D&D 5E (2024) After my players tried to break it, we discovered that the new half-race rules are hilarious and terrible.

[Umbran]

So, you can pick up a tool, and to goofy things with it.

Is that the fault of the tool for not preventing it, or is it your own fault for picking up the tool with goofy intent?

 

[Corinnguard]

That depends on whether or not the tool has a mind of it's own.

 

[Charlaquin]

In Monsters of the Multiverse, a lot of races had some extra text in their creature type line specifying that they count as a certain race. For example, duergar’s type line says “You are a Humanoid. You are also considered a dwarf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a dwarf.” I could see that being a thing for half-races.

 

[Yaarel]

In Monsters of the Multiverse, a lot of races had some extra text in their creature type line specifying that they count as a certain race. For example, duergar’s type line says “You are a Humanoid. You are also considered a dwarf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a dwarf.” I could see that being a thing for half-races.

I like the concept.

Because the point of feats is customization, I dont want feats to be gated by race prereqs. Are there other meaningful situations where, for example, a duergar qualifies as a dwarf?

 

[Corinnguard]

I like the concept.

Because the point of feats is customization, I dont want feats to be gated by race prereqs. Are there other meaningful situations where, for example, a duergar qualifies as a dwarf?

In A5e, a Duergar would have the Dwarven heritage and the Deep Dwarf culture. So in terms of heritage, they're still very much a Dwarf. But they're culturally distinct from other Dwarves.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like the concept.

Because the point of feats is customization, I dont want feats to be gated by race prereqs. Are there other meaningful situations where, for example, a duergar qualifies as a dwarf?

I think feat prerequisites are the only place where it matters in 5e currently. There might be like an odd magic item that requires attunement by a dwarf or something, I guess. Eladrin counting as elves makes them immune to ghoul paralysis. But generally I don’t think there are many effects that care about race that precisely, yet.

 

[CleverNickName]

Pick rules for a race, and then just reskin it as another race.

I'm not trying to crap on the thread, but isn't this what everyone has always done? or is it just me?

The first "genasi" that I played, long before there was ever rules for such a thing, was a tiefling that had been reflavored to have an elemental parent instead of a fiendish one. (I didn't want demonic overtones for that character.) Years later, when Wizards of the Coast released the actual Genasi, I was like....meh, no thanks, I'll keep the reskinned tiefling.

More recently, one of my players wanted to play an all-new character race of their own design, based on a Magic: the Gathering card (essentially a blend of elf and fairy traits.) So we picked the fairy race from "Wild Beyond the Witchlight," and reskinned it as an elf (medium size, humanoid, etc.)

Even back in BECM, I would reskin the Dwarves to be "gnomes," since there wasn't really much of an appreciable difference between the two...at least, not as far as the game mechanics were concerned. And I remember making a "half-angel" in BECM (there was no such thing as an aasimar back then) by letting the player roll up an Elf, but pick their spells from the Cleric list.

Or maybe I've just been doing it wrong all these years decades.

 

[Azzy]

I don't much like the rules for hybrid races, either, but the OP seems like a self-inflicted problem.

 

[Corinnguard]

There should be a poll on how many players want to play a hybrid race (other than Half-Elf or Half-Orc) for 1D&D.

 

[Blue]

one flaw with that it will be used to min-maxing beyond the levels even the godhead intended.

Please, do tell how by picking the mechanics that exactly match what they could get otherwise but being able to change the fluff, you can mix-max "beyond the levels even the godhead intended".

I really want to know how the exact same mechanics are now ridiculously min-max when you can change the fluff.