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

[Corinnguard]

Separate race and class, without the ability for one to limit/influence the other. All Wizards editions of D&D, Pathfinder and Starfinder, etc, many other newer fantasy games.

This is something I happily agree with.

The A5E system allows race to have more design space and more meaningful abilities after 1st level, making race matter more as a design element without imposing old limits.

However, it was A5e's splitting of race into heritage and culture that created that additional design space and those meaningful abilities at 1st and 10th level.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'll grant you that much, I suppose. I'm not trying to argue in favor of racial monocultures, just against the idea that dividing race and culture-- like race and class-- and then assigning almost every possible variable to "culture" is good world or game design. Translating the reality of a world in which every person you meet is a member of the same species into the fantasy of a world where species is the least significant aspect of a person's identity is... a choice, and people keep presenting it as the only solution to the problems it  caused.

Where is this "every possible value" coming from? That isn't at all entailed by this. I am confused as to what that even means.

And why would this make species the "least significant aspect"? I specifically said I like species that include clear, distinguishing features. Like dragon breath. Or being able to teleport. Or having rapid healing. Things that have implications for what it means to have that physiology instead of some other.

Why does everyone keep holding these up as good things? It's possible to do them without explicit mechanical support... but  with explicit mechanical support, all it means is that there are no defined baselines for these corner cases to contrast with. There are no coherent cultures for your interstitial identity to be caught between... and because these 'creative souls' can't even imagine a world in which other people's (and peoples') minds think  differently than their own, all of the 'diverse' cultures and peoples they're throwing in the blender are just empty, disconnected mechanical perks.

Why does it mean that?

You can still have a defined baseline. It's just not a mandatory, enforced baseline. There are absolutely coherent cultures for your interstitial identity to be caught between. I literally mentioned that in the suggestion of someone whose dad is from Cendriane-in-Exile and whose mom is from Darrowdelf or whatever.

Seriously, honestly, do you think that the current system of divorcing heritage from culture offers any complexity and texture, displays any care or subtlety, whatsoever?

Sincerely, honestly: Yes. I am deeply confused why you think that's impossible.

Also...I am not divorcing "heritage" from culture. I am recognizing that, while there can be an influence of physiology on culture, it is 100% possible to belong to a culture while being from a totally different physiological background.

A group of sapient aliens who settled in, say, Texas in the mid-19th-century? Their modern-day descendants are going to be Texan much more than they are Glorboflaxian or whatever. Being "Texan" is not meaningfully driven by having bilateral symmetry or seeing a spectrum between 380-750 nm.

That resolving the conflict between nature and nurture by denying nature even exists is nuanced and says something meaningful about either?

Where did I deny that? I'm baffled by this.

In real life, other cultures and governments are composed of other human beings and are somehow still more different than you're willing to acknowledge. What you've said is true enough, but it has no bearing on this argument.

I don't see how I'm not recognizing that, so I don't know how to respond.

I'm not talking about social conformity being applied by cultural authorities. I was never talking about that.

Okay. It's hard to distinguish, then, what your actual point is from that. Because it looks very much like cultural essentialism: culture is rooted in, and defined by, the physiology of the people who started it. You cannot adopt a culture that originated in a physiology different from your own. That's a position I reject.

I am talking about the fact,  obvious to the point of  tautological, that social behaviors that stem from the human brain will be different in people that do not have human brains, and behaviors that stem from the human soul-- in settings for which the existence of such is a given-- will be different in beings that do not have human souls.

That is not obvious, to say nothing of tautological.

Barring a few very rare exceptions, the species of D&D have:

Spoiler: Long list

• bilateral symmetry
• a single pair of arms, and either one or (rarely) two pairs of legs
• those arms end in some number of digits (usually 5, rarely 4 or even 3), one of which is opposable, allowing hand-like behavior
• a size between two and eight feet tall, and usually between four and six-and-a-half feet
• weight between 30 lb and 400 lb, fairly strongly correlated with height (e.g. a tall dragonborn might be 6'9" and 350 lb, while a short halfling might be 2'1" and 35 lb)
• a single head with two eyes
• vision centered around the 380-750 nm range, often but not always augmented with superior low-light vision (e.g. if this were IRL, they have a higher density of "rod" cells relative to humans)
• auditory senses in the range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz, 0 dB to ~120 dB, with similar responses to similar sound configurations (e.g. frequency ratios close to small-numbe
• a mouth used for both breathing and eating
• the ability to speak verbally, using a common set of characteristics (voicing, stress, articulation points, etc.) such that no language spoken by any of them is impossible for a different physiology to express (e.g. no "speaking through two windpipes to create two-part harmony")
• a diet consisting of the same types of nutrients, though sometimes in varied proportions (e.g. dragonborn need more protein than humans do, but both get protein from the same sources)
• vastly preferring cooked/prepared foods for their superior nutritional value
• an internal body temperature in the high-30C/low-40C range
• wearing some amount of clothing in order to help sustain this body temperature
• a "childhood" phase of multiple (3+) years, a pubescent phase of several (5+) years, and then reaching maturity sometime between the middle and end of the second decade of life (15-20 years old)
• societal groups, not disconnected family units nor lone hunters etc.

