D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

[Yaarel]

At this point, I wonder about merging Halfling and Gnome into the more popular Dwarf. The merger is a way to keep the less popular species relevant and accessible. The merger can bump the popularity of the Dwarf upto the rank of Elf and Human.

Make the size of the Dwarf optionally Medium or Small, like the Human is. (Norse makes Dvergr fully human heights but Saxon Dwerg whence English Dwergh Dwerf makes it saliently short.)

Gnome and Halfling can be Dwarf cultures. Planes can distinguish these cultures saliently:
Border Ethereal Dwarf inhabit the animistic ether under wilderness mountains and wetlands and associate elemental earth and water, Feywild Gnome inhabit the echoes of human houses and structures, and Material Plane Halfling like a hominid species on the land surface.

Even if keeping separate species, the planar themes can help distinguish the flavors of the native cultures.

 

[Warnavick]

Pretty sure they accept recruits of any species.

Sure. The example was given not because the Dragonborn is excluded from that organization but to show how much extra layers of story telling, relationships and implied narrative concerns being a Flaming Fist member on the sword coast is compared to a Dragonborn from across the sea or from a remote poor village from the examples Max gave. One background offers much more than the other in terms of story telling. We know what the Flaming Fist are/represent, their history and relationships because they are integrated into the local setting.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I mean, they already are that in Monsters of the Multiverse and the new PHB: Genasi, Aasamir and Tiwflongs can be wither Small or Medium and are specifically described as coming from any other Species and depicted in the art diversely (there is an Aasamir in the PHB who is clearly from a Dwarven background, there is a Genasi Orc in Call from the Netherdeep, etc.).

i was thinking more in a sense of the half-elf('14 version because '24 deleted them) way where they get a bit of both worlds mechanically, the dwarven aasimar might end up with dwarven toughness and stonecunning as well as celestial resistance and celestial revelation, rather than just saying you're an aasimar who's shorter than most.

 

[Yaarel]

given those species and similar kinds tend not to specify they're actually limited to human parentage, how many people would rather tieflings and such were actually implemented as more of an applicable template or 'substitute subspecies' than an independent species statblock? so you could end up with things like a tiefling goliath, an assimar dwarf or an genasi halfling?

It would be easy to make Awsimar and Tiefling an origin feat.

 

[CreamCloud0]

It would be easy to make Awsimar and Tiefling an origin feat.

i do not think playing any species should require taking an origin feat to do so.

 

[Yaarel]

i was thinking more in a sense of the half-elf('14 version because '24 deleted them) way where they get a bit of both worlds mechanically, the dwarven aasimar might end up with dwarven toughness and stonecunning as well as celestial resistance and celestial revelation, rather than just saying you're an aasimar who's shorter than most.

The Human species can use the extra origin feat to fungibly gain subtle traits from a nonhuman ancestor, and would still be a member of the Human species.

 

[Parmandur]

i was thinking more in a sense of the half-elf('14 version because '24 deleted them) way where they get a bit of both worlds mechanically, the dwarven aasimar might end up with dwarven toughness and stonecunning as well as celestial resistance and celestial revelation, rather than just saying you're an aasimar who's shorter than most.

I don't really see mechanical representation beyond what is in the PHB as necessary.

 

[Yaarel]

i do not think playing any species should require taking an origin feat to do so.

I dont consider a "Half Elf" to be a "species". That said. I am fine with the Eberron setting having the Khorvaire as a separate species originate from a sotospeak magical gene splicing between Elf and Human species.

Normally a Human and an Elf cannot reproduce offspring. In most stories where such offspring did happen, it was the Elf parent who magically shapechanged into a Human. The offspring are Human but there is evidence of the elven magical inheritance. An origin feat accommodates this narrative trope, even taking levels in a caster class can.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, they already are that in Monsters of the Multiverse and the new PHB: Genasi, Aasamir and Tiwflongs can be wither Small or Medium and are specifically described as coming from any other Species and depicted in the art diversely (there is an Aasamir in the PHB who is clearly from a Dwarven background, there is a Genasi Orc in Call from the Netherdeep, etc.).

They aren't really, though. A Tiefling Dwarf would have some differing abilities from a Tiefling Elf. Giving them all the same abilities and then painting them differently on the outside doesn't make them a true blending.

 

[TiQuinn]

At this point, I wonder about merging Halfling and Gnome into the more popular Dwarf. The merger is a way to keep the less popular species relevant and accessible. The merger can bump the popularity of the Dwarf upto the rank of Elf and Human.

Make the size of the Dwarf optionally Medium or Small, like the Human is. (Norse makes Dvergr fully human heights but Saxon Dwerg whence English Dwergh Dwerf makes it saliently short.)

Gnome and Halfling can be Dwarf cultures. Planes can distinguish these cultures saliently:
Border Ethereal Dwarf inhabit the animistic ether under wilderness mountains and wetlands and associate elemental earth and water, Feywild Gnome inhabit the echoes of human houses and structures, and Material Plane Halfling like a hominid species on the land surface.

Even if keeping separate species, the planar themes can help distinguish the flavors of the native cultures.

I think sometimes reducing choices just to make things more compact ends up hurting the overall product. I know some folks get into the whole gnomes vs. halflings debate but generally that's just out of preference and fun. I don't think anything is really gained by trying to roll them up under dwarves. I think you would just have a lot of dissatisfied people.