D&D General Vote Up A 5e-alike, Part 2: Lineages/Heritages

[Faolyn]

What lineages/heritages/ancestries do we want as the basic options?

 

[LordEntrails]

I think you need an idea of the setting before deciding on who populates it. The only real requirements I would have is that choices during character creation need to be meaningful. And those choices probably need to have trade offs. If you pick X it needs to be meaningfully different than choice Y. Whether that is by attribute modifiers, features, traits or otherwise.

 

[mamba]

I think you need an idea of the setting before deciding on who populates it.

I agree with this, personally I lean towards the traditional species (Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Gnome and Halfling combined as Smallfolk), plus some setting specific ones like Orcs and ones that are not even on the list like Lizardmen or Minotaurs.

Not really a fan of all the high magic ones (Dragonborn, Tiefling, ...)

 

[CreamCloud0]

something i'm unclear on, what do you actually mean when you say 5e-alike? are you planning your own system?

but otherwise, humans, dragonborn, dwarves, halflings, goblins+hobgoblins, beastfolk/shifters, lizardfolk, grung(remove the water dependency though).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm getting tired of the classic ones BUT I also dont like the high magic ones. So I went with Human Only.

or I could be persuaded to go full weird and have only rarer things like Plasmoid, Autognome, Loxodon, Giff, Dampir, Tortle and Human

 

[Faolyn]

something i'm unclear on, what do you actually mean when you say 5e-alike? are you planning your own system?

but otherwise, humans, dragonborn, dwarves, halflings, goblins+hobgoblins, beastfolk/shifters, lizardfolk, grung(remove the water dependency though).

There's a thread titled "Should EN Posters Design a D&D?" This is based on that thread, because otherwise it's a bunch of people talking past each other. At least with this, we have a concrete basis of what people here would like to see.

 

[Tonguez]

Humans (Variant)
Gnomes, Goblins, Goliath, Grunts (aka Dwarfs)
Generic Planestouched (include Fey Elfs) and Generic Beastfolk (via Tashas)

 

[TwoSix]

Humans
Half-Elves
Half-Orcs
Half-Dwarves
Elves
Dwarves
Smallfolk (gnome/halfling subraces)
Aasimar
Tieflings
Genasi

Humans and humanlike classic races. Put monstrous races in a separate splat.

 

[Lanefan]

Three assumptions:

1. That we're talking about PC-playable species here, rather than whether a species should exist in the setting at all.

2. That we're talking about just the core game here and ignoring setting-specific considerations.

3. That the core game isn't tied to a default setting.

Given that, for the core I'd go with the original seven minus Gnome, leaving Human, Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit, Part-Elf and Part-Orc. All the other options plus more could be tied to specific settings and used as differentiators between them. For example:

FR - add Dragonborn, Tieflings, and other high-magic species
Eberron - add Gnomes, Warforged, and other species that deal with tinkering with stuff
Planescape - add Genasi, Aasimar, and other extra-planar species
New Setting X - add Orc, Kobold, Goblin, and other very low magic species

And so on. That way, each setting has a feature to truly call its own while those who want to can still port species from one setting to another if desired, or if building a homebrew setting. And non-playable species on a given setting's list could revert to being monsters, opponents, or just wierd stuff met during one's travels; or maybe not exist in that setting at all.

 

[Lanefan]

@Faolyn - kudos to you for how you're going about this!

One question, though: you're positioning these polls as intended to develop a 5e-alike, and thus I'm curious as to what's eventually going to be on the table to tinker with and-or discuss and what isn't. Put another way, how deep a dive into redesigning 5e will this ultimately be?

For example, will we eventually be getting into combat rules? The core stats and their functions? The saving throw system? Lethality? Classes and-or multiclassing? Underlying philosophy e.g. sport vs war?

I ask so as to know what to bring up in discussion and what not to touch.