And that's just looking at the physiological or near-physiological elements (e.g. food and clothes). It's not considering the commonalities in terms of building/clothing materials, or in terms of knowledge reached by similar means e.g. mathematics, engineering, and magical theory are easily shared between different physiologies without significant issue.

Why should we presume that other sapient beings would think in fundamentally different ways, or have inherently radically different cognitive processes or outputs, when they have so damn many things extremely closely in common? And I could have gone even further if I excluded dragonborn--nearly all species specifically have precisely five fingers on each hand, for example, and are specifically mammalian, giving live birth, suckling their young, etc. (Dragonborn also suckle, or at least they did in 4e; they are sort of like monotremes with reptilian scales.)

My point being, with the sole major exception of lifespan, the vast majority of playable species in D&D are overwhelmingly similar in most ways. It is not reasonable to assume that they would automatically have radically different behavior as a consequence. Indeed, one would expect that their common nutritional needs, sizes, senses, temperatures, etc., etc., would incline them to similar behavioral patterns, not wildly divergent ones. That doesn't mean their cultures can't be hugely different from one another! But the differences are not fundamentally dependent on physiology.

Being raised amongst a different people might alter the expression of social behavior-- but it still won't make the dwarf or the dragonborn think  or feel or act like their human foster siblings because they're not just shaped differently on the outside.

Why would their actions be radically different when they eat the same food, drink the same drink, have similar body temperatures, form similar societal structures, hear the same kinds of music, see the same lights, etc.

I'm not saying these questions shouldn't be asked and the game rules shouldn't support exploring them. I'm saying that the solution that people keep trying to impose on those questions is vapid and causes far more problems than it purportedly solves.

It isn't vapid, and it's rather frustrating that you characterize it as such without considering the extensive and extremely important ways that most playable species are, in fact, extraordinarily similar to one another. Mostly because they've been created by human minds, and thus they are not (as TVTropes would put it) "starfish aliens".

True xenofiction is extremely difficult to write, and even harder to roleplay. There is no xenofiction going on with the vast majority of D&D. Calling a lack of xenofiction vapid is grossly insulting to most people who enjoy fantasy worlds.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not really. Its at the high end, but anyone taking it because they feel obliged is overvaluing it.

I'm with the Stew on this one. Elven Accuracy is uniquely overpowered in a way other feats aren't, because it tinkers with fundamental game mechanics in a genuinely unique way. Nothing else changes how advantage itself actually operates.

 

[Horwath]

I'm with the Stew on this one. Elven Accuracy is uniquely overpowered in a way other feats aren't, because it tinkers with fundamental game mechanics in a genuinely unique way. Nothing else changes how advantage itself actually operates.

EA is not over powered, but it might be the strongest racial feat of 5E, problem is that others are mostly trash tier that no one ever takes.

 

[Corinnguard]

How many fantasy RPGs today still use the word Race when describing beings such as Elves and Dragonborn?

Pathfinder 2e- Ancestry
A5e- Heritage and Culture
ToV- Lineage and Heritage
5.5e D&D- Species

These four RPGs AFAIK are the only ones that moved away from using the word Race. What about other RPGs such as Daggerheart?

 

[Remathilis]

How many fantasy RPGs today still use the word Race when describing beings such as Elves and Dragonborn?

Pathfinder 2e- Ancestry
A5e- Heritage and Culture
ToV- Lineage and Heritage
5.5e D&D- Species

These four RPGs AFAIK are the only ones that moved away from using the word Race. What about other RPGs such as Daggerheart?

Daggerheart uses ancestry

 

[Remathilis]

Where is this "every possible value" coming from? That isn't at all entailed by this. I am confused as to what that even means.

And why would this make species the "least significant aspect"? I specifically said I like species that include clear, distinguishing features. Like dragon breath. Or being able to teleport. Or having rapid healing. Things that have implications for what it means to have that physiology instead of some other.


Why does it mean that?

You can still have a defined baseline. It's just not a mandatory, enforced baseline. There are absolutely coherent cultures for your interstitial identity to be caught between. I literally mentioned that in the suggestion of someone whose dad is from Cendriane-in-Exile and whose mom is from Darrowdelf or whatever.


