Since the new WotC mantra is removing fixed racial ASIs and entirely eliminating any semblance of lore: Do we really need three races of eerily similar sea people?
I give you the Sea Elf, Triton, and Water Genasi. All of these are medium humanoids with: a swim speed equal to walking speed, breath under water, and darkvision. Below are the very few, minor differences:
Sea Elf: As always, elves are the best races with the best features, so they get bonuses over the other sea races.
Fey Ancestry (all elves) advantage against charmed
Keen Senses (all elves) proficiency in Perception
Trance (all elves) no need to sleep and can finish a long rest in 4 hours.
Resistance to cold damage (same as Triton)
Can communicate ideas to any Beast with a swim speed (a little bit weaker than the Triton) with no way to understand them (almost useless).
Triton: Or as I like to call it, watered down (pun intended) Sea Elf with spells!
Can cast Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind, and Water Walk (why do you need this if you can breathe underwater and have a swim speed??) once.
Can communicate ideas to any Beast, Elemental, or Monstrosity with a swim speed with no way to understand them (almost useless).
Resistance to cold damage (same as Sea Elf)
Water Genasi: The red-headed step child of the sea races.
Resistance to acid damage (how often are you hit with acid, really?)
Get the Acid Splash cantrip (really, the only reason you would ever pick this race over the others is for the free cantrip) and can cast Create or Destroy Water (extremely situational and virtually useless) and Water Walk (same spell, same issue as Triton) once.
Since races are now just features with blank canvases for lore and ASIs, I really don't see why we would need three of them. The single paragraph blurb from the Sea Elf and Triton are virtually the same anyway. The Water Genasi, while clearly the worst, is kinda a requirement due to having Air, Fire, and Earth Genasi. I feel like Sea Elves are just elves with water perks, and seem pretty lazily written. But then again, Triton and Water Genasi are SO similar, that you shouldn't have those two be the remaining sea races (the only difference is damage resistance type, which spells they get, and the WG not getting the useless banner feature).
I would say, eliminate Triton and Sea Elf, and give the Water Genasi resistance to cold (not sure why it was ever acid) and the ability to get ideas across to fish. And maybe give them Fog Cloud instead of Create or Destroy Water and swap the cantrip to Shape Water or maybe Frostbite. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Why would you eliminate sea elves, they have been around for decades. They have been in numerous novels and have played a vital role in many stories, including Dragonlance. They have a really diverse and rich culture. Their history is absolutely unique.
And Triton’s? Mermaids in everything but name? Fantastically beautiful, with incredible stories of bravery, love, enduring against all odds, rescuing shipwrecked sailors. From Sirens, to Splash, to the little mermaid, these are deeply passionate creatures with a wealth of lore.
While I agree they gone a bit crazy with the number of races, I don’t see a problem here. The main reason to have them, imo, is if you want to do something undersea, you now have three factions kind of built in, each with their own motivations to either help or hinder the party. Certainly, you can do that with factions within a single race, and maybe should, but having options gives you more room for your world-building.
I honestly cannot fathom (pun intended) players who want fewer race options - more options simply means more choices for players, which means more choices to express exactly what one wants their character to be. Races, unlike spells, are also pretty self-explanatory. There might be dozens of them, but they are all grounded in things players can intuitively grasp from their elementary school knowledge of history, mythology, and fantasy.
Yes, there is a lot of overlap between the races, and yes, one could easily reflavour one race’s lore and appearance to make a different race, but that ignores the simple reality that most players are going to stick with RAW, be it wanting to colour within the lines, nor realising that reflavouring is an option, being too shy to ask their DM to branch out, or just plain old sycophantic dedication to How the Game Must be Played.
Right now, each of these races are flavourfully distinct in ways even novice players can understand. While the game mechanics might be similar, each has their own unique role playing feel, which, as it turns out, is an important and valuable part of a role playing game - particularly for players who might not have the social or creative skills to differentiate their character without the additional racial choices.
Eh, I'm ok with it. Any Earth-like world is likely to have a lot of ocean. It makes sense that such a large niche would be populated by more than one race and the things that they have in common are simply requirements for not dying there. You can boil most any race into a handful of bullet points if you try hard enough.
I'll agree that Water Walk for genasi dumb though. They could just get that as an always-on racial feature and it would be fine.
