D&D General 5E species with further choices and differences

[CreamCloud0]

sure, that works, but maybe you could get something extra.

IE:
Fire legacy:
requires Tiefling or Fire genasy. 4+ level
+1 int, wis or cha
you know the Fireball spell
you can cast it once per Long rest. you can also cast it with any spell slot 3rd level of higher as normal.

my point is unless every species has it's own dedicated species feat slot for that 'something extra' it's going to be competing against the player picking ASI and class feats, it's the same problem feats already have but with another layer of selection to filter them out.

 

[Horwath]

my point is unless every species has it's own dedicated species feat slot for that 'something extra' it's going to be competing against the player picking ASI and class feats, it's the same problem feats already have but with another layer of selection to filter them out.

that is true.
you could always houserule to add extra feat slots.
my favorite levels are 2,5,9,13,17,20

maybe some feats can be ruled out of this extra slots, IE: GWM, PAM, HAM, SS, CE, DW,

generally, feats that give you new stuff are good for this extra slots:
fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic(my favorite 5E feat), telepathic, skilled,(with +1 ASI), skill expert, Skulker,

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Regarding culture being meaningless and having no mechanical benefit in D&D 2024, may I suggest A5E Cultures and Heritages as a much improved alternative? The A5E Cultures are well done and have significant mechanical benefit and flavor for your character.

3PP is functionally useless to me as a player, so it doesn't really matter how amazeballs the product is, I'm 99.99999% surely never going to get to use it.

Regarding feats, I think D&D 2024 did an excellent job with feats. It significantly improved over 5E, by having most D&D 2024 feats give +1 in an ability score with better power balance between feats.

And I still see that as a lame half-measure. Feats should not be competing with stats. Period.

In 5E D&D, there are a lot of sub-par feats that you should avoid taking until at least you have 20 in your primary ability score. As you commented, this means that typically your level 4 and level 8 feats go into adding +2 to your ability score each time to raise it from 16 starting to 18 at 4th level to 20 at 8th level.

In D&D 2024, given that most feats now provide +1 to an ability score, you may want to start with an odd ability score at level 1, say 17 in your primary ability, then at level 4 pick a feat that gives some nice benefit and +1 to that primary ability score.

I just do not see that as being in any way a major nor significant change, because you're still giving up stats for the actual cool stuff. You're just giving up half your stats, not all your stats. That's like saying being able to keep one of your eyes is an improvement over being blinded in both eyes. I mean...yes...objectively that's better. It's still not acceptable, at least to me.

I like the origin feats that they added in D&D 2024. Making it so that everyone gets an origin feat at level one does add that feat at an early level to add some mech and flavor to your character. I just don't like that they tied the origin feats to particular backgrounds, but that issue has been well hashed out already in another thread.

I like the idea of Origin feats....mostly because they bring back at least a shadow of what Themes were back in 4e. Because 4e races, Themes, and Backgrounds, taken together, were actually pretty good and diverse. There were plenty of things to boost certain thematic (or convention-defying) combinations or otherwise articulate the aesthetic and concept of various races. (Consider, for example, that Tiefling Paladin was actually a pretty cool and well-supported option, channeling hellish power because Asmodeus is actually a god, in addition to being the most powerful of devils.) But, as with so many things, 5e gives a half-measure and does its damnedest to avoid committing to anything.

And personally I'd go the other way. I think they didn't make enough genuinely distinct Origin feats, didn't do enough to make the various Backgrounds actually distinct from one another. "Lucky" and "Skilled" don't exactly ooze with flavor, if you catch my meaning. They're the puffed rice disk of character growth: so inoffensively nondescript it's hard to feel anything at all about them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Culture should mean something more in D&D, not less.

I fully agree.

Anything your characters learns while growing up in a particular culture, like the ones presented in A5e, shapes your character's origin within a given setting by giving them traits with mechanical benefits (weapon and armor proficiencies, language, skill proficiencies, bonus spells, resistances).

As said above: being 3PP, it may as well not even exist, as far as what is actually accessible to me as a player. It could be the most amazing piece of TTRPG content ever written, and I would never know. I'm not saying this flippantly. Even with a GM who is in favor of 3PP, which I actually do have, I'm not going to ask him to spend his own money, just so that I can force everyone else at the table to jump through extra mechanical hoops when creating their characters. That would be unbelievably selfish.

(And yes, it would in fact be asking him to spend money, because Hussar uses Fantasy Grounds, and you'd have to pay money to get the Level Up rules package added to his campaigns. To the tune of ~$30, possibly plus extra tax or currency conversion issues.)

So, respectfully: 3PP answers are at very best useless, even when I do have a GM who likes 3PP content and would approve it for his game.

5.5 didn't so much as fail by not making culture matter as it left the task up to the players to fill out.

I don't see any meaningful difference between these statements.

 

[Remathilis]

If some parts of those features are too powerful for first few levels(flight, usage of a 3rd level spell) that is a good way to have that gated behind a feat.

It can also describe in RP terms that you maybe posses a special genetic trait that is rare in your species.

Or is just too much for a "species budget" comparing to other species.

but, maybe the biggest problem in 5E is common pool for all types all feats and ASIs.

maybe it should be 3 pools:

Combat feats, non-combat feats, ASIs.

also idea that I have is that some species are just templates.
and you get them via 1st level feat(maybe later if it's RP appropriate).

1st: buff up 1st level feats to a "strong" full feat that you would like to take at 4th level without attached ASI and not feeling robbed.

then turn Aasimars, tieflings, warforged, shifters, dhampirs, etc... into 1st level feats.
with added 4th level upgrade with +1 ASI if needed or if it's too much for a 1 feat budget.

then you can have difference betweem human aasimars, and elven aasimars, elven tieflings(fey'ri) and orc tieflings, gnome warforged or human worforged, orc dhampirs or dwarf dhampirs. In both RP terms and mechanics.

Ofc, this can also be used for "half-species".
you get: Elven touched feat. and gain some or all elven features on your non elven species, making you a half elf.

also, I like the idea if A5E of later level species power, but it is too late and not that powerful, 5th level would be more appropriate so maybe all campaigns see those features.

It was suggested a while back that hybrid species could be emulated with an origin feat you swap out (or take as a human) and that was rejected as a feat tax on playing a half-elf.

Then again, today we are supposed to be getting 16 "vampiric" feats so let's see what comes of that.

 

[Remathilis]

my point is unless every species has it's own dedicated species feat slot for that 'something extra' it's going to be competing against the player picking ASI and class feats, it's the same problem feats already have but with another layer of selection to filter them out.

Every time people try to fix 5e, they accidentally invent Pathfinder 2e.

 

[Horwath]

It was suggested a while back that hybrid species could be emulated with an origin feat you swap out (or take as a human) and that was rejected as a feat tax on playing a half-elf.

Then again, today we are supposed to be getting 16 "vampiric" feats so let's see what comes of that.

I don't see why it would be a tax if you get elven features that are in line with power level of a Origin feat.

 

[Horwath]

Every time people try to fix 5e, they accidentally invent Pathfinder 2e.

except that racial feats in PF2 are really bad, you could give like 5 of them at 1st level and it would be: yeah, whatever.
it's even an official module where you get twice the number of racial feats in PF2.

 

[Tessarael]

Every time people try to fix 5e, they accidentally invent Pathfinder 2e.

Pathfinder 2E did do a good job with species feats, in my opinion.

 

[Remathilis]

except that racial feats in PF2 are really bad, you could give like 5 of them at 1st level and it would be: yeah, whatever.
it's even an official module where you get twice the number of racial feats in PF2.

Concept =/= execution