D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[SteveC]

This is another example of a solution in search of a problem. I am involved in hot take discussions on gaming topics, and I have never heard of half-elves being an issue. I have heard about half-orcs but that was largely because of the violent associations with those heritages.

It sounds like they are trying to do a variation of what Pathfinder did with their Ancestries, where you can pick feats from either of your parents. So as a human you could potentially take human or elf Ancestry feats. It's just more complicated because 5E wasn't designed with this goal in mind.

This is not a hill that I'm willing to fight on but the half-elf was a staple of D&D and of course Tolkien. Not sure why that needed to be excised.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

This is not a hill that I'm willing to fight on but the half-elf was a staple of D&D and of course Tolkien. Not sure why that needed to be excised.

They’re not getting rid of them. They are just changing how you express them.

 

[Clint_L]

I think they should have at least kept the legacy half elf and half orc.

They are. All 2014 content is still playable. They have reiterated this many times, including at the D&DDirect just this week. So you're in luck!

 

[SteveC]

They’re not getting rid of them. They are just changing how you express them.

It looks to me like they are taking half-elves from being a distinct thing and saying "you can do that thing with any species/legacy/ancestry" so I'd say that's removing something. Once again, not willing to fight over it (and I play Pathfinder, so I get what they are doing...) but it's strange to me.

 

[Clint_L]

I agree that the "Half" in the name is a problem, but I feel like they can just come up with a better name... elfkin or orcling, or whatever. Have a list of options and have folks vote.
Personally, I think every species should have a section for blended ancestry that lists what traits would apply when mixes with anther species--kind of like they have for Multiclassing. That way you can actually have a distinctive blended species.

The problem that I foresee here is that it will immediately lead to theorycrafting for the best combinations for each class, and suddenly every barbarian is a dwarf/orc/goliath/aasimar hybrid.

 

[DarkCrisis]

The problem that I foresee here is that it will immediately lead to theorycrafting for the best combinations for each class, and suddenly every barbarian is a dwarf/orc/goliath/aasimar hybrid.

There will always be power gamers. A lot of people generally have a character idea in mind and go with it despite the stats/abilties. Back in AD&D there was almost zero reason to play a human (unless you wanted to be a Paladin etc) but people did it anyways! Human Fighter! Woo!

 

[SteveC]

There will always be power gamers. A lot of people generally have a character idea in mind and go with it despite the stats/abilties. Back in AD&D there was almost zero reason to play a human (unless you wanted to be a Paladin etc) but people did it anyways! Human Fighter! Woo!

Well there were the awesome dual-class rules, and remember that non humans had level limits too (one of the most ignored rules that I ever saw). I did actually use the dual-class rules to make a bard character at the time which was really more trouble than it was worth.

 

[Osgood]

The problem that I foresee here is that it will immediately lead to theorycrafting for the best combinations for each class, and suddenly every barbarian is a dwarf/orc/goliath/aasimar hybrid.

Of course, minmaxers gonna minmax, but I think there are ways to manage it. They would just need to set up some sort of guidelines, particularly for future books that add species, something like "always (or never) include the darkvision" or "limit magic to cantrips" or whatever. I think a lot of the minmaxing is already mitigated by moving ability bonuses to backgrounds.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Well there were the awesome dual-class rules, and remember that non humans had level limits too (one of the most ignored rules that I ever saw). I did actually use the dual-class rules to make a bard character at the time which was really more trouble than it was worth.

I always preferred the multiclass rules to duel class rules but i gets its a preference.

 

[Corinnguard]

It looks like WoTC should have taken a page from Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition on how to deal with individuals who have a mixed heritage. In another thread I mentioned that A5e separated race into heritage (who your parents are) and culture (where you grew up). Each heritage had a set of commonly held traits (age, speed, size, senses and a signature ability) plus one or more gifts (which were basically 1st-level feats).

To play a Half-Elf or a Half-Orc in A5e, you just needed to pick a heritage (human, elf or orc) and then pick one of the gifts from the other heritage. So you could pick the Human Heritage and an Elven gift (and be like Aragorn from LoTR), or you could pick an Elven Heritage and a Human gift. The latter more closely resembles the Half-Elf everyone is pretty much familiar with. After that, you just pick a culture that suits the character concept you want for your character. In A5e, High Elf, Wood Elf, Shadow Elf and Eladrin are Elven cultures.