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."

 

[Scribe]

I'm viewing it from the point of view of impact on the game. The same race/class combinations show up constantly.

They still will. Different ones probably, but optimization is in gamers blood, I dont care what the game is. If there are ways to min/max, people will.

If people played races with negative modifiers or 'wierd/bad fun' combinations of Race/Class, they will still do so, only now those folks get even less out of overcoming those challenges, because its completely self inflicted by just picking their ASI wrong on purpose.

You dont get the same out of playing a Tiefling 3e Paladin, as you do a 5e Tasha's Tiefling Paladin, because you are not working around a restriction or puzzle the developers gave you, you are just messing around.

I dont know if I'm explaining it well, but there is a difference in that experience, on an individual level.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Okay DM, in your game world, what race is the strongest race that is allowed for PCs?"

"Among the playable races in my world, goliaths are the strongest."

"I want as strong a PC as I can, so I'll play a goliath. What bonus do I get to my Str score for being a goliath?"

"None. PC goliaths are no stronger or weaker than any other race. If you want to play the strongest fighty type that you can, best play a halfling; that Halfling Luck trait makes you a much better Str-based PC than any goliath."

Did you see where that stopped making sense there?

Ooh! Ooh!

Is it the part where you didn't just take Goliath and make a strong PC out of it instead of antagonizing the DM for bonuses?

 

[Sacrosanct]

"Okay DM, in your game world, what race is the strongest race that is allowed for PCs?"

"Among the playable races in my world, goliaths are the strongest."

"I want as strong a PC as I can, so I'll play a goliath. What bonus do I get to my Str score for being a goliath?"

"None. PC goliaths are no stronger or weaker than any other race. If you want to play the strongest fighty type that you can, best play a halfling; that Halfling Luck trait makes you a much better Str-based PC than any goliath."

Did you see where that stopped making sense there?

Yep, when you omitted some things, and then treated your subjective opinion as fact.

For example:

"What bonus to I get for being a goliath?"
The answer is "You can get a +2." Not "none." Every race can get a +2, which includes a goliath.

And

"halfling luck makes you the best str based fighter."

That's entirely subjective. Does it make a better str based fighter than being able to carry twice as much stuff and reduce the damage you take and have cold resistance? Not sure. it's a matter of opinion.

 

[ART!]

This statement probably boils down the difference of opinion here. The Monster Manual statblock for a creature doesn't have a +X bonus for a stat, it just has a number that has been assigned to it.

A base orc has a 16STR in the Monster Manual. It doesn't have a 10STR+6STR Racial Bonus. If you wanted to play an orc and used the rules from Volo's, the writeup for an orc PC has a +2STR modifier, not a +6STR as your logic is saying is the case.

Therefore, what people are saying is.....the Monster Manual stats give an indication on what the average stat of a race is going to be when you take the population as a whole(16 for an or, 10 for a human) however the PC Creation rules shouldn't include bonuses because PC Creation rules do not represent "normal" members of the race and should allow maximum leeway to create the character you want to play.

In the interest of further pedantry in this thread , the MM does not give an indication on what the average stat of a race is going to be when you take the population as a whole.

It's not saying all orcs have a 16STR, or even that the average STR among all orcs is 16, just that the ones that might be good enough at killing things to provide a challenge have a 16STR.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I will agree that I think it's unfortunate that using Point Buy or Standard Array you can't have a score less than 8.

Less than 10 if you keep racial adjustments. which eliminates a lot of archetypes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You dont get the same out of playing a Tiefling 3e Paladin, as you do a 5e Tasha's Tiefling Paladin, because you are not working around a restriction or puzzle the developers gave you, you are just messing around.

Or I could just want to play a tiefling paladin because I like the aesthetic and don't want to deal with the designer's idea of what is right and proper for me to play.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

You keep using this phrase "internal coherence" but could you explain why racial ASIs are necessary for "internal coherence"?

Simply because I never find a page in the game in which it is written that to be 3 meters tall and full of muscle means being weak. So I reasonably assume that phisiology works the same way as in the real world. As you said Apes are 16 STR and Commoner are 10 STR, for example. Now put in comparison the illustration of an halfling and the one of a goliath: don't you see any difference? I mean MAYBE average halfling are weaker than average goliath... so ASI STR GOLIATH +2, ASI STR Halfling -2 is a way of represent a phisiological difference.
Do you want to remove this? Ok. Then you implicitly admit that the chance of a very strong halfling are the same as a goliath. Do you say the same in the real world between an Ape and a Human? I believe not.
I repeat: nothing wrong in remove ASI but admit that this is an hole in the mechanics aimed to represent difference in races that you introduce just because you need to refuse the concept of "race can be different". And in doing so you project real world issue (where this lack of substantial difference is true for a common extent even if not entirely true from genetic point of view) in fictional world (where this is absolutely true).

I find very hypocrit that the needing of same right for the people of the world ends up in this stupid trivial issues. really.

Well, a commoner's stats would be a statistical outlier regardless of which of the official stat generation methods you used. So, yes, PCs are special in this sense.
Because it tends to cause people to pick the same race/class combinations. Sorry if you missed that upthread.

A commoner is a commoner. Commoner. And he is average by definition. A PC is not a common person of course. But he is not "special" in respect of the law of the world.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Which one is it?
Are you sick and tired of seeing the same race/class combinations or do you just really want all races to start with the same class determined primary stat?
I am going to guess it is a little of both, but please correct me if I am wrong.

I see them as largely the same thing: one is the cause, the other is the effect.

If, somehow, racial ASIs could be combined with other abilities that made it harder to optimize race/class combinations, I'd be all for it.

For example (this is bad, but will illustrate my point)

Dwarf
+2 Con/+2 Str
Dwarven Stubbornness: you get Advantage on Concentration Checks
Smithcraft: Hammers and Mauls are finesse weapons for you

Now if I'm making a Wizard I might think, "Oooh....-1 on all my rolls, but Advantage on Concentration!"

Or if I'm making a rogue I might think, "Hmmm...-1 on all my rolls, but Sneak Attack with a Maul? Sign me up!"

I'd be totally onboard with that kind of race design. I just think it would be much, much harder to give every class one (and only one) ability that maximized class-specific synergy, than to give all of them abilities which minimized class synergy.

 

[Scribe]

Or I could just want to play a tiefling paladin because I like the aesthetic and don't want to deal with the designer's idea of what is right and proper for me to play.

Absolutely, which is what a lot of these discussions boil down to. "I just want to look like X, the rest is irrelevant."

Which btw, the optional Tasha's system allowed for already, or you at your own table could have adjusted for already.

Its not you that is losing out here, its those of us that want a system which enforces racial differences.

Thats it, thats all.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Less than 10 if you keep racial adjustments. which eliminates a lot of archetypes.

Good point. If I want to play a Cha 8 Tiefling, using racial ASIs I cannot do that. OMG.