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

Corinnguard said:

Actually, all Dragonborn have two breath weapons. One does some kind of energy damage; the other is morning breath which can be cured with a wintergreen breath mint. The latter requires a CON save, but only when you are next to one.

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I'm going to call shenanigans. Every race has morning breath. That's not Dragonborn specific.

Maxperson said:

I'm going to call shenanigans. Every race has morning breath. That's not Dragonborn specific.

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Time for a smell test. We're going to have a member of each of the PHB species for you to take a whiff of their morning breath.

Aasimar- "Hmm...not bad, do I detect some heavenly notes in your morning breath?"

Wolfram stout said:

So, to properly run a Dragonborn NPC I have to reference both the MM and the PHB? That may be the correct interpretation but man that pushes 5e further down the list of games I want to run. But then again in 3rd I never added class levels to monsters for the same reason.

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Depends on if you want to customize your NPC stat blocks. Per the DMG, you can add any of the following without changing the CR of a creature.

• Darkvision (many) or Tremorsense (dwarf)
• Size (Goliath)
• Up to two Resistances (dragonborn, tiefling, dwarf)
• Cantrips (aasimar, elf, gnome, tiefling)
• Fey Ancestry (elf, goblin)
• Poison-Tolerant (dwarf)
• Steadfast (halfling)

I would also argue that Halfling Nimbleness and Powerful Build would also not affect CR. IMHO that would be sufficent to make most NPCs. I would also say adding an attack that doesn't do more than their best repeatable attack would also be fine, which is why you can get away with a breath weapon that does damage equal to a weapon attack.

In the world of Greyhawk, planet Oerth.

Here is Dragons Island, off of the supercontinent Oerik. A "dragon prince" governs it, easily understood to be a Dragonborn civilization. Judging by geography, perhaps it draws cultural inspiration from a fusion of Crete and Taiwan. To the north is East Asia-esque areas. To the south Mideast Egypt-Arabia-esque. The island east Levant Israel-Lebanon-Jordan-esque, but mainland Southeast-Asia-esque.

When comparing the official 1e Greyhawk map of the subcontinent of Flanaess, one can see part of Dragons Island. Most of the Island is of of the edge of the bottom left corner, around where the zero degree latitude number is. But a few nearby coastal islands are visible. This is where the Dragonborn civilization can be, relative to Flanaess.

The white area under the "ns" of "Dragons Island" is the part that can be seen on the official map by Gygax.

Yaarel said:

When comparing the official 1e Greyhawk map of the subcontinent of Flanaess, one can see part of Dragons Island. Most of the Island is of of the edge of the bottom left corner, around where the zero degree latitude number is. But a few nearby coastal islands are visible. This is where the Dragonborn civilization can be, relative to Flanaess.

View attachment 424021

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Where's this map from?

Zardnaar said:

Where's this map from?

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The black and white latitude map is from Gygax, World of Greyhawk 1983. Old school official.

The one saying "Dragons Island" is a closeup of a world map of Oerth from Dragon Magazine, Annual 1996.

Going back to the idea that "square 1=humanocentric settings" we do need to explore why those settings were humanocentric? I mean, the argument is that a setting which doesn't put humans at the pinacle will automatically put them at the bottom, so, why are humans the go to race in Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, the first three D&D settings for AD&D?

Well, again, these settings were based on the PHB. It's pretty easy to have a humanocentric setting when all the demi-humans are limited to very small selections of classes and even when they can be a class, they are limited to (more or less) single digit levels. It becomes pretty easy to posit a setting where humans dominate when every single arch-mage, high priest and grand druid can only be human. The highest level non-human priest is limited to 8th and the highest level non-human MU is limited to 11th. IOW, no non-human can EVER craft a magic item. No non-human priest can ever raise the dead. The only non-human grand druid is a half-elf.

It becomes really easy to think of how the setting is going to be humanocentric under those rules.

But, 2024 D&D doesn't have those restrictions. And it shows and has been showing since 3e removed all those restrictions. When you start reading older setting material, you can see example after example that don't make a lot of sense with 3e onwards mechanics in place but make perfect sense in AD&D.

Which is why we should have a 2024 D&D setting. One that's built from the ground up incorporating the assumptions of the rules. If that means that humans get pushed off to the side, then so be it. Maybe humans fit into the setting as the diplomatic species. They are the go betweens between various stronger powers. Maybe the human nations focus on trading instead of colonization. I dunno. Whatever floats your boat. But, as it stands, the older settings make less and less sense as time moves on because the assumptions that were made going into designing those settings don't make any sense anymore.