D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[Yaarel]

Still need a confirmation if that's the case in the actual book. So far it's just mentioned in a DnD Beyond blog post.

I assume you mean this preview of Phandelver adventure at DnDBeyond?

There, Daran Edermath is an NPC listed as the proprietor of a certain orchard in the town of Phandalin.

Edermath Orchard

Daran Edermath (drow male)

Retired adventurer

The comments mention that this NPC was "a silver-haired Half-Elf" in the earlier adventure but is now a "Drow" in the full campaign. "They species-swapped him."

The "silver hair" might mean Daran is specifically of Human and Drow Elf parentage. Thus the swap is from "Half-Drow" sotospeak to full "Drow".



This swap might have more to do with making the dark-skin Drow non-Evil, rather than making the Half-Elf nonexistent.

Presumably, there will be Human-Elf characters elsewhere in the Phandelver adventure.

 

[Remathilis]

oh cool half-dwarf, how do you like my half-warforged?

Creature Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium (about 4–7 feet tall) or Small (about 2–4 feet tall), chosen when you select this Race
Speed: 30 feet
Life Span: 80 years on average
As a Human, you have these special traits.
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration* whenever you finish a Long Rest.*
Skillful. You gain Proficiency in one Skill of your choice.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another 1st-level Feat of your choice.

I went ahead and made a half-dwarf that apparently everyone would prefer ..

HALF-DWARF TRAITS
Creature Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium (about 4–7 feet tall) or Small
(about 2–4 feet tall), chosen when you select
this Race
Speed: 30 fe
Speed: 30 feet
Life Span: 350 years on average
As a Half-Dwarf, you have these special traits.
Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range
of 60 feet.
Resilience. You have Resistance to Poison Damage. You also have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Poisoned Condition on yourself.
Toughness. Your Hit Point Maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level.
Skillful. You gain Proficiency in one Skill of
your choice.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another
1st-level Feat of your choice
Stonecunning. As a Bonus Action, you gain Tremorsense* with a range of 60 feet for 10 minutes. You must be on a stone surface or touching such a surface to use this Tremorsense. The stone can be natural or worked.
You can use this Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a LongRest.*

There. The perfect blend of heritages.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I must be getting soft in my old age...the line between what is and isn't "playable" is wearing thin. And it was pretty thin to begin with!

My niece (age 9) wanted to play a unicorn, so I handed her the Monster Manual and helped her fill out a character sheet with the stats for a whole entire friggin' unicorn. Simplicity itself. She felt left out when everyone else was picking their Backgrounds and Classes, though, so I let her choose those also (she went with Sage and Paladin, respectively) but we only used them for the personality traits and the proficiencies. She wasn't all that interested in the paladin abilities anyway: she wanted to be a beautiful magical pony that could kick the dust out of the bad guys.

She had a blast. Here's her character sheet.

Spoiler

View attachment 293669

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the only people who can tell you what is and isn't "playable" are sitting around your table on game night.

I love it!

My daughter is going to play a sentient (of course) orange person with and orange head and vines and leaves for her body.

She was the last holdout as my other two have played. Whatever it takes to convert them!

I am unsure how to stat it…something akin to a pixie sprite or halfling.

She found a mini as well.

 

[MoonSong]

While I agree about erasure, the idea that not having a half-elf writeup means there can’t be half-elf NPCs becaus adventure writers won’t want to bother with a subsystem…it’s an NPC. It doesn’t need to use PC chargen rules.

No, but adventure writers have to refer to core books for lore. And if half-elves have no lore in the PHB nor in the MM, where are they going to get lore from? More so since the desing team has boldly called them out as inherently racist? They have started to retcon them out of existing adventures!

 

[Yaarel]

the desing team has boldly called them out as inherently racist?

It is fine when a character has parents who belong to different species. Likewise, it is fine when there is a community who descends from mixed ancestry.

The "racist" part is when a "half-breed" is considered as if a separate "race", somehow no longer a member of the races of ones parents.

The solution is to mention the Human-Elf and other multispecies in a context that shows they are still members of their parental species. So a Human-Elf is still a Human and is still an Elf.

I take for granted, the Human-Elf and the Human-Orc will be in the 2024 Players Handbook but not as separate species. They will appear in a section about characters who descend from multiple species.

They have started to retcon them out of existing adventures!

Not sure what is going on where Phandelver changes an NPC Half-Elf into a Drow. Probably, the adventure designers know from the playtests that "Half-Elf" is no longer considered its own race, but doesnt yet have official info for how to describe a multispecies character.

Meanwhile, there is an effort to show the dark-skin Drow is part of normal society without being inherently Evil. So in this case, an NPC that is a "Half-Drow" is listed as if a full Drow. Uncertain about "Half" and positive about "Drow".

Probably, when the multispecies descriptions become official, this NPC will again list as a Human-Drow.

 

[mamba]

There, Daran Edermath is an NPC listed as the proprietor of a certain orchard in the town of Phandalin.

Edermath Orchard

Daran Edermath (drow male)

Retired adventurer

The comments mention that this NPC was "a silver-haired Half-Elf" in the earlier adventure but is now a "Drow" in the full campaign. "They species-swapped him."

I am sure this has nothing to do with the wider plot of Shattered Obelisk, and integrating Lost Mine better with it, at all. It's not like there are any Drow in it....

Presumably, there will be Human-Elf characters elsewhere in the Phandelver adventure.

kinda shows that there was a different reason then, doesn't it....

 

[Yaarel]

I am sure this has nothing to do with the wider plot of Shattered Obelisk, and integrating Lost Mine better with it, at all. It's not like there any Drow in it....


kinda shows that there was a different reason then, doesn't it....

Pretty much yeah.

The decision to make a Half-Drow a full Drow doesnt seem to have anything to do with the story specifically. It has to do with a general design effort to humanize the Drow, as well as uncertainty about what the statblocks for multispecies will look like.

 

[mamba]

The decision to make a Half-Drow a full Drow doesnt seem to have anything to do with the story specifically.

What do you base that on? I am pretty much expecting the opposite, but maybe you have some Obelisk info I do not

 

[Micah Sweet]

Pretty much yeah.

The decision to make a Half-Drow a full Drow doesnt seem to have anything to do with the story specifically. It has to do with a general design effort to humanize the Drow, as well as uncertainty about what the statblocks for multispecies will look like.

So different, but still political reasons.

 

[Remathilis]

So different, but still political reasons.

Only if you consider the idea drow can be non-evil political.

There is a drow npc in the original module and he's classic dagnasty evil. They might have wanted to contrast that.