D&D 5E A Lineage and Its Variants: The New Race Format Going Forward

[Lyxen]

"Monsters who are members of the same lineage" as the player character race, means:

The way do such a selective snipping of the quote shows that you know you are wrong in this. The sentence is "monsters and NPCs who are members of the same species or lineage".

 

[Yaarel]

The way do such a selective snipping of the quote shows that you know you are wrong in this. The sentence is "monsters and NPCs who are members of the same species or lineage".

As mentioned several times earlier:

lineage = species

Hence:

lineage/species = PC race + NPC/monster

 

[Faolyn]

I feel languages are strictly the jurisdiction of a setting.

Some settings might only have a handful of languages (like Forgotten Realms), some settings might have thousands. (Today, reallife humanity is understood to have roughly 7000 languages.)

Oh, sure, it should be based on the setting.

But I feel that it's likely that, in a world where people (and their languages) didn't evolve normally, there wouldn't be nearly that many languages. In the real world, a distance of a few dozen between societies might be far enough for a different accent, dialect, or even entire language to develop because traveling that distance would be difficult and rarely needed. In a gaming world, where magic and flying mounts and even flying intelligent people are a thing--and have always been a thing--that distance isn't so insurmountable.

I mean, I'm all for having more languages anyway (or having far fewer, depending on the setting--I can even see a world where there's only a single main language, because everything was created by a single pantheon of gods). I just think having inborn racial languages (that are part of the racial/heritage/lineage traits) is silly, though.

For Forgotten Realms, it seems plausible to me that the "human language" (Common) could become an inter-lineage language of commerce and inquiry. Creating a new artificial language for commerce seems less plausible.

I assume that "Common" is actually a creole of whatever languages the primary traders use. If the biggest traders in a particular are/were, say, humans, halflings, gnomes, and hobgoblins (and for the most part, elves, dwarfs, orcs, etc. sell things via middlemen rather than engage in direct trade), then Common would use words from all of their languages.

(Or if Countries A, B, and C, are/were the primary traders, then Common would have evolved out of their languages.)

I suppose that if one group of humans have "trader" as their hat, or had at some point conquered most of the known world, then that would explain Human and Common being synonymous. Humans are rarely depicted in that manner, though.

 

[Blue]

Well, what sort of mechanical differences would there be between a smith from Cormyr and a smith from the Sword Coast?

The point was that if Yaarel was right about taking culture out of races, things like elven weapon proficiencies, which we have NOT seen, and using background to replace them, it would be overloaded onto Background.

So they are presenting that the background: Myth Drannor (famous for elves) Acolyte would have elven cultural traits, such as languages and elven weapon training, as well as the parts of the Acolyte background. A Sword Coast Acolyte would have the Acolyte background ... and need balancing cultural traits. Not that I know what they are, I think the idea of overloading background with culture is the wrong move.

What I can see that you can't have one background granting the background's worth of traits PLUS a bunch of additional bonuses for what's currently racial cultures, and another background giving a subset of those, just for the background itself. So all of those cultures would need to have "equal" traits designed for them if you want to follow Yaarel's plan.

My plan is exactly like they have already done in Tasha's - allowing trades of things like languages, skills, and armor/weapon proficiencies to meet the culture you are trying to portray, same as drow are different than high elves back in the PHB. In other words, go with the official route.

 

[Faolyn]

The point was that if Yaarel was right about taking culture out of races, things like elven weapon proficiencies, which we have NOT seen, and using background to replace them, it would be overloaded onto Background.

So they are presenting that the background: Myth Drannor (famous for elves) Acolyte would have elven cultural traits, such as languages and elven weapon training, as well as the parts of the Acolyte background. A Sword Coast Acolyte would have the Acolyte background ... and need balancing cultural traits. Not that I know what they are, I think the idea of overloading background with culture is the wrong move.

That's why I'm liking Level Up, which has heritage and culture and background as three separate things, and has skill specializations so could further show your character's interests and abilities.

