On Tasha's book and racial freedom...

[ironkid]

Personally I'm perfectly fine with almost all of it.

Halflings don't get a -2 strenght. Neither do gnomes, nor goblins, so I don't see why kobolds should get it. Goblins don't get a -2 to int, so I don't see why orcs should. Can't force this on your games, of course, but personally I'm fine with it.

Trading proficiencies, I'm mostly fine with it, Makes sense for an elf raised by goliaths to speak giant and not know a word in elvish for instance. If you make a half elf raised by humans that have anger issues with his elven family side, it would make sense for her to learn dwarven instead of elvish. Again, can't force you, but I personally like it.

Switching the racial bonuses however, thaaaaaaaats too much. An wood elf raised by Goliaths will still be a natural in dex and wis, thats how genetics work. Nothing stops her from placing her highest stat in strenght and even evenctually reaching a 20 - the fact that your race isn't perfectly modeled to synergize in a class doesn't mean that you cant play it. I wouldn't use this optional rule, and wouldn't allow it in my games.

Of course I cant force you, and I wouldn't judge your game as trash just because you disagree with any of this (how many people actually makes a kobold/orc pc anyway?).

Heck, if you allow racial bonus distribution and I REALLY want to even an odd number I might redistribute a +1 into that stat "just-this-once-and-only-because-it-makes-sense-to-me that-this-race-could-have-a-plus-one-in-this" :elan:

Opinions?

[Stangler]

I homebrewed a racial bonus change where you could only move 1 point out of the +2. So Mountain Dwarves become +1 STR, +1 CON, +1(times 2) Anywhere.

I personally think moving racial bonuses around is absolutely necessary to add options to the game. Working against type is a very important part of story telling and role playing IMO. A clumsy Elf, a smart orc, a wise old goblin, or whatever captures the imagination in a different way than yet another agile elf with a bow. These type of things add layers to the possibilities and even though I think they went a little overboard it is an extremely positive change overall.

[RogueJK]

*shrug* I'm good with it.

The racial bonuses were intended to shoehorn races into certain stereotypes based on "classic" D&D/Tolkein-esque fantasy. These are fine, but having an Elven Wizard, Dwarven Fighter, Halfling Rogue, etc. in most parties gets old. And those who want to play against type end up handicapped.

What if you're from a tribe of Elven Barbarians whose last 20 generations have spent their entire lives picking up heavy things and putting them back down again? Why would you be "naturally" more dexterous but weaker than a human?

What if you're a clumsy Halfling who's socially awkward and spends all his time reading books? Why would you still start off more nimble than a Dwarf, more persuasive than an Elf, and dumber than a Gnome?


The cool part about this flexibility is that folks like you who say "ALL elves are graceful, because Tolkein" can still put that bonus straight into DEX, while the person who wants to play the clumsy yet strong Elf can do so without feeling mechanically hamstrung.

[Catullus64]

Honestly, I don't think the problem is with the proposed changes themselves, so much as their presentation. I would have preferred that rules for customizing and modifying races were much more DM-facing; less "here's how you can customize the racial benefits for your character", and more "here's how you can modify staple fantasy races to better reflect a particular culture or group in your world." That would still help games that want to expand beyond "Western high-fantasy archetype", while still preserving race as a factor that helps inform the setting.

Of course every character in D&D is unique, and not wholly defined by their race. But surely the extent to which they are unique is what every other aspect of your character is meant to present, whereas the race, to my thinking, should define the traits in which they are not unique, but rather part of a larger culture and species. If the idea of characters being informed and defined by their race is troublesome or stifling to you, then what you should do is get rid of mechanical impact of race, not turn race into essentially a modular feat that you get at 1st-level.

[RogueJK]

If the idea of characters being informed and defined by their race is troublesome or stifling to you, then what you should do is get rid of mechanical impact of race

Is that not what the flexible racial stats, or especially the additional ability to create your own custom racial lineage within a specific overall race, are basically moving towards?

I mean, it's not totally getting rid of the mechanical impact, but it's lessening it and making it to where it can be more like other races.

[Dork_Forge]

I don't think it has a place in 5e personally, they should have waited until the next edition to uproot a basic concept of character creation like this. I agree that the genetics of a race show their bonuses and that the individualism they seem to be championing with this is actually how you assign your stats (rolls, points whatever you chose). Now we are going to have a balancing nightmare because the rules were sloppily rushed out without community feedback, making some races outright superior (Half Elf and Mountain Dwarf) and making some racial abilities free to just comepletely negate downsides of some classes (tired of being a squishy Wizard? Then just be a Goliath or Half Orc, no longer squishy and still get the +2 Int you want...).

I think 5e has mostly been okay with each supplement so far (besides outliers like Ravnica backgrounds and Dragonmarks adding spells), but Tasha's as a whole looks like it'll just up end 5e as we know it.

[clash]

then what you should do is get rid of mechanical impact of race, not turn race into essentially a modular feat that you get at 1st-level.

I like these rules, but I totally get this point. Instead of giving each race floating bonuses why not just increase point buy stats and remove racial stat bonuses entirely.

[MadBear]

I love the racial stat bonus changes. Here's why:

1. PC do not equal average person. Sure the average elf has more dex then the average dwarf, but a PC is specifically special by comparison and therefore should be given leeway to exercise that.

2. Every race had the same cap anyway. A gnome and a Goliath could both get to 20 strength. So it's not like genetics actually matter much at all if the only difference is at what level.

3. Mechanically it opens up the ability for people to make more interesting characters. Now if I want to play a mad orc artificer I'm not punished for my choice.

4. Now people will pick races based upon either liking the idea of being that race, or because they like the unique traits of that race. Both of those are more interesting choices then "I guess my barbarian will be a mountain dwarf, because mechanically the stats make the most sense".

[ironkid]

Honestly, I don't think the problem is with the proposed changes themselves, so much as their presentation. I would have preferred that rules for customizing and modifying races were much more DM-facing; less "here's how you can customize the racial benefits for your character", and more "here's how you can modify staple fantasy races to better reflect a particular culture or group in your world." That would still help games that want to expand beyond "Western high-fantasy archetype", while still preserving race as a factor that helps inform the setting.


You have a very good point here. It should be presented as "hey this options might enrich your game so-and-so"; instead its like "Contractual obligations make us present this optional changes so nobody sues us so we present them to you, even if we don't really believe in them".

I'm pretty sure the way it's delivered is what bothers people, more so than the chenges themselves, as you say.

[zinycor]

I believe is a case by case scenario and will change depending on the table.

First of all, some of the racial bonuses appear to be assigned pretty arbitrarily. Like Tabaxi getting Charisma, there is the space to believe these Tabaxi would get Wisdom instead and it would not break anyone's immersion.

Second, a different racial bonus might represent better a different aspect on a race. Like some mountain dwarves getting a bonus to their intelligence to represent how good they are at crafting.

Third, it might just feel better for someone to get a better stat even with an unusual race/class combo, and at some tables that might be all that matters.

[Segev]

*shrug* I'm good with it.

The racial bonuses were intended to shoehorn races into certain stereotypes based on "classic" D&D/Tolkein-esque fantasy. These are fine, but having an Elven Wizard, Dwarven Fighter, Halfling Rogue, etc. in most parties gets old. And those who want to play against type end up handicapped.

What if you're from a tribe of Elven Barbarians whose last 20 generations have spent their entire lives picking up heavy things and putting them back down again? Why would you be "naturally" more dexterous but weaker than a human?

What if you're a clumsy Halfling who's socially awkward and spends all his time reading books? Why would you still start off more nimble than a Dwarf, more persuasive than an Elf, and dumber than a Gnome?


The cool part about this flexibility is that folks like you who say "ALL elves are graceful, because Tolkein" can still put that bonus straight into DEX, while the person who wants to play the clumsy yet strong Elf can do so without feeling mechanically hamstrung.

The "what if you're from a tribe that's totally different from the norm?" thing is handled by talking with your DM about it. By enshrining it as "well, er, any race can have any stat mod," you've thrown both the encouragement of playing to type AND a certain amount of balance out the window.

I'm for removing the -2s. They have no place in 5e.

But unfixing the stat boosts is... well. It's something they should have saved for a new edition, when they could have balanced the races around it.

This isn't good game design. And I frankly have limited sympathy for players who felt they "couldn't" play a wood elf barbarian because they didn't get a +2 Strength from race. (Not none, but limited. You also can't play an armor-wearing wizard without multiclassing or being a mountain dwarf; should I feel bad about that and encourage WotC to make wizards have all armor prof?)

[Catullus64]

Is that not what the flexible racial stats, or especially the additional ability to create your own custom racial lineage within a specific overall race, are basically doing?

Maybe. I reserve judgment until I have a final copy of the book in my hands. From what I've seen, the racial customization is a very circuitous way of accomplishing that.

And I think that the rest of my post makes it clear that, while I acknowledge its more socially problematic baggage, I do think that hard mechanical impact for specific races is a good thing, and that a modification system should fall more squarely into DM options than player options.

I know that the DM has final say on even using things like this, but when it's in print, and prominently displayed, even an "optional" rule creates pressure on the DM to allow it. I've never encountered a DM who disallowed feats, which are an "optional rule", and I think most tables would riot against one who did.

Let's say I'm running a game in which I've put a lot of time and effort into designing the setting and the cultures, and I've made it so that the hardiness of dwarves, the nimbleness of elves, or the cleverness of Gnomes is actually important, to say nothing of non-numerical racial features like Stonecunning or Trance or Artificer's Lore. If a player comes to me, and says "actually, I'm using Tasha's rules, my Gnome has +2 Strength and a different feature", I no longer feel comfortable saying no to that. I'm sure that a lot of people don't exactly pity me in that scenario, but that's just where I'm coming from.

[jaappleton]

My table actually did a CoS campaign, start to finish, with homebrewed rules that are now in Tasha's.

1. Put your stat bonuses wherever you want.
2. No racial restrictions on Feats

And everything went fine, as far as character creation goes.

No weird shenanigans happened. I mean, I made a Lore Wizard and crippled Baba Lysaga by changing Hold Person to key off Dexterity, but that wasn't a result of the rules which are now in a book.

[RogueJK]

Let's say I'm running a game in which I've put a lot of time and effort into designing the setting and the cultures, and I've made it so that the hardiness of dwarves, the nimbleness of elves, or the cleverness of Gnomes is actually important, to say nothing of non-numerical racial features like Stonecunning or Trance or Artificer's Lore. If a player comes to me, and says "actually, I'm using Tasha's rules, my Gnome has +2 Strength and a different feature", I no longer feel comfortable saying no to that. I'm sure that a lot of people don't exactly pity me in that scenario, but that's just where I'm coming from.

That's understandable.

And I can see how this has shifted it from "I want to do a STR Gnome so I have to see if the DM will say Yes" to "I'm going to do a STR Gnome unless the DM steps in and says No". Slightly more character creation say-so for the player, and less for the DM.

However, personal character creation is one of the things in which the player likely should have more say in than the DM.

I guess it can come down to Player's vision for their character vs. DM's vision for their setting. It doesn't have to conflict, and hopefully if it does the player and DM can come to a compromise.

[Segev]

That's understandable.

And I can see how this has shifted it from "I want to do X, so I have to get the DM to say Yes" to "I'm going to do X unless the DM says No". Slightly more character creation say-so for the player, and less for the DM.

However, personal character creation is one of the things in which the player likely should have more say in than the DM.

I guess it can come down to Player's vision for their character vs. DM's vision for their setting. It doesn't have to conflict, and hopefully if it does the player and DM can come to a compromise.

Then why should players be bound to elite arrays or dice? Why not just assume players can assign 20s to any stat they like because they player's vision should trump game balance and such.

[RogueJK]

Flexible stat bonuses are not significantly balance-shifting, like "everyone gets 20s" would be.

[zinycor]

Then why should players be bound to elite arrays or dice? Why not just assume players can assign 20s to any stat they like because they player's vision should trump game balance and such.

If that's what you want at your table. Sure, go for it.

[jaappleton]

That's understandable.

And I can see how this has shifted it from "I want to do X, so I have to get the DM to say Yes" to "I'm going to do X unless the DM says No". More character creation power for the player, and less for the DM.

However, character creation is one of the things in which the player should have more control than the DM. It's their character, which they are going to be playing. If the DM wants to curtail that more than the books allow, that's up to the DM to discuss with the player.

I mostly agree with this.

As a player, I want the freedom. I want to be able to make a Hobgoblin Sorc that's just as effective mechanically, just as charismatic, as a Tiefling Sorc starting at first level.

At the exact same time, I don't want to be able to completely and totally outshine everyone else at the table because I came up with some super niche build that is nigh unstoppable. I shouldn't be able to make Pun Pun.

So I agree, but with some obvious limitations. Limiting something like Pun Pun is absolutely within the DMs right, and its a restriction I want in place as a player.

I want to look at my fellow players and smile as I see weird, fun things they've created. I want to see the Goblin Barbarian, the Tortle Wizard, the custom race creation of someone playing a sentient floating Maul, the Bugbear Paladin, I want all their weird and kooky stuff.

I don't want to see God in the party that has 30 in all stats that gets 400 temp HP every round, y'know?

[Hael]

I don’t agree with the notion that having more options is a necessarily a good thing. The obvious unintended consequence here is that every table will have far more homogeneity. Both in build and racial representation.

When race features and stats become a skill system, most people will comfortably take their elf and human 90% of the time. You’ll get a few cool races like Dragonborn, dwarves, or Aasimar but for the most part you’ll never see Kobolds, Gnomes and Halflings ever again. In general, the majority of people don’t like playing certain races unless they provide a unique game mechanic.

Anyway, I won’t rehash all of this.. it’s gotten several discussions banned.

[Stangler]

The "what if you're from a tribe that's totally different from the norm?" thing is handled by talking with your DM about it. By enshrining it as "well, er, any race can have any stat mod," you've thrown both the encouragement of playing to type AND a certain amount of balance out the window.

I'm for removing the -2s. They have no place in 5e.

But unfixing the stat boosts is... well. It's something they should have saved for a new edition, when they could have balanced the races around it.

This isn't good game design. And I frankly have limited sympathy for players who felt they "couldn't" play a wood elf barbarian because they didn't get a +2 Strength from race. (Not none, but limited. You also can't play an armor-wearing wizard without multiclassing or being a mountain dwarf; should I feel bad about that and encourage WotC to make wizards have all armor prof?)

I don't really buy the argument that they had to wait. 5e is likely to be around for years more.

I agree that it doesn't fit their established approach to race design and messes with balance. That said, overall it still isn't as imbalancing as giving one race a level one feat.

Overall it is a change that will help a lot of tables become more fun for players and some tables who don't like it just won't include it as an option. Seems like a clear win from WotC perspective.

[Catullus64]

And I frankly have limited sympathy for players who felt they "couldn't" play a wood elf barbarian because they didn't get a +2 Strength from race. (Not none, but limited. You also can't play an armor-wearing wizard without multiclassing or being a mountain dwarf; should I feel bad about that and encourage WotC to make wizards have all armor prof?)

I very much groove with this. I find the language of being "punished" for an unorthodox race-class combination to be very melodramatic.

And unorthodoxy tends to lose its punch and flavor if there's no orthodoxy for it to differ from. Fully customizable race, on the player end, tends towards eliminating orthodoxy. A Half-Orc wizard doesn't strike me as all that bold and innovative if Half-Orcs have no less innate arcane aptitude than anybody else.

The Half-Orc wizard can shine just as much as his Gnome and Elf counterparts, but because of how his player plays him and infuses him with life and personality. If the player does that, his on-average lower Intelligence score won't be much of a hinderance, and may even be an asset. Weaknesses can be more interesting than strengths.

[Segev]

Because game balance is still important, and players sign on to a system that they know will be bounded by mechanical rules.

Flexible stat bonuses are not significantly balance-shifting, like "everyone gets 20s" would be.

I agree that it's not AS big a problem, but it isn't well-balanced for this edition, where stat mods were part of balancing racial features.

But the argument that player vision should trump the setting lore is pretty weak.

This should have waited for a new edition. The pushback would be significantly less. If any at all, really, because they could have tied stat bonuses to class or background or simply made them universally floating. "They're racial bonuses, but not really because, uh, there's a really good reason, honest."

I know I won't be allowing it in general in my games. I'll exploit it mercilessly in games that do allow it, though.

[jaappleton]

I don’t agree. The obvious unintended consequence here is that every table will have far more homogeneity. Both in build and racial representation.

When race features and stats become a skill system, most people will comfortably take their elf and human 90% of the time. You’ll get a few cool races like Dragonborn, dwarves, or Aasimar but for the most part you’ll never see Kobolds, Gnomes and Halflings ever again. In general, the majority of people don’t like playing certain races unless they provide a unique game mechanic.

Anyway, I won’t rehash all of this.. it’s gotten several discussions banned.

I vehemently disagree.

I almost never player Humans or Elf.

They're BORING. Give me something WEIRD! Give me the Gnome Barbarian dressed in a lovely suit, top hat and monocle who rages whenever someone makes fun of his height or moustache, and beats people with his walking cane.

Maybe I'm the exception but in a world where I can be all sorts of fantastical creatures, the last thing I want to be is a human or something close to it.

[Xervous]

Remove the -2s because they are inconsistent with the established design pattern. That should be self explanatory.

Races as skins is fine, but the implementation is far from that. It’s tossing out the existing semblance of balance just to be able to say they checked a box. It’s corporate pandering that is just another facet of marketing in the vein of trending buzzwords such as Cloud or Blockchain. There is real impactful meaning behind the concepts, but too frequently it’s taken as another must have on the product label a la GMO free, This product was made with recycled X, and so forth. The message rings a tad hollow and certainly shows in the implementation.

Seeing the blatant money grabs WotC is consistently tossing out of MTG R&D puts this in more understandable context.

[zinycor]

I don’t agree. The obvious unintended consequence here is that every table will have far more homogeneity. Both in build and racial representation.

When race features and stats become a skill system, most people will comfortably take their elf and human 90% of the time. You’ll get a few cool races like Dragonborn, dwarves, or Aasimar but for the most part you’ll never see Kobolds, Gnomes and Halflings ever again. In general, the majority of people don’t like playing certain races unless they provide a unique game mechanic.

Anyway, I won’t rehash all of this.. it’s gotten several discussions banned.

I believe that's already the case, regardless of this rule.

[jaappleton]

A Half-Orc wizard doesn't strike me as all that bold and innovative if Half-Orcs have no less innate arcane aptitude than anybody else.

A Half Orc would still be unique because one of their major features, the ability to do extra damage when critting with a melee weapon, wouldn't be used anywhere near as often as it would be on the typical Half Orc Fighter.

Likewise, a Gnome Barbarian becomes much more appealing than before because of their Advantage VS mental saving throws against magic.

[Segev]

I vehemently disagree.

I almost never player Humans or Elf.

They're BORING. Give me something WEIRD! Give me the Gnome Barbarian dressed in a lovely suit, top hat and monocle who rages whenever someone makes fun of his height or moustache, and beats people with his walking cane.

Maybe I'm the exception but in a world where I can be all sorts of fantastical creatures, the last thing I want to be is a human or something close to it.

My issue is that this is a huge step towards your "weird" character actually not being any different than a "normal" one except in how you describe it.

[Scarytincan]

I don't think that 'wood elf raised by goliaths' is really a strong argument for or against 'genetics', nor do I think anyone could satisfactorily explain how any race could be generically predisposed to wisdom hehe.

The way I see it, let's go with humans. Humans can start with 8 strength. Humans can start with 16 strength. When there is such a range among humans that the starting stats can fall anywhere between those points, I don't see how one or two more are such an issue to people, especially when ALL races can get to 20 in anything (or higher as a barbarian, including halflings).

More options for many people is more fun. The sentiment of ignoring a great many races for a given class EXCLUSIVELY due to something like racial stat bonuses which is a bit flimsy anyway has way too often limited lots of great, fun, thematic builds for a lot of people.

Now there's an official option to change that. Or to ignore the change. Yey.

Scourge aasimar way of mercy monk, here I come!

[Catullus64]

A Half Orc would still be unique because one of their major features, the ability to do extra damage when critting with a melee weapon, wouldn't be used anywhere near as often as it would be on the typical Half Orc Fighter.

Likewise, a Gnome Barbarian becomes much more appealing than before because of their Advantage VS mental saving throws against magic.

It was my understanding that the rules presented in the book allow customization not just of racial ability score bonuses, but of other racial features as well. Am I mistaken in that? I'm going off of previews and interviews here, is there a more definitive and final resource that contradicts this?

[x3n0n]

If you would like to see hundreds and hundreds of posts about this, we have gone through several very long and contentious threads on this topic in the past month and a half, each of which have spent significant time being locked by mods.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?618973-New-racial-modifiers-from-Tasha-s-Cauldron-of-Everything
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?618956-quot-Customizing-your-Origin-in-D-amp-D-quot
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?619069-Winners-and-Losers-from-quot-Customizing-Your-Origin-quot
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?619255-Did-Tasha-s-go-far-enough

I think everybody can probably find multiple posts in those threads that cover their opinions as well as the ones they disagree with.

Enjoy!

[jaappleton]

My issue is that this is a huge step towards your "weird" character actually not being any different than a "normal" one except in how you describe it.

But aren't you particularly tired of seeing the players show up with the same bog standard tropes?

Half Orc Champion
VHuman Paladin
Hill Dwarf Cleric
Elf Rogue

Don't you want to see Halfling Wizard, Gnome Barbarian, Loxodon Monk, Tiefling Barbarian, Kenku Bard?

Even if, mechanically they're now equal, it at least changes things up from what's become absolutely tired tropes?

[Dienekes]

Personally of the opinion that I loved the idea while hating the implementation. Hating it so much in fact that I homebrewed up my own race/culture system to address the issues I see with it. Which was admittedly a lot of fun.

I do not think the races were designed to have their traits all be balanced with each other when their abilities were taken out of the equation. The most obvious being the Mountain Dwarf which was designed with bonuses to strength and constitution something all warrior types want, but also medium armor something no warrior types need. So you could take it for the stat buffs if you wanted to build a warrior, or you can take it for the armor if you were not a warrior. In theory, that’s the trade off.

Now we can all argue whether that was the right design approach to take (personal opinion: it wasn’t). But it’s what they did. So now removing those limitations and we will see the races with intentionally strong abilities balanced with mismatching ability boosts no longer having downsides and become the strongest strategy. Which I think is just bad game design.

And on the other hand the game is now moving even further away from fluff matching mechanics which always makes me a little sad. Now in fairness 5e was never the greatest in that regard, but losing some of what we had does sting a little.

I do think the ideas brought up in Tasha’s are good and should be explored. But I also think that the developers took what should have been a thoroughly thought out restructuring of races to fit this new paradigm and pushed it through in the most rushed bullheaded way possible.


But aren't you particularly tired of seeing the players show up with the same bog standard tropes?

Half Orc Champion
VHuman Paladin
Hill Dwarf Cleric
Elf Rogue

Don't you want to see Halfling Wizard, Gnome Barbarian, Loxodon Monk, Tiefling Barbarian, Kenku Bard?

Even if, mechanically they're now equal, it at least changes things up from what's become absolutely tired tropes?

If they end up all playing the same anyway, does it matter? Call yourself an elf or a dwarf or a three eyed alien from Mars if there is little mechanical distinction between the races it’s just a palette swap.

Of course that does bring up the question of whether there are enough mechanical distinctions between the races initially. To which my answer was “Generally no, with few exceptions.” But others may very well disagree.

[Hael]

I almost never player Humans or Elf.


No offense but consider that we are not a representative sample of DND players. People who post on these boards are likely long time players who have seen it all.

Most tables are going to be super homogenous, they’ll take the popular build and slap it on their elf or mountain dwarf and youll see that over and over again with no variance. At least current 5e has all sorts of semi viable and interesting builds that involve working with a particular races strengths and weaknesses.

End of the day, this is the difference between a skill system and a class system. The latter is more restrictive but amusingly tends to produce more build variety.

[x3n0n]

It was my understanding that the rules presented in the book allow customization not just of racial ability score bonuses, but of other racial features as well. Am I mistaken in that? I'm going off of previews and interviews here, is there a more definitive and final resource that contradicts this?

The rules in the Adventurer's League document cover all of the existing races: you can move your stat increases, you can trade languages, and you can exchange proficiencies according to rules in a table.

The other new thing is creating a fully custom origin, which is almost like Variant Human, except that you can choose Small or Medium, you get +2 instead of +1/+1, you can choose darkvision instead of a free skill, and you have total fluff freedom within DM agreement.

[jaappleton]

It was my understanding that the rules presented in the book allow customization not just of racial ability score bonuses, but of other racial features as well. Am I mistaken in that? I'm going off of previews and interviews here, is there a more definitive and final resource that contradicts this?

You cannot swap around racial abilities.

You cannot make a Halfling with Relentless Endurance, as an example.

You can swap tool proficiencies, skill proficiencies, weapon proficiencies. But not unique abilities like Trance, Relentless Endurance, etc.

[RogueJK]

You cannot swap around racial abilities.

You cannot make a Halfling with Relentless Endurance, as an example.

You can swap tool proficiencies, skill proficiencies, weapon proficiencies. But not unique abilities like Trance, Relentless Endurance, etc.

Correct.

Your only other option is to discard all of the racial stats and abilities and take the new Custom Lineage option, getting +2 to one stat, a skill or Darkvision, and a Feat. Basically giving any race the option of "Variant [Race]" (ala Variant Human).

So your character could still be an Elf with this custom lineage, for example, but you wouldn't have any of the Elf-specific racial abilities like Trance, racial resistance to charm/sleep magic, etc.

[Segev]

I don't think that 'wood elf raised by goliaths' is really a strong argument for or against 'genetics', nor do I think anyone could satisfactorily explain how any race could be generically predisposed to wisdom hehe.

The way I see it, let's go with humans. Humans can start with 8 strength. Humans can start with 16 strength. When there is such a range among humans that the starting stats can fall anywhere between those points, I don't see how one or two more are such an issue to people, especially when ALL races can get to 20 in anything (or higher as a barbarian, including halflings).

More options for many people is more fun. The sentiment of ignoring a great many races for a given class EXCLUSIVELY due to something like racial stat bonuses which is a bit flimsy anyway has way too often limited lots of great, fun, thematic builds for a lot of people.

Now there's an official option to change that. Or to ignore the change. Yey.

Scourge aasimar way of mercy monk, here I come!
The issue is the "giving of options" to one player is the "taking of options away" from another.

A half-orc wizard or a gnome barbarian or a wood elf sorcerer is now only "odd" by informed attribute, with this new system. In fact, half-orc wizard is one of the best choices, now, because the ability to auto-survive a one-hit-kill is far more valuable to the squishy than the tanky.

Under the system as presented in the PHB playing something that the setting lore says is unusual had a slight friction against it. Nothing crippling; 5e's removal of stat penalties combined with its bounded accuracy solved that. But a slight friction. It took unusual dedication to be a barbarian as a high elf, compared to being any elf rogue. But it still wasn't crippling, because even if you never got that 20, you're fine. And you still could, pretty straight-forwardly, if it mattered that much to you. (The game's stat-boost items make this pretty trivial, too, since they SET stats.)

Under Tasha's, we can be TOLD that gnomes have a natural talent for wizardry, but it's not actually true. We can be TOLD that half-orcs are stereotypically fighter-types, but now it's really rather racist to assume that they are, since there's nothing about them that would lend themselves to it any more than any other class.

So you've taken away the uniqueness of any character that is purportedly playing against type.

As to the "if humans can vary that much, why not everyone?" argument, that's literally one of the things setting humans apart: their versatility. Humans really can be anything and nobody bats and eye at how "unusual" it is. So you're taking that away from them, too.

The trend here - though it hasn't gone that far yet, unless Tasha's allows more mixing and matching of racial features than I thought - is leaning towards exactly why I don't really care about races in points-based systems: race-as-nothing-but-cosmetics is supremely boring to me. Why bother having them, rather than just saying "characters can look however you like, but it doesn't matter to the game because appearances just vary a lot?"

[jaappleton]

No offense but consider that we are not a representative sample of DND players. People who post on these boards are likely long time players who have seen it all.

Most tables are going to be super homogenous, they’ll take the popular build and slap it on their elf or mountain dwarf and youll see that over and over again with no variance. At least current 5e has all sorts of semi viable and interesting builds that involve working with a particular races strengths and weaknesses.

End of the day, this is the difference between a skill system and a class system. The latter is more restrictive but amusingly tends to produce more build variety.

This is a fair statement.

I peruse the forums quite a bit, I've build dozens of characters in my head just in the last two weeks. I've reach every class handbook multiple times, front to back.

Perhaps that's precisely WHY I'm now much more interested in having the weird character, because the bog standard Hill Dwarf Cleric is so mundane to me at this point. Its rated gold in every handbook, its something I've seen a hundred times.

But I firmly believe that if every race gets floating bonuses, as this optional rule proposes, that while some things will still be more optimal than others (Half Orc's Savage Attacks still being amazing for melee classes with multiattack, much less useful for mages, as an example), it's going to greatly encourage the weird.

I'd much rather encourage the weird than the bog standard.

[SiCK_Boy]

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of these changes. Many of the arguments have already been presented by others (in this thread and others).

As with any rule change or homebrew idea that a random DM would come up with, the basic question should always be the same: what problem are you fixing with this change or what benefit will you bring to your game that was not possible under the old rules?

And the answer is, to me, that all these changes will accomplish is give players more freedom to create stronger / more powerful (mechanically speaking) characters.

One argument I find really weak is the argument about how this change will allow "playing against type". Where are all the posts from poor players who tried to play "against type" (like that elven barbarian who could only start with a 15 STR instead of a 17), and how those experiences went so badly, and how things would have been just fine had those characters been allowed to have just one +2 in their primary stat instead?

These posts don't exist. The truth is, if people were interested in playing "against type", they had ample opportunity to do so before (and for those who did, I'm sure they had fun doing so as well!). And if they were refraining from doing so because of a lack of a +2 to one ability score, then really, one has to wonder how much "against type" these players really hoped to play. I mean, are they also the kind of players who want to play "dumb" characters while still having a mechanical +2 to INT checks rather than -2? Like, they just want to use the "against type" aspect of their characters when it suits them (mostly for random roleplay opportunities) while facing no consequence for their choices?

Maybe the nature of this board, where a lot of players are looking at character optimization (from a mechanical perspective) makes the optics even worse, but really, what I see with this change is players being allowed to play stronger characters with less limitations put on what they can do, mechanically speaking, in the game. It's part of a power-creep trend that is usually inevitable in a game like this (and is often announcing an upcoming edition change / reset when things go too far), with no real benefit to "the game" that I can detect.

The same is true of the other flexibility options being allowed (such as switching skills and languages), although those often have less impact (you use your abilities for every dice roll in the game; how often is spoken language critical to the result of a gaming session?) - you already had a lot of flexibility on these two things with the way backgrounds are designed.

