D&D 5E Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins

[Don Durito]

Actually I think 13th Age does a terrible job at making races work.

The ability score bonuses get mostly lost in the noise, and a lot of the encounter powers are not really particularly thematic (and I found that they were just another thing for players to remember).

I found with 13th Age it was just easier to pretty much drop races mechanically and have them reinforced soly by backgrounds (which did more than any of the specific mechanics anyway). The Background "Dwarven Huscarl" at least gave a way to emulate typical Dwarvishness.

"Hey can I make a roll to see if this tunnel is sloping down?"
"Yes. Make a Wisdom plus Dwarf roll."
"Can I roll lightly over that snow drift without sinking in?"
"Maybe - make a Dex plus Elf roll."

But that only works if everyone is already pretty much has a good knowledge of the history of Elves or Dwarves in D&D.

 

[Azzy]

Again, that is the system that has been in use for 50 years. ASI, it varied a bit over time as to which races and had how many but overall it had remained fairly constant and helped out establish both lore and the mechanics of many races.

Well, actually... Aside from the nitpick that D&D isn't yet 50 years old (it's 46), in OD&D there were no subraces of dwarves or halflings, and elves are said to have woodland and meadow varieties. That is, until the Greyhawk supplement, which gave hill, mountain, & burrower (gnome) dwarves, wood, high, meadow (faerie), & wood elves subraces.. However, none of these subraces were detailed and all had the same abilities. Also, none of the demihuman races had ASIs. The Holmes Basic set likewise had no ASIs. It differs from the Greyhawk supplement in that there were no dwarven subraces and elves had two subraces (high and wood) which were only mentioned in passing in the monster section. The Basic D&D line (from B/X to the "The Classic D&D Game") made the demihumans into classes, dropped the subraces entirely and had no ASIs.

1e AD&D reintroduces many of the subraces in Greyhawk and add a few more in the original Monster Manual—Hill and Mountain Dwarves, High, Aquatic, Drow (no details, and no modifies from the standard, high elf, entry), Grey (Faerie), & Wood Elves, and Hairfeet, Tallfellow, & Stout Halflings. In the Player's Handbook, Hill and Mountain Dwarves use the same entry, Elves are limited to High Elves, and of Halflings only the mixed and Stout have (slightly) different mechanics. This is the first version of the game to have ASIs. Other subraces are introduced in modules, the Fiend Folio, & Monster Manual II, and playable subraces are introduced in Unearthed Arcana.

In the 2e AD&D Player's Handbook, it makes no mention of dwarven or gnomish subraces, uses the same racial features for all elven subraces, and halfling retain the standard/mixed/Stout subraces and their differences. The ASIs for all remained the same as in 1e—except gnomes which now have +1 Int & -1 Wis (whereas they had no ASIs in 1e). The Monstrous Compendiums & Monstrous Manual further detail the subraces—here we first get that Mountain Dwarves are isolationists, Grey Elves go from living in meadowlands to living in forests, and gnomes start having shorter beards than dwarves. In later 2nd supplements, the other subraces (including new ones, like Forest Gnomes) are introduced as playable and often have different ASIs from book to book.

With 3e D&D, the Player's Handbook restricted demihumans (no longer called demihumans, though) to 1 playable subrace—Hill Dwarf, High Elf, Rock Gnomes, & Hairfeet (now renamed Lightfeet) Halflings. +1 ASIs became +2s but otherwise remain the same. Except Gnomes. Again. The Monster Manual opens up the other subraces (though their ASIs are rather hit and miss—usually miss—with regards to what had come before).

As for 4e, I will leave it to someone more knowledgeable on the subject than me as I never played it. I do know that there were changes (like high elves becoming eladrin), but beyond that I'm wholly ignorant.

In 5e, all ability score penalties were removed. Dwarves retained their bonus to Str, elves and halflings their bonus to Dex, gnomes went back to 2e's bonus to Int, and everything else is kind of wacky.

In conclusion, ASIs existing and their placement when they dead are not entirely consistent throughout the editions. So an appeal to tradition, which must stand on the merit of things other than the tradition itself, is less than solid ground as the tradition is actually fraught with inconsistencies.

/pedantry

 

[Don Durito]

As for 4e, I will leave it to someone more knowledgeable on the subject than me as I never played it. I do know that there were changes (like high elves becoming eladrin), but beyond that I'm wholly ignorant.

