D&D (2024) D&D species article

[UngeheuerLich]

It is the sort of lazy design choice I’ve grown to hate with recent WotC products.

If I would play forum bingo, I'd put lazy design in the middle.
It is a synonym for: I don't like the way they are doing it.
Or: I rather have 234480 subsystems. Because having a single one is too noob friendly.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's not that it's "too hard to balance" - it's that 5e game design is about never breaking within normal parameters. Unless you have a weird race (e.g. plasmids) then large races are stopped cold by small doorways and the like. Which means that a lot of dungeons are simply going to fail.

5e's design is not about giving people the best experiences. It's about making sure that as few people as possible come away with outright negative play experiences. And an adventure grinding to a halt because someone can't fit through a door or down a corridor is a negative experience.

Really wish they'd taken this attitude with...y'know...the actual rules design of the game.

Seems to me like we're stuck with the worst of both worlds. Can't have much variety in player options, because someone somewhere might not have fun. Can't have reliable rules structures that you've tested to be sure they do what they were designed to do, because someone might get offended that you've told them how to play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If I would play forum bingo, I'd put lazy design in the middle.
It is a sysnonym for: I don't like the way they are doing it.
Or: I rather have 234480 subsystems. Because having a single one is too noob friendly.

The core problem with this argument is spells are not even remotely a simple system. They're by far the MOST complex thing in 5e, for like three or four different reasons (traditionalism, which is not at all the same thing as actually being traditional; spells being forced to cover every possible niche, no matter how inappropriate/distant from the ways spells work; and actual traditional elements, like saving throws, slot scaling, spell components, etc.)

Having a single system is only actually valuable if that single system isn't ridiculously complex. It's like having a single, universal power plug converter--it has to have 17 different sockets and plug types because every country does things a little differently, making the converter actually really complicated to use, despite being a one-stop-shop.

You can't just say, "One system is better than a quarter million!" Okay. Sure. There weren't a quarter million before, so the hyperbole does you rather a disservice. And it's not like we don't have additional content anyway, like Superiority Dice and their many (allegedly) "supernatural" cousins like Psi Dice.

Maybe it is the case that having one, universal system really is better. Or maybe it's the case that having two complementary systems, that can each be individually simpler because they're tailored for their specific niche, would in fact actually be simpler than one universal system. Imagine trying to make one single universal language by just shoehorning the vocabulary of every world language into, say, Mandarin or English. It'd be nearly incomprehensible and INCREDIBLY difficult to learn, despite being "one system" that "everyone" could speak.

"Less is more" is only true if you do, in fact, DO MORE with less. I have yet to see good evidence that using spells for at least 90% of all supernatural effects, and progressively swallowing up ever more non-spellcasting features into the spellcasting system, does in fact do more. At which point, all you have is "less is less." Which isn't exactly a compelling argument.

 

[Sulicius]

Really wish they'd taken this attitude with...y'know...the actual rules design of the game.

Seems to me like we're stuck with the worst of both worlds. Can't have much variety in player options, because someone somewhere might not have fun. Can't have reliable rules structures that you've tested to be sure they do what they were designed to do, because someone might get offended that you've told them how to play.

And yet... D&D 5e is a wonderful game where every day millions of people enjoy going on fantastical adventures.

I get your frustration, but I'm trying to say it's not that bad.

 

[Corinnguard]

I like to think of Tieflings and Aasimar as reflections of one another and I wish that was represented in the mechanics and lore. While the mechanical representation of both is pretty mediocre, the Tieflings being especially boring mechanically. My most recent versions of Aasimar are an inversion of Tieflings. Tieflings are oppressed, Aasimar are the racist oppressors. Tieflings are typically good despite their fiendish heritage (or as good as humans, at least), Aasimar are typically evil despite their celestial heritage (well, more because of it. My Aasimar use their angelic blood as an excuse for why they think they’re the best race and oppress others because of it). Aasimar and Tieflings being mirrors mechanically could make this theme stronger. I also wish they had made it so Aasimar can look like non-Angelic celestials, like Guardinals and Archons, like how Tieflings can look like Demons, Devils, and Yugoloths. That would be another interesting parallel between the two.

