D&D (2024) D&D species article

[Remathilis]

Can you explain what you mean by this? How is it a trap? It appears to be the most flexible of the three elf subspecies.

Obviously, no one will have the evidence you want. But why would you expect them to build off a setting-specific book rather than the more substantial (and thoughtful) MotM?

Take high elf and compare it to AE or eladrin.

First, we cancel out dark vision and fey ancestry, because all of them get those so no comparison. Let's look at what's left.

Trance in MotM/AAG gives bonus proficiencies that are swappable on long rest. MotM gives two tools/weapons, while AAG gives one tool/weapon and one skill. That is HUGE. Need someone who can navigate a ship? Elf. Need someone who can make healing potions during downtime? Elf. Found a +1 halberd no one wants? The elf wizard can use it starting tomorrow. The high elf? Nope. Just what your class and background give. Advantage MotM.

Keen Senses gives the MotM elves one skill (vs the PHB a choice from three) but that skill is the GOAT skill anyway. Insight and survival are lacking compared to Perception, and the only reason you would pick them is that you got perception from another source already. Slight advantage PHB, but 99% of the time, it's even.

Both eladrin and astral elves can teleport 30 ft as a bonus action prof bonus/day.. This teleport is not a spell, so the prohibition on bonus action spells and action spells does not apply. An eladrin can fey step and then cast fireball while casting misty step would limit them to a cantrip. Further, 2 a day scales to 6/day and starts at level 1. A high elf gets misty step once per day, at 5th level. Want to teleport again? Use a 2nd level or higher spell slot. Advantage MotM so much it isn't funny.

So what does that leave? Well, astral elves get a cantrip from a small pool of light-themed choices. Sacred flame isn't the best cantrip, but it's free. High elf gets one cantrip of their choice from the wizard list, changeable on a long rest. Arguably better if only for larger options. Advantage PHB. The eladrin don't get a cantrip, but do get riders on their fey steps that can charm, fear, damage or carry others starting at third. It's power is of course limited to the number of times they can teleport per day, and they an only use one effect until they rest. The high elf gets detect magic at third, a spell that any full caster worth their salt has as a ritual and rarely is the 10 min casting time a deterrent. I guess it's nice that as a free prep you don't need to use a slot to prepare it anymore, assuming you're not a wizard or a book of shadows warlock.

So is your choice of a wizard cantrip and detect magic and misty step 1/day worth two free proficiencies, multiple non-spell teleports per day, and either teleport riders or a limited cantrip choice? I don't think it is. And anyone with a single optimizer bone in their body is gonna see that. High elf is a trap for anyone who has access to MotM or AAG.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, it's a pretty huge difference: the Background choices in the 2024 book are really each a half-Tasha's with 7 possible combos for each Background. It isn't "all Acolytes are +2 Wisdom and +1 Intelligence", it is +2 floating choice between Wis, Int, and Cha, with a floating +1 for the same set. Or +1 to all three.

Very different from "all Wood Elves are This".

It's not a fundamental difference though - it's moving from racism to classism, which is fine in an American context where classism isn't generally seen as a major issue, and racism is seen as a huge one, but I don't think they realize how this is not going to play great in a lot of places outside the US. And race and class interplay in some complex ways throughout the world (including in the US), something well-meaning intellectual people in the US love to ignore or act surprised or confused by.

Though, 5e D&D probably isn’t the game for you in that case, as magic suffuses practically everything in its world. Even most ostensibly nonmagical characters tend to have extraordinary capabilities that one might reasonably consider magical.

Sure, but what you're not noticing is that you're illustrating one of the elements of bad design or deceptive design or however you want to put it, with 5E, which is that it's essentially trying to both have its cake and eat it, but basically claiming to be "generic fantasy" and capable of doing this vast array of different kinds of fantasy, but actually really increasingly moving towards a very specific "the world is inherently magical on all levels" sort of vibe (which, let's be clear - is not true of a lot of fantasy fiction - maybe even the majority of written fantasy fiction).

Now let's be real - this isn't new - there's a reason Earthdawn, which was essentially a "rationalization" of D&D (and if it wasn't for the terrible dice rules, would have been a great one - should have just used a Shadowrun-style dice pool, you ninnies!) goes for precisely what you're describing and makes it text not subtext.