Sincerely, honestly: Yes. I am deeply confused why you think that's impossible.

Also...I am not divorcing "heritage" from culture. I am recognizing that, while there can be an influence of physiology on culture, it is 100% possible to belong to a culture while being from a totally different physiological background.

A group of sapient aliens who settled in, say, Texas in the mid-19th-century? Their modern-day descendants are going to be Texan much more than they are Glorboflaxian or whatever. Being "Texan" is not meaningfully driven by having bilateral symmetry or seeing a spectrum between 380-750 nm.


Where did I deny that? I'm baffled by this.


I don't see how I'm not recognizing that, so I don't know how to respond.


Okay. It's hard to distinguish, then, what your actual point is from that. Because it looks very much like cultural essentialism: culture is rooted in, and defined by, the physiology of the people who started it. You cannot adopt a culture that originated in a physiology different from your own. That's a position I reject.


That is not obvious, to say nothing of tautological.

Barring a few very rare exceptions, the species of D&D have:

Spoiler: Long list

• bilateral symmetry
• a single pair of arms, and either one or (rarely) two pairs of legs
• those arms end in some number of digits (usually 5, rarely 4 or even 3), one of which is opposable, allowing hand-like behavior
• a size between two and eight feet tall, and usually between four and six-and-a-half feet
• weight between 30 lb and 400 lb, fairly strongly correlated with height (e.g. a tall dragonborn might be 6'9" and 350 lb, while a short halfling might be 2'1" and 35 lb)
• a single head with two eyes
• vision centered around the 380-750 nm range, often but not always augmented with superior low-light vision (e.g. if this were IRL, they have a higher density of "rod" cells relative to humans)
• auditory senses in the range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz, 0 dB to ~120 dB, with similar responses to similar sound configurations (e.g. frequency ratios close to small-numbe
• a mouth used for both breathing and eating
• the ability to speak verbally, using a common set of characteristics (voicing, stress, articulation points, etc.) such that no language spoken by any of them is impossible for a different physiology to express (e.g. no "speaking through two windpipes to create two-part harmony")
• a diet consisting of the same types of nutrients, though sometimes in varied proportions (e.g. dragonborn need more protein than humans do, but both get protein from the same sources)
• vastly preferring cooked/prepared foods for their superior nutritional value
• an internal body temperature in the high-30C/low-40C range
• wearing some amount of clothing in order to help sustain this body temperature
• a "childhood" phase of multiple (3+) years, a pubescent phase of several (5+) years, and then reaching maturity sometime between the middle and end of the second decade of life (15-20 years old)
• societal groups, not disconnected family units nor lone hunters etc.

And that's just looking at the physiological or near-physiological elements (e.g. food and clothes). It's not considering the commonalities in terms of building/clothing materials, or in terms of knowledge reached by similar means e.g. mathematics, engineering, and magical theory are easily shared between different physiologies without significant issue.

Why should we presume that other sapient beings would think in fundamentally different ways, or have inherently radically different cognitive processes or outputs, when they have so damn many things extremely closely in common? And I could have gone even further if I excluded dragonborn--nearly all species specifically have precisely five fingers on each hand, for example, and are specifically mammalian, giving live birth, suckling their young, etc. (Dragonborn also suckle, or at least they did in 4e; they are sort of like monotremes with reptilian scales.)

My point being, with the sole major exception of lifespan, the vast majority of playable species in D&D are overwhelmingly similar in most ways. It is not reasonable to assume that they would automatically have radically different behavior as a consequence. Indeed, one would expect that their common nutritional needs, sizes, senses, temperatures, etc., etc., would incline them to similar behavioral patterns, not wildly divergent ones. That doesn't mean their cultures can't be hugely different from one another! But the differences are not fundamentally dependent on physiology.


Why would their actions be radically different when they eat the same food, drink the same drink, have similar body temperatures, form similar societal structures, hear the same kinds of music, see the same lights, etc.


It isn't vapid, and it's rather frustrating that you characterize it as such without considering the extensive and extremely important ways that most playable species are, in fact, extraordinarily similar to one another. Mostly because they've been created by human minds, and thus they are not (as TVTropes would put it) "starfish aliens".

True xenofiction is extremely difficult to write, and even harder to roleplay. There is no xenofiction going on with the vast majority of D&D. Calling a lack of xenofiction vapid is grossly insulting to most people who enjoy fantasy worlds.

