D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[Minigiant]

I can't accept that. It is just bizarre that PCs just happen to be weird in super specific way that makes them equal. Like if PC halfling can be a freakishly strong halfling that is way stronger than any other halfling with strength of 18, why a PC goliath cannot be similarly a freakish that is much stronger than other goliaths and thus have strength of 24 or something?

And generally I want the rules to tell us something about the setting and to be connected to it. When I look the rules for elves, I expect them to tell us something about how the levels are.

IF normal people tried to do what D&D PCs do, they'd fail or die... a lot.

We skip the death funnels and spirals of failure and just play the exceptional adventurous characters who would not die at low levels.

You can play the All 10s + fixed racials PC if you want.

Normal people don't have a 15 and a 14.

 

[Minigiant]

Again. You can easily have 2 different clans / counties / tribes / guilds with the same race.

There isn't human (merchant) and human (smith) sub-races. Those are backgrounds.

Make a Mountain Clan background that comes with the Lightly Amory feat and the Gold Clan background can come with Toughness (level 1?).

Then you can also have a halfling that grew up with the Mountain Dwarves. Or a Dwarf that grew up with the elves in the Forest.

Does Mountain Clan give you Powerful Build?
Or is Powerful Build a biological feature you can only get from species or subspecies.

Because that's what I'm suggesting. That Mountain Dwarves biologically are stronger than Hill Dwarves. Subspecies should be biological.

Culture in 5e is background.

 

[Scott Christian]

IF normal people tried to do what D&D PCs do, they'd fail or die... a lot.

We skip the death funnels and spirals of failure and just play the exceptional adventurous characters who would not die at low levels.

You can play the All 10s + fixed racials PC if you want.

Normal people don't have a 15 and a 14.

Sure they do. Check the NPC stats of every module. The town guard has a 16 strength. The village in the middle of nowhere has a priest with a 16 wisdom. The merchant who hired you has a 17 charisma. Normal people absolutely have 14s, 15s, 16s, 17s, and 18s.

 

[DammitVictor]

This is why I’m against classes restricting which races can be them. There’s a lot that can be done through slight reflavoring.
[...]
They can just be Wizards with whatever necessary reflavoring.

Honestly, I can trace the majority of my complaints about 4e and 5e to "slight reflavoring". If the flavor doesn't match the mechanics, or the mechanics don't match the flavor, that's the literal definition of disassociated. Immersion is ruined and players can only interface with the game world through the game mechanics and WotC devs and WotC fans stopped giving a damn about immersion an edition and a half ago.

If something isn't the same thing in the flavor, it shouldn't be the same thing in the mechanics.

 

[mellored]

Does Mountain Clan give you Powerful Build?

No. Dwarves never had that.
Goliath's do.

Because that's what I'm suggesting. That Mountain Dwarves biologically are stronger than Hill Dwarves. Subspecies should be biological.

+ Str vs +Wis.

It's a step in the right direction, but you will need to go a bit further to justify a subrace IMO.

 

[Corinnguard]

Honestly, I can trace the majority of my complaints about 4e and 5e to "slight reflavoring". If the flavor doesn't match the mechanics, or the mechanics don't match the flavor, that's the literal definition of disassociated. Immersion is ruined and players can only interface with the game world through the game mechanics and WotC devs and WotC fans stopped giving a damn about immersion an edition and a half ago.

How did AD&D meet your demand of flavor matching the mechanics? And how does immersion play a part in it? I like to think immersion means trying to get into character. You mechanically and conceptually create a character, and then you try to role-play your character alongside several other actors (the other members of your role-playing group) in an interactive story created by the DM. I say try because sometimes we succeed at our Performance checks and sometimes we don't. Either way, we're doing it because it's fun.

 

[Hussar]

You could always play a dwarf monk etc. It is just that people couldn't stop minmaxing, and had to always get the best possible score in the main stat.

And I get it. To most people it seems more fun to choose more powerful option. And regardless, ideally all option combinations should be balanced, or at least pretty close to that.

On the flip side, it is just hella weird that evey species is equally good at everything. Halflings are just as physically strong as humans and orcs, elves are no more agile than dwarves etc.

I see it far more like people are not only determined to have their own tables play a certain specific way, but, now, every single other table in the hobby must play that way too because it's "hella weird" for other tables to play differently.

If you want halflings to be weaker? Go ahead and make a weak halfling. There is nothing stopping you. You absolutely can do this. But, why do you get to tell my table that halflings in my world must be weaker? If I want strong halflings, why do I have to rewrite the rules?

Broader rules are better. Full stop. Telling other tables what they can and cannot do is never good. Things would be so much better if folks would mind their own tables and stop insisting that everyone must play the one true way.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Honestly, I can trace the majority of my complaints about 4e and 5e to "slight reflavoring". If the flavor doesn't match the mechanics, or the mechanics don't match the flavor, that's the literal definition of disassociated. Immersion is ruined and players can only interface with the game world through the game mechanics and WotC devs and WotC fans stopped giving a damn about immersion an edition and a half ago.

If something isn't the same thing in the flavor, it shouldn't be the same thing in the mechanics.

That’s why I said slight reflavoring. There’s nothing in the rules of a wizard that says you can’t look like a magi. Magi were astrologers. A magi-style wizard could have an astrolabe as an arcane focus and focus more on divination magic. I really don’t get what the hold up is here. There is nothing wrong or immersion breaking for minor reskins, like reskinning a Greatclub as a baseball bat, or a wizard as a magi.

 

[Remathilis]

Honestly, I can trace the majority of my complaints about 4e and 5e to "slight reflavoring". If the flavor doesn't match the mechanics, or the mechanics don't match the flavor, that's the literal definition of disassociated. Immersion is ruined and players can only interface with the game world through the game mechanics and WotC devs and WotC fans stopped giving a damn about immersion an edition and a half ago.

If something isn't the same thing in the flavor, it shouldn't be the same thing in the mechanics.

There is reflavoring and then there is redundancy. What's the difference between a wizard and a magi? What makes them different? What does the one do that the other doesn't?

It reminds me of the difference between a longsword and a katana. For all practical purposes, there isn't enough difference between them to justify different stats. Sometimes there is just not enough daylight in design space for every single variant to get it's own stats.

 

[DammitVictor]

There is reflavoring and then there is redundancy. What's the difference between a wizard and a magi? What makes them different? What does the one do that the other doesn't?

I used the PF term. In D&D terms, I'm talking about "Wizard" versus "Swordmage".

It reminds me of the difference between a longsword and a katana. For all practical purposes, there isn't enough difference between them to justify different stats. Sometimes there is just not enough daylight in design space for every single variant to get it's own stats.

It's funny... you know what "katana" means, literally, in Japanese? "long sword"

A katana is a longsword. But a templar is a leader class, not a striker, and a soulknife doesn't need a backup weapon to fight mindless creatures. The game is made up of the narrative and the mechanics, every thing in the game is made of both, and if there isn't a direct correspondence between them... if there is not a 1:1 relationship between the narrative objects and the mechanical objects in the game, then the connection between them-- which is necessary for several gameplay functions-- is broken.