D&D (2024) D&D species article

[I'm A Banana]

Looking forward to that advice on how to bring 2014 things to 2024 rules specifically because of this species foolishness. 2014 design could've used some updates, but it seems better than this.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

All this really. So much of the species work looks like patching over cracks in a system they are about to release a revised rule set for.

Fix the bloody rules, and we dont need to tape over the cracks.

"Can we have Tiny Fairy?"

"No"

And remember, The Edition That Must Not Be Named actually did give us a tiny fairy race. With flight, for that matter!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Wow. A lot of hate here for this design. I'm not sure that it's worth it - I mean, I agree that there's something... missing. They're just not very exciting. They'll do the job, though - and they're a lot better then when "races" were not much more than some stat-bumps and some fluff.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Fix the bloody rules, and we dont need to tape over the cracks.

"Can we have Tiny Fairy?"

"No"

I can't wait to see a revised rules update of the Fairy. I imagine the video preview of the "glowed-up" Fairy will go something like this:

Talking guy: "The fantasy of the Fairy is getting to play a Tiny creature, so we've given the Fairy the ability to become Tiny for 10 minutes per Long Rest."

Nodding guy: "For that fleeting moment, the new Fairy really captures the feel of some other game system which has actual Tiny creatures as playable species. Well done."

 

[Demetrios1453]

With Half-Orcs and Half-Elves gone officially, I will just double down and make it where my players can play half races/species of anything they want. Want to play a Half Dwarf Half Aasimar? Go ahead.

That actually will be supported by the rules, just like half-elves and half-orcs will be - you take the ruleset from one parent. That might not be how you want to see it, but it is still supported in the rules.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

On the subject of half-species, I was glad to see them removed as full races, just because I felt that only supporting Half-Elves and Half-Orcs, and not any of the other potential hybrids (Half-Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, etc) was weird and opened up too many questions. To me the “you can be whatever mix of species you want, but just choose one species to represent you mechanically” was fine. Not great, or new (Wildemount recommended this same system for Dwarf-Elf hybrids), but good enough. I would prefer a hybrid species system that allowed you to take mechanics from your chosen parent species, like taking Fey Ancestry and Stonecunning for a Dwarf-Elf, but balancing that would require a near-total redesign of 5e’s Species mechanics. Which is outside of the scope of this rules update.

Also, on the topic of Dwarf-Aasimar, I view Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi as Lineages, a la Van Richten’s Dhampir or Hexblood. I was surprised when I saw that WotC weren’t planning on revising the main Planetouched races as Lineages in MMotM. That’s part of what I meant by saying that WotC forgets about cool innovations they made after a couple books. So in my view (and I’ll eventually homebrew this) Dwarf-Aasimar, Elf-Tiefling, or Gnome-Genasi wouldn’t use my ideal hybrid species system, and instead would use the Van Richten’s Lineage system.

 

[Clint_L]

With Half-Orcs and Half-Elves gone officially, I will just double down and make it where my players can play half races/species of anything they want. Want to play a Half Dwarf Half Aasimar? Go ahead.

One of our current party members is of mixed elf and orc lineage. He was built using the 2014 rules, so the player opted for half orc. The world didn’t end.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wow. A lot of hate here for this design. I'm not sure that it's worth it - I mean, I agree that there's something... missing. They're just not very exciting. They'll do the job, though - and they're a lot better when "races" were not much more than some stat-bumps and some fluff.

I mean, 4e races were significantly better than that and better balanced. And it wouldn't have been that hard to split it up. I've already proposed one possible way to unify fresh-character mechanics into a more interesting and easier-to-use whole. Heroic Origin, which encompasses Physiology, Culture, and Background (+Theme).

You begin from your Heroic Origin, where your physiology, culture, and background are your major character touchstones, you haven't done much yet, but you've lived part of a life. Your class is still quite fresh--it has its basic toolkit and not much else. You have to decide how you want to define yourself.

This naturally leads to your Paragon Path: the road you have chosen to walk, rather than the one birth put you upon. Center stage belongs to your class(es) now, and how you've chosen to specialize within that set--or to branch out into something new. Over the course of that tier, you come into your own as a powerful adventurer who's done great things and fought great foes.

And then, finally, you reach the conclusion of your hero's journey, the Epic Destiny. It wraps up the story, gives you a literally or metaphorically immortal legacy, and goes full bore on the "never say die" element of heroism. If you play a game that reaches such heights, it's a wonderful send-off to a game; if not, it's still great to dream about what could have been.

By bundling all of those low level choices into "Heroic Origin," you no longer have to worry about "race" in the first place (it's integrated, and that part is only about your anatomical makeup anyway), and there's more design space for more interesting options. But 5e just has to strip everything down to the baseboard, no matter the cost...

 

[Scribe]

I mean, 4e races were significantly better than that and better balanced. And it wouldn't have been that hard to split it up. I've already proposed one possible way to unify fresh-character mechanics into a more interesting and easier-to-use whole. Heroic Origin, which encompasses Physiology, Culture, and Background (+Theme).

You begin from your Heroic Origin, where your physiology, culture, and background are your major character touchstones, you haven't done much yet, but you've lived part of a life. Your class is still quite fresh--it has its basic toolkit and not much else. You have to decide how you want to define yourself.

This naturally leads to your Paragon Path: the road you have chosen to walk, rather than the one birth put you upon. Center stage belongs to your class(es) now, and how you've chosen to specialize within that set--or to branch out into something new. Over the course of that tier, you come into your own as a powerful adventurer who's done great things and fought great foes.

And then, finally, you reach the conclusion of your hero's journey, the Epic Destiny. It wraps up the story, gives you a literally or metaphorically immortal legacy, and goes full bore on the "never say die" element of heroism. If you play a game that reaches such heights, it's a wonderful send-off to a game; if not, it's still great to dream about what could have been.

By bundling all of those low level choices into "Heroic Origin," you no longer have to worry about "race" in the first place (it's integrated, and that part is only about your anatomical makeup anyway), and there's more design space for more interesting options. But 5e just has to strip everything down to the baseboard, no matter the cost...

I'd have to go look, but I think there are some similar things in LU. @Micah Sweet ?

If a more complex game is the goal, there are certainly ways to do it, but I dont think 5e first wants to be that, and second has really just failed to be consistent.

I again have to look at Fizbans Dragonborn, and just go 'why?'

There's a better way to make the species options, and we dont have to go hog wild to get there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'd have to go look, but I think there are some similar things in LU. @Micah Sweet ?

If a more complex game is the goal, there are certainly ways to do it, but I dont think 5e first wants to be that, and second has really just failed to be consistent.

I again have to look at Fizbans Dragonborn, and just go 'why?'

There's a better way to make the species options, and we dont have to go hog wild to get there.

I've heard there's something vaguely similar, but it isn't integrated together the way I would have done it.

I'm aware that 5e doesn't want to have any complexity. I'm also of the opinion that that's a stupid decision. Making the game EXCLUSIVELY complicated is bad, yes. Making it NEVER complicated is also bad. Their fear of ever having slightly complicated mechanics (for anything except spellcasting, of course!) has pushed them into numerous bad design decisions. Sometimes, the things they want to do are just complicated, there's no way to do them without some kind of complexity. Rather than accepting this fact, they've tried to run from it, to the detriment of the system. And this has ripple out effects. It's harder, even for something like Level Up*, to do more/better/interesting things, because you're either having to build an entirely new foundation and hope it jives with the existing stuff, or awkwardly extend from a foundation not at all ready or able to support such extensions.

*NGL, part of my avoidance of it is simply the naming, "Level Up" and "Advanced 5e" are both terrible product names.