D&D 5E DMG Excerpt: Creating a New Race

[Joe Liker]

Which of course begs the question of why even include it in the book in the first place.

They include it to point out that it's OK to do it. Those who are new to the game might not feel comfortable monkeying with the rules like this if it were not explicitly shown as an option.

Newer DMs also might not have a good sense of what "wing it" actually entails. The examples of how to balance eladrin and aasimar show some important guidelines and things to think about when building a new race -- without this advice, the novice DM or player is bound to go way overboard in trying to make the new race cool and exciting rather than balanced.

They couldn't possibly spell out every possibility for racial abilities. That is an infinite pool to draw from, and the book only has a finite number of pages. As with every other aspect of 5e, they've given us a good general idea of how to do it and included some useful examples. If, after reading these examples, you still feel completely out to sea in terms of balancing a new race, then you probably shouldn't be trying to create a new race. If I were in a snarky mood, I'd say you shouldn't be trying to DM at all.

 

[Boarstorm]

To be clear, I am absolutely NOT advocating for a a-la cart point buy system like PF's Advanced Race Guide.

Let me expand on the half-giant (from Dark Sun, for those who may not know) example to give you an idea of what I'm thinking.

Here we have a few potential issues.

1) Large size. What effect does that have that I might not have foreseen?
2) A larger than +2 bonus to strength (stronger than a mountain dwarf) seems reasonable. Are there inherent problems from that given bounded accuracy, for instance?
3) Similarly, what happens if I allow them to break the max-20 ability cap for strength? Just to 22 or so, perhaps.
4) Some suggestions for negative racial traits might also be viable. But how to rule-of-thumb it so that the negatives are reasonable and create a race that can play at the same table as a human?

That's all I'm advocating for: guidelines that are slightly more helpful than "compare it to the ones in the book."

 

[Paraxis]

Don't like the excerpt very much at all, we don't need 320 pages of "Just make up your own stuff because we don't want to bother doing it.", I hope the how to construct encounters, classes, magic items, traps, towns, cities, and worlds sections are more helpful and you know give you tools to do the job, instead of advice that is pretty much common sense.

But I do love me some Eladrin, my favorite D&D race from any edition, mmmmm Eladrin Bladesingers my favorite.

 

[steeldragons]

How about half-giant?

What about them? That's a race that was introduced innnn...Dark Sun? [I don't really remember.] I expect a Dark Sun book will have them in there.

I wouldn't "make up" a half-giant PC race since I think it's a bs concept...or allow them in my game unless I were playing Dark Sun [or whatever world they were created to be in].

But as a counter to the point I made? I would say by the reading that you are supposed to compare the new race to the existing playable races, someone making a "half-giant" knows that are 1) steeping outside the boundaries of the existing playable races' power level and ability and 2) is OK with that in their game...and so knows that a half-giant PC is going to be overpowered if not "broken"...which, again, in their particular game/table might not be op or broken at all!

 

[Nellisir]

That's all I'm advocating for: guidelines that are slightly more helpful than "compare it to the ones in the book."

You realize there's more to the section than this one page? I get the impression from the text that there are more guidelines on the previous page.

 

[Boarstorm]

You realize there's more to the section than this one page? I get the impression from the text that there are more guidelines on the previous page.

Yup, and I hope you're right! I'm all about DM-empowerment, but I'm also all about informed decisions.

(Can you be "all about" more than one thing?)

(Also -- I am aware of the irony inherent in the "informed decisions" line and basing an argument off a 1-page preview. I'm hoping no one else notices.)

 

[Boarstorm]

If I were in a snarky mood, I'd say you shouldn't be trying to DM at all.

Good thing you're not in a snarky mood, huh?

But seriously, I don't think giving myself the best shot at making something cool that's neither over- nor under-powered makes me a bad DM.

 

[TerraDave]

To be clear, I am absolutely NOT advocating for a a-la cart point buy system like PF's Advanced Race Guide.

Let me expand on the half-giant (from Dark Sun, for those who may not know) example to give you an idea of what I'm thinking.

Here we have a few potential issues.

1) Large size. What effect does that have that I might not have foreseen?
2) A larger than +2 bonus to strength (stronger than a mountain dwarf) seems reasonable. Are there inherent problems from that given bounded accuracy, for instance?
3) Similarly, what happens if I allow them to break the max-20 ability cap for strength? Just to 22 or so, perhaps.
4) Some suggestions for negative racial traits might also be viable. But how to rule-of-thumb it so that the negatives are reasonable and create a race that can play at the same table as a human?

That's all I'm advocating for: guidelines that are slightly more helpful than "compare it to the ones in the book."

Yes, they are good questions, but this is probably too aggressive for what they are proposing. (though we haven't seen the full preview). Might be a good topic for a unearthed column on the website at some point in the future.

 

[occam]

Some of the guidelines are pretty obvious, albeit unwritten, but some people are bound to miss those unwritten guidelines. What harm in making them written?

There's a reason that 3.X included ECL, flawed though it was.

First, we don't know what is actually written. The note about balancing the eladrin's 2nd-level spell ability implies that there was more detail about tradeoffs before this excerpt.

And ECL involved a whole lot of winging it, and often wasn't that helpful in balancing things. That's not really a good counterexample.

 

[Jester David]

Yeah. I know. Best we could have hoped for I guess.

Y'know how some people get when kender are mentioned? Or warlords or "shout-healing"? Or "HP as Meat v. HP as stuff"? Any of those topics that seem to just elicit a visceral near blinding hatred for no apparent reason?

These eladrin are one of those for me. Pet peeve. Kneejerk Trigger. Whatever you want to call it.

They're something WotC took and changed for no reason other than to create IP for themselves and attempt to reinforce their Feywild concept. Gave them at will teleporting and OF COURSE people thought they were amazing in a mini's tactical game.
who else can just move where they are instantaneously? THEN had the gaul (or utter incompetence of not knowing) to equate them as a "High Elf", instead of "Grey Elves" who were defined as the "Faerie" of Elvin subraces since 1e. It was [just one of many] WotC changes for change's sake to try to make their look kewl and/or say they "made something up" for D&D all by themselves ...and I'm not falling for it.

It's irrational. I know that. But I dislike the eladrin-as-a-pc-race sooooo much. Can't help it.

I dislike a lot of the IP for IP's sake, the burning need WotC has to use terms that can be trademarked. And I *hate* the eladrin as the forced replacement for high elves in most campaign settings. And I hate that WotC apparently felt that gamers and fantasy fans couldn't tell the difference between two races of elves (one is like Legolas and one is like Elrond/Galadriel) so they needed to rename one.

But eladrin themselves...
D&D has always lacked a fae race. The Neil Gaiman or Susanna Clarke fae of otherwordly beauty and cloaked by glamours, the mysterious and amoral creatures of another realm. Fey creatures that are not sprites, leprechauns, or pixies. The eladrin fill that absence nicely.