Someone did suggest it above, but if the goal is to make all races the same mechanically speaking, then just get rid of mechanical bonuses related to races, period, and let races stand as pure fluff. I mean, what will the next steps be: an "against type" gnome that is 6' tall and medium creature size? An "against type" wizard that wears plate armor (after all, I could certainly imagine a wizard who had military training; why would race limitation be seen as inherently bad, but class limitations be seen as okay)?

Once the game designers start caving in to players clamoring for more power, they start going down a slope that cannot lead to a good place. Whether players understand it or not, it is the limitations inherent to any game (the restrictions put in place by the game system and rules) that allow us, as players, to make choices, and that allows these choices to have consequences within the framework of the game. If the goal is to have every player get an extra +2 to whatever ability they want, then the solution is not to change the way races work: it is to change the way ability score generation works. And if you do this, you should do this across the whole system; meaning you should also review and update (as needed) the ability scores of most monsters. Because of the way this specific change pervades all the other rules of the game, it should have been kept for a new edition, where it would have been part of the baseline assumptions, rather than tacked along in such an haphazard way.

[Segev]

But aren't you particularly tired of seeing the players show up with the same bog standard tropes?

Half Orc Champion
VHuman Paladin
Hill Dwarf Cleric
Elf Rogue

Don't you want to see Halfling Wizard, Gnome Barbarian, Loxodon Monk, Tiefling Barbarian, Kenku Bard?

Even if, mechanically they're now equal, it at least changes things up from what's become absolutely tired tropes?

Frankly? No. I'm not tired of it. And when I see a "kenku bard," I want it to actually be interesting, not just a human bard with black feathers and a beak.

And as a player, I want my choice to play a Loxodon Monk to have meaning. I don't want the only reason anybody seems to think it's cool and unusual to be that they're told "oh, you don't see these much," when there's absolutely no reason you'd see them any less than a Hill Dwarf Monk.

[jaappleton]

Correct.

Your only other option is to discard all of the racial stats and abilities and take the new Custom Lineage option, getting +2 to one stat, a skill or Darkvision, and a Feat. Basically giving any race the option of "Variant [Race]" (ala Variant Human).

So your character could still be an Elf with this custom lineage, for example, but you wouldn't have any of the Elf-specific racial abilities like Trance, racial resistance to charm/sleep magic, etc.

Very much so.

Its also a great way to play something totally out of the ordinary. Something that doesn't exist.

I'm a sentient Maul that floats 3ft above solid surfaces, took the Crusher feat. GOO Warlock to communicate telepathically with my allies. Or maybe Fighter, and took Magic Initiate for the Message cantrip to talk?

[Segev]

Very much so.

Its also a great way to play something totally out of the ordinary. Something that doesn't exist.

I'm a sentient Maul that floats 3ft above solid surfaces, took the Crusher feat. GOO Warlock to communicate telepathically with my allies. Or maybe Fighter, and took Magic Initiate for the Message cantrip to talk?

Sure. But do you want your stats to reflect this, or do you want to be technically playing a human that everybody pretends is a floating maul and who just chooses not to speak but mechanically can?

[Amnestic]

Still waiting on seeing the exact wording for it. Chances are I'll default to the 'floating stat bonus' stuff I already have - half-elves lose one of their +1s and mountain dwarves go to +2/+1 but otherwise the same.

I like the tool swapping stuff though, I'll be adding that in for sure.

[Segev]

Still waiting on seeing the exact wording for it. Chances are I'll default to the 'floating stat bonus' stuff I already have - half-elves lose one of their +1s and mountain dwarves go to +2/+1 but otherwise the same.

I like the tool swapping stuff though, I'll be adding that in for sure.

I'm actually fine with swapping purely cultural stuff. In fact, I wish they'd done more to split that off into Backgrounds in the first place.

What bothers me is that the arguments I'm seeing here beg the question, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by aaracockra, fly?"

There's an obvious answer, but how is that any different than, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by the drow, cast drow magic and have 120 ft. darkvision?"

"Why can't my halfling, raised by svirfneblin, have superior darkvision?"

The moment you say that any of that is impossible, the same reason why the racial stat mods are important for their subtle influence is revealed.

[jaappleton]

I'm actually fine with swapping purely cultural stuff. In fact, I wish they'd done more to split that off into Backgrounds in the first place.

What bothers me is that the arguments I'm seeing here beg the question, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by aaracockra, fly?"

There's an obvious answer, but how is that any different than, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by the drow, cast drow magic and have 120 ft. darkvision?"

"Why can't my halfling, raised by svirfneblin, have superior darkvision?"

The moment you say that any of that is impossible, the same reason why the racial stat mods are important for their subtle influence is revealed.

Nobody is saying to do those.

The new optional rules don't allow for that.

Sure, you can use the new lineage to get +2 to a single stat and a feat and have Darkvision for your Halfling raised by Svirfneblin... But you love Brave, Lucky, and another +1.

So you can be a 'Halfling with Darkvision', sure. But you only, fluff wise, look like a Halfling. You aren't mechanically a Halfling.

So.... Yeah. A lot of what you just said is, actually, impossible.

[druid91]

But aren't you particularly tired of seeing the players show up with the same bog standard tropes?

Half Orc Champion
VHuman Paladin
Hill Dwarf Cleric
Elf Rogue

Don't you want to see Halfling Wizard, Gnome Barbarian, Loxodon Monk, Tiefling Barbarian, Kenku Bard?

Even if, mechanically they're now equal, it at least changes things up from what's become absolutely tired tropes?

I mean, I started playing 5e with the first printing of the core books and our party consisted of.

A Gnomish Necromancer.
A Human Assassin
A Skeleton Paladin.
And a Dwarven Battle Master.

[Segev]

Nobody is saying to do those.

The new optional rules don't allow for that.

Sure, you can use the new lineage to get +2 to a single stat and a feat and have Darkvision for your Halfling raised by Svirfneblin... But you love Brave, Lucky, and another +1.

So you can be a 'Halfling with Darkvision', sure. But you only, fluff wise, look like a Halfling. You aren't mechanically a Halfling.

So.... Yeah. A lot of what you just said is, actually, impossible.

But why should it be? Why shouldn't that halfling have Svirfneblin magic? Why shouldn't that half-orc fly as a native ability, or have a 1d4 piercing unarmed attack?

[SiCK_Boy]

So you can be a 'Halfling with Darkvision', sure. But you only, fluff wise, look like a Halfling. You aren't mechanically a Halfling.

So if a magic item is only usable by halflings, you would not allow the "Variant Halfling" (or "Halfling with Darkvision") to use it?

[jaappleton]

But why should it be? Why shouldn't that halfling have Svirfneblin magic? Why shouldn't that half-orc fly as a native ability, or have a 1d4 piercing unarmed attack?

You're totally moving the goal posts here, Segev. C'mon.

[cutlery]

I like these rules, but I totally get this point. Instead of giving each race floating bonuses why not just increase point buy stats and remove racial stat bonuses entirely.

Yep; there isn't a great need for so much crunch to be tied into the race choices. It isn't as if we have class restrictions anymore.

Of course, I'd also nix essentially all the post PHB races for how ridiculous some of their crunch is.

If all races were mere cultural fluff packets with the custom race +2 and feat plus skill or darkvision, things would be a bit better off.

Can you imagine Yuan-Ti magic resistance as a feat? No way that would have ever made it out of playtesting.

[jaappleton]

So if a magic item is only usable by halflings, you would not allow the "Variant Halfling" (or "Halfling with Darkvision") to use it?

DMs call, I believe.

Though.... I don't believe any races have exclusive magic items. Yet.

[Segev]

You're totally moving the goal posts here, Segev. C'mon.

No, I'm not. I'm asking why the argument applies to stat mods, and to darkvision, but not to flight or magic.



I will note that prior to Tasha's, I would have said that you can't play a half-orc who can fly natively no matter how you're raised, but that I'd be fine with a "dagger" being refluffed as a claw-gauntlet he invented to have the "natural attack" of his adopted family, and I'd encourage him to take a class that could get him to the point where he COULD fly as an aspiration to be more like his people.

With the advent of Tasha's, and the notion that it's unfair to tell players that they can't have the optimal arrangement of stats and skills for their characters, I question why we can't have them have the optimal arrangement of all racial abilities. Isn't that just as limiting? Just as unfair? Just as squelching of cool concepts? The half-orc barbarian who swoops out of the sky to rage in your face would be pretty awesome, wouldn't it? So why can't he do it?

I'm not moving the goalposts; I'm demonstrating my objections via reductio ad absurdum. And pointing out that I find the justifications for what IS being done equally problematic.

There's no game balance reason, if we're mixing and matching some racial traits, we can't mix and match others. Why is "lucky" unmovable on a halfling? Why isn't it cultural rather than genetic?


Don't "c'mon" me. If you want to prove that I'm engaging in the slippery slope fallacy, it's pretty simple to do: draw me the line where it stops, and clearly explain why THAT is the line, and not another line somewhere else on the sliding scale.

But if you're going to accuse me of moving goalposts, I'm going to simply say, "No, I'm not." You'll have to prove I am to make me accept it. I'll acknowledge I'm using a slippery slope argument, but that is only a fallacy if you can prove there is a concrete point where the conditions that justify sliding X distance down it no longer apply before you're Y distance down it.

[Amnestic]

I'm actually fine with swapping purely cultural stuff. In fact, I wish they'd done more to split that off into Backgrounds in the first place.

What bothers me is that the arguments I'm seeing here beg the question, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by aaracockra, fly?"

There's an obvious answer, but how is that any different than, "Why can't my half-orc, raised by the drow, cast drow magic and have 120 ft. darkvision?"

"Why can't my halfling, raised by svirfneblin, have superior darkvision?"

The moment you say that any of that is impossible, the same reason why the racial stat mods are important for their subtle influence is revealed.

If you want to play a game where your aaracockra is actually a winged half-orc then...I mean sure? Winged elves are already a thing with the Avariel. Why not a winged half-orc? Though instead of refluffing I'd just write one up taking traits from orcs and avariel elves both, if it were my game*.

If you want to take Tasha's stuff further and go full refluff on anything then I think there's definitely viability there. Personally, I might allow such stuff on a case-by-case basis but it's not for everyone.

Just like Tasha's variant rule isn't for everyone. I, personally, will be using it - or a variation of it - for my games.

*assuming I didn't ban flying races of course. Which I do sometimes. And don't sometimes.

[Segev]

If you want to play a game where your aaracockra is actually a winged half-orc then...I mean sure? Winged elves are already a thing with the Avariel. Why not a winged half-orc? Though instead of refluffing I'd just write one up taking traits from orcs and avariel elves both, if it were my game*.

If you want to take Tasha's stuff further and go full refluff on anything then I think there's definitely viability there. Personally, I might allow such stuff on a case-by-case basis but it's not for everyone.

Just like Tasha's variant rule isn't for everyone. I, personally, will be using it - or a variation of it - for my games.

*assuming I didn't ban flying races of course. Which I do sometimes. And don't sometimes.

See, here's the difference: THAT IS SOMETHING THE DM WOULD DO.

If the DM is adding new races, that's one thing. If Tasha's were giving suggestions to the DM on how to modify races to make unique ones for his game, that'd be great!

That's not what's being done, and not the explanation being given for the changes.

Why can a player decide his drow has +2 Strength from being an elf (rather than +2 dex), and swap out some racial features, but can't decide he learned how to fly and lost sunlight sensitivity from being raised by the aaracockra?

Honestly, I'd have less problem with a player saying, "I want to cosmetically be a drow, but since he was raised by high elves, can I just use the high elf stat line?" than I do with this "yeah, I'm totally a halfling barbarian, and isn't that so special and unique, even though there's absolutely no reason why more halflings wouldn't be barbarians" business Tasha's sloppily threw together.

Designing new races is one thing. "Customizing" races for individual characters to the point where they lose their uniqueness is another. And if you're going to justify SOME changes but not ALL, why the arbitrary decision? Draw me the line to tell me why you allow some things to change but not others.

[jaappleton]

Don't "c'mon" me. If you want to prove that I'm engaging in the slippery slope fallacy, it's pretty simple to do: draw me the line where it stops, and clearly explain why THAT is the line, and not another line somewhere else on the sliding scale.

Emphasis mine.

Alright then. I can do that.

Because the developers and designers of the game didn't include it in the optional rule. They didn't include it because they didn't want it included. As the designers and developers of the game, they have the full authority to do so.

There. Done.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Let's say I'm running a game in which I've put a lot of time and effort into designing the setting and the cultures, and I've made it so that the hardiness of dwarves, the nimbleness of elves, or the cleverness of Gnomes is actually important, to say nothing of non-numerical racial features like Stonecunning or Trance or Artificer's Lore. If a player comes to me, and says "actually, I'm using Tasha's rules, my Gnome has +2 Strength and a different feature", I no longer feel comfortable saying no to that. I'm sure that a lot of people don't exactly pity me in that scenario, but that's just where I'm coming from.

My answer is simple. "Did I say in the character creation document that you could use those rules? No? Go make a legal character. I have dozens of homebrew race options that fit the setting. Either use a stock race or choose one of those."

Books (and sections of books) are whitelist, not blacklist. Disabled by default. And any player who tries to shame the DM on that should find a different table entirely.

Setting comes first.

[Dienekes]

Emphasis mine.

Alright then. I can do that.

Because the developers and designers of the game didn't include it in the optional rule. They didn't include it because they didn't want it included. As the designers and developers of the game, they have the full authority to do so.

There. Done.

They have the full authority to do whatever they want. And we have the full authority to call them morons for their decision making process. Hexblade exists, for example. And I have my laundry list of problems with their class design and balance.

Also come on, it's clear that Segev wanted a lore reasoning or at the very least a comprehensive design explanation. Appealing to authority is not really strengthening your side of the argument here. Other than emphasizing Segev's point that it is ultimately arbitrary.

[Scarytincan]

The issue is the "giving of options" to one player is the "taking of options away" from another.


So you've taken away the uniqueness of any character that is purportedly playing against type.


As to the "if humans can vary that much, why not everyone?" argument, that's literally one of the things setting humans apart: their versatility. Humans really can be anything and nobody bats and eye at how "unusual" it is. So you're taking that away from them, too.



I am entirely unpersuaded by the argument line of giving some players more options takes something away from other players. A players self perceived uniqueness is there own problem/matter, not something the other players should be forced to bend to. So if two people want to play gnome barbarians and the first wants to feel 'unique', should the second not be allowed?

And my selection of human is entirely irrelevant to my point. The point is there's already a range of several points for each stat for each range. An elf can start with 10 or 17 dex. That range is already so big that allowing them to start with 8 shouldn't matter at all. The fact that they can get to 24 con despite not starting at 17 means it's already a weak starting point for this argument in my books.

[Houster]

Personally, I think WotC are lazy about this. Making stuff like different tiefling types per layer i the hells is very cool, gives lore and mechanical options- makes a story you can play into. Having the fallen aasimar, the more evil inclined one, be the stronger one (+1 str) is very cool. Now saying- everyone can do everything- that's just lazy and frankly boring. You want half orc wizards? Tell us of an orc tribe from lusken who is enslaved to the wizard towers. And make *one* extra variation to the half orc. Not just- poof you get all. It makes choices a little meaningless mechanically, and this is a game with mechanics. Freedom is not having all the options. Freedom is having enough options. Too many options make things meaningless and un-reachable.

And, If I was a dm, and some player wanted to switch the half orc str bonus for int, I would have totally let him. But making this official... ruins it for me.
(Your alignment changes 3 points towards chaos)
+

Another question- does this not make mountain dwarfs and half elves op? (Maybe they already were?)

[Mikal]

Personally I'm perfectly fine with almost all of it.

Halflings don't get a -2 strenght. Neither do gnomes, nor goblins, so I don't see why kobolds should get it. Goblins don't get a -2 to int, so I don't see why orcs should. Can't force this on your games, of course, but personally I'm fine with it.

Trading proficiencies, I'm mostly fine with it, Makes sense for an elf raised by goliaths to speak giant and not know a word in elvish for instance. If you make a half elf raised by humans that have anger issues with his elven family side, it would make sense for her to learn dwarven instead of elvish. Again, can't force you, but I personally like it.

Switching the racial bonuses however, thaaaaaaaats too much. An wood elf raised by Goliaths will still be a natural in dex and wis, thats how genetics work. Nothing stops her from placing her highest stat in strenght and even evenctually reaching a 20 - the fact that your race isn't perfectly modeled to synergize in a class doesn't mean that you cant play it. I wouldn't use this optional rule, and wouldn't allow it in my games.

Of course I cant force you, and I wouldn't judge your game as trash just because you disagree with any of this (how many people actually makes a kobold/orc pc anyway?).

Heck, if you allow racial bonus distribution and I REALLY want to even an odd number I might redistribute a +1 into that stat "just-this-once-and-only-because-it-makes-sense-to-me that-this-race-could-have-a-plus-one-in-this" :elan:

Opinions?

I’ll be honest. I think this is one of the few posts I agree 100% on.

[jaappleton]

They have the full authority to do whatever they want. And we have the full authority to call them morons for their decision making process. Hexblade exists, for example. And I have my laundry list of problems with their class design and balance.

Also come on, it's clear that Segev wanted a lore reasoning or at the very least a comprehensive design explanation. Appealing to authority is not really strengthening your side of the argument here. Other than emphasizing Segev's point that it is ultimately arbitrary.

You seriously need a lore reason why a Halfling who was raised by Aarakocra can't grow wings?

.......Seriously?

[Morty]

The argument about its being arbitrary goes both ways. It used to be that some races couldn't play some classes, period - in case of halflings or dwarves, it was most of them. Earlier, non-human races had their own classes. But it was decided that this doesn't actually benefit the player experience in any way, so races were opened up to all classes. I'm sure there were people who protested vehemently about that too, back then.

[KaussH]

Nobody is saying to do those.

The new optional rules don't allow for that.

Sure, you can use the new lineage to get +2 to a single stat and a feat and have Darkvision for your Halfling raised by Svirfneblin... But you love Brave, Lucky, and another +1.

So you can be a 'Halfling with Darkvision', sure. But you only, fluff wise, look like a Halfling. You aren't mechanically a Halfling.

So.... Yeah. A lot of what you just said is, actually, impossible.

Yet.. they dont allow for it yet. Ignoring the "guy from the gym" style arguments, why is learning darkvision any diff than swapping a +0 for a +2? This is a game full of magic, the super slim reasoning for the rest of the race changes can be very easily done to change race abilities. My human grew up with halflings and learned the secret of their luck. Wow, firebreathing is so easy having been raised by a Dragon born.

Personally i think this should have stayed a gm decision. Make it optional for the gm to use, and not AL defaulted,. Just my 2 cents tho.

[Segev]

Emphasis mine.

Alright then. I can do that.

Because the developers and designers of the game didn't include it in the optional rule. They didn't include it because they didn't want it included. As the designers and developers of the game, they have the full authority to do so.

There. Done.


They have the full authority to do whatever they want. And we have the full authority to call them [them out] for their decision making process. Hexblade exists, for example. And I have my laundry list of problems with their class design and balance.

Also come on, it's clear that Segev wanted a lore reasoning or at the very least a comprehensive design explanation. Appealing to authority is not really strengthening your side of the argument here. Other than emphasizing Segev's point that it is ultimately arbitrary.Dienekes manages to give my response more succinctly than I could have. (With one edit)

If it's just arbitrary, then there's no reason for the designers to have made such a foolish decision, and I consider myself right for calling them out on it. If it's just the designers' arbitrary choice, as you indicate, jaappleton, then you have no basis to say they made the RIGHT choice. And you cannot hold any of the arguments that have been made for why it was a good decision out to support it.

My argument is that it wasn't a good decision. You accused me of moving the goalposts. I corrected you, pointing out that what I was doing was using a slippery slope argument. NOT moving the goalposts. The way to prove the slippery slope is being used fallaciously is to draw a non-arbitrary line that shows why the reasoning applied to saying "this is fine" does not apply to things past that line.

You have not done so. The argument isn't "the designers didn't say that." The argument is, "the designers made a bad rules change." The counterargument seems to be, "No, they made a perfectly fine, even great rules change." Reasons are provided for why it's fine or even good, and they tend to center around player choice and freedom to make any character they want. My slippery slope argument questions why these same arguments don't apply to things you, jaappleton, clearly have balked at, but you have failed to explain why the arguments that justify the designers' decisions as "good" don't justify the ones you've balked at as "good," as well.


I am entirely unpersuaded by the argument line of giving some players more options takes something away from other players. A players self perceived uniqueness is there own problem/matter, not something the other players should be forced to bend to. So if two people want to play gnome barbarians and the first wants to feel 'unique', should the second not be allowed?

And my selection of human is entirely irrelevant to my point. The point is there's already a range of several points for each stat for each range. An elf can start with 10 or 17 dex. That range is already so big that allowing them to start with 8 shouldn't matter at all. The fact that they can get to 24 con despite not starting at 17 means it's already a weak starting point for this argument in my books.So, then, your position is that a player's self-perceived uniqueness is less important than his self-perceived permission to play a character? Or if not that, what, precisely? It seems you feel that giving them that +2 is extremely crucial to enabling players to "play what they want," but that taking away the option to play something "against type" by making nothing against type is just fine.

The counterargument to your points here is to agree that these ranges are minor. Why is it so important that an elf who can already have between 8 and 15 in Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom now be able to have up to a 17?

Here's the thing: nobody was prevented from playing these oh-so-creative characters before Tasha's change. But now, they're playing them in such a way that makes anybody who wanted to play them specifically to be doing something "unusual" unable to do so.


Personally, I think WotC are lazy about this. Making stuff like different tiefling types per layer i the hells is very cool, gives lore and mechanical options- makes a story you can play into. Having the fallen aasimar, the more evil inclined one, be the stronger one (+1 str) is very cool. Now saying- everyone can do everything- that's just lazy and frankly boring. You want half orc wizards? Tell us of an orc tribe from lusken who is enslaved to the wizard towers. And make *one* extra variation to the half orc. Not just- poof you get all. It makes choices a little meaningless mechanically, and this is a game with mechanics. Freedom is not having all the options. Freedom is having enough options. Too many options make things meaningless and un-reachable.I agree. This is sloppy, and I will definitely not be permittign it at my tables. It could be characterized as "lazy" in that I think it should have waited for an edition change, when it could have been built in from the ground up. But given what I suspect their motives were, the haste to rush out a "fix" to a non-problem complained about by a certain vocal group made up mostly of people who likely aren't customers anyway (though there will be some overlap of that group and customers in the Venn diagram) is understood...just not forgiven.

It probably won't ruin the majority of games, but then, caster/martial disparity ruins far fewer games than we tend to discuss on this forum. That doesn't make caster/martial disparity not-a-problem.


Another question- does this not make mountain dwarfs and half elves op? (Maybe they already were?)Arguable. Also arguable it makes them weaker. Depends on some specifics of how the changes are made. Half elves losing the benefit of having a floating stat compared to everyone else is a blow. Mountain Dwarves give up more for floating their stats if it's "everyone has a floating +2 and a floating +1" but are significantly stronger if it's "everyone can assign their racial stat boosts to any stat."

[KaussH]

Emphasis mine.

Alright then. I can do that.

Because the developers and designers of the game didn't include it in the optional rule. They didn't include it because they didn't want it included. As the designers and developers of the game, they have the full authority to do so.

There. Done.
Thats a bit of a cop out. We question RAW vs RAI all the time, and balance and "optional " things. Just becouse it isnt a rule yet...

[TyGuy]

Personally I'm perfectly fine with almost all of it.

Halflings don't get a -2 strenght. Neither do gnomes, nor goblins, so I don't see why kobolds should get it. Goblins don't get a -2 to int, so I don't see why orcs should. Can't force this on your games, of course, but personally I'm fine with it.

Trading proficiencies, I'm mostly fine with it, Makes sense for an elf raised by goliaths to speak giant and not know a word in elvish for instance. If you make a half elf raised by humans that have anger issues with his elven family side, it would make sense for her to learn dwarven instead of elvish. Again, can't force you, but I personally like it.

Switching the racial bonuses however, thaaaaaaaats too much. An wood elf raised by Goliaths will still be a natural in dex and wis, thats how genetics work. Nothing stops her from placing her highest stat in strenght and even evenctually reaching a 20 - the fact that your race isn't perfectly modeled to synergize in a class doesn't mean that you cant play it. I wouldn't use this optional rule, and wouldn't allow it in my games.

Of course I cant force you, and I wouldn't judge your game as trash just because you disagree with any of this (how many people actually makes a kobold/orc pc anyway?).

Heck, if you allow racial bonus distribution and I REALLY want to even an odd number I might redistribute a +1 into that stat "just-this-once-and-only-because-it-makes-sense-to-me that-this-race-could-have-a-plus-one-in-this" :elan:

Opinions?
For some time I've been doing floating +1 with a restriction on moving a stat into a +2 to achieve a +3. It's awesome. I love it.

It gives the flexibility of a varied species/race. But it doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water, and there remains distinction between species/races.

[Amnestic]

And if you're going to justify SOME changes but not ALL, why the arbitrary decision? Draw me the line to tell me why you allow some things to change but not others.

I mean, where I draw the line will depend on what gets asked for, so I can't draw you a line. It'll change depending on things like my mood, the campaign tone, my mood, the campaign setting, my mood, whether I've eaten enough fibre that day, my mood, and of course, my mood.

Over the threads you seem really incensed by the developers not doing more? Or doing too much? I'm still not clear why it's so important either way. Is it even going to come up that much in your personal play? Realistically? Either you're the DM, in which case you can do what you like, or you're the player, in which case you can work with the DM and decide what's a dealbreaker for you sitting at the table.

Tasha's variant isn't exactly what I wanted...but I'd already made what I wanted, so I'm not really surprised by that. If they'd ended up copying my idea (which they had no way of knowing) then I'd have been really surprised. Tasha's variant is 'fine', and anything beyond that I can take to a hypothetical future DM and work out with them directly.

Every game's going to be different. I think Tasha's is an adequate baseline (for an entirely optional variant rule from an entirely optional book that doesn't need to be allowed at all if the DM doesn't want it to be). And that's fine. That's all.

Anyone who loves it, anyone who hates it, and everyone in between, it's important to keep an eye on how it will impact actual play and not just theoretical hypothetical metaphorical figurative scenarios.

[Xervous]

For some time I've been doing floating +1 with a restriction on moving a stat into a +2 to achieve a +3. It's awesome. I love it.

It gives the flexibility of a varied species/race. But it doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water, and there remains distinction between species/races.

This feels more in the vein of what PF2 did where you must boost some racially tied ability but the rest is personal choice. Smaller balance concerns and gets everyone the 16 they want.

[Dienekes]

You seriously need a lore reason why a Halfling who was raised by Aarakocra can't grow wings?

.......Seriously?

Kinda. Honestly, stranger things have happened in D&D lore and in the mechanics.

But I think it comes down most obviously to a divide in what is supposed to be biological and what is supposed to be cultural. If you were under the assumption that all Half-Orcs get a +2 to Strength because of biological reasons, then it does not matter whether the Halfling grew up with them, they're not getting that +2 to Strength. You can have your Half-Orc backstory being that he grew up among gnomes and never worked a day in his life. He still gets that +2 to Strength.

Wings are just a blatantly more obvious example of those genetics.

So I think it is fair to ask, in this new method of picking races/cultures/stats. What are the hard limits of what is considered biological and what is considered not?

Now the obvious answer is "Now, whatever is in the traits that is not a weapon or tool proficiency, skill, or cantrip (I think that last one, I don't have the rules).

But that doesn't make sense since the elves proficiency with Perception was supposed to represent the elves naturally improved eyesight, so that shouldn't be a cultural thing. While the Dwarves knowledge of stonework is most certainly a cultural thing but can't be learned by any race that grew up with them for... reasons.

Which is where I got my "this is arbitrary" stance and why I ended up making this: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/CVlFwFSwm Which is of course in no way perfect. Or arguably even good. But is a better representation of what I wish they had done. With a clear system set up to indicate what is and what is not biological. I just wish the creators of the game had taken as much time, effort, and care into making the game they created actually make sense.

[Segev]

I mean, where I draw the line will depend on what gets asked for, so I can't draw you a line. It'll change depending on things like my mood, the campaign tone, my mood, the campaign setting, my mood, whether I've eaten enough fibre that day, my mood, and of course, my mood.

Over the threads you seem really incensed by the developers not doing more? Or doing too much? I'm still not clear why it's so important either way. Is it even going to come up that much in your personal play? Realistically? Either you're the DM, in which case you can do what you like, or you're the player, in which case you can work with the DM and decide what's a dealbreaker for you sitting at the table.

Tasha's variant isn't exactly what I wanted...but I'd already made what I wanted, so I'm not really surprised by that. If they'd ended up copying my idea (which they had no way of knowing) then I'd have been really surprised. Tasha's variant is 'fine', and anything beyond that I can take to a hypothetical future DM and work out with them directly.

Every game's going to be different. I think Tasha's is an adequate baseline (for an entirely optional variant rule from an entirely optional book that doesn't need to be allowed at all if the DM doesn't want it to be). And that's fine. That's all.

Anyone who loves it, anyone who hates it, and everyone in between, it's important to keep an eye on how it will impact actual play and not just theoretical hypothetical metaphorical figurative scenarios.

I apologize that my position has not been clear.

I think it's a bad change. I think the subtle pressure to explain why "types" exist to play to is a good thing.

I think the change removes that, and further, all the arguments for why it's such a good thing do not explain why they stopped where they did. If it's such a good thing, it should go much further, because nobody - not even you - have drawn me a non-arbitrary line as to where it stops.

If you're the DM, then there's no need for this rule-as-focused-to-players. The DM can have his mood, the campaign tone, his mood, the campaign setting, his mood, whether he's eaten enough fiber that day, his mood, and of course, his mood affect his choices for individual characters as players come to him with requests for modifications to make a particular character concept work.

But if you're going to frame it as a player-facing rule, just an option to throw open for character generation, then any discussion of whether it's a good rules change is open to question as to why the justifications for why it's a good rules change doesn't apply to changes that go further.

My own argument is that this throws balance out of whack and actually reduces meaningful choices by making choices less meaningful.

[Amechra]

DMs call, I believe.

Though.... I don't believe any races have exclusive magic items. Yet.

Dwarves have a few - the Dwarven Thrower comes to mind.

Plus, I'll be completely honest - I'd probably hate to play at your table. I'm definitely more on the "start as a nobody, and let the adventure change you" side of things. Plus, I got my fill of "everyone plays really wacky characters" when I was a 3e head, so that kinda feels like old hat at this point.

---

My stance on this is a bit complicated.