Coming out with some rules on how to create a mixed species character in 2024 D&D isn't the only thing that WoTC is late to the party with. Their decision to come out with three different kinds of Tiefling for 2024 D&D is also late comer. As 1st edition Pathfinder beat them to it by coming out with 10 variant Tiefling heritages. One for each group of fiends in PF1 (Asuras, Daemons, Demodands, Demons, Devils, Divs, Kytons, Oni, Qlippoth, and Rakshasa) These variants can be found in PF1's Blood of Fiends

Tiefling (13 RP) – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

PF1 also came out with 6 variant Aasimar heritages in their Blood of Angels book. There are a lot more than 6 kinds of celestials in PF1, but a number of them came out well after Blood of Angels made it's debut. So, there aren't any official Aasimar heritages tied to them. As for the official ones, there are heritages for Agathions (PF1's answer to the Guardinals), Angels, Angels, Azatas (PF1's answer to the 3e Eladrin), Garudas and Peri (they're descended from fallen angels and have pyromanic tendencies They're not evil, but they're tempted to do evil)

Aasimar (15 RP) – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

I view Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi as Lineages

I have an idea for a revised version of Level Up's Planetouched heritage where these three get treated as lineages. I am trying to model the heritage after the Goblinoid heritage in the Manual of Adventurous Resources: Complete by Purple Martin Games.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Haven't seen World Tree, so I can't comment on that. Soulknives and Psi Warriors are barely even supernatural; the former gets, what, a teleport? Some telepathy? Not exactly what I'd call "highly supernatural". Psi Warrior even less so--except when it casts the telekinesis spell.

When you're psychic enough to be one of the X-men (in specific Psylocke) I'd say that's highly supernatural. Teleportation, Telepathy, Mind Blast, and invisibility for the Soulknife. Psi Warriors can set up forcefields and leap tall-ish buildings in a single bound.

And, having looked it up, the World Tree Barbarian...is basically exactly the same as the Psi Warrior and Soulknife, having some teleport abilities, some shield abilities, and getting reach on weapons, and...that's it. It's not "highly supernatural". It barely registers a blip on my thaumometer; features like this can be completely mundane (see: the Chef feat, the Inspiring Leader feat, PDK, etc., etc.--not that all of these are GOOD, mind, just that they exist and are mundane.)

Some teleportation, including teleporting enemies towards you by summoning up spectral roots? It's an actual 4e warden (not the thing we got in 2014 that was a paladin pretending to be a warden). You might not register a blip, but I do.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Really wish they'd taken this attitude with...y'know...the actual rules design of the game.

They did. Which is why they made things fuzzy so things fail fuzzily rather than failing hard. And it was trying to be a people pleaser, doing something for everything and nothing amazingly. But they wanted to keep it as D&D

Seems to me like we're stuck with the worst of both worlds. Can't have much variety in player options, because someone somewhere might not have fun.

Now this I can't agree with. Compare the 2014 PHB to the PHBs of any previous edition and even if my warlords are still MIA and the battlemaster is a joke as a tactical fighter there's more macro-level variety in 5e and it's also very accessible thanks to subclasses. You need to go deep into the weeds of splatbooks before 2e, 3e, or 4e really start leaving 5e behind (and that largely because 5e has only had two splatbooks because the designers realised that splatbooks harm accessibility ... or because 5e was meant to be the mothballs edition).

 

[Minigiant]

Really wish they'd taken this attitude with...y'know...the actual rules design of the game.

Seems to me like we're stuck with the worst of both worlds. Can't have much variety in player options, because someone somewhere might not have fun. Can't have reliable rules structures that you've tested to be sure they do what they were designed to do, because someone might get offended that you've told them how to play.

D&D has a large audience and WOTC wants to cater to all of them who aren't outright problematic.

This is why there never will be another non-corporate Fantasy TTRPG leader. Those with the money won't be willing to shrink the demo.

 

[mellored]

And yet... D&D 5e is a wonderful game where every day millions of people enjoy going on fantastical adventures.

I get your frustration, but I'm trying to say it's not that bad.

A lot of what made 5e a great game is the 50 years of people complaining about and modifying the it.

 

[Remathilis]

The reason why the Fairy is small isn’t to “leave things open for a tiny fey later.” It’s for the same reason why none of the big races (Minotaurs, Centaurs, Goliaths, Firbolg) are Large even if it would make sense for them to be/their monster equivalents are Large. It’s because 5e is not balanced to support any species that aren’t Small or Medium and WotC thinks it’s too hard to balance too be worth it.

Well, that's because they are.

Large and tiny creatures require an arrangement between player and DM on what the character's limitations are. Not just mechanically (such as carry capacity or food intake) but interacting with the world around them. A large PC might not be able to enter a building that accommodates medium sized beings, while a tiny character cannot manipulate larger objects. So the player has to accept that their character will be excluded from some things by virtue of their size. Some players will be cool with that, but I wager there are enough who wouldn't be that making those options official would be a headache and require everyone to accommodate them. (It is possible that you could have a whole party of large PCs who could not even get into a dungeon door or a whole group of tiny ones unable to move the stone blocks of a trap/puzzle, for example).

Honesty, small encompasses 2 ft and medium up to 8 ft, that's good enough for fairies though goliaths.