Fully Customized Races in Tasha's

[jojosskul]

So I have a long commute to work and spent it listening to the new episode of Dragon Talk, which had a Sage Advice section on the new Customizing Your Lineage system in Tasha's.

As far as the system discussed for adapting current races, based on what Jeremey Crawford said it appears to be identical to the documentation recently released for AL.

There was one new bit of info though. Beyond customizing current races, there is a toolkit for creating your own unique race!

The race starts with a +2 to any stat and a feat. The other choice point he called out was you can decide whether the race has darkvision or an extra skill proficiency. He didn't go into any more detail, but it looks like this system will involve a lot of these "either/or" choice points.

I think this opens up some fun storytelling opportunities for characters with a "unique" race, as well as allows for people making homebrew worlds to have a tool set to help them make custom races for their own games.

It's an interesting Sage Advice segment overall, it's worth the listen even if you skip the rest of the episode.

[nickl_2000]

So I have a long commute to work and spent it listening to the new episode of Dragon Talk, which had a Sage Advice section on the new Customizing Your Lineage system in Tasha's.

As far as the system discussed for adapting current races, based on what Jeremey Crawford said it appears to be identical to the documentation recently released for AL.

There was one new bit of info though. Beyond customizing current races, there is a toolkit for creating your own unique race!

The race starts with a +2 to any stat and a feat. The other choice point he called out was you can decide whether the race has darkvision or an extra skill proficiency. He didn't go into any more detail, but it looks like this system will involve a lot of these "either/or" choice points.

I think this opens up some fun storytelling opportunities for characters with a "unique" race, as well as allows for people making homebrew worlds to have a tool set to help them make custom races for their own games.

It's an interesting Sage Advice segment overall, it's worth the listen even if you skip the rest of the episode.

That is the only way I listen to Dragon Talk :smalltongue:

[Anonymouswizard]

The race starts with a +2 to any stat and a feat. The other choice point he called out was you can decide whether the race has darkvision or an extra skill proficiency. He didn't go into any more detail, but it looks like this system will involve a lot of these "either/or" choice points.

So vhuman, but arguably a bit better?


Honestly making such a system is hard, and it sounds like a lot of custom races are going to be samey in practice. Which is okay, but I'm already working on a homebrew system that makes Tasha's race changes redundant*, and I suspect most people interested in custom races already make them, and probably more varied than this system looks like it'll result in.

Less balanced but more varied, which when it comes down to how games are actually played is likely the winner. Homebrew races are already generally balanced to the table they're brought to (barring horror stories), so I'm not sure that there's a strict need for such a system.

* Base race becomes Species, subrace becomes Upbringing, background becomes Profession, the components of race and background are split between them.

[jojosskul]

So vhuman, but arguably a bit better?


Honestly making such a system is hard, and it sounds like a lot of custom races are going to be samey in practice. Which is okay, but I'm already working on a homebrew system that makes Tasha's race changes redundant*, and I suspect most people interested in custom races already make them, and probably more varied than this system looks like it'll result in.

Less balanced but more varied, which when it comes down to how games are actually played is likely the winner. Homebrew races are already generally balanced to the table they're brought to (barring horror stories), so I'm not sure that there's a strict need for such a system.

* Base race becomes Species, subrace becomes Upbringing, background becomes Profession, the components of race and background are split between them.

I also think it could go farther, but at the moment unless they want to invalidate the PHB entirely all they can do is patch the existing system. What you're doing for homebrew sounds a lot like what I hope D&D 6.0 ends up being, but for now I think this has it's place.

There's a lot of tables, mine included, where anything not in "official" content is not allowed, not even UA. This gives an "official," theoretically playtested option. By making it not overly powerful I think it helps ensure that players who use the option are doing it because that's what is best for their character's story, not for pure optimization purposes.

And I repeat, I think it can be better. But we have a saying where I work, don't sacrifice "good" on the altar of "perfect". I think they'll keep moving in this direction, and your homebrew solution sounds great, but for now I think this is a good step in the right direction.

[Anonymouswizard]

I also think it could go farther, but at the moment unless they want to invalidate the PHB entirely all they can do is patch the existing system. What you're doing for homebrew sounds a lot like what I hope D&D 6.0 ends up being, but for now I think this has it's place.

There's a lot of tables, mine included, where anything not in "official" content is not allowed, not even UA. This gives an "official," theoretically playtested option. By making it not overly powerful I think it helps ensure that players who use the option are doing it because that's what is best for their character's story, not for pure optimization purposes.