I hate how they handled these rules. They're just so lazy - "Oh, yeah, just swap basically everything non-unique. It's all good." That's something you throw into the DMG as a two-paragraph optional rule. On the other hand... we were mostly just playing Star Trek aliens anyway? You know, the kind of "aliens" that are basically just people with a bit of funny make-up and a single cultural "thing"? And that's a good thing, because a non-human mindset is really hard to roleplay unless you have tons of examples, and D&D isn't tied down to a specific setting.

I feel like D&D has been slowly rewriting itself to get to the point where a custom "lineage" is the correct mechanical choice. And that started when WotC bought D&D and decided to make racial class restrictions into polite suggestions (which everyone promptly ignored). Everyone casts the same magic the same way, everyone has the same martial traditions, and everyone's gods ultimately grant the same gifts.

[Amnestic]

I apologize that my position has not been clear.

I think it's a bad change. I think the subtle pressure to explain why "types" exist to play to is a good thing.

I think the change removes that,

Okay, I'm going to disagree, though none of us can say with any certainty. I expect that any future races (presumably in the new setting books coming) printed will have the exact same stat method as those we see in the PHB - +2/+1 to certain stats, maybe with the half-elf or changeling curveball thrown in for good measure.

Tasha's variant - I predict - will not be the standard in future books for 5e. Maybe I'll be wrong, but the "subtle pressure to play to types" will still be there, I would expect. Maybe they'll make mention of the variant option in a sidebar, but still print the stats as normal to give you that subtle pressure you want.

As for theoretical 6e, who knows at this point? Speculation on it seems silly.


and further, all the arguments for why it's such a good thing do not explain why they stopped where they did. If it's such a good thing, it should go much further, because nobody - not even you - have drawn me a non-arbitrary line as to where it stops.

Maybe they didn't want to shake things up too hard for something in a side book. Maybe they didn't want to spend too much time or page space on it when there's new subclasses and spells and feats to print. I dunno.


If you're the DM, then there's no need for this rule-as-focused-to-players. The DM can have his mood, the campaign tone, his mood, the campaign setting, his mood, whether he's eaten enough fiber that day, his mood, and of course, his mood affect his choices for individual characters as players come to him with requests for modifications to make a particular character concept work.

Sure, but this variant gives DMs a baseline to go off of. While *I* had considered this and created my own thing ahead of time, maybe other DMs hadn't. Maybe some DMs see this and go "hey, that's a cool idea" and implement it as-is or an adapted version.

[Segev]

Kinda. Honestly, stranger things have happened in D&D lore and in the mechanics.

But I think it comes down most obviously to a divide in what is supposed to be biological and what is supposed to be cultural. If you were under the assumption that all Half-Orcs get a +2 to Strength because of biological reasons, then it does not matter whether the Halfling grew up with them, they're not getting that +2 to Strength. You can have your Half-Orc backstory being that he grew up among gnomes and never worked a day in his life. He still gets that +2 to Strength.

Wings are just a blatantly more obvious example of those genetics.To add to this, if you wanted to play a half-orc who grew up amongst gnomes and never worked out a day in his life, nothing prevents you from putting your lowest stat (8, in the elite array) into Strength. You still get that +2, bringing you to (say) 10, and you're stronger than any of your gnomish brethren who likewise never worked out a day in their lives, but there are certainly MANY gnomes stronger than you; you're only as strong as the average gnome (who works an average amount in his life).

Why is the +2 to half-orc strength NOT genetic, but cultural?

Why is Darkvision genetic, and not just a learned talent of growing up in the dark?

Why are wings genetic, and not a lamarkian adaptation to living on cliffs?


So I think it is fair to ask, in this new method of picking races/cultures/stats. What are the hard limits of what is considered biological and what is considered not?

Now the obvious answer is "Now, whatever is in the traits that is not a weapon or tool proficiency, skill, or cantrip (I think that last one, I don't have the rules).

But that doesn't make sense since the elves proficiency with Perception was supposed to represent the elves naturally improved eyesight, so that shouldn't be a cultural thing. While the Dwarves knowledge of stonework is most certainly a cultural thing but can't be learned by any race that grew up with them for... reasons.

Which is where I got my "this is arbitrary" stance and why I ended up making this: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/CVlFwFSwm Which is of course in no way perfect. Or arguably even good. But is a better representation of what I wish they had done. With a clear system set up to indicate what is and what is not biological. I just wish the creators of the game had taken as much time, effort, and care into making the game they created actually make sense.

Well put. I can't really add more to that. Thanks for saying it so pithily.


Okay, I'm going to disagree, though none of us can say with any certainty. I expect that any future races (presumably in the new setting books coming) printed will have the exact same stat method as those we see in the PHB - +2/+1 to certain stats, maybe with the half-elf or changeling curveball thrown in for good measure.

Tasha's variant - I predict - will not be the standard in future books for 5e. Maybe I'll be wrong, but the "subtle pressure to play to types" will still be there, I would expect. Maybe they'll make mention of the variant option in a sidebar, but still print the stats as normal to give you that subtle pressure you want.

As for theoretical 6e, who knows at this point? Speculation on it seems silly. You still miss my point.

Tasha's is a bad rule because, when applied, it makes the stat assignments for races meaningless. In fact, if you read the justification given by the rules change itself - that the stat boosts are for PCs only and don't represent normal NPCs of those races, and that these tendencies are thus not even really there at all - it flat-out states that there's no reason for there to be racial stat mods.

I will be ignoring it, for all the reasons I've stated. I will not be allowing it when I run games.

This isn't about speculating on future races in 5e. This is about this rule as written being bad design.


Maybe they didn't want to shake things up too hard for something in a side book. Maybe they didn't want to spend too much time or page space on it when there's new subclasses and spells and feats to print. I dunno. A sloppy work is worse than no work at all. This is a bad rule, as it is written. And any of the arguments for why it's a great change can be used to justify throwing out all racial rules and just letting people pick and choose what they want.

A better rule would have been something to give suggestions for playing a palet-swapped individual. I'd have significantly less problem with somebody who wants to play a "lucky human" who is a halfling in all ways save that he's Medium sized, or a "drow" who was raised by high elves and thus uses the entire High Elf stat line...but is cosmetically a drow. You want a dwarf who is just so tanky and rough and so uninterested in dwarfy things that he uses the half-orc rules? I could discuss it with you. Such characters are obviously exceptions, because they're so uprooted from the baseline that they're literally using a different race's entire set of rules. This is the kind of cosmetic shift I'm okay with.

Reducing ALL races to cosmetics - which any reading of the arguments for why Tasha's rules on it are "good" would lead to, as far as I can tell, if one isn't arbitrary about "nah, that's too far, because it makes it obvious how bad my justification is" (or, more charitably, "...because it doesn't feel right to me, personally") - is bad design.


Sure, but this variant gives DMs a baseline to go off of. While *I* had considered this and created my own thing ahead of time, maybe other DMs hadn't. Maybe some DMs see this and go "hey, that's a cool idea" and implement it as-is or an adapted version.
No. If it gave a DM a baseline, it would be focused on the DM, just like the rules in the DMG for making custom races and classes. I wouldn't be at all bothered by this being a "DM workshop on making custom races," or even a set of tools for ways the DM "could permit" a player to "further customize" his character.

As presented, these are "how races work" now. This is player-facing, and it's sloppy. It's bad rules design.

[Scarytincan]

So, then, your position is that a player's self-perceived uniqueness is less important than his self-perceived permission to play a character? Or if not that, what, precisely? It seems you feel that giving them that +2 is extremely crucial to enabling players to "play what they want," but that taking away the option to play something "against type" by making nothing against type is just fine.

The counterargument to your points here is to agree that these ranges are minor. Why is it so important that an elf who can already have between 8 and 15 in Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom now be able to have up to a 17?

Here's the thing: nobody was prevented from playing these oh-so-creative characters before Tasha's change. But now, they're playing them in such a way that makes anybody who wanted to play them specifically to be doing something "unusual" unable to do so.



But this change doesn't make 'nothing against type', the lore and stereotypes still exist, so it is still unusual in the game world. It just OPTIONALLY allows people to make a cool concept character that they would have a lot of fun playing to do so without having a chunk of the fun sapped by mechanics that don't always even make a lot of sense. Especially for some of the less classic races. Githzerai being a monk focused culture often times, why not dex instead of int? Not a huge immersion breaker. Wisdom is often stereotyped with good, why can't a scourge aasimar have a wis boost? It is a case of designers' off the cuff impressions of things forcing certain playstyles and builds to be less satisfying, when they at times don't even make a lot of sense or could make as much or more sense another way.

Your argument makes it about no longer feeling special in the real world, and thus wanting other players to be restricted to appease that view. You can still totally stick to the original character stats for your own characters. It's an optional rule.

Tradition and indignation should never be the sole roadblocks to creativity and people getting to better enjoy themselves harmlessly, and this optional rule helps move things a little closer that.

[Willie the Duck]

Opinions?
While I played AD&D, most of what I played for my first 17 years of D&D-ing was a BX/BECMI hybrid, where there were no racial stat bonuses (well, with some exceptions like I think ogres and trolls if you used the Orcs of Thar expansion). The system worked wonderfully then and if I had my way, that's how I'd preferred 5e to have gone (or perhaps the supposed early playtest thing where your race and class choice would influence stats, which would have its own nuances).

With that level of rebuild off the table, this is... okay. Does it create some winners and losers? Sure. Mountain Dwarf wizards being the most obvious situation. Going back and making after-the-fact modifications at this level tend to do such*. However, let's not pretend that there weren't already winners and losers in a system with non-variant human champion fighters and half-elven hex-dipping pala-whicheversuffix, or two weapon fighting and XBE/SS hand crossbow fighting. This just shuffles around the most-oft-taken choices a little.
*especially if the modification disrupts a previous design allowance structure (I don't care what he official word is, they absolutely gave mountain dwarf and yuan ti extra perks because they knew they were dis-synergistic, etc.)


I think 5e has mostly been okay with each supplement so far (besides outliers like Ravnica backgrounds and Dragonmarks adding spells), but Tasha's as a whole looks like it'll just up end 5e as we know it.
What do you foresee happening?


If a player comes to me, and says "actually, I'm using Tasha's rules, my Gnome has +2 Strength and a different feature", I no longer feel comfortable saying no to that. I'm sure that a lot of people don't exactly pity me in that scenario, but that's just where I'm coming from.
I do, but I don't see the scenario as 1) something that this book caused, or 2) one that book rules can fix. If you don't feel comfortable saying no (or at the very least "no, you come and ask me if you can use such and such a rule and we'll discuss it, not come to me and tell me that you are"), how do you handle wish-simulacrum, or minionmancy to the point of annoying other players, or XGTE's magic item purchasing rules if you don't want those, etc? I do get that having a rule in a book somewhere can set up an expectation that it be allowed (one of the reason they constrained splat publication in the first place, after the issues with 3e), but I don't see how any material that they published wouldn't have had the same issues, regardless of whether it was a modification to existing races, new races, or new classes/archetypes/magic items/etc.


Anyways, tl/dr: this isn't as optimal as if they had foreseen the situation ahead of time and designed the edition (and races) towards this newer goal, but this isn't outside the scope of the existing variance between options. It's not perfect, but it'll do (kinda like 5e in general).

[Rara1212]

Don't they say that this stuff is only for PCs, so all the arguments about why random NPCs should have stat boosts is a bit moot.
Cause:
a) not sure if commoners for different races get stat bonuses compared to the Human commoners, and
b) the PCs are special, that's why a PC Orc Wizard might be a lot smarter than other Orcs and as smart as any other Gnome in magic class(If they did want to put the +2 in int, and put their highest stat in int, which they'd probably want to)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think the whole "pressure to play according to stereotype" thing is dramatically overblown. Except among hard-core optimizers who only look at those stat bonuses.

My current table is
* kenku rogue (going inquisitive or assassin)
* Soulforged (warforged knockoff homebrew with +2 CON, +1 STR/INT for the chosen sub-race) war cleric, and not the sub-race that gets a WIS bonus
* V.human sorcerer (taking the UA metamagic adept feat at 1st level)
* halfling paladin (going ancients, SnB)
* hobgoblin ranger (Base PHB, not UA, not sure about intended sub-class).

I've had countless tiefling druids. Dragonborn monks. The only stereotyped ones I've had were a selection of wood elf rogues, but that's because that player was into wood elf rogues, not for the stat bonuses.

I don't think I've ever had a party (out of the last dozen or so since I started 5e) that had a majority as v.human + half elf. Often I'd have one human--and as often as not a regular human--at most. Clerics? A couple. Basically no one has taken any of the "big" combat feats--I've never seen PAM at my tables, GWM once (and he'd forget to use it 90% of the time), SS once (and not with CBE).

[KaussH]

I also think this whole thing missed the point. You have been able to be any class for years. Overall i think a better fix would be an adjustable stat system for gms, and a much better break down on how to make robust cultures.
So mayhap, race, culture, backround (and yes break down those 2. Backrounds can be super shaped by cultures)

But then i can home brew any world i want:)

[Sol0botmate]

I always though about Player Characters and races like this:

- If there is anyone SPECIAL, out of NORM, UNIQUE among his race etc. - it's Player Character. They are suppose to be the heroes, the villans, ones that change regions, continents, worlds, planes etc. So I don't see a problem with 20 STR Goblin and 20 INT Half-Orc. Players are unique, the 1 per generation special individuals. So I fully support racial freedom when it comes to stats disctibution. It was something I homebrewed since 3.5

Besides race should have always been for me cosmetic/roleplay choice, not mechanical.

- The only thing I don't dig is that feats are no longer racial restricted without changing them or at least updating their descriptions. Feats like EA, Svir. Magic or Dragon Fear have very particual descriptions and I will have to update them all myself as DM. In my opinion if they make them "general" now - they should update them to sound general.

[Waterdeep Merch]

There's design weirdness with traits and balance, but eh. I'm typically the DM and the other DM's that I play with usually get their balance thoughts from me, so it's not hard for me to just say no to things that cause a headache thinking about. It's no different from a player years ago that tried to explain that his dragonborn didn't look anything like a dragonborn because he didn't want to experience racial prejudice in a homebrew setting built around the evils of racism and xenophobia. My friend, the DM, told him that was ridiculous and against the spirit of the campaign and thus couldn't get away with it. I'll do the same if I see anything egregious, but otherwise? I homebrew fix races to suit my players all the time anyway, might as well let them do it without me at this point.

What I really don't like is the custom lineage system, for being boring and worthless. It's Variant Human with less flavor. How was that even possible?! Would it really have killed them to make a buffet of options to choose from? Just a +2, a feat, and then either a skill or darkvision? Really?!

I'll need to look at it in-hand to be sure, but from how it's been presented it appears that custom lineages can't speak a single language unless they get it from their background or sacrifice their one skill to know common or something. Brilliant.

[Tvtyrant]

Then why should players be bound to elite arrays or dice? Why not just assume players can assign 20s to any stat they like because they player's vision should trump game balance and such.

This is how I have been doing it the whole time. Most players when told "pick your stats" are pretty reasonable IME.

[Keravath]

No, I'm not. I'm asking why the argument applies to stat mods, and to darkvision, but not to flight or magic.


One interpretation is that stat bonuses are for the average or typical representative of a specific race. On average elves have +2 dex and each sub-species of elf usually has an enhanced int (high), wis (wood), con (sea). This just represents the average or typical member of their species. It is possible to imagine members of each of these species that have exceptional stats that are atypical for their species.

On the other hand, fundamental elements like flight or magic could be intrinsic to the species and not subject to individual variation. A species without wings for example, wouldn't suddenly have members of the species born with functional wings unless something intervened in the process. The same could go with intrinsic spell casting and similar abilities that are defined by race.

Personally, I would probably have included darkvision with flight and magic in terms of racial characteristics that should not be adjusted. Looking at the AL version of the Tasha's rules the only freely adjustable racial characteristics are stat distribution, proficiency swaps and languages.

[Pex]

The stat change makes Human useless. Variant Human should be the default Human now. Those who think Variant Human too powerful they've raised the other races up to its level if not surpassed. The 1st level feat and extra skill proficiency is strong.

In answer to Segev's question without personal comment on the matter, the designers put their arbitrary line around game math. Things a player can change affect where they may put a plus number to a d20 roll. It's for this ability score instead of that one. It's this skill instead of that one. If it doesn't affect the roll of a die a player may not change it. Halfling Luck is unique in its exception. It's rerolling the die but not adding a plus number, so it's counted as not being about game math.

This is going from what I know of the matter. There might be more exceptions. If there are enough exceptions it can disprove this theory.

[Luccan]

This is how I have been doing it the whole time. Most players when told "pick your stats" are pretty reasonable IME.

I have had a similar experience in my (very limited) experience building a PC for such a game. My stats may have been a bit higher end, but nothing unreasonable for rolling. And I deliberately gave myself weak points based on the character's history. I recall other players doing the same. However, if I were letting players just set stats (8-18 seems reasonable to me) I wouldn't allow custom stat bonuses.

[Segev]

I think the whole "pressure to play according to stereotype" thing is dramatically overblown. Except among hard-core optimizers who only look at those stat bonuses.This exact argument can be used to say that changing it is unnecessary. Change for the sake of change is generally bad, and a change whose only justification is "it makes no difference" is probably one that IS bad.


In answer to Segev's question without personal comment on the matter, the designers put their arbitrary line around game math. Things a player can change affect where they may put a plus number to a d20 roll. It's for this ability score instead of that one. It's this skill instead of that one. If it doesn't affect the roll of a die a player may not change it. Halfling Luck is unique in its exception. It's rerolling the die but not adding a plus number, so it's counted as not being about game math.

None of which comports with all the reasons given why it's a good thing, so I stand by my statement that it's a bad design decision.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This exact argument can be used to say that changing it is unnecessary. Change for the sake of change is generally bad, and a change whose only justification is "it makes no difference" is probably one that IS bad.


Note: I'm on your side of this. I don't like the changes and don't see a need for them. For one thing, it won't make the people pushing it for RL concerns happy and only gives fuel to the setting-ignoring variety of players.

If it was DM facing guidance for customizing races for a setting, no problem.

[False God]

....

An wood elf raised by Goliaths will still be a natural in dex and wis, thats how genetics work.

....

Opinions?

When people complain that D&D perpetuates some really ugly ideas about "race", this is exactly what they're talking about.

My opinion is that the sooner "racial modifiers" are eliminated from D&D, the better. They are an unnecessary holdover from the days when we believed this about humanity IRL.

[Segev]

When people complain that D&D perpetuates some really ugly ideas about "race", this is exactly what they're talking about.

My opinion is that the sooner "racial modifiers" are eliminated from D&D, the better. They are an unnecessary holdover from the days when we believed this about humanity IRL.

I disagree. We are discussing fantasy creatures that are decidedly not human (with the exception, obviously, of humans). This argument goes right back to "why can't my human raised by aaracockra natively fly?"

[sithlordnergal]

Personally, I'm someone who really likes these changes. You can now make those fun class/race combos without being pretty much useless until your second ASI. Then again, I'm a player where having less than a 16 in your primary ability score is completely unacceptable. I've tried playing a Half-Orc Cleric that started with a 14 in Wisdom, it sucked, my spells were ineffective, and it was all around a poor experience. Roleplaying the character was fun, but did not make up for how worthless that 14 and 16 Wisdom was, and I scrapped the character after they reached level 7. Now I can make that Half-Orc Cleric without feeling like I'm unable to properly contribute to the group.

[Sol0botmate]

I disagree. We are discussing fantasy creatures that are decidedly not human (with the exception, obviously, of humans). This argument goes right back to "why can't my human raised by aaracockra natively fly?"

We are discussing the world where 70kg woman can run around with two-handed axe with blade as big as her chest, has proficiency in althethics + 20 STR as stat, so same as 2 meter high Half-Orc that weights 140kg as weight has no influence on strength in this universe, same as gender, while if you bring up genetics - on average woman is always weaker than man, that's how genetic works. And never a 160cm 70kg human will achieve same strength as 2meter 140kg human if they both train the same. It's just not possible. That's how genetics work.

Next we have that 70kg woman Barbarian swining 15kg axe at Gargantuan Ancient Red Dragon who is around 85-100 feet long and weights anything between 2-15 tons at least. With sheer "genetics" and physics that dragon would no be even affected by swing of that Barbarian, not to mention even that Dragons would never be able to fly unless they would have wingspan of kilometers. And people can cast spells like Polymorph/True Polymorph and ignore everything that has to do with genetics and DNA. Not to even start on Druids Wild Shapes.

I am not writing this to make myself look smart, but I find it hilarious that people bring stuff like "genetics" in DnD and argue that goblin needs -2 STR because he is small and Wood Elf will have +2 DEX because "it's logical" that he is more agile than Goliath? Why? Gnome can be as strong as Goliath in stats, so where is logic here? While settings allows gnome to achieve 20 STR same as Half-Orc or Gloiath and we talk about setting where Dragons can fly and people strike with Lightning in full plate armor can make DEX save throw and say "pffff, it tickles".

Race bonuses have as little logical sense as whole fantasy world. We just accept that it works like that and that's it.

[MaxWilson]

An wood elf raised by Goliaths will still be a natural in dex and wis, thats how genetics work.


When people complain that D&D perpetuates some really ugly ideas about "race", this is exactly what they're talking about.

My opinion is that the sooner "racial modifiers" are eliminated from D&D, the better. They are an unnecessary holdover from the days when we believed this about humanity IRL.

Er, we still believe this (that genetics/heredity heavily influence traits) about humanity IRL. There aren't wood elves and goliaths and aarakocras in real life, but anyone who tells you that e.g. chimpanzees aren't stronger than humans is utterly wrong--and chimpanzees aren't even as large as goliaths! Species differences are very real, and in biological terms wood elves and goliaths are different species, since they can't interbreed freely.

https://images.boredomfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/12/muscular-chimp.jpg

[Segev]

Personally, I'm someone who really likes these changes. You can now make those fun class/race combos without being pretty much useless until your second ASI. Then again, I'm a player where having less than a 16 in your primary ability score is completely unacceptable. I've tried playing a Half-Orc Cleric that started with a 14 in Wisdom, it sucked, my spells were ineffective, and it was all around a poor experience. Roleplaying the character was fun, but did not make up for how worthless that 14 and 16 Wisdom was, and I scrapped the character after they reached level 7. Now I can make that Half-Orc Cleric without feeling like I'm unable to properly contribute to the group.

To be clear, your 14 Wis cleric was missing failing to hit or having his save DCs made by exactly 1 more than 5% of the time?


We are discussing the world where 70kg woman can run around with two-handed axe with blade as big as her chest, has proficiency in althethics + 20 STR as stat, so same as 2 meter high Half-Orc that weights 140kg as weight has no influence on strength in this universe, same as gender, while if you bring up genetics - on average woman is always weaker than man, that's how genetic works. And never a 160cm 70kg human will achieve same strength as 2meter 140kg human if they both train the same. It's just not possible. That's how genetics work.I would argue that the fact that human men and human women do not have different stat bonuses in general, but half-orcs and humans do, indicates that a +2 strength difference is greater than the difference between the average man's strength and the average woman's strength.

If you wish to make a case that men and women should have different stat bonuses based on sex, I suppose you could, but I am not making that argument.


Next we have that 70kg woman Barbarian swining 15kg axe at Gargantuan Ancient Red Dragon who is around 85-100 feet long and weights anything between 2-15 tons at least. With sheer "genetics" and physics that dragon would no be even affected by swing of that Barbarian, not to mention even that Dragons would never be able to fly unless they would have wingspan of kilometers. And people can cast spells like Polymorph/True Polymorph and ignore everything that has to do with genetics and DNA. Not to even start on Druids Wild Shapes.

I am not writing this to make myself look smart, but I find it hilarious that people bring stuff like "genetics" in DnD and argue that goblin needs -2 STR because he is small and Wood Elf will have +2 DEX because "it's logical" that he is more agile than Goliath? Why? Gnome can be as strong as Goliath in stats, so where is logic here? While settings allows gnome to achieve 20 STR same as Half-Orc or Gloiath and we talk about setting where Dragons can fly and people strike with Lightning in full plate armor can make DEX save throw and say "pffff, it tickles".

Race bonuses have as little logical sense as whole fantasy world. We just accept that it works like that and that's it.In that case, why do we have race as anything but cosmetics in the setting?

We should probably do away with selecting races entirely by this argument, and let you play a 100 ft. dragon or a 1 inch pixie-like being with whatever stats you feel work best for your class.

Yes, again, this is a slippery slope argument, but in order to prove it a fallacy, you must be able to draw a line other than an arbitrary one that we can discuss why you stop there, and no further. Right now, I don't see anything in your argument that tells me why an aaracockra character should have different potential rules than a human character, and if the former can fly at chargen due to race, why can't the latter?

[Sigreid]

Eh, I'm just not sold. I'll have to flip through the book at some point before I decide to buy.

[Dienekes]

We are discussing the world where 70kg woman can run around with two-handed axe with blade as big as her chest, has proficiency in althethics + 20 STR as stat, so same as 2 meter high Half-Orc that weights 140kg as weight has no influence on strength in this universe, same as gender, while if you bring up genetics - on average woman is always weaker than man, that's how genetic works. And never a 160cm 70kg human will achieve same strength as 2meter 140kg human if they both train the same. It's just not possible. That's how genetics work.

Next we have that 70kg woman Barbarian swining 15kg axe at Gargantuan Ancient Red Dragon who is around 85-100 feet long and weights anything between 2-15 tons at least. With sheer "genetics" and physics that dragon would no be even affected by swing of that Barbarian, not to mention even that Dragons would never be able to fly unless they would have wingspan of kilometers. And people can cast spells like Polymorph/True Polymorph and ignore everything that has to do with genetics and DNA. Not to even start on Druids Wild Shapes.

I am not writing this to make myself look smart, but I find it hilarious that people bring stuff like "genetics" in DnD and argue that goblin needs -2 STR because he is small and Wood Elf will have +2 DEX because "it's logical" that he is more agile than Goliath? Why? Gnome can be as strong as Goliath in stats, so where is logic here? While settings allows gnome to achieve 20 STR same as Half-Orc or Gloiath and we talk about setting where Dragons can fly and people strike with Lightning in full plate armor can make DEX save throw and say "pffff, it tickles".

Race bonuses have as little logical sense as whole fantasy world. We just accept that it works like that and that's it.

Point of order. A chest high axe is about 7-8 lbs. I would be surprised if a 70 kg woman couldn’t swing the thing.

Where the hell are you getting a 15 kg axe? That’s some stupid anime-sword style design of weaponry right there. And if you’re wearing full plate the dragon shooting lightning at you should do about nothing. Steel would act as a faraday cage.

And of course, there have also been people complaining that different races have the same max ability score since the game was released.

Which as always goes up to the point, 5e is already a really bad system for verisimilitude. This has resulted in two reactions:

1) Well it’s crap anyway, might as well let me do what I want.

2) There was already so little, why are you making the problem worse?

You and Segev seem to be on two opposite ends of this debate.

[Sol0botmate]

In that case, why do we have race as anything but cosmetics in the setting?

That is why its going into direction of just cosmetic choice with some roleplay attached.

[Segev]

That is why its going into direction of just cosmetic choice with some roleplay attached.

Just to be clear, then, you accept that a D&D character should be able to be literally any kind of creature, and there should be no mechanics representing it. A mermaid should no more be able to breathe water than a human, and should be able to walk on land and swim just as well as that human. If an aaracockra can fly, so should a fire giant be able to fly. If no PCs can fly without class features, aaracockra shouldn't be able to fly without class features. Every race should have equal access to darkvision, breath weapons, and innate spellcasting, because "race" is just an avatar you describe and has no bearing on the mechanics of the game.

Is this the final landing point you believe D&D should have?

If not, why not? Where would you draw the line, and why?

[Amechra]

I always though about Player Characters and races like this:

- If there is anyone SPECIAL, out of NORM, UNIQUE among his race etc. - it's Player Character. They are suppose to be the heroes, the villans, ones that change regions, continents, worlds, planes etc. So I don't see a problem with 20 STR Goblin and 20 INT Half-Orc. Players are unique, the 1 per generation special individuals. So I fully support racial freedom when it comes to stats disctibution. It was something I homebrewed since 3.5

Besides race should have always been for me cosmetic/roleplay choice, not mechanical.

- The only thing I don't dig is that feats are no longer racial restricted without changing them or at least updating their descriptions. Feats like EA, Svir. Magic or Dragon Fear have very particual descriptions and I will have to update them all myself as DM. In my opinion if they make them "general" now - they should update them to sound general.

I've never really like the whole idea that adventurers are in any way inherently special. Or, rather, I feel like that shouldn't be the norm - I've got a fondness for Ratcatchers with Small But Vicious Dogs, ya know?


When people complain that D&D perpetuates some really ugly ideas about "race", this is exactly what they're talking about.

My opinion is that the sooner "racial modifiers" are eliminated from D&D, the better. They are an unnecessary holdover from the days when we believed this about humanity IRL.


I disagree. We are discussing fantasy creatures that are decidedly not human (with the exception, obviously, of humans). This argument goes right back to "why can't my human raised by aaracockra natively fly?"

Ah, here we go.

This is partly why I was bringing up Star Trek aliens. I think part of the issue is that 1) the fact that the specific word "race" is being used primes people to make the comparison in a way that using "ancestry" or "stock" wouldn't, and 2) that people disagree on how "decidedly non human" non-human racial options are. Like, if our core racial choices were Humans, Kenku, Thri-Kreen, and Warforged, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But since our core racial choices are Humans, Graceful Humans, "Savage" Humans, Short Humans, and A Variety Of Small Humans... yeah.

[Segev]

This is partly why I was bringing up Star Trek aliens. I think part of the issue is that 1) the fact that the specific word "race" is being used primes people to make the comparison in a way that using "ancestry" or "stock" wouldn't, and 2) that people disagree on how "decidedly non human" non-human racial options are. Like, if our core racial choices were Humans, Kenku, Thri-Kreen, and Warforged, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But since our core racial choices are Humans, Graceful Humans, "Savage" Humans, Short Humans, and A Variety Of Small Humans... yeah.

You may be right, though it is worth noting that despite Tolkien taking a lot of grief from people who want to make hay over this, his elves were VERY inhuman, as were his orcs. His hobbits and dwarves were perhaps the least different from his humans.

I am, personally, a fan of making all of the races more inhuman (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Invq5e0PP9jvzE7syhdpRYFgrS_1siwJdfzZnAoJWrA/edit?usp=sharing). (This is not complete; I am not happy enough with what I have for orcs to share, and I don't have anything for other races right now.)

I like them being fantastic.

[Sol0botmate]

Just to be clear, then, you accept that a D&D character should be able to be literally any kind of creature, and there should be no mechanics representing it. A mermaid should no more be able to breathe water than a human, and should be able to walk on land and swim just as well as that human. If an aaracockra can fly, so should a fire giant be able to fly. If no PCs can fly without class features, aaracockra shouldn't be able to fly without class features. Every race should have equal access to darkvision, breath weapons, and innate spellcasting, because "race" is just an avatar you describe and has no bearing on the mechanics of the game.

