D&D (2024) D&D species article

More that their planned solution was panned and they didn't have the time to test another one which would require them to rewrite the already satisfactory species.

The going speculation is that half elves and half orcs will be in setting books.
Honestly Eberron is the best place to bring them back. In that setting they're treated as their own unique thing, and not even called 'half' species. They have their own nations and cultures separate to those of humans, elves, and orcs.
 

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I imagine it'll be covered in some way in the DMG, probably as part of a "custom species" section like we got in 2014 (where the initial versions of aasimar and eladrin debuted) to parallel the custom background section we already know is coming.

Now, precisely HOW they choose to implement any mixed ancestry heritages in the DMG is an open question.
D&D Beyond lists what options are provided in loated books, hence whybwe know there are 51 Monsters in the 2024 PHB and 15 maps in the 2024 DMG.

The 2014 DMG is liated as providing two Species options (Eladrin and Aasamir), the 2024 DMG does not have any Species options listed.
 


More that their planned solution was panned and they didn't have the time to test another one which would require them to rewrite the already satisfactory species.
A damn good thing they didn't go with that too, given the "You can only be one race really!!!" thing is literally coming up in the US politics in a major way right now (obviously won't discuss further), and it would have been an incredible "bad look" for WotC if they'd managed to bring out a PHB with rules that reflected, however well-meant, that pernicious and bizarre attitude at the same time.

Probably means any future solution will avoid that approach too (thank god imo).

WotC managed to make both player camps unhappy!
Sure, but less unhappy than the UA approach by a long margin, which pleased people who wear tone-deaf and forgetful re: racism (again: c.f. the news), but totally appalled anyone actually familiar with racism.

Sometimes nothing is better than a bad thing.

Worst case scenario, I think we'll get the "Pick-a-Parent" sidebar in the DMG and nothing else.
If they do that it's going to be a trashfire of an epic scale given what is happening right now. That would be insane. Completely insane. They'd never live it down. That's a very bad worst case!

Hopefully they've had enough sense to abandon that idea and either just avoid the issue or use extant half-races as an example as you suggest.

So, erasure it is.
It's bad, but it's reversible by, y'know, including them in something in the future. The "pick-a-parent" approach was a huge error that couldn't have been reversed short of a new edition and given its topicality, would have haunted D&D like a spectre for a decade or more.
 

damn good thing they didn't go with that too, given the "You can only be one race really!!!" thing is literally coming up in the US politics in a major way right now (obviously won't discuss further), and it would have been an incredible "bad look" for WotC if they'd managed to bring out a PHB with rules that reflected, however well-meant, that pernicious and bizarre attitude at the same time.

Probably means any future solution will avoid that approach too (thank god imo)
For all the grief that people gave Kyle Brink, This is one of the things that could have been avoided wasting time on if Wizards of the Coast was more diverse.
 

...and yet they have chosen not to over-write it, and the PHB includes guidelines for using species from pere-2024 books. The Half-elf and Half-orc have the same utility as the species in MotM (goblin, kobold, harengon, etc.) and remain completely playable.

HALF-ELF
30' move, 60' darkvision.
Fey ancestry (adv on saves vs charm, sleep)
Any two skill proficiencies

HALF-ORC
30' move, 60' darkvision
Intimidation proficiency, +1 weapon die on crits.
Relentless Endurance (instead of zero to 1 HP, 1/long).

We've literally lost nothing. [EDIT: except a +1 for the Half-elf.]
 
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...and yet they have chosen not to over-write it, and the PHB includes guidelines for using species from pere-2024 books. The Half-elf and Half-orc have the same utility as the species in MotM (goblin, kobold, harengon, etc.) and remain completely playable.

HALF-ELF
30' move, 60' darkvision.
Fey ancestry (adv on saves vs charm, sleep)
Any two skill proficiencies

HALF-ORC
30' move, 60' darkvision
Intimidation proficiency, +1 weapon die on crits.
Relentless Endurance (instead of zero to 1 HP, 1/long).

We've literally lost nothing.
The half elf loses a +1
 


...and yet they have chosen not to over-write it, and the PHB includes guidelines for using species from pere-2024 books. The Half-elf and Half-orc have the same utility as the species in MotM (goblin, kobold, harengon, etc.) and remain completely playable.

HALF-ELF
30' move, 60' darkvision.
Fey ancestry (adv on saves vs charm, sleep)
Any two skill proficiencies

HALF-ORC
30' move, 60' darkvision
Intimidation proficiency, +1 weapon die on crits.
Relentless Endurance (instead of zero to 1 HP, 1/long).

We've literally lost nothing. [EDIT: except a +1 for the Half-elf.]
Mechanics are one thing - a presence in books going forward is another.

Saying "just use the 2014 half-elf/orc stats" only goes so far. They could have chosen to remove the warlock class from the '24 PHB and say "just use the 2014 warlock" too, and the argument that we haven't technically lost anything would be just as valid, yet I don't think people who want to play warlocks would necessarily see it that way.

Particularly if WotC then proceeded to never again acknowledge that warlocks exist within D&D at all, which given the fact that both Phandelver and Planescape each turned an existing half-elf and half-orc NPC into, respectively, a drow and a full orc, isn't necessarily an unfair comparison.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that their claim of wanting to do more with mixed ancestry characters in future books is genuine, but the actions they've taken of over the past couple of years feel, however unintentionally, like they instead would prefer to sweep mixed ancestry characters under the proverbial rug and never talk about them again.

Unless and until I see them talking about publishing something new that touches on the topic of mixed ancestry characters properly, I'm not going to be satisfied with "just use the old stats".
 
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