D&D General What it means for a race to end up in the PHB, its has huge significance

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

It seems to me, the motive of these retcons was to have opportunities to place a Non-Evil Drow and a Non-Evil Orc as normal members of recognizable cultures.

There is plenty of room to introduce new characters for that purpose. They had no need to replace existing ones.

 

[Yaarel]

There is plenty of room to introduce new characters for that purpose. They had no need to replace existing ones.

I agree. But I think that was what the designers were thinking. It wouldnt even be "wrong". The Half-Elf now Drow, might be a Drow with one distant Human ancestor, thus mainly Drow, but not purely so.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I assume the 2024 Players Handbook, in the same chapter as the species, will have a section that explains how to stat a multispecies character. It will probably have Human-Elf and Human-Orc as examples. The "Human-Elf in Other Worlds" sidebar will briefly mention the prominent cultures that it is a member of, in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Greyhawk, etcetera.

And if they actually do so, I will happily concede the matter.

But at present, everything they've said on the topic of mixed-ancestry characters is that they're not prominent/important enough to be worth consideration by the game system.

I agree. But I think that was what the designers were thinking. It wouldnt even be "wrong". The Half-Elf now Drow, might be a Drow with one distant Human ancestor, thus mainly Drow, but not purely so.

Except nowhere do they actually SAY that. What they say is "this character is a drow".

They at no point acknowledge so much as the possibility that the character in question has any human heritage whatsoever. Which is effectively the same as saying that they don't.

 

[Yaarel]

But an elf can be everything a character can be without compromising on the fact that they are an elf. In order to play a Khoravar, I now have to decide whether they are the "human" kind of Khoravar or the "elf" kind of Khoravar, and for every future interaction with the game system, that is all that matters.

In Eberron, Khoravar is explicitly a native culture of some Human-Elves. Other Human-Elves have nothing to do with this culture. As a culture, the background is the proper design space to explore it. Having a background from Khoravar is precisely what defines a character as a citizen of Khoravar. Whether stats happen to start from Elf or Human is less relevant.

As far as I can tell, the Human-Elf matters, but not the Human-Orc. Players are happy enough to have the full Orc replace the old school Half-Orc.

(Actually in Forgotten Realms, Neverwinter seems founded by both Elf and Human, implying the multispecies is prominent.)

And if they actually do so, I will happily concede the matter.

But at present, everything they've said on the topic of mixed-ancestry characters is that they're not prominent/important enough to be worth consideration by the game system.


Except nowhere do they actually SAY that. What they say is "this character is a drow". They at no point acknowledge even the possibility that the character has any human heritage whatsoever.

The same UA that describes the 2024 species, also describes the multispecies.

It is true the UA makes it a sidebar. The 2024 needs to give the Human-Elf as an example of how to build a multispecies character. DnDBeyond stats show the Human-Elf continues to enjoy enormous popularity, and the recent Baldurs Gate does too. The 2024 Players Handbook does well to have a section featuring the Human-Elf.


Here is the UA verbage for multispecies.

"
CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT HUMANOID KINDS

Thanks to the magical workings of the multiverse, Humanoids of different kinds sometimes have children together. For example, folk who have a human parent and an orc or an elf parent are particularly common. Many other combinations are possible.

If you’d like to play the child of such a wondrous pairing, choose two Race options that are Humanoid to represent your parents. Then determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits.

You can then mix and match visual characteristics − color, ear shape, and the like − of the two options. For example, if your character has a halfling and a gnome parent, you might choose Halfling for your game traits and then decide that your character has the pointed ears that are characteristic of a gnome.

Finally, determine the average of the two options’ Life Span traits to figure out how long your character might live. For example, a child of a halfling and a gnome has an average life span of 288 years.

"

For me, this approach to mixing any two player species works great. Hopefully the free background feat can help round it out. In addition, maybe the DMs Guide can suggest how to mix-and-match traits, requiring DMs approval.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

In Eberron, Khoravar is explicitly a native culture of some Human-Elves. Other Human-Elves have nothing to do with this culture. As a culture, the background is the proper design space to explore it. Having a background from Khoravar is precisely what defines a character as a citizen of Khoravar. Whether stats happen to start from Elf or Human is less relevant.

As far as I can tell, the Human-Elf matters, but not the Human-Orc. Players are happy enough to have the full Orc replace the old school Half-Orc.

(Actually in Forgotten Realms, Neverwinter seems founded by both Elf and Human, implying the multispecies is prominent.)