Is this the final landing point you believe D&D should have?

If not, why not? Where would you draw the line, and why?

I accept that, because that's how it is. How is race like lizard man able to speak if lizard/snake tongue is unable to form language sounds? How is centaur a thing if from any biology perspective such creature simply wouldn't make sense to exist with it's internal organs all over the place. How is dragon able to have child with human? It reverts its DNA when it changes shape? If Druid in wild shape would make sex with real bear- would they have cub or DNA of Druid is still the same? How is gnome druid able to change to Bear - he would have to create matter out of nowhere to increase his own size and they dispose extra matter where he returns to his normal self. Why Orcs have Darkvision and not Dragonborn if all Dragons have Darkvision? Why Human can have half-child with elf but not with Dwarf?

Fantasy world does not make sense. Never had, never will. So there is no "landing point" for me in DnD. It's all abstraction anyway, so I take as that.

By saying that what I mean is: if WOTC would say in next book "All dwarfs can fly, always could" - I would just be ok with that, because it doesn't matter. World doesn't make "real life" sense anyway.

So if suddenly all races have no more different bonuses - it doesn't change anything for me, since already 3ft gnome could have 20 STR, same as 2,2 meter high Half-Orc. It's all just cosmetics to give setting some sort of personality.

But changing X to Y still doesn't change fact that both X and Y doesn't make sense.

[Segev]

I accept that, because that's how it is. How is race like lizard man able to speak if lizard/snake tongue is unable to form language sounds? How is centaur a thing if from any biology perspective such creature simply wouldn't make sense to exist with it's internal organs all over the place. How is dragon able to have child with human? It reverts its DNA when it changes shape? If Druid in wild shape would make sex with real bear- would they have cub or DNA of Druid is still the same? How is gnome druid able to change to Bear - he would have to create matter out of nowhere to increase his own size and they dispose extra matter where he returns to his normal self. Why Orcs have Darkvision and not Dragonborn if all Dragons have Darkvision? Why Human can have half-child with elf but not with Dwarf?

Fantasy world does not make sense. Never had, never will. So there is no "landing point" for me in DnD. It's all abstraction anyway, so I take as that.

I disagree with your vision on things, but at least it is consistent. Enjoy such a game.

I would recommend a points-based system that doesn't have classes or races in it, though. GURPS or BESM would probably suit you better. This isn't a suggestion you can't play D&D as you like (just not having racial mechanics at all would do it), but rather a recommendation of a way to have a game that will better suit your view without needing to alter it. (As it's clear Tasha's isn't going NEARLY far enough.)

[Sol0botmate]

I disagree with your vision on things, but at least it is consistent. Enjoy such a game.

I would recommend a points-based system that doesn't have classes or races in it, though. GURPS or BESM would probably suit you better. This isn't a suggestion you can't play D&D as you like (just not having racial mechanics at all would do it), but rather a recommendation of a way to have a game that will better suit your view without needing to alter it. (As it's clear Tasha's isn't going NEARLY far enough.)

You asume too much. I enjoy playing DnD, I just don't try to justify anything in it with real life logic. If WOTC in books say that Elfs are more agile than Orcs then I am just "ok, whatever, thats how game works". If in next book it's "It doesn't matter now, Elfs and Orcs can both be as agile" - then it's ok for me too now, that's how game works from now on.

So I don't play like every race have darkvision or flying, but if new books says that they can all now have darkvision or flying - I will just go with it because fantasy setting is riddiculous as it is already. So for me that is not new extreme or anything. It's just another "magic and fantasy" thing.

I play various of systems for 16 years when it comes to RPGs. Some with grit realism, some with full comendy and "magic" stuff. I just take it as it is. If Cthulu book says that suddenly players see ancient God as big as mountain - they see it, it's there. I don't try to think how the hell it got there and how it can stand on those legs if it's that high or how things like that can survive etc. It's just how setting works.

[Segev]

You asume too much. I enjoy playing DnD, I just don't try to justify anything in it with real life logic. If WOTC in books say that Elfs are more agile than Orcs then I am just "ok, whatever, thats how game works". If in next book it's "It doesn't matter now, Elfs and Orcs can both be as agile" - then it's ok for me too now, that's how game works from now on.

So I don't play like every race have darkvision or flying, but if new books says that they can all now have darkvision or flying - I will just go with it because fantasy setting is riddiculous as it is already. So for me that is not new extreme or anything. It's just another "magic and fantasy" thing.

I play various of systems. Some with grit realism, some with full comendy and "magic" stuff. I just take it as it is.

Ah, so it's less you consider it an improvement, and more you just don't care about it?

[Sol0botmate]

Ah, so it's less you consider it an improvement, and more you just don't care about it?

Both actually.

I consider it an improvement because if my player wants to make Wizard Half-Orc because he thinks that 2 meter tall bald guy with fangs would actually be smart scientist and he loves that idea - then I prefer him to go with that without feeling that mechanically he just gimped himself because he wanted to combine race he likes with class he likes. So +2 STR and +1 CON punishes him for making abstract character in abstract game which whole point is just to have fun together at table. So new rules makes him go with +1 INT and +2 STR Half-Orc and he starts with 16 INT and he is happy because now he is not gimped vs taking race that would give him that 16/17 INT at start. For balance it doesn't matter. For fun - matters a lot.

And do I care about this change? No. It's cosmetic change that for me is good, but it's nothing controversial that much for me. It's just another set of rules in evolving RPG system. That's it. It's a game. Game have rules. Rules change, be it olympics, RPGs or table tennis. You just go with new rules.

Or not. Whatever.

[Segev]

Both actually.

I consider it an improvement because if my player wants to make Wizard Half-Orc becuae he thing that 2 meter tall bald guy would actually be smart scientist then I prefer him to with that without feeling that mechanically he just gimped himself because he wanted to combine race he likes with class he likes. So +2 STR and +1 CON punishes him for making abstract character in abstract game which whole point is just to have fun together at table. So new rules makes him go with +1 IN and +2 STR Half-Orc and he starts with 16 INT and he is happy because now he is not gimbed vs taking race that would give him that 16/17 INT at start. For balance it doesn't matter. For fun - matter a lot.

And do I care about this change? No. It's cosmetic change that for me it's good, but it's nothing controversial that much for me. It's just another set of rules in evolving RPG system. That's it.

Fair enough. Obviously, I disagree, and think that if your player wants to play a two meter tall bald guy as a smart scientist, he can play a 15-int half-orc (or whatever his highest die was), or a 15-int (or, again, whatever his highest die was) human who is six feet 3 inches tall and bald and muscular, or even a bald, muscular high elf with 16 int (or whatever his highest die roll plus one is). There are a number of ways to get that "cool look" without having to be a half-orc with +2 to intelligence. And 15 int (or higher, if he rolled well) is hardly too stupid to be "smart."

[Friv]

Designing new races is one thing. "Customizing" races for individual characters to the point where they lose their uniqueness is another. And if you're going to justify SOME changes but not ALL, why the arbitrary decision? Draw me the line to tell me why you allow some things to change but not others.

So, here is the justification that I would give, were I challenged to do so: D&D made the decision a long time ago that physical and cultural traits are interchangeable and no one cared before, so why care now?

Is that a good justification? I mean, not really, no, but "cultural traits as racial bonuses" was dumb from OD&D onward, so "gnomes can learn to be strong by being raised by goliaths" or even "you can learn to fly like Black Condor did" is pretty much the same basket as "all dwarves get an attack bonus against goblinoids because of their racial hatred" and "elves are born knowing how to use a longbow," just in reverse.

I'd be a lot happier with "no races got any ability modifiers and you represent their unique physical traits with actual unique physical traits" than the current mess, but we're pretty far past that so it's a hypothetical 6e fix.

[Segev]

So, here is the justification that I would give, were I challenged to do so: D&D made the decision a long time ago that physical and cultural traits are interchangeable and no one cared before, so why care now?

Is that a good justification? I mean, not really, no, but "cultural traits as racial bonuses" was dumb from OD&D onward, so "gnomes can learn to be strong by being raised by goliaths" or even "you can learn to fly like Black Condor did" is pretty much the same basket as "all dwarves get an attack bonus against goblinoids because of their racial hatred" and "elves are born knowing how to use a longbow," just in reverse.

I'd be a lot happier with "no races got any ability modifiers and you represent their unique physical traits with actual unique physical traits" than the current mess, but we're pretty far past that so it's a hypothetical 6e fix.

But even then, if these things are interchangeable, why can't a gnome learn to "eat right" and grow to be Medium, or a half-elf learn to flap his arms and fly like an Aaracockra?


Heck, there's an exquisite example in Tomb of Annihilation of a human character who could arguably justify having the Aaracockra flying racial trait. (And thus rob him of some of his minor pathos, since it's a notable deal that he can't actually fly, but still.) He's a human boy growing up amongst the Aaracockra with only his older sister as a non-aaracockra to compare himself to. He actively dresses in a winged cape with hand-holds and a beak mask that he made himself.


This sloppy, half-way stuff just to throw a bone to a certain loud group of complainers whom I question being as many of WotC's customers as their loudness seems to convince people of is just bad design.

They should do better, or not do something this half-hearted and sloppy in this fashion at all.

[Amechra]

You may be right, though it is worth noting that despite Tolkien taking a lot of grief from people who want to make hay over this, his elves were VERY inhuman, as were his orcs. His hobbits and dwarves were perhaps the least different from his humans.

I am, personally, a fan of making all of the races more inhuman (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Invq5e0PP9jvzE7syhdpRYFgrS_1siwJdfzZnAoJWrA/edit?usp=sharing). (This is not complete; I am not happy enough with what I have for orcs to share, and I don't have anything for other races right now.)

I like them being fantastic.

To be fair, Tolkien gave himself a ton of grief about orcs, since the whole "evil by nature" thing conflicted heavily with his moral worldview that everyone is potentially redeemable. And while I do agree that his elves and orcs are pretty inhuman, I also strongly feel that Tolkien wouldn't describe them the same way if he was alive and writing today - a lot of the coding that he uses to tip off the reader that elves are Good and orcs are Bad was unexceptional for the time, but doesn't really pass muster nowadays.

That being said... fantastic is good. I like fantastic. If WotC had actually taken the effort to make all the non-humans fantastical (instead of just being Humans But Slightly Different), I have a feeling that we wouldn't be having this conversation :smalltongue:.

[Segev]

That being said... fantastic is good. I like fantastic. If WotC had actually taken the effort to make all the non-humans fantastical (instead of just being Humans But Slightly Different), I have a feeling that we wouldn't be having this conversation :smalltongue:.

Well, if we read Mordenkainen, their elves (while not a direction I would have wanted to take them) ARE pretty inhuman.

[Waterdeep Merch]

To be fair, Tolkien gave himself a ton of grief about orcs, since the whole "evil by nature" thing conflicted heavily with his moral worldview that everyone is potentially redeemable. And while I do agree that his elves and orcs are pretty inhuman, I also strongly feel that Tolkien wouldn't describe them the same way if he was alive and writing today - a lot of the coding that he uses to tip off the reader that elves are Good and orcs are Bad was unexceptional for the time, but doesn't really pass muster nowadays.

That being said... fantastic is good. I like fantastic. If WotC had actually taken the effort to make all the non-humans fantastical (instead of just being Humans But Slightly Different), I have a feeling that we wouldn't be having this conversation :smalltongue:.
This is kind of a neat thought. Ability scores are a pretty lame way to differentiate species, all told. I think it would be more interesting if we had more things like Fey Ancestry, Trance, Stonecunning, and even size differences, rather than simple statistical differences. Especially since D&D statistics can balloon out of control one way or another.

[Azuresun]

I return to my assertion that the problem is the word "race" makes people think of "ethnicity", and a more accurate term would be "species", and make the point I always do in these threads that players in a Star Wars RPG don't, unless I missed something, get annoyed that Wookies are stronger than Ewoks.

[Segev]

This is kind of a neat thought. Ability scores are a pretty lame way to differentiate species, all told. I think it would be more interesting if we had more things like Fey Ancestry, Trance, Stonecunning, and even size differences, rather than simple statistical differences. Especially since D&D statistics can balloon out of control one way or another.

And if they'd gone this way, and really leaned into it, in 6e, I'd likely not be griping. Put the stat bonus with the class, or the background, or just as a floating thing every character gets, without ever associating it with race, and it's not really a problem.

Shoehorning it in for reasons unrelated to improving the game (as evidenced by the fact that it doesn't improve the game, but instead causes issues, no matter how minor) is sloppy, and a bad choice.

This is the kind of change that requires AT LEAST an x.5 edition update, to build it in from the ground up. Not a sloppy "optional rule" that isn't even really there for the game's sake so much as for PR purposes.

[Friv]

This is kind of a neat thought. Ability scores are a pretty lame way to differentiate species, all told. I think it would be more interesting if we had more things like Fey Ancestry, Trance, Stonecunning, and even size differences, rather than simple statistical differences. Especially since D&D statistics can balloon out of control one way or another.

Absolutely agree. Even things that sort of represent ability scores are more interesting if they aren't set up as direct ability scores.

Don't give me "orcs are strong", give me "orcs have a powerful frame that allows them to treat a Medium Load as a Light Load." Don't give me "dwarves get a constitution bonus", give me "dwarves only require half the usual amount of food and have advantage on saves against poison." I don't need "elves get higher Intelligence" when we could have "elves get to pick two Backgrounds because they've lived so long that they live multiple lives."

[Segev]

Absolutely agree. Even things that sort of represent ability scores are more interesting if they aren't set up as direct ability scores.

Don't give me "orcs are strong", give me "orcs have a powerful frame that allows them to treat a Medium Load as a Light Load." Don't give me "dwarves get a constitution bonus", give me "dwarves only require half the usual amount of food and have advantage on saves against poison." I don't need "elves get higher Intelligence" when we could have "elves get to pick two Backgrounds because they've lived so long that they live multiple lives."

The sad thing is that I agree this would be cool...and we'd be told that this also harkens back to the kind of problem False God was saying is inherent to the racial stat bonuses.

But! I would still think this was a great direction to go in a 6e.

Heck, I've been toying with - but not really doing much advancement on - an idea for having race be something you level up, as if it were a class gestalted with whatever your normal build is. Kind-of like PF2's racial feats coming at various levels, but with more to it so that it doesn't feel like you're not really a dwarf until level 10 or whatever. (I think PF2 has a few neat ideas, and some really bad implementation of them.)

[Amechra]

Well, if we read Mordenkainen, their elves (while not a direction I would have wanted to take them) ARE pretty inhuman.

As someone who doesn't own Mordenkainen's... that's completely and utterly useless to me. Would it have killed them to put that information in the Monster Manual?

[Sol0botmate]

Absolutely agree. Even things that sort of represent ability scores are more interesting if they aren't set up as direct ability scores.

Don't give me "orcs are strong", give me "orcs have a powerful frame that allows them to treat a Medium Load as a Light Load." Don't give me "dwarves get a constitution bonus", give me "dwarves only require half the usual amount of food and have advantage on saves against poison." I don't need "elves get higher Intelligence" when we could have "elves get to pick two Backgrounds because they've lived so long that they live multiple lives."

Yup, this is way better than flat stat bonuses. Races can be unique without mechanically affecting class choice.

[Dienekes]

Absolutely agree. Even things that sort of represent ability scores are more interesting if they aren't set up as direct ability scores.

Don't give me "orcs are strong", give me "orcs have a powerful frame that allows them to treat a Medium Load as a Light Load." Don't give me "dwarves get a constitution bonus", give me "dwarves only require half the usual amount of food and have advantage on saves against poison." I don't need "elves get higher Intelligence" when we could have "elves get to pick two Backgrounds because they've lived so long that they live multiple lives."

I know I posted this up thread. But you might want to give my Race/Culture homebrew thing a look from a few pages back. I think it does stuff pretty similar to what you’re talking about.

[Waterdeep Merch]

This is why they should've done a UA on this system first. We've come up with a more agreeable basis for species in a handful of minutes on a forum. Imagine if there were more of us having arguments discussing it. There were so many cool things this could have been.

[MaxWilson]

Like, if our core racial choices were Humans, Kenku, Thri-Kreen, and Warforged, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But since our core racial choices are Humans, Graceful Humans, "Savage" Humans, Short Humans, and A Variety Of Small Humans... yeah.

Fair point. If they were just getting rid of Graceful Humans entirely in favor of Thri-Kreen/Hadozees/Warforged/Plasmids that would be fine. It's weird though to keep Graceful Humans while simultaneously pretending that Savage Humans are now graceful Savage not-savage humans. Like, what's the point?

#DeleteBoringHumanoidNonhumansDontHomogenizeThem.


I return to my assertion that the problem is the word "race" makes people think of "ethnicity", and a more accurate term would be "species", and make the point I always do in these threads that players in a Star Wars RPG don't, unless I missed something, get annoyed that Wookies are stronger than Ewoks.

You're not wrong, but I suppose WotC thought doing a global find-and-replace /race/species/g would be too easy. :/

[Rusvul]

Er, we still believe this (that genetics/heredity heavily influence traits) about humanity IRL. There aren't wood elves and goliaths and aarakocras in real life, but anyone who tells you that e.g. chimpanzees aren't stronger than humans is utterly wrong--and chimpanzees aren't even as large as goliaths! Species differences are very real, and in biological terms wood elves and goliaths are different species, since they can't interbreed freely.

https://images.boredomfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/12/muscular-chimp.jpg

A minor nitpick about this: pretty much the only heritable traits that vary between human racial groups are direct adaptations to the environment (like skin color, or sickle cell anemia being an adaptation to fight malaria). Things like physical strength or intelligence are probably heritable to some degree, but those traits travel in family lines, not racial groups.

This is relevant because D&D has never been especially clear about exactly how distinct its "races" are from each other. Some can interbreed with each other, others can't--which can do so varies somewhat from edition to edition, but it's never really played by the same rules as real-world species. And regardless of how the genetics shake out, D&D "races" are very clearly just different kinds of people--all of the standard player races are very humanlike, both physiologically and psychologically. You could make an argument that humans, dwarves, and orcs are all different species nominally, but in practice D&D does not (and has never) really treated that like it's true in a meaningful way.

Since D&D races are halfway between being completely separate species and being analogous to real-world racial groups, it's kind of awkward to say "these ones are smart, +1, these ones are stupid, -2," especially in the current political climate. If D&D had committed to the idea of "races" being separate species in a meaningful way like some other RPGs (such as Burning Wheel) have, it would be fine, but again, they haven't done that.

While inarguably a PR move first and a gameplay decision second, I think the Tasha's rules are pretty good. I don't honestly understand why people are so attached to racial ASI bonuses--it's really a pretty small change, even if it was made primarily for (IMO entirely valid) optics purposes rather than gameplay, and it doesn't break anything. (I would argue that removing a mechanic that soft-restricts player choice is good, though, even without an external cultural reason to do so.) Even pre-Tasha's, races aren't very finely balanced--I don't see an issue with adding Mountain Dwarf to the list of very good mechanical choices. It's not like a free-floating +2/+2 and Medium armor is dramatically better than 1/day Suggestion and magic resistance or +2/+1/+1 and two skill proficiencies; while Tasha's makes some races stronger it doesn't make any of them uniquely powerful.

All racial ASIs do is (gently) enforce fantasy racial stereotypes--like the half-orc barbarian, or the high elf wizard--and (gently) restrict player's options, neither of which I personally find to be desirable. Since they only apply to PCs, the mechanics aren't tied into the lore or the world in any significant way (ASIs or no, you can still describe high elves in your setting as learned and graceful), and removing them doesn't break immersion or create illogical situations any more than letting Small creatures be as strong as Medium creatures does.

Is it a perfect (or even particularly well-designed) solution? No. But it's, like, fine, and I think it's better than what we had before. While it doesn't seem to be a major point of focus, I especially like the rule allowing you to exchange racial proficiencies for different ones that fit your character and backstory better.

[zinycor]

You know what? I already have my opinion on this topic on the first page, I believe is a good answer and I'll stand by it and leave this thread full of ridiculous fallacies.

[False God]

Er, we still believe this (that genetics/heredity heavily influence traits) about humanity IRL. There aren't wood elves and goliaths and aarakocras in real life, but anyone who tells you that e.g. chimpanzees aren't stronger than humans is utterly wrong--and chimpanzees aren't even as large as goliaths! Species differences are very real, and in biological terms wood elves and goliaths are different species, since they can't interbreed freely.

https://images.boredomfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/12/muscular-chimp.jpg

Y'all make this too easy for me, really you do.


Ah, here we go.

This is partly why I was bringing up Star Trek aliens. I think part of the issue is that 1) the fact that the specific word "race" is being used primes people to make the comparison in a way that using "ancestry" or "stock" wouldn't, and 2) that people disagree on how "decidedly non human" non-human racial options are. Like, if our core racial choices were Humans, Kenku, Thri-Kreen, and Warforged, I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But since our core racial choices are Humans, Graceful Humans, "Savage" Humans, Short Humans, and A Variety Of Small Humans... yeah.

I don't think it makes a lick of difference if you call them "races" or "species". The books even take pains to point out that players are exceptions rather than the rule. Why can't Jimmy be the one smart Orc? Why can't Jenny be the one buff Elf? Why MUST these characters have "racial" modifiers, aiding elements they're not interested in or detracting from ones they are?

I will always argue against "biological" traits. There are far too many examples of almost every species in D&D to suggest that the player MUST demonstrate "traditional" characteristics of that race/species.


I disagree. We are discussing fantasy creatures that are decidedly not human (with the exception, obviously, of humans). This argument goes right back to "why can't my human raised by aaracockra natively fly?"
The overwhelming majority of "fantasy races" are "decidedly human". Orcs(strong humans). Elves(hippy humans). Dwarves(stout humans). Halflings(mini humans). There is no reason to say "humans can be as varied as the rocks and trees" and say that orcs cannot.

Further, racial features are an excellent example of how to diversity races/species. Tradition. Training. Upbringing. Culture. If these elements must be baked in to your race/species they are great ground for showing how elves are not humans, because they are trained in stealth and magic, rather than allowed to choose their own path. Dwarves are skilled with stone and ale because they live and breathe it.

There is of course no reason to say a dwarf raised by humans does not use human traits.

It really comes down to what the player wants from their character. Do they want to play a rather unique take on a classic subject, a dwarf raised among elves with an eye for trees instead of rocks? Or do they want to play a poor Scottish stereotype with a big beard who drinks too much and puts on a poorly imitated accent?

And frankly, for all I give two hoots, Human McBirdpants could have undergone a magical "ritual of feathers" when they were a wee babe and gotten themselves a pair of wings, thus using the aaracockra "racial traits" but otherwise appearing outwardly as a human with a set of wings.

Be creative! Be expressive! Do something new! Don't let your character be stifled by WotC's inability to slaughter sacred cows.

[togapika]

I disagree. We are discussing fantasy creatures that are decidedly not human (with the exception, obviously, of humans). This argument goes right back to "why can't my human raised by aaracockra natively fly?"

Because they gained wings through evolution which took absurd amounts of time to actually affect? If you want to be a human with wings, get magic to give you wings

[MaxWilson]

A minor nitpick about this: pretty much the only heritable traits that vary between human racial groups are direct adaptations to the environment (like skin color, or sickle cell anemia being an adaptation to fight malaria). Things like physical strength or intelligence are probably heritable to some degree, but those traits travel in family lines, not racial groups.

That's not a minor nitpick, it's a complete change of topic.

I'm not talking about intraspecies differences or heritability, I'm talking about interspecies differences. Humans : chimps :: wood elves : Goliaths. (Heritability is exclusively an intraspecies discussion. Nobody says wings on birds are a heritable trait, even though they're inherited, because heritability is attributing variation, and wings on birds are constant, not variatiable.)


This is relevant because D&D has never been especially clear about exactly how distinct its "races" are from each other. Some can interbreed with each other, others can't--which can do so varies somewhat from edition to edition, but it's never really played by the same rules as real-world species. And regardless of how the genetics shake out, D&D "races" are very clearly just different kinds of people--all of the standard player races are very humanlike, both physiologically and psychologically. You could make an argument that humans, dwarves, and orcs are all different species nominally, but in practice D&D does not (and has never) really treated that like it's true in a meaningful way.

Real-world animal species can sometimes partly interbreed (horses and donkeys, lions and tigers), but imperfectly. Historically D&D has treated the various "races" as effectively different species, with the exception that dragons can interbreed with pretty much anything and humans can interbreed with both elves and orcs, and on Athas also with dwarves. They should just call them "species" because clearly they are.


Since D&D races are halfway between being completely separate species and being analogous to real-world racial groups, it's kind of awkward to say "these ones are smart, +1, these ones are stupid, -2," especially in the current political climate. If D&D had committed to the idea of "races" being separate species in a meaningful way like some other RPGs (such as Burning Wheel) have, it would be fine, but again, they haven't done that.

It's not too late to delete elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc. from existence for being boring, in favor of all humanoids being actual humans (with some interestingly-different cultures), plus assorted non-humanoid races like Thri-kreen and Hadozee.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's not too late to delete elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc. from existence for being boring, in favor of all humanoids being actual humans (with some interestingly-different cultures), plus assorted non-humanoid races like Thri-kreen and Hadozee.

Boring is a state of mind. Exotic is not interesting, "normal" is not boring. Except when it is. And that only depends on the characters, not the race.

Now one thing I could thoroughly get behind is ditching the single-culture assumption (about everyone but humans). Give everyone different cultures, or give DMs and worldbuilders good tools to do so. Separate genetics (the base race) and culture (subraces + background). It's what I've done in my setting and it's all for the better.

[Rusvul]

That's not a minor nitpick, it's a complete change of topic.

oops you're very right. I didn't think I was going to be writing as long of a post as I did.



I'm not talking about intraspecies differences or heritability, I'm talking about interspecies differences. Humans : chimps :: wood elves : Goliaths. (Heritability is exclusively an intraspecies discussion. Nobody says wings on birds are a heritable trait, even though they're inherited, because heritability is attributing variation, and wings on birds are constant, not variatiable.)

Humans and Goliaths are dramatically more similar than humans and chimpanzees. Goliaths are physiologically identical to humans except for being larger and better adapted to mountain peaks, and psychologically identical to humans except for a vague sense of competition (which, since they are generally presented as monocultural, is arguably indistinguishable from the competitive spirit found in some human cultures).



Real-world animal species can sometimes partly interbreed (horses and donkeys, lions and tigers), but imperfectly. Historically D&D has treated the various "races" as effectively different species, with the exception that dragons can interbreed with pretty much anything and humans can interbreed with both elves and orcs, and on Athas also with dwarves. They should just call them "species" because clearly they are.

No matter what we call them, they've always been presented as humans in a funny hat. Like I said, they're nominally different species, sure, but D&D handles them such that, in practice, they're way more analogous to real-world ethnic groups than they are to different species. (The fact that they're called "races" certainly does not help.) The difference between a human and a dwarf (+- darkvision, build, cultural traits) is much, much more similar in magnitude than it is to the difference between humans of two different racial groups (+- minor adaptations, cultural traits) than it is to the difference between humans and chimpanzees (+- build, social structures, complex tool use, the existence of cultural traits). D&D has never committed to the idea that different kinds of humanoids are fundamentally different from one another--rather, especially in 5e, it's angled pretty hard into the idea that all humanoids are fundamentally very similar on the inside.


It's not too late to delete elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc. from existence for being boring, in favor of all humanoids being actual humans (with some interestingly-different cultures), plus assorted non-humanoid races like Thri-kreen and Hadozee.

Personally, I like this as a solution--alternately, we could make all of the nonhuman humanoids so distinct as to be inarguably completely separate species, with pronounced biological and psychological differences from humans. I don't think WotC is going to do either of those things, though--humans in funny hats are established, relatable, and profitable. As long as that's what we've got, I think racial ASIs don't add anything at best, and are restrictive and/or distasteful at worst.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally, I like this as a solution--alternately, we could make all of the nonhuman humanoids so distinct as to be inarguably completely separate species, with pronounced biological and psychological differences from humans. I don't think WotC is going to do either of those things, though--humans in funny hats are established, relatable, and profitable. As long as that's what we've got, I think racial ASIs don't add anything at best, and are restrictive and/or distasteful at worst.

Building worlds and games that require alien thought are non-trivial. In fact, I'd guess that no one alive could do it very well. It's basically impossible to do right, because we're human and think like humans. Being able to get into character is what this is all about.

[MaxWilson]

Boring is a state of mind. Exotic is not interesting, "normal" is not boring. Except when it is. And that only depends on the characters, not the race.

Homogeneity is boring.

If you're going to have different cultures, fine, but don't make different species unless there are interesting differences between them--and in the current climate, WotC is allergic to interesting differences between species.


Humans and Goliaths are dramatically more similar than humans and chimpanzees. Goliaths are physiologically identical to humans except for being larger and better adapted to mountain peaks, and psychologically identical to humans except for a vague sense of competition (which, since they are generally presented as monocultural, is arguably indistinguishable from the competitive spirit found in some human cultures).

But... I was comparing wood elves to Goliaths. Wood elves, unlike humans, possess extreme longevity and no need for sleep, and can see see in the dark. That implies some fairly radical differences from human biology. (The ability to crossbreed with humanity would strongly imply the opposite if not for the existence of, well, half-dragons. Instead we're just left concluding that D&D human reproduction is apparently unfazed by huge biological differences--but I guess we already knew that because Centaurs and Owlbears.)


No matter what we call them, they've always been presented as humans in a funny hat. Like I said, they're nominally different species, sure, but D&D handles them such that, in practice, they're way more analogous to real-world ethnic groups than they are to different species. (The fact that they're called "races" certainly does not help.) The difference between a human and a dwarf (+- darkvision, build, cultural traits) is much, much more similar in magnitude than it is to the difference between humans of two different racial groups (+- minor adaptations, cultural traits) than it is to the difference between humans and chimpanzees (+- build, social structures, complex tool use, the existence of cultural traits). D&D has never committed to the idea that different kinds of humanoids are fundamentally different from one another--rather, especially in 5e, it's angled pretty hard into the idea that all humanoids are fundamentally very similar on the inside.

You're not wrong (although I think darkvision is a bigger deal than you seem to) but we're having different conversations. I'm talking about biological differences between species--examining the implications of D&D-as-a-world-simulation--and you're talking how those species are perceived at the metametagame level, in the cultural context in which D&D is played: D&D-as-cultural-artifact. I don't know what I did to trigger this commentary because it seems unrelated.

[Segev]

Yup, this is way better than flat stat bonuses. Races can be unique without mechanically affecting class choice.

This isn't entirely true, just as it's not true entirely that 2-point differences in stats make you unsuitable for a class. Half-orcs, as written, are absolutely better for melee weapon users than anything else, based on having a feature that only applies to melee weapons. As an example.

