasn't unthinkable that a (male) dark elf (single-classed) magic-user could get his Intelligence up to 22, which would enable him to reach 20th level!

(Of course, it might just be like you said, and the note about them being "strong magic-users" is relative to other demihumans in general and/or elves in particular.)

 

[Yaarel]

At the high end, the Gray Elf has a higher Intelligence than the Drow, so where Gray has Int 19 and Drow has Int 18, both cap at level 14 as a single class Magic User.

Likewise both cap at 20 as the highest possible ever. Neither are unlimited.

Both Drow and Gray are strictly inferior to a Human Magic User. The higher level Elves are dependent on artificially increasing their Intelligence, possibly with less access to the means to do so.

Moreover, the UA leveling leniencies are optional and only for exceptional individuals, and dont apply the Uda culture generally, who are normally mediocre Magic Users.

It is incongruous to call out the Drow as powerful Magic Users, when they are not especially so, when they are no better than an other Elf, and when they are strictly inferior to a Human Magic User.

 

[Marandahir]

Yeah, and the problem was, these "sacred cows" broke the game.

When the narrative emphasizes that the Drow are especially powerful Magic Users, the mechanics MUST facilitate this narrative. If the mechanics fail to, then the character concept becomes fail.

I am grateful 5e Tashas allows total customization of lineages. D&D too often gets the mechanics absurdly wrong compared to the narrative. I would rather just do the mechanics, officially, myself − and get it correct.

Me too. The thing is, there's a reason someone made these restrictions or ability score bonus arrays or favoured classes. They wanted to help point players and DMs in a default narrative direction so as not to suffer options-paralysis. But as the game developed, you had different writers emphasising different stories to be told, and that influenced the idea of what measure a Drow is, or what measure an Orc is, etc. One solution has been to cut the pie into ever more tiny slices, so that "these wild elves are more strong while those wood elves are more wise and those high elves are more smart but those super-high elves are more charismatic." This just pushes the ball down the hill for later creators to deal with the same problem. Prominent Eladrin characters had high charisma, but in 4e, Eladrin had Int/Dex modifiers because that's what High Elves had. Oh, and now Sun Elves and Moon Elves had to have Eladrin eyes because otherwise they'd have Int/Wis modifiers like [Wood] Elves have. But then we have the solution of flexible ability scores, where you get one and choose another from two. This again is to provide some narrative constraint, so that Eladrin could be Intelligence or Charismatic, Drow could be Charismatic (like Jarlaxle) or Wise (like Drizzt), and dwarves can be strong (fighters) or wise (clerics). But then 5e runs with this forked secondary score and turns it back into subraces, so that the Mountain Dwarves are the strong ones and the Hill Dwarves are the wise ones. This has the weirdening effect of suggesting that few Mountain Dwarves are clerics, and few Hill Dwarves are fighters. It pushes narrative by virtue of power-gaming.

That's why Tasha's custom lineages are so important.

 

[Rabulias]

He didn't have that much to do with UA or OA afaik.

The new demi-human level limit rules (including the rules for drow) that ultimately appeared in Unearthed Arcana, first appeared in Dragon Magazine 95 in Gygax's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column, so Gary approved of them, if not develop them.

 

[Yaarel]

Me too. The thing is, there's a reason someone made these restrictions or ability score bonus arrays or favoured classes. They wanted to help point players and DMs in a default narrative direction so as not to suffer options-paralysis. But as the game developed, you had different writers emphasising different stories to be told, and that influenced the idea of what measure a Drow is, or what measure an Orc is, etc. One solution has been to cut the pie into ever more tiny slices, so that "these wild elves are more strong while those wood elves are more wise and those high elves are more smart but those super-high elves are more charismatic." This just pushes the ball down the hill for later creators to deal with the same problem. Prominent Eladrin characters had high charisma, but in 4e, Eladrin had Int/Dex modifiers because that's what High Elves had. Oh, and now Sun Elves and Moon Elves had to have Eladrin eyes because otherwise they'd have Int/Wis modifiers like [Wood] Elves have. But then we have the solution of flexible ability scores, where you get one and choose another from two. This again is to provide some narrative constraint, so that Eladrin could be Intelligence or Charismatic, Drow could be Charismatic (like Jarlaxle) or Wise (like Drizzt), and dwarves can be strong (fighters) or wise (clerics). But then 5e runs with this forked secondary score and turns it back into subraces, so that the Mountain Dwarves are the strong ones and the Hill Dwarves are the wise ones. This has the weirdening effect of suggesting that few Mountain Dwarves are clerics, and few Hill Dwarves are fighters. It pushes narrative by virtue of power-gaming.

That's why Tasha's custom lineages are so important.

Yeah, for example, the Alfar need to be good at both Bard (feminine mind magic) and Paladin (masculine protective magic), correctly with Charisma as primary, but then the secondary ability needs fluidity. Other mages like Wisdom Druid (berserkr shapeshifting, jotnar elementalism) are also prominent. Intelligence is important too, as logical thinkers and planners, as well as eloquent speakers.

As animists, actually personifying shamanic magic, any Alfar character gains the [Psionic] tag for their classes, for innate spellcasting without material components. Except they do speak or sing to help focus their thoughts. Depending on what the future Psion class looks like, it could be perfect for various aspects of the Alfar.

The point is, Tashas allows focus on the narrative tropes, without getting undermined by inappropriate mechanics.

Incidentally, I havent created a mechanic for it, but it is on mind. The reason for speaking and singing is to help to NOT cast spells. Viking magic is psionic mind magic. It is a trope that people often cast spells accidentally without realizing it, because their mind was wondering. I have done "accidental spells" narratively, in situations that made sense with narrative consequences and challenges. But it would be cool to have a mechanic that was simple, fun, and not too disruptive.