Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8438680" data-attributes="member: 58172">Recently, the 5e designers updated the format for races.This race format discontinues and replaces the subrace format. There are no longer "subraces". However there are still "variants" of a race. This thread explores the implications of the format update.Regarding jargon. When we talk informally about a "race", we are actually talking about the "lineage". Technically, a "race" only refers to the statistics that a player character can use when choosing a lineage. A "monster" refers to the statistics that non-player characters can use. Each lineage can include variants for race stats and variants for monster stats.There are official lineages, including elf, dwarf, dragonborn, and tiefling. There is also an official custom lineage that gives a player some limited tools to design a new lineage that isnt one of these.Overall, the impact of the formatting decisions, appears to make the concept of a lineage more fluid − without a defining essence. There are many ways to stat a lineage, including race variants (like high elf or astral elf, or gem dragonborn or metallic dragonborn), as well as monster variants (like spring eladrin or drow arachnomancer). Each variant may or may not share certain features with other variants.In a way, the "new" format is what has always existed in the Players Handbook and other core books, since 2014. Consider the human.In the current terminology, D&D 5e has a human lineage. There are two different variant race stats that a player character can choose from when choosing the human lineage. One is with a feat choice and one without. In our campaigns, we like feats and take them for granted, so our player humans exhibit a feat. But if a player wants the featless human variant stats, that option exists in our campaigns too. Neither variant is any less human. Both variants are equally and fully human.Meanwhile the various monsters for the human lineage that a DM can choose from, including archmage, bandit, or potentially even a baker if necessary, are equally human.The human lineage includes many race variants and monster variants.By analogy, the various statistical variants for an elf are all equally an elf: a full member of the elf lineage.The chromatic, gem, and metallic are all variants of the dragonborn lineage, and are equally a dragonborn.A setting might only have stats for wood elf and astral elf, and they are equally an elf.The statistics for a lineage are fluid. The race variants use the same race format but may or may not fill it out with certain same features. Likewise the monster variants share the same statblock format and may or may not fill it out with the same features.</blockquote>

Verification