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]

?What math are you using?
Point buy a thousand characters. Take a portion (dwarves) and add 2 to their con. They are now hardier than others. Roll 4d6 a thousand time. Take a portion of the results (the dwarves) and add 2 in con. They are now hardier than others.

Now average in the millions of NPC dwarves who use the ability scores in the stat block for "Dwarf". All those +2's become a rounding error.

Also, why would I create a thousand player characters?

 

[Hurin70]

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.

That's fine if you want to include that way of trying to represent Dwarven hardiness, but it is more specific than getting a Con Bonus. It would therefore be more accurate to say, 'Dwarves are more resistant to poison than other races.' But just saying Dwarves are 'hardier' is no longer true.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Well, no. I'd say "Unfortunately for the people who don't want the game to change..."

'Cause that ship is sailing. Sorry.

I believe it is quite clear in my post that i'm not prejudicially against any change. I only stress the fact that pushing the rules beyond the boundary of logic can give some difficulty in coherence side.
Don't know why you have this attitude. Need to friction at any cost?

 

[Remathilis]

I use Standard Array, which similarly benefits from the floating bonuses.

Standard array is just point buy with the points pre-spent. Adjust the scores to match the new point buy amount and cap.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Nobody said anything about "realistic." I'd say that ship has sailed, except that would imply there was a time when it hadn't. That ship started its existence on the water and has never in the history of D&D made port.

D&D does not do realism. What it does is make gestures that suggest realism if you don't look too close, while also promoting fun gameplay. IMO, the ideal minotaur mechanics would make you feel that you were playing a hulking giant, without making your character (be it a barbarian or a wizard) less effective in its role than the other PCs at the table. It does not have to match the actual effects of being 8 feet tall and 600 pounds of beef.

Do you know the difference between realism and internal coherence?

 

[Hurin70]

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.

That's fine. But do you see how now the description in the books no longer matches the mechanic?

The books say Dwarves are 'hardy'. But ordinary players now have to parse that to make it make sense. What the book is really saying is rather:

'Dwarven NPCs tend to be hardy.' *

* Your Dwarven PC won't be any hardier than any other races though, so if you picked Dwarf in order to be hardier than an Elf, you're SOL. Enjoy!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Do you know the difference between realism and internal coherence?

Both are frequent excuses to make the game less fun for people like me?

 

[Arial Black]

That's a strawman, Arial. He's not arguing "no impact", but rather "meaningful discrepancies", as he says.

The problem with ASIs in 5E is really simple and more extreme than previous editions. The likely majority of rolls you make in the game are to hit and damage (or people saving against your spells, which have a DC set by your primary stat, let's not overcomplicate this though), which your primary stat tends to apply to. So a small stat difference, can, in very real terms, have a impact over the course of an adventure.

People tend to think because it's only +1 or whatever, it doesn't matter, but that's obviously not true, and playing 5E shows it to be untrue. The more rolls you make, the more it matters. Eventually, if the campaign lasts long enough, you do catch up, quite likely, but having been behind for the majority of your levels, is going to have left you feeling a bit crummy.

This gets worse if a race has two useful ASI, not just one, as compared to another race.

They are suggesting that a race without a Str racial bonus, like halflings, are objectively less effective combat focussed PCs, and therefore set racial bonuses are unfair.

This is false.

Every race in the PHB can, even with static racial bonuses, get at least a +1 (and therefore a 16 in point-buy) in either Str or Dex. Both Dex-based AND Str-based combat focussed PCs are equally viable.

Moaning that its unfair that halflings don't get +2 Str, when they already get +2 Dex, is not a good enough complaint to justify throwing realism entirely from the game! And no, realism is not the same as simulationist.

 

[Hurin70]

Edit: Double post

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Level 20 halfling barbarian could have a strength of 24.

Did I just get "Well, actuallyed"?