D&D (2024) If there are no half-elves or half-orcs will there be Tieflings (half fiends)?

[MonsterEnvy]

Whether you sleep or trance isn't cultural.

yes and more elven half elves should trance.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Maybe we should expand just on custom lineage, that could simplify "half-races"

I.E:

Pick your racial traits;
you have 6 trait points:

skill proficiency, max 2 times
combination of 4 tools, languages and/or weapons, max 2 times
expertise in one racial tool or skill
darkvision 60ft
darkvision 120ft, worth 2 points
hardy: +2 HP, +1 HP for every level after 1st, worth 2 pts
damage type resistance(except bludgeoning, slashing or piercing), max 2 times
healthy: advantage and resistance vs poison and disease
durable: advantage on one saving throw
+5 move speed, max 2 times
climb speed equal to move speed
swim speed equal to move speed and hold breath 1hr
burrow speed, half your speed
fly speed(wings), worth 4 points
cantrip, max 2 times
one level 1 spell known, cast for free once per long rest
one level 2 spell known, cast for free once per long rest
one level 3 spell known, cast for free once per long rest, worth 2 points
extra feat: worth 5 points
natural armor 13+dex or +1 AC when wearing armor you are proficient
natural weapon 1d6+str or 1d4+dex, one attack as bonus action
large frame: count as one size larger for carry capacity, grappling and similar

negative traits:
slow: -5ft speed, gain one trait point
small size: gain one trait point
sunlight sensitivity: gain one trait point
-1 to one ability; gain one trait point, max 2 times, cannot be taken on ability 8 or lower.

Hmm I don’t like this. It just encourages min maxing.

 

[Horwath]

Hmm I don’t like this. It just encourages min maxing.

So what?
Benefits are mostly trivial and people do not feel that their "lineage budget" has been spent on useless features for their character concept.

I.E:
Elf
Proficiency in perception, 1pt
expertise in perception, 1pt
darkvision, 1pt
Elven immunity and trance, 1pt
+5ft speed or 1 cantrip, 1pt
Elven weapons, tools or languages, 1pt

 

[CreamCloud0]

Maybe we should expand just on custom lineage, that could simplify "half-races"

I.E:

Pick your racial traits;
you have 6 trait points:

skill proficiency, max 2 times
combination of 4 tools, languages and/or weapons, max 2 times
expertise in one racial tool or skill
darkvision 60ft
darkvision 120ft, worth 2 points
hardy: +2 HP, +1 HP for every level after 1st, worth 2 pts
damage type resistance(except bludgeoning, slashing or piercing), max 2 times
healthy: advantage and resistance vs poison and disease
durable: advantage on one saving throw
+5 move speed, max 2 times
climb speed equal to move speed
swim speed equal to move speed and hold breath 1hr
burrow speed, half your speed
fly speed(wings), worth 4 points
cantrip, max 2 times
one level 1 spell known, cast for free once per long rest
one level 2 spell known, cast for free once per long rest
one level 3 spell known, cast for free once per long rest, worth 2 points
extra feat: worth 5 points
natural armor 13+dex or +1 AC when wearing armor you are proficient
natural weapon 1d6+str or 1d4+dex, one attack as bonus action
large frame: count as one size larger for carry capacity, grappling and similar

negative traits:
slow: -5ft speed, gain one trait point
small size: gain one trait point
sunlight sensitivity: gain one trait point
-1 to one ability; gain one trait point, max 2 times, cannot be taken on ability 8 or lower.

i remember finding this lineage builder list in (presumably your) thread with this in a good while back and honestly i loved it, i've still got it bookmarked and sometime go back to play with it, i spent a good while messing around building lineages with it when i first found it (i would add a breath weapon trait though), the existing custom lineage is so anemic in what you can build with it,

something similar that could be implemented for creating cross-species for existing lineages is give every individual species trait a value of X points, then building the offspring you get the average point score between the two parents and pick traits from between the parent species (anything granted by both parents is automatically granted to the offspring but not accounted in the total point score of the parent species for buying traits).
trait values are grabbed out the air don't look too deeply at them

Vuman: any skill [1], feat [4]-----------------total: 5 points
WoodElf: darkvision [1], fey ancestry [2], trance [0/ribbon], keen senses[1], elf weapon prof[1], fleet of foot[1], mask of the wild[1],-----------------------------------total: 7 points
and so i can build my half elf using 6 points using the traits from between the parents for perhaps:
Half-elf: feat [4], trance[0/ribbon], keen senses[1] elf weapon prof[1]--------------------------total: 6 points
or
Half-elf: any skill[1], darkvision[1], fey ancestry[2], fleet of foot[1], mask of the wild[1]--------total: 6 points

yes i do recognise you could in fact use this to build a half-elf with all the traits of a human plus more, maybe there would be a clause about not being able to take all the traits available from one parent? i dunno

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I think part of the problem with how people view half elves in 5e is that they're basically just humans with darkvision and a skill.