I think, on a purely meta design level, the most interesting species in D&D is warforged. They are not biological. They have no biological sex, no need for intercourse, no ability to procreate without outside assistance. They do not eat, breathe, or sleep. They have no defined culture except for that of war and the nations that created them. They are mostly of uniform design and size, have no natural predators, and are immune or resistant to a lot of conditions humans aren't (poison, disease, fatigue, high heat and cold temperature, air quality and altitude or lack of.) their bodies are easily adaptable and easy to resist repair or replace damaged parts. Truly, they are as far from human as anything can be, and the only reason they aren't further removed is that the designers have realized they have to be remotely balanced with other species.

But they are still humans in funny (and cool) hats because we only can play them as such. We still think in terms of love, fear, hate, or survival. Would a creature created for war need complex emotions like love? Would a creature with no biological necessities understand want? Even Eberron hedges their bet by implying that warforged have souls (and thus are susceptible to necromancy and raise dead) and thus capable of complex emotional and spiritual reflection.

And the community has pushed to make them more human in playing them. They have genders (sometimes modifying their bodies to assume more masculine or feminine body styles), have hobbies and create art, wearing clothes despite not needing body covering, and a slew of them have taken to the Mournlands to create a society of their own, complete with creating their own "Creator" deity. Even if they are utterly inhuman, we make them human.

Which is why fighting to make dwarves and elves "inhuman" is a lost cause. Because even when handed the most inhuman species possible, we make the goal of playing one to humanize it.

 

[Horwath]

I think, on a purely meta design level, the most interesting species in D&D is warforged. They are not biological. They have no biological sex, no need for intercourse, no ability to procreate without outside assistance. They do not eat, breathe, or sleep. They have no defined culture except for that of war and the nations that created them. They are mostly of uniform design and size, have no natural predators, and are immune or resistant to a lot of conditions humans aren't (poison, disease, fatigue, high heat and cold temperature, air quality and altitude or lack of.) their bodies are easily adaptable and easy to resist repair or replace damaged parts. Truly, they are as far from human as anything can be, and the only reason they aren't further removed is that the designers have realized they have to be remotely balanced with other species.

But they are still humans in funny (and cool) hats because we only can play them as such. We still think I'm terms of love, fear, hate, or survival. Would a creature created for war need complex emotions like love? Would a creature with no biological necessities understand want? Even Eberron hedges their bet by implying that warforged have souls (and thus are susceptible to necromancy and raise dead) and thus capable of complex emotional and spiritual reflection.

And the community has pushed to make them more human in playing them. They have genders (sometimes modifying their bodies to assume more masculine or feminine body styles), have hobbies and create art, wearing clothes despite not needing body covering, and a slew of them have taken to the Mournlands to create a society of their own, complete with creating their own "Creator" deity. Even if they are utterly inhuman, we make them human.

Which is why fighting to make dwarves and elves "inhuman" is a lost cause. Because even when handed the most inhuman species possible, we make the goal of playing one to humanize it.

This is cool take on the warforged.
another one that I like is that warforged are people. Of various species.
They are made with their consent or not into warforged.

that is why I like them as a template, maybe even as (overpowered) Origin feat.

why would someone do this? Maybe they want more power, maybe limited immortality, maybe it's compulsory service for military out of punishment for crimes.

having it as a template also leaves option for characters to gain that state later on.

Wizards of Thay may be good candidate in FR to do such procedures, or best gnome artificers of Lantan.
Even elves with their long life span have more fear of death than short lived races so they opt themselves for it.

also; why no darkvision of warforged, if I were making an army of robot soldiers? I would sure give them integrated nighvision goggles.

 

[Umbran]

I do not understand what your objective is; I don't think you really do, either.

Mod Note:
If you want this conversation to continue without moderator intervention, I strongly advise you not make it personal. If you don't like what someone has to say, we recommend you disengage, rather than start attacking the person behind the words.

 

[M_Natas]

Fir my own 5e variant/homebrew I m'm creating a new system, that, of course is way more complicated and bloated ... ah, I mean offers way more choices.

You pick:

• You Bios - your actual species, really only biological abilities here.
• Your Upbringing - where you grew up and how it influenced you. Did you grew up in a merchant family? A village in the wilderness? In a seafarers family? Do you grew up underground and have Darkvision (the only way to get Darkvision - I took ot away from all Species!!!! If you want it, you grew up underground!)
• Your Vocation - what you actually learned and trained in before you became an adventurer - a cook, a guard, a hunter? - gives you the strongest feat
• a hobby - what are you doing for fun - gives you also a small ribbon feat .
• an adventures spark - why are you adventuring - fits into the inspiration mechanic - act according to your spark and gain Inspiration for it (once per long rest, self declarable, vetoable by DM)

This shall replace Species/Race and Background Choice.

Players can either pick completely freely or DMs can create for their world packages like "in this vanity are three Species, this quarters/upbringings, those vocations ... and over here in the wildness those Species with those upbringings and vocations..."