D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Frozen_Heart]

Conceptually, I got no problem with that. But 5e has over 50 species* at this time, and they're not built for this. It would require yet another gutting and overhaul of the species system and a major blow to backwards compatibility. (Such that it is).

You'd have to rebuild and rebalance each species from every sourcebook, including the setting specific ones. That's a massive undertaking. Probably a sourcebook dedicated to it alone. Of course, you could cut down on the workload by ignoring certain options (no half-warforged or half-kender) but you're pretty much recreating the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" combos problem again, just with a wider net.

I just think such a system is about 11 years too late for 5e. The species system is already a mess with the changes from pre-Tasha to now (with several species never having been updated to the MotM standard and others now no longer matching the 24 power level). The internal logic is not there and it would need a whole rebuild to make it work.

And I just don't know if or when we'll see that.

* Depending on the sources and how you define certain options, such as the change to how subraces are handled.

I feel it could have worked, it's just the old species wouldn't have been eligible for the mixed traits system. They could still be played as they were. But yeah it's too late now, the book is finalised.

And that's all ignoring the fact that WotC evidently finds the very existence of mixed species people to be 'problematic'.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm honestly not a fan of the new orcs. Powerful build replaced the strength bonus, but now powerful build has gone too, meaning that orcs have no link to strength at all. Not only that, but all the art we've been shown just shows them as humans with two small tusks and greyer skin.

Full orcs have lost a big part of both their mechanical and visual identity at this point.

I can see that problem orcs need to be something other than humans with different dental work

I stand by my statement. They are really just halves with the serial numbers filed off.

how is a dragonborn a half-elf, a Dragonborn is not even half dragon, goliaths are a small type of giant so not half anything just short by giant standards

 

[Remathilis]

I feel it could have worked, it's just the old species wouldn't have been eligible for the mixed traits system. They could still be played as they were. But yeah it's too late now, the book is finalised.

And that's all ignoring the fact that WotC evidently finds the very existence of mixed species people to be 'problematic'.

But you're not making a mixed ancestry system, you're making a system where "these 10 options can be intermixed" and "these 30+ cannot". Which might be fine if your intent was to say tieflings and dragonborn can intermix, but tieflings and tabaxi are incompatible." And that doesn't fix what happens when a Drow and a high elf mingle (do I pick one set of spells? Can I pick from either?). You'd just create a second-class status for any species not updated and people will demand THEIR favorite be updated to the be system first and now.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

But you're not making a mixed ancestry system, you're making a system where "these 10 options can be intermixed" and "these 30+ cannot". Which might be fine if your intent was to say tieflings and dragonborn can intermix, but tieflings and tabaxi are incompatible." And that doesn't fix what happens when a Drow and a high elf mingle (do I pick one set of spells? Can I pick from either?). You'd just create a second-class status for any species not updated and people will demand THEIR favorite be updated to the be system first and now.

I mean it's exactly the same as the fact that new subclasses can't be used on the 2014 classes. College of Dance Bard can't be used on a 2014 Bard.

I totally agree it would be better done from a 6e point of view though, rather than a 2024 5.5e point of view, as a clean slate would allow it to be done smoother.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I can see that problem orcs need to be something other than humans with different dental work

Honestly it's not just orcs, it's just that orcs are the most obviously effected.

All the species seem to be more visually human in the art.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Conceptually, I got no problem with that. But 5e has over 50 species* at this time, and they're not built for this. It would require yet another gutting and overhaul of the species system and a major blow to backwards compatibility. (Such that it is).

You'd have to rebuild and rebalance each species from every sourcebook, including the setting specific ones. That's a massive undertaking. Probably a sourcebook dedicated to it alone. Of course, you could cut down on the workload by ignoring certain options (no half-warforged or half-kender) but you're pretty much recreating the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" combos problem again, just with a wider net.

I just think such a system is about 11 years too late for 5e. The species system is already a mess with the changes from pre-Tasha to now (with several species never having been updated to the MotM standard and others now no longer matching the 24 power level). The internal logic is not there and it would need a whole rebuild to make it work.

And I just don't know if or when we'll see that.

* Depending on the sources and how you define certain options, such as the change to how subraces are handled.

Too late for WotC 5e, I agree. Fortunately there's no species WotC or TSR has ever made that I can't make in Level Up. I know because I've done a bunch.

 

[Minigiant]

But you're not making a mixed ancestry system, you're making a system where "these 10 options can be intermixed" and "these 30+ cannot". Which might be fine if your intent was to say tieflings and dragonborn can intermix, but tieflings and tabaxi are incompatible." And that doesn't fix what happens when a Drow and a high elf mingle (do I pick one set of spells? Can I pick from either?). You'd just create a second-class status for any species not updated and people will demand THEIR favorite be updated to the be system first and now.

That's why I don't want a mixed species subsystem.

In my Six Kingdoms setting, hybrid elves are a subspecies of elf.

Blue - High Elves
Green- Wood Elves
Red- Wild Elves and Elf/Orcs
Purple- Dark Elves (Drow and Shadar)
Brown- Mixed Elf/Elf and Dwarf/Elf
Grey- Human/Elf

Halfling/Elves and Mixed Halfling/Halfling are always Lightfoot. Dwarf/Halfling are Stout.

Dragonborn, Kobold, and Lizardfolk can interbreed but the eggs spot out a child randomly of the parents 2 species or a Scaled One.

The issue seems that be WOTC knows that fans want mixes but are afraid to take a stance.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Half-Orc was always bad, cowardly excuse to nto have orcs among playable options. That was always cowardly and poorly-handled. Half-Elf at least has some roleplaying potential due to possibility of aping up Tanis, but I am happy they're both gone from 2024 handbook, I think the options of "play one race with aesthetics of other" from playtests was best solution.

 

[Yaarel]

It is easy for every species to be miscible.

Simply publish the traits of any species in units of a feat, ½-feat, or sometimes a 1½-feat.

Most species traits will be in ½-feat units, but some of the more powerful traits will be a full feat or even 1½, for flight or so on. The bigger traits will use up most of the species design space.

Examples of ½-feats are:
• a slot 1 spell and a slot 2 spell, each per day
• two cantrips
• any origin feat

Swapping feats is easy, and tends to be balanced.

 

[Mistwell]

What are you cutting from the DMG to fit it in?

Oh there is a ton in the DMG which could be cut. So much filler in the DMG, at least last time. Even this time I am betting there are pages and pages of stuff people will not reference ever again after the first read. It's hard to say specifically since we don't have any kind of list yet, other than a mini setting. Ask again when we have a list.