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

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really care what the specific limitations in the books are, because I'm going to change them for my games anyway.

I just don't want the structure and the precedent of those limitations to be further eroded. I mean, given my preferences, ancestry would be a much more substantial portion of character abilities-- from first to cap-- the majority of ancestry options wouldn't be subrace-locked, and ancestries would have restrictions on their available classes (less strict but more varied than AD&D) and multiclass combos. Lost that fight before I slapped leather, but I would really like to keep even more of the narrative and mechanical weight of ancestry from being removed into another practically meaningless choice at 1st level.



Let's say that Elves get a Fighting Style and their own half-caster progression. I don't like darkvision on surface elves, but let's stick with it for the sake of argument. Fast land movement. Fey resistances. That's your first level. Every X levels, you can improve your elf vision (+ Perception/Investigation, darkvision radius, come up with something), your elf hearing (blindsense), your elf mobility (land speed, eladrin teleport), or maybe your elf martial stuff (extra attack) or your elf spellcasting.

Dwarves get Medium Armor, bump their Hit Die up a step, darkvision, and their poison and magic resistance. Maybe they get Heavy Armor. Remove the "dim light" penalty for darkvision. Tremorsense. Resilient saves, other damage resistances, extra Hit Dice. Crafting? More... armor... stuff.

Humans don't get unique human stuff; they get more picks for generic stuff. Human ancestry widgets can be used on class/multiclass widgets, humans can multiclass more better than nonhumans, humans get more proficiencies and fighting styles and whatever than everyone else.

If we keep "subraces" as a thing, you pick it at 1st and maybe each subrace has a few unique ancestry widgets, but most of your ancestry widgets are chosen freely from your general ancestry list. Because "subraces" aren't as different as actual ancestries.

I take it back. All of that is awesome.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Anyone but Minigiant. I did make this thread about wanting dwarven subpecies.

Ok

glamour based mirror images
fey charms
light beams
feywild teleports
natural barkskin
supernatural aim from heighten vision
tree powers
animal transformations

Again, all of these are awesome. So many better ideas in this thread than anything WotC might publish.

Why do we need them again?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't really care about the duergar; I already have stats for them. But I do have an issue the general idea of only caring about new players, and your comment reminded me.

“Prioritizing well-known D&D races and ones that fill important niches for inclusion in the PHB” is nowhere near the same as “only care about new players.” Furthermore, you not caring about Duergar proves my point even more. Your irrational hatred of WotC and jumping to criticize them for anything you think you can spin as a negative is getting really, really old. You don’t need to devolve every single thread into “I hate WotC, everything they do is terrible, and have you heard about how much I love Level Up!?”

Duergar happen to be the most interesting dwarven subraces, by default, the others are extremely boring. They’ve been printed in 5e 3 times now I think. They don’t need to be in the PHB, I don’t think they’re iconic/important enough to be in the PHB, but I’m not sure I like them from a lore/mechanics angle. It would be nice, but if they’re simplifying dwarves and making them more interesting, I think it’s fine to leave them out.

 

[Minigiant]

Again, all of these are awesome. So many better ideas in this thread than anything WotC might publish.

Why do we need them again?

Money

 

[Micah Sweet]

Business still has to make money.

Like in all the threads about it, if your customer base contains new players some of the game should be tailored to them.
Many of the games in the D&Dverse have better origin systems but could never work as gateways as their systems are too high of an information introduction to work as a gateway. They most run on having WOTC teach fans the game for them.

Can't have it both ways. Cant have a complex core and a simple core.

First of all, you said some of the game should be tailored to new players. I'm fine with that, but I don't want the whole game to be about them.

Secondly, you know I don't want a simple core.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“Prioritizing well-known D&D races and ones that fill important niches for inclusion in the PHB” is nowhere near the same as “only care about new players.” Furthermore, you not caring about Duergar proves my point even more. Your irrational hatred of WotC and jumping to criticize them for anything you think you can spin as a negative is getting really, really old. You don’t need to devolve every single thread into “I hate WotC, everything they do is terrible, and have you heard about how much I love Level Up!?”

Duergar happen to be the most interesting dwarven subraces, by default, the others are extremely boring. They’ve been printed in 5e 3 times now I think. They don’t need to be in the PHB, I don’t think they’re iconic/important enough to be in the PHB, but I’m not sure I like them from a lore/mechanics angle. It would be nice, but if they’re simplifying dwarves and making them more interesting, I think it’s fine to leave them out.

