D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."

 

[Guest 6801328]

Or we could drop the parts that are simply not what I'm asking.



Which, essentially is what I said.

If both are focusing on strength, why does it make sense if one is looking at the world from a place of any kind of logical suspension of disbelief, for a 3 foot tall 'often confused for a child' being, to be as strong, as an 8 foot tall literal giant (in our world).

"logical suspension of disbelief" is a funny phrase.

That aside, I wrote a long post upstream about how the game is rife with impossibilities. If you choose to pick this one thing as disbelief-shattering, that's on you.

If you have trained in any sport with contact, in your life, you would realize this is nonsense.

Oh, please. Get over yourself. Yes, I've trained in traditional boxing and also aikido. I'm not disagreeing that, in the former case, for two people of the same skill, the one who is larger and physically stronger (in an absolute sense) is going to have an advantage. It's why they have weight classes, right? In aikido I think it's more complicated than that, because aikido is largely about using your opponent's inertia against them, and more mass == more inertia, but let's just skip that one.

My turn: if you've trained in any kind of climbing, you would realize that it's nonsense that the larger person with greater absolute strength has any kind of advantage. It's strength-to-weight ratio that matters. And D&D uses Strength to model climbing, so.....

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, even though I'm not a fan of floating ASIs, I think they make sense for these Gothic lineages, as they're basically creatures that are converted from other beings. That's why they get to choose their size as well. So if you're a reborn dwarf, you can use the ASIs to match those of a dwarf etc.

 

[Remathilis]

BTW, even though I'm not a fan of floating ASIs, I think they make sense for these Gothic lineages, as they're basically creatures that are converted from other beings. That's why they get to choose their size as well. So if you're a reborn dwarf, you can use the ASIs to match those of a dwarf etc.

Absolutely. You can use these rules to emulate a dwarf dhampir or halfling hexblood just by picking the right ASI and size. Even without Tasha, it makes sense here.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'd say 24 for halflings, running under the assumption that halflings are actually murder chimps.

And let's say... 20 for Goliaths because while they are born swole, there's actually not much left in them to make bigger gains. Carbo-loading just give them a gut, and their bodies can't process lactic acid away even as well as humans, so they can't just hang at the gym as much as a human gym rat.

Muahaha! now whose race is being ruined by realism?

 

[TwoSix]

My turn: if you've trained in any kind of climbing, you would realize that it's nonsense that the larger person with greater absolute strength has any kind of advantage. It's strength-to-weight ratio that matters. And D&D uses Strength to model climbing, so.....

Exactly! Why are we so worried about modeling something (combat ability) that should only be 1/3 of the game!

 

[Scribe]

So what should the halflings strength score be capped at? 10? 12? Also, what is the minimum strength of a goliath? I'm thinking 12 before modifiers, but all the extra meat is going to cap thier Dex at 14...

I'm all for caps, and negative modifiers, but I think that's not going to see traction.

I'd cap Halflings at 16.
I'd cap Goliath's at 18.

But that's just initial gut reaction.

ULTIMATELY I would prefer rules make it clear that a halfling isn't as strong as a goliath, in some capacity.

Again though, your line in the sand won't match mine, perhaps.

 

[Hurin70]

If we’re talking about orders of magnitude of difference, I don’t think +2 strength even begins to adequately model such difference.

This is why I don’t find the argument from verisimilitude compelling. The mechanic it’s being used to defend is such a poor way to express the concept it’s meant to model. The idea that one can accept that the only difference between characters of different sizes is +1 to hit and damage, but take away that +1 and your suspension of disbelief is shattered... Seems like such an arbitrary line to draw in the sand.

I'm not saying that the +2 should be the only difference. There are of course racial abilities that further address the issue. But +2 might be the most you can get away with to still have viable Halflings in a Role Playing Game. You have to balance the gamism with the simulationism here.

I personally very much like the additional tool Rolemaster provides, of fully developed size rules. A Big creature gets more hit points and its attacks hit harder, while the smaller gets less hit points and does less damage. I tend to be a bit more simulationist in that regard. But someone already said in this very thread how much they would hate that, even after I explained how Halflings got compensated for their small size with extra development points. That's another illustration of why you have to balance the simulation with the game: model reality too closely, and small size creatures are no longer viable as melee combatants; model it too loosely, and the world becomes so silly and cartoonish that you find it harder to suspend your disbelief.

 

[Scribe]

My turn: if you've trained in any kind of climbing, you would realize that it's nonsense that the larger person with greater absolute strength has any kind of advantage. It's strength-to-weight ratio that matters. And D&D uses Strength to model climbing, so....

Agreed, we have established that Str is a poor abstraction.

So what we do about it is. Next.

Render it an even worse abstraction? That is an option.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My turn: if you've trained in any kind of climbing, you would realize that it's nonsense that the larger person with greater absolute strength has any kind of advantage. It's strength-to-weight ratio that matters. And D&D uses Strength to model climbing, so.....

I actually agree that the climbing rules do not make much sense, and I think climbing being dex-based would probably yield more intuitive results. Elephants or squirrels, which are better climbers?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Absolutely! And I think we should apply that logic to all facets of D&D. I think it’s worth asking if the gameplay would be improved by making all weapons the same (my opinion would be no), and if so, whether it would be worth the verisimilitude tradeoff to make such a change (my opinion would obviously be no, because I think having different stats for different weapons has a positive gameplay impact.)

Although the rapier, again, is an illustrative example: because it is objectively the "best" finesse weapon for anybody who doesn't dual wield, it's a trap option and has become a cliché.