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

[Don Durito]

Speaking of half-elf... It is another contender for brand new best race. +2 to any stat, +1 to two more stats, darkvision, advantage vs. charmed, immune to magic sleep, two skills of your choice and 3 languages of your choice (well, one almost certainly Common, and two others).

You're a bit late to the party there .

Brand New?

Half-Elves have been one of the best races in the game since the start of 5e.

Half-elves. They're not just for Charisma based classes anymore!

Serioulsy, though maybe they have thought about this and have done something to compensate. (Or maybe, Half-elves are the new 4E Dwarves - over the life of the edition they just keep getting better and better).

 

[Oofta]

Speaking of half-elf... It is another contender for brand new best race. +2 to any stat, +1 to two more stats, darkvision, advantage vs. charmed, immune to magic sleep, two skills of your choice and 3 languages of your choice (well, one almost certainly Common, and two others).

Bah. Everyone knows tha dwarves have tha best accents. If'n yer lookin' ta play a lad or lassy with sum meat on tha bones, ye canna go wrong with dwarf! All those demi-dwarves are jest jealous I tells ya!

 

[Don Durito]

It does sound like variant human is being devalued by the maths behind this. If a feat is worth +2 (and that's always been the currency). Then the big value of the Variant Human has always been their ability to start the game with a feat and the flexibility to be equally good at any class (in theory - probably not in actuality quite as good at those that are MAD).

If you take those two things away they're nothing special.

And that means we're likely to see less humans and a lot more non-humans. I think that's a mistake. I think one of the benefits of 5E over 4E was in making humans a genuine appealing choice. From a game perspective - the default campaign structure seems to be one set among the human world where the Dwarves come from "over there", and Elves come from "that forest there" etc, so humans help to avoid the "everyone is an outsider" thing as well.

 

[Lord Twig]

What in the literally @#^$#%@ hell. I am going to tear out this stupid anti-virus software. It cuts off my access to ENworld mid-post and erases the entire hours worth of #$^%$#@! typing I just did.

So, round two. Likely with less detail.

I feel your pain. Save early, save often! I frequently do a Ctrl-A (highlight all text), Ctrl-C (copy all text) before trying to save my post, just in case something goes awry. It it does I can start a new post and paste it in.

I ended up seeing the need to also mentioned @Oofta and @Helldritch since they seemed to miss the things you got wrong in this analysis.

The biggest thing is, as far as I have seen (and I went back and double checked) there is no way to add a feat to a race at this point in time, other than the variant human.

So, with no feat, you can't get a +3 at level 1, you have to wait for your feat at level 4, like always.

With no feat, the Variant Human keeps its place as a powerful choice, because it remains the only way to get feats at level 1.

Also, Crawford's point still stands. It was always assumed in the game balance that a class would be able to get a +3 or even a +4 in their stats from early on. So, switching to having a +2 Strength to having a +2 Intelligence does not change that. The classes were also balanced with the idea that they could get any set of racial abilities.

And remember, they were balanced with rolling in mind, so the classes were already balanced for an INT 16 Dwarf Wizard with Medium armor, because that was a possible thing that rolling could get you. This is just being more reliable, instead of based on the whims of the dice.

I think you missed the custom race that Jeremy talked about in the video. This is not a race that can just move around their stats, this is a NEW race option that lets you make whatever you want. Add +2 to a stat, add +1 to a stat, take darkvision or a proficiency, and get a feat. This is what allows you to get to a +3 stat bonus at first level.

But fair enough that the game assumes an 18 (or even a 20!) with rolled stats. Actually, would it now be possible to get a 21 starting if you rolled an 18 and did the +2 with +1 feat? Still just a +5 bonus, but that shouldn't be possible. And I'm sure it can be argued that other rules preclude it, but still, it is something that did not seem to have been given adequate consideration.

Although, maybe there is more to the actual rule than what was said? Maybe there are more specific rules that fix this stuff? We will just have to wait and see.

See, but there are a lot of problems with this idea that removing these attributes means they will all be humans in rubber suits.

Firstly, they are going to be humans in rubber suits.... because we are humans putting on the suits. I literally cannot play something with a completely alien mind-set. I am human, even as I try my best to warp and twist things into a non-human perspective, I am simply making a more and more detailed mask to overlay my human mind.

Secondly. the stats are the worst way to represent them being non-human. Especially with the V. Human being able to get any +2/+1 combo they desire via half-feats. Instead, look towards the things that are actively non-human. Elves live much longer than us and do not sleep. That is two core aspects of humanity that are removed from their perspectives. How would that affect them? certainly on a much deeper level than being "graceful" would.

How about the fact that Tieflings have horns and tails? This seems minor at first, but one thing to remember is that horns typically have a lot of blood flow and are meant to disperse body heat. So, Tielfings wouldn't blush. They in fact, likely cannot. Their tails are generally shown as prehensile, and being part of the spine they would be much more instintively moved. A Tiefling's tail might seem to have a mind of its own, and lend itself to an entirely different set of body language than we are used to.

We can make them non-human, as best as human's can portray, without the need to say "well, +2 con means I have 1 more hp than you, and I'm really tough" Because that could easily be a difference between humans, it doesn't tell us anything about how they act.