I'm not really interested in simplifying character creation. And I like duergar, and love dwarves in general.

Also, WotC can still make decent stuff. Planescape was better than I expected, and I would buy the Book of Many Things if I could justify paying $100 for it. I just don't like their general design goals and trajectory, and I think they focus far too much energy on maximizing profits and far too little on making the best game they can.

And what exactly does "fill important niches for inclusion" mean?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Money

That why they need us, not why we need them. Are they paying us? How can I get in on that?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not really interested in simplifying character creation. And I like duergar, and love dwarves in general.

By “simplifying” they’re removing two subraces, one of which was wholly defined by getting armor proficiency, and the other just getting +1 HP per level. The Dwarven subraces were boring conceptually and mechanically. Giving them tremorsense is way more interesting than the 2014 versions. And their cultures are similar enough that, IMO, they really don’t need mechanical differentiation.

And what exactly does "fill important niches for inclusion" mean?

You cut the sentence in half. I might have worded it strangely. I was saying that the types of races that get priority in the PHB are ones that are iconic (Tolkienesque Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs, Drow, Tieflings, etc) or ones that fill an important player option niche (big strong race = Goliath, short, nimble option = Halflings/Gnomes, Dragon person = Dragonborn, etc). They were originally planning on adding the Ardling to fill the Animalfolk and Celestial niches. They added the Goliath to be a big strong race without the Orc baggage (and I also suspect Grog from Critical Role contributed to this). Et cetera.

More niche player options would be lower priority, stuff like Duergar, Sea Elves, Yuan-Ti, Tritons, Locathah, etc.

 

[Minigiant]

First of all, you said some of the game should be tailored to new players. I'm fine with that, but I don't want the whole game to be about them.

The whole game isn't tailored to new players.

Heck the 2014 5e races weren't tailored to new players.
They were tailored to LOTR fans and Old School fans (whose campaigns were often LOTR + Myth). That's why the Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Human were so tame in fantasy and Orc was monster race with bad stats until TCOE.

The issue is that they are still catering mostly to those fans by not pushing the envelope in those classic races despite their newest and hottest products moving away from that.

Secondly, you know I don't want a simple core.

And an a game without a simple core and heavy marketing cannot be a gateway game.

Really there should be 3 types of species.

1. A species with a mild base and major subspecies deviation.
   • These are you Elves, Dragonborn, and Goliath
   • They has strong central theme and their subspecies choice has a strong alteration of that choice
2. A species with a strong base and minor subspecies deviation.
   • These are your Gnome, Hobgoblin, or Kobold
   • They are chosen for their core race and their subspecies is just a tweak or minor gift
3. A species with a very strong base and no subspecies
   • These are most of the beastfolk
   • Their lore, theme, and mechanics are big packages and take up more of the design space to replicate the fiction

The question is if Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc should be 1, 2, or 3.
Dwarf used to be a 1. Halfling a 2. Orc a 3.

 

[Scribe]

The whole game isn't tailored to new players.

Heck the 2014 5e races weren't tailored to new players.
They were tailored to LOTR fans and Old School fans (whose campaigns were often LOTR + Myth). That's why the Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Human were so tame in fantasy and Orc was monster race with bad stats until TCOE.

The issue is that they are still catering mostly to those fans by not pushing the envelope in those classic races despite their newest and hottest products moving away from that.


And an a game without a simple core and heavy marketing cannot be a gateway game.

Really there should be 3 types of species.

1. A species with a mild base and major subspecies deviation.
   • These are you Elves, Dragonborn, and Goliath
   • They has strong central theme and their subspecies choice has a strong alteration of that choice
2. A species with a strong base and minor subspecies deviation.
   • These are your Gnome, Hobgoblin, or Kobold
   • They are chosen for their core race and their subspecies is just a tweak or minor gift
3. A species with a very strong base and no subspecies
   • These are most of the beastfolk
   • Their lore, theme, and mechanics are big packages and take up more of the design space to replicate the fiction

The question is if Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc should be 1, 2, or 3.
Dwarf used to be a 1. Halfling a 2. Orc a 3.

Interesting post, too tired to dig into but I'll think on it.