+2 to two abilities. (Frequently not very consistent with anything that had gone before). Later on they opened it us because people wanted more flexibility (deja vu) so that only one of those +2 was fixed and you had a choice between two different ability scores for the other.

Having the right ability score in the right place was actually much more important than it is in 5e - one reason why 13th Age lets you gain ability scores from your class as well.

 

[Don Durito]

Half-elves are an interesting case of concepty drift in particular.

In 1e and 2e, they had no ability score adjustments (although they had slightly higher minimums than humans). In 1e they had unlimited level advancement as Druids and Thieves and were the only race that could be Ranger other than Humans and in both 1e and 2e the only race that could multiclass as Rangers.

In 2E the fluff indicated that Half-elves were still outsiders who tended towards Rangers and Druids (And in fact Dark Sun would later double down on this conception of Half-elves even further - to the extent of even giving them an Ranger style animal companion as a class feature). However, they tool away their unlimited progression as Druids and Thieves and instead gave them unlimited progression as bards so you started to see more Half-elf bards.

In 3E, Half-elves still had no ability score bonuses, and could have any class as their favourite - but got bonuses to Gather Information and Diplomacy (presumably because the idea of Half-elf bards had started to stick). They also somewhat sucked mechanically.

In 4E they finally got the Charisma bonus which made people who hadn't really been paying attention to the concept drift since 2e wonder what was going on and a Bonus to Con (which seemed pretty arbritrary - hybrid vigour?). Later on in the edition they got a choice to swap their Cha for Wis which meant they could be good Druids again and even OKish Rangers.

Than we get 5E and Half-elves have completed the transition from torn loners more comfortable out in the wildereness with the animals to the super sexy masters of Charisma based spellcasting.

Dwarves would be another example of concept drift. Have a look at Flint in the Dragonlance novels and compare him to a lot of the Dwarves in art today. Somewhere along the way the Warhammer Dwarf won the cultural battle and became the image of the dwarf that stuck. Dwarves also seem to have just generally gotten bigger. No dwarves got a strength bonus before 4E and even then it only came late in the edition as an option presumably because people were complaining that as a race that was pushed towards Fighters they should have one. (And that was a mistake - they had already been given plenty of features to make up for their lack of a Strength bonus, so including one then made them both too strong and less interesting, because it made them the same as every other race with a Strength bonus.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As an example of the flexibility 4e added later on (it wasn't present initially):
Dragonborn have +2 Charisma, choice of +2 Strength or +2 Constitution
Elves have +2 Dexterity, choice of +2 Wisdom or +2 Intelligence

Also, though I agree with Don Durito that ability scores were more important in 4e, IMO they're still important in 5e, and even with that aside, having a boost to either your primary or secondary stat in 4e was still Good Enough for most things. With the flexible stats, so every race has access to at least 3 stat bonus options, it's not exactly easy to find classes that won't benefit from any of your possible options. Frex, one might think Rogue is a bad choice for a Dragonborn, but Artful Dodger wants high Charisma and Brutal Scoundrel wants high Strength, so it is entirely possible to buy a 16-18 in your main stat. This does, of course, mean that certain builds that play against type may be harder to pull off, e.g. an Elf may not be keen on the Warlock builds that value high Con, since it has neither a Con bonus nor a Cha bonus, while Dragonborn probably want to avoid Archer Ranger, which mostly wants Wisdom and Dexterity.

For my part, I think it just makes sense to admit that there's a key stat every member of <class> cares about, like Wizards wanting Intelligence and Warlocks wanting Charisma etc. By doing that, the "+2 from class, +2 from race" model (even if no other part is "good") can meet the minimum demand from the "open things up to everyone" side, that is, class can give +2 <core stat> unless the player chooses otherwise. It can then also meet the "but different things are different" minimum demand from the "make archetypes matter" side, by still having all <foos> be either <stat 1> or <stat 2>. I'm not married to the specific powers or all the other stuff. Just the idea that being a Wizard means you're smart (unless you, as the player, specifically elected NOT to be), but being a Half-Orc still means you're either strong or dexterous. That seems to be the way to meet in the middle: archetypes still exist, physiology still counts for something, but playing against type isn't punished.

