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.

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

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."

 

[Alzrius]

yeah that is a too high level concept.

Precisely, and if we make the not-unreasonable assumption that goliath bodybuilders have a Strength score of 20, then so is the concept of a halfling (or, really, any PC) who reliably trounces them in contests of strength. At least not without things like epic boons or a 20th level barbarian using their primal champion power to hit Strength 24, etc.

To be absolutely clear, I don't dislike the character idea @Morrus mentioned; Zidi Wheatling the Halfling Titan sounds like a lot of fun! But I don't think it's a coincidence that the one time we've seen stats for her (that I know of) was in a supplement for playing superheroes alongside fantasy heroes.

 

[Hurin70]

Strictly speaking, this isn't really a rules problem. The same thing could happen if someone created a goliath or another minotaur with maximum strength. And what you do as players is talk to one another about your characters and decide how you want to proceed. It could be that both the minotaur and halfling player just need to accept their characters are equally strong.

I and my players want to proceed by accepting that Minotaurs are stronger than Halflings, and so the strongest Minotaur will be stronger than the strongest Halfling, at least at level 1.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't see where that fixes the problem, just shifts the buck.

Tell me at what point the following sentences become acceptable:

All drow are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers.
All drow in the Forgotten Realms are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers.
All drow in Menzoberranzan are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers.
All drow of House Baenre are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers.
Quenthel Baenre is a sadistic, evil spider-demon worshipper.

Is there any stage before the last that is a true statement that won't get pushback? At what point is the generalization specific enough to not be considered racist or at the very least offensive? Does it matter if it were limited it to a certain setting, region, city, or group?

Well, the last statement was the only one not to refer to all of some group. If rather than making the groups you label universally evil smaller and smaller, you instead leave room for exceptions in your statement, you’d get less pushback. “Most drow are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshipers” is a much bigger improvement than “all of [a particular subset of drow” are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers. Though, better still would be to build lore as to why the worship of a sadistic, evil spider demon is so prominent in the culture of Menzoberanzan.

 

[Scribe]

Well, the last statement was the only one not to refer to all of some group. If rather than making the groups you label universally evil smaller and smaller, you instead leave room for exceptions in your statement, you’d get less pushback. “Most drow are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshipers” is a much bigger improvement than “all of [a particular subset of drow” are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers. Though, better still would be to build lore as to why the worship of a sadistic, evil spider demon is so prominent in the culture of Menzoberanzan.

Thats already done though. Its not good enough within the eyes of the vocal court of public opinion.

Even 'most' is not good enough, just as even the option of Tasha's system, is clearly not good enough.

 

[Scott Christian]

Just remove ability scores already. Make everything skills and feats. While we're at it, get rid of classes too. Just move all their stuff to skills and feats. Lastly, please remove culture and races. Just make everyone a changeling.

Doing this would open up the most options for character creation. If that is the endgame, then this is the most direct path. I'd try it. (But have to say, from a world building standpoint, how blasé.)

 

[Laurefindel]

Precisely, and if we make the not-unreasonable assumption that goliath bodybuilders have a Strength score of 20, then so is the concept of a halfling (or, really, any PC) who reliably trounces them in contests of strength. At least not without things like epic boons or a 20th level barbarian using their primal champion power to hit Strength 24, etc.

To be absolutely clear, I don't dislike the character idea @Morrus mentioned; Zidi Wheatling the Halfling Titan sounds like a lot of fun! But I don't think it's a coincidence that the one time we've seen stats for her (that I know of) was in a supplement for playing superheroes alongside fantasy heroes.

As it stands, the goliath bodybuilder will always be able to lift more than Zidi thanks to "powerful built", and thus remain king of the gym. The goliath can also out-damage Zidi with the use of two-handed weapon (and Great Weapon Master feat) due to the halfling's small size (and inability to use heavy weapons efficiently), and likewise will appear more overbearing on the battlefield. Each can wrestle one another more or less equally, but the gap is created when they need to wrestle a large creature instead. Zidi will have other advantageous abilities on their side, but the goliath shouldn't lose the face in front of their stature-admiring fans.

