Level Up (A5E) Where to put ability bonuses during character creation

[Morrus]

Heritage + Culture + Background = Origin?

Well, that certainly is "crunchier".

It's just terminology. Rearranging stuff. It's still the same stuff, just more flexible.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's just terminology. Rearranging stuff. It's still the same stuff, just more flexible.

No, actually IMO the terminology works well. I like the term origin for PCs. Players with ties to superheroes I think will especially appreciate it.

 

[Kinematics]

Still needs work on what goes in each category. The Level Up - Changes to race (species?) thread hasn't had much activity after my first pass at breaking things down and seeing what the implications were in how to construct the components that would be needed for the character.

While I want the Culture (Upbringing) separation, there's a strong implication that you'll need Location+Culture to make things flexible enough to handle the component without simply falling back into Subrace (and without exponentially exploding combined entries). Will need more discussion to see if it's possible to avoid this issue.

 

[TwoSix]

• Heritage has a feat instead of ASI
• Culture contains the non 'biological' aspects of what was once 'race'
• Background has two +1 ASIs, one set, one floating

Yea, I really like this. Slots nicely into the same framework as current 5e (Heritage is "race", culture is "subrace"), but a lot more flexible.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

So here's what our first playtest packet might look like (we've started work on it).

NOTE -- playtest packet means we're looking for the good and the bad. If it doesn't work for you, that's data. If it does, that's also data. Above all, we want data.

So...

• Heritage has a feat instead of ASI
• Culture contains the non 'biological' aspects of what was once 'race'
• Background has two +1 ASIs, one set, one floating

The model looks like this:

Heritage -- Elf - bio stuff, feat
...Culture -- wood elf
...Culture -- high elf
...Culture -- dark elf
...Culture -- (new elf)
Background - (inc ASIs)

+ some 'general' Cultures (like Cosmopolitan, Lone Wanderer, Nomad)

Any Heritage can take any Culture and any Background (if the [GM*] agrees).

We refer to these three building blocks as your 'Origin'. As in, everything before your first class level.

*Working on our term for that.

First response I have is this:

What happens to sea elves?

5 has some subraces that give extra biological traits, that wouldn't neatly fit in a "cilture" model. Do those subraces get spun off into their own unique heritage?

 

[Morrus]

First response I have is this:

What happens to sea elves?

We haven't included them in the core playtest. But they're a heritage. We had that same conversation.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Sounds like it will still pigeonhole MAD builds a little bit...Monks will want to choose a background that gives Dex and Wis, Paladins will want Str and Cha, etc....but still an improvement over what we have now.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

• Heritage has a feat instead of ASI
• Culture contains the non 'biological' aspects of what was once 'race'
• Background has two +1 ASIs, one set, one floating

So, this mean that origin at chargen will only receive 2 x +1 to add to their stat roll/array/point buy?

I'm really glad to hear that! yeah!

 

[Morrus]

So, this mean that origin at chargen will only receive 2 x +1 to add to their stat roll/array/point buy?

I'm really glad to hear that! yeah!

Well, in that playtest package (probably -- it's not done yet). That doesn't mean that's the end game, it's just what we're testing.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So, this mean that origin at chargen will only receive 2 x +1 to add to their stat roll/array/point buy?

I'm really glad to hear that! yeah!

And a feat... so better (slightly) than variant humans in the PHB.