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Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins
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<blockquote data-quote="Don Durito" data-source="post: 8114336" data-attributes="member: 6687260"><p>Half-elves are an interesting case of concepty drift in particular.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Don Durito, post: 8114336, member: 6687260"] 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.) [/QUOTE]
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