And I generally agree with all this. The factors you list probably are more important than the (relatively) minor stat bonuses. But if they are minor and not that big a deal, why not keep them for flavor reasons? Elves are graceful, get a +2 to Dex. Not a big deal though, you can put an 8 in Dex (or even lower if you roll stats) and you are no better than average or worse. It is just a flavor element for Elf.

But yeah, I'm not screaming about the bonuses. It's not that big a deal to me. I just liked them being static a bit more. Not going to break the game for me either way.

 

[Lord Twig]

And yes, half-elves were always good. Fair enough, but now they are even better.

Edit: As an example, I made a half-elf barbarian and put the +1s in Str and Con. But now you can put the +2 in Str and +1s in Con and Dex. That is just flatly better than leaving the +2 in Cha. Not that I'm going to change my character. I like having a high Cha barbarian.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

And yes, half-elves were always good. Fair enough, but now they are even better.

Edit: As an example, I made a half-elf barbarian and put the +1s in Str and Con. But now you can put the +2 in Str and +1s in Con and Dex. That is just flatly better than leaving the +2 in Cha. Not that I'm going to change my character. I like having a high Cha barbarian.

So let me get this straight.

we are worried about the message that some races i.e. species are not as good as others and solution is to make some superior to others?

I hope I misunderstood that bit.

 

[Lord Twig]

So let me get this straight.

we are worried about the message that some races i.e. species are not as good as others and solution is to make some superior to others?

I hope I misunderstood that bit.

Ummm... What? Seriously I don't understand how you arrived at this conclusion.

I was just pointing now that half-elves, already a strong choice for "The Best Race" are now even more superior. I didn't say explicitly that this is bad or good, but I thought it was pretty clear that I implied that it was not good. To be very clear on my opinion, ideally all races would be roughly balanced. And you can remove the word "race" from that statement entirely! Ideally ALL choices for your character would be roughly balanced.

Now, that is probably an unattainable goal, and some people will value some options more than others, but it is still a good thing to strive for.

Removing entirely any considerations that are not rules related, my concern is that the new racial rules make things less balanced, not more.

Disclaimer that all of this is IMHO and that rational and intelligent people can disagree and not be disingenuous or less intelligent. Etc ad nauseam.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Ummm... What? Seriously I don't understand how you arrived at this conclusion.

I was just pointing now that half-elves, already a strong choice for "The Best Race" are now even more superior. I didn't say explicitly that this is bad or good, but I thought it was pretty clear that I implied that it was not good. To be very clear on my opinion, ideally all races would be roughly balanced. And you can remove the word "race" from that statement entirely! Ideally ALL choices for your character would be roughly balanced.

Now, that is probably an unattainable goal, and some people will value some options more than others, but it is still a good thing to strive for.

Removing entirely any considerations that are not rules related, my concern is that the new racial rules make things less balanced, not more.

Disclaimer that all of this is IMHO and that rational and intelligent people can disagree and not be disingenuous or less intelligent. Etc ad nauseam.

I did not say anything about your assessment but was checking my understanding of the rules change.

it’s MY assessment that some of this is driven by concern about species ‘equality’ ME not you, but was incredulous if the remedy is to make anything goes custom races better than current packages.

struck me as ironic.

At this point why have any packages at all? Just let everyone choose a la cart.

I bet this is the new skills and powers (whatever it was that I skipped) being incrementally introduced.

not bad faith disingenuous anything. Just expressing surprise and finding it ironic furthering my belief this was a reactionary and poorly thought out change.

 

[Lord Twig]

I did not say anything about your assessment but was checking my understanding of the rules change.

it’s MY assessment that some of this is driven by concern about species ‘equality’ ME not you, but was incredulous if the remedy is to make anything goes custom races better than current packages.

struck me as ironic.

At this point why have any packages at all? Just let everyone choose a la cart.

I bet this is the new skills and powers (whatever it was that I skipped) being incrementally introduced.

not bad faith disingenuous anything. Just expressing surprise and finding it ironic furthering my belief this was a reactionary and poorly thought out change.

OH! That makes a lot more sense. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

And yes, although I am sure it was not intentional, it seems the effort to not pidgeon-hole a race, and therefore make a race less desirable for certain classes, has made it, it appears, so that some races are just flat out better than all the others. Not better at some things, but better at all things. That is a bad change if it ends up being true.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

OH! That makes a lot more sense. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

And yes, although I am sure it was not intentional, it seems the effort to not pidgeon-hole a race, and therefore make a race less desirable for certain classes, has made it, it appears, so that some races are just flat out better than all the others. Not better at some things, but better at all things. That is a bad change if it ends up being true.

My opinion only: when the first focus is not the game itself, this is the kind of thing you necessarily end up with.

I think 5e already has a fine legacy. There is so much world building my group can explore. Dozens upon dozens of new characters to explore.

however, if this is the direction things are going, I will be skipping some books in the futureWill see. There is enough in tashas to tempt me.
Will have to thumb through at a game store to know for sure.

I have enough with the core books and Volo’s, mordenkainen’s, Xanathar’s to last a long time...