D&D (2024) D&D species article

[Iosue]

I've come to the conclusion that I don't see any reason to have mechanics attached to species. Attach special abilities to heritages, separate species from that, and have species only govern your height and age. Human raised by dwarves? You get all their special abilities, including tremorsense, dark vision, and dwarven toughness. Elf raised by orcs? You get Adrenaline Rush.

Then go to town with whatever species background you want. Human/elf, dwarf/gnome, orc/halfling, or different ethnic backgrounds for whatever you choose.

As the father of a mixed-race daughter, and uncle to both a mixed-race nephew and a mixed-race niece, I fully support their creating characters that might speak to those diverse heritages. I just don't think that needs to be expressed through special race/species abilities that somehow have to be accounted for mixed-species characters.

 

[Wepwawet]

This is very disappointing, species no longer feel as different and special… and using spells to represent their abilities is a disingenious cop out.

It’s the first time i question having already preordered all 3 books

But obviously i’ll still play it, the class changes are really good.

These species change might make more and more people play humans. I might even impose that as a DM

Humans will take over the (fantasy) world!

 

[Frozen_Heart]

The retcons make this pretty clear. At best, hope for something in Eberron.

Tanis wont be name dropped any time soon.

Yep the retcons are what's giving off red flags to me.

 

[Corinnguard]

I've come to the conclusion that I don't see any reason to have mechanics attached to species. Attach special abilities to heritages, separate species from that, and have species only govern your height and age. Human raised by dwarves? You get all their special abilities, including tremorsense, dark vision, and dwarven toughness. Elf raised by orcs? You get Adrenaline Rush.

Then go to town with whatever species background you want. Human/elf, dwarf/gnome, orc/halfling, or different ethnic backgrounds for whatever you choose.

As the father of a mixed-race daughter, and uncle to both a mixed-race nephew and a mixed-race niece, I fully support their creating characters that might speak to those diverse heritages. I just don't think that needs to be expressed through special race/species abilities that somehow have to be accounted for mixed-species characters.

You can do most of what you just mentioned in EN Publishing's Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. In that RPG, Species has been split up into Heritage and Culture. Heritage covers traits such as Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision and a trait unique to members of your heritage as a Dragonborn's breath weapon or an Elf's Trance. Each Heritage also grants you one or more gifts at 1st level. They're basically racial feats. At 10th level, you get a paragon gift, which is either something new or it's an improved version of your 1st-level gift.

If you want to play a human raised by dwarves in Level Up, all you need to do is pick the Human Heritage and then pick one Dwarven gift from the Dwarven Heritage. So, you can pick up their toughness, but not their Darkvision or Tremorsense.

Your human character, however, can be raised with in a Dwarven culture and gain all of their cultural traits. There are three Dwarven cultures in Level Up to choose from. Mountain, Hill and Deep. Being raised in a Deep Dwarf culture would give your human character Superior Darkvision as well as some spells, some resistances and weapon proficiencies.

 

[Minigiant]

The retcons make this pretty clear. At best, hope for something in Eberron.

Tanis wont be name dropped any time soon.

Nah.

The books were written in a time before Plan B got criticism.

It's basically the Aardling problem.

They created a plan on something without thinking about how the customer base approval. The idea bombed and it was no time left to unbomb it.

 

[Yaarel]

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.

Probably, the Eberron Human-Elf cultures can use 2024 Elf rules, plus culturally specific backgrounds to choose from.

 

[Yaarel]

Best case: We will get full rules on how to mix any two races.

Yeah, there may be a dedicated book in the future for species miscibility. Hence they didnt want to commit to something different in the Players Handbook.

 

[CreamCloud0]

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.

you're probably right, but i can't say i've ever though the eberron names for half elfs and orks are all that intuitive of indicating what they are, but i guess they're not the only species with that issue. but thinking about it LotR's 'numenorean' isn't any more intuitive either...

i feel like i saw someone else mention (though i can't seem to locate the message, it may have been in another thread?) that getting no cross-species mechanics now is probably a better outcome to getting rushed bad ones, and it at least leaves the potential for doing decent ones later.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Probably, the Eberron Human-Elf cultures can use 2024 Elf rules, plus culturally specific backgrounds to choose from.

Why would they do that? Khoravar aren't elves. Their parents aren't elves. Their grandparents aren't elves. They're a unique species, with their own cultures and nations. In a specific setting guide such as Eberron they should be treated as a unique species entry.

It's quite funny as their in world lore suggests that they'd get pretty offended if they were just called 'elves' or 'half elves'.

 

[Yaarel]

Why would they do that? Khoravar aren't elves. Their parents aren't elves. Their grandparents aren't elves. They're a unique species, with their own cultures and nations. In a specific setting guide such as Eberron they should be treated as a unique species entry.

It's quite funny as their in world lore suggests that they'd get pretty offended if they were just called 'elves' or 'half elves'.

The stats of Khoravar and Elves are comparable. Meanwhile, some of the Khoravar culture backgrounds will emphasize Charisma, flavorfully appropriate origin feats and so on.