D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: Feats/Backgrounds/Species

[Remathilis]

This is chargen for cowards who are afraid of having 3 con.

Can I just suicide them right there, or do I have to bring the nonviable character to term in order to die to the first kobold I meet?

 

[MoonSong]

I'm almost 100% certain that in 6e, species will be purely aesthetic with all mechanical features removed. Quite a few people seem to want that to be the case as well.

I'm down for that. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have races with strong and unique mechanics, even to the point of outright negative modifiers to scores. But I'm even more for strong lore that matters, and between the popular play pattern of ignoring lore for the sake of just getting powers (and the extreme form seen by optimizers who plain don't care and discard it altogether) and the current zeitgeist, I see race as purely "cosmetic", but with strong flavor, as the best possible compromise.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm almost 100% certain that in 6e, species will be purely aesthetic with all mechanical features removed. Quite a few people seem to want that to be the case as well.

I don't, because at the very least you need aarakorca that can fly, tritons that can swim, dragonborn who can breathe fire, etc. I actually think the current Species rules is about the right amount: a few unique traits and that's about it.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don't, because at the very least you need aarakorca that can fly, tritons that can swim, dragonborn who can breathe fire, etc. I actually think the current Species rules is about the right amount: a few unique traits and that's about it.

personally i'd prefer if species budget went even bigger, i'd like to be able to distinguish two reasonably leveled otherwise identical characters in play purely from how their species affects their play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can I just suicide them right there, or do I have to bring the nonviable character to term in order to die to the first kobold I meet?

Nonviable is subjective. I'd play them, and they would be sickley as all get out.

 

[MoonSong]

Nonviable is subjective. I'd play them, and they would be sickley as all get out.

Where do I sign?

 

[Staffan]

How many want that really though? I've seen it mentioned maybe a handful of times, I've seen more people asking for ASIs to be removed from race but otherwise keep the mechanical differences between them.

If the powers that be ever decide to make D&D a more complex game with more character creation choices again, I can see them going in the direction of Pathfinder 2 with species. For those unfamiliar, a PF2 ancestry mechanically consists of:

• A starting hp kicker, usually 6, 8, or 10 hp.
• Speed
• Ability bonuses, usually in the form of a bonus to two fixed stats and a penalty to a fixed stats, plus a bonus to any stat that doesn't already get the bonus. Humans instead get two free bonuses, and other ancestries have the option to do that as well.
• Senses
• A choice of Heritage, a usually inborn ability based on the ancestry.
• Access to Ancestry feats, which are either cultural in nature or a developed physical trait. You start with one and get additional ones at higher levels.

So you could have one dwarf that's a Forge Dwarf (getting a small amount of fire resistance as well as higher tolerance for high temperatures) with Dwarven Weapon Training (get proficiency in some dwarf-themed weapons) and another that's a Death Warden Dwarf (increase a success on a save vs negative damage or undead abilities to a critical success) with Dwarf Lore (training in Crafting, Religion, and Dwarf Lore). These characters feel pretty different, but both feel pretty dwarfy.

 

[JEB]

They've had floating ASIs since Tasha's, but found that it was counterintuitively not resulting in more varied sets of character statblocks.

It's fascinating to me that it would be counterintuitive to them - that was the blatantly obvious result when I first heard about floating ASI...

 

[Maxperson]

You seem to be making false assumptions about my motivations. My intent is to call out the game designers for adding new, arbitrary restrictions to existing character builds.

You have mentioned several times how you would build an intelligent street urchin character. As I said in my last post, I'm not trying to convince you to build that character differently. The game has no restrictions preventing you from building that character, so by all means, built it.

I continue to mention how I would build an intelligent street urchin to highlight the new restrictions in the game rules. I can build the character I describe using the rules in the 2014 PHB, but I'm not yet seeing any way to build that same character using the rules in the 2024 PHB.

That's also why I keep mentioning the acolyte dedicated to the God of Strength. Using only the 2014 PHB, I can make an acolyte of Strength as strong as the strongest starting character of the same species. From what we've seen, using only the 2024 PHB, I can't do that.

Arbitrarily taking away options that already exist in the game is bad game design. There's no game balance issue being addressed here. Nothing's being streamlined. (In fact, the rules are getting wordier, thanks to non-floating bonuses.) As far as I'm concerned, this is a step backwards.

What prevents you from going to the DM and saying that you want to create a custom street rat background with an intelligence modifier to represent street cunning and smarts?

 

[Parmandur]

What prevents you from going to the DM and saying that you want to create a custom street rat background with an intelligence modifier to represent street cunning and smarts?

Nothing, and we know this is specifically being covered in the DMG.

Pre-set Backgrounds are there to be a clear tool to help create standard characters quickly for newer players. But most folks will likely do custom once they get the idea.