And here's where you'd ask if there's legitimately enough differences between the Sword Coast and Cormyr that they warrant two different cultures, or if they could be one type of culture that has a "pick two skills from this list" trait. I don't know from the Realms.

What I can see that you can't have one background granting the background's worth of traits PLUS a bunch of additional bonuses for what's currently racial cultures, and another background giving a subset of those, just for the background itself. So all of those cultures would need to have "equal" traits designed for them if you want to follow Yaarel's plan.

My plan is exactly like they have already done in Tasha's - allowing trades of things like languages, skills, and armor/weapon proficiencies to meet the culture you are trying to portray, same as drow are different than high elves back in the PHB. In other words, go with the official route.

Yeah, you can do it like that. I mean, a lot of culture doesn't have to be anything mechanical. It can be, of course. But a lot of it could just be writing down a short list of things from Culture X and using them when you RP your character.

But that's where my question came in: what are the mechanical differences between a smith from one place and a smith from another? The actual difference in this case is basically nil: both people would be proficient in smith's tools. Any mechanical differences between the Cormyran and... Swords Coastian smith are due to their places of origin, not their job. Even if you assume that people from Cormyr use a different smithing technique than people from the Swords Coast do, that's not important for your character. So if you want to play someone who's both an Acolyte and a smith, then you just ask the DM if it's OK to swap out one of your skills or languages (from your lineage, background, or class) for smith's tools.

 

[Yaarel]

@Blue

The UA astral elf has a race feature called "Trance Proficiencies", which appears to delete the PH Elven Weapon Training feature and reinvent it as a new feature that is magical-physical instead of cultural. The elf gains the proficiency from attuning earlier lives during a trance. The new Trance Proficiencies expands the available proficiencies to include tools, and feels like an appealing elven race feature.



Regarding "culture" and "backgrounds".

The PH offers "generic" backgrounds, meaning international backgrounds that prevail in a medieval-esque Euro-esque setting.

But an adventure book like Rage of Demons: Baldurs Gate: Descent into Avernus rewrites some of these PH backgrounds in ways that are specific to the local culture of the City of Baldurs Gate. For example, the Acolyte background becomes an inter-faith knowledgeability because of the many faiths that are part of this city. Likewise, it rewrites the Soldier background to mention obligatory duties toward the wealthy uppercity Watch or the less wealthy lower city Flaming Fist patrols. Criminal mentions the local Guild. Sage mentions the academic community of the High Hall and its libraries. And so on. It also adds a new background Faceless for characters who establish a secret identity.

Meanwhile, other books list culturally specific backgrounds including Sword Coast AG, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Eberron, and Magic The Gathering settings.

Backgrounds can and do flesh out the mechanical features of specific cultures, including local, regional, and planar.

A background includes a special noncombat asset feature. This feature can be anything and can be highly specific to a culture.

 

[Lyxen]

As mentioned several times earlier:

lineage = species

No, sorry, I see nothing of the kind, this is patently false and a ridiculous claim in general and in particular when they write sentences such as "monsters and NPCs who are members of the same species or lineage", if it's the same thing, why write both ?

You mention this several times and over several threads hoping that it will somehow make it come true, but once more your absence of real quotes and your selective snipping shows that you are just pushing an agenda without actual support.

 

[Scribe]

As mentioned several times earlier:

lineage = species

Hence:

lineage/species = PC race + NPC/monster

Then they have changed what linage means after the Spooky UA.

Essentially, they still have not arrived at a consistent place, but I believe they will continue to use 'race' as the technical/crunch term, because of backwards compatability.

 

[Baron Opal II]

When people mention a trait as a "ribbon", to what do they refer?

 

[Yaarel]

Then they have changed what linage means after the Spooky UA.

Essentially, they still have not arrived at a consistent place, but I believe they will continue to use 'race' as the technical/crunch term, because of backwards compatability.

The UA Gothic Lineages uses the terms species and lineage interchangeably.