Can a character that has the Tashas "Custom Lineage" take a feat from Xanathars that has a race prerequisite? For example, can the character qualify for the Fey Teleportation feat that requires one to be of the "Elf (high)" race?
According to the Rules-As-Written for the Custom Lineage, I read them to give the answer, yes. A Custom Lineage can qualify for a race feat in Xanathars.
Even so, an official rules clarification from WotC remains helpful, such as from Jeremy Crawford, via Twitter or Sage Advice, or even from an errata update.
The Rules-As-Intended seems, yes. Custom Lineage can qualify for any race feat. One of the goals of Tashas is to remove all race prerequisites. For example, Tashas updates the Bladesinger Wizard without the race prerequisite that was found in the earlier book, Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. Unfortunately, Xanathars currently lacks an update, so the availability of these race feats remains nonexplicit. There are no race feats in the core Players Handbook. The question only concerns how Tashas interacts with Xanathars.
Regarding the Rules-As-Written of the Custom Lineage in Tashas:
• The purpose is, "giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them".
Thus the intent is emphatically to give "full" control over the "origin". If the chosen "origin" is that of an elf, such as a high elf, the player has "full control" over the traits of the high elf for this character. Thus the Custom Lineage can qualify for the race Fey Teleportation feat in Xanathars.
In other words, instead of using the "high elf" in the Players Handbook, the player can use the Custom Lineage to create ones own version of a "high elf".
• "Origin".
"Origin" is a technical term in Tashas that "paints a picture" of the overall character concept. An "origin" includes: "ability scores, race, class, and background". Tashas offers "a way to customize your character's origin by changing some of your racial traits". Thus Tashas specifically uses the term "origin" when referring to any "race", including a "high elf", and the ability two swap one high elf trait for an other high elf trait.
Thus "full control over your character's origin", means full freedom to redefine the traits of the "elf" origin. Thus, Custom Lineage does qualify for the Fey Teleportation feat in Xanathars, because the "origin" of the character can be "elf (high)".
In other words, the purpose of the Custom Lineage is to give you full control over how the high elf race shapes your character.
• "Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin."
When creating a Custom Lineage for a character, the character must be "humanoid". However, the character is also assumed to have "kin". The kinship that the character belongs to can be high elves. Thus the character that has a Custom Lineage can qualify for a race feat in Xanathars that requires kinship with the elf (high) race.
Both the Rules-As-Intended and the meanings of the terms "origin" and "kin" in the Rules-As-Written, allow a character that has a Custom Lineage in Tashas to qualify for a race feat in Xanathars.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice for which you qualify.
If they choose to build their own version of "Elf (High)" then maybe they qualify for that feat - but within the world other characters built using the standard Elf (High) would treat that PC as one of their own race.
As GM, you have ultimate say in vetoing any PC that you don't like from appearing in your campaign.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice for which you qualify.
If they choose to build their own version of "Elf (High)" then maybe they qualify for that feat - but within the world other characters built using the standard Elf (High) would treat that PC as one of their own race.
That is how I read the rules as written too. If a character has a Custom Lineage that qualifies for the Fey Teleportation feat, then by definition, the character belongs to the high elf race.
It is debatable whether a magical trait like Fey Teleportation is nature or nurture. The description of the feat says, "your study of high elven lore has unlocked fey power that few other elves possess, except your eladrin cousins." The term "lore" implies nurture while the term "fey power" implies nature, so perhaps both.
In any case, the eladrin elves typically possess Fey Teleportation. This invites the possibility that the Custom Lineage might be either high elf or eladrin elf. But the feat prerequisite specifies only high elf.
Of course, the DM can do whatever. Moreover, each setting can have its own rules for race. This thread is mainly about the rules as written, that assumes the default Forgotten Realms setting.
The Xanathar feats themselves seem racially exclusive. For example, the Elven Accuracy feat allows an Elf or a Half Elf to take it. But the Fey Teleportation feat only allows a High Elf to take it. A Half Elf cannot take the Fey Teleportation feat. Even a Wood Elf cannot take it. This is precisely the kind of racism that Tashas is moving away from. But in Xanathars, the words still are what they are, bar a future erratum.
Probably, a Custom Lineage can be designed to be both "High Elf" and "Human", without being a "Half Elf". In the Players Handbook, the Half Elf is a unique race with unique traits, and it can be that a Custom Lineage is not that. A player has "full control" to decide both the nature and the nurture of the character, including a multi-race character concept. Nevertheless, the rules-as-written in Xanathars require the player to think carefully about the race concept, because whatever the player decides during character creation at level 1 will decide what rules will apply later in the game while advancing.