But I view this less of an inherent problem with half elves, and more of a problem with humans. 5e humans are the most boring bunch of nothingness I've ever seen when it comes to mechanics, and so anything which plays off the human mechanics also becomes a boring bunch of nothingness.

At least 5.5e looks like it's made humans actually interesting with mechanics.

 

[Corinnguard]

At least 5.5e looks like it's made humans actually interesting with mechanics.

It appears to be the same story in Level Up too when it comes to humans. Human | Level Up

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I still think, feats is the way to go.
Now that everyone gets a feat, everyone can be half x, half y.

And humans have one extra feat. So half elf could just be human woth half elf feat.

It has
Inspiration every morning.
One extra skill point.

And from the feat I presume:
darkvision, another skill point. Elven sleep and charm resistance.

That comes very close to the half elf of 1014 5e.

It does not get one extra stat point. Which is good and balanced. It gets advantage once per day for free.

And the cool thing: an orc could take that feat and be a half elf, half orc.

The darkvision is wasted. The feat could have a clause, that if you already have darkvision, you get a second skill proficiency.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Mixed ancestry as feats just means you have to decide whether being mixed ancestry is more important to the character concept than them being, to use a Dragonlance example, a Squire of Solamnia (and consequently pushing back your ability to pick up Knight of the Crown/Rose/Sword for an extra feat slot). It's a variation on "race as class", pitting what should be two separate character creation decisions against each other.

Are you a wizard or an elf? Are you a "half-elf" or an Initiate of High Sorcery?

The choice to play a mixed ancestry character shouldn't cost more character customization resources than playing a single ancestry character does. However it's represented, it should be entirely confined within the choice of character species and its baseline mechanical expression.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

They aren't built with mixed ancestry mechanics in mind now. Except for half-elves and half-orcs, because Tolkien, and those are just treated as their own species.

Do the math on opening up specialized mixed ancestry options for all playable species combinations, in the way that we have half-orcs and half-elves in the 2014 rules. And what if a character has ancestors from three different species? Or four? It's just not remotely feasible.

An a la carte option then becomes the only viable option for what you are suggesting, though adding a ton of complexity. It is at least feasible, but incredibly hard to balance. And balance is important to game designers, whether you prioritize it or not. What you are proposing would take a ton of work, make species selection far more complex, and require constant adjustments as new species are released and new exploits become apparent. It's a fundamental and complicated redesign of how species work. And as a DM I don't want to deal with every monk being a warforged/plasmoid/tortle/aarakroa hybrid because it has been shown to be mathematically superior.

The currently proposed system allows players and DMs to have whatever ancestries they wish, without creating balance issues. It keeps species selection simple. That's why I think it is a good approach for the game as a whole. And there is absolutely no reason that you cannot continue to use the 2014 rules if you prefer. They will work fine.

I am aware of the combinatorics and you are correct, the only real way to make it work is an "a la carte" type system of some kind. But honestly, that's just what addressing mixed ancestry properly entails. Unless they want to limit it to whichever species mashups they choose to specifically enumerate with unique statblocks (which they've explicitly said they don't want to do and is in fact the entire justification for not updating the '14 half-elf and half-orc statblocks), then the only choices are creating a "mix-and-match" system to let people build their species mechanics package for themselves or to eliminate species mechanics entirely.

They chose to try a middle ground, trying to keep unique mechanics for each single ancestry species option, while eliminating them for mixed ancestry characters and forcing them to shoehorn themselves into one of their parent species' statblocks rather than having (or building) one of their own. And that's what rubs me the wrong way.

End of the day, you're not going to be able to convince the kind of person that wants to play a half-celestial half-dragon vampire orc because it completes their CharOp build that they'd be happier playing a bog standard dwarf this time around instead. And people using Ravenloft lineages already have the option of saying "oh, my dhampir was originally an aarakocra" to grab a flight speed for free.

Maybe they can set some guidelines to reign in the worst potential abuses - can't stack traits that grant different resistances, can only have one trait that grants spells or an ability that costs an action/bonus action to use, etc. - but an "a la carte" approach is really the only way to go.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Mixed ancestry as feats just means you have to decide whether being mixed ancestry is more important to the character concept than them being, to use a Dragonlance example, a Squire of Solamnia (and consequently pushing back your ability to pick up Knight of the Crown/Rose/Sword for an extra feat slot). It's a variation on "race as class", pitting what should be two separate character creation decisions against each other.

I just showed that as a human you use your bonus feat. Not your regular feat. So you don't miss out on anything compared to the 2014 half elf.