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

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

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."

The proposed system supports mixed-ancestry so long as any particular mix only exists in limited numbers and cannot sustain itself as a population independent of its parent ancestries. Because to do so would suggest that they might need their own mechanics, and they are not allowed to have their own mechanics. So they must always be statistical outliers within a larger population, not a population unto themselves. Rare, singular individuals, never a community.

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.

Again, I am not, in any way, shape, or form, suggesting that only mechanics for mixed human-elves and human-orcs should be supported. I want a system that supports every possible combination of mixed ancestry.

The proposed system only covers "everything" because it actually covers nothing. No character of mixed ancestry is allowed to have their own distinct species mechanics under "pick-a-parent".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

From a biological standpoint khoravar are a separate species, and always have been.

 

[Mephista]

I think you are missing the point somewhat.

No, I just don't think that you can use culture to justify complaints that half-elf no longer exists as a distinct mechanical block.

You need arguments rooted in phenotypes. "There is a lack of a less magical Elf adjacent type; there should be someone that stradles the line between magic and mundane" is a valid argument. It adresses specific fantasy-genetic traits. Primarily the spells and meditation trances.

"Khoravar exists" is not a valid argument, because I can just as easily say that's all elves and humans with tweaked ages. Plus? Even in 3e, there were regular humans and elves in Khoravar. They weren't monoliths.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

For Planetouched mixed with anything else it's almost always "use the Planetouched stats" as the influence of planar beings is strong enough to persist for many generations. An Elf-Tiefling, Human-Tiefling and Orc-Tiefling are pretty well just Tieflings as it's been that way in 2e, (3e had to make up some overpowered for PC's Hybrids like Tanarruk and Fey'ri, which I ignore), Tieflings in the playtest can be small as well, so Halfling-Tieflings and Gnome-Tieflings are just Tieflings who are small.

Remember that there currently isn't much of a mechanical difference between a Tiefling that's descended from a Vrock vs one that's descended from a Glabrezu or a descendant of the Demon Lord Grazz't, they're all just Abyssal Tieflings. But the Vrock Tiefling may have some feathers or a long nose, the Glabrezu Tiefling might have an extra pair of tiny arms and the Grazz't Tiefling might have 6 fingers on each hand.

 

[Yaarel]

The other concerns I agree with, but expect 2024 to address.

Except the following, I genuinely dont understand your concern.

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.

In this case, the Jhorguntaal are a culture of Human-Orcs. It is strictly a culture. Other Human-Orcs with the same multispecies mix have nothing to do with this culture. Even when using the Orc stats for a character, the culture is fully present. There is no "erasure". The culture and its lore remain alive and well. Any mechanics that are pertinent within the culture are background proficiencies, sometimes the feat. There is actually more design space to explore this culture in 2024 than there was in 2014.

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.

I agree the Human-Elf requires special attention in the multispecies section of the 2024 Players Handbook. The other multispecies are less popular.

Organizing the traits of every player species description into "trait feats", makes it easy for the free background feat to select it. And makes it easy for the DMs Guide to swap them with DM approval.

 

[Yaarel]

No, I just don't think that you can use culture to justify complaints that half-elf no longer exists as a distinct mechanical block.

You need arguments rooted in phenotypes. "There is a lack of a less magical Elf adjacent type; there should be someone that stradles the line between magic and mundane" is a valid argument. It adresses specific fantasy-genetic traits. Primarily the spells and meditation trances.

"Khoravar exists" is not a valid argument, because I can just as easily say that's all elves and humans with tweaked ages. Plus? Even in 3e, there were regular humans and elves in Khoravar. They weren't monoliths.

Right.

And even this case, "a less magical Elf, that straddles the line between magic and mundane", is Human stats using the Human feat for Fey Touched or similar.

There is zero loss of information by deleting the 2014 Half-Elf mechanics. 2024 Elf+Background has more information than 2014 Half-Elf+Background does. 2014 Half-Elf is a subset of 2024 Elf.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

No, I just don't think that you can use culture to justify complaints that half-elf no longer exists as a distinct mechanical block.

You need arguments rooted in phenotypes. "There is a lack of a less magical Elf adjacent type; there should be someone that stradles the line between magic and mundane" is a valid argument. It adresses specific fantasy-genetic traits. Primarily the spells and meditation trances.

"Khoravar exists" is not a valid argument, because I can just as easily say that's all elves and humans with tweaked ages. Plus? Even in 3e, there were regular humans and elves in Khoravar. They weren't monoliths.

How about this then:

• "Half-elves" in original 5e had Darkvision and Fey Ancestry, which I think we can agree are biological enough to survive the shift to floating ASI and skill/item proficiencies to the character background, as well as Skill Versatility, which is a bit vaguer, but suggests a level of innate adaptability (and parallels the revised 5e human we'll get to in a bit). Not much, to be sure, but it's something. Alternatively, per SCAG, I could swap out Skill Versatility for a limited portion of the their elven heritage's subtype choice.
• Original 5e elves had both Darkvision and Fey Ancestry, plus Trance, Keen Senses, and their elven subtype, which throws in a number of different traits, from innate spells and cantrips, to upgraded darkvision, to faster movement and stealth capabilities, and so on.
• Original 5e humans had basically nothing "biological" of note.

Based on the species UA for the '24 5e revision:

• Humans are getting Resourceful (inspiration on long rest), Skillful (free skill proficiency), and Versatile (free 1st-level feat).
• Elves are having certain aspects of their traits shifted around and getting more innate spellcasting, but is otherwise remaining largely the same.

