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."

 

[Hurin70]

Tasha's is not saying "Dwarves, as a race, in a fantasy world, are no longer hardy!", Tasha's is saying "PC examples of Dwarves, do not have to select +CON as one of their racial ASIs".

Yes, and by doing that, they are removing the mechanic that makes Dwarves hardier than other races.

 

[Charlaquin]

A player's choice in everything affects their PC's efficacy in their chosen role: race, class, ability scores, feats, skills, which of the available magic items to use....

Yes, but when you choose, for example, whether to increase your Strength score or take the Great Weapon Master Feat, you’re choosing between two things that make you a better Fighter in different ways. When you choose to take the Actor Feat instead of either, you are choosing to accept being worse at being a fighter, in order to get something else you want. When you choose to play any race that doesn’t grant a bonus to strength though? You’re just stuck with being a worse fighter. Your only recourse, if you want to be an effective fighter, is to play a member of a narrow subset of races that give you a bonus to Strength, and maybe none of those races interest you. Well, too bad. Pick one or suck it up.

Why do you believe that their choice of race should be the only thing that has no impact! And what's the point of choosing a race if that choice has no impact?

I don’t believe choice of race shouldn’t have an impact. I believe you should be able to play an effective member of your class, regardless of what race you choose. Races can give bonuses that impact how you play your class, absolutely. It shouldn’t impact how effective you are as a member of your class in a significant way.

Race and class are the two most significant choices a player makes in terms of character expression. We shouldn’t be punishing players for picking a combination that doesn’t conform to a narrow set of tropes codified half a century ago. People want to explore different characters that don’t fall under the same tired Tolkien tropes. And they don’t want to be mechanically punished for doing so.

Do you think the game would be better if the Races chapter just read: "Imagine your PC is whatever species you want. That choice has zero impact on how your PC affects the game"?

No. Obviously not, and this comes off as a blatant mischaracterization of my position.

 

[Scribe]

Yes, and by doing that, they are removing the mechanic that makes Dwarves hardier than other races.

Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on Saving Throws against poison, and you have Resistance against poison damage.

I believe would be the thing people look to, as a way to solve this.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yes, and by doing that, they are removing the mechanic that makes Dwarves hardier than other races.

Dwarf PLAYER CHARACTERS. Not all Dwarves. Just the tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of all Dwarves that are PCs.

And, as several people (include @Scribe, above, and @Charlaquin, below) have pointed out: it still leaves them with Dwarven Resilience.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, and by doing that, they are removing the mechanic that makes Dwarves hardier than other races.

Constitution is not the only mechanic that can make Dwarves hardier, and in fact, is currently not the only racial feature dwarves have that make them hardier.

 

[Guest 6801328]

No. Obviously not, and this comes off as a blatant mischaracterization of my position.

A sure sign that somebody either doesn't understand an argument, or is flailing around wildly trying to find a counterargument.

 

[Scott Christian]

Yes, I've done so already a couple of times, but one more won't hurt.

The claim was that "You can't any longer describe a Dwarf as 'hardy', because as a race they are no hardier than any other."

And that this was specifically an issue in 5E, and 5E's language needed to be changed as a result. This is not true. If we ignore non-ASI abilities, as the poster was doing at that point (and indeed has to do in order to make that argument), then as soon as stat minimums went out the window, it became, by that token, false to say that "Dwarves are hardy", because it became possible to have a CON 5 Dwarf or the like.

When stat minimums existed, it was a valid argument - if a race had a minimum of 9 or more in a stat, for example, you could fairly say that none of them had less than average constitution, and necessarily because of the way minimums work, the vast majority would be above-average in that stat.

Now, what you could say, and appreciate that this is a neat point, but still, is that "Dwarves tend to be hardy". But that can remain true with fixed ASIs gone. A tendency isn't the same as a hard modifier, or a fixed alignment or the like. Saying "Dwarves tend to be hardy" is absolutely compatible with the +CON mod situation, and with a no-fixed-mod situation.

And further, my point was that minimums had been gone for a long time.