So in effect, the goliath will likely be "stronger" than Zidi, at least in appearance, even if the former has a lower Str score. Not all races have such abilities that support their archetypes outside their ability scores however, but I hope further experimentations with races will correct that.

 

[Oofta]

Well, the last statement was the only one not to refer to all of some group. If rather than making the groups you label universally evil smaller and smaller, you instead leave room for exceptions in your statement, you’d get less pushback. “Most drow are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshipers” is a much bigger improvement than “all of [a particular subset of drow” are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers. Though, better still would be to build lore as to why the worship of a sadistic, evil spider demon is so prominent in the culture of Menzoberanzan.

Yeah. If only they had included a disclaimer, something like "The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign."

Oh, wait. I got that from the Monster Manual intro.

 

[JEB]

I believe they would replace the current PHB race section with a new one based on Tasha's and this UA and hopefully a few tweaks.

I didn't play 3/3.5 so I am not familiar with those changes; however, they are technically the same edition. A true edition change is like what happened between 2e-to-3e and 3e-to-4e and 4e-to-5e. I don't expect that much change.

I can't speak for WotC, but game-changing and changing how you play the game are different. One requires a change in editions, the other, not necessarily.

Just to be clear, I said "a 5.5E or a 6E". I'm pretty sure replacing the original PHB character creation rules with the new ones would qualify for a 5.5e. (I could also see it being called a "6E", but in the same sense that 2E was really a revised 1E.)

False premise: PHB races are explicitly obsolete.

The PHB races aren't obsolete, but the way they were designed certainly is. And that's a state of affairs that Wizards is very likely to rectify.

What I would consider a significant change would be Wizards saying that the new, flexible approach to be the official, required design retroactive to every book that has been published, but that won't happen unless Wizards does an about-face on what they've been saying over and over and over again about not wanting to make rules in the original core three books obsolete.

As of last year, Tasha's approach to ability scores was optional; now it's the default going forward. They already made one about-face.

 

[Oofta]

I don't have a problem with Tasha's and I don't even have a problem with some races. Damphyr aren't really a "race" in the traditional sense.

I do dislike every race being "build your own". Want a half orc acrobat? Nothing stopped you from doing that in the past. Their genetics may not have made it an obvious choice but there was nothing stopping it, the race just didn't give you a boost. All it did was nudge people (a +1 modifier isn't that huge) to reinforce that dwarves are a different species, they are not just short humans. Tasha's let you override that default, getting rid of it altogether just makes different races more and more a bland generic grayness with no distinguishing features.

In any case I'll go back to ignoring this now because my opinion and $10 may or may not get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, the last statement was the only one not to refer to all of some group. If rather than making the groups you label universally evil smaller and smaller, you instead leave room for exceptions in your statement, you’d get less pushback. “Most drow are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshipers” is a much bigger improvement than “all of [a particular subset of drow” are sadistic, evil spider-demon worshippers. Though, better still would be to build lore as to why the worship of a sadistic, evil spider demon is so prominent in the culture of Menzoberanzan.

Yeah, when this was discussed last year, I asked how many counter-examples to evil culture does it take to prove "not all drow". The answer I got was that there is no amount of "going against the grain" that is enough as long as the grain still exists. All, many, most, half, some, it doesn't matter.

The sentence line doesn't have to be alignment based either. "Dwarves are hard-working, dour craftsmen and miners who live underground" might not be offensive, but it's still a stereotyped monoculture and no better than evil sadistic drow. It doesn't matter if it refers to generic PHB dwarves, FR dwarves or Gauntelgrym dwarves. It stereotypes dwarves as one thing and no amount of mold-breaking examples fixes that.

So what, aside from some racial mechanics, defines a dwarf once cultural elements are gone?