And I repeat, I think it can be better. But we have a saying where I work, don't sacrifice "good" on the altar of "perfect". I think they'll keep moving in this direction, and your homebrew solution sounds great, but for now I think this is a good step in the right direction.

My main problem is that it sounds like it takes the one thing unique to the race I see played the least, a first level feat, and makes it a key part of the 'anything you want' races. I already see humans being ignored in favour of elves, now I'll see them ignored completely.

Like, race creation guidelines are a good thing, but honestly this sounds like a boring 'some of column A, some of column B' approach.


I'm also not the only person who's gone the homebrew route (some even charging money for it), races are the second easiest part of 5e to lift out and replace entirely, I think I'm just rare in trying to get backgrounds into the same system. The main problem is actually removing what I consider overly niche background abilities and replacing them with meatier Progression abilities.

It also gives me the chance to add a lot of 1st level options I think should be in there. Mainly on the progression side, letting people play trained healers and messengers and have some mechanical weight behind it.

[Yakmala]

The race starts with a +2 to any stat and a feat.

This seems particularly useful for games with a point buy system, especially if you are planning to play a class that is single attribute dependent. You can pick up one of the Half-Feats and start with an 18 in your primary attribute at Level 1.

[jojosskul]

This seems particularly useful for games with a point buy system, especially if you are planning to play a class that is single attribute dependent. You can pick up one of the Half-Feats and start with an 18 in your primary attribute at Level 1.

That.... I hadn't considered at all. They can't prevent you from taking a half feat that increases your primary stat. Suddenly anyone can get the benefit only Changelings get, and for them that's just Charisma.

Going to have a lot of Moderately Armored Rogues, a lot of Observant Wizards/Clerics, and a lot of Bards/Warlocks/Sorcerers who have spent some time acting on the side and are really good at making cow noises. (Actor feat)

[MaxWilson]

Going to have a lot of Moderately Armored Rogues, a lot of Observant Wizards/Clerics, and a lot of Bards/Warlocks/Sorcerers who have spent some time acting on the side and are really good at making cow noises. (Actor feat)

Or Elven Accuracy, which presumably will no longer be restricted to elves.

[Yakmala]

Or Elven Accuracy, which presumably will no longer be restricted to elves.

Or, if racial feats are still a thing, can you declare your custom race to be a sub-race of an existing race?

I declare my custom race to be a "Cosmic Elf" with the Elven Accuracy feat. 18 Dex at level 1, 20 with triple advantage by level 4.

Or if I want to make an Abjurer, I declare my custom race to be a Deep Gnome variant, starting with 18 intelligence and Svirfneblin Magic.

Heck, I'd love a Halfling variant that starts with Bountiful Luck.

[jojosskul]

Or, if racial feats are still a thing, can you declare your custom race to be a sub-race of an existing race?

I declare my custom race to be a "Cosmic Elf" with the Elven Accuracy feat. 18 Dex at level 1, 20 with triple advantage by level 4.

Or if I want to make an Abjurer, I declare my custom race to be a Deep Gnome variant, starting with 18 intelligence and Svirfneblin Magic.

Heck, I'd love a Halfling variant that starts with Bountiful Luck.

I think racial feats will still exist, and am fairly certain they won't allow them on custom built races. Or at least I hope not, that's an entirely new can of worms. They left other races extra characteristics in place, like half-orcs coming back once from 0 to 1 and gnomes having advantage on saves against certain spells, so I expect racial feats will stay how they are.

[x3n0n]

That.... I hadn't considered at all. They can't prevent you from taking a half feat that increases your primary stat. Suddenly anyone can get the benefit only Changelings get, and for them that's just Charisma.

Going to have a lot of Moderately Armored Rogues, a lot of Observant Wizards/Clerics, and a lot of Bards/Warlocks/Sorcerers who have spent some time acting on the side and are really good at making cow noises. (Actor feat)

The 2020 Feats UA also has a bunch of half-ASI feats, several of which seem themed to this concept, like Fey/Shadow Touched, or Practiced Expert, or Crusher/Piercer/Slasher, or Shield Training. Not sure where the psionic feats will end up, but the Wild Talent UA feat is another versatile half-ASI with "origin/lineage" flavor.

[diplomancer]

That.... I hadn't considered at all. They can't prevent you from taking a half feat that increases your primary stat. Suddenly anyone can get the benefit only Changelings get, and for them that's just Charisma.