Mountain dwarves, as another example, are much LESS good for classes that get armor proficiencies or which get features that key off of not wearing armor.

Halflings and gnomes make good mounted characters, though admittedly there's no class that sings to mount-riding in this edition.

[Lord Raziere]

Building worlds and games that require alien thought are non-trivial. In fact, I'd guess that no one alive could do it very well. It's basically impossible to do right, because we're human and think like humans. Being able to get into character is what this is all about.

Yeeeeeah, you want to make alien races, you gotta start with changing how they reproduce, thats the bare bones basic thing you need to do to even start. Most DnD races don't even get near that. Illithids are the only thing I can think of, off the top of my head that clear this criteria and they're Illithids. if something has men and women they're too human.

however there is an appeal to human in hats that you all fail to consider: some of them look really cool/beautiful. its shallow, but sometimes the most aesthetic concerns are what makes something great. why ruin that with some uncomfortable alien stuff? a DnD race doesn't need to exist for some “truly interesting difference” or need to be Truly Alien to be fun, for example I just want to play the closest thing you can to a girl made of fire or air and still have a nice date with that tiefling girl over there. is that so bad?

I could never go for "culture only" DnD. There would be so many cool appearances going to waste because your stuck with boring ol' human or something so inhuman you don't want to play them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeeeeeah, you want to make alien races, you gotta start with changing how they reproduce, thats the bare bones basic thing you need to do to even start. Most DnD races don't even get near that. Illithids are the only thing I can think of, off the top of my head that clear this criteria and they're Illithids. if something has men and women they're too human.

however there is an appeal to human in hats that you all fail to consider: some of them look really cool/beautiful. its shallow, but sometimes the most aesthetic concerns are what makes something great. why ruin that with some uncomfortable alien stuff? a DnD race doesn't need to exist for some “truly interesting difference” or need to be Truly Alien to be fun, for example I just want to play the closest thing you can to a girl made of fire or air and still have a nice date with that tiefling girl over there. is that so bad?

I could never go for "culture only" DnD. There would be so many cool appearances going to waste because your stuck with boring ol' human or something so inhuman you don't want to play them.

I'm not sure reproduction is the place to start, especially in the modern environment. :smallannoyed:

But yeah. Appearance and aesthetics have a lot to do with it. I find my players generally pick based on that + "cool factor", rather than anything mechanical or even cultural/psychological. Because I play with new people 90% of the time, and in my own setting which departs from canon....a lot as far as culture and lore goes (much less so for mechanics and basic themes). Many of them aren't even immersed in the whole fantasy genre to begin with, so the echos of the past just don't move them. I've found great success by handing out a box of painted minis and asking "which one looks cool to you?" and building the character with them based on that mini.

The number of tieflings and dragonborn I've had is huge. I rarely get humans. Elves...sometimes. Soul-forged (warforged, basically) are pretty common. And a random smattering of others. Dwarves are quite uncommon, though. Although I had a dwarven druid one time.

[Amechra]

I could never go for "culture only" DnD. There would be so many cool appearances going to waste because your stuck with boring ol' human or something so inhuman you don't want to play them.

But the Culture get the ability to produce all the drugs they could ever want at will, right in their brains! How is that boring?

Sorry.

And yeah, I can get that. It's definitely not to everyone's taste.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not sure reproduction is the place to start, especially in the modern environment. :smallannoyed:

But yeah. Appearance and aesthetics have a lot to do with it. I find my players generally pick based on that + "cool factor", rather than anything mechanical or even cultural/psychological. Because I play with new people 90% of the time, and in my own setting which departs from canon....a lot as far as culture and lore goes (much less so for mechanics and basic themes). Many of them aren't even immersed in the whole fantasy genre to begin with, so the echos of the past just don't move them. I've found great success by handing out a box of painted minis and asking "which one looks cool to you?" and building the character with them based on that mini.

The number of tieflings and dragonborn I've had is huge. I rarely get humans. Elves...sometimes. Soul-forged (warforged, basically) are pretty common. And a random smattering of others. Dwarves are quite uncommon, though. Although I had a dwarven druid one time.

Well its either that or start from foundations so weird and outside human environments/experience that what you get isn't something a human can or ever will be. those are the two ways I've found to make alien species. like my latest truly alien idea is a bunch of aliens running on MnM3e rules who formed something called the "Amorphous Alliance" because one species is liquid, one's made of sand, another is made of shadow, another made of cloth, another is made of paint, and they formed to protect and benefit one another because shadows can't go out into the sun except with clothes made by the cloth people to protect them or cloth people wrapping around them in symbiotic relationship, the liquid people can't handle anything that isn't waterproof and the sand people can't go underwater, so they do things to benefit each other, but they can't touch each other because that makes the sand people fall apart from touching liquid but the liquid and sand people can protect the shadow and cloth people from fire. none of them have fixed shapes and thus they all try to reshape themselves into whatever form they want at the moment.

Which is exactly why Truly Alien is such a challenge to write: its not about the modern environment, or any environment that humanity has ever experienced, and people are too busy worrying about that environment to imagine something outside of it :smallamused: Alien things don't care about what humans think about them- they've never met humans after all. Nor does the biology they run on particularly care about human interests. there is no way to spin this as something relatable, familiar and safe that most products rely upon. Tvtropes has a page on such starfish aliens (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens) and even a DnD entry of what it considers starfish aliens in its universe. these are, unsurprisingly from either the far realms or other extraplanar creatures. so if someone wants alien....they're going to have look beyond the prime material plane. and no, gith don't count, not even remotely.

But yeah, aesthetics and appearances is bigger than some think and while its good that some people want something more intellectual, I don't think its going to happen. DnD is not known for its depth.

[Rusvul]

Homogeneity is boring.

If you're going to have different cultures, fine, but don't make different species unless there are interesting differences between them--and in the current climate, WotC is allergic to interesting differences between species.

...

You're not wrong (although I think darkvision is a bigger deal than you seem to) but we're having different conversations. I'm talking about biological differences between species--examining the implications of D&D-as-a-world-simulation--and you're talking how those species are perceived at the metametagame level, in the cultural context in which D&D is played: D&D-as-cultural-artifact. I don't know what I did to trigger this commentary because it seems unrelated.

When discussing the merits of the changes made in TCoE--changes made for cultural optics as much as for mechanical impact--I think the metametagame level is exceedingly relevant. Essentially, the case I'm making in favor of TCoE's changes to race are:

1) D&D races always been at least a little bit analogous to real-world racial groups, which often leads to unintentional (and sometimes distasteful) subtext. By lessening the mechanical impact of race, TCoE does about as good a job of avoiding that as is possible without radically reworking 5e.
2) These changes are okay because they increase the range of options have a relatively minimal impact on balance. I am not of the opinion that racial ASIs add interesting mechanical depth or affect the setting in any meaningful way.

I also think that having significant differences between species in RPGs can be very interesting and a lot of fun, but since WotC isn't going to do that, I think the approach of "humans with a cantrip vs humans with a charge ability" is more sensitive and no less mechanically interesting than the "smart, beautiful humans vs violent, strong humans."

My apologies if I've been less concise about that than I should've been.

[AdAstra]

The fact that Variant Humans and Half-Elves can choose stats to get +1 to would suggest that letting races changes their ASIs really isn't that big of a deal from a worldbuilding perspective. The existing range of human characteristics clearly covers starting stats from 8-16. I can believe that the differences between Human maximum strength, Orc maximum strength, and halfling maximum strength are minimal enough that they can be abstracted away, especially in a world where you can wiggle your hands hard enough to make lightning.

If we did assume that inbuilt traits matter so much, then we're basically back in the days of -4 strength and strength penalties as you get older. I don't think most people would be okay with that.

As far as I'm aware, most of the contention with racial modifiers isn't things like strength anyhow, it's things like intelligence and wisdom. Wisdom especially has somewhat of a moral character (not so much in terms of good vs evil, but enlightenment/self-awareness) to it, while also being associated with intuition and sensory acuity, which are pretty wide-ranging qualities that aren't very well correlated with each other. Most sentient creatures would balk at being told that they were dumber/less enlightened because of biology by someone that looks like them with pointy ears, and this sort of rhetoric is frankly too commonly applied between different humans to just lightly bandy about with.

[Segev]

Well its either that or start from foundations so weird and outside human environments/experience that what you get isn't something a human can or ever will be.

Eh. I disagree. You can start simply with a differing mazlow's hierarchy of needs (as I do with dwarves) or with something truly different about the biological and / or spiritual needs of the species (as I do with elves). I'm less happy with the gnomes, and so unhappy with the orcs that I don't share it. But I encourage you to at least read the elf section of this document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Invq5e0PP9jvzE7syhdpRYFgrS_1siwJdfzZnAoJWrA/edit?usp=sharing) to see what I think can be done without touching reproduction or weird foundations.

...though, rereading what you wrote, isn't what you wrote basically a tautology? We can't have inhuman aliens/other-species without having them be not-human and never-human, can we? Am I misunderstanding what you mean, there?




The fact that Variant Humans and Half-Elves can choose stats to get +1 to would suggest that letting races changes their ASIs really isn't that big of a deal from a worldbuilding perspective. The existing range of human characteristics clearly covers starting stats from 8-16. I can believe that the differences between Human maximum strength, Orc maximum strength, and halfling maximum strength are minimal enough that they can be abstracted away, especially in a world where you can wiggle your hands hard enough to make lightning.

If we did assume that inbuilt traits matter so much, then we're basically back in the days of -4 strength and strength penalties as you get older. I don't think most people would be okay with that.

As far as I'm aware, most of the contention with racial modifiers isn't things like strength anyhow, it's things like intelligence and wisdom. Wisdom especially has somewhat of a moral character (not so much in terms of good vs evil, but enlightenment/self-awareness) to it, while also being associated with intuition and sensory acuity, which are pretty wide-ranging qualities that aren't very well correlated with each other. Most sentient creatures would balk at being told that they were dumber/less enlightened because of biology by someone that looks like them with pointy ears, and this sort of rhetoric is frankly too commonly applied between different humans to just lightly bandy about with.

See, it obviously has an impact. People feel a pressure to play races that give them that +2 to their primary stat.

And yet, you're absolutely right: the impact is relatively minor. A 15 rather than a 17 isn't going to cripple a character. (In fact, for more MAD classes, picking a race that gives a bonus to the secondary stat could give you two 15s to shore things up.)

It is for this reason that I find the change to be bad: it removes that pressure, however minor it truly is, and doesn't actually help anybody do anything meaningfully better than they did before. It robs those who want to explore unusual experiences of that unusual experience, but doesn't really give those who just want to "play something different" what they want, either: they're no longer playing anything different. They're playing the same old thing and just pretending that it's different. The only ones it really helps are the min/maxers who now have more access to unbalanced power synergies because they're not gated behind losing that precious extra 5% chance at success.

[Lord Raziere]

Eh. I disagree. You can start simply with a differing mazlow's hierarchy of needs (as I do with dwarves) or with something truly different about the biological and / or spiritual needs of the species (as I do with elves). I'm less happy with the gnomes, and so unhappy with the orcs that I don't share it. But I encourage you to at least read the elf section of this document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Invq5e0PP9jvzE7syhdpRYFgrS_1siwJdfzZnAoJWrA/edit?usp=sharing) to see what I think can be done without touching reproduction or weird foundations.

...though, rereading what you wrote, isn't what you wrote basically a tautology? We can't have inhuman aliens/other-species without having them be not-human and never-human, can we? Am I misunderstanding what you mean, there?


I don't see it as tautological so much as stating the obvious? alien is defined by being foreign, and thus not something that can be related to human experience. you can't have something that is human yet alien, those are contradictory.

as for the dwarves and elves of your document....Eeeh. I guess? maybe? Its all in the head? problem is, I don't want to roleplay a dwarf or elf those ways? the problem with this pure mindset approach is that if another person isn't interested in the mindset your selling them on, it gets rejected, and your end up with humans in hats anyways because there is nothing physically allow me to be alien that I can play with?

like here is the thing: I make all my characters as individuals first with their own story to tell, so telling that story comes first. I want to play an elf gish kind of character someday, but how they sleep or how their memory works is honestly not that important to whatever story I can think of at the moment and this doesn't inspire any particular story for me to build specifically off of your writeup, so I'm either going to ignore it, or I'm going maybe add a hint or a someday randomly bit of what your talking about amid various other elven inspirations I have swimming around in my head, having forgotten the specific source. I just honestly can't think of a time when any of this writeup would be particularly relevant except as extra flavor to what I'm already doing, unless I really like holding up the rest of the group with annoying meaningless frivolities as my character is awake longer.

So its either kinda alien if I overplay it too much and annoy the group (problem is it almost sounds like elves get ADD the more they remain awake so its maybe comparable to a human mental condition, so maybe not even that alien, just annoying), or not alien if its just a sleep thing that doesn't actually affect my actions all that much. there is a lot of room for misinterpretation, so it all comes down to how well someone can portray it without anything else to aid it, and not all roleplayers can achieve that.

[chainer1216]

People in this thread clearly only have a middle school level of understanding of biology.

As a person fully 1ft taller than either of his bio parents I cant help but roll my eyes whenever someone throws out the word "genetics" to justify their stance.

[Kireban]

I'm just waiting to see how many ppl are going for the kobold with elven accuracy combo. For diversity reasons only ofc.
I also think that there is no reason for elven accuracy not to work with strength.

[diplomancer]

If chimps wete a PC race, should they have a Str bonus? Or would that be "stereotyping"? "A product of middle-school knowledge of genetics", perhaps? What about the half-Giants of Dark Sun?

[Segev]

People in this thread clearly only have a middle school level of understanding of biology.

As a person fully 1ft taller than either of his bio parents I cant help but roll my eyes whenever someone throws out the word "genetics" to justify their stance.

I'll note that it's the people who are disparaging racial stat mods who throw out "genetics" and use it dismissively and/or to besmirch the character (by implication) of those who support racial stat mods.

The trouble with the argument is that it keeps insisting that non-humans are just "humans in funny hats," and then claiming that it's "a bad look" to have "humans in funny hats" have different stats. Which is circular reasoning, since it's presuming that the various races are so very similar that there's no reason to have racial stat mods in order to justify not having racial stat mods.

The counterargument that is being consistently ignored is the idea that perhaps they're actually that different. A gnome isn't a "human in a funny hat." He's much shorter, has different capabilities, and is more focused on either nature or technology with possible innate magical gifts and a 5% difference between the mean intelligence of all gnomes and the mean intelligence of all humans, including having relatively inexperienced gnomes and humans who are as smart as they can be having gnomes be just a hair smarter, and only closing the gap at the highest levels of experience.

Elves aren't just "graceful humans." They're on the whole significantly more graceful. Enough that the average elf succeeds on "gracefulness skills" about 5% of the time more than a human does. And the top of the top talent for "new blood" amongst elves and humans will always have the elves be slightly better, and only when both train their hearts out do the humans eventually catch up.

Why don't we have the statistical variance with males and females represented? Or with Iluskan vs. Chultan humans? Because the differences between males and females, and Iluskans and Chultans, simply are not as great. Peak Iluskan and peak Chultan is roughly the same, as is their average.

Why aren't the differences even GREATER, if the races are so different? Because a) gameplay and b) any difference represents something meaningful (otherwise we wouldn't have people upset that they are "unable" to play a "strong elf" because the elf doesn't get +2 to strength).

As somebody pointed out, there seems to be two ways to take this: either you think that it's a small difference so why not just let people have whatever they want that small difference to be, or you think that it's a small difference so why not just build what you want and let the small difference have the small impact it's meant to.

All the arguments around it being somehow gauche to have races have differences in stats, all the shade being cast on "the genetics argument" (which is actually the detractors' way of trying to color the argument they oppose), is ignoring that the argument is not about differences in humans. It's not about minor differences. It's about the question of why you would expect a cloud giant to be stronger than a pixie.

Or is it gauche to expect that cloud giants might have a native strength higher than a pixie can start with?

[Valmark]

I don't like it, mechanically. I feel like it makes 'weak' races worse and 'good' races better with some edge cases.

For example:
- Dragonborns made for good paladins thanks to stat attributes even if they have lousy racial features- with free stats they now will be just bad compared to anything else;
- Half-elves were already good even with a locked +2 Cha (nevermind that I almost never make characters without at least 14 Cha so half-elves were always good) and now they will do everything skilfully;
- Yuan-Tis had bonkers racial features with somewhat hard to use racial stats (How often do you use +1 Int/+2 Cha?) And now they will be just bonkers (Not that I'll ever play one even now, they are ugly);

I'd have preferred the tiefling route, with subraces for each stat. Speaking of which, all those subraces are now kind of awkward (this might be just my problem since tieflings are my favorite race).

Thematically, I dislike it. I see no reason for why an halfling and a goliath that were born the same way and did the same stuff now will have the same stats.

It has nothing to do with maximums- I like the idea of making up for the lower stat with training. But the base should be different if I'm 3 feet taller and 200 pounds heavier (My country doesn't use these metrics so if that's too much/little sorry).

I red someone say even racial features are going to be swappable- I dislike that too thematically AND I'm sure it'll lead to lots of characters whose races do the same thing, reducing the first problem I mentioned but making different races boring to compare.

[zinycor]

I have grown to hate these threads, what is a simple tool for giving races more flexibility and allowing new concepts for people that wouldn't play them otherwise turns intona discussion of politics and genetics.

Frankly, very tiresome.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have grown to hate these threads, what is a simple tool for giving races more flexibility and allowing new concepts for people that wouldn't play them otherwise turns intona discussion of politics and genetics.

Frankly, very tiresome.

Amen. Very much amen. We may disagree on the value of the changes, but we agree (I think) that the introduction of real-world concerns into these threads sucks all the fun out of discussing the changes and their value within the framework of the game.

---------
The races in my world are not reflections of real-life species. There was no evolution. They are not stand-ins for anything in real life. Make Fantasy Fantastic again. Stop, I beg of you, making everything about real life and its politics and concerns. There's enough of that in real life, and all it does is muck up these worlds and cause arguments.

[zinycor]

Amen. Very much amen. We may disagree on the value of the changes, but we agree (I think) that the introduction of real-world concerns into these threads sucks all the fun out of discussing the changes and their value within the framework of the game.

---------
The races in my world are not reflections of real-life species. There was no evolution. They are not stand-ins for anything in real life. Make Fantasy Fantastic again. Stop, I beg of you, making everything about real life and its politics and concerns. There's enough of that in real life, and all it does is muck up these worlds and cause arguments.

Yeah. I have no problem with people not liking it, not allowing at their table, or thinking it lazy. But the real world talk should be left out.

[x3n0n]

Ok, imagine a world where a D&D race/origin doesn't carry ability score changes by default. Instead, there is a blanket +2/+1 baked into the ability score generation system, with lots of different ways to do that part. Arguably, the simplest is floating, but there are other options (class, background, etc).

A few races/origins use ability score changes as a buff or nerf to compensate for other features:
* vhuman's +2 becomes a +1,
* Mountain Dwarf's +1 becomes a +2,
* Half-elf gets an additional +1,
* Triton's +2 becomes two +1s,
* Base human is its own thing (+2 becomes two +1s and gets three additional +1s).

At that point, a small number of races/origins jump out as out of whack, and should never have been printed as is: they're the usual suspects, like Aaracokra and Yuan-Ti Pureblood. Don't use them.

(Of course, this is mechanically identical to the post-Tasha ability score generation method.)

That world has pluses and minuses vs the pre-Tasha's world.

I lament the loss of flavor documentation associated with the classic origins: graceful elves, hardy dwarves, etc.

That said, I will enjoy exploring the newly-available mechanical space of combining floating modifiers, point-buy, and race/origin features, and I think it will lead to new "fun and effective character builds". In addition, I like that people can combine the origin/race of their choice with any class and not pay game-mechanical penalties.

[zinycor]

I imagine that by in large, most players will keep on using the standard bonus for their races, and this rule will be used in 3 main ways:
1- help players round up a character they already have in mind.
2- help making weird race class combinations more optimal.
3- help powergamers (such as me) create new combos

But that's just my prediction.

[Pex]

Would have been easier to get rid of all racial modifiers and give everyone three +1s. Let the player choose to diversify for +1/+1/+1, mini-specialize for +2/+1, or hyper specialize +3. Don't be afraid of 18 with Point Buy at first level but ok to say no score may be higher than 18 at first level even if dice rolling for ability scores. The races can then get their differences by other means - Humans get the feat and skill, Elves gets minor immunity and magic, Dwarves get minor resistance and proficiencies, etc. We'll have to wait for 6E for that if they do something like it. Maybe they'll learn from Paizo and use their own version of Pathfinder 2E method, but that's personal bias talk. I'm not a fan of Pathfinder 2E, but I do like their ability score generation method.

[Theoboldi]

Would have been easier to get rid of all racial modifiers and give everyone three +1s. Let the player choose to diversify for +1/+1/+1, mini-specialize for +2/+1, or hyper specialize +3. Don't be afraid of 18 with Point Buy at first level but ok to say no score may be higher than 18 at first level even if dice rolling for ability scores. The races can then get their differences by other means - Humans get the feat and skill, Elves gets minor immunity and magic, Dwarves get minor resistance and proficiencies, etc. We'll have to wait for 6E for that if they do something like it. Maybe they'll learn from Paizo and use their own version of Pathfinder 2E method, but that's personal bias talk. I'm not a fan of Pathfinder 2E, but I do like their ability score generation method.

Speaking of which, I always quite liked what Pathfinder 1 did to make different races more viable for different classes. Each race had its usual traits, but you could swap out specific ones for specific alternatives unique to that race. So a half orc who was raised as a shaman rather than a warrior would have a more physically powerful familiar, rather than bonuses to melee combat.

It wasn't always very well done, many options being just straight better than others, and the ability score modifiers were still far more impactful than they are in 5th edition, but I thought the system had potential. It increased variety without making the different playable races interchangeable.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Speaking of which, I always quite liked what Pathfinder 1 did to make different races more viable for different classes. Each race had its usual traits, but you could swap out specific ones for specific alternatives unique to that race. So a half orc who was raised as a shaman rather than a warrior would have a more physically powerful familiar, rather than bonuses to melee combat.

It wasn't always very well done, many options being just straight better than others, and the ability score modifiers were still far more impactful than they are in 5th edition, but I thought the system had potential. It increased variety without making the different playable races interchangeable.

If they want to go really crazy, add more class options as 'cultural variants'. You could practically make an entire book of these; you probably should if you want to get it to work.

So a paladin raised in a human city has distinct abilities compared to one raised in an ancient elven enclave, which is in turn different from the one from a gnomish magical university. This always could have been handled via subclass, but it seems a bit too late to do that now. It would be easier to change the base class than offer multiple takes on all the subclasses at this point, I'd think.

I imagine this would be a bit of a headache to playtest for, but having a suite of class variants would let WotC get around two problems: it opens up interesting play options for different cultures, and allows them to keep the base game simple for their wider audience while allowing higher levels of customization for their more hardcore dedicated fanbase. It's Conjure Cake as an at will ability.

[Segev]

Ok, imagine a world where a D&D race/origin doesn't carry ability score changes by default. Instead, there is a blanket +2/+1 baked into the ability score generation system, with lots of different ways to do that part. Arguably, the simplest is floating, but there are other options (class, background, etc).

A few races/origins use ability score changes as a buff or nerf to compensate for other features:
* vhuman's +2 becomes a +1,
* Mountain Dwarf's +1 becomes a +2,
* Half-elf gets an additional +1,
* Triton's +2 becomes two +1s,
* Base human is its own thing (+2 becomes two +1s and gets three additional +1s).

At that point, a small number of races/origins jump out as out of whack, and should never have been printed as is: they're the usual suspects, like Aaracokra and Yuan-Ti Pureblood. Don't use them.

(Of course, this is mechanically identical to the post-Tasha ability score generation method.)

That world has pluses and minuses vs the pre-Tasha's world.

I lament the loss of flavor documentation associated with the classic origins: graceful elves, hardy dwarves, etc.

That said, I will enjoy exploring the newly-available mechanical space of combining floating modifiers, point-buy, and race/origin features, and I think it will lead to new "fun and effective character builds". In addition, I like that people can combine the origin/race of their choice with any class and not pay game-mechanical penalties.

I’ve said it before: this would work for a new edition. But it of the kind of change that you need to build the system around, not introduce half-heartedly to an existing edition with a paradigm not built to accommodate it.

[Cybren]

Arguing that non-human races in D&D are actually different species seems like something of an ahistorical analysis of the games depiction of race. D&D races are nominally separate species, but in execution they are almost always coded after real life cultures, with humans and the most human-like demi-humans typically modelled after western cultures and the more monstrous or bestial races being coded as various indigenous or colonized peoples. The way the game actually depicts races and the tropes that it uses around race are all straight from old school 18th/19th century racists, with concepts of impure bloodlines, divine curses, naturally inferior intellect or capacity for moral reason all justifying violence and plunder. The only difference between how D&D depicts race and how actual racists conceptualized race in real recent history, is that in D&D those justifications of violence are all true.

And that's the whole problem.


(Incidentally I also do not think changing the way one constructs and derives their initial ability score bonuses and starting goodies needs to be something relegated to an entire edition change. The game is already balanced around vhumans having a huge variety of modular choices, and expanding the modularity and number of choices doesn't change the balance of that, especially considering there's already enough combination of ability scores and goodies that you could probably already do what you wanted.)

[Segev]

Arguing that non-human races in D&D are actually different species seems like something of an ahistorical analysis of the games depiction of race. D&D races are nominally separate species, but in execution they are almost always coded after real life cultures, with humans and the most human-like demi-humans typically modelled after western cultures and the more monstrous or bestial races being coded as various indigenous or colonized peoples. The way the game actually depicts races and the tropes that it uses around race are all straight from old school 18th/19th century racists, with concepts of impure bloodlines, divine curses, naturally inferior intellect or capacity for moral reason all justifying violence and plunder. The only difference between how D&D depicts race and how actual racists conceptualized race in real recent history, is that in D&D those justifications of violence are all true.

And that's the whole problem.


(Incidentally I also do not think changing the way one constructs and derives their initial ability score bonuses and starting goodies needs to be something relegated to an entire edition change. The game is already balanced around vhumans having a huge variety of modular choices, and expanding the modularity and number of choices doesn't change the balance of that, especially considering there's already enough combination of ability scores and goodies that you could probably already do what you wanted.)

And doing away with racial modifiers to stats fixes this?

This complaint won’t be satisfied until we have no races in D&D at all.

[Cybren]

I think you can critically engage with these topics without uncritically replicating the things that actual people actually used to justify immeasurable human suffering. That is to say, you could handle serious and heavy material in a game, but you need to be conscious of what you are doing and what the things you are saying are true mean. If the games mechanics and narrative both make the argument "knits make lice", well, then they are in poor company. If people within the game say that, it might make the game a bit too heavy for some people who prefer more escapism, but it's at least engaging with the idea instead of drunkenly stepping in it.

[x3n0n]

I’ve said it before: this would work for a new edition. But it of the kind of change that you need to build the system around, not introduce half-heartedly to an existing edition with a paradigm not built to accommodate it.

I guess I don't know where "half-heartedly" comes into it, or what in the rest of the system needs to change in order to accept PCs with stats that can be point-bought in this system but can't be point-bought in the old one.

[False God]

And doing away with racial modifiers to stats fixes this?

This complaint won’t be satisfied until we have no races in D&D at all.

{Scrubbed}

[Pex]

Arguing that non-human races in D&D are actually different species seems like something of an ahistorical analysis of the games depiction of race. D&D races are nominally separate species, but in execution they are almost always coded after real life cultures, with humans and the most human-like demi-humans typically modelled after western cultures and the more monstrous or bestial races being coded as various indigenous or colonized peoples. The way the game actually depicts races and the tropes that it uses around race are all straight from old school 18th/19th century racists, with concepts of impure bloodlines, divine curses, naturally inferior intellect or capacity for moral reason all justifying violence and plunder. The only difference between how D&D depicts race and how actual racists conceptualized race in real recent history, is that in D&D those justifications of violence are all true.

And that's the whole problem.


(Incidentally I also do not think changing the way one constructs and derives their initial ability score bonuses and starting goodies needs to be something relegated to an entire edition change. The game is already balanced around vhumans having a huge variety of modular choices, and expanding the modularity and number of choices doesn't change the balance of that, especially considering there's already enough combination of ability scores and goodies that you could probably already do what you wanted.)

It is poor thinking like this that put WOTC in this mess in the first place trying to pacify the vocal agitators, and no one was complaining about this in regards to D&D anyway. WOTC did it to themselves trying to make themselves feel good. Sometimes a +2 DX is just a +2 DX to represent being more graceful than a standard human because the race just is on average. It's just a number, no political inference intended or referenced. The game has changed a lot since its first inception, so it's not off the table to discuss whether the game math of racial modifiers should remain as a matter of game design. Moving them to class modifiers is an idea, but there was never any sinister conspiracy to keep people in their place. There was no problem. A more graceful race could then be represented as always proficient in Acrobatics perhaps.

[zinycor]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Hahahaha good one there :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[cutlery]

It is poor thinking like this that put WOTC in this mess in the first place trying to pacify the vocal agitators, and no one was complaining about this in regards to D&D anyway.

I had conversations with friends less pale than me as early as the early-to-mid 90's about half orcs and drow and their stat modifiers and MM tendency towards evil. It was an issue, it just wasn't my issue. Or, I suspect, an issue for most complaining about it. There already were races in the game culturally coded like themselves with "good" alignments, non-negative modifiers, and positive modifiers that didn't replicate tropes and stereotypes about race.

Player: "I want to roll a half-orc paladin."
DM: "You can't, half-orcs are evil."

They've come a long way since, but there are still some things to clear up. This is them patch fixing it before 6.0.

[HolyDraconus]

Player: "I want to roll a half-orc paladin."
DM: "You can't, half-orcs are evil."



From my experience, the DM would answer instead, "are you going Tyranny, Cruelty, or Freedom? "

As for this subject, Segev is right. This change is stupid and doesn't do what it says it does. I would give a real world example of this, but I'm fairly certain this thread is one off joke from being locked because of those things.

[MaxWilson]

I had conversations with friends less pale than me as early as the early-to-mid 90's about half orcs and drow and their stat modifiers and MM tendency towards evil. It was an issue, it just wasn't my issue. Or, I suspect, an issue for most complaining about it.

Are you saying you think you know how pale I am based on my opinions about Tasha's? (No, you don't.)

[cutlery]

From my experience, the DM would answer instead, "are you going Tyranny, Cruelty, or Freedom? "



This was AD&D era; and this is era from which many of our current ideas of things like paladins are derived.



As for this subject, Segev is right. This change is stupid and doesn't do what it says it does. I would give a real world example of this, but I'm fairly certain this thread is one off joke from being locked because of those things.

It decouples stat modifiers from player races; and that's what it says it does.

