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

[Alzrius]

It may (or may not) be "bad science,"

There's no "may not" about it. It's not bad science.

Forgive me for harping on this point, but calling facts (and, for that matter, reality itself) into question is something I've grown quite sick of hearing people do, insofar as contemporary dialogue goes (across society as a whole, rather than just in the tabletop gaming hobby). Hence, I refuse to countenance it here.

 

[Remathilis]

There are the inevitable questions of which half-species or even quarter species to prioritize and which species to cut out to make space for them.

Exactly.

Truth be told, with orc making its way to PHB status (and losing its always-evil denomination) the half-orc (aka the PC orc race) is redundant. I'd much rather have goliaths than orc and orc 2.0 in the PHB.

I'm slightly more conflicted about half-elf, but we already have seven types of elves already and the half-elf isn't bringing much to the table except a few minor elf traits and skills. Their big draw was 4 ASI (two of which floated) but with every race getting floating ASI, that's not an issue. I'd be fine with waiting for a proper Khovar species in the next Eberron book.

So even if we include those two (and to be fair, it's for legacy reasons) who else? Half-dwarves? Elflings? Tanaruk and fey'ri? How many other hybrids do we want to put in the PHB? Assuming they can't fit a functioning mix system in the PHB, what other combinations beyond the legacy ones do they make?:

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Exactly.

Truth be told, with orc making its way to PHB status (and losing its always-evil denomination) the half-orc (aka the PC orc race) is redundant. I'd much rather have goliaths than orc and orc 2.0 in the PHB.

I'm slightly more conflicted about half-elf, but we already have seven types of elves already and the half-elf isn't bringing much to the table except a few minor elf traits and skills. Their big draw was 4 ASI (two of which floated) but with every race getting floating ASI, that's not an issue. I'd be fine with waiting for a proper Khovar species in the next Eberron book.

So even if we include those two (and to be fair, it's for legacy reasons) who else? Half-dwarves? Elflings? Tanaruk and fey'ri? How many other hybrids do we want to put in the PHB? Assuming they can't fit a functioning mix system in the PHB, what other combinations beyond the legacy ones do they make?:

If a mix and match system can't work, I'd rather see all the most common and likely hybrids moved to a separate supplement.

I agree that goliath and orc is better for the PHB than orc and half-orc. And I'd rather have aasimar as the tiefling counterpart than half-elf being in the PHB.

Either that or add a section to the DMG which talks about how to create and balance hybrid species. While leaving the playtest version in the PHB itself.

 

[Maxperson]

There are the inevitable questions of which half-species or even quarter species to prioritize and which species to cut out to make space for them.

You can start with half-triton/half-aarakocra and go from there.

Practically speaking, it doesn't really matter. They gave is the triton race and the firbolg race, but not Azer or Ogre. I'd bet some folks out there are disappointed in what we got there. Every time they put out any race, some other race gets cut to make room. No matter what choice they make about pretty much anything, some will be happy and some won't.

There's no reason to put half races on a pedestal and treat them different. Let WotC decide which ones to put out here and there. Heck, if they really want to make the most happy, they can put out a questionnaire and just make the top 3 or 4 choices to stick in whatever book they are releasing. Better to make a few quality half races than to put out a bunch of lazy, uninspired and boring half races.

 

[Maxperson]

Put the "Pick a Parent" sidebar in the PHB and the more complex "Mix and Match" rules in the DMG section for creating custom PC races/species, with Half-Elf and Half-Orc (under whatever new names they determine to be appropriate) as examples, a la Aasimar and Eladrin from the 2014 DMG.

If people can't hand the more "complex" Mix and Match rules such that it shouldn't go in the PHB, then they also can't handle something even more complex like "How do we get past this locked door?" which has even more options with most or all of those options not spelled out like the racial abilities are.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, no, we lose it as a descriptor for races of people.

Again, I am not advocating calling groups of people savages. I am saying using it in a game for fictional people is different, and using it to describe people in other contexts is different (i.e. "He was a savage in the ring").

No well-adjusted person around today would. It would be extremely weird and indicate for many that it’s best to avoid you, just to be safe.

Again, I think people calling one another savage playfully is different. I also think plenty of well adjusted people have dark senses of humor and quote historically evil people all the time. I am not saying what he said in this case was a good thing. But just from my experience being a history student, people often form a dark sense of humor around very uncomfortable aspects of history (this is for instance why I think someone like Larry David--history major in college--has a lot of jokes about the holocaust and Nazis). And I am not advocating going around seriously quoting someone who advocated genocide. I am saying some people respond to that with humor. Whether that was what Gygax was doing or not, I have no idea. It could also have just been an insensitive remark

Tell that to Gary, who was literally making the explicit point that Lawful Good characters can justifiably kill Orc young, and used Chivington’s quote as a rhetorical tool to make the point.

Again, I don't think killing orc babies is good in game. But the game is fantasy and it is a game, so I also don't take what happens in it all that seriously. If a player is going around killing orc babies, probably not a campaign I am interested in, but I won't assume anything about their real world ethics based on that. I just think the ethical logic people bring to justify those actions by their characters makes very little sense

If I thought Gary believed Native Americans should be killed on sight, I’d not let his name come up in a thread without mentioning it.

As it is, it was just a disgusting rhetorical tool that he should have known better than to use, and we certainly have no excuse today to do the same sort of things.

