So I was looking around D&D beyond and noticed the new Ravenloft book. I took a look and the reborn caught my eye. I was wondering how being undead races would work. Say I was an elf (high elf) and I was killed. Then I became a reborn. What features would I keep from the elf and what features would I get from the reborn? Can someone pleases tell me. If you want to know exactly what I mean just ask. Thank you.
According to the UA (the beta version, essentially) you would keep no traits that you got through being an elf. You would only have the traits associated with being Reborn. However, we don't know what changes will have occurred between testing and publication, so this might change. UAs are usually OP, and get toned down some for publication.
To echo pocketmouse, the only answers you're going to get here will be unofficial conjectures from the UA until the book actually comes out. The three lineages that will be available in Ravensloft are new to 5e in their hybrid type. Reborn for example are humanoid and either Construct or Undead. Hexblood are humanoid and Fey. On top of the new lineage being a "wipe" of the prior character's racial traits, the character's new lineage takes the good and the bad of their two sides. A Reborn with an Undead lineage for example, would have both the undead nature's disregard for needs like air and food, but can also at least as presented be vulnerable to Turn/Destroy Undead.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thank you for reminding me that it is not official just yet and maybe more restrictions will be added on what you can do with the reborn. I'm mainly curious about how your race in life affects your abilities after death. It wouldn't make sense to me if nothing carried over. My opinion is that certain flashbacks may allow the player to start recovering some abilities and maybe when they reach higher levels, start fulling recovering abilities. For example, when you get a flashback of your past life and you had proficiency with a tool then you would get proficiency with that tool after a certain amount of flashbacks of you working with that tool. That was just an example with a tool but it would be harder to work out a rule set for past race abilities. Was that to much use of the word tool?
Keep in mind the Design Note: Changes to Racial Traits as well. It's not entirely clear to me how this will shake out in practice, but if culturally determined characteristics are not going to be part of your race and Reborn bodies physically don't (have to) have anything in common with their former, natural bodies then, well, it's not exactly easy to have a general rule for carrying over abilities. Nature is irrelevant, you're reborn as a golem of sorts so your natural musculature, hardiness or any other physical qualities are no longer pertinent. Nurture is nebulous, as it's not clearly stated how that will be represented mechanically.
edit: to further clarify, the gothic lineages are basically like full character resets. Nothing about any of them indicates you necessarily retain memories of your past. Even Hexbloods might be the result of a bargain struck by others, before they were even born. They're meant for character creation first and foremost, not really for transforming an existing character mid-campaign.
How about you don't unlock anything immediately but as you get higher level you get abilities from your sub race as you get more connected with it. Such as a stone golem sub race giving you more feats (related to stone and toughness I think tavern brawler might be appropriate) to chose from and some other abilities (which I can't think of on the spot) and these would be unlocked maybe from 6th to 16th level or something around that. The reason I wish to have sub races is because it would give players more diversity of the race but also the ability to be the race multiple times and not be bored with it.
How about you don't unlock anything immediately but as you get higher level you get abilities from your sub race as you get more connected with it. Such as a stone golem sub race giving you more feats (related to stone and toughness I think tavern brawler might be appropriate) to chose from and some other abilities (which I can't think of on the spot) and these would be unlocked maybe from 6th to 16th level or something around that. The reason I wish to have sub races is because it would give players more diversity of the race but also the ability to be the race multiple times and not be bored with it.
The rules as written don't cover anything like this. You can certainly homebrew something though.
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To put it simply, it would be like the tieflings spell casting ability but the reborn's abilities would be unlocked at higher levels than the tieflings.
Also I'm not the best homebrewer the only thing I've made is the spell moonslit (I would like an opinion on that because I haven't gotten any feed back except one add)
How about you don't unlock anything immediately but as you get higher level you get abilities from your sub race as you get more connected with it. Such as a stone golem sub race giving you more feats (related to stone and toughness I think tavern brawler might be appropriate) to chose from and some other abilities (which I can't think of on the spot) and these would be unlocked maybe from 6th to 16th level or something around that. The reason I wish to have sub races is because it would give players more diversity of the race but also the ability to be the race multiple times and not be bored with it.
Two of the groups that I currently play with have decided that Hexblood and Dhamphir will be races that you're born as like Aasimar and Tieflings and Reborn would be something that could happen to you later in life. The third group is mostly undecided. We just don't like the complete rewrite thing for those two options but the Lineages themselves are very cool.
By RAW as we know it, you are right. We just don't like it and will House Rule it to play in a way we like better.
