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."

 

[Arial Black]

"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?"

"Well, you get a +2 and a +1 to assign anyway you want to your character, so if you want to be a super strong Goliath I would recommend you put your 15 in STR and then put your +2 on top of that for a 17 total. Then, if you really want to be a burly type put your 14 in CON and put the +1 on top of that so you get a 15."

"Yea, I guess, but that seems kind of one-note. What if instead I wanted to be a goliath who is still strong, but is actually a super genius?"

"In that case put your 15 into INT, then put your +2 on top of that for a 17 INT. Second you could make your STR a 14, and with your +1 make that a 15STR. This makes your guy really smart but also pretty strong."

"You know what, maybe being super strong isn't that great if i'm a wizard. What if, instead I wanted to be super smart AND tough?"

"You can do that too. Put your 8 into the STR stat and don't add a bonus to it. This is going to make you weaker than even your average goliaths so you need to explain that somehow. Perhaps your have a long term injury that didn't heal correctly or maybe you were the runt, or maybe cursed by an evil hag. Then you can do the 15+2 for INT and 14+1 for CON. Or even if you want to balance the two do 15+1 and 14+2 and that way you have equally good smarts and toughness."

"Great, thats exactly the guy i'm picturing in my head."

You do realise that you've proved my point, right?

Just go through the same logic where a player wants to play a Str-based halfling but who is stuck with +2 Dex and no bonus to Str.

The conversation works out the same way. You can throw your points into Str and play the strongest halfling you can.

That's exactly the guy you're picturing in your head, right?

The difference is that my way is coherent to the internal reality of the game world and yours is not. There is no logical reason that you should expect the strongest 1st level halfling you can make should be as strong or stronger than the strongest goliath that you can make.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Half-jokingly: If you don't want to deal with the designer's idea of what is right and proper for you to play, I don't know what to tell you other than "design your own game".

Done.

But seriously, while D&D is my go to for ease of pick up and play, things like HERO allow a massive amount of customizability without enforcing arbitrary flavor. And D&D and its progeny are actually moving toward that. We lost racial class restrictions, penalties to abilities, alignment restrictions and now hopefully racial ASIs.

It may be slow, but we are glaciating majestically toward mid 2000's game design best practices.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The difference is that my way is coherent to the internal reality of the game world and yours is not.

Lol.

There is no logical reason that you should expect the strongest 1st level halfling you can make should be as strong or stronger than the strongest goliath that you can make.

First, nobody is arguing for "or stronger".

Second, the choices to which PCs are constrained or allowed does not need to reflect the larger truth of the game world.

Sure, goliaths tend to be stronger than halflings, and you will probably be stronger than any halfling that you meet, unless of course somebody else at the table happens to want to play a super strong halfling. Suck it up.

 

[Faolyn]

"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?

Yes, the first sentence. I can't imagine any of my players picking a race just because its the strongest. Especially when there are multiple races that get a +2 bonus to Strength.

But the actual problem is the way you wrote the fourth sentence. It should have gone as follows:

"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?"

"You get a +2 to put in one stat of your choice, and a +1 to put in another stat." So you'd probably want to put that +2 in Strength."

(Edit: "Oh, and as a goliath you can carry more stuff, and you should probably take Athletics as one of your skills. That'll mean you are definitely strong.")

"Cool. Hey, other players. I'm playing the strong guy."

"That's fine. I want to do a fighter as well, so maybe I'll go Dex-based. Haven't played one of those in a while. Hmm, which of these eight Fighting Styles that don't specify Strength should I pick."

 

[Scott Christian]

Sorry, I missed this earlier. Could you give an example so I can better understand what you mean?

I will try.
Two sides: Floating ASIs and Racial ASIs.

Floating ASI: We do not want racial choices to alter our class choice. Or. We do not want to be hampered in our primary attribute because we choose to be a specific race. Or. We dislike seeing the same race/class combos always being played, and Racial ASI's are the primary promoter of this.
(I think that is correct. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.)

Racial ASI: We do not want the race's to lose their attribute distinctness. Or. We like seeing the same race/class combos. Or. We do want players to be hampered in their primary attribute when choosing a specific race.

(Optional) The reason why behind these is more interesting than what they are. For example, why would anyone like seeing the same race/class combos? For world building it might be really nice. To see the same combo over and over, and then you roll up with a unique combo, it makes you stand out. Another example, why would anyone want their player hampered in their primary attribute? A zero to hero mentality could explain it. Puny farmer becomes the greatest warrior. It might coincide with the unique character path stated above. Reasons are opinion. That's it. It is hard to change opinions because each table is different.

Now, how does all this relate to a blind eye?
My example was, when creating a game, you have knobs. Character creation in D&D has the following knobs:

HP, Speed, Attributes, Skill and Tool Proficiencies, Weapon and Armor Proficiencies, and Racial Feats.