Water Genasi: The red-headed step child of the sea races.
Resistance to acid damage (how often are you hit with acid, really?)
Get the Acid Splash cantrip (really, the only reason you would ever pick this race over the others is for the free cantrip) and can cast Create or Destroy Water (extremely situational and virtually useless) and Water Walk (same spell, same issue as Triton) once.
I would say, eliminate Triton and Sea Elf, and give the Water Genasi resistance to cold (not sure why it was ever acid) and the ability to get ideas across to fish. And maybe give them Fog Cloud instead of Create or Destroy Water and swap the cantrip to Shape Water or maybe Frostbite. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Salt water is inherently corrosive but not inherently cold. Making Water Genasi acid resistant makes sense, and giving them an attack cantrip whose damage type matches their resistance is extremely consistent with WOTC's general approach - but I agree, Shape Water makes much more sense for them and it's very obvious MPMM approached the Genasi lazily (see e.g. Fire Genasi Darkvision).
Why stop at water-themed races? Why not land ones too? Let’s just do one race for each type of environment: One air thing, one land whatever, and one sea who cares.
Salt water is inherently corrosive but not inherently cold. Making Water Genasi acid resistant makes sense, and giving them an attack cantrip whose damage type matches their resistance is extremely consistent with WOTC's general approach - but I agree, Shape Water makes much more sense for them and it's very obvious MPMM approached the Genasi lazily (see e.g. Fire Genasi Darkvision).
From an Hermetic perspective, acid is tied to the elemental Earth not Water. Makes no sense for water genasi to have resistance or an acid based attack. Cold and ray of frost is far more accurate. And as has been pointed out, pure water as in the elemental plane of water where water elementals originate from is not salty.
Why stop at water-themed races? Why not land ones too? Let’s just do one race for each type of environment: One air thing, one land whatever, and one sea who cares.
Tritons are an extremely rigid people based on strict traditions and hierarchy. They are like the lawful stupid paladins of old (as a society). Sea elves are individuals, they are playful, inquisitive, and capricious. They are generally good natured but will do things just because. And Elementals are true neutral. They don’t care, they only interact and attack people because they have been summoned and compelled or in defence. They prefer to just ignore people where possible. They are all very very different culturally. Which would be great, except the new movement towards cancelling anything that even remotely mentions history and culture.
Why stop at water-themed races? Why not land ones too? Let’s just do one race for each type of environment: One air thing, one land whatever, and one sea who cares.
Are there any that are this similar? It seems like WoTC sees water and says, well you need this this and that and boom its a water race.
The things the three of them share in common are things you need for an underwater/seafaring campaign.
The differences are also important. Proficiency in perception, easily the most called check in the game at almost any table. When played at a underwater/seafaring campaign, it is especially important because failed checks means monsters get to cruise right up to your ship from underwater and catch the party by surprise. While deep underwater, where everything is either lightly obscured or heavily obscured, that is disadvantage on perception checks even with darkvision. Suddenly having automatic proficiency is not so bad.
The triton may be able to breathe underwater and have a swim speed, but that benefit does not extend to everyone in the party or any accompanying NPCs. This is a collaborative game with multiple players - the triton player does not only need to personally benefit from all their traits. I believe you are looking at this in terms of only what is personally beneficial to the individual player.
The water genasi having the ability to create water, in a seafaring campaign, is hardly situational or useless. If you think so, I do not believe you have put much thought into this. In fact, I think you are being dismissive, which in turn encouraged my own dismissiveness. I do think water genasi got nerfed in their update when they lost the ability to shape water, but create or destroy water is a big spell to have for free in a water campaign. How many species do you think can drink sea water safely? What use does such a spell have when someone sets fire to your ship? Does this spell have any utility when your enemy has a need to drink potable water when out to sea? If you are not in a water campaign, you will still need water to survive when away from civilization. When you are in a city, can you really think of no way for this spell to have countless uses?
Why stop at water-themed races? Why not land ones too? Let’s just do one race for each type of environment: One air thing, one land whatever, and one sea who cares.
Tritons are an extremely rigid people based on strict traditions and hierarchy. They are like the lawful stupid paladins of old (as a society). Sea elves are individuals, they are playful, inquisitive, and capricious. They are generally good natured but will do things just because. And Elementals are true neutral. They don’t care, they only interact and attack people because they have been summoned and compelled or in defence. They prefer to just ignore people where possible. They are all very very different culturally. Which would be great, except the new movement towards cancelling anything that even remotely mentions history and culture.