To add to this a bit from my perspective: conceptually they are very well suited to be something that happens later on, but mechanically they really aren't - essentially for reasons mentioned in the OP. If I want something similar for existing PCs that preserves at least some of the character, I'm really better off just homebrewing something from scratch (not unlike for characters becoming werebears in Rime, but more comprehensive).
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So I was looking around D&D beyond and noticed the new Ravenloft book. I took a look and the reborn caught my eye. I was wondering how being undead races would work. Say I was an elf (high elf) and I was killed. Then I became a reborn. What features would I keep from the elf and what features would I get from the reborn? Can someone pleases tell me. If you want to know exactly what I mean just ask. Thank you.
According to the UA (the beta version, essentially) you would keep no traits that you got through being an elf. You would only have the traits associated with being Reborn. However, we don't know what changes will have occurred between testing and publication, so this might change. UAs are usually OP, and get toned down some for publication.
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To echo pocketmouse, the only answers you're going to get here will be unofficial conjectures from the UA until the book actually comes out. The three lineages that will be available in Ravensloft are new to 5e in their hybrid type. Reborn for example are humanoid and either Construct or Undead. Hexblood are humanoid and Fey. On top of the new lineage being a "wipe" of the prior character's racial traits, the character's new lineage takes the good and the bad of their two sides. A Reborn with an Undead lineage for example, would have both the undead nature's disregard for needs like air and food, but can also at least as presented be vulnerable to Turn/Destroy Undead.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thank you for reminding me that it is not official just yet and maybe more restrictions will be added on what you can do with the reborn. I'm mainly curious about how your race in life affects your abilities after death. It wouldn't make sense to me if nothing carried over. My opinion is that certain flashbacks may allow the player to start recovering some abilities and maybe when they reach higher levels, start fulling recovering abilities. For example, when you get a flashback of your past life and you had proficiency with a tool then you would get proficiency with that tool after a certain amount of flashbacks of you working with that tool. That was just an example with a tool but it would be harder to work out a rule set for past race abilities. Was that to much use of the word tool?
Keep in mind the Design Note: Changes to Racial Traits as well. It's not entirely clear to me how this will shake out in practice, but if culturally determined characteristics are not going to be part of your race and Reborn bodies physically don't (have to) have anything in common with their former, natural bodies then, well, it's not exactly easy to have a general rule for carrying over abilities. Nature is irrelevant, you're reborn as a golem of sorts so your natural musculature, hardiness or any other physical qualities are no longer pertinent. Nurture is nebulous, as it's not clearly stated how that will be represented mechanically.
edit: to further clarify, the gothic lineages are basically like full character resets. Nothing about any of them indicates you necessarily retain memories of your past. Even Hexbloods might be the result of a bargain struck by others, before they were even born. They're meant for character creation first and foremost, not really for transforming an existing character mid-campaign.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
How about different sub races to help put a base on the reborn.
What about them?
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
How about you don't unlock anything immediately but as you get higher level you get abilities from your sub race as you get more connected with it. Such as a stone golem sub race giving you more feats (related to stone and toughness I think tavern brawler might be appropriate) to chose from and some other abilities (which I can't think of on the spot) and these would be unlocked maybe from 6th to 16th level or something around that. The reason I wish to have sub races is because it would give players more diversity of the race but also the ability to be the race multiple times and not be bored with it.
The rules as written don't cover anything like this. You can certainly homebrew something though.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
To put it simply, it would be like the tieflings spell casting ability but the reborn's abilities would be unlocked at higher levels than the tieflings.
Also I'm not the best homebrewer the only thing I've made is the spell moonslit (I would like an opinion on that because I haven't gotten any feed back except one add)
That would be cool.
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Two of the groups that I currently play with have decided that Hexblood and Dhamphir will be races that you're born as like Aasimar and Tieflings and Reborn would be something that could happen to you later in life. The third group is mostly undecided. We just don't like the complete rewrite thing for those two options but the Lineages themselves are very cool.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I think that all 3 can happen later in life because all of them can be caused by something after birth.
By RAW as we know it, you are right. We just don't like it and will House Rule it to play in a way we like better.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Exactly why they created house rules, to tweak D&D to everyone's playstyles.
To add to this a bit from my perspective: conceptually they are very well suited to be something that happens later on, but mechanically they really aren't - essentially for reasons mentioned in the OP. If I want something similar for existing PCs that preserves at least some of the character, I'm really better off just homebrewing something from scratch (not unlike for characters becoming werebears in Rime, but more comprehensive).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].