They didn't clearly explain. But if an elf and a human have a baby he can LOOK like a human or an elf, and have the abilities of a human or an elf. It's clear, that if he looks like a human and have the characterics of a human, he's a human, same with a matching elf. But if he looks like one and have the ability package of his other parent, he's a half-elf, half-human. It make sense that a character saying "My mommy is a half-elf, my daddy is an orc" can have, applying the same rules, the choice of getting orc look, half-elven look and orc abilities or half-elven abilities. It fits Occam's razor. It requires no new rules. The alternative requires determining which racial traits are dominant, because if it isn't passed to children, your half-elf (human look, elf power) mating with an orc, would, say, bring human power to the child... despite the parent having no human power. It's not unheard of, but it would require determining for each pair of races which one are transmitted to children. A lot more rules, for very little benefit. So, I'd say that unless we get more details on this than a side bar, it's reasonable to assume that each parents transmits his own powers and appearance as a choice to child.
D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?
- Thread starter Yaarel
- Start date
They didn't clearly explain. But if an elf and a human have a baby he can LOOK like a human or an elf, and have the abilities of a human or an elf. It's clear, that if he looks like a human and have the characterics of a human, he's a human, same with a matching elf. But if he looks like one and have the ability package of his other parent, he's a half-elf, half-human. It make sense that a character saying "My mommy is a half-elf, my daddy is an orc" can have, applying the same rules, the choice of getting orc look, half-elven look and orc abilities or half-elven abilities. It fits Occam's razor. It requires no new rules. The alternative requires determining which racial traits are dominant, because if it isn't passed to children, your half-elf (human look, elf power) mating with an orc, would, say, bring human power to the child... despite the parent having no human power. It's not unheard of, but it would require determining for each pair of races which one are transmitted to children. A lot more rules, for very little benefit. So, I'd say that unless we get more details on this than a side bar, it's reasonable to assume that each parents transmits his own powers and appearance as a choice to child.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
I took the UA to mean, your Human character can have the Elf traits instead, even if only one great great great grand parent is an Elf.
There is still an Elf ancestry. Even an Elf bloodline.
It is an extreme example but I am fine with the atavism. The example makes it clear how the player chooses the physical appearance.
Yes, that's my reading, too, despite it not being explicitely written as such.
It opens the door to have humans (as a whole) having differentiated traits. Sure, no ability score increases as they come from background, but still, it might be enough to make a differnce between two humans, something that wasn't present before. If some traits are more desireable than other, it can lead to introducing a difference that wasn't there before, like to humans saying "sure, he's better, because he has an ardling ancestor..." Not something that may be intended.
glass
(he, him)
To the extent that they exist at all, presumably yes, although for the most part they seem to be going away entirely.
Bagpuss
Legend
That's a dragon in your past heritage at some point not a dragonborn as your daddy.
Xamnam
Loves Your Favorite Game
Why are you acting like those are contradictory ideas? Having a dragonborn parent does mean you have a dragon in your past heritage. The text says any given sorcerer might be the first of a new bloodline, distant relation is not required.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I don’t understand what’s confusing you here. A character inherits exactly the same mechanics their parents had. If the character’s parents were different “species,” they get exactly the same mechanics one of those parents had. If that’s in any way unclear to you, I recommend just reading the Origins playtest document yourself.
Frozen_Heart
Hero
Both playtests with player race/species options contain subraces. That's as recent as content can possibly be. I definitely wouldn't call that 'going away'
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Umm… No they don’t?
Xamnam
Loves Your Favorite Game
In the first playtest doc, Tieflings and Ardling had legacies, the Elves and Gnomes had lineages, Dragonborn had ancestries. The idea of dilineation within a schmorp is there, but they're tossing around a lot of different words testing it out.