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."

 

[Bacon Bits]

Yes, that is correct. They didn't say in 2014, elf NPCs don't have the traits that elf PCs do, that elves in the PHB represent an archetype that doesn't reflect the race. They tell you how to create elf PCs in the PHB, using those traits... and in the MM and DMG, to make an elf NPC that reflects its race (rather than a generic NPC of "any race"), you also apply those same traits. At the beginning, there was no difference between PCs and NPCs in terms of racial traits.


Whatever way of looking at it makes you happy, I guess. I really don't care, as long as they provide some defaults along with the floating.


That's what you'd think, right? You would just apply the racial traits provided for the PC race to the NPC.

But their argument now is that the racial traits for PCs only apply to PCs, and don't reflect the race. So if I were to apply the PC racial traits to a NPC, wouldn't I now be giving that NPC traits that they're not supposed to have?

I'm not sure what the foundation here is. Are you accusing WotC of hypocrisy? Of reneging? How do you know they aren't just saying, "Hey we don't like how this is working out, so we're throwing it out going forward." Regardless of your opinion on these specific race rules... why couldn't a designer do that?

We're beyond 3e at this point. We've kind of established that forcing PCs and NPCs use identical rules is more of a crutch and a PITA than anything. In 3e it gave us mechanics that were super time consuming for the DM. Now they're saying that the PC race stats are too narrow to represent the cultures, ancestries, heritages, or whatever that players or DMs apparently want to explore or portray. It feels like an extension of a lesson we have already learned. Using the same rules for PCs and NPCs feels like it's convenient and expedient, not like something that should restrict what you do. NPCs get different class-like abilities, right? Why is it so bad if they get different race abilities? And if it is bad, why do DMs get to play with Giants or Manticores or Mind Flayers? I guess I just don't understand.

It just feels like you're shouting, "They promised things wouldn't change!" and all I can think is, "They did? Whatever would they want to do that for?" The rules need to reflect the game that people want to play, so they should tend towards being reactive to those demands, not restrictive.

 

[JEB]

Deleted post. Noticed something interesting in the DMG.

 

[JEB]

Deleted post. Noticed something interesting in the DMG.

 

[JEB]

I compared the DMG racial traits to the PHB races again, and saw that there are indeed traits missing from the NPC Features in the DMG. Half-orcs, for example, get Savage Attacks in the PHB, but it's not listed under the half-orc NPC features.

So you're right, @Chaosmancer . PC and NPC traits were not identical as of the DMG. Some traits appear to be PC exclusive.

Also, Wizards of the Coast didn't say in 2020 that all racial traits were different between PCs and NPCs. A review of the DMG, and stat blocks for members of PC races throughout 5E's lifespan, also clearly show that many traits are common to the species as a whole. So you can reasonably assume that the most iconic racial features are shared by the vast majority of members of the species. (It would be nice if they indicated which ones were actually supposed to be PC exclusive, though.)

One of the racial traits shared between PCs and NPC versions of species, at the beginning of 5E, were the race's ASIs. Whether you look at the DMG or the PHB, ASIs are the same for both PCs and NPCs on every core playable race, with only two minor deviations (NPC gnomes and hill dwarves get a +2 on the same stat where the PC version gets a +1; but those ability scores are still intended to be higher by default).

Wizards of the Coast said in 2020, however, that PC race ASIs did not apply to anyone but PCs. Not NPCs of that race, only PCs. If that was always the case, then why did the same ASIs apply to both in 2014? Is this a coincidence, that in this rare instance NPCs just happen to have similar ASIs to their PC counterparts? Or does it mean Wizards of the Coast changed their mind between 2014 and 2020? The answer seems clear to me.

(This also has the interesting implication that at the beginning of 5E, the designers actually felt that ASIs were among the most iconic traits for a race as a whole, since they deviated little if at all between PHB and DMG.)

 

[JEB]

I'm not sure what the foundation here is. Are you accusing WotC of hypocrisy? Of reneging? How do you know they aren't just saying, "Hey we don't like how this is working out, so we're throwing it out going forward." Regardless of your opinion on these specific race rules... why couldn't a designer do that?

Wizards is totally allowed to change their mind. But what I'm pointing to is that they never said they did, even though what they said about ASIs in 2020 doesn't match up with the original design in 2014.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Wizards is totally allowed to change their mind. But what I'm pointing to is that they never said they did, even though what they said about ASIs in 2020 doesn't match up with the original design in 2014.

I think you're reading a lot into some lazy NPC design.

 

[Horwath]

My ideal version would be no ability boosts from race/species/linage at character creation.

Increase point buy pool and modify ability rolls. 3×4d6D1, 3×5d6D2

But if you insist on ability boosts, have all characters have 4 boosts.

two +1 ability boost from species out of 3 possible options. Call this genetic traits.

one +1 boost from 3 options for your background, cultural trait

one +1 bonus form your class from 3 options, professional trait.

no ability can get more than +2. So you have option of +2,+2 or +2,+1,+1 or +1,+1,+1,+1.

I.E.
Lineage; High elf: +1 to two abilities out of dex, int or wis
background: Outlander: +1 to one of str, con or wis
class: fighter: +1 to one of str, dex or con

 

[Micah Sweet]

I still want to know how we're supposed to represent cultural traits in character creation going forward. You can't put everything into class, and expanding background to accommodate it creates two different kinds of backgrounds. Throwing it out entirely, as WotC seems to be doing, limits character concepts mechanically.

 

[Laurefindel]

I still want to know how we're supposed to represent cultural traits in character creation going forward. You can't put everything into class, and expanding background to accommodate it creates two different kinds of backgrounds. Throwing it out entirely, as WotC seems to be doing, limits character concepts mechanically.

Cultural traits will need to be setting-dependent.

Either the setting book introduces a small mechanical benefit to the cultures that it (usually) defines anyway, or introduces a series of cultural/ethnic/geopolitical backgrounds like "Shield Dwarf weaponsmith", "Zilargo journalist", or "Greyhawk-city citizen" with features setting them apart from similar but more generic backgrounds.

[edit] I don't know if that is the direction WotC plans on taking, but it wouldn't be a particularly bad one IMO. It does create two kinds of backgrounds however. Still not sure it's a bad thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can see in 6e them rewriting backgrounds to accommodate this stuff, with a bunch of general ones in the PH, and campaign-specific ones in setting sourcebooks, with rules to make your own in the core. But, because they are making a pretty significant change to character creation and race/species in the middle of an edition, the cascade changes are difficult to square with what's come before. Regardless of species, I think it should matter what culture you were raised in, in a way that is reflected mechanically.