D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor: Species

[Scribe]

Tolkien wins.

Dwarf, Hill
Elf, Wood
Half-Elf
Half-Orc
Halfling, Lightfoot

 

[Tonguez]

Not surprising at all really (nor funny IMO ) since those are the BEST races for D&D. Just about everything else is monsters or aliens.

They’re also the easiest to reskin as something else. Satyr can be a Halfling with a jump feat, Gith, Teiflings, Genesi are elves, orcs and hobgoblins are variant human.

Custom Lineage for the win

 

[Scribe]

They’re also the easiest to reskin as something else. Satyr can be a Halfling with a jump feat, Gith, Teiflings, Genesi are elves, orcs and hobgoblins are variant human.

Custom Lineage for the win

Why reskin things, when you can have actual archetypes? A Satyr is not a Halfling. Tieflings are anything but Elves or Orcs, or Hobgoblins.

The various options exist because they mean something, tropes matter. Custom Lineage is just a grab bag.

 

[DND_Reborn]

They’re also the easiest to reskin as something else. Satyr can be a Halfling with a jump feat, Gith, Teiflings, Genesi are elves, orcs and hobgoblins are variant human.

Or you just leave them as they are and stop having monsters and aliens as characters...

Custom Lineage for the win

LOL, yeah, right.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Or you just leave them as they are and stop having monsters and aliens as characters...


LOL, yeah, right.

ah so we should have no playable races then as everything can be defined under monster or alien.

 

[DND_Reborn]

ah so we should have no playable races then as everything can be defined under monster or alien.

Not at all. You know what I mean.

 

[CleverNickName]

The various options exist because they mean something, tropes matter. Custom Lineage is just a grab bag.

Of course tropes matter. But tropes aren't game mechanics. You can copy and paste all the lore, all the artwork, and all the descriptive text of the Satyr onto the halfling, adjust the mechanics per Tasha's, and presto: you have a Satyr.

Custom Lineage is a toolkit... the presumption that you need to buy a new book to get a(nother) new flavor of Halfling is the "grab."

The Custom Lineage rules aren't prefect, though. My campaign's satyr will have slightly different mechanics than someone else's (even thoug the art and lore and descriptions are identical.) I think that's closer to how biodiversity and genetics behave IRL, but some people need them to be identical (especially for standardized play, like AL.)

 

[Scribe]

Of course tropes matter. But tropes aren't game mechanics. You can copy and paste all the lore, all the artwork, and all the descriptive text of the Satyr onto the halfling, adjust the mechanics per Tasha's, and presto: you have a Satyr.

Custom Lineage is a toolkit... the presumption that you need to buy a new book to get a(nother) new flavor of Halfling is the "grab."

Thing is, those packages of mechanics, art, and lore/fluff, are exactly what I'm looking to pay for.

If it's all just toolkits, I can make my own.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Of course tropes matter. But tropes aren't game mechanics. You can copy and paste all the lore, all the artwork, and all the descriptive text of the Satyr onto the halfling, adjust the mechanics per Tasha's, and presto: you have a Satyr.

Custom Lineage is a toolkit... the presumption that you need to buy a new book to get a(nother) new flavor of Halfling is the "grab."

it is also a poorly developed tool kit, the swiss-army knife is useful but not as good as the proper tools.

 

[CleverNickName]

it is also a poorly developed tool kit, the swiss-army knife is useful but not as good as the proper tools.

Oh I agree completely. It's a retrofit... they should have started with the toolkit, and added the examples later. It's backwards.

On the other hand, sometimes you don't need a $500 Dewalt power drill. Sometimes, all you need is the awl punch on your Swiss army knife. I'm playing D&D with my friends, not running a Twitch stream for ten thousand viewers.