But in D&D's greed to claim it's all things to all men, it keeps this strictly on the downlow, strictly subtext, never text for the fear of annoying a relatively small proportion of players (but hey that's still $$$).

So we get a confused and messy approach to this. 4E (often compared to Earthdawn, to the point where it literally had an Earthdawn version in the making for a while) was the only edition to try and move towards a firmer, more textual basis for what kind of fantasy D&D was, and in the baby/bathwater confusion, that got chucked out even though, as you point out, 5E kind of does act like that.

As an aside, it's a bit lame to say "Well maybe D&D isn't for you if you want that..." when D&D essentially promotes itself as being for every and for all kinds of fantasy, and is the main TT RPG in the world. If what you were saying was text, it wouldn't be a bit lame, it would just be honesty.

 

[Parmandur]

It's not a fundamental difference though - it's moving from racism to classism, which is fine in an American context where classism isn't generally seen as a major issue, and racism is seen as a huge one, but I don't think they realize how this is not going to play great in a lot of places outside the US.

My point is that it is the Tasha's approach, juat each Background has a smaller set of Abilities to float around in.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah maybe. I mean, it is very weird to watch a game company fix a major and common complaint with the game, fix it from multiple angles, that fix gains broad acceptance, and then... they reverse the fix into something that's going to annoy people a lot lol! It annoys the by-species people, and it annoys the free-choice people, and together that's probably the vast majority of D&D players. And it wasn't playtested!

All of this was in the open playtest, save the Aasimar. And evidently these changes all cleared the 60% approval bar, since what this article describes is identical to what was in the UA.

While the sentiment around here is very against spells (and I count myself among the spell-hater crowd), the consistent results of player polling seems to be broad approval for spell-heavy design. We saw it before with psionics, we saw it again with the paladin and the ranger, and we’re seeing it now with the species. The fact of the matter is that the average 5e player (or at least the average 5e player who responds to the surveys) likes most limited-use magical abilities to just be spells. I think the sooner those of us who aren’t so keen on spells accept that, the more frustration we’ll save ourselves.

 

[Charlaquin]

Reading the article I personally find this bit slightly ominous:



So like, you can't just use an older species? I mean, obviously with a background, some adaptation would be necessary, but a species? That is a bit worrying. Why would they be "adapted"? Given how extremely inconsistently they were designed, I can't think of any guidelines that aren't going to cause a huge mess and really back 2014 further incompatible with 2024, despite previous claims.

I guess they idea is they've moved from stuff from the race/species design-space to the background design space, but it seem to me that the backwards-compatible and sensible approach would be "please use 2014 backgrounds with 2014 races", not "play around trying to adapt both when race/species were completely inconsistently designed in 2014".

Also there's kind of vibe that you're "not allowed" to use the 2014 rules to create new characters from this, which is seems new and weird.

Pretty sure the adaptation advice will be to ignore the ability score adjustment, since that now comes from background. Maybe a Tasha’s-style option to swap out some proficiencies if you want to.

 

[Corinnguard]

All of this was in the open playtest, save the Aasimar.

They weren't playtested? Interesting and probably not surprising given that WoTC was interested in replacing them with the Ardlings initially. They were probably hoping that we would like the Ardlings better.

 

[Clint_L]

This seems like an intentional misunderstanding of the 2014 rules. I mean, what about them suggests there couldn't be a dwarf like that?

Dwarven Combat Training. You have proficiency with the battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, and warhammer.

Tool Proficiency. You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools.

Stonecunning. Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak.

Subrace. Two main subraces of dwarves populate the worlds of D&D: hill dwarves and mountain dwarves. Choose one of these subraces.

Edit: Plus that that your ability options are constitution (required), strength or wisdom. Not intelligence, dexterity or charisma.

So, per my example, my skinny, nerdy dwarf who just wants to learn magic is required to put points into non-optimal abilities, be proficient with a hammer, and speak an apparently genetically imbued language.

I feel like you're misunderstanding the 2014 rules, and I described them exactly accurately.