I can see quite a lot of variety in Elves. I haven't seen Astral or Sea, but the other ones do have a fair amount of diversity. A Drow is different to a High Elf who is different from an Eladrin. Could they have been named as different races altogether rather than as subraces? Possibly, although I don't see how that would achieve much other than quieten the critics a little. I've not really looked into Sea Elves, not having played a nautical game, but the Elves I have seen (Drow, High, Shadar-Kai, Wood, Eladrin) are unique enough that I'm happy to have them in the game -.whatever you want to call them.
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I honestly cannot fathom (pun intended) players who want fewer race options - more options simply means more choices for players, which means more choices to express exactly what one wants their character to be. Races, unlike spells, are also pretty self-explanatory. There might be dozens of them, but they are all grounded in things players can intuitively grasp from their elementary school knowledge of history, mythology, and fantasy.
Yes, there is a lot of overlap between the races, and yes, one could easily reflavour one race’s lore and appearance to make a different race, but that ignores the simple reality that most players are going to stick with RAW, be it wanting to colour within the lines, nor realising that reflavouring is an option, being too shy to ask their DM to branch out, or just plain old sycophantic dedication to How the Game Must be Played.
Right now, each of these races are flavourfully distinct in ways even novice players can understand. While the game mechanics might be similar, each has their own unique role playing feel, which, as it turns out, is an important and valuable part of a role playing game - particularly for players who might not have the social or creative skills to differentiate their character without the additional racial choices.
As a DM it isn't just player races, I now have 3 ready made races that can be having a power struggle under the sea for my players to try and resolve. If you take 2 of them away then it reduces flavour. Yes ok you can have them as monsters or NPC's but, there is a psychological element for players in knowing "we could be one of those" I find it makes campaigns far more interesting and allows for many shades of Grey if Players feel a connection to a race because characters have the potential to come from that race.
Water Genasi: The red-headed step child of the sea races.
Resistance to acid damage (how often are you hit with acid, really?)
Get the Acid Splash cantrip (really, the only reason you would ever pick this race over the others is for the free cantrip) and can cast Create or Destroy Water (extremely situational and virtually useless) and Water Walk (same spell, same issue as Triton) once.
I would say, eliminate Triton and Sea Elf, and give the Water Genasi resistance to cold (not sure why it was ever acid) and the ability to get ideas across to fish. And maybe give them Fog Cloud instead of Create or Destroy Water and swap the cantrip to Shape Water or maybe Frostbite. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Salt water is inherently corrosive but not inherently cold. Making Water Genasi acid resistant makes sense, and giving them an attack cantrip whose damage type matches their resistance is extremely consistent with WOTC's general approach - but I agree, Shape Water makes much more sense for them and it's very obvious MPMM approached the Genasi lazily (see e.g. Fire Genasi Darkvision).
Sea water is only corrosive against metals. It's not really corrosive against organic tissue. It is, however, inherently cold everywhere except for a thin band found at the surface in the tropics and some parts of the temperate oceans (depending on whether the prevailing ocean currents are coming from the tropics or the poles). However, I'm fine with water genasi having acid resistance and damage just because that's a bit more variety. As far as tritons go, I'd just give them Wall of Water back like they had in Volo's Guide instead of Water Walking.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Water walking? For an underwater race? Really WOTC? Ok, there are are actually 4 races - the merfolk. as to differentiating them it mostly comes down to spells and resistances. All of them should have darkvision and water and air breathing. After that it’s a bit trickier cold resistance makes the most sense as most of the oceans and even deeper inland lakes are mostly cold and water sucks the heat out of you much faster than air does so cold resistance whether it’s a due a layer of insulation or a heat exchange core blood circulation or magic makes sense. Tritons are supposedly from deeper waters so maybe darkvision 120’ instead of 60’. Merfolk are also from any depth ( and fully adapted to the oceans given the fishtails) so maybe tremorsense to one or both to detect the pressure waves like a fish’s lateral line does. The spells they can cast at L1/3/5 as well as the cultures you add should be the main distinguishing features. Merfolk seem to have associations with song and storms so fog cloud and or thunder spells might be an interesting alternative - or some charm spells or summoning spells. Elves always strike me as more “ in tune with nature” so maybe things like thorn whip, entangle ( in kelp), spike growth and plant growth would work well for them. Tritons, coming from the deep dark waters, might actually have light spells of various sorts as those would have serious effects in a realm of darkness - perhaps: dancing lights, color spray, continual flame and hypnotic pattern. Yes these are a bit stronger than many of the standard spells but it’s still once/LR so not a huge problem.