Going to have a lot of Moderately Armored Rogues, a lot of Observant Wizards/Clerics, and a lot of Bards/Warlocks/Sorcerers who have spent some time acting on the side and are really good at making cow noises. (Actor feat)

It shows that the devs acknowledge what has been known by many. Starting with an 18 does not break the game, specially if you pay for it.


My main problem is that it sounds like it takes the one thing unique to the race I see played the least, a first level feat, and makes it a key part of the 'anything you want' races. I already see humans being ignored in favour of elves, now I'll see them ignored completely.

But that surely is because the people you play with don't WANT to play humans, not because V. Humans are underpowered.

[x3n0n]

It shows that the devs acknowledge what has been known by many. Starting with an 18 does not break the game, specially if you pay for it.



But that surely is because the people you play with don't WANT to play humans, not because V. Humans are underpowered.

It's nice to think about point buy stat lines like 15/14/14/10/10/8 that start with an 18 in primary (via primary half-feat). With point buy 15/15/14/10/8/8, that's potentially primary 18, secondary 15, with a secondary stat half-feat at the first ASI. (Thinking this could be nice for Monks, Barbs, and Paladins.)

Based on the verbal description, I'm guessing the new thing is probably
* +2 ASI
* a feat
* darkvision or a skill proficiency
* Common + another language

Compared to Variant Human, that would be +2 ASI vs +1/+1 and the possibility to choose darkvision instead of a skill proficiency.

The only advantage I see for v.human is that you can point buy 16/16 without taking a half-feat. Otherwise, the new thing seems to subsume most of the choices you can make.

[Anonymouswizard]

But that surely is because the people you play with don't WANT to play humans, not because V. Humans are underpowered.

And I struggle to write adventures for nonhuman parties, because on close reflection I'm not an elf. So anything that takes away the one thing that made people still play humans makes my job harder.

Especially as I tend to have to throw out my plans when everybody inevitably plays an elf again. And any attempt to limit PC races to less than what the PhB suggests is meet with moaning (and let's not mention the reaction to the savanna setting and the unrelated difficulties that caused). And when I play I'm inevitably the lone human or part human (I like Tieflings, always have, wish they got a bit more flexibility with their innate spells will fix that when I get around to them).

Plus I don't see the point in making what's apparently a major race completely redundant, with their choice to either get what a custom race does but with less choice or +1 to six stats. If humans are so important why do they get nothing of their own?

[tsuyoshikentsu]

If humans are so important why do they get nothing of their own?

Humans are not inherently more important than the other races.

[diplomancer]

And I struggle to write adventures for nonhuman parties, because on close reflection I'm not an elf. So anything that takes away the one thing that made people still play humans makes my job harder.

Especially as I tend to have to throw out my plans when everybody inevitably plays an elf again. And any attempt to limit PC races to less than what the PhB suggests is meet with moaning (and let's not mention the reaction to the savanna setting and the unrelated difficulties that caused). And when I play I'm inevitably the lone human or part human (I like Tieflings, always have, wish they got a bit more flexibility with their innate spells will fix that when I get around to them).

Plus I don't see the point in making what's apparently a major race completely redundant, with their choice to either get what a custom race does but with less choice or +1 to six stats. If humans are so important why do they get nothing of their own?

Consider this, also; nothing stops you from playing, well, a human, with that template. It's an entirely mechanical template that can be "painted on" any fluff chassis.

But if someone doesn't WANT to play a human, I don't think it's right to convince them to play one by giving them mechanic advantages.

[jojosskul]

Consider this, also; nothing stops you from playing, well, a human, with that template. It's an entirely mechanical template that can be "painted on" any fluff chassis.

But if someone doesn't WANT to play a human, I don't think it's right to convince them to play one by giving them mechanic advantages.

This is very true, heck you can even set it so that it's another race that actually exists in DnD but isn't a playable race. Though probably restricted to small or medium (I'm expecting that to be another choice point.)

Want to play a bearded devil? You're a bearded devil. Want to play gnoll? You're a gnoll. Want to play an imp that forgot how to fly? You're an imp. Just realized this gives a great template for campaigns where you play monsters, beyond the new sidekick rules letting you slap character classes on anything 1/2 CR or below. I mean yes you COULD reflavor anything you wanted before, but it's nice to have the mechanical backup.

[cutlery]

If humans are so important why do they get nothing of their own?

They aren't that important - but they are the only race that gets a +1 to each stat.

+2 stats points, skill OR darkvision, and a feat all sounds fine to me.
I assume it will lock you out of any racial feats, but thats not really a problem.

Why do humans need to have something unique?