Edit:
As for conceptual drift...yeah that's pretty much just going to happen. Dragonborn never had tails, but because people just like the idea of tailed dragonborn, they're quite common in practical play now--and it's likely that that will drift with time. It is what it is. These ideas can't be held totally unchanging, even ignoring the whole "different editions are different games" thing, because public perception of what "an elf" or "a tiefling" means changes with time.

Keep in mind that the Githzerai were basically completely retconned because of one successful portrayal of them: Dak'kon. Thematic, presentational, and mechanical drift just happens, and there's really nothing that can be done except observe it and, if it suits you, house-ruling to "restore" it to where you think it "should" be.

 

[Don Durito]

I think these days I'm of the opinion that if ability scores are part of class (and really they are) then they should probably just come from class.

I think it's better to find a different and distinct way to represent race/ancestry.

But there's got to be better ways to bake this cake.

The more I think about it, the more I think the only part that really matters is size. The idea of some races are more intellient than others is unpleasant. Anything that is related to Wis or Charisma is too vague anyway and could probably be represented by focusing on a particular function - (if they have better eye sight then give them bonuses to perception or something).

So that leaves physical characteristics - particularly nimble races can be covered by bonuses to speed, or initiatve or particular racial abilities.

That leaves Size. There are basically three different sizes in D&D, small medium and medium (large). What you really need is a good way to represent these that doesn't leave any of them being either overly ineffective or overly overpowered at any class, but feeling like they work sufficiently differently.

 

[Azuresun]

The more I think about it, the more I think the only part that realy matters is size. The idea of some races are more intellient than others is unpleasant.

How about the idea that some species are more intelligent than others?

 

[Don Durito]

How about the idea that some species are more intelligent than others?

Well in terms of D&D, species that are less intellient than Humans just aren't going to happen as player races so it seems pointless to go into it. (Am I right in thinking that the only PC race in a PHB that's ever had an Intelligence penalty was the 3E Half-Orc? The 1e ones didn't even have one). So then we have species that are smarter than humans. What's the point of them? It's an old truism that you can't really role-play one so now you have a way to min-max your wizard.

Just don't really see the point. It is possible to make a big hulking Fighter mechanically distinct but just as effective as a small nimber Fighter - but I don't see how you make super-genius wizard play fundamentally different from a genius wizard.

If you wanted to do something interesting mentally with PCs there's a race in Numenera that is basically two beings that exist in a fugue state together that sometimes come out of sync and have two distinct personalities - you could do something like that I guess - seems rather niche for D&D though.

But in any case, if you wanted a straight answer to whether there should be races stupider than humans than I already said I find the idea unpleasant so I don't know why your asking.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In some ways, what would bother me most is the idea of a Goliath with an 8 Strength. That seems somewhat silly. Of course a Goliath with a 10 Strength is not really that much better, so it's a small difference. (Especially as I don't buy the perception I sometimes see around here that the difference between 10 and 8 is some huge gulf that is somehow bigger than the gaps between all the other numbers.)

It would be an unusual Goliath with a 10 Str, mostly because their culture encourages athleticism, but it is entirely feasible. They could be the same size as most goliaths, but just not good at exerting themselves, possibly overweight, and out of condition.

Well in terms of D&D, species that are less intellient than Humans just aren't going to happen as player races so it seems pointless to go into it. (Am I right in thinking that the only PC race in a PHB that's ever had an Intelligence penalty was the 3E Half-Orc? The 1e ones didn't even have one). So then we have species that are smarter than humans. What's the point of them? It's an old truism that you can't really role-play one so now you have a way to min-max your wizard.

Just don't really see the point. It is possible to make a big hulking Fighter mechanically distinct but just as effective as a small nimber Fighter - but I don't see how you make super-genius wizard play fundamentally different from a genius wizard.

If you wanted to do something interesting mentally with PCs there's a race in Numenera that is basically two beings that exist in a fugue state together that sometimes come out of sync and have two distinct personalities - you could do something like that I guess - seems rather niche for D&D though.

But in any case, if you wanted a straight answer to whether there should be races stupider than humans than I already said I find the idea unpleasant so I don't know why your asking.

Most player lineages are on average less intelligent then humans. The standard human has a +1 Intelligence whereas most other races do not.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Giving a racial penalty to INT for a particular race to symbolize they are less intelligent than humans on average is pointless when you can make your PC still with a 14 INT and the human PCs can all start with INT as their dump stat.

So the racial write-up did almost nothing except not let the player start with a +3 to their primary modifier, only a +2.