Edit 2: This is supposed to be a game of fantasy. What if my character fantasy is a dwarf who was raised in a large, cosmopolitan city and has actively rejected the stereotypes commonly associated with dwarves? They grew up speaking the same language as all the other people around them, saw no need to practice swinging a hammer, couldn't give a toss about stonework, and don't care to learn brewing, smithing, or masonry because they are putting all their time into hitting the books and learning magic? Why can't my dwarf fantasy be different from the Tolkien stereotype?

It's one thing to have tendencies for different species, especially in an adventure setting. "Dwarven culture is often associated with..." is fine. "In Wildemount, many dwarves live in Kraghammer and hew to the traditions of their people, such as..." is fine. "Your character MUST adhere to these stereotypes that we have chosen..." is not fine.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

All of this was in the open playtest, save the Aasimar. And evidently these changes all cleared the 60% approval bar, since what this article describes is identical to what was in the UA.

Absolutely untrue.

I just double-checked. The UA/Playtest explicitly makes let you - the player - choose to change out any elements of a background:

If you instead decide to customize a premade
Background, you can choose any features in that
Background and replace them with the features
below of the same name. For example, if you
want to change a Background’s Language
feature, you can replace that feature with the
Language feature below.

That's what got the 70% approval, hard fact. You can look in the playtest, but it's just what you'd expect - direct change-outs, including any +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 you like. Effectively preserving the Tasha's approach.

We know from what WotC has said, that this is no longer true, and they instead changed this so you have to play mother-may-I with the DM to change anything about a background, and we don't even know if it suggests that you can change stuff - so many players will be unaware they even can play mother-may-I and/or get into conflicts with DMs about it.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not a fundamental difference though - it's moving from racism to classism, which is fine in an American context where classism isn't generally seen as a major issue, and racism is seen as a huge one, but I don't think they realize how this is not going to play great in a lot of places outside the US.


Sure, but what you're not noticing is that you're illustrating one of the elements of bad design or deceptive design or however you want to put it, with 5E, which is that it's essentially trying to both have its cake and eat it, but basically claiming to be "generic fantasy" and capable of doing this vast array of different kinds of fantasy, but actually really increasingly moving towards a very specific "the world is inherently magical on all levels" sort of vibe (which, let's be clear - is not true of a lot of fantasy fiction - maybe even the majority of written fantasy fiction).

Now let's be real - this isn't new - there's a reason Earthdawn, which was essentially a "rationalization" of D&D (and if it wasn't for the terrible dice rules, would have been a great one - should have just used a Shadowrun-style dice pool, you ninnies!) goes for precisely what you're describing and makes it text not subtext.

But in D&D's greed to claim it's all things to all men, it keeps this strictly on the downlow, strictly subtext, never text for the fear of annoying a relatively small proportion of players (but hey that's still $$$).

So we get a confused and messy approach to this. 4E (often compared to Earthdawn, to the point where it literally had an Earthdawn version in the making for a while) was the only edition to try and move towards a firmer, more textual basis for what kind of fantasy D&D was, and in the baby/bathwater confusion, that got chucked out even though, as you point out, 5E kind of does act like that.

As an aside, it's a bit lame to say "Well maybe D&D isn't for you if you want that..." when D&D essentially promotes itself as being for every and for all kinds of fantasy, and is the main TT RPG in the world. If what you were saying was text, it wouldn't be a bit lame, it would just be honesty.

I don’t disagree, but like… it is what it is, at this point. You’re either onboard for the world 5e D&D’s system implies or you’re not, and while it’s lame of WotC to try to pretend the system is more general and adaptable than it is, it’s not like there’s any incentive for them to do otherwise.

 

[Charlaquin]

Absolutely untrue.

I just double-checked. The UA/Playtest explicitly makes let you - the player - choose to change out any elements of a background:



That's what got the 70% approval, hard fact. You can look in the playtest, but it's just what you'd expect - direct change-outs, including any +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 you like. Effectively preserving the Tasha's approach.

We know from what WotC has said, that this is no longer true, and they instead changed this so you have to play mother-may-I with the DM to change anything about a background, and we don't even know if it suggests that you can change stuff - so many players will be unaware they even can play mother-may-I and/or get into conflicts with DMs about it.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the species changes, my mistake. Yeah, I agree that moving the rules for custom backgrounds to the DMG was a bad move.