NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8111280" data-attributes="member: 6801228">"Chipping away at archetypes?" No. It isn't. Or if it is, then those aren't really archetypes that are at all compelling to anyone I've ever played with. Because, you are basing this archetype solely on the mechanical difference. This archetype of the dwarf or the elf is based solely and completely on their physical bodies. But, not even DnD focuses on that. What is the most compelling aspect of the Dwarves who show up at the Baggins residence? People might give many answers. "They are tough and hardy" is not one of them. Personally, I find the idea of them being a people adrift, without a home and seeking to reclaim that home. I think a lot of people at WoTC and TSR tended to agree, because the narrative of the Dwarves returning home, or seeking their home, or defending their home is a huge part of most dwarven stories in most settings. The second big one is the clan, the family, insular groups who are suspicious of outsiders. In fact, dwarves are famously stubborn, and not in a physical way, but in a mental one.Note, I've never once mentioned their con score, because that is the part of them that is mechanical, it doesn't actually play into their stories. The Elves? Same deal, and the game started taking these ideas and playing with them every once in a while. The Sun Elves of FR are your traditional, isolationist, haughty forest lords. The Aereni of Eberron are a group that is still isolationist and perfectionist, but they are defined by their relationship with death, and the living undead gods who help guide their society while being maintained by the love and worship of their descendants. Timelessness, disconnection from the modern world, the long view, again xenophobia. None of it requires being particularly graceful or able to run along a balance beam.I find two things wrong with your position here. The first is that you are forgetting that just because you can change the scores to anything, doesn't mean you have to. A "post-Tasha" world can still have a dwarf with a +2 str/+2 con. But the second is just that your position is self-contradictory. It isn't about playing a character with low stats, but if you aren't forced to have low stats you cannot possibly have a character whose arc is about overcoming expectations and prejudices? That is just flat out wrong. There is are at least three archetypes in literature built on the idea of actually being incredibly good at something, despite everyone thinking you are bad at it. And I mean across all literature, not game mechanics. You are taking the potential for change, assuming it is permanent and will be used the way you expect, and then assuming that you are now more limited than you were before, because you are no longer going to be unique. Because, you can still play the exact same character. Only now it is a choice. You and me and everyone else gets to choose how they use these points, instead of being forced to. And I see the potential for more unusual builds. I see the chance to finally tell some stories that I could really not tell before. I can play an Elven Aasimar, with that classic +2 Dex that elves traditionally have. I can play an Air Genasi Half-Orc with a +2 strength and the mantle of storms. I can play a body-building Elf, and a Demagogue Dwarf. You see the death knell of playing strange combinations, I see those combinations flourishing. And time will prove one of us right (and likely neither of us, as most people will likely just play the PHB and not even utilize Tasha's at all)  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What makes a dwarf a dwarf? To me, they are more than a +2 Con score.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oh, in terms of setting I love this on so many levels, but the biggest one is frickin proficiencies.I can build elves who are proficient in different crafting tools. I can make half-extraplanar versions of different races if I want (I don't think I do, because making that a human thing has interesting implications I think). I can do so much in making the setting feel so much freer and more alive with this. It is wonderful.</blockquote>

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