Khoravar in Eberron are a 5+ millennia-old, self-sustaining population block native to Khorvaire that see themselves as a distinct people from their human and elven ancestors. They are not representative of all people of mixed human-elf heritage, by any means, but they are very prominent within the setting and without distinct mechanics, they lose cohesion as a unified people, in the same way a population of "dwarves" that each randomly roll whether they use dwarf, orc, or tabaxi mechanics would. They go from being a population of Khoravar to being a population of elves and humans, mechanically split in two with nothing to unify them except average lifespan - they don't even experience sleep the same way.

And sure, plenty of people seem perfectly happy to have the full orc replace the "half-orc", because they don't see "half-orcs" as anything more than a covert way to play orcs from when playing orcs wasn't allowed. But doing so means ignoring and even erasing every piece of setting lore that specifically carved out a distinct place for people of mixed human-orc heritage. You can't have Jhor'guntaal if all "half-orcs" are just orcs now, and without unique mechanics, you're not liable to see them ever again.

The same UA that describes the 2024 species, also describes the multispecies.

It is true the UA makes it a sidebar. The 2024 needs to give the Human-Elf as an example of how to build a multispecies character. DnDBeyond stats show the Human-Elf continues to enjoy enormous popularity, and the recent Baldurs Gate does too. The 2024 Players Handbook does well to have a section featuring the Human-Elf.


Here is the UA verbage for multispecies.

"
CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT HUMANOID KINDS

Thanks to the magical workings of the multiverse, Humanoids of different kinds sometimes have children together. For example, folk who have a human parent and an orc or an elf parent are particularly common. Many other combinations are possible.

If you’d like to play the child of such a wondrous pairing, choose two Race options that are Humanoid to represent your parents. Then determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits.

You can then mix and match visual characteristics − color, ear shape, and the like − of the two options. For example, if your character has a halfling and a gnome parent, you might choose Halfling for your game traits and then decide that your character has the pointed ears that are characteristic of a gnome.

Finally, determine the average of the two options’ Life Span traits to figure out how long your character might live. For example, a child of a halfling and a gnome has an average life span of 288 years.

"

For me, this approach to mixing any two player species works great. Hopefully the free background feat can help round it out. In addition, maybe the DMs Guide can suggest how to mix-and-match traits, requiring DMs approval.

Right, the "pick-a-parent and reflavor" methodology, which I have repeatedly noted as not being sufficient in my eyes.

Characters of mixed ancestry are not prominent or important enough to warrant their own distinct mechanics, so just pick one of your "parent" species (even if thousands of years removed, see Khoravar) and average out the lifespans. Everything else is cosmetic, so why bother. Use your background feat on something vaguely related to your other "parent" species if it's really important to you (thus delaying anything else you might have wanted to use it on by ~4 levels).

I certainly hope the DMG gives something a bit more substantial to work with (and again, if so, I will happily concede the matter), but in the meantime, all we've got is what they've offered in the UA, which I see as insufficient and even counter-productive to their stated goals of encouraging more mixed-ancestry characters within the game.

You can make any kind of character you want, so long as it is one of these bespoke statblocks designed to represent full-blooded members of a given species.

 

[Mephista]

They go from being a population of Khoravar to being a population of elves and humans,

5.5e species aren't culture, they're primarily biology. You are trying to equate Khoravar culture with being a distinct genotype. So long as you do so, your argument is just stuck in an old edition.

I mean... look at this:
NEW ELF SUBTYPE
Muggle (name pending) - gain a skill instead of spells. Replace Trance with a second skill.

Tada. We've recreated the half-elf. Its mechanically similar to 5e (sorry, no forth attribute, that's not how 5.5e works) and is its own distinct biology type.

And, just as Aerenal is primarily populated by high elves and Xen'drik by drow, so too can we say that Khoravar is populated by muggle elves.

People might not find this satisfying, especially if they're all in on half-elf being a distinct mechanics block, but it does work, and fits the setting with no problems.

The Eberron thing is not a valid defense of half-elf in any way.

 

[CreamCloud0]

5.5e species aren't culture, they're primarily biology. You are trying to equate Khoravar culture with being a distinct genotype. So long as you do so, your argument is just stuck in an old edition.

I mean... look at this:
NEW ELF SUBTYPE
Muggle (name pending) - gain a skill instead of spells. Replace Trance with a second skill.

Tada. We've recreated the half-elf. Its mechanically similar to 5e (sorry, no forth attribute, that's not how 5.5e works) and is its own distinct biology type.

And, just as Aerenal is primarily populated by high elves and Xen'drik by drow, so too can we say that Khoravar is populated by muggle elves.

People might not find this satisfying, especially if they're all in on half-elf being a distinct mechanics block, but it does work, and fits the setting with no problems.

The Eberron thing is not a valid defense of half-elf in any way.

i mean, correct me if i'm wrong i've never read ebberon isn't it?, but isn't the khoravar half elf culture kind of originally derived from the fact of their biology differs from their original ancestors? rather than being strung between humans and elves with their vastly different lifespans and experiences they decided to create their own society, rather than just being 'inbetween'?

 

[Clint_L]

In the real world the people getting labelled with that moniker aren’t literally different species though

No, but the game is being played by real people in the real world, so context matters. Using language that echoes offensive real world language is a problem that WotC has flagged and wants no part of. Because why would they? They're trying to make a game with mass appeal.

 

[Clint_L]

But more importantly, it still leaves the PHB saying that from the perspective of the core system, characters of mixed ancestry are an anomaly. I do not like the message that sends, however unintentional it may be.

It does exactly the opposite. It allows the new PHB to say that characters of mixed ancestry are routine and can be any combination the player wants, not just two specially supported examples.

The message is that mixed ancestry doesn't have to be a big deal. I don't understand how you get "anomaly" out of telling players "everything is on the table. You want a human/orc/tabaxi/shifter hybrid, go for it."

Edit: the current system literally treats hybrid characters as an anomaly. Out of the hundreds of possible combinations, only TWO are selected for special treatment - the rest don't even exist! And those two are treated as if their hybrid nature is the most important thing about them. That's anomalous. Less than one percent are even acknowledged.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

5.5e species aren't culture, they're primarily biology. You are trying to equate Khoravar culture with being a distinct genotype. So long as you do so, your argument is just stuck in an old edition.

I mean... look at this:
NEW ELF SUBTYPE
Muggle (name pending) - gain a skill instead of spells. Replace Trance with a second skill.

Tada. We've recreated the half-elf. Its mechanically similar to 5e (sorry, no forth attribute, that's not how 5.5e works) and is its own distinct biology type.

And, just as Aerenal is primarily populated by high elves and Xen'drik by drow, so too can we say that Khoravar is populated by muggle elves.

People might not find this satisfying, especially if they're all in on half-elf being a distinct mechanics block, but it does work, and fits the setting with no problems.

The Eberron thing is not a valid defense of half-elf in any way.

I think you are missing the point somewhat.

This is not me complaining about how difficult it would be to construct a statblock to use for Khoravar in my home games - I can homebrew with the best of them, and at the end of the day, I still have the '14 PHB. This is not about mixed-ancestry mechanics being hard to construct - it's about the fact that they don't currently exist within the game's core rules, and we have no indication of them ever existing.

That means the core rules of the game system are saying that mixed-ancestry is entirely a matter of appearance and roleplay, and that if you want any mechanical aspect to it whatsoever, then either homebrew, find something third-party, or go to another game system. That means anyone mechanically inclined who wants to play "by the books" (or is forced to by the rules of their table) is discouraged from creating mixed-ancestry characters. It means mechanically minded DMs are discouraged from world-building with mixed-ancestry populations in mind.

It encourages marginalizing mixed-ancestry characters as outliers and one-offs - not self-sustaining populations with generations of history, but rare products of circumstance liable to never meet another of their particular mix of ancestry unless they're a sibling. They can't be a people, because if they were a people they'd warrant their own mechanics, so they must be rare and singular individuals, which means they can be ignored.

As "unsatisfying" as making Khoravar (or insert other generic replacement for "half-elf" of choice) into an elf subtype might be, it would at least preserve and unify it as an option. It's more or less what Pathfinder 2e did before the remaster, where "half-elves" were a human heritage option (with the remaster, they've been renamed to Aiuvarin and redesigned as a "versatile heritage" that can be applied to any ancestry, a la how they handled planetouched). It doesn't even have to be the only option - plenty of people seem happy with "pick-a-parent", so by all means, keep it as well.

But some of us see species mechanics as an important vector for expressing our characters, and the current proposed methodology falls short in its ability to do so when expressing mixed-ancestry. All I'm asking for is that the core system have something for mixed-ancestry characters that actually has some mechanical substance to it as an option for those of us who feel it to be important.