D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[CreamCloud0]

Hmmm. What if the Warforged somehow represents the Lawful Neutral species, relating to Mechanus and its Modron?

There seems a need for LN counterpart to the Tiefling (and Aasimar).

In Eberron and in World Axis, the Warforged have a specific history, respectively. But in 5e core, the Warforged might have a planar origin.

(Is Autognome the only other playable Construct species?)

Personally I’m not hugely enthralled by the robot=lawful association for warforged, while I know I don’t really know any of the lore I prefer to think of them more as just, golems with souls,

Tangentially were you aware there was a thread discussing potential lawful and chaotic planestouched species not too long ago (genuinely asking, I don’t remember who was and wasn’t in the conversation)

Edit: i think a more neutral take on hobgoblins might be an interesting choice for that position though, they’re already slightly fey which has touches of magically binding unwritten rules and hospitalities which seems to fit right into a law-touched species

 

[Yaarel]

Personally I’m not hugely enthralled by the robot=lawful association for warforged, while I know I don’t really know any of the lore I prefer to think of them more as just, golems with souls,

Tangentially were you aware there was a thread discussing potential lawful and chaotic planestouched species not too long ago (genuinely asking, I don’t remember who was and wasn’t in the conversation)

5e actually has a thing where the LN Modron associates with Construct and the CN Slaad associates with Aberration. Neither really makes sense with regard to ethical alignments.

Even so, I am aware of the other thread speculating about core counterparts for the Tiefling and Aasimar for the Neutral planes. I was wondering if Warforged has some currency in this context. Actually, the Warforged could represent any Neutral plane, including the metallic Rilmani of True Neutral, and the elemental flux of Chaotic Neutral.


In my eyes, the Warforged is specifically a "wood golem" that can wear armor. More setting-specific, it is also possible to reinvent the Warforged as a "metal golem", in the sense of a playable animated suit of armor.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If building a Human-Dwarf character, I might do something like the following with the playtest rules.

HUMAN-DWARF
Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium (4½ feet)
Speed: 30 feet
Lifespan: 215 (350+80 / 2)
Species Feats:
Darkvision
Poison Resistance
Hit Point Bonus: +1 per level
Tool Proficiency: Smiths Tools
Stonecunning: Tremorsense 60 feet pro times per day
Background:
Abilities: +2 Constitution, +1 Any
Languages: Common, Dwarf, Primordial (Terran Dialect)
Skill Proficiencies: any two (maybe Athletics brute force and Sleight of Hand manual dexterity)
Feat: choice of any feat

So you'd copy-paste a dwarf, not a human? You're just proving my point for me here.

 

[Yaarel]

So you'd copy-paste a dwarf, not a human? You're just proving my point for me here.

Yet, the 2014 Human is moreorless redundant with the playtest Background. So the Background itself already represents the Human well.

Thus using the playtest Dwarf as the base and the Background to fill out any missing gaps from the Human parentage builds a mechanically excellent Human-Dwarf concept.

Oppositely, if using the Human as the base, I would use the Background Feat for a Dwarfesque feature, such as Toughness to represent the Dwarf parentage. And if going for a 2014 Dwarf flavor, make this Dwarf-Human with +2 Constitution Score, +1 Any.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thus using the playtest Dwarf as the base and the Background to fill out any missing gaps from the Human parentage builds a mechanically excellent Human-Dwarf concept.

It doesn't, and the fact that you think it does means that to be honest, I don't think you should, imho, be designing anything at all for games.

 

[Yaarel]

It doesn't, and the fact that you think it does means that to be honest, I don't think you should, imho, be designing anything at all for games.

Not sure why you feel a need to resort to an ad-hominem insult? I suppose this is a touchy subject for you?


Anyway, here is the 2014 Human.

HUMAN (2014)
Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Lifespan: "less than a century"
Species Feats:
Abilitities: +1 to six scores
Languages: Common and any other
Background:
Proficiencies: any two and possibly any two from tools and languages


Here is the playtest Human with only the Background and without the Human Species feats.

HUMAN
Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Lifespan: "less than a century"
Species Feats:
...
Background:
Abilities: +1 to three scores
Skill Proficiencies: any two
Languages: Common and any two
Feat: choice of any feat


It is a fact that the playtest Background represents well the 2014 Human mechanics.



In addition, the playtest Human has actual species feats relating to Inspiration and so on.

 

[CleverNickName]

(Is Autognome the only other playable Construct species?)

I must be getting soft in my old age...the line between what is and isn't "playable" is wearing thin. And it was pretty thin to begin with!

My niece (age 9) wanted to play a unicorn, so I handed her the Monster Manual and helped her fill out a character sheet with the stats for a whole entire friggin' unicorn. Simplicity itself. She felt left out when everyone else was picking their Backgrounds and Classes, though, so I let her choose those also (she went with Sage and Paladin, respectively) but we only used them for the personality traits and the proficiencies. She wasn't all that interested in the paladin abilities anyway: she wanted to be a beautiful magical pony that could kick the dust out of the bad guys.

She had a blast. Here's her character sheet.

Spoiler

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the only people who can tell you what is and isn't "playable" are sitting around your table on game night.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not sure why you feel a need to resort to an ad-hominem insult? I suppose this is a touchy subject for you?

I mean, given said it's extremely racist (not that you are, that the design principle is), why yes, it is kind of touchy subject that you apparently is absolutely meaningless and a bad joke.

I also think it's pretty trollish to just copy a race and say "Oh I made a new race" without just being honest and saying what you're actually doing, so it's a little rich to claim something is an ad hominem.

 

[Yaarel]

pretty trollish

Hmm.


In any case.

I mean, given said it's extremely racist (not that you are, that the design principle is), why yes, it is kind of touchy subject that you apparently is absolutely meaningless and a bad joke.

You misrepresent what I said.

I clearly said, I support the player of a multispecies character to choose species feats from both parentages.

I also think it's pretty trollish to just copy a race and say "Oh I made a new race" without just being honest and saying what you're actually doing, so it's a little rich to claim something is an ad hominem.

I said, the playtest rules are sufficient to mechanically build the character concept of a 2014 Half Elf and a hypothetical Half Dwarf.

Relatedly, the 2014 Human is nothing more that bonuses to scores plus a language. The playtest Background by itself covers the mechanics of the 2014 Human parentage.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I clearly said, I support the player of a multispecies character to choose species feats from both parentages.

Fine, that's the main dispute here, and if you don't even disagree I don't know what to say lol.