D&D General Vote Up A 5e-alike, Part 2.1: Some more heritage details

[Minigiant]

1) Sub heritage should exist for heritage when a races has a clear choosable element like dragon type or when culture has an affect on biology like elves.

2) Herritages should have moving part of anything just to deal with over lap with race. Even if it is just a skill pick. Though Halfling is hard. But I don't like D&D Halfling.

3) A heritage with less than 4 traits is uninspired and likely too close to an already existing race.

4) Heritage. D&D races were heavily linked to your parents. So I prefer it more that you inherited your features from your parents

 

[Corinnguard]

dragonborn have no cultural traits except for language.

If we were applying this topic to a setting such as the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, then there ought to be cultural traits for Dragonborn who hail from Tymanther, Qbarra or Argonessen. The closest cultures that Level Up can offer them are Imperial for Tymanther, and Dragonbound for Argonessen. I am not sure atm as to which Level Up culture comes close to describing the Dragonborn of Qbarra in the Eberron setting.

 

[Faolyn]

1) Sub heritage should exist for heritage when a races has a clear choosable element like dragon type or when culture has an affect on biology like elves.

I'd do what Level Up did. Pick a damage type and whether it's a 30'x5' line or a 15' cone. These damage types call for a Con save while those damage types call for a Dex save. Then you're not limited by what's in the MM. You have homebrew dragon types or dragons converted from a 3x or a Dragon magazine or a Pathfinder bestiary or something, and want to have associated dragonborn? Go ahead; you're covered.

 

[Faolyn]

The Winners!
Ancestry is the favored term
No sub-races; use cultures instead
Each ancestry should have at least one trait you can choose, and have at as many traits as necessary

Interesting Comment
@Tonguez's suggestion of not having elves but having a more generic fey-touched people.

A thought, which I'm not going to make into a poll unless people really want me to: Have "racial templates," including fey ancestry and half-human, which you can then take on top of your existing ancestry--perhaps your options are to get a free skill or bonus +1 ASI, or take a template. Whether that completely replaces elves is up in the air, or if elves are not fey unless they take this template (elves left Faerie thousands of years ago, but sometimes, one is born who is a touch closer to their ancestry), I dunno. I'd lean towards the latter, myself. But interestingly, as of right now in Poll 2, the third-place ancestries are gnomes and halflings--beating out a lot of other typesI would have thought would be more popular, like tieflings or kobolds (both my favorites, sob). Maybe gnomes are just halflings with the fey ancestry template? And D&D was going for both regular and fey goblins--this might be a good way to express that.

Also, Poll 3 is now up!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd do what Level Up did. Pick a damage type and whether it's a 30'x5' line or a 15' cone. These damage types call for a Con save while those damage types call for a Dex save. Then you're not limited by what's in the MM. You have homebrew dragon types or dragons converted from a 3x or a Dragon magazine or a Pathfinder bestiary or something, and want to have associated dragonborn? Go ahead; you're covered.

Sidebar: I miss your Level Up monster conversion thread. Just about everything in there was great.

 

[Faolyn]

Sidebar: I miss your Level Up monster conversion thread. Just about everything in there was great.

Yeah, sorry about that. A combination of illness and being burnt out put the kibosh on that one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, sorry about that. A combination of illness and being burnt out put the kibosh on that one.

Fair enough. It was still awesome and you are to be commended.