I suspect the folks at WotC have begun to realize that if you are going to have racially and culturally coded races in game (and to be fair, that's much easier than creating them whole cloth), the safest thing to do in the current climate is for there to be no ability modifiers tied to it. As noted above, many of the races in the game are culturally coded, so this is the smart thing to do from a marketing standpoint.

Anyone is free to homebrew their own setting where old ability modifiers exist, of course, and munchkin powergamers were going to play something like Aarakocra or Yuan-Ti if they could, anyway.


Are you saying you think you know how pale I am based on my opinions about Tasha's? (No, you don't.)

I said I suspect an issue for most.

I'm not able to make a statement of certainty for all, so I didn't make one.

[Lord Raziere]

the real problem here, is that honestly? everyone is looking at DnD races from their own perspective, not the design perspective.

Looking at DnD races from the system perspective....none of them impact it all that much. not compared to classes. Not even the most optimal race in the system. you could play any class with any race just fine. Tasha's only emphasizes what is already true- and thus emphasizes what is already valued by DnD.

and from what the system values its clear: its values the progression of a character's skill and experience from levels 1-20 over the features of a races biology. In terms of nature vs. nurture, DnD heavily favors nurture. even if we include the sorcerer as an example of "nature" due to its abilities being bloodline based, they still need to gain experience to unlock more of their abilities and thus need to be nurtured into being unlocked. every other class is even more obvious of being examples of nurture and teaching over someone's nature.

DnD devotes the most design space to these classes, to how someone grows in skill, experience and hard work, not talent or inborn abilities. the races exist and acknowledge that the inborn talents EXIST, but they aren't as important as the levels you gain. the system thus implicitly says that what is truly important is not where you come from, but what you do and are taught to do that matters.

Thus all the people talking about making the races more alien or more interesting or whatnot are missing the entire point of the system as it has been designed for over three editions by now: the default assumption of the core books is that your playable race is nothing but a starting point, a relatively minor thing compared to your profession your class. the fact that 5e added backgrounds only further favors nurture as it adds an additional if minor form of nurture that informs your character as more than just another specimen of their species. to ask for more nature influence is to change the very structure of the game itself which we don't have room for, which DnD clearly does not care about portraying. it doesn't matter if a races certain nature is the norm, DnD clearly takes the stance that Nurture is the more important force in its universe and therefore its rules are simply being updated to reflect that better.

Which doesn't mean that nature is unimportant or should be gotten rid of entirely just because its relatively minor compared to Nurture. but that fundamentally, if a human somehow gets a flight speed, it doesn't matter because you can explain it as them being transformed to have wings by a spell rather than it a racial thing. its a backstory after all, so anything can happen in it as long as it makes sense and isn't too ridiculous.

Does this stance of Nurture over Nature cut off some stories? Yes probably. But that isn't DnD's concern. DnD is not concerned with telling stories about how Nature influences people, but how Nurture triumphs over Nature. otherwise it wouldn't have entire races devoted to the concept of good people struggling with and overcoming their base natures, such as drow, half orcs and tieflings. Thus DnD simply has a strong theme of Nurture over Nature and is modifying itself to better emphasize that theme. There is no need to get politics involved in such a discussion of theme, let us get back to the topic at hand.

[Valmark]

the real problem here, is that honestly? everyone is looking at DnD races from their own perspective, not the design perspective.

Looking at DnD races from the system perspective....none of them impact it all that much. not compared to classes. Not even the most optimal race in the system. you could play any class with any race just fine. Tasha's only emphasizes what is already true- and thus emphasizes what is already valued by DnD.

and from what the system values its clear: its values the progression of a character's skill and experience from levels 1-20 over the features of a races biology. In terms of nature vs. nurture, DnD heavily favors nurture. even if we include the sorcerer as an example of "nature" due to its abilities being bloodline based, they still need to gain experience to unlock more of their abilities and thus need to be nurtured into being unlocked. every other class is even more obvious of being examples of nurture and teaching over someone's nature.

DnD devotes the most design space to these classes, to how someone grows in skill, experience and hard work, not talent or inborn abilities. the races exist and acknowledge that the inborn talents EXIST, but they aren't as important as the levels you gain. the system thus implicitly says that what is truly important is not where you come from, but what you do and are taught to do that matters.

Thus all the people talking about making the races more alien or more interesting or whatnot are missing the entire point of the system as it has been designed for over three editions by now: the default assumption of the core books is that your playable race is nothing but a starting point, a relatively minor thing compared to your profession your class. the fact that 5e added backgrounds only further favors nurture as it adds an additional if minor form of nurture that informs your character as more than just another specimen of their species. to ask for more nature influence is to change the very structure of the game itself which we don't have room for, which DnD clearly does not care about portraying. it doesn't matter if a races certain nature is the norm, DnD clearly takes the stance that Nurture is the more important force in its universe and therefore its rules are simply being updated to reflect that better.

Which doesn't mean that nature is unimportant or should be gotten rid of entirely just because its relatively minor compared to Nurture. but that fundamentally, if a human somehow gets a flight speed, it doesn't matter because you can explain it as them being transformed to have wings by a spell rather than it a racial thing. its a backstory after all, so anything can happen in it as long as it makes sense and isn't too ridiculous.

Does this stance of Nurture over Nature cut off some stories? Yes probably. But that isn't DnD's concern. DnD is not concerned with telling stories about how Nature influences people, but how Nurture triumphs over Nature. otherwise it wouldn't have entire races devoted to the concept of good people struggling with and overcoming their base natures, such as drow, half orcs and tieflings. Thus DnD simply has a strong theme of Nurture over Nature and is modifying itself to better emphasize that theme. There is no need to get politics involved in such a discussion of theme, let us get back to the topic at hand.

I'm not sure how making the Nature part more relevant by opening more combos makes the Nurture part more relevant?

Plus, it depends on races. Unless you really believe that for example magic resistance isn't a big deal? Or crit fishing builds based on half-orcs?

Or talking more specifically about stat attributes, being able to place the +2 where you want it to save up on the ASI seems pretty relevant design wise.

Don't get me wrong, you are correct saying that involving politics is useless, I was addressing the thing about Nature being a minor thing.

[cutlery]

Does this stance of Nurture over Nature cut off some stories? Yes probably. But that isn't DnD's concern. DnD is not concerned with telling stories about how Nature influences people, but how Nurture triumphs over Nature. otherwise it wouldn't have entire races devoted to the concept of good people struggling with and overcoming their base natures, such as drow, half orcs and tieflings. Thus DnD simply has a strong theme of Nurture over Nature and is modifying itself to better emphasize that theme. There is no need to get politics involved in such a discussion of theme, let us get back to the topic at hand.

I think ideas about nature and nurture are at the heart of some strong emotions about classes, too - such as the sorcerer and psionics (in their various iterations in 3 and 5e). And while its true you as a player develop a character, the fluff for those classes is all about unlocking inner potential, whatever that means. So you can have a mostly nurture character in the same party as a mostly nature one; at least as far as their backstory and power source is concerned.

I agree that dnd isn't the best medium to wrestle with those sorts of ideas; but I think strong thoughts about that are why this feels like a cynical political move to many.

The press has been largely positive, though, so as marketing it seems like a win - which is why I wasn't surprised to see the rules added to AL early.

[HolyDraconus]

This was AD&D era; and this is era from which many of our current ideas of things like paladins are derived. The first three words I put was "from my experience". That already should of been a clue that our experiences are different. I also dispute your claim on paladins in this edition being derived from adnd when you can still be a lawful evil, chaotic good, chaotic evil paladin in this edition, which is more inline with the supplemental paladins from 3.x splat books.




It decouples stat modifiers from player races; and that's what it says it does. It doesn't though. You still have stats. You still have modifiers. Changing up where they go doesn't destroy that fact: so it does not do what it says it does. If they wanted to decouple stats from races, then do what Paizo did and make it a background/class choice. This... thing... that they chose screams of lip service to appease a mass.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not sure how making the Nature part more relevant by opening more combos makes the Nurture part more relevant?

Plus, it depends on races. Unless you really believe that for example magic resistance isn't a big deal? Or crit fishing builds based on half-orcs?

Or talking more specifically about stat attributes, being able to place the +2 where you want it to save up on the ASI seems pretty relevant design wise.

Don't get me wrong, you are correct saying that involving politics is useless, I was addressing the thing about Nature being a minor thing.

My reasoning is that the change makes NURTURE more relevant because honestly you could refluff the racial switch outs as anything. Birth is only one method of acquiring an advantage, and often a limited one compared to all the way you can acquire something using Not-Birth. that magic resistance could be acquired by say being exposed to magic like poisons in small doses which then gives you a resistance over time or some plain old permanent magical enchantment, a crit-fishing thing could explain as concerted training to find weak spots, it can be anything, and this kind of reasoning is not unique to post-Tasha character building: say you wanted to make an elf that somehow grew up in a non-elven culture you'd have to somehow explain through Nurture how they learned the elven language anyways even though they weren't born near anyone who spoke it. unless you argue that all elves are somehow born know how to speak elven, which is just absurd as assuming that switching out something in the racial feats using Tasha's rules somehow means the human or other being was born that way, when honestly race in DnD has always had the flaw of being a mix of traits Natural and Nurtured anyways, so you can't even say that Race is a pure Nature part of DnD.

and if you really want to make these traits inborn no matter how absurd (at least to me) it is to do, why not literally fluff the changes as some wizard surgically grafting the traits from other people to you like a science experiment? there is nothing saying that ISN'T possible, after all half-races are a thing, why not have your human be grafted on an elven arm to do something you believe is elven? if it feels stitched together like a frankenstein, perhaps it because that is exactly whats happening and there is a story behind why your some frankensteinian grab-bag of other species added on top of you. how fitting for halloween.

while a +2 adds up only to +1 in the actual ability score in rolls of d20's, meaning its only a 5% difference. while the stats outside of racial scores are more so if those ability scores outside of the racial bonuses aren't from race...they are more probably from practice. you could argue they could also represent talent above and beyond what a race provides, though levels in 5e allow you to improve you ability scores even further, which makes more sense for training them.

thing is, just because a race is mechanically important for a few builds, doesn't mean they are important to the system in general. I don't really care about the high optimization aspects of this that the designers probably never intended. I'm talking about the intended themes of DnD, but just for the sake of it, I would point out such inborn racial traits would be irrelevant if not for the great amount of experience, hard work and skill required to make them relevant, as these builds often assume the character levels all the way to 20, which by then whatever racial feature you point to is really just the cherry on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae, its just you don't get most of the ice cream to put it on until later. sure it doesn't work with any other race, but you still have the whole class to use without it.

@ cutlery: it doesn't matter if it is or not, we are not here to discuss that. so please, stop doing so.

[Dankus Memakus]

So I'm going to avoid the politics on this topic and switch more to the game balance issue. For those of you worried about the floating stat bonuses I'd like to say that my group has been practicing those ideas since 5e has come out honestly and it has NEVER broken the game. All in all. Stats don't really matter. They don't change the game that much. In reality a wizard spell is more likely to break the game much more than a flimsy plus 1 to a stat.

For those of you who just like the traditional way more. I get it. I once thought similarly. It's an optional rule and you are free to never use it but really it doesn't change all that much. Maybe try it once or twice.

[EggKookoo]

Funny thing is, in my homebrew setting, most PC races are, in fact, offshoots of humanity. I thought I was doing something unusual and different. Little did I know that was (apparently) RAI.

[Segev]

I guess I don't know where "half-heartedly" comes into it, or what in the rest of the system needs to change in order to accept PCs with stats that can be point-bought in this system but can't be point-bought in the old one.It's "half-heartedly" because all they're mucking about with is the numbers in a way that is pure power creep in a largely meaningless way...that harms some minor balance points.

If the races are to be balanced without considering their stat modifiers, then they need rethinking entirely.

And please don't assert that the argument against it has anything to do with statlines previously possible becoming impossible to get under the change. That's not what anybody has claimed. What has been claimed is that the previously-minmaxed "half-elf fighter" is now less min-maxed than he could be, and the pressure to make fewer half-elf fighters because there are slightly better race choices if you want to min-max them to the hilt is gone.

This is by design, and the design goal here is bad. It is just as bad - if certainly not to the same degree of game-breaking - as a design goal to give character freedom that lets a character choose as many class features as he wants from as many classes as he wants at every level. After all, that, too, increases the flexibility and kinds of characters one can make!


So I'm going to avoid the politics on this topic and switch more to the game balance issue. For those of you worried about the floating stat bonuses I'd like to say that my group has been practicing those ideas since 5e has come out honestly and it has NEVER broken the game. All in all. Stats don't really matter. They don't change the game that much. In reality a wizard spell is more likely to break the game much more than a flimsy plus 1 to a stat.

For those of you who just like the traditional way more. I get it. I once thought similarly. It's an optional rule and you are free to never use it but really it doesn't change all that much. Maybe try it once or twice.

Reasonable. I still think it bad design, at least in 5e where the races were initially designed with stat mods in mind.

Honestly, if this optional rule were framed as a way for DMs to help players customize particular characters, or to tweak races for differing cultural approaches or something, I'd not be upset in the slightest. But this is the kind of thing that should be "DM workshop" stuff, not "here's some variant chargen rules for players to use unless the DM says otherwise."

[RifleAvenger]

This sloppy, half-way stuff just to throw a bone to a certain loud group of complainers whom I question being as many of WotC's customers as their loudness seems to convince people of is just bad design.

Real sick of seeing this spurious argument that anyone who cares about problematic social/economic depictions in media must be some kind of sinister outsider who doesn't actually engage with the media. It's a self-deceiving mental trick to avoid acknowledging such opinions are common enough that it's more profitable for major corporations to give lip service to them than ignore or oppose them, even in the face of institutional and genre inertia.

The vast majority of players at tables I run or attend care deeply about the problem racial essentialism poses in D&D, down to making its deconstruction the focal point of adventures and even an entire campaign. I'm sure yours don't, but that just highlights the risk in assuming motivation and level of experience based on anecdotal evidence.

It is true that the Tasha changes don't get to the heart of the real issue, which is entire groups of sapient people being written as mono-cultural, Always Evil, acceptable targets for player character violence. Bonus points if they're coded to resemble a real world stereotype. Goblins being written as universally vile sadists, so that PCs don't have to think about the ethics of breaking into goblin settlements and murdering everyone inside, is a way bigger problem than where the +2 goes.

{Scrubbed}

[x3n0n]

It's "half-heartedly" because all they're mucking about with is the numbers in a way that is pure power creep in a largely meaningless way...that harms some minor balance points.

If the races are to be balanced without considering their stat modifiers, then they need rethinking entirely.

And please don't assert that the argument against it has anything to do with statlines previously possible becoming impossible to get under the change. That's not what anybody has claimed. What has been claimed is that the previously-minmaxed "half-elf fighter" is now less min-maxed than he could be, and the pressure to make fewer half-elf fighters because there are slightly better race choices if you want to min-max them to the hilt is gone.

This is by design, and the design goal here is bad. It is just as bad - if certainly not to the same degree of game-breaking - as a design goal to give character freedom that lets a character choose as many class features as he wants from as many classes as he wants at every level. After all, that, too, increases the flexibility and kinds of characters one can make!


Thank you! I think this summarizes our disagreement clearly. Please correct me if I have anything wrong.

This change increases the potential relevant starting stats for characters of a previously "unaligned" race/class pair, generally by 1 mod point, or even 1 and 1 for a double-unaligned MAD class. I find this to be a welcome boost, and you do not.

(Jeremy has also said explicitly that the races were intended to be balanced around having +2/+1, with the already-noted exceptions, regardless of where those increases are assigned. If you think he's lying, that's fine, but make the claim out loud.)

If the ability score part of this change has other in-game mechanical effects, I don't see them.

(I also don't think you can possibly believe your last paragraph. Allowing players to subtract one or two points from one ability score to add those points to another score is not remotely the same as gestalt characters, free multiclassing, level skipping, free feats, or anything of the sort.)

[False God]

This is by design, and the design goal here is bad. It is just as bad - if certainly not to the same degree of game-breaking - as a design goal to give character freedom that lets a character choose as many class features as he wants from as many classes as he wants at every level. After all, that, too, increases the flexibility and kinds of characters one can make!

These continual straw-men do not aid your arguments.

[Segev]

Edit away: Ah, screw it. Deleting this; I don't know that I can successfully restrain myself to forum-legal topics while discussing it, so I withdraw from the conversation.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What I want, more than anything, on this topic is for people to leave their real-world concerns at the door and enter a fantasy world whose concerns are different. Forcing real-world concerns onto the fantasy ruins it for me--if I wanted real world stuff, I'd go outside. It devalues the fantasy world and makes it just another boring analogy for the same real world stuff we see every day. Can't we have a few hours rest from all that?

I feel the same no matter what side or what issue you're dealing with. While you're in a game, try to treat the world as if it was its own thing. Not an allegory, not a political statement, not a psychological exploration of the real-world human psyche, but a world in its own right, with its own history, logic, laws of nature, cultures, etc.

[RifleAvenger]

I...don't think I can respond to this and stay in the bounds of forum rules, so I'll just say that I think it's superficial, but "cynical" is not the word I would use to explain the motivation. This is the company that fired all the MtG writers, handed off the conclusion of a decades-long arc to a writer with no knowledge of the setting or characters because he was famous elsewhere, and had him tactlessly end a homosexual romance because it was bad for market growth in China. I also felt that 5e backslid on how it depicted race and culture in its games compared to 3e and 4e, looking at the Monster Manual and Volo's.

If not strictly cynical, then certainly not sincere either.


What I want, more than anything, on this topic is for people to leave their real-world concerns at the door and enter a fantasy world whose concerns are different. Forcing real-world concerns onto the fantasy ruins it for me--if I wanted real world stuff, I'd go outside. It devalues the fantasy world and makes it just another boring analogy for the same real world stuff we see every day. Can't we have a few hours rest from all that?

I feel the same no matter what side or what issue you're dealing with. While you're in a game, try to treat the world as if it was its own thing. Not an allegory, not a political statement, not a psychological exploration of the real-world human psyche, but a world in its own right, with its own history, logic, laws of nature, cultures, etc.

And I heavily disagree. My thoughts are closer to something The Giant once posted, which I think paraphrased was something like: 'fiction is only meaningful in how it reflects the human condition. Anything else is petty escapism.' I don't play games to escape the world or turn off my brain, I do it to gain perspective on the one I actually live in. (Ok, that's not entirely true, I can fight for equity and justice in games and measurably succeed by my individual efforts, unlike real life.)

Besides, the worlds human minds create will only be a microcosm of the minds that created them. Thus, the issues facing most fantasy worlds are, literally or allegorically, the same issues facing ours. I feel no need to pretend otherwise.

[EggKookoo]

Can't we have a few hours rest from all that?

In one of the previous threads on this topic, a person posted how "it's never just a game." When I lamented how that meant there's no escape from people injecting real-world sociopolitical perspective into our entertainment, that very same person accused me of applying the slippery slope argument.

[zinycor]

In one of the previous threads on this topic, a person posted how "it's never just a game." When I lamented how that meant there's no escape from people injecting real-world sociopolitical perspective into our entertainment, that very same person accused me of applying the slippery slope argument.

I remember that *******.

[Lord Raziere]

What I want, more than anything, on this topic is for people to leave their real-world concerns at the door and enter a fantasy world whose concerns are different. Forcing real-world concerns onto the fantasy ruins it for me--if I wanted real world stuff, I'd go outside. It devalues the fantasy world and makes it just another boring analogy for the same real world stuff we see every day. Can't we have a few hours rest from all that?

I feel the same no matter what side or what issue you're dealing with. While you're in a game, try to treat the world as if it was its own thing. Not an allegory, not a political statement, not a psychological exploration of the real-world human psyche, but a world in its own right, with its own history, logic, laws of nature, cultures, etc.

Okay. it is its own thing. But just because is its own thing doesn't mean I can't make a character who finds it all unjust for reasons incredibly similar to my own because of certain experiences demonstrating WHY someone in setting would find it unjust for their own reasons, and thus want to change the setting so that its better. and that if you want me to accept the setting as something to play in as that character rather than something to change with that character, your going to have to change that setting so that I don't have to.

Thing is, I don't think anyone here wants Dnd to go full depressing subjective grey vs. grey morality. that is not what anyone is proposing by these changes. DnD races being more morally diverse and such =/= real life morality.

you can have objective morality and action heroics without tying the mooks to genetics.

[Valmark]

My reasoning is that the change makes NURTURE more relevant because honestly you could refluff the racial switch outs as anything. Birth is only one method of acquiring an advantage, and often a limited one compared to all the way you can acquire something using Not-Birth. that magic resistance could be acquired by say being exposed to magic like poisons in small doses which then gives you a resistance over time or some plain old permanent magical enchantment, a crit-fishing thing could explain as concerted training to find weak spots, it can be anything, and this kind of reasoning is not unique to post-Tasha character building: say you wanted to make an elf that somehow grew up in a non-elven culture you'd have to somehow explain through Nurture how they learned the elven language anyways even though they weren't born near anyone who spoke it. unless you argue that all elves are somehow born know how to speak elven, which is just absurd as assuming that switching out something in the racial feats using Tasha's rules somehow means the human or other being was born that way, when honestly race in DnD has always had the flaw of being a mix of traits Natural and Nurtured anyways, so you can't even say that Race is a pure Nature part of DnD.

and if you really want to make these traits inborn no matter how absurd (at least to me) it is to do, why not literally fluff the changes as some wizard surgically grafting the traits from other people to you like a science experiment? there is nothing saying that ISN'T possible, after all half-races are a thing, why not have your human be grafted on an elven arm to do something you believe is elven? if it feels stitched together like a frankenstein, perhaps it because that is exactly whats happening and there is a story behind why your some frankensteinian grab-bag of other species added on top of you. how fitting for halloween.

while a +2 adds up only to +1 in the actual ability score in rolls of d20's, meaning its only a 5% difference. while the stats outside of racial scores are more so if those ability scores outside of the racial bonuses aren't from race...they are more probably from practice. you could argue they could also represent talent above and beyond what a race provides, though levels in 5e allow you to improve you ability scores even further, which makes more sense for training them.

thing is, just because a race is mechanically important for a few builds, doesn't mean they are important to the system in general. I don't really care about the high optimization aspects of this that the designers probably never intended. I'm talking about the intended themes of DnD, but just for the sake of it, I would point out such inborn racial traits would be irrelevant if not for the great amount of experience, hard work and skill required to make them relevant, as these builds often assume the character levels all the way to 20, which by then whatever racial feature you point to is really just the cherry on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae, its just you don't get most of the ice cream to put it on until later. sure it doesn't work with any other race, but you still have the whole class to use without it.

@ cutlery: it doesn't matter if it is or not, we are not here to discuss that. so please, stop doing so.

I'm not sure I get your argument. You're saying that the Nurture side matters more with these changes because you can refluff the racial stuff, correct?

You can just refluff anything you get from the class (or various features of the races that are presumably a Nurture thing) making it something more related to the Nature of the character too if you so wanted.

It's something you could always do. Am I missing something?

[EggKookoo]

I remember that *******.

I prefer not to view it as a personal thing. I've liked that poster's content and have had other productive conversations with him (I think him?). I've had good conversations since. People just get wrapped up.

My point was to say that for some factions in this debate, it's not just about their position. It's about never letting the issue rest. Because ultimately it's about control.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not sure I get your argument. You're saying that the Nurture side matters more with these changes because you can refluff the racial stuff, correct?

You can just refluff anything you get from the class (or various features of the races that are presumably a Nurture thing) making it something more related to the Nature of the character too if you so wanted.

It's something you could always do. Am I missing something?

I'm saying that the class and level system shows DnD heavily favors the Nurture side, because most of the progression of the game is assumed to be the result of your experiences and not some random inborn biological talent. If it was, you wouldn't need to practice or grow, you'd just naturally have a +13 or whatever in something from the start. and you can't argue that these abilities are tied to your biological growth, because instead of levels it'd be tied to how many years you have lived instead and thus how far long your physical body is in natural processes, which occur regardless of what actions you take. thus most of the system is nurture and thus favors it as DnD has for years.

[Segev]

I'm saying that the class and level system shows DnD heavily favors the Nurture side, because most of the progression of the game is assumed to be the result of your experiences and not some random inborn biological talent. If it was, you wouldn't need to practice or grow, you'd just naturally have a +13 or whatever in something from the start. and you can't argue that these abilities are tied to your biological growth, because instead of levels it'd be tied to how many years you have lived instead and thus how far long your physical body is in natural processes, which occur regardless of what actions you take. thus most of the system is nurture and thus favors it as DnD has for years.

And it seems like we're being told that anything BUT the nurture side makes us bad people for liking them. Or daring explore them at all.

[Lord Raziere]

And it seems like we're being told that anything BUT the nurture side makes us bad people for liking them. Or daring explore them at all.

I'm not throwing around such an accusation. I am merely stating that history of DnD has trended towards a certain direction of strongly favoring Nurture. And that it doesn't care all that much about the Nature part. Now, you are free to explore such things- but they aren't canon, fundamentally speaking. Canonically, a half-orc is supposed to and does overcome its base urges to be a better person through their decisions that an intended story they are supposed to tell.

Your not a bad person for disagreeing with the canonical progression of how a character develops, but you can't really say your playing canonical DnD, or an experience that DnD intends to tell. DnD intends for race to not be that important, as shown by how its designed in its class and level progression, therefore all your guilty of is thinking DnD is something its not, and therefore putting the wrong assumptions on it. your headcanons about elves and dwarves are interesting but thats all they are- headcanons. they are not valid pieces of actual DnD lore or represent the stories that DnD is meant to tell.

therefore you can explore them, and your not wrong to do so, but your not playing canonical DnD.

[Valmark]

I'm saying that the class and level system shows DnD heavily favors the Nurture side, because most of the progression of the game is assumed to be the result of your experiences and not some random inborn biological talent. If it was, you wouldn't need to practice or grow, you'd just naturally have a +13 or whatever in something from the start. and you can't argue that these abilities are tied to your biological growth, because instead of levels it'd be tied to how many years you have lived instead and thus how far long your physical body is in natural processes, which occur regardless of what actions you take. thus most of the system is nurture and thus favors it as DnD has for years.

...alright, we agree on this, but then my question becomes the same as before- in what way does making the racial +1s and/or +2s free to position favor Nurture over Nature?

And saying that you can refluff the variable +1s as Nurture now just goes back to being already able of refluffing anything as anything else and then the distinction becomes meaningless.

Sure, I can say that my elf with +2 strenght has been doing stuff completely different from other elves or maybe that he has been grown by dragonborns (nurture), but I can just as well say that my elf has +2 strenght because he comes from a population of elves that has a liking for violence and they all have +2 strenght from developing stronger muscles through generations (nature), just like I could say that the basic +2 dexterity comes from being in a monastic order of monks were they all train to be agile (nurture).
Nothing changed if you got imagination on that side.

[Segev]

I'm not throwing around such an accusation. I am merely stating that history of DnD has trended towards a certain direction of strongly favoring Nurture. And that it doesn't care all that much about the Nature part.

This seems contrary to all arguments for why it's important to remove nurture from the game. If D&D doesn't care about it, then why does it have it?

[Lord Raziere]

This seems contrary to all arguments for why it's important to remove nurture from the game. If D&D doesn't care about it, then why does it have it?

you mean nature?

What arguments to remove nature? I don't see any. Thats not something that I've seen anyone argue. And if you brought up proof that someone did, it wouldn't be canonical DnD either.

Nor did I say that doesn't care entirely I said "doesn't care all that much" its cares a little, and thats all your going to get, probably. given what we've seen of how races are designed in DnD.

@ Valmark: Okay but.....why does that matter to you? so its a minor refluff one way or another, why are your harping on this?

[Valmark]

you mean nature?

What arguments to remove nature? I don't see any. Thats not something that I've seen anyone argue. And if you brought up proof that someone did, it wouldn't be canonical DnD either.

Nor did I say that doesn't care entirely I said "doesn't care all that much" its cares a little, and thats all your going to get, probably. given what we've seen of how races are designed in DnD.

@ Valmark: Okay but.....why does that matter to you? so its a minor refluff one way or another, why are your harping on this?

Oh, no, I apologize if it looked like I was making a big deal out of it, didn't mean to. You said the change makes the Nurture side more relevant compared to the Nature and I didn't get it, so I was trying to do just that (which is also why I mentioned being unsure if I understood correctly what you said).

[Segev]

you mean nature?

What arguments to remove nature? I don't see any. Thats not something that I've seen anyone argue. Then I entirely misunderstand your argument for why removing racial stat modifiers is a good thing, or at least okay. It seemed to me you were saying that, because D&D doesn't care about nature (and yes, that's what I meant, sorry for saying "nurture"), it doesn't matter if nature is removed from it.


Nor did I say that doesn't care entirely I said "doesn't care all that much" its cares a little, and thats all your going to get, probably. given what we've seen of how races are designed in DnD.But why is it that if it "doesn't care much, but it does care exactly as much as has been shown by including it," it's fine to remove more of it (but suggesting removing all of it by the same logic is going too far)?

This is sounding like a "just so" argument to me. "It's okay because it doesn't represent a change even though it does, but the change is itself so it's fine to make it." If that makes little sense, then you understand why I am confused by your argument. I am sure that's not what you're saying. But it's what I'm getting, and that's how I know I must not be understanding you.


@ Valmark: Okay but.....why does that matter to you? so its a minor refluff one way or another, why are your harping on this?
Why does this matter to you? If it's a minor refluff one way or the other, why are you supporting this change?


It matters to me because it IS a subtle pressure to explain why the "types" are there. But it's minor enough not to truly matter if somebody wants to play against type. While being enough that your playing against type is an interesting choice, rather than just...anything any min/maxer could do.

Or, to really simplify it: this rule reduces the number of meaningful choices you can make. Sure, it increases your options. But so does allowing a character to cast any and as many spells as he wants at any point, his turn or otherwise. Does that increase the meaningful number of choices, though? No. Meaningful choices have trade-offs. Reducing trade-offs reduces meaningful choices. (There's obviously a balancing act, but D&D had that, and this tilts it off-balance from what was there before.)

[Veldrenor]

Opinions?

I like what we've seen of the Tasha's variant racial rules. Racial ability score bonuses and skill/tool/language proficiencies are, post character creation, pretty ineffective at establishing or reinforcing racial identities or distinctiveness. Since they're not particularly good at doing what they're supposed to, and there are players who have less fun playing the game because of their existence, an optional rule allowing players to change them seems fine to me.

[Dork_Forge]

What do you foresee happening?


I predict any semblance of balance being thrown out with the bath water and any idea of a centralised game going with it as things become increasingly random and DM dependent with WotC throwing rules out that are basically do what you want. That isn't why we play a game.