Water walking? For an underwater race? Really WOTC? Ok, there are are actually 4 races - the merfolk. as to differentiating them it mostly comes down to spells and resistances. All of them should have darkvision and water and air breathing. After that it’s a bit trickier cold resistance makes the most sense as most of the oceans and even deeper inland lakes are mostly cold and water sucks the heat out of you much faster than air does so cold resistance whether it’s a due a layer of insulation or a heat exchange core blood circulation or magic makes sense. Tritons are supposedly from deeper waters so maybe darkvision 120’ instead of 60’. Merfolk are also from any depth ( and fully adapted to the oceans given the fishtails) so maybe tremorsense to one or both to detect the pressure waves like a fish’s lateral line does. The spells they can cast at L1/3/5 as well as the cultures you add should be the main distinguishing features. Merfolk seem to have associations with song and storms so fog cloud and or thunder spells might be an interesting alternative - or some charm spells or summoning spells. Elves always strike me as more “ in tune with nature” so maybe things like thorn whip, entangle ( in kelp), spike growth and plant growth would work well for them. Tritons, coming from the deep dark waters, might actually have light spells of various sorts as those would have serious effects in a realm of darkness - perhaps: dancing lights, color spray, continual flame and hypnotic pattern. Yes these are a bit stronger than many of the standard spells but it’s still once/LR so not a huge problem.
Except no race has culture or lore anymore. So using those to distinguish them is a nonstarter.
Hyperbolic and easily disproven statements make you look foolish. Despite the rallying cry of those who do not bother to read, MMM does, in fact, contain lore:
1. Tritons are originally from the Plane of Water, but left due to emerging evil elementals. They moved to the depths of the Material Plane, protecting the surface from the monsters which live deep in the oceans. Over time, they expanded their dominion to all parts of the ocean.
2. Water Genasi, as all Genasi, are descendant from human and genie couplings, specifically couplings with a marid. In addition to adaptability to live on the surface, they can also live underwater.
3. Sea Elves are elves who fell in love with the water at the very beginnings of the multiverse. Where other elves traveled between realms looking for their home, the sea elves travelled the myriad seas and shores of the multiverse, adapting to aquatic life.
That is enough lore for anyone who is making a character to distinguish between the three - aquatic protectors race, human with the flair of a genie, elf with aquatic wanderlust. Even MMM’s scaled back lore serves as a sufficient and differentiated starting block for players, new or old, making your “no lore” position demonstrably incorrect.
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Since the new WotC mantra is removing fixed racial ASIs and entirely eliminating any semblance of lore: Do we really need three races of eerily similar sea people?
I give you the Sea Elf, Triton, and Water Genasi. All of these are medium humanoids with: a swim speed equal to walking speed, breath under water, and darkvision. Below are the very few, minor differences:
Since races are now just features with blank canvases for lore and ASIs, I really don't see why we would need three of them. The single paragraph blurb from the Sea Elf and Triton are virtually the same anyway. The Water Genasi, while clearly the worst, is kinda a requirement due to having Air, Fire, and Earth Genasi. I feel like Sea Elves are just elves with water perks, and seem pretty lazily written. But then again, Triton and Water Genasi are SO similar, that you shouldn't have those two be the remaining sea races (the only difference is damage resistance type, which spells they get, and the WG not getting the useless banner feature).
I would say, eliminate Triton and Sea Elf, and give the Water Genasi resistance to cold (not sure why it was ever acid) and the ability to get ideas across to fish. And maybe give them Fog Cloud instead of Create or Destroy Water and swap the cantrip to Shape Water or maybe Frostbite. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Why would you eliminate sea elves, they have been around for decades. They have been in numerous novels and have played a vital role in many stories, including Dragonlance. They have a really diverse and rich culture. Their history is absolutely unique.