In my opinion, these other knobs seem to be removed from the argument, as if they didn't exist. The only knob looked at is Racial ASI, and how on some characters at level one, you can only turn the knob to 3, while some you can turn to 4. So we (myself included) seem to be only staring at the Racial ASI knob.

I gave some specific examples earlier. A mentioned the wood elf barbarian that has a movement speed greater than any other race/barbarian in the game. 45' per turn, and able to use a bonus action for another 45'. So 90' per turn. No dwarf can ever do that. So is the trade off of speed worth starting off with a 15 strength instead of 16? In my opinion, the answer was yes. Plus, I had a better initiative and could use mask of the wild, which for someone who moves 90' is a big deal. Again, does that outweigh the +1? It seems no one is bothering to answer that, hence turning a blind eye to these racial feats which greatly empower any barbarian who chooses the totem path of the Eagle. (Which also gives disadvantage on opportunity attacks, so you can imagine this elven warrior weaving in and out of enemies for 90' a turn and still attacking! Or worse yet, moving 45' towards the target, attacking, then moving 45' away!)

Apply a floating ASI to that example. The question arises, why would anyone choosing totem path of the eagle be anything other than a wood elf? There is no trade off. Just good heaped upon great.

This line of thought can be applied to all these dials because D&D is table dependent.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, you may be being a tad too inflexible in how you read this.

"Dwarves are hardy," has two ways to read it: 1) Dwarves, in general, are hardy, or 2) Absolutely every single dwarf is hardy.

Now, we can show the latter is an incorrect reading, insofar as one could already, with a standard array, make a dwarf with a 10 Con, which is not particularly hardy. Ergo, the statement is a generalization, speaking to a broad average, and we must, perforce accept that there will be some individuals who aren't all that hardy.

You are arguing, then, on exactly how much of that generalization is explicitly forced to appear in PCs. In a game where most of the fictional dwarf population is not governed by the PC creation rules, this seems like a precarious position to take.

"Dwarves in general are hardy, but you can play what you want," is too far a reach for you?

But, the description is in the PC section of the rules, so it seems like it should apply to PCs.

 

[Scribe]

"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?"

"You get a +2 to put in one stat of your choice, and a +1 to put in another stat." So you'd probably want to put that +2 in Strength."

"Cool. Hey, other players. I'm playing the strong guy."

You have to understand this isnt the argument being made here. Add the next few lines.

"OK, well I planned on also being a strong guy, but I'm going to be a halfling that doesnt even come up to your knee. I'll just drop my +2 into Str also, see same!"

"Wait what?"

The argument is one of where your suspension of disbelief breaks down, where you like to draw the line between mechanics and race, and aesthetics, and that is not an argument that can be solved for all, with 1 solution.

Almost like having a system with assigned ASI based on race, and another open system with a generic +2/+1, could serve both camps. If only such a set of systems could coexist...

 

[Jack Daniel]

People claim that 4e wasn't D&D. 4e never made changes to the game for political reasons. Sure they focused 4e in a different, more tactical way, but it was more D&D than what 5e is turning into.

5e is not D&D anymore.

If you're going to make that patently silly argument, then D&D hasn't been D&D since at least 3rd edition. Possibly 2nd.

(And if you want to talk about making changes to the game for political reasons, go search the 2nd edition Player's Handbook for assassins and half-orcs! Look for demons and devils in the Monstrous Manual! I'll wait.)

Not everyone uses point buy!

If ASIs were to be folded into the initial point-buy and the standard array for the next edition, of course the rolling method would have to be changed to align with that. 5d6k3, or 2d6+6, perhaps, would have to replace the old 4d6k3.

 

[Scott Christian]

Also, I'm not agreeing that the statistics say there's not much difference (you chose AC 11 in your example for a reason...). I'm saying that we don't need to argue about the statistics, because it's really the perception that matters.

Just for the record, and no sarcasm, I chose the darkmantle because we were talking about level one characters. It does not matter what you make the AC, the numbers still bear out the same.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is precisely what I was getting at. The new paradigm doesn't allow for any mechanical weight to culture, and that throws out a LOT of concepts.

Exactly.

If a lineage writeup doesn’t really mean anything, it’s better to just not have any lineage rules, and let the player fully describe what they are and where they come from from scratch, with no mechanics to get in the way, or at least as few very small mechanics as possible, like having some opportunity cost for getting dark vision, or whatever.

But this isn’t pathfinder, so it’s no good to say, “the basic model is no to select 2 feats and choose your size”, because that is so open ended that it is effectively very complex. Great as an option for players who want complexity, terrible for the bulk of players, who prefer human champion fighters for their simplicity.

The best model, then, is to present fully fleshed out Peoples, and include the rules for modifying them optionally in the PHB races section.