I'll start with races, up to this point 5e has, in my opinion, suffered greatly from racial bloat. We have a stupendously large amount of races and subraces, especially in regards to the subclasses etc. that have been released in comparison. These races and subraces come with their own abilties and benefits and have the brakes somewhat applied to them by their racials mods acting as somewhat of an optimisation hindrance. Now we have this large catelogue of racial options and WotC are now just saying do what you want with those mods, heck change your proficiencies to taste whilst you're at it. We get the obvious problems of Mountain Dwarves and Half Elves, but now we have other issues such as Dragonmarks, with their trait adding spells to lists further undermining the sense of balance and niche spell lists created to begin with. It's a sloppy, lazy reaction to an ungame related situation that has profound effects on the edition.

The other previews and leaks we have observed have also proved worrying, such as the unnecessary and unprecedented alteration of Extra Attack for the Blade Singer, allowing them to cast a cantrip and attack.

Rules that allow the alteration of spells, if lax enough, will throw balance further to the way side as stand out spells such as Fireball get their damage and potentially saves to more advantageous ones, leveraging abilities that were never designed to be balanced with such options.

The challenge of optimising seems to be vanishing into the setting sun and I predict DMs everywhere that allow these rules will have to cope with much more powerful parties than any other book prior to this has created alone.

[Lord Raziere]

Or, to really simplify it: this rule reduces the number of meaningful choices you can make. Sure, it increases your options. But so does allowing a character to cast any and as many spells as he wants at any point, his turn or otherwise. Does that increase the meaningful number of choices, though? No. Meaningful choices have trade-offs. Reducing trade-offs reduces meaningful choices. (There's obviously a balancing act, but D&D had that, and this tilts it off-balance from what was there before.)

meaningful choices you can make for what? your being very vague on what these "meaningful choices" are or what they are being made for.

[Pex]

Perhaps the Tasha book is where 5E jumps the shark. It could symbolize the beginning of the end of 5E when the voices of criticism get a noticeable increase loud enough to make WOTC want to make a 6E.

[EggKookoo]

Perhaps the Tasha book is where 5E jumps the shark. It could symbolize the beginning of the end of 5E when the voices of criticism get a noticeable increase loud enough to make WOTC want to make a 6E.

I would expect most of the stuff people are criticizing in Tasha's will survive almost whole cloth into a 6e.

[jas61292]

I would expect most of the stuff people are criticizing in Tasha's will survive almost whole cloth into a 6e.

I would not be surprised, but I think a lot of people, myself included, who despise these changes would like them a heck of a lot more in 6e. And the reason for that is simple. A 6e where things like racial stat modifiers simply don't exist would be an entire game designed with that in mind. And if it is well made, that could be fantastic. Maybe it won't be exactly what I want, but it could still be an excellent game.

But that is not what this is. This is a bunch of people who are supposed to be game designers saying "new rule: do whatever the hell you want, we don't care." That is not game design. Period. That is the exact opposite of game design. If this is really a serious issue, they could have taken the time to come up with new variant rules to try and mitigate the issue. But they didn't. They just threw their hands up and said "Do it yourself. But we sanction that, so its cool." In some ways, these "rules" are kinda insulting, because the existing core books already tell you that its your game, you can do what you want. We shouldn't have to pay money just for them to tell us, "no, seriously, we weren't kidding."

Personally, I like racial modifiers, but I would have nothing against a game that did not have them. This is just simply not the way to go about it.

[Segev]

meaningful choices you can make for what? your being very vague on what these "meaningful choices" are or what they are being made for.

Sorry, context comes from earlier in the thread, but I will try to summarize here as I understand not wanting to read all the way back to hunt for it.

The game-focused arguments to which I am responding with this point you characterize as "vague" amount to a claim that you couldn't play a wood elf wizard or a half-orc cleric because they don't have +2 to the appropriate casting stat (or even +1). That these rules open up those previously unusable options.

It is my contention that a choice to play a wood elf wizard who "merely" has a 15 Int to start with, rather than a 17, is more meaningful because you had to give up that extra +2 to Int in order to get whatever it was you got from playing a wood elf instead of a gnome (or high elf). It becomes less meaningful when all you're debating over is the trade-off of racial features, because you are, in fact, making less of a trade-off. It becomes nearly meaningless when your choice is merely cosmetic (which the rules don't do, even with these changes, but which some of the arguments justifying these rules would actually only be fully satisfied by going that far to address said arguments).

I do not expect this to persuade you; I am merely spelling out the context I think you were asking for. Does that provide context and make what I'm saying less vague to you? (Even if you still disagree.)

[MaXenzie]

I give zero shoots about the lore implications or justifications for why an elf could possibly be as strong as a goliath.

If it encourages my players to play new things that they're interested in, I'm all for it. I know that some of my players wanted to play odd race-class combinations but were put off by the possibility of being (at best) equal to someone's secondary stat in your primary stat. I know it doesn't feel good to have a 15 in your charisma when the rogue's packing 14 and is just as good as you for the first 4 levels.

[Lord Raziere]

Sorry, context comes from earlier in the thread, but I will try to summarize here as I understand not wanting to read all the way back to hunt for it.

The game-focused arguments to which I am responding with this point you characterize as "vague" amount to a claim that you couldn't play a wood elf wizard or a half-orc cleric because they don't have +2 to the appropriate casting stat (or even +1). That these rules open up those previously unusable options.

It is my contention that a choice to play a wood elf wizard who "merely" has a 15 Int to start with, rather than a 17, is more meaningful because you had to give up that extra +2 to Int in order to get whatever it was you got from playing a wood elf instead of a gnome (or high elf). It becomes less meaningful when all you're debating over is the trade-off of racial features, because you are, in fact, making less of a trade-off. It becomes nearly meaningless when your choice is merely cosmetic (which the rules don't do, even with these changes, but which some of the arguments justifying these rules would actually only be fully satisfied by going that far to address said arguments).

I do not expect this to persuade you; I am merely spelling out the context I think you were asking for. Does that provide context and make what I'm saying less vague to you? (Even if you still disagree.)

Hm.

Yes but here is the problem: why should there be mechanical costs for flavor? I get trade offs on a mechanical to mechanical basis or trade offs on flavor to flavor basis, but trading mechanics for flavor doesn't sit right with me. its not a fair trade, and I don't really like character creation being a game unto itself.

because here is the problem: flavor is endlessly refluffable, but mechanics cannot be altered. lets go back to Pre-Tasha's character creation for a moment, using your example of a wood elf wizard. its not meaningful to a player at all, because why not just choose high elf (the mechanical statline) and use wood elf fluff? why pick an option full of things that aren't relevant to their wizard concept? One can just fluff the "high elf" as a wood elf who focused on her studies as a wizard logically would and get the +2 Int anyways. there is no actual fluff cost unless the GM is incredibly against it for some odd reason.

but there is a mechanical trade off that can't be ignored, and if I be inflexible about the fluff.......what does that get me? I'm not interested in telling a story you want to push on me, why should I have to conform to what you think is a meaningful choice? your not proposing anything that I'd want to play with. Tasha's changes means there is one less hoop to jump through to get to what I want. instead of picking a concept, picking stats that fit then having to get fluff to connect the two, I just pick what I really want: a wood elf then change the Wisdom to Int then leave the rest untouched, thus being MORE wood elfy than if I was in pre-Tasha's character creation because I'd have to replace it with entirely different race fluffed as a wood elf.

if I want to play a wood elf wizard, its not about whether there are other options or opportunity costs- its about making sure I can effectively be that character specifically. "high elf" and "gnome" fluff are already eliminated from my mind, because its not some competition of "oooh that race has better stats! but the other has the fluff I want! Which one do I decide!?" its just "well this race has the fluff I want but not the stats.....that sucks." so its like, why bother playing it if people are going to insist on treating what race you pick like a competition? maybe some people care about that sort of thing, but I don't. to me, I'm not viewing the race and classes as a bunch of costs and tradeoffs, but a bunch of paints I can use and sometimes I want to use this color to paint something for the sake of it.

like I don't get why I would see these races as things to make.....long term strategical choices out of? they're beings that people are born as, my character doesn't choose to be born as that thing. I dunno, if it was M&M I'd just build whatever I race want using the points I got but in the absence of that, I just kind pick whatever race is cool to me at the moment? I dunno it just seems really weird to me that your insisting on it being a meaningful choice as if it part of a long term strategy and that should be.....thrilled to consider them? But I'm not? I've a feeling that if DnD intended races/species to be more meaningful, you'd have more stuff like 3.5's savage species and monster classes being printed that have much more of a mechanical effect on your character than normal races, and all their differences would mostly be combat-oriented as they always are. To be honest I'd love a rpg like that where such a thing is core focus where I could just pick any monster species or whatever as playable and have fun with their strange abilities, strengths and downsides unique to them, but I'm not sure it'd be DnD or if I'd want it to be DnD. Its just not what its focused on.

[Rakaydos]

I've heard about Tashas, but havnt been following the detailed mechanics, because 5e hasnt really been my thing. Mainly do to lack of fun non-nearhuman race options.

But my favorite D&D character, was a 4e Gnoll Wizard. In 4e, wizards had a subclass where the gnoll's con bonus improved it's subclass shield spell, and the gnoll's racial damage boosts were loosely worded enough to permit spells to benifit, if the largely melee focused requirements were met. This led to a brawny (ok, bulky) caster who wasnt afraid to mix it up in melee with a staff.

My last 5e character was a Kobold Greatsword fighter. Sure, he had disadvantage in daylight, but that didnt stack with the disadvantage from an oversized weapon, and was canceled out by the kobold pack tactics. I even with with the arcane fighter variant so the 3' tall lizard could summon his 6' sephoroth blade instead of having to justify carrying the thing around. But if I can build that kobold without a strength penalty (or even a strength bonus?), that would be a massive bonus to a build I put together because I tried to use a mechnical quirk of Advantage in an awesome way.

How many of you would deny me the ability to use this book to improve a Kobold character who already kinda works without it?

[Luccan]

I've heard about Tashas, but havnt been following the detailed mechanics, because 5e hasnt really been my thing. Mainly do to lack of fun non-nearhuman race options.

But my favorite D&D character, was a 4e Gnoll Wizard. In 4e, wizards had a subclass where the gnoll's con bonus improved it's subclass shield spell, and the gnoll's racial damage boosts were loosely worded enough to permit spells to benifit, if the largely melee focused requirements were met. This led to a brawny (ok, bulky) caster who wasnt afraid to mix it up in melee with a staff.

My last 5e character was a Kobold Greatsword fighter. Sure, he had disadvantage in daylight, but that didnt stack with the disadvantage from an oversized weapon, and was canceled out by the kobold pack tactics. I even with with the arcane fighter variant so the 3' tall lizard could summon his 6' sephoroth blade instead of having to justify carrying the thing around. But if I can build that kobold without a strength penalty (or even a strength bonus?), that would be a massive bonus to a build I put together because I tried to use a mechnical quirk of Advantage in an awesome way.

How many of you would deny me the ability to use this book to improve a Kobold character who already kinda works without it?

I actually don't think I've seen anyone in this thread argue that Kobolds (or Orcs) should keep their stat penalties. Those are almost universally disliked and I've seen calls to remove them for everything from design consistency to balance to unfortunate implications. But I think that's a slightly separate issue from letting you make your Dex bonus a Str bonus instead, at least for some people.

[AdAstra]

Yeah, having to trade mechanical effectiveness for something more or less aesthetic (from the perspective of the player) is just a bad idea, especially in the modern game design space. People want their cool ideas to be supported, and in most cases, balanced.

Pathfinder 2e kinda ran into this problem with its racial feats. A lot of the abilities that would normally be "in-built" were sectioned off into feats, but those feats weren't as good as the generic ones. That comes off as the worst of both worlds, where you have a lot of stuff locked off to certain races, but they're not even powerful enough to justify the resources required to get them. Everyone is both too similar, and too restricted.

I've talked before on this, but my opinion pretty much falls into the camp of "if you want races to actually be unique, give them unique abilities that aren't just +2s". When I see that a race can fly, or can see in the dark, or is resistant to fire, that gives me a much better understanding of what makes them different from a human than +2 Int. +2 Int doesn't make them different from humans, that just makes them like humans, but smarter, or stronger, or more wise/intuitive/perceptive, whatever that's supposed to mean. There are humans that are smarter than other humans, or stronger, or whatever, but there aren't humans who can fly.

In my view, stat increases are both too mechanically restrictive, and too lame. And frankly, I find the social/political arguments compelling as well.

[Rakaydos]

I actually don't think I've seen anyone in this thread argue that Kobolds (or Orcs) should keep their stat penalties. Those are almost universally disliked and I've seen calls to remove them for everything from design consistency to balance to unfortunate implications. But I think that's a slightly separate issue from letting you make your Dex bonus a Str bonus instead, at least for some people.

What's wrong with "kobold sorcerer-talent permanent Bulls Strength" on a magic swordsman, if it meets the mechanical restrictions on character creation?

Just because a character picked up the same trick as another race, doesn't mean they do it the same way.

(As for the "weaker than typical" dex, just pretend I rolled lower than I actually did.)

[Luccan]

What's wrong with "kobold sorcerer-talent permanent Bulls Strength" on a magic swordsman, if it meets the mechanical restrictions on character creation?

Just because a character picked up the same trick as another race, doesn't mean they do it the same way.

(As for the "weaker than typical" dex, just pretend I rolled lower than I actually did.)

I mean, I don't really care about switching racial modifiers around at this point, I was just trying to illustrate that most people don't have a problem with getting rid of the penalty to Strength. Even those who don't like the free-floating bonuses.

[astral]

I know they used the word "diversity" about 500 times while explaining why they added it, and I know every munchkin will now only play mountain dwarves, but honestly I'm pretty happy.
There were a lot of characters I wanted to play really badly, but didn't because they were just bad due to not having the right racial ASIs. Now, that won't really be a problem anymore. Aasimar fighter, here I come!

[Segev]

Hm.

Yes but here is the problem: why should there be mechanical costs for flavor? I get trade offs on a mechanical to mechanical basis or trade offs on flavor to flavor basis, but trading mechanics for flavor doesn't sit right with me. its not a fair trade, and I don't really like character creation being a game unto itself.

because here is the problem: flavor is endlessly refluffable, but mechanics cannot be altered. lets go back to Pre-Tasha's character creation for a moment, using your example of a wood elf wizard. its not meaningful to a player at all, because why not just choose high elf (the mechanical statline) and use wood elf fluff? why pick an option full of things that aren't relevant to their wizard concept? One can just fluff the "high elf" as a wood elf who focused on her studies as a wizard logically would and get the +2 Int anyways. there is no actual fluff cost unless the GM is incredibly against it for some odd reason.

but there is a mechanical trade off that can't be ignored, and if I be inflexible about the fluff.......what does that get me? I'm not interested in telling a story you want to push on me, why should I have to conform to what you think is a meaningful choice? your not proposing anything that I'd want to play with. Tasha's changes means there is one less hoop to jump through to get to what I want. instead of picking a concept, picking stats that fit then having to get fluff to connect the two, I just pick what I really want: a wood elf then change the Wisdom to Int then leave the rest untouched, thus being MORE wood elfy than if I was in pre-Tasha's character creation because I'd have to replace it with entirely different race fluffed as a wood elf.

if I want to play a wood elf wizard, its not about whether there are other options or opportunity costs- its about making sure I can effectively be that character specifically. "high elf" and "gnome" fluff are already eliminated from my mind, because its not some competition of "oooh that race has better stats! but the other has the fluff I want! Which one do I decide!?" its just "well this race has the fluff I want but not the stats.....that sucks." so its like, why bother playing it if people are going to insist on treating what race you pick like a competition? maybe some people care about that sort of thing, but I don't. to me, I'm not viewing the race and classes as a bunch of costs and tradeoffs, but a bunch of paints I can use and sometimes I want to use this color to paint something for the sake of it.

like I don't get why I would see these races as things to make.....long term strategical choices out of? they're beings that people are born as, my character doesn't choose to be born as that thing. I dunno, if it was M&M I'd just build whatever I race want using the points I got but in the absence of that, I just kind pick whatever race is cool to me at the moment? I dunno it just seems really weird to me that your insisting on it being a meaningful choice as if it part of a long term strategy and that should be.....thrilled to consider them? But I'm not? I've a feeling that if DnD intended races/species to be more meaningful, you'd have more stuff like 3.5's savage species and monster classes being printed that have much more of a mechanical effect on your character than normal races, and all their differences would mostly be combat-oriented as they always are. To be honest I'd love a rpg like that where such a thing is core focus where I could just pick any monster species or whatever as playable and have fun with their strange abilities, strengths and downsides unique to them, but I'm not sure it'd be DnD or if I'd want it to be DnD. Its just not what its focused on.

On my phone, so apologies for the short reply. But yes. Part of the flavor is the mechanics. There’s a lot you can refluff, and I’m all for that. But I am opposed to races-as-pure-cosmetics. If there shouldn’t be a mechanical cost to flavor, then we should do away with classes and races entirely and play a points-based system that lets us claim any ability is available to any character and the character looks however you want.

Aaracockra provide again a good example of why flavor and mechanics are linked in D&D: if flavor should have no mechanical consequences, why should you need to give aaracockra flight? Why shouldn’t you decide that your human raised by aaracockra learned to fly by flapping his arms, if that’s the flavor you want?

If your wood elf wizard should have no mechanical effect for being a wood elf since it’s just flavor, why not just play a Forest gnome and claim he looks like a Wood elf?

[Quietus]

Aaracockra provide again a good example of why flavor and mechanics are linked in D&D: if flavor should have no mechanical consequences, why should you need to give aaracockra flight? Why shouldn’t you decide that your human raised by aaracockra learned to fly by flapping his arms, if that’s the flavor you want?

This example has been exhausting for several pages now, {Scrubbed}. It is patently absurd to imagine someone without wings simply flapping their arms and flying away. It breaks the fiction of most settings. "This elf is unusually strong" is far, far less likely to break that setting fiction.

If it breaks things for you, don't use it. They're optional rules for a reason.

[zinycor]

This example has been exhausting for several pages now {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}. It is patently absurd to imagine someone without wings simply flapping their arms and flying away. It breaks the fiction of most settings. "This elf is unusually strong" is far, far less likely to break that setting fiction.

If it breaks things for you, don't use it. They're optional rules for a reason.

Very well said. I would just like to add that one could simply have a tribe of wood elves, that due to some reason or another, get a different set of bonuses to their stats.

[Segev]

This example has been exhausting for several pages now {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}. It is patently absurd to imagine someone without wings simply flapping their arms and flying away. It breaks the fiction of most settings. "This elf is unusually strong" is far, far less likely to break that setting fiction.

If it breaks things for you, don't use it. They're optional rules for a reason.
An unusually strong elf has a 15 ( or more it you rolled well) strength. A half-orc with 15 strength is also unusually strong, just not as unusually.

If it’s not a big deal, why make the change?

If stats are so unimportant to anything, why not just give everyone 20s in anything they like? Why are you stifling their creativity? Apparently som DMs have been just letting people pick stats of any value and haven’t found it to break their games. Why bother with arrays and stat bonuses rather than moving just to that?


Very well said. I would just like to add that one could simply have a tribe of wood elves, that due to some reason or another, get a different set of bonuses to their stats.

One could. That’s a DM decision, though, not a blanket player-facing “option.”

If this were presented as a DM workshop tool for custom race design, or even as a “work with your player who wants a truly unusual upbringing or racial mix” deal, is not be complaining about it at all. I’ve recommended such solutions to players and DMs alike who wanted to tweak things for specific character or setting concepts.

This...doesn’t achieve its stated goal and undermines meaningful choices.

And no, I won’t use it as a DM. As a player, if a DM uses it, I’ll exploit it. Because there’s no point to avoiding min/maxing when the rules are designed to reward it and offer nothing interesting for avoiding it.

[ZRN]

I would not be surprised, but I think a lot of people, myself included, who despise these changes would like them a heck of a lot more in 6e. And the reason for that is simple. A 6e where things like racial stat modifiers simply don't exist would be an entire game designed with that in mind. And if it is well made, that could be fantastic. Maybe it won't be exactly what I want, but it could still be an excellent game.

But that is not what this is. This is a bunch of people who are supposed to be game designers saying "new rule: do whatever the hell you want, we don't care." That is not game design. Period. That is the exact opposite of game design. If this is really a serious issue, they could have taken the time to come up with new variant rules to try and mitigate the issue. But they didn't. They just threw their hands up and said "Do it yourself. But we sanction that, so its cool." In some ways, these "rules" are kinda insulting, because the existing core books already tell you that its your game, you can do what you want. We shouldn't have to pay money just for them to tell us, "no, seriously, we weren't kidding."

Personally, I like racial modifiers, but I would have nothing against a game that did not have them. This is just simply not the way to go about it.

My first reaction to the new rules was kind of similar - "don't they realize everyone will be playing a Mountain Dwarf wizard now?" - but after some consideration I realized that while this was indeed an imperfect approach, the "imbalances" it creates really don't matter that much. A dwarf wizard wearing medium armor won't break the game. A half-elf barbarian won't break the game. There are plenty of things that WOULD break the game, like the hyperbolic "might as well let everyone cast whatever spells they want" stuff people are saying in this thread, but the designers are telling us that this particular change will not break anything.

And THAT'S why it's useful to have a good design team - they (ideally) know which parts of the game design are essential to keeping things working and which parts can be changed or tossed.

It's like if you break your arm and get a cast, and then after the cast removed, you ask the doctor if you can play tennis, and he says, "As long as your arm doesn't start hurting you should be fine." That sounds like advice any idiot could give you! But in this case you're trusting that your doctor is actually applying his medical expertise and that he means something like, "The nature of your injury and the steps we've taken to address it don't indicate any special concerns or considerations at this point, beyond normal common-sense caution."

[Quietus]

An unusually strong elf has a 15 ( or more it you rolled well) strength. A half-orc with 15 strength is also unusually strong, just not as unusually.

If it’s not a big deal, why make the change?

If stats are so unimportant to anything, why not just give everyone 20s in anything they like? Why are you stifling their creativity? Apparently som DMs have been just letting people pick stats of any value and haven’t found it to break their games. Why bother with arrays and stat bonuses rather than moving just to that?

Who said stats are unimportant? Stats govern 90% of what we do in D&D. Having played a goblin artificer, I can tell you that starting with that +2 mod hurts.

The main reason for this optional rule appears to be political in nature, because it is trying to address the idea that a particular race is not as capable in certain areas as another. It's a hamfisted approach, and I can think of ways that it could be better executed (I would have gone with rewriting all races to be a suite of abilities, and give all races a +2/+1 to dispense as they wish). It's not going to be to everyone's tastes, and that's fine.

The reason we don't just say "Go hog wild, have 20's everywhere" is mechanical balance. The game assumes a +2 or +3 in your primary stat at level 1, and while yes it's just a 5% diffference, you really do feel that +2. +4 and +5 at level 1 breaks the math of the game, that's why you don't allow that. But allowing the unusually smart goblin to start with a 16? That's not going to break anything.

[SiCK_Boy]

This example has been exhausting for several pages now, {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}. It is patently absurd to imagine someone without wings simply flapping their arms and flying away. It breaks the fiction of most settings. "This elf is unusually strong" is far, far less likely to break that setting fiction.

If it breaks things for you, don't use it. They're optional rules for a reason.

{Scrubbed}

However, it often comes back because it easily illustrates the sloping risk argument that is at the heart of why many people oppose the new rule and, especially, the way the game designers went about making it. After all, even under the pre-TCoE rules, the flight power of aarakocra, as a character option (independently of how much it makes sense setting/lore wise) is seen as problematic by many DMs and players.

But what we have here is the game designers swooping in after 6 years of a game system existence, years during which players had to pick a race that usually came with specific ability score bonus as part of character creation, and then telling us: you know what, this rule, just forget it. It would already be bad on its own, but hey, people can realize things were badly designed and wish to course correct (such as how they’ve been trying to make the ranger beastmaster stringer almost since its initial PHB released version). But the reasons provided by the game designers are what is most frightening here: they caved in to players wishing to have more “freedom” (when really, what those players were clamoring for was more powerful characters; the freedom to play any race/class combination already existed) and/or made this change to reduce the amount of prejudice ingrained in race design in D&D (which the rule does in no way address; D&D is not racist or evil because half-orcs get a STR bonus instead of an INT bonus; the treatment of half-orcs is bad because they are depicted as a tainted dark-skinned race that is always under the impulse of committing violence because of the way they were created by their god Gruumsh).

Will the game break down because players get to have more race & class synergy with the flexibility of putting their +2 ability bonus in whatever stat they want? Probably not - characters will be slightly stronger, that’s all. I don’t see how it makes for a better game overall, but it seems that many players felt oppressed by the possibility of playing a character that doesn’t maximize its primary ability score, so maybe I’m just way off the mark here.

But if the game developer caved in on such a simple rule, for the sake of player freedom, one has to wonder what will happen if players start clamoring for more changes (such as mixing class powers, or having flying or magic resistance or any other racial trait currently reserve to a few races only); after all if “player freedom” is a good thing, why stop there?

In a game, the freedom level of the players is an intrinsic part of the design. Individual people will decide if they like a game or not, in part based on their appreciation of what the game allows you to do or not (few people over 4 enjoy snakes and ladder, since you have 0 freedom in such a game). On the other hands, child games with 100 % freedom (you know, those make-believe storytelling game they tell you about in the intro to D&D) are no more enjoyable, since they become pointless. Any game needs to somehow restrict player freedom: that’s what game rules are about.

Once a game exist, one should be careful about messing with the rules. Even more so when replacing an existing rule. Any DM putting up a post asking for opinions about his latest houserule will be asked the same thing: what problem are you trying to fix, what are you trying to accomplish with this change? Because that should inform the rule change, and then allow you to consider unintended consequences.

The game designers failed to answer this question in any meaningful way.

[Amnestic]

you know what, this rule, just forget it.

Woah, they're errataing and reprinting new versions of all the previous books with racial scores removed entirely in favour of this change?

Big if true! Here, I thought it was just an optional variant rule but APPARENTLY it's actually mandatory and being retroactively enforced over the whims of DMs and players both! No wonder so many people are up in arms about it.

[EggKookoo]

Woah, they're errataing and reprinting new versions of all the previous books with racial scores removed entirely in favour of this change?

Big if true! Here, I thought it was just an optional variant rule but APPARENTLY it's actually mandatory and being retroactively enforced over the whims of DMs and players both! No wonder so many people are up in arms about it.

I'd put money down on a 5.5e PHB turning these optional rules into core ones within the next couple of years, except I think with 2024 being D&D's 50th anniversary, we'll see a 6e out about then to capitalize on it. And I would expect this 6e to be very similar to and backward-compatible with 5e (similar to how 1e and 2e worked), in which case the Tasha's approach to ASIs would become core.

Also, "I'd like to use the new non-racist optional Tasha's rule, please." How does a DM say no to that? If you think I'm exaggerating, look back in this forum for the thread that listed the "losers" in this situation. First one was "racists - eat it" or something similar. It's already becoming entrenched in some camps that if you don't abide by this new rule you're some kind of supremacist or something (helped in no small part by WotC's language when presenting it).

[jas61292]

My first reaction to the new rules was kind of similar - "don't they realize everyone will be playing a Mountain Dwarf wizard now?" - but after some consideration I realized that while this was indeed an imperfect approach, the "imbalances" it creates really don't matter that much. A dwarf wizard wearing medium armor won't break the game. A half-elf barbarian won't break the game. There are plenty of things that WOULD break the game, like the hyperbolic "might as well let everyone cast whatever spells they want" stuff people are saying in this thread, but the designers are telling us that this particular change will not break anything.

And THAT'S why it's useful to have a good design team - they (ideally) know which parts of the game design are essential to keeping things working and which parts can be changed or tossed.

It's like if you break your arm and get a cast, and then after the cast removed, you ask the doctor if you can play tennis, and he says, "As long as your arm doesn't start hurting you should be fine." That sounds like advice any idiot could give you! But in this case you're trusting that your doctor is actually applying his medical expertise and that he means something like, "The nature of your injury and the steps we've taken to address it don't indicate any special concerns or considerations at this point, beyond normal common-sense caution."

While that is true, in a sense, ultimately, the reason that you allow what someone says to matter is because you trust them. You believe that they have the qualifications that make this opinion more valid than anyone else. In the example you gave, you take the doctor's word, rather than just anyone's, because A) they have that fancy medical degree and a license that lets you know they were extensively trained to give this advice, and B) because they were the one who gave you that cast and helped your arm heal in the first place. You have both a belief that they are qualified, and personal experience with that expertise, so you believe that you can trust them.

This situation here is different for me because I don't have that same trust. I don't know of any qualifications that any of the writers have that are in any way comparable to a doctors certifications. Which, of course, means, that I only have my actual experiences with their work to go on. And, when it comes to game balance, those experiences are a mixed bag. Sure, 5e D&D as a whole was a massive step in the right direction, imo, from older D&D, and I give them credit for that. But these are still the same people that published the Wizard and the Ranger in the same book, and also somehow thought Hexblade was fine to print. Ultimately, its a very mixed bag, in my opinion, and so I simply cannot just blindly trust that something is fine and balanced simply because they say so.

What's more, when analyzing something to see if it is a good piece of game design, I think you need to compare it to all the alternatives. If something clear and obvious is better, then you have to question, why did they do this and not that? When I look at these new rules, well.... I don't really even see a rule. As I said in my previous post, this "rule" is basically just them saying "yup, we stand by what we said in the DMG. Do what you want." There is no thought to it. No nuance. Even an amateur game designer can see that when you simply allow every race to swap ability modifiers that the races with abnormal modifiers are affected to a greater or lesser extent. And said amateur could easily recognize that this will have a notable effect on game balance. An effect that could have been lessened with simple, obvious alternatives like "everyone gets a +2 and a +1."

But, not only did the writers not go with any sort of obvious alternative, the writers here don't even want to acknowledge the obvious effect of their bare-bones rule. Not even a simple statement like, "races were designed and balanced with ability modifiers included so adjusting this may affect game balance." (Note that I will retract this statement if they do in fact add such a disclaimer to the rule as we have seen it). They had a disclaimer like this for the monstrous races in Volo's Guide, so we know they are capable. They simply chose not. They decided to make no attempt at balance, and then they didn't even have the courtesy to say that to our faces.

That is ultimately my issue. I have no problem with variant rules. The more the merrier, I say. But when you put something to print, you either need to attempt to make it conform the the established rules and power levels of the game, or you need to let people know that it does not conform. This book does not do that (at least as far as I am aware), and as such, between this and the other supposedly leaked things that show no understanding of the balance of their own game, I am forced to, for the moment, not believe that the writers at Wizard's have any sort of real intellectual authority that I should trust when it comes to game design.

[Amnestic]

I'd put money down on a 5.5e PHB turning these optional rules into core ones within the next couple of years, except I think with 2024 being D&D's 50th anniversary, we'll see a 6e out about then to capitalize on it. And I would expect this 6e to be very similar to and backward-compatible with 5e (similar to how 1e and 2e worked), in which case the Tasha's approach to ASIs would become core.