And Triton’s? Mermaids in everything but name? Fantastically beautiful, with incredible stories of bravery, love, enduring against all odds, rescuing shipwrecked sailors. From Sirens, to Splash, to the little mermaid, these are deeply passionate creatures with a wealth of lore.
Oh. Wait. I see what you did there.
While I agree they gone a bit crazy with the number of races, I don’t see a problem here. The main reason to have them, imo, is if you want to do something undersea, you now have three factions kind of built in, each with their own motivations to either help or hinder the party.
Certainly, you can do that with factions within a single race, and maybe should, but having options gives you more room for your world-building.
I honestly cannot fathom (pun intended) players who want fewer race options - more options simply means more choices for players, which means more choices to express exactly what one wants their character to be. Races, unlike spells, are also pretty self-explanatory. There might be dozens of them, but they are all grounded in things players can intuitively grasp from their elementary school knowledge of history, mythology, and fantasy.
Yes, there is a lot of overlap between the races, and yes, one could easily reflavour one race’s lore and appearance to make a different race, but that ignores the simple reality that most players are going to stick with RAW, be it wanting to colour within the lines, nor realising that reflavouring is an option, being too shy to ask their DM to branch out, or just plain old sycophantic dedication to How the Game Must be Played.
Right now, each of these races are flavourfully distinct in ways even novice players can understand. While the game mechanics might be similar, each has their own unique role playing feel, which, as it turns out, is an important and valuable part of a role playing game - particularly for players who might not have the social or creative skills to differentiate their character without the additional racial choices.
Eh, I'm ok with it. Any Earth-like world is likely to have a lot of ocean. It makes sense that such a large niche would be populated by more than one race and the things that they have in common are simply requirements for not dying there. You can boil most any race into a handful of bullet points if you try hard enough.
I'll agree that Water Walk for genasi dumb though. They could just get that as an always-on racial feature and it would be fine.
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Salt water is inherently corrosive but not inherently cold. Making Water Genasi acid resistant makes sense, and giving them an attack cantrip whose damage type matches their resistance is extremely consistent with WOTC's general approach - but I agree, Shape Water makes much more sense for them and it's very obvious MPMM approached the Genasi lazily (see e.g. Fire Genasi Darkvision).
Why stop at water-themed races? Why not land ones too? Let’s just do one race for each type of environment: One air thing, one land whatever, and one sea who cares.
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From an Hermetic perspective, acid is tied to the elemental Earth not Water. Makes no sense for water genasi to have resistance or an acid based attack. Cold and ray of frost is far more accurate. And as has been pointed out, pure water as in the elemental plane of water where water elementals originate from is not salty.
Tritons are an extremely rigid people based on strict traditions and hierarchy. They are like the lawful stupid paladins of old (as a society). Sea elves are individuals, they are playful, inquisitive, and capricious. They are generally good natured but will do things just because. And Elementals are true neutral. They don’t care, they only interact and attack people because they have been summoned and compelled or in defence. They prefer to just ignore people where possible. They are all very very different culturally. Which would be great, except the new movement towards cancelling anything that even remotely mentions history and culture.
The things the three of them share in common are things you need for an underwater/seafaring campaign.
The differences are also important. Proficiency in perception, easily the most called check in the game at almost any table. When played at a underwater/seafaring campaign, it is especially important because failed checks means monsters get to cruise right up to your ship from underwater and catch the party by surprise. While deep underwater, where everything is either lightly obscured or heavily obscured, that is disadvantage on perception checks even with darkvision. Suddenly having automatic proficiency is not so bad.
The triton may be able to breathe underwater and have a swim speed, but that benefit does not extend to everyone in the party or any accompanying NPCs. This is a collaborative game with multiple players - the triton player does not only need to personally benefit from all their traits. I believe you are looking at this in terms of only what is personally beneficial to the individual player.
The water genasi having the ability to create water, in a seafaring campaign, is hardly situational or useless. If you think so, I do not believe you have put much thought into this. In fact, I think you are being dismissive, which in turn encouraged my own dismissiveness. I do think water genasi got nerfed in their update when they lost the ability to shape water, but create or destroy water is a big spell to have for free in a water campaign. How many species do you think can drink sea water safely? What use does such a spell have when someone sets fire to your ship? Does this spell have any utility when your enemy has a need to drink potable water when out to sea? If you are not in a water campaign, you will still need water to survive when away from civilization. When you are in a city, can you really think of no way for this spell to have countless uses?
