Elven Accuracy becomes Accuracy

[Schwann145]

I think it's important to have a diverse selection of powerful and fun abilities across character options. Opening up all options to all races in the name of balance just ends up with one race being head and shoulders above every other, and that ends up being the only thing anyone plays. Because why would you bother playing anything else?
We saw that a lot with VHuman, and now significantly more with Tasha's Custom Lineage.

Elves are naturally more perceptive and magically-inclined than many other races. We see this demonstrated with racial Perception and Spell options. Elves that are particularly perceptive and/or magically inclined above the average elf can take Elven Accuracy to demonstrate this.
The feat is as racially justified as any other racial feat. You wouldn't give the option to take the Dragon Hide feat to a Halfling for pretty obvious reasons; Halflings don't have racially tough scales. The only difference between the two is that the Dragonborn feat is right in your face while the Elf feat requires 2 seconds of thinking.

People all too often forget that "race" in D&D is not a synonym for ethnicity or culture, the way it is in our human-only world. It's a synonym for species. And there are very big, noticeable, notable, differences between the available D&D species, and "white-washing" (not entirely accurate but for lack of a better term) that away does the game a pretty big disservice, IMO.

[Witty Username]

Post Tasha's, the number of reasons to take any race besides Custom Lineage or Mountain Dwarf can be counted on your fingers. Elvish Accuracy being unavailable to those races is one of the fingers.

One hand or two hands? And are we counting thumbs as fingers?

[Jervis]

Githyanki took a hit by losing the armor proficiency, but if you don't care about that, they both got pretty decent casting buffs, what with Githyanki letting you get Misty Step onto any caster and Githzerai doing the same for Shield.

Eh, fair. That is actually pretty good. My biggest problem is that wizards took cultural aspects out of races and didn’t put them anywhere else. The Dragonlance backgrounds did that originally but the rewrite took that away. Right now mountain dwarf is kinda the default for unconventional gishes. I kinda hope we get options for getting armor and weapon profs onto classes that don’t normally get them without making it THE option. Vuman with moderately armored could do it if it didn’t require light armor proficiency but eh. This is all to say the thing i’m excited for with dnd moving forward is that the next edition might have backgrounds be impactful beyond fluff.

[diplomancer]

Is the implication that the races in there have been beefed up?

Some of them, definitely, and enough to make them competitive with Custom Lineage or Mountain Dwarves.

[Azuresun]

People all too often forget that "race" in D&D is not a synonym for ethnicity or culture, the way it is in our human-only world. It's a synonym for species. And there are very big, noticeable, notable, differences between the available D&D species, and "white-washing" (not entirely accurate but for lack of a better term) that away does the game a pretty big disservice, IMO.

I find the term "Bowdlerisation" appropriate.

[LudicSavant]

Post Tasha's, the number of reasons to take any race besides Custom Lineage or Mountain Dwarf can be counted on your fingers. Elvish Accuracy being unavailable to those races is one of the fingers.

They have to compete with MPMM's Shadar-Kai, Eladrin, Kobold (all 3 kinds), Shifter (all 4 kinds), Githzerai, Earth Genasi, Harengon, Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Goblin, Fairy, Goliath, Tabaxi, Orc, Aarakocra, Deep Gnome, Aasimar, Yuan-Ti, Satyr, Eberron's Healing Halfling, Shadow Elf, Hospitality Halfling, Warding Dwarf, Sentinel Human, Passage Human, Handling Human, Storm Half-Elf, Ravenloft's Dhampir, Fizban's Gem Dragonborn, SCAG's variant Half-Elves and Winged Tieflings, and of course Custom Lineage and VHuman.

Mountain Dwarves might not even rate in the top ten of that list, despite their Post-Tasha's buffs.

[Evaar]

Mountain Dwarves might not even rate in the top ten of that list, despite their Post-Tasha's buffs.