RAW, I would lean no racial feats, or else it would not have mentioned the qualification requirement part. If flavoring allows for qualification, that means if you flavor your character as having a Valenar high elf mom, a halfling dad, and dad's height, your character can potentially qualify for up to six racial feats: Elven Accuracy Fey Teleportation Revenant Blade Bountiful Luck Second Chance Squat Nimbleness
Personally, I would allow it since I do not think it is a big deal to get rid of the racial requirements on Feats.
RAW, I would lean no racial feats, or else it would not have mentioned the qualification requirement part. If flavoring allows for qualification, that means if you flavor your character as having a Valenar high elf mom, a halfling dad, and dad's height, your character can potentially qualify for up to six racial feats: Elven Accuracy Fey Teleportation Revenant Blade Bountiful Luck Second Chance Squat Nimbleness
Personally, I would allow it since I do not think it is a big deal to get rid of the racial requirements on Feats.
I assume the "qualification requirement" is there because certain feats require a certain ability score or a proficiency with a certain weapon or armor.
But the Custom Lineage decides what the race is, thus itself decides which race feats it can qualify for.
On the related issue of a multi-race lineage qualifying for the feats of various races:
That seems ok per the wording of the rules. Regarding balance it is fine. To acquire so many feats is an opportunity cost, that results with no ability score improvements even into the highest levels. So the character concept balances well enough.
As you say, the race requirements are no big deal.
Multi-race characters are less common in the Forgotten Realms setting, albeit they are known.
In other settings, they are common. For example, Dark Sun has a human-dwarf multi-race concept.
In a Viking setting, the elf, dwarf, and giant, differ significantly from the Tolkien-esque D&D elf, dwarf, and giant. Moreover, a Viking setting kin can produce children with any other kin. Besides human-elf and human-giant, elf-giant, elf-dwarf, and giant-dwarf exist.
The Custom Lineage in Tashas is highly useful to achieve these complex character concepts in a balanced way.
RAW, I would lean no racial feats, or else it would not have mentioned the qualification requirement part. If flavoring allows for qualification, that means if you flavor your character as having a Valenar high elf mom, a halfling dad, and dad's height, your character can potentially qualify for up to six racial feats: Elven Accuracy Fey Teleportation Revenant Blade Bountiful Luck Second Chance Squat Nimbleness
Personally, I would allow it since I do not think it is a big deal to get rid of the racial requirements on Feats.
I assume the "qualification requirement" is there because certain feats require a certain ability score or a proficiency with a certain weapon or armor.
But the Custom Lineage decides what the race is, thus itself decides which race feats it can qualify for.
That is true, maybe the requirement does not refer to racial requirements. However, if it does not refer to racial requirements, I think it would have said that. I guess we will just have to wait for a while until Wizards makes an official announcement or errata or something to clear it up. If they do clear it up, I hope they allow all racial feats for Custom Lineage. Ideally, I would like them to take it one step further and allow any race to take any racial feat and just say that the racial feat is just an expression of a character's mixed heritage. Since they already allow swapping ASIs and proficiencies, might as well go one step further and remove racial requirements on feats.
On the related issue of a multi-race lineage qualifying for the feats of various races:
That seems ok per the wording of the rules. Regarding balance it is fine. To acquire so many feats is an opportunity cost, that results with no ability score improvements even into the highest levels. So the character concept balances well enough.
As you say, the race requirements are no big deal.
I do not feel like I have DMed enough to make a judgement about balance, but on the surface of things, removing racial requirement does not seem to make much of a difference in my opinion since it is balanced around ASIs.
And as you say, if you are to play a half elf with mixed elven heritage and you want to grab all the elven racial feats to represent the half elf fully embracing elven culture or whatever, that feels more flavorful than powerful in my opinion. However, there may be some combination of race, racial feat, class/subclass feature, etc. that might be more powerful that I am not aware of.
Maybe half-orc fighter/rogue (champion 16 assassin 4) with Elven Accuracy and Savage Attacker feat? You get something that is super accurate with deadly criticals.
Multi-race characters are less common in the Forgotten Realms setting, albeit they are known.
In other settings, they are common. For example, Dark Sun has a human-dwarf multi-race concept.
In a Viking setting, the elf, dwarf, and giant, differ significantly from the Tolkien-esque D&D elf, dwarf, and giant. Moreover, a Viking setting kin can produce children with any other kin. Besides human-elf and human-giant, elf-giant, elf-dwarf, and giant-dwarf exist.
The Custom Lineage in Tashas is highly useful to achieve these complex character concepts in a balanced way.
Yeah, I hope they incorporate more mixed-race playable characters in future adventures and give us a pregenerated character examples incorporating Custom Lineage. That way, it would lend more "officialness" or weight to the Custom Lineage system.
