D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor: Species

[Vaalingrade]

Also, Tolkien elves are Wood Elves.

World Ruining Magic FR elves are High elves.

 

[CleverNickName]

now that we're whittling down the list i've started checking the wiki to see what some of the features of the remaining species i'm not intimately familiar with are and it caused me to consider: what features actually makes a good species?

I've been asking myself that as well.

A good 'species' needs more than just stat boosts. Because--hot take--species ASIs are more a hinderance than anything else and we should get rid of 'em.

At my table, I noticed the players would immediately gravitate to the Ability Score Increases and sort all of the options into optimal choices for whatever class they wanted to play. If that all-important +2 wasn't in their key ability score, the species was completely off the table--no halfling or gnome barbarians, it's either mountain dwarf or half-orc every single time. It started feeling very repetitive, and my players started joke-complaining about it...so I started letting the players distribute those ability scores however they wished. (This was several years before Tasha's came out.)

The result was a lot more variety in the party's composition. Players started asking themselves "what would a tiefling barbarian look like?" instead of rolling up the same cookie-cutter half-orc with an axe. Variant Human was no longer the most popular choice at the table; I started seeing more dragonborn and firbolgs and aasimar.

So that was the big take-away. Make ASIs flexible/customizable, or remove them from the species traits altogether and just add them at character creation ("Okay guys, roll your stats using the 4d6 method. Then increase one by +2, and a different one by +1"). They're not doing us any favors as-written in the Player's Handbook.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Ah, yes. Highperbole Elves. They ruin the game and everything else!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ah, yes. Highperbole Elves. They ruin the game and everything else!

That's mostly because they're wizards though.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's mostly because they're wizards though.

Could be a lot worse.

 

[Scribe]

now that we're whittling down the list i've started checking the wiki to see what some of the features of the remaining species i'm not intimately familiar with are and it caused me to consider: what features actually makes a good species?

Features which lean into an archetype, with the lore to back it up.

 

[AnotherGuy]

There is plenty of Elf still left on that board if you're counting Half-Elves as part of Elves.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes. Yes I will sing at them. And thusly shatter their minds, bending them to my will.

Because Bards are awesome.

 

[CleverNickName]

Yes. Yes I will sing at them. And thusly shatter their minds, bending them to my will.

Because Bards are awesome.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You only think that because that's what we've told you to think.