D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[Micah Sweet]

For me, a "Sea Elf" is a normal Elf who chose some kind of Water Breathing spell. Done.

Not very interesting though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They’re PCs. Neither of them have plot armor.

Oh, PCs absolutely have plot armor, and more of it as the editions roll on.

 

[Scribe]

The current social zeitgeist just objects to this on grounds that have nothing to be with verisimilitude or design.

Most people in reality dont care or even consider it in my experience. Its an online thing with a vocal minority. I think the poll here a few months ago was overwhelming (90%+) as it not being an issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

i think they could find stuff to work with, even if they're 'the baseline' humans also represent great versatility, the extra feat is well appreciated, but you can also give them things like extra proficiencies skill or otherwise, expertise, fighting styles, languages, there's potential there.

Yup. Level Up managed it, after all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No more elven cultures until other races/species/ whatever have cultures.

An astral elf is no more flavorful than an astral halfling/dwarf/dragon born/ or orc would be.

Like the proposal is..let's make 5 races into monocultures with no distinct mechanics and then separately split out 6...6!! different elves who are mechanically, biologically and culturally "distinct"

Get outta here.

Give everyone cultures. Or play a version of 5e that already has them.

 

[Yaarel]

Not very interesting though.

Yeah. But I would rather make the Triton and Merfolk "interesting".


When an Elf inhabits the underwater, it makes sense for an Elf community to do something like this. But it is more an oddity than a thing in itself. They really are just Elves who live underwater, not so different from Humans who figured out a way to live underwater. When an Elf can INNATELY cast a Gills cantrip at birth, this is enough to explain how a waterbreathing community happened.

Similarly, the Avariel Elves who have wings. Obviously, the Elf community got these wings by means of magic. If (most of) the Elves in an Avariel community cast the Wings cantrip, it is enough to explain the weirdness of this elven community.

Overall, these various applications of transformative elven magic, help highlight the theme for the whole species being magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Most people in reality dont care or even consider it in my experience. Its an online thing with a vocal minority. I think the poll here a few months ago was overwhelming (90%+) as it not being an issue.

It's certainly not an issue for me and everyone I've ever gamed with in 35 years of play.

 

[Remathilis]

They already make everything in the game a caster, why pretend that we need to have non-spell spells? Make it all spells and be done with it. Particuarly racial abilities. Racial abilities should ALWAYS be spells to recreate magical effects. Full stop.

But at a certain point it becomes ridiculous. Dragonborn casting dragon breath? Kalashtar using Rarys telepathic bond? Shifters cast alter self? Aasimars cast cure wounds? Harengons cast jump?

I'm fine with some abilities that look like magic but aren't spells. Classes get it all the time, races should not be an exception.

 

[FrozenNorth]

All of the previously explained"plot armor" supporting dwarves society and civilization with an impenetrable curtain of "nothing to see here" are a big problem for any dwarf concept that's not basically just some flavor of the usual masculine beard beer mining blacksmithing cave dwelling Tolkien dwarf. What little fabric that there is to work with is devoted to propping up gimli and such while the plot armor deflects attention away from developing anything else in service of the usual monolithic tropes.

But what does that actually mean?

Let’s go back to the right-up of dwarves in the 2014 5th edition PHB.

Its description of dwarves provides several hooks for DMs to create dwarven societies and for players to create dwarven characters.

• Religious;
• Tradition-bound;
• Warriors;
• Artisans and smiths;
• Organised in clans;
• Associated with hills, mountains and mining;
• Gruff or stoic;
• Stubborn and prone to grudges;
• Prone to greed.

There is enough fodder here for quite a few different adventurers, that are quite different from each other.

You seem to be hung up on an extremely restrictive conception of a dwarf. Do female dwarves not exist?

I think it was earlier in this thread but it could have been another recent thread where someone mentioned how you can invent a new language but if nobody else understands it you've not invented anything. Your two earlier characters don't bring up anything different so inherit mining beards beer and cave cities from Tolkien. Look at the "original" stuff they bring to the table.. boy leaves for war and returns to swear vengeance when his love is killed in his absence is a trope I have no doubt was ancient when the Greeks and Romans were flogging it. Hard/cold hearted clergy who don't want to act?... These be the beer drinking bearded cave dwelling clergy of miners and blacksmiths?.... Princess favored by gods/spirits goes against their parents to travel and learn is a trope that goes back as long as arranged marriages have been a thing.... Morgan Le Fey was taller lacked a beard and probably drank less bear with miners who moonlight as blacksmiths.

Is the problem that the archetypes aren’t new? Some archetypes are classics for a reason. You may as well rail against all characters for emulating “the hero’s journey”. That doesn’t mean that all PC are the same.

In order for dwarven society/civilization to work it needs to be shaped by events outside their mountains that would make the surface fairly unlivable for anyone or the dwarves need to have a technological step up on par with being a step or two up the the kardashev scale∆.

That criticism could literally be levelled against every single race in the PHB with only minor changes.

• How do dark elves live in caverns far below even what dwarves colonize?
• How do goblins, who don’t have dwarven artisanal traditions?
• How are humans and halflings not extinct from the large number of deadly monsters everywhere?
• Given that elves live for 900 years, how come we aren’t overrun with elves if each elf can have multiple offspring during their lifetimes?
• How are humans able to reproduce with elves and orcs?
• How do orcs maintain a raiding lifestyle with virtually no farming?
• Elves have hidden settlements. How is it possible to have no evidence of agriculture and still maintain a stable population?

You could play PCs with those two generic trope "original" backstories as almost literally any species but in doing so after choosing dwarf as the race you leave the table to fill in beards beer blacksmithing miners everywhere that it might go somewhere

The stories resonate with the themes that have been identified as dwarf culture. If dwarf culture is identified as highly religious and clannish, a dwarf that has turned his back on both can be developed in an interesting manner.

Likewise, any PC can have an arc that is about living up to societal pressure. But set that arc against a backdrop of a culture that is described as very conservative and traditional, and the society serves as a foil to the character.

 

[Scribe]

Overall, these various applications of transformative elven magic, help highlight the theme for the whole species being magic.

The species is magic, as it magically adapts to it's environment. Not because it has some cantrips lol.