RAW I'd say you dont qualify for racial feats "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them:"
I read the Bolded section to say you are not one of the games races. That said, personally I would rule that you can take racial feats but only for one race. For example, you could have either Elven accuracy or Dragon Hide but not both. If you chose Dragon Hide I would count you as a form of dragon born going forward allowing you to later take Dragon fear for example(which would be pointless because it uses a resource you don't have with custom lineage but that's a completely separate conversation)
RAW I'd say you dont qualify for racial feats "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them:"
I read the Bolded section to say you are not one of the games races.
That's my take on it as well. You're not creating a variant of an existing race, you're creating something that through whatever vagaries of fate is unique.
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RAW I'd say you dont qualify for racial feats "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them:"
I read the Bolded section to say you are not one of the games races. That said, personally I would rule that you can take racial feats but only for one race. For example, you could have either Elven accuracy or Dragon Hide but not both. If you chose Dragon Hide I would count you as a form of dragon born going forward allowing you to later take Dragon fear for example(which would be pointless because it uses a resource you don't have with custom lineage but that's a completely separate conversation)
I agree, part of the tradeoff for the flexibility of the Custom Lineage option is losing access to the "archtypal" features of that race, like the unique racial abilities such as innate spellcasting of Drow & Tieflings, the Goliath's Powerful Build and Stone's Endurance, etc. I would argue that includes the racial feats too. If you want access to those feats without fully conforming to the standard racial traits, Tasha's offers a middle-ground with the ability score & proficiency swaps you can make.
RAW I'd say you dont qualify for racial feats "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them:"
I read the Bolded section to say you are not one of the games races. That said, personally I would rule that you can take racial feats but only for one race. For example, you could have either Elven accuracy or Dragon Hide but not both. If you chose Dragon Hide I would count you as a form of dragon born going forward allowing you to later take Dragon fear for example(which would be pointless because it uses a resource you don't have with custom lineage but that's a completely separate conversation)
I read, "instead of choosing one of the games races", to mean, you can create your own version of one of these races with completely different race traits. This reading agrees better with the text elsewhere, such as how much you want your character to resemble the other members of the race, or not.
That would be worded like "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races' racial bonuses... you can use the following ...". The RAW wording replaces the existing race with the "custom lineage" race mechanics-wise
The wording gives you "full control" to create your own version of a high elf, if you dont want to use the one that the game provides.
I'm sure that's how you're reading it, but for equally sure that's not how it reads to me. Instead of A, you do B. Doing B excludes A. You're not doing A, so you're not choosing one of the game's races. What you choose is something else.
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" Instead of choosing one of the game's races [such as the high elf] for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your [own version of the] character's [high elf] lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them.
Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your [other high elf] kin.
" Instead of choosing one of the game's races [such as the high elf] for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your [own version of the] character's [high elf] lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them.
Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your [other high elf] kin.
"
That would be the actual text, except you added the parts between []. I mean, I can just as easily claim it says "Instead of choosing one of the game's races [such as the high elf] for your character at 1st level, you can [choose the race of your character to be something completely different and] use the following traits to represent your character's lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them."
The actual text also says you can choose your size. I'm fairly sure high elves are not supposed to be small.
The question is:
Can a character that has the Tashas "Custom Lineage" take a feat from Xanathars that has a race prerequisite? For example, can the character qualify for the Fey Teleportation feat that requires one to be of the "Elf (high)" race?
According to the Rules-As-Written for the Custom Lineage, I read them to give the answer, yes. A Custom Lineage can qualify for a race feat in Xanathars.
Even so, an official rules clarification from WotC remains helpful, such as from Jeremy Crawford, via Twitter or Sage Advice, or even from an errata update.
The Rules-As-Intended seems, yes. Custom Lineage can qualify for any race feat. One of the goals of Tashas is to remove all race prerequisites. For example, Tashas updates the Bladesinger Wizard without the race prerequisite that was found in the earlier book, Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. Unfortunately, Xanathars currently lacks an update, so the availability of these race feats remains nonexplicit. There are no race feats in the core Players Handbook. The question only concerns how Tashas interacts with Xanathars.
Regarding the Rules-As-Written of the Custom Lineage in Tashas:
• The purpose is, "giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them".
Thus the intent is emphatically to give "full" control over the "origin". If the chosen "origin" is that of an elf, such as a high elf, the player has "full control" over the traits of the high elf for this character. Thus the Custom Lineage can qualify for the race Fey Teleportation feat in Xanathars.
In other words, instead of using the "high elf" in the Players Handbook, the player can use the Custom Lineage to create ones own version of a "high elf".
• "Origin".
