D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Remathilis]

I agree. All those things should have mechanical representation. My whole game design philosophy practically demands as much mechanical representation as possible. I want different things modeled differently, darn it!

Follow up question: does it matter the form that mechanical representation takes? For example, does it matter if a witch is a class or a background or if a half-elf is a species or an origin feat? Because it does to some people.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's even worse!

Because orcs don't even have super strength anymore.

Last orc PC we had was a wizard, and had a strength of 10.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Follow up question: does it matter the form that mechanical representation takes? For example, does it matter if a witch is a class or a background or if a half-elf is a species or an origin feat? Because it does to some people.

What matters (to me, anyway) is that said representation do as good a job as possible to as accurately as possible depict the item in question as far as the conceits of the setting is concerned. That's always my top priority.

 

[Minigiant]

In a perfect world each ability score would matter to every class to the point that anybody would be able to pick any species with any class and still have ability score adjustments within species

Then

Orc would be STR/DEX who can dash as a bonus action

Half orc would be STR/CON who can resurge

 

[mamba]

I agree. All those things should have mechanical representation. My whole game design philosophy practically demands as much mechanical representation as possible. I want different things modeled differently, darn it!

so how did you model the katana differently from a sword?

 

[Remathilis]

so how did you model the katana differently from a sword?

1d20 slashing damage, obviously.

 

[Micah Sweet]

so how did you model the katana differently from a sword?

It's usually considered a bastard sword, often of fine quality. That’s also how Level Up does it. It might provide a bonus to Culture rolls under certain circumstances.

 

[Remathilis]

It's usually considered a bastard sword, often of fine quality. That’s also how Level Up does it. It might provide a bonus to Culture rolls under certain circumstances.

So it's a bastard sword that you reflavored to represent something similar and occasionally influences role-playing aspects?

That's your final answer?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So it's a bastard sword that you reflavored to represent something similar and occasionally influences role-playing aspects?

That's your final answer?

I suspected you were looking for a gotcha here. I won't be tricked. Katana are listed with the same stats as a bastard sword in Level Up with a quality modifier. That seems reasonable to me, so I went with it. I added the culture stuff because it made sense given the katana's symbolic position (and culture is a skill in Level Up, so it's not only role-playing. Those things seemed sufficient to model the weapon to the level of accuracy I wanted.

Now, what else do I need to do to justify my subjective preference on these matters to you? I really want to know how I do that, because I'm pretty tired of hearing how badwrong my fun is.

 

[S'mon]

I've said this a few places but I'm mixed-race and I've always identified with half-elves and half-orcs. I particularly love Eberron's interpretation of half-elves, who have a distinctly unique culture. Having distinct mixed-race peoples and ethnicities are not "problematic", we have a word for them IRL: "Creole."

The way that mixed race/species characters were presented in the UA was extremely problematic, however, and it made me wonder if there was anyone who was mixed on the dev team.

Using the example of someone with black and Chinese heritage, they will often be told "oh you're not Chinese, you're just black" or "you don't act black enough, clearly you're Chinese." So when the rules say "pick one of your characters' two parents and have them 'count as' one of them", that really brings up some uncomfortable memories for people like me.

What I would've liked is for the PHB or DMG to have a side-bar for creating custom mixed-species mechanics, and then have the half-elf and half-orc as examples on how to build them, in much the same way that the Eladrin and Aasimar were given as examples on how to make a custom race in the 2014 DMG. That way, using the example of a half human, half elf character, we can then make a half human, half dwarf character, or even a half dragonborn, half tabaxi character.

I think WotC's approach is utterly vile and extremely offensive, I completely agree with this post above, but I think it doesn't make sense to have stuff in an SRD that's not in the rules the SRD is referencing.