[Sception]

This thread is treating this as a player option. Homebrew race creation is generally a DM thing, and I doubt it would be presented as anything else here. It seems unlikely that this is going to be published as 'generic race option for PCs that lets them choose any ability bonus and feat they want for their build at level one', and rather more likely that this will be 'hey new dm, here's a simple template for making playable rules for your homebrew shoopuff race, pick whatever ability bonus and feat best fits the racial features you think shoopuffs would have", and then new DM is like "shoopuffs are super smart, and they like to mimic people and make funny voices!" and then new DM's four friends and their fourth friend's boyfriend get the option of playing Shoepuffs with +2 int and the Actor feat in that specific game.

At most it will be a players and DMs using these rules to design a race together', and the min maxed '+2 strength polearm mastadons' and '+2 charisma warcasticans' will only materialize in games where the DM is welcoming of that sort of thing.

[x3n0n]

This thread is treating this as a player option. Homebrew race creation is generally a DM thing, and I doubt it would be presented as anything else here. It seems unlikely that this is going to be published as 'generic race option for PCs that lets them choose any ability bonus and feat they want for their build at level one', and rather more likely that this will be 'hey new dm, here's a simple template for making playable rules for your homebrew shoopuff race, pick whatever ability bonus and feat best fits the racial features you think shoopuffs would have", and then new DM is like "shoopuffs are super smart, and they like to mimic people and make funny voices!" and then new DM's four friends and their fourth friend's boyfriend get the option of playing Shoepuffs with +2 int and the Actor feat in that specific game.

At most it will be a players and DMs using these rules to design a race together', and the min maxed '+2 strength polearm mastadons' and '+2 charisma warcasticans' will only materialize in games where the DM is welcoming of that sort of thing.

I recommend listening to it; I expect it to be up on YouTube today. The wording and attitude seemed to be "everything in this is available as a player option" (unlike sidekicks, where the player possibility was a mostly-throwaway comment at the end).

Your point at the end is well-taken, though: players still need to talk to DMs for anything that isn't in the PHB. (For example, note that AL adopted the flexible mods and proficiencies, but hasn't yet said anything about "invent your own origin".)

That said, this also makes it a lot easier for DMs to create setting-specific races while remaining confident about balance, especially if there is a lot of variety in the new feats.

[x3n0n]

Sorry for the double post: https://youtu.be/f9ljeaSqONA

Lots about their philosophy of saying "yes" to players in general. The new fully-custom origin talk starts around 18:25.

[Anonymouswizard]

Humans are not inherently more important than the other races.

No, but considering how rarely I see them played they feel less important. Especially as human's 'cool thing' is now getting +1 to stats I don't use, why would I play one over a Kalasean or whatever else I've made up.


Consider this, also; nothing stops you from playing, well, a human, with that template. It's an entirely mechanical template that can be "painted on" any fluff chassis.

But if someone doesn't WANT to play a human, I don't think it's right to convince them to play one by giving them mechanic advantages.

I still think the reason people don't play humans is the vast amounts of effort put into making everybody except humans cool.


The new fully-custom origin talk starts around 18:25.

Listening, and urgh. This is something that should have been baked into the system at the design stage, where there's a race design system that's used to make a load of example races. Like Savage Worlds, which has had race creation since the first edition and has been expanding and rebalancing the options ever since.

Like, it's not that nothing he's saying is bad. It's just making me want to mess around with GURPS racial templates more than play D&D (or just run Fate, because Aspects just make everything easy).

[MaxWilson]

Like, it's not that nothing he's saying is bad. It's just making me want to mess around with GURPS racial templates more than play D&D (or just run Fate, because Aspects just make everything easy).

I like GURPS gameplay but the sameness of GURPS chargen is one of the things that brought me back eventually to (A)D&D. I'm not happy to see 5E moving in this direction but oh well, can always ignore or play AD&D.

[zinycor]

I like it as first approach to a new race (before jumping to homebrew). Far from perfect, but cool nonetheless.

[x3n0n]

I like GURPS gameplay but the sameness of GURPS chargen is one of the things that brought me back eventually to (A)D&D. I'm not happy to see 5E moving in this direction but oh well, can always ignore or play AD&D.

Well, we have a large library of existing races already in 5e, many with relevant features that can't be obtained via feat, let alone a single feat. I doubt that they will remove existing races, and I also doubt that they will create half-ASI feats corresponding to all of the interesting race features.

Given that, I expect to continue to see a variety of races played, even after the addition of design-your-own-"race" as an option.