D&D (2024) D&D species article

[Remathilis]

WotC didn't separate cultural elements. They removed them.

True, but Level Up and TotV did. And my point is from a design perspective, that's akin to removing them because if they are swappable, they cannot be used to balance biological advantages.

 

[Minigiant]

True, but Level Up and TotV did. And my point is from a design perspective, that's akin to removing them because if they are swappable, they cannot be used to balance biological advantages.

There is a third option. Or is it fourth.

Turn cultural elements into biological elements.

Orcs have a natural chopping swing in their shoulder and arm joints. Orcs are naturally born choppas. Orc babies chop things all the time.

Sorta how humans and dog naturally like sticks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True, but Level Up and TotV did. And my point is from a design perspective, that's akin to removing them because if they are swappable, they cannot be used to balance biological advantages.

Except they're still in those games, and not in WotC's.

And anyway, A5e still makes different heritages mechanically interesting and distinct, as I said above. Can't speak for TotV (haven't read it).

 

[Clint_L]

see this is the issue, they're not meant to be representing 'a canadian' but rather 'a human', you make a correct point that not every single dwarf in existence should innately know how to speak dwarven, how to weild a warhammer and work a forge but the comparison is not canadian VS spanish VS english, it's much closer to tiger VS horse VS gorilla, the species in question being sapient does not overwrite how their fundamental biologies are specialised and adapted to certain tasks, it's not a 'sterotype' that tigers are adapted for short burst chase ambushes and are suited for climbing with their claws while horses have highly perceptive senses and the stamina for long periods of overland travel.

Yeah, that's the entire problem. Biological determinism when applied to people is racist when it starts equating cultural stereotypes with evolved adaptations. Which has been done a lot in history, and continues to be done today.

So saying that a Tortle has high AC because of their shell is fine. Saying that they all speak Tortle and are proficient in some skill or tool is not. In the game of D&D, Tortles are sentient people as much as are humans.

 

[WanderingMystic]

That was a good move on A5e's part, true, but you'll notice that Level Up also has no issue finding ways to make each heritage mechanically interesting and distinct.

Yeah Micah, the heritage and culture is my favorite part about A5E, that and how Artificers work.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've started skimming these posts about WOTC 2024 IS MAKING EVERYTHING SPELLS FOR ALL SPECIES!!!

But I want to take a moment and just take a look at what has actually, factually happened.

Humans: No spells. In fact, they gained a unique ability that ties into their core theme. It is actually an even more impressive jump in design, if you consider that this is the new base human, and the old base human was +1 to six stats.
Dwarves: No spells. Gained a unique ability that ties into their core theme.
Halflings: No spells. Didn't gain any new abilities, but became a more consistent package.
Dragonborn: No spells. Compared to the 2014 PHB version (which is the version they were redesigning) it gained a lot of unique abilities that tie into their core themes.
Orcs: No spells. Technically didn't gain anything new compared to their most recent version, just the ability to use their new iconic ability more often.
Goliaths: Complete redesign.... and no spells. None of the options in the playtest had spells at all.
Aasimar: Very interesting ability to swap revelations, giving Aasimar a thematic counter to tieflings by being more mercurial and changing in their abilities instead of static. Not redesigned to have spells in 2024, except for the light cantrip that they had previously.
Tieflings: Have spells! Just like they did in 2014. But compared to the 2014 PHB, they now have a lot more options, going from one version to three.
Elves: This one is a little complicated. Drow already had spells, so this isn't a redesign. High elves ALSO had spells already, and just gained more to match Drow. So, technically you could argue that the Wood Elf gained spells into of MAsk of the Wild, but they also gained spells in the EXACT same way that the Drow and the High Elf got. Was this because they wanted to shove every possible ability into spells... or because they wanted to make sure the three elven ancestry options matched in design? Well, for me, I think it was the second. Because once they removed the Drow's sunlight sensitivity (a good move) they suddenly had an option much, much stronger than the other two. And, again, the team was redesigning the PHB options.
Gnomes: The only place where I can say for certain that abilities that were not spells were turned into spells. And... in the case of the Forest Gnome getting speak with animals, I've already argued why that is BETTER for players and DMs, by answering a lot of vague questions from the original ability. Like whether or not you could understand the animal. And then Rock gnomes got their crafting tied to prestidigitation, which I agree is annoying... but is also undeniably more powerful than what they used to get. Because it now has more abilities, and all the abilities it had before.


So, looking through every single species option presented, there is a case for a SINGLE option getting spells instead of abilities when it could have otherwise gotten abilities. And it was GNOMES, who are a magical race who HAD innate magic as part of their story.

 

[WanderingMystic]

So being compleatly honest I have to ask, why do people miss or want the half orc and half elf? The only reason I ever played a half elf is because it was mechanically advantageous but never really mattered for rp reasons. The bonus to charisma with the skills was great for some builds but to be honest for me never felt like it was special. Likewise for half orcs, half orcs were created because orcs were a monterous race and they wanted something more civil. Now in Dark Sun I loved Mules because they fit a specific nitch for that world and had a great mechanical feel to them.

 

[Argyle King]

So being compleatly honest I have to ask, why do people miss or want the half orc and half elf? The only reason I ever played a half elf is because it was mechanically advantageous but never really mattered for rp reasons. The bonus to charisma with the skills was great for some builds but to be honest for me never felt like it was special. Likewise for half orcs, half orcs were created because orcs were a monterous race and they wanted something more civil. Now in Dark Sun I loved Mules because they fit a specific nitch for that world and had a great mechanical feel to them.

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[Scribe]

So being compleatly honest I have to ask, why do people miss or want the half orc and half elf? The only reason I ever played a half elf is because it was mechanically advantageous but never really mattered for rp reasons. The bonus to charisma with the skills was great for some builds but to be honest for me never felt like it was special. Likewise for half orcs, half orcs were created because orcs were a monterous race and they wanted something more civil. Now in Dark Sun I loved Mules because they fit a specific nitch for that world and had a great mechanical feel to them.

Because those options represent tropes which have distinct meaning and application to people's lived experience, because its an 'update' not a new rule set, and because those options have existed for decades.

 

[WanderingMystic]

Because those options represent tropes which have distinct meaning and application to people's lived experience, because its an 'update' not a new rule set, and because those options have existed for decades.

So I can understand that but I guess I just don't see why saying that your have the racial bonuses of an elf but are a half breed isn't enough.

In a perfect world they would have set the races up so that you could easily mix and match abilities but we should have known that they would never get that granular.
( To me the cantrips + 1st, +2nd level spell is equivalent to a background feat)