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I think you may have missed the sarcasm. :P
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Because currently there are 67 official races 37 with darkvision. So why do we need 8 official elves? Exact what are the diffences in elfs?
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I can see quite a lot of variety in Elves. I haven't seen Astral or Sea, but the other ones do have a fair amount of diversity. A Drow is different to a High Elf who is different from an Eladrin. Could they have been named as different races altogether rather than as subraces? Possibly, although I don't see how that would achieve much other than quieten the critics a little. I've not really looked into Sea Elves, not having played a nautical game, but the Elves I have seen (Drow, High, Shadar-Kai, Wood, Eladrin) are unique enough that I'm happy to have them in the game -.whatever you want to call them.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
"Water genasi, known in many places as tritons..."
Well, too many of them and you get a bronze age collapse.
As a DM it isn't just player races, I now have 3 ready made races that can be having a power struggle under the sea for my players to try and resolve. If you take 2 of them away then it reduces flavour. Yes ok you can have them as monsters or NPC's but, there is a psychological element for players in knowing "we could be one of those" I find it makes campaigns far more interesting and allows for many shades of Grey if Players feel a connection to a race because characters have the potential to come from that race.
My preferred sea people is the Locathah I just wish they didn't have Limited Amphibiousness
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Sea water is only corrosive against metals. It's not really corrosive against organic tissue. It is, however, inherently cold everywhere except for a thin band found at the surface in the tropics and some parts of the temperate oceans (depending on whether the prevailing ocean currents are coming from the tropics or the poles). However, I'm fine with water genasi having acid resistance and damage just because that's a bit more variety. As far as tritons go, I'd just give them Wall of Water back like they had in Volo's Guide instead of Water Walking.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Water walking? For an underwater race? Really WOTC? Ok, there are are actually 4 races - the merfolk. as to differentiating them it mostly comes down to spells and resistances. All of them should have darkvision and water and air breathing. After that it’s a bit trickier cold resistance makes the most sense as most of the oceans and even deeper inland lakes are mostly cold and water sucks the heat out of you much faster than air does so cold resistance whether it’s a due a layer of insulation or a heat exchange core blood circulation or magic makes sense. Tritons are supposedly from deeper waters so maybe darkvision 120’ instead of 60’. Merfolk are also from any depth ( and fully adapted to the oceans given the fishtails) so maybe tremorsense to one or both to detect the pressure waves like a fish’s lateral line does. The spells they can cast at L1/3/5 as well as the cultures you add should be the main distinguishing features. Merfolk seem to have associations with song and storms so fog cloud and or thunder spells might be an interesting alternative - or some charm spells or summoning spells. Elves always strike me as more “ in tune with nature” so maybe things like thorn whip, entangle ( in kelp), spike growth and plant growth would work well for them. Tritons, coming from the deep dark waters, might actually have light spells of various sorts as those would have serious effects in a realm of darkness - perhaps: dancing lights, color spray, continual flame and hypnotic pattern. Yes these are a bit stronger than many of the standard spells but it’s still once/LR so not a huge problem.
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Hyperbolic and easily disproven statements make you look foolish. Despite the rallying cry of those who do not bother to read, MMM does, in fact, contain lore:
1. Tritons are originally from the Plane of Water, but left due to emerging evil elementals. They moved to the depths of the Material Plane, protecting the surface from the monsters which live deep in the oceans. Over time, they expanded their dominion to all parts of the ocean.
2. Water Genasi, as all Genasi, are descendant from human and genie couplings, specifically couplings with a marid. In addition to adaptability to live on the surface, they can also live underwater.
3. Sea Elves are elves who fell in love with the water at the very beginnings of the multiverse. Where other elves traveled between realms looking for their home, the sea elves travelled the myriad seas and shores of the multiverse, adapting to aquatic life.
That is enough lore for anyone who is making a character to distinguish between the three - aquatic protectors race, human with the flair of a genie, elf with aquatic wanderlust. Even MMM’s scaled back lore serves as a sufficient and differentiated starting block for players, new or old, making your “no lore” position demonstrably incorrect.