@Oofta see above. Also re: opinions, anyone can think what they want. It's when they make claims that something is factually the case that it goes outside opinion into argument.

Thanks for the re-explanation. It is appreciated.

 

[Arial Black]

Ok, so we're getting somewhere, but you still haven't justified the "has to" as opposed to "I would prefer it to". Or is the former merely shorthand for the latter for you? Which is fine, but obviously an opinion rather than an argument.

And it is abstractly reflected in some cases already. The Loxodon has Powerful Build, for example.

First, what the heck is a loxodon and why is it so badly designed?

Second, the new system of totally floating racial bonuses takes away that abstract way to represent these physiological differences, but does not replace them with race specific equivalents that don't involve ability scores, leaving nothing. Not every race which currently has +2 Str has Powerful Build, and didn't need to because it already has its power modelled by +2 Str!

Third, the game doesn't need to be totally simulationist in order to reflect these differences. Str +2 may not be enough to be simulationist, but it is enough to represent greater strength.

"It's a mouse! Run for your lives!"

"Mice aren't strong."

"That mouse might be as strong as an elephant! You don't know its life choices!"

In RPGs we suspend our disbelief. We can do this, not because we believe minotaurs exist, but because that we can work out that if they existed then they would be stronger than mice.

If the game world has no connection between concept and game mechanics, how can the players make decisions for their characters? In real life we make decisions based on a mental model of how the world works. We do the same when we play D&D. But if the D&D world makes sense (elephants are stronger than mice) then when the DM tells us that an elephant (or a mouse) is charging toward us, we can make a sensible choice about how to react. But if the world does not make sense (bodybuilding mice and bookworm elephants with less strength) then how would we judge our responses?

Role-playing in a world divorced from realism would have the decisions of players being meaningless.

 

[Faolyn]

Yes, but so are other players. If your strongest Halfling is stronger than the strongest Minotaur, then the player who wants to play the strongest Minotaur -- stronger than any Halfling -- does what?

You're avoiding answering the question.

We are talking to each other. And I'm asking: if you want to play an Elf that is 'stronger than the strongest Minotaur', what do I say to the guy who just rolled up a Minotaur and maxed his strength, hoping to be the strongest character?

You can't have it both ways. You can't have an Elf stronger than the strongest Minotaur in the same party or game world as a Minotaur that is stronger than the strongest Elf, unless you just don't care about logic.

I think what Morrus is saying is, if you have a group of gamers, and one of them wants to play the strongest character, then that player should say to the table, "I call dibs on the strongest character." And then the other players can decide whether to honor that dibs or not.

This is no different than having a discussion where one person calls dibs on having the wizard or fighter or whatever.

 

[Scott Christian]

So, just a hypothetical.

We accept that Tasha's is going to be the system moving forward. To go back to the threads more absurd notion, The Halfling Titan vs the Minotaur or Goliath.

In a world where ASI is no longer an issue (Tasha's) are people comfortable with an implementation in which while they can all have 20's for Str, there are still mechanics in play (Size, Race Special Rules, whatever) which would STILL provide meaningful advantage for a race in one class over a different race?

Are people OK with a Halfling not being as good a Fighter as a Goliath or Half-Orc?

Once ASI is gone, then the tide will shift to something else that doesn't allow them to be as good. Player A who chose this race can never be as good as player B who chose a different race at the start of the game. That is the end goal.

It is a paved road, make things easier. Because we all know by level 12, stats can be equalized. So it is: when I create my character, I want to be not have my attribute hindered by my racial choice. To go back to my knob example, basically, the knob needs to be removed. Stripped from the board.

Of course, when this happens (to answer your question), someone else is gonna only look at another single knob to turn and say: "Hey, that's not fair. This elf gets all his HP back in 4 hours and I need to rest for 8!" Then the argument starts all over again because someone will want the four hour rule with their dragonborn. Rinse and repeat.

The entire argument against ASIs is a matter of starting out equally, yet turns a blind eye to all the other things that are not "equal" or added to the equation during character creation.