Right? I can’t believe people are still trotting out that argument. The apocalypse didn’t happen, folks. People, even optimizers, are still playing things other than Mountain Dwarf. And Ability Score bonuses were never an interesting way to distinguish the various races; racial features are far more interesting.

To the question at hand - yeah I think this is fine. Elven Accuracy is good, but it’s not the be-all-end-all feat some people are acting like it is. It wouldn’t be desired on every character, but it would be desired on many. Keep in mind, as written, it doesn’t work with strength attack rolls. As for this being further incentive to play Custom Lineage and start with an 18 in primary stat: that’s a problem with Custom Lineage, not the proposed change, and the solution is to disallow Custom Lineage. It can be done, my DM has done it, that race is actually not more powerful than the DM. Take ownership of your games.

[Witty Username]

Custom lineage isn't even that good anyway.

[Damon_Tor]

One hand or two hands? And are we counting thumbs as fingers?

Depends how you want to count. "Has a goofy meme build that requires a different race" is just one finger to me, but if you want a separate finger for every build that requires a Goliath for dual-wielding rowboats or a Tabaxi for a hextuple psychic suplex then you might have to break out the second hand.

I kid though, it's hyperbole.

[LudicSavant]

Depends how you want to count. "Has a goofy meme build that requires a different race" is just one finger to me, but if you want a separate finger for every build that requires a Goliath for dual-wielding rowboats or a Tabaxi for a hextuple psychic suplex then you might have to break out the second hand.

I kid though, it's hyperbole.

I’ll note that Goliath isn’t powerful for “dual wielding rowboats.” It’s powerful because (in the new version) it gives (1d12+Con)xProf damage reduction. So for example at level 1 with 16 con, it might be giving you 19 extra hp. That’s more hp than your character even had, just stapled on top. You know… about as much as the Hill Dwarf would give at max level. Except it’s not just hp, it’s actual damage reduction, so it cuts concentration checks, protects armor of agathys, etc. And it scales with prof and con from there (with 20 con / +6 prof it’s worth 69 hp of reduction off a mere racial feature. Eat your heart out Toughness).

That’s not a meme build, it’s just a big fat bucket of durability that’s good on basically everything. Goliath is just a straight up strong race in MPMM.

[Witty Username]

See that there, that is race options I want.

Stab the goliath in the chest during a bar fight, looks at you like you're stupid. Then feeds you your own knife before going back to finish their drink.

[sithlordnergal]

Eh, it won't change much...Though I'll be honest, I've never really been impressed with that feat in the first place. Only time its useful is if you have a reliable form of Advantage, and there aren't many places that you can get that.

[JLandan]

I mean, I'm not sure why races are even a thing anymore.

I totally agree. This newer racial feature system is not to my taste. It takes away the mystique of all the races.

[Witty Username]

I totally agree. This newer racial feature system is not to my taste. It takes away the mystique of all the races.

Eh, if I wanted to play a half-orc because I wanted a 10 strength instead of an 8 str sure. I happen to find that half-orcs not dying when they are killed more interesting.

I like the system, I think some of the balance changes are odd, Yuan-ti losing poison Immunity for one.

[kbob]

I’m a minority in this. But my personal opinion is that it should stay the way that it is. It’s something unique to elves. I like the idea of certain things being unique to certain races. Lore-wise (even going all the way back to Tolkien <what DnD is based on>) it makes sense. Elves are naturally far more accurate and precise with their attacks than other races. It would stand to reason that some are even significantly more accurate than their counterparts.
And again, I just like the idea of certain powerful abilities only available to those who took certain options. This is innate in the game anyway. If you want aura of protection, then you must play Paladin and for 6 levels. If you want to make 4 attacks with the attack action then you’re in it for the long haul with fighter. And if you want “super” advantage on your attack then you are an elf and take elven accuracy. I do think each race should have something exceptional feat-wise and that other races are lacking with cool feats. That said, elves do have one and I think it should stay that way. It’s a perk for picking elf.
That’s just my personal view.