D&D (2024) Do you think they will add more races to PHB2024 to make up for dropping other stuff?

[Parmandur]

Most Planetouched are derived from Humans, Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi and the rest are not exclusive to Human bloodlines.

This is directly contradicted in Monsters of the Multiverse, and no doubt that is their story going forwards as has already been seen with Planetouched NPCs in adventures (the Orcish Genasi in Call of the Netherdeep, for example): a Genasi or Tiefling can come from any mortal Species background.

 

[Parmandur]

As I recall, they didn't even ask about the mixed-ancestry stuff in the survey(s).

There were comment boxes. Point is, there is no particular reason to believe that they received negative feedback on the change.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You are completely right. There's no slippery slope here though, it's the actual position.

Either everything valid, or nothing is.

Which is why my position is, Grandfather in the PHB half orc and elf, and grab bag custom the rest.

The slippery slope I was talking about (in this case - it's all over a lot of other discussions) is the idea that just because the game might someday be designed with species interchangeability does not mean that a DM who does not want to see a "Plasmoid-Tabaxi" is going to wind up being forced to play with one.

I think your position is a fine idea, though.

 

[Scribe]

The slippery slope I was talking about (in this case - it's all over a lot of other discussions) is the idea that just because the game might someday be designed with species interchangeability does not mean that a DM who does not want to see a "Plasmoid-Tabaxi" is going to wind up being forced to play with one.

I think your position is a fine idea, though.

Oh, yeah I get you then. No Goo-Catgirl in my realm thank you.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It kind of feels bad to me to have any of the combinations be possible - unless it's explicitly passed off as magic and not interbreeding. If it's described as them all able to interbreed, then it kind of feels to me like treating groups of people like breeds of dogs. Which can go to yeuchy places pretty darn quickly.

I think the point would be that it could have whatever story you want it to have for the given character. Your halfling-tabaxi could be a unique race of small catfolk (whether they decend from halflings and tabaxi would be up to the DM & player of that character) - your Orc/Tortle could be an orc that was magically given a shell by Grummsh to make him tougher, or whatever. Meanwhile your Elf/Halfling could be the product of sweet love by loving parents.

Any story you want to tell. That's MY D&D anyway.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Well, a MotM/playtest packet Species is worth about two Feats: ergo, it should be doable to make a Feat that gives some of the flavor of one of these Species, and make it available as a Level 1 Feat to use as a Background foundation. That will work much better than random mixing and matching.

At which point we're back to needing to devote your first level background feat in order to play mixed-ancestry characters, putting a tax on them that single-ancestry characters don't have to pay and thus incentivizing people to just play single-ancestry characters.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Oh, yeah I get you then. No Goo-Catgirl in my realm thank you.

Sure. I think the rare combinations are likely to remain rare. But if they became common (for any reason other than because of a broken combo) then the game could spin that combo off into its own thing some time in the future, with more lore written for it. They're starting to be able to track this sort of thing after all.

 

[Cadence]

I think the point would be that it could have whatever story you want it to have for the given character. Your halfling-tabaxi could be a unique race of small catfolk (whether they decend from halflings and tabaxi would be up to the DM & player of that character) - your Orc/Tortle could be an orc that was magically given a shell by Grummsh to make him tougher, or whatever. Meanwhile your Elf/Halfling could be the product of sweet love by loving parents.

Any story you want to tell. That's MY D&D anyway.

Certainly each table does what it wants no matter what. I'm not sure WotC wants to give an explicit imprimatur to some things.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

At which point we're back to needing to devoting your first level background feat to play mixed-ancestry characters, putting a tax on them that single-ancestry characters don't have to pay.

That's unfortunate, of course, but the idea of mixed-ancestry feats at least helps to balance things out, mechanics-wise. It would only really be a "tax" if you don't greatly benefit from the feat, and have to pay it just to keep up.

 

[Cadence]

That's unfortunate, of course, but the idea of mixed-ancestry feats at least helps to balance things out, mechanics-wise. It would only really be a "tax" if you don't greatly benefit from the feat, and have to pay it just to keep up.

For those who don't want to spend the feat to get more powers, how far off does just tagging each species ability as major or minor (or high, medium, low) and saying to swap them for something there or lower go?