Or maybe they just scrap stat boosts entirely and go back to an older school variety. Who knows. 5.5e seems unlikely to me. 3.5 came out ~3 years after 3.0 and 5e's been out for 6-8 years now with no .5 edition even hinted at.

What we do know, right now, is that this isn't mandatory even slightly, and the utterly hyperbolic framing of the post I replied to is just silly. What other variant rules are being mandated?



Also, "I'd like to use the new non-racist optional Tasha's rule, please." How does a DM say no to that?

Assuming they wanted to say no, I'd probably start with saying "No" and then an explanation as to why. The DM and player can lay out their views and decide if they want to play together still or if it's a dealbreaker either way.

Isn't that how it always works with a player going "I want to play/do [x]" in a session 0? It's not as if "I'd like to move this race's stats around for this character concept" was an unheard of question long before Tasha's rule got announced you know.

[EggKookoo]

What other variant rules are being mandated?

Ask on these boards how many people would want to play at a table that didn't use feats or multiclassing.

[ZRN]

While that is true, in a sense, ultimately, the reason that you allow what someone says to matter is because you trust them.

...

That is ultimately my issue. I have no problem with variant rules. The more the merrier, I say. But when you put something to print, you either need to attempt to make it conform the the established rules and power levels of the game, or you need to let people know that it does not conform. This book does not do that (at least as far as I am aware), and as such, between this and the other supposedly leaked things that show no understanding of the balance of their own game, I am forced to, for the moment, not believe that the writers at Wizard's have any sort of real intellectual authority that I should trust when it comes to game design.

I mean, I’d take issue with the claim that Wizards sucks at balancing D&D, but even if that’s your opinion, you’ll probably concede that they’re better than 99.9% of the homebrew out there. And that’s the main context of rule revisions for a game like this: since everyone can customize whatever rules they want, the designers’ job is more akin to herding cats than debugging code. The goal is to propose a simple, easy to implement rule set that as much of the community as possible can embrace to keep having fun, fairly balanced games.

[Amnestic]

Ask on these boards how many people would want to play at a table that didn't use feats or multiclassing.

These boards aren't even close to representative of the gaming populace at large from what I understand, and even here you see occasional talk of no-multiclass or, rarer, no feat games. While not having either isn't my preference, neither are they dealbreakers (and I've run a no-multiclass game for newbies myself even) and I could definitely have fun playing in such a game. Chances are most people could. I expect I'm not alone in my "not my preference, but not a dealbreaker" position.

Likewise, my preference is flexible stats (again, I made my own variant before Tasha's was revealed) but not having them isn't a dealbreaker and I can perfectly manage without. If it is a dealbreaker for you then...cool. Make sure it's addressed in session 0 with your DM (or with your players, if you're the DM) and bob's your uncle.

[AdAstra]

Ask on these boards how many people would want to play at a table that didn't use feats or multiclassing.

At least in my personal experience at in-store games, if you banned multiclassing it would have about zero effect on any of the players I've seen except me, and I'd be fine with it. Most people wouldn't be much affected by losing feats, either. I wouldn't like it personally, but I could play a game like that and still have fun, since there are plenty of builds that don't require either.

You gotta remember that members of this board are a small, dedicated slice of the overall playerbase. A great deal of players have no interest in engaging in the character-building minigame beyond the basic level. And even for people who like using feats and multiclassing, most have things about DnD they like more than just making a custom character.

[Segev]

First off, well said, SICK_boy. That covers the reason I bring up that example well, as well as a big part of the reason this is badly-done.

Not only is it sloppy and reducing the meaningful choices we can make, but it doesn't address the actual concerns it is supposed to. All the things that are legitimately able to be said to be "problematic" are still there. (And I actually worry that they're going to mess up addressing those because doing so in a nuanced and mature way will be "not visible" enough.)

I'd put money down on a 5.5e PHB turning these optional rules into core ones within the next couple of years, except I think with 2024 being D&D's 50th anniversary, we'll see a 6e out about then to capitalize on it. And I would expect this 6e to be very similar to and backward-compatible with 5e (similar to how 1e and 2e worked), in which case the Tasha's approach to ASIs would become core.

Also, "I'd like to use the new non-racist optional Tasha's rule, please." How does a DM say no to that? If you think I'm exaggerating, look back in this forum for the thread that listed the "losers" in this situation. First one was "racists - eat it" or something similar. It's already becoming entrenched in some camps that if you don't abide by this new rule you're some kind of supremacist or something (helped in no small part by WotC's language when presenting it).

If this were built in from the ground-up in a new edition, I would not be complaining about it.

Likewise, if this were a DM-focused "workshopping" rule, I'd be fine with it. "Here's some ideas on customizing races for your setting, or making new races using old ones as guidelines," is great! Even, "Here's some rules you can use to work with a player who wants to make an unusual member of his race for his PC," would be cool. The trouble here is the way it's framed as "increased player freedom" and player-focused chargen rules.

Which is to say I agree with your last paragraph, EggKookoo, and am probably just expanding on your first one.

Doing it here, as they're doing it, is sloppy and bad design.

And yes, I recognize it's an optional rule. As such, in any game I run, it will not be used, except possibly as a DM workshopping tool if I want to make a custom race for my setting.

[HolyDraconus]

And yes, I recognize it's an optional rule.

I nitpick here. While many players on this board, or in general really, don't play Adventure League, that does NOT stop it from existing, and its usually considered the "Official" format of how 5e is ran. Its why erratas matter a lot more than initially looked at; since, for example, the Booming Blade change MAY be something that homebrew table top games can and probably will ignore, its something that CANT be ignored in AL, as their stance on errata is the most current version of something is what's "legal" to play. In the sense of this thread, its already covered in the AL season 10 document: its not an "optional" thing in the same way that Var' Human and Feats and Multiclassing are not "optional". Its part of core gameplay. Its not even being treated like the Half Elf variants which ARE optional. Right there on ability score increases its right in your face.

Other than that, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Not only is it sloppy and reducing the meaningful choices we can make, but it doesn't address the actual concerns it is supposed to. All the things that are legitimately able to be said to be "problematic" are still there. (And I actually worry that they're going to mess up addressing those because doing so in a nuanced and mature way will be "not visible" enough.)
Seriously, they need to stop writing 'evil' directly into the genesis of creatures that aren't straight up gribbly monsters or demons. It's not just because it's a real world problem, it's also impossibly lame, reducing a potential culture down to comic book supervillainy. I haven't handled a single sapient species like this since I started DMing, starting with a goblin camp I built as a teenager that I suddenly realized I liked too much to treat them like fodder. There are so many interesting things you can do with thinking creatures capable of rational thought; save your XP bloodbags for the fauna.

I was confused when I first heard of the complaints on CoS' treatment of the Vistani, since I DM'd it and didn't remember it being that bad. But then another DM I'm helping pointed out the errata and how my recommendations on playing Vistani were actually counter to how they're presented in the book. I automatically rewrote them in my head without thinking about it. Then I realized I've basically been doing this for decades, I've just gotten so used to glossing over this kind of idiocy that I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore.

So yeah, I also hope this isn't some cheap attempt to ignore the much more serious problems they keep writing into the lore in favor of quieting the masses for a while. I don't personally take much issue with these rules, but I do agree that they're not even a real symptom of the actual problem.

[Quietus]

It really does feel like there's a lot of arguing back and forth, and the anti-Tasha's contingent seems to be focusing around two points.

"This feels rushed" - it was.
"This doesn't address the core stated concern of races being poorly veiled stereotypes" - Accurate.

There's also a lot of slippery slope arguments that I really don't think have a place here. But we've reached a point in this thread where the conversation is no longer constructive. There is a whole lot of repeating the same points over and over. I don't think most people are disagreeing with the two points I've summed above. I think most of us would agree, it would be far more interesting to see a corebook, or at least a significant portion of one, dedicated to reworking races in a more thorough and thoughtful way. However, WotC didn't have the time to do that, and this is a hot issue right now, so we got Tasha's.

Looking only at what they've done, I don't think there's any significant mechanical issue. What they've done isn't going to break anything. More class/race combinations will be viable than ever before, and I don't think you're going to see this sudden glut of mountain dwarf wizards or anything like that. Instead I think we're going to see the occasional example of someone playing outside of their race's usual 'type', because while you do sometimes have a character idea (orc wizard!) that is outside the norm for that race, there is a reason that certain combinations just feel classic, and I think you'll still see players gravitate to those options.

[Amnestic]

Seriously, they need to stop writing 'evil' directly into the genesis of creatures that aren't straight up gribbly monsters or demons. It's not just because it's a real world problem, it's also impossibly lame, reducing a potential culture down to comic book supervillainy. I haven't handled a single sapient species like this since I started DMing, starting with a goblin camp I built as a teenager that I suddenly realized I liked too much to treat them like fodder. There are so many interesting things you can do with thinking creatures capable of rational thought; save your XP bloodbags for the fauna.

I was confused when I first heard of the complaints on CoS' treatment of the Vistani, since I DM'd it and didn't remember it being that bad. But then another DM I'm helping pointed out the errata and how my recommendations on playing Vistani were actually counter to how they're presented in the book. I automatically rewrote them in my head without thinking about it. Then I realized I've basically been doing this for decades, I've just gotten so used to glossing over this kind of idiocy that I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore.

So yeah, I also hope this isn't some cheap attempt to ignore the much more serious problems they keep writing into the lore in favor of quieting the masses for a while. I don't personally take much issue with these rules, but I do agree that they're not even a real symptom of the actual problem.

I'm still mega confused at them retconning/rewriting gnoll FR lore from a relatively fleshed out culture with some nuance (even if it started very shallow) that grew over 3.5/4e to 5e's "rarrrgh demon spawn all evil" concept.

[EggKookoo]

These boards aren't even close to representative of the gaming populace at large from what I understand, and even here you see occasional talk of no-multiclass or, rarer, no feat games. While not having either isn't my preference, neither are they dealbreakers (and I've run a no-multiclass game for newbies myself even) and I could definitely have fun playing in such a game. Chances are most people could. I expect I'm not alone in my "not my preference, but not a dealbreaker" position.

What if WotC sold multiclassing in the apologetic manner they sold the new ASIs, though? I don't have the original message -- it's down somewhere in social media history -- but it conveyed a distinct "we're so bad, we're sorry, we won't be racist any more" vibe. Then a player comes along and wants to use that feature and puts the DM on the defensive over fears of being branded something he isn't?

I like the new rule, don't get me wrong. I was neutral on it until one of my players saw and and got excited about making something she hadn't thought of before (she could have made it, but the rule prompted the idea). At that point I decided I liked it. More player fun!

What I don't like was the way it was presented, at least in WotC's Twitter posts and whatnot. I don't think D&D was racist for having -INT races or automatically-evil races, and I don't appreciate the implication that the players were complicit in racism all these years. I have yet to see how it's actually presented in TCoE. Hopefully more as a pure rule mechanic and less on the pontificating and assumption.

[Segev]

I nitpick here. While many players on this board, or in general really, don't play Adventure League, that does NOT stop it from existing, and its usually considered the "Official" format of how 5e is ran. Its why erratas matter a lot more than initially looked at; since, for example, the Booming Blade change MAY be something that homebrew table top games can and probably will ignore, its something that CANT be ignored in AL, as their stance on errata is the most current version of something is what's "legal" to play. In the sense of this thread, its already covered in the AL season 10 document: its not an "optional" thing in the same way that Var' Human and Feats and Multiclassing are not "optional". Its part of core gameplay. Its not even being treated like the Half Elf variants which ARE optional. Right there on ability score increases its right in your face.

Other than that, I agree with you wholeheartedly.Fair enough. I will say that for something like AL, this will only be used to min/max more, and if it increases "diversity" of race/class combos, it will only be by virtue of making adventurers not representative of what supposedly the archetypes are. I actually contend that, due to min/maxing still being a thing, now we'll get people insisting that different race/class combos are the go-tos, and that they're "hindered" from playing "creative" concepts because the racial features don't align with the class well enough.

But I don't play AL for reasons unrelated to this. (The DMing in PFS and other living campaigns, combined with the way modules are often really badly constructed to deal with player agency, just turns me off to living campaigns/organized play in general.) So for me, it's an optional rule, and when I DM, it'll be nixed.


Seriously, they need to stop writing 'evil' directly into the genesis of creatures that aren't straight up gribbly monsters or demons. It's not just because it's a real world problem, it's also impossibly lame, reducing a potential culture down to comic book supervillainy. I haven't handled a single sapient species like this since I started DMing, starting with a goblin camp I built as a teenager that I suddenly realized I liked too much to treat them like fodder. There are so many interesting things you can do with thinking creatures capable of rational thought; save your XP bloodbags for the fauna.

I was confused when I first heard of the complaints on CoS' treatment of the Vistani, since I DM'd it and didn't remember it being that bad. But then another DM I'm helping pointed out the errata and how my recommendations on playing Vistani were actually counter to how they're presented in the book. I automatically rewrote them in my head without thinking about it. Then I realized I've basically been doing this for decades, I've just gotten so used to glossing over this kind of idiocy that I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore.

So yeah, I also hope this isn't some cheap attempt to ignore the much more serious problems they keep writing into the lore in favor of quieting the masses for a while. I don't personally take much issue with these rules, but I do agree that they're not even a real symptom of the actual problem.Agreed. I haven't read Curse of Strahd, but if they're as bad as described in there, it's actually really really sloppy writing because the Ravenloft boxed set portrayed the Vistani as the most knowledgeable group for dealing with and holding back the evils of the Dread Realms. They were the good guys of the setting. Less ignorant than the normal villager.



It really does feel like there's a lot of arguing back and forth, and the anti-Tasha's contingent seems to be focusing around two points.

"This feels rushed" - it was.
"This doesn't address the core stated concern of races being poorly veiled stereotypes" - Accurate.

There's also a lot of slippery slope arguments that I really don't think have a place here.I stand by the slippery slope argument as a valid one to make unless and until somebody can provide a set of rules or guidelines that can be used without appeal to authority to determine if any particular additional change would be "going too far" or otherwise out of line with the "good reasons" for the changes we've seen so far.

Slippery slopes are only fallacious when you can clearly draw a line that says, "we stop here, because the reasons for going up to here no longer apply past this point."


But we've reached a point in this thread where the conversation is no longer constructive. There is a whole lot of repeating the same points over and over. I don't think most people are disagreeing with the two points I've summed above. I think most of us would agree, it would be far more interesting to see a corebook, or at least a significant portion of one, dedicated to reworking races in a more thorough and thoughtful way. However, WotC didn't have the time to do that, and this is a hot issue right now, so we got Tasha's.And they shouldn't have done it. They should have focused on making a good game, and it's clear that wasn't their focus with this.


Looking only at what they've done, I don't think there's any significant mechanical issue. What they've done isn't going to break anything. More class/race combinations will be viable than ever before, and I don't think you're going to see this sudden glut of mountain dwarf wizards or anything like that.I think you're wrong. No more class/race combos will be viable; they already were. And, if you felt that a 5% difference in your success rate makes something "unviable," then you'll find that class/race combos will remain "unviable" due to race features existing.


Instead I think we're going to see the occasional example of someone playing outside of their race's usual 'type', because while you do sometimes have a character idea (orc wizard!) that is outside the norm for that race, there is a reason that certain combinations just feel classic, and I think you'll still see players gravitate to those options.I think we would have seen those anyway, and while we might see more of those, it won't actually make a significant difference. It will just lead to more min/maxing.

[Amnestic]

What I don't like was the way it was presented, at least in WotC's Twitter posts and whatnot. I don't think D&D was racist for having -INT races or automatically-evil races, and I don't appreciate the implication that the players were complicit in racism all these years. I have yet to see how it's actually presented in TCoE. Hopefully more as a pure rule mechanic and less on the pontificating and assumption.

If you're talking about this blog post (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd) then I didn't get any of that from reading it myself. It even ends with saying they're listening to players - the implication there not being that the players were complicit, but that the players were the driving force behind helping to raise awareness to address the questionable depictions and that it was the writers who were at fault - not for being racist themselves, but for not being aware of some of the coded language that D&D inherited over its years. Frankly, the ability score part of that blogpost is minor when it's really the half-orc/drow/vistani/chult depictions that I think were the core of it.

It's getting off topic from the rule though.

[zinycor]

One could. That’s a DM decision, though, not a blanket player-facing “option.”

If this were presented as a DM workshop tool for custom race design, or even as a “work with your player who wants a truly unusual upbringing or racial mix” deal, is not be complaining about it at all. I’ve recommended such solutions to players and DMs alike who wanted to tweak things for specific character or setting concepts.

This...doesn’t achieve its stated goal and undermines meaningful choices.

And no, I won’t use it as a DM. As a player, if a DM uses it, I’ll exploit it. Because there’s no point to avoiding min/maxing when the rules are designed to reward it and offer nothing interesting for avoiding it.

So the problem is presentation and that you feel like trolling?

[Sigreid]

If you're talking about this blog post (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd) then I didn't get any of that from reading it myself. It even ends with saying they're listening to players - the implication there not being that the players were complicit, but that the players were the driving force behind helping to raise awareness to address the questionable depictions and that it was the writers who were at fault - not for being racist themselves, but for not being aware of some of the coded language that D&D inherited over its years. Frankly, the ability score part of that blogpost is minor when it's really the half-orc/drow/vistani/chult depictions that I think were the core of it.

It's getting off topic from the rule though.

Always hear these claims that x is code for y...funnily enough, I've never received my code book and would never have made these connections at all.

[Luccan]

I'm still mega confused at them retconning/rewriting gnoll FR lore from a relatively fleshed out culture with some nuance (even if it started very shallow) that grew over 3.5/4e to 5e's "rarrrgh demon spawn all evil" concept.

I feel like even at the time they were recognizing issues with always Evil races that were more human (especially those where it was only a matter of time before they were made playable). It seems they never plan to make a Gnoll player race, so as beastly humanoids they probably felt it was safe to change their origins to something more directly evil to provide a "cleaner" Always Evil humanoid to fight.

[cutlery]

the players were the driving force behind helping to raise awareness to address the questionable depictions and that it was the writers who were at fault - not for being racist themselves, but for not being aware of some of the coded language that D&D inherited over its years.

Yep; there was pressure from players about this. Not every table, but pressure none the less.

The attribute differences don't really mean much in a bounded accuracy system where they don't raise stat maximums, anyway. By level 8, a PC of any race can have a stat of their choosing at 20 if they want to.

It's things like fey ancestry, relentless endurance, and dwarven resilience that differentiate the races in actual play, not stat bumps that don't even result in access to a greater ability modifier at level 1 (other than the changeling from eberron, but I don't play eberron games).

As it happens, now, with the custom variant race rules and the right half feat, you finally can manage to start with an 18 in one stat. So - if you really want a character that is more dextrous than anyone else because of their elf-ness - Elf (Variant) and a half feat like elven accuracy (dex) is the way to go, with their avialable +2 stat points also placed in dex.

[Amnestic]

It seems they never plan to make a Gnoll player race, so as beastly humanoids they probably felt it was safe to change their origins to something more directly evil to provide a "cleaner" Always Evil humanoid to fight.

Gnolls did have playable stats as far back as 2e from what I know. They definitely did in 3.5 in Races of the Wild and apparently did in 4e as well. Just a very odd choice to make, to me at least.

[Segev]

So the problem is presentation and that you feel like trolling?

No, I have quite clearly stated my position on it and why, as they have done it, I feel it to be bad design. I do not appreciate the accusation of trolling. We are, I hope, mature enough that we can disagree and still respect each other as having sincere positions.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

I for one love the new rules and now that they're out there and official, there's very little ground for a DM to deny their use that doesn't tread into some worrying territory, some of which has been touched on already in this very thread, so I will be refusing out of hand to play at any table that doesn't allow them, even if I was going to play a character that didn't need them (such as a kobold rogue, etc). I think any table that refuses these rules sends a message loud and clear that I am not welcome at that table, so it's useful for me to use as an early warning to avoid wasting my time.

[Second Wind]

Stat mods are boring but powerful. For most characters in 5e, your core stat matters as much as the other five put together, so either you pick a race that buffs your core stat or you eat a -1 penalty to your core moves. Tasha's partially solves this by letting everyone shuffle their stat mods to start with the same +3 modifier to their core stat. I'd rather drop the 'core stat' concept entirely and use proficiency to power the traits the core stat used to. (Attack rolls, spells known, spells saves, number of bardic inspirations/rest, etc.) But that's a larger rework, and goes one sacred cow too far.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Stat mods are boring but powerful. For most characters in 5e, your core stat matters as much as the other five put together, so either you pick a race that buffs your core stat or you eat a -1 penalty to your core moves. Tasha's partially solves this by letting everyone shuffle their stat mods to start with the same +3 modifier to their core stat. I'd rather drop the 'core stat' concept entirely and use proficiency to power the traits the core stat used to. (Attack rolls, spells known, spells saves, number of bardic inspirations/rest, etc.) But that's a larger rework, and goes one sacred cow too far.

I agree entirely with you. Ability Scores are a pretty outdated concept, I feel. Just let people be good at the things they want to be good at.

[SiCK_Boy]

I for one love the new rules and now that they're out there and official, there's very little ground for a DM to deny their use that doesn't tread into some worrying territory, some of which has been touched on already in this very thread, so I will be refusing out of hand to play at any table that doesn't allow them, even if I was going to play a character that didn't need them (such as a kobold rogue, etc). I think any table that refuses these rules sends a message loud and clear that I am not welcome at that table, so it's useful for me to use as an early warning to avoid wasting my time.

You will refuse to play because you cannot fathom playing any race/class combination that somehow doesn’t get an extra +2 to its primary stat, or because you will consider the other people to be racists and/or creativity-deniers with whom you’d rather not associate?

[SiCK_Boy]

I agree entirely with you. Ability Scores are a pretty outdated concept, I feel. Just let people be good at the things they want to be good at.

If someone wants to be good at casting wizard and cleric spells while also having stellar melee combat skills, being able to mind control anyone at will, and having access to unlimited gold and resources - all at no cost (no tradeoff, no weakness, no giving up anything to get the stuff you want to be good at; all you had to do is want it hard enough), would you just allow said player in your game? At what point, and on what basis, do you draw the line between what a player “wants go play” and what the game rules (or DM) should allow?

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

You will refuse to play because you cannot fathom playing any race/class combination that somehow doesn’t get an extra +2 to its primary stat, or because you will consider the other people to be racists and/or creativity-deniers with whom you’d rather not associate?

This is a pretty loaded question. I think I will respectfully decline to answer.


If someone wants to be good at casting wizard and cleric spells while also having stellar melee combat skills, being able to mind control anyone at will, and having access to unlimited gold and resources - all at no cost (no tradeoff, no weakness, no giving up anything to get the stuff you want to be good at; all you had to do is want it hard enough), would you just allow said player in your game? At what point, and on what basis, do you draw the line between what a player “wants go play” and what the game rules (or DM) should allow?

This isn't even remotely in the realm of what is being discussed. I don't know what you're expecting out of me from a question like this.

[Anonymouswizard]

I agree entirely with you. Ability Scores are a pretty outdated concept, I feel. Just let people be good at the things they want to be good at.

For the way they're treated in D&D I'll agree with you, and most games could probably survive being skill only.I've felt for years now that D&D should move towards getting rid of either Abilitiy Scores or Skills. Although you would need a 6e to pull that off in any meaningful sense.

But that's a whole separate issue.

As for the rules, I dislike them but would tolerate a table that used them. I'd be happier at just shearing off Racial Ability Score Modifiers entirely, because while kind of the most important they're the least interesting part of the races, and I don't think capping everybody to 15s at character creation would negatively effect game balance to a significant extent.

I think WotC are doing some good things, like making Eberron orcs the standard, but I'm not sure they're giving enough thought to everything. This is something that probably deserves an entire book of it's own, going into using and modifying races and cultures in a game and giving multiple variants that remove or play around with RASMs. I'm not gainst the principle, I just don't like the implementation.

[SiCK_Boy]

This is a pretty loaded question. I think I will respectfully decline to answer.



This isn't even remotely in the realm of what is being discussed. I don't know what you're expecting out of me from a question like this.

I’m just trying to understand the mindset of the players who defend this rule change (I was asking you because you were the previous poster, and you clearly took the stance that this rule change is a positive thing for the game).

Why would you refuse to play at a table that does not apply said rule (you’re the one who said that a DM refusing the rule would be threading into some worrying territory and you would feel that such a DM/table would be sending a clear and loud message that you are unwelcome)? I’m trying to understand what, in the pre-TCoE rules, makes those DMs so worrying and/or makes you feel the way you (unwelcome) do about them or the game.

As for the second point about ability scores not mattering, I may have taken it to the extreme with my examples. Let’s make it simpler: would you be okay with players getting +4/+2 instead of a +2/+1 to their ability scores if they so wanted? Would you be okay with capping scores at 22 or 24 instead of 20? These are less extreme ways of allowing these players to be good at what they want. (I’m trying to see where the line gets drawn once you start being okay with an extra +2).

[EggKookoo]

I for one love the new rules and now that they're out there and official, there's very little ground for a DM to deny their use that doesn't tread into some worrying territory.

Let's guess what "worrying territory" is code for...

[Rakaydos]

You will refuse to play because you cannot fathom playing any race/class combination that somehow doesn’t get an extra +2 to its primary stat, or because you will consider the other people to be racists and/or creativity-deniers with whom you’d rather not associate?

If a prospective table has a blanket "Tasha's need not apply" ruling, then I for one will not apply. If I present my character and the GM has setting reasons why my particular character breaks his setting... then no hard feelings, but I guess I'm not in that game, because my character got rejected. And if you feel like you have to deny it because you are upset that you think game designers called you a racist, I'm thinking you have a guilty conscious.

[Sigreid]

I for one love the new rules and now that they're out there and official, there's very little ground for a DM to deny their use that doesn't tread into some worrying territory, some of which has been touched on already in this very thread, so I will be refusing out of hand to play at any table that doesn't allow them, even if I was going to play a character that didn't need them (such as a kobold rogue, etc). I think any table that refuses these rules sends a message loud and clear that I am not welcome at that table, so it's useful for me to use as an early warning to avoid wasting my time.

Be clear, in the instance you described you are the ONLY ONE deciding you aren't welcome at that table. That's fine, but that's what it is.

[HolyDraconus]

If a prospective table has a blanket "Tasha's need not apply" ruling, then I for one will not apply. If I present my character and the GM has setting reasons why my particular character breaks his setting... then no hard feelings, but I guess I'm not in that game, because my character got rejected. And if you feel like you have to deny it because you are upset that you think game designers called you a racist, I'm thinking you have a guilty conscious.

"Welcome to AL! Where the DMs can NEVER say 'Tasha's need not apply', or ' No feats', or 'No multiclass!'. So when do you plan to DM?"

[Pex]

This is a pretty loaded question. I think I will respectfully decline to answer.



But a valid one since you made a point that you would feel unwelcomed just because they're not using the rule, so what is it about not using the rule to make you feel unwelcomed? Being "unwelcomed" has a stronger intonation than merely having a different taste.

[ZRN]

Stat mods are boring but powerful. For most characters in 5e, your core stat matters as much as the other five put together, so either you pick a race that buffs your core stat or you eat a -1 penalty to your core moves. Tasha's partially solves this by letting everyone shuffle their stat mods to start with the same +3 modifier to their core stat. I'd rather drop the 'core stat' concept entirely and use proficiency to power the traits the core stat used to. (Attack rolls, spells known, spells saves, number of bardic inspirations/rest, etc.) But that's a larger rework, and goes one sacred cow too far.

I’d say this is a pretty clear explanation of why this is a good change. You don’t even have to get into racism or whatever. It’s just not fun or even challenging to have a system where you CAN play a “nonstandard” character like an elf barbarian but you’re just 10% worse at everything the entire campaign because you’re behind an ASI. Either make it challenging in an interesting way or just make me as good as an orc barbarian and let the DM figure out how the game world reacts to my characters weirdness.

[HolyDraconus]

I’d say this is a pretty clear explanation of why this is a good change. You don’t even have to get into racism or whatever. It’s just not fun or even challenging to have a system where you CAN play a “nonstandard” character like an elf barbarian but you’re just 10% worse at everything the entire campaign because you’re behind an ASI. Either make it challenging in an interesting way or just make me as good as an orc barbarian and let the DM figure out how the game world reacts to my characters weirdness.

I'm not speaking for anyone outside my own little group... but that's what DMs BEEN doing. The only time the "elf barbarian" can be considered worse is if its actively competing against something that's better. In a campaign, that generally doesn't happen; you're in a party of more than just YOU. This rule change isn't a sudden magic bullet that allows people to make and play "nonstandard" characters. It honestly does the exact opposite. A smart Orc?! OMG. Now, its, eh. Everyone is human. Its just lazy design and intentional powercreep.

[Rakaydos]

"Welcome to AL! Where the DMs can NEVER say 'Tasha's need not apply', or ' No feats', or 'No multiclass!'. So when do you plan to DM?"

When I finish converting the old 4e AL modules.

[Rakaydos]

I'm not speaking for anyone outside my own little group... but that's what DMs BEEN doing. The only time the "elf barbarian" can be considered worse is if its actively competing against something that's better. In a campaign, that generally doesn't happen; you're in a party of more than just YOU. This rule change isn't a sudden magic bullet that allows people to make and play "nonstandard" characters. It honestly does the exact opposite. A smart Orc?! OMG. Now, its, eh. Everyone is human. Its just lazy design and intentional powercreep.

This sounds suspiciusly like the anti-tiers "The wizard should be buffing the fighter to help, so the fighter doesnt suck" arguments. Opportunity cost is a thing, and when we can objectively say that the party barbarian is directly 10% worse at the primary role of hitting things, that's different from saying "my 4E gnoll wizard gets a damage bonus on his spells if he's less than half HP, and another damage bonus if two allies are next to the target." in my gnoll's case, he's still a wizard, but he's funadmentally different from a "teleport once per enounter" high elf wizard, not just a "worse version" of one.

[HolyDraconus]

When I finish converting the old 4e AL modules.

" Ah, but that's not needed! AL has several modules, quite a few infact, on DMsGuild, and the other option is to simply use one of the many Hardcovers that has been released! Of course, you have to follow the seasonal rules in the faq, whatever it may be for whatever season you're playing! Did you know there was a season where a player's character could experience permanent death??? And another where gold became near non-existant??"


This sounds suspiciusly like the anti-tiers "The wizard should be buffing the fighter to help, so the fighter doesnt suck" arguments. Opportunity cost is a thing, and when we can objectively say that the party barbarian is directly 10% worse at the primary role of hitting things, that's different from saying "my 4E gnoll wizard gets a damage bonus on his spells if he's less than half HP, and another damage bonus if two allies are next to the target."

Last I checked DnD was a group game. Who are you competing against?