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="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8073665" data-attributes="member: 6803643">This is why nobody should be upset about them decoupling "races" from their "racial features."Even if you disagree vehemently with the practice, WotC is giving you a toolset to make your own "races."They haven't shined a spotlight on that balancing practice previously in this edition.For me, I prefer a bit of a mix - I don't like that proficiencies and ability scores are linked to character ancestries (characters are heroic figures, not cultural averages, and if I'm the strongest and ugliest halfling in the world, there's no reason why I shouldn't have a bonus to Strength instead of a bonus to Charisma). But I do believe that ancestry features can guide a story for that ancestry in the game.Keith Baker talks about how, in HIS Eberron, Elves have Fey Ancestry and know Elvish by default. To him, that means that rather than the character LEARNING Elvish because they were raised in an Elven household to Elvish parents, they were born understanding Elvish, even if they orphaned and raised by say, Dwarves. Upon first encountering another Elf speaking Elvish (or any other Fey creature), they understand it, because their Fey Ancestry means they are not Natural Humanoids, they're Fey, and they have an innate connection to the language of Thelanis (the Feywild in Eberron). This creates a unique and unifying story about Elves that is very interesting in his game, and drives questions like where does that leave Half-Elves?I think that's great. I don't think Elvish works that way in MY setting, so I'd decouple language proficiencies from ancestry. But other features drive ancestral cultural stories in my games, and I'd want to keep those as unifying features.The point being is that this is an awesome toolset that should be useful for nearly everyone: the DM who wants to build their own unique ancestry for their game, the Player who wants to play a Dark Elf without sunlight sensitivity or an unlucky but cantrip-casting Halfling, the Player who wants to play Tauriel and Kíli's child from their Desolation of Smaug fanfic - and not use the Gnome statistics because they think that should be reserved for their OC mary sue's future kid with Frodo Baggins, and the min-max player who just wants the tools to build a character that fits the build they want while still telling the roleplaying story they want (like a wood elf warlock pact of the blade archfey patron with Charisma bonus, Sylvan language, and Longspear proficiencies).You're in a BIT of luck, at least - the book will contain new spells attributed to Tasha. No idea about her statblock, though.</blockquote>

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