D&D 5E (2024) Solasta 2 and the 1/2 elf

[Paul Farquhar]

I think "Roll initiative" or even "You must gather your party before venturing forth" might be more well known.

I've heard the "gather your party" quote in contexts so far removed from D&D that it's clear the person using it has no idea as to its origin.

And of course, we've had politicians talking about "levelling up" for a while, without knowing were it comes from.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think Tolkien probably coined it

I suspect it's a lot older, at least in concept. For example: Iolanthe - Wikipedia. I can't remember the exact text, but I'm pretty sure elf and fairy are used interchangeably in that source.

Which raises the key question: which half is elf, the top or the bottom?

 

[Mecheon]

I was unhappy the first time around when half-orcs were removed. Taking them (and half-elves as well) out again feels like 1989 all over again, with a different group behind the "push".

Half orcs being playable and not orcs was always stupid. I'd sacrifice them every time for orcs to be playable.

The mistake I'm talking about is taking certain races out of editions. Tsr dropped the 1/2 orc for 2nd edition.wotc then dropped the gnome in 4th edition. Then hurried to bring it back. I don't give a naughty word about the races powergaming potential. It was not used in 5.24phb for stupid reasons.

I mean, we know why they were dropped. Because the other options are more unique and hit other niches. Half elves are, by their nature, trapped between the elves offered by humans and elves.

Pick one of these: Human. Elf. Dwarf. Gnome. Halfling. Dragonborn. Tiefling. Aasimar. Goliath. Orc. Which one are you removing for half elf? Why are you justifying its niche above that other one? Are you prepared to face the knives of the fans of that race?

Because, frankly, I think its obvious why half elves got the chop: The other options are more unique. Half elves never really got much in D&D outside of Eberron, and Eberron's shown it'll just introduce those races again in not the PHB. Finally... Two of the go-to races being "Human but X" has always been a Weird Look in every edition.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Human but X" has always been a Weird Look in every edition.

I mean, that was part of Gygax's attempt to impose humancentricity on the game.

Which one are you removing for half elf? Why are you justifying its niche above that other one?

I think we can safely assume that would be any of the ones that were not in 1st edition, because this is really all about neophobia and resistance to change.

 

[wicked cool]

I mean, that was part of Gygax's attempt to impose humancentricity on the game.

I think we can safely assume that would be any of the ones that were not in 1st edition, because this is really all about neophobia and resistance to change.

What do you mean on resistance to change? You have so many options now that didn’t exist in the old editions. It’s a game and nobody asked for the removal. Inclusion of new fine.

Off topic daggerheart has introduced fairies and animal people (one player is a satyr/part goat ) . The way wotc marketed the creature species was handled poorly. It was chaotic and poorly thought out. I’m watching the daggerheart show saying why was a living statue as a oc just thought out (its existed in dragon age for 17 years)
It’s wotc thats been resistant . Thats the writers like Perkins etc.
the fans have been clamoring for dark sun for a long time!! I didn’t put the monkey people in space (that was wotc and them not reading the room). But that’s not some big Vince McMahon corporate guy. That’s the writers and their ideology

 

[Mecheon]

What do you mean on resistance to change? You have so many options now that didn’t exist in the old editions. It’s a game and nobody asked for the removal. Inclusion of new fine.

I mean, a non-zero amount of people are effectively arguing against those new races and would scrap interesting and popular options like Dragonborn or tieflings for "Let's just mash together two of the existing races"

Also, the only options that 5E had that didn't exist in older editions were the Grungs, Autognomes, Plasmoids, and the MTG specifics (Loxodon, Simic Hybrid, Vedalken and Leonin, plus the semi-official planeshift batch). Everything else was playable in another edition

There's not infinite room for races in the PHB and half-elves can show up later in, say, a setting that actually uses them well like Eberron. If you simply must have them in the PHB, what do half-elves bring to the table that's more unique than what orcs, gnomes, halflings, dragonborn, goliaths, tieflings, aasimar, elves or dwarves bring to the table? Because frankly, I argue half elves being half elves kind of is exactly why they were on the chopping block, and half orcs were always just a poor man's playable orcs to begin with

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Two of the go-to races being "Human but X" has always been a Weird Look in every edition.

And that's why we got "human but devil" and "human but angel" added to the 2024 PHB?

And that's also assuming you don't consider dragonborn to be "human but dragon" and goliaths to be "human but giant".

 

[wicked cool]

I mean, a non-zero amount of people are effectively arguing against those new races and would scrap interesting and popular options like Dragonborn or tieflings for "Let's just mash together two of the existing races"

Also, the only options that 5E had that didn't exist in older editions were the Grungs, Autognomes, Plasmoids, and the MTG specifics (Loxodon, Simic Hybrid, Vedalken and Leonin, plus the semi-official planeshift batch). Everything else was playable in another edition

There's not infinite room for races in the PHB and half-elves can show up later in, say, a setting that actually uses them well like Eberron. If you simply must have them in the PHB, what do half-elves bring to the table that's more unique than what orcs, gnomes, halflings, dragonborn, goliaths, tieflings, aasimar, elves or dwarves bring to the table? Because frankly, I argue half elves being half elves kind of is exactly why they were on the chopping block, and half orcs were always just a poor man's playable orcs to begin with

It’s funny I see a lot of 1/2 elves. Heck the twins in critical role were 1/2 elves and it’s a tremendous story. There’s been plenty of room for both

 

[DEFCON 1]

It’s funny I see a lot of 1/2 elves. Heck the twins in critical role were 1/2 elves and it’s a tremendous story. There’s been plenty of room for both

And they could still have done that story, even if they had gotten 3 Human or 3 Elf mechanics, rather than 3 'Half-Elf' ones.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Half orcs being playable and not orcs was always stupid. I'd sacrifice them every time for orcs to be playable.

My theory is that Half-Orc was mostly chosen, because players wanted to play Orcs but weren't allowed to play Orcs because they weren't in the PHB. And it's worse because they never really tried to make Half-Orcs look too distinct from Orcs unless they emphasized certain features of Orcs.

Pick one of these: Human. Elf. Dwarf. Gnome. Halfling. Dragonborn. Tiefling. Aasimar. Goliath. Orc. Which one are you removing for half elf? Why are you justifying its niche above that other one? Are you prepared to face the knives of the fans of that race?

I found Half-Elves to be a frankly boring option when there could have been other races out there. I'm glad it was removed in favour of having Aasimar or Goliaths in the PHB.

And looking at the PHB and DMG art, there's a character (Fey Wanderer Ranger) I suspect is an Elf-Orc. Sure I have my ideas on how he'd be mechanically represented if I really wanted to bother, but I think it might be too complicated to include in the PHB. Maybe later at some point they can say, "You're an Orc with the Fey Blood Origin Feat" or "You're an Elf with the Orcish Nature Origin Feat". Yes I know it's 1 or 2 pages for species origin feats for every species in the PHB and at least 1 page for maybe 2 backgrounds on mixed origins.