I have a lot of trouble getting deeply concerned about a rhetorical tool. Especially if we are both in agreement that he didn't endorse the aforementioned quote.

If you truly refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that using the same rhetorical tools is going to justifiably make a lot of people feel unsafe, and thus is something we should avoid, then you and I shouldn’t continue interacting.

I hope you would continue to hold conversations here with me, as I do enjoy getting your perspective even if we disagree (and I think one thing the gaming community is losing as it fragments around these issues is exposing our ideas to criticisms from people who disagree-----which refines our perspectives even if we are not thoroughly chaining our minds). For me this isn't about a refusal to see something that is objectively true here.

It is that I just have some fundamental disagreements about how big a role changing language, rhetorical tools and media content should play in our lives. I don't think avoiding terms like savage (in the contexts I have describe) makes anyone more safe, and I think the constant vetting and changing of language and shifting of what is acceptable (which I think does happen naturally over time, but the past five or so years have moved at such a fast pace people feel like the rug is being pulled out from under them as they simply try to express ideas). Like I said before I think the end result isn't to make people safer but less safe because the more these kinds of things get applied to everything in the culture, the more it waters down what it means. If people complain that calling orcs savages is a problem because it is dehumanizing, they aren't going to be taken as seriously when they point to dehumanizing language with real world people. And we are already starting to see this problem emerge in the culture where it is harder and harder to call out real world racism because we have been so fixated on expanding the term racism to include so many other things (including things like evil orcs).

That doesn't mean I want real people in the world to be unsafe. That is something that is very concerning to me. I just don't think this is improving the world the way people think it is. And these bright red lines people keep putting down over language and elf games, really makes it hard for people to have a conversation about difficult topics

If you feel you can't interact with me though, I can respect that

 

[Bedrockgames]

Exactly.

Truth be told, with orc making its way to PHB status (and losing its always-evil denomination) the half-orc (aka the PC orc race) is redundant. I'd much rather have goliaths than orc and orc 2.0 in the PHB.

I'm slightly more conflicted about half-elf, but we already have seven types of elves already and the half-elf isn't bringing much to the table except a few minor elf traits and skills. Their big draw was 4 ASI (two of which floated) but with every race getting floating ASI, that's not an issue. I'd be fine with waiting for a proper Khovar species in the next Eberron book.

So even if we include those two (and to be fair, it's for legacy reasons) who else? Half-dwarves? Elflings? Tanaruk and fey'ri? How many other hybrids do we want to put in the PHB? Assuming they can't fit a functioning mix system in the PHB, what other combinations beyond the legacy ones do they make?:

I do think there is something to be said for having a paired down list of core classes and races. Which is why I think including half orc and half elf have been pretty effective. I don't know what the magic number is. I also tend to like much more straight forward character creation for D&D than it has been moving towards in recent years (again class+race just works for me). But then I wasn't even a huge fan of adding skills so I might be an outlier here

 

[Vaalingrade]

There's no "may not" about it. It's not bad science.

Forgive me for harping on this point, but calling facts (and, for that matter, reality itself) into question is something I've grown quite sick of hearing people do, insofar as contemporary dialogue goes (across society as a whole, rather than just in the tabletop gaming hobby). Hence, I refuse to countenance it here.

Let's use 'highly disingenuous use of science' then. Trying to use the broad average to try and make a bad point.

 

[Alzrius]

Let's use 'highly disingenuous use of science' then.

No, let's not.

Trying to use the broad average to try and make a bad point.

The broad average remains true at the far end of the bell curve; if that's the point in question, then it's not a "bad" one, where "bad" means "lacks scientific merit." Any such suggestion deserves to be called out for what it is: a falsehood.

As I've repeatedly said, there are merits in the arguments people have made against capping maximum Strength scores differently for male and female characters. But those meritorious arguments all have to do with the presence of that limit in the game, and nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that some sort of pernicious real-world bigotry is being propagated.

In other words, where the difference between male and female strength is concerned, leave science out of it and focus on why that doesn't make the game any better.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean, let's be honest. 3.5E Goliaths were just 3.5E's half giants from the psionic handbook, but with the psionics replaced by survival stuff

Giants are in their blood (plus I've seen some popular stuff that just made them half giant linked previously)

Okay?

You're right I concede. It's not like I'm buying the book anyway. Have fun.

I don’t believe for a second that you won’t be ranting about it just as vociferously again every time dnds handling of origins come up in a thread, but yeah sure.

I don't understand this line of thinking. "Pick a parent" only applies to mechanical abilities. It's not like any of the half races had unique abilities to those half races. A half elf doesn't have anything that an elf or a human doesn't have. So, your half-elf uses elf powers and my half elf uses human powers.

Do people actually define the race of their character by the abilities of that race? Is that what it means to be an elf? +1 to hit with a longsword and a spell?

Of course. If we didn’t we would all be happy to just remove mechanics from race entirely.

This is a game where major character aspects are mechanically represented, where possible. In such a game, the mechanics matter. You can cherry pick features all you want, but I think you know damn well that Trance and Fey Ancestry define “elf” in D&D .

The only real difference between a 2014 PHB half elf and the revised half elf is that you would lose a couple of skills but gain a cantrip.

Sleep. The Trance ability by itself is enough to tell me, I’m playing an elf. Period.