NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9472362" data-attributes="member: 7006">Don't agree.  No species is necessary.  If mechanics didn't exist, then you would just describe your character as an elf and be "elf-like" while describing what your character was doing as you were playing the game.After all... when do the "elf mechanics" actually show up in the game that are specifically about being an elf?  You get a few spells?  You can get the exact same suite of spells though other non-species means.  You get proficiency in either Insight, Perception, or Survival?  EVERY PC can have those proficiencies-- some even getting all three.  Advantage on saving throws versus the Charmed condition?  Character get bonuses and advantage on saves all the time for any number of things.  The only thing that an "elf" gets mechanically that is actually distinctly an "elf mechanic" is Trance-- and that's a mechanic that almost never actually matters because even when they finish their "4-hour Long Rest"... they still sit around the other 4 hours twiddling their thumbs waiting for the rest of the party to wake up.  That character could not have that mechanic and the game would not be any different for them.So no... nothing about elf mechanics truly does anything to distinguish an elf character from any other character.  And while you are playing, none of those mechanics will ever be used to say to anyone in the moment "I'm an elf!"  That +2 bonus to your Insight checks from being an elf will be glossed over whenever you are making an Insight check just like gaining that +2 bonus to Perception checks that you got from your Background.  Heck... you could swap which game feature gave you your proficiencies in Perception and Insight from Species to Background and you would never be able to tell the difference and the character would still play exactly the same.So yeah... you think you need these small little mechanics to denote what your species is.  And if someone was reading a section in the book that said "These are what an elf has that denote them being an elf"... then it feels like they actually have meaning.  But once you add those mechanics to the giant stew that is the mechanical representation of a D&D character...  any specificity is lost.  And thus you could remove those mechanics and most likely never even notice it.</blockquote>

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