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

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I used the PF term. In D&D terms, I'm talking about "Wizard" versus "Swordmage".

In that case, I agree that a sword mage class would be nice.

 

[Minigiant]

Sure they do. Check the NPC stats of every module. The town guard has a 16 strength. The village in the middle of nowhere has a priest with a 16 wisdom. The merchant who hired you has a 17 charisma. Normal people absolutely have 14s, 15s, 16s, 17s, and 18s.

Guard

Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: [rollable]+3;{'diceNotation':'1d20+3','rollType':'to hit','rollAction':'Spear'}[/rollable] to hit, ...

www.dndbeyond.com

STR 13
DEX 12
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 11
CHA 10

 

[Minigiant]

No. Dwarves never had that.
Goliath's do.

+ Str vs +Wis.

It's a step in the right direction, but you will need to go a bit further to justify a subrace IMO.

Exactly

DWARF TRAITS
Creature Type Humanoid
Size: Medium (about4–5 feet tall)
Speed: 30 feet
Life Span: Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they're considered young until they reach the age of 50. They live 350 years on average
As a Dwarf, you have these special traits.

• Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
• Dwarven Resilience. You have Resistance to Poison Damage. You also have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Poisoned Condition on yourself.
• Forge Wise. Your divine creator gave you an uncanny affinity for working with stone or metal. You gain Tool Proficiency* with two of the following options of your choice: Jeweler’s Tools, Mason’s Tools, Smith’s Tools, or Tinker’s Tools.
• Dwarven Lineage: You are part of a lineage of lineage of dwarves linked to stone and metal by your divine creator. Choose a lineage of the Dwarven lineage table. You gain the Senses feature and Lineage benefit of your lineage.
  • Stonecunning.As a Bonus Action, you gain Tremorsense with a range of 60 feet for 10 minutes. You must be on a stone surface or touching such a surface to use this Tremorsense. The stone can be natural or worked.
    You can use this Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.
  • Superior Darkvision. Your Darkvision increases to 120 feet

Dwarven Lineage	Senses	Benefit
Hill	Stonecunning	Toughness. Your Hit Point Maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level.
Mountain	Stonecunning	Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. Backswing. Your natural downswing is mighty, You have Proficiency and Mastery in either the battleaxe or handaxe.
Summit	Stone Cunning	Peakborn: You have resistance to cold damage. You’re also acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet. Compact: You have Advantage on Strength Saving Throws
Volcano	Superior Darkvision	Forgeborn. You have resistance to fire damage. Hammer Arm. Your natural downswing is mighty, You have Proficiency and Mastery in either the light hammer or warhammer.
Deep	Superior Darkvision	Duergar Magic. Psionic Fortitude. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed or stunned condition on yourself.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Distinct classes that stand by themselves and are unique

I want Warlords, not Elven Cleric and Dwarven Cleric (they are just reprints of the regular Cleric but have different names)

That's the issue when having the race specific things becuase it just encourages you to do the racial specific options that leads to class bloat even quicker than 3E did, unlike 5E which at least goes "Here's a Forge cleric. It'll work for a dwarf, but if you have another forge themed idea (like say, a fire genasi) you can just use this as well" rather than having a distinct Dwarf Cleric and Genasi Cleric of the Forge that grabs that stuff, because the Genasi Cleric doesn't have them so you need a whole new class option to accomidate

Sure, but are you expecting WotC to give you that? That's the question I asked.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Everyone isn't good as everyone else.

PCs are exceptional weirdos of their species who survived the base weirdness.

That's a big problem too. PCs should not, IMO, be anywhere near as oh-so-special and unique as they are.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's why the last word in RPG is GAME. Games play better when the rules are fair across the board.

There is, in theory, such a thing as asymmetric balance. It just requires more work than some companies want to pay designers to do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if the issue still exists, why did we need to get rid of species ASIs? Don't we by the same logic need to remove all these other rules that benefit goliaths over halflings as barbarians too?

We should get rid of ASIs altogether IMO. Leave stat increases to a by level thing and get them out of character creation, or just remove them completely from player control.

 

[Micah Sweet]

IF normal people tried to do what D&D PCs do, they'd fail or die... a lot.

We skip the death funnels and spirals of failure and just play the exceptional adventurous characters who would not die at low levels.

You can play the All 10s + fixed racials PC if you want.

Normal people don't have a 15 and a 14.

We do those things...now, if we choose to play games that subscribe to that philosophy. I prefer the actual possibility of death and failure to be present.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How did AD&D meet your demand of flavor matching the mechanics? And how does immersion play a part in it? I like to think immersion means trying to get into character. You mechanically and conceptually create a character, and then you try to role-play your character alongside several other actors (the other members of your role-playing group) in an interactive story created by the DM. I say try because sometimes we succeed at our Performance checks and sometimes we don't. Either way, we're doing it because it's fun.

Immersion to me means feeling like you're playing in an imaginary world that follows consistent rules and feels like it could be a real place. Story as a thing you're creating has very little to do with it.

 

[Hussar]

. if there is not a 1:1 relationship between the narrative objects and the mechanical objects in the game, then the connection between them-- which is necessary for several gameplay functions-- is broken.

Except that there is almost never a 1:1 relationship between narrative and mechanical objects in the game. It's all abstraction. And because they're abstractions, there is so much vague, fuzzy connections between the mechanics and the narrative.