"Origin" is a technical term in Tashas that "paints a picture" of the overall character concept. An "origin" includes: "ability scores, race, class, and background". Tashas offers "a way to customize your character's origin by changing some of your racial traits". Thus Tashas specifically uses the term "origin" when referring to any "race", including a "high elf", and the ability two swap one high elf trait for an other high elf trait.
Thus "full control over your character's origin", means full freedom to redefine the traits of the "elf" origin. Thus, Custom Lineage does qualify for the Fey Teleportation feat in Xanathars, because the "origin" of the character can be "elf (high)".
In other words, the purpose of the Custom Lineage is to give you full control over how the high elf race shapes your character.
• "Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin."
When creating a Custom Lineage for a character, the character must be "humanoid". However, the character is also assumed to have "kin". The kinship that the character belongs to can be high elves. Thus the character that has a Custom Lineage can qualify for a race feat in Xanathars that requires kinship with the elf (high) race.
Both the Rules-As-Intended and the meanings of the terms "origin" and "kin" in the Rules-As-Written, allow a character that has a Custom Lineage in Tashas to qualify for a race feat in Xanathars.
he / him
It says under Custom Lineage
If they choose to build their own version of "Elf (High)" then maybe they qualify for that feat - but within the world other characters built using the standard Elf (High) would treat that PC as one of their own race.
As GM, you have ultimate say in vetoing any PC that you don't like from appearing in your campaign.
That is how I read the rules as written too. If a character has a Custom Lineage that qualifies for the Fey Teleportation feat, then by definition, the character belongs to the high elf race.
It is debatable whether a magical trait like Fey Teleportation is nature or nurture. The description of the feat says, "your study of high elven lore has unlocked fey power that few other elves possess, except your eladrin cousins." The term "lore" implies nurture while the term "fey power" implies nature, so perhaps both.
In any case, the eladrin elves typically possess Fey Teleportation. This invites the possibility that the Custom Lineage might be either high elf or eladrin elf. But the feat prerequisite specifies only high elf.
he / him
Of course, the DM can do whatever. Moreover, each setting can have its own rules for race. This thread is mainly about the rules as written, that assumes the default Forgotten Realms setting.
The Xanathar feats themselves seem racially exclusive. For example, the Elven Accuracy feat allows an Elf or a Half Elf to take it. But the Fey Teleportation feat only allows a High Elf to take it. A Half Elf cannot take the Fey Teleportation feat. Even a Wood Elf cannot take it. This is precisely the kind of racism that Tashas is moving away from. But in Xanathars, the words still are what they are, bar a future erratum.
Probably, a Custom Lineage can be designed to be both "High Elf" and "Human", without being a "Half Elf". In the Players Handbook, the Half Elf is a unique race with unique traits, and it can be that a Custom Lineage is not that. A player has "full control" to decide both the nature and the nurture of the character, including a multi-race character concept. Nevertheless, the rules-as-written in Xanathars require the player to think carefully about the race concept, because whatever the player decides during character creation at level 1 will decide what rules will apply later in the game while advancing.
he / him
RAW, I would lean no racial feats, or else it would not have mentioned the qualification requirement part. If flavoring allows for qualification, that means if you flavor your character as having a Valenar high elf mom, a halfling dad, and dad's height, your character can potentially qualify for up to six racial feats:
Elven Accuracy
Fey Teleportation
Revenant Blade
Bountiful Luck
Second Chance
Squat Nimbleness
Personally, I would allow it since I do not think it is a big deal to get rid of the racial requirements on Feats.
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I assume the "qualification requirement" is there because certain feats require a certain ability score or a proficiency with a certain weapon or armor.
But the Custom Lineage decides what the race is, thus itself decides which race feats it can qualify for.
On the related issue of a multi-race lineage qualifying for the feats of various races:
That seems ok per the wording of the rules. Regarding balance it is fine. To acquire so many feats is an opportunity cost, that results with no ability score improvements even into the highest levels. So the character concept balances well enough.
As you say, the race requirements are no big deal.
Multi-race characters are less common in the Forgotten Realms setting, albeit they are known.
In other settings, they are common. For example, Dark Sun has a human-dwarf multi-race concept.
In a Viking setting, the elf, dwarf, and giant, differ significantly from the Tolkien-esque D&D elf, dwarf, and giant. Moreover, a Viking setting kin can produce children with any other kin. Besides human-elf and human-giant, elf-giant, elf-dwarf, and giant-dwarf exist.
The Custom Lineage in Tashas is highly useful to achieve these complex character concepts in a balanced way.
he / him
That is true, maybe the requirement does not refer to racial requirements. However, if it does not refer to racial requirements, I think it would have said that. I guess we will just have to wait for a while until Wizards makes an official announcement or errata or something to clear it up. If they do clear it up, I hope they allow all racial feats for Custom Lineage. Ideally, I