If I play a Khoravar using human mechanics in the '24 5e revision (and treating Skillful as more or less equivalent to Skill Versatility for the purposes of this discussion), I gain Resourceful and Versatile but lose Fey Ancestry and Darkvision. The only things that gave the character a connection to elven lineage are removed.

If I play a Khoravar using elf mechanics instead, I lose Skillful, but gain Trance, Keen Senses, and an Elven subtype (along with everything that entails), which exchanges their connection to human ancestry for literally everything that makes an elf an elf, doubling and tripling down on their fey and magical heritage at the expense of the mundane.

I want something in the middle. Something in the realm of Skillful, Fey Ancestry, and Darkvision, plus or minus whatever else is needed to bring it in line with current design regarding species power level (probably adding Resourceful, to make it an even two traits from each parent ancestry). I want a Khoravar that can be a little bit mundane and human, while retaining a little bit of their elven fey nature.

With "pick-a-parent", it's all or nothing.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

The other concerns I agree with, but expect 2024 to address.

Except the following, I genuinely dont understand your concern.

In this case, the Jhorguntaal are a culture of Human-Orcs. It is strictly a culture. Other Human-Orcs with the same multispecies mix have nothing to do with this culture. Even when using the Orc stats for a character, the culture is fully present. There is no "erasure". The culture and its lore remain alive and well. Any mechanics that are pertinent within the culture are background proficiencies, sometimes the feat. There is actually more design space to explore this culture in 2024 than there was in 2014.

It is, admittedly, less of a glaring issue with "half-orcs" in Eberron, as they don't have the same kind of unified identity that Khoravar do and are far more interwoven into a mixed society of humans, orcs, and Jhor'guntaal, but the underlying point remains the same.

Without the option of distinct mechanics, it becomes harder to envision them independent of their parent ancestries. Any world (whether homebrew or official) that tries to treat "half-orcs" the way Eberron treats Khoravar now has to operate around the implications inherent in "pick-a-parent" or else given them (back) their own distinct stats anyway.

Which means addressing "half-orcs" in future settings is now more work intensive than either humans or full orcs.
Which means people are less likely to do that work.
Which means we will get fewer "half-orcs".

I focus on Khoravar because I think it's a good illustration of the problems with the proposed system, but the issues are universal. It discourages treating ANY mixed ancestry as a cohesive population unto itself. They are never anything more than a subset of their parent populations.

 

[Yaarel]

Without the option of distinct mechanics, it becomes harder to envision them independent of their parent ancestries. Any world (whether homebrew or official) that tries to treat "half-orcs" the way Eberron treats Khoravar now has to operate around the implications inherent in "pick-a-parent" or else given them (back) their own distinct stats anyway.

Which means addressing "half-orcs" in future settings is now more work intensive than either humans or full orcs.
Which means people are less likely to do that work.
Which means fewer "half-orcs".

For a distinct species that has become neither Elf nor Human, the best way to do it is Human stat that uses the Human feat for a unique Khoravar trait.

"Half-elves" in original 5e had Darkvision and Fey Ancestry (which I think we can agree are biological enough to survive the shift to floating ASI and skill/item proficiencies to the character background), as well as Skill Versatility, which is a bit vaguer, but suggests a level of innate

Darkvision needs to be a cantrip. Then some Elf cultures choose Darkvision, and some dont.

Meanwhile the 2014 slot 2 spell Darkvision is woefully subpar. It needs to beef up to be worth a slot 2. Grant a Darkvision that can see thru magical darkness and at an unlimited distance, to every member of the party. This would be worth wasting a slot 2.

Alternatively, per SCAG, I could swap out Skill Versatility for a portion of the their elven heritage's elven subtype choice.

Here it is better to use the Elf stat itself.

If I play a Khoravar using human mechanics in the '24 5e revision (and treating Skillful as more or less equivalent to Skill Versatility for the purposes of this discussion), I gain Resourceful and Versatile but lose Fey Ancestry and Darkvision. The only things that gave the character a connection to elven lineage are removed.

If I play a Khoravar using elf mechanics instead, I lose Skillful, but gain Trance, Keen Senses, and an Elven subtype (along with everything that entails), which exchanges their connection to human ancestry for literally everything that makes an elf an elf, doubling and tripling down on their fey and magical heritage at the expense of the mundane.

For the Elf, the background skills and background feat represent the Human connection.

For the Human, using the Human feat for Fey Touched or similar elven feat represents the Fey connection.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

For a distinct species that has become neither Elf nor Human, the best way to do it is Human stat that uses the Human feat for a unique Khoravar trait.

Which currently do not exist and are purely speculative at this time.

Also doesn't do anything to alleviate the issue of a "feat tax" for mixed characters of non-human ancestry.

Darkvision needs to be a cantrip. Then some Elf cultures choose Darkvision, and some dont.

Meanwhile the 2014 slot 2 spell Darkvision is woefully subpar. It needs to beef up to be worth a slot 2. Grant a Darkvision that can see thru magical darkness and at an unlimited distance, to every member of the party. This would be worth wasting a slot 2.

Completely disagree on the whole "just turn all your traits into innate cantrips" thing, but we've been down that road...

Here it is better to use the Elf stat itself.

Still becomes all or nothing. May as well just make the character an elf in the first place, because at that point, you have nothing human in your species mechanics at all.

For the Elf, the background skills and background feat represent the Human connection.

For the Human, using the Human feat for Fey Touched or similar elven feat represents the Fey connection.

For the elf, they don't get a background because that's used up justifying their mixed ancestry. Hope you didn't want to be a Mage of High Sorcery or Knight of Solamnia any time soon.

For the human, well, Fey Touched doesn't given any elf species traits - just two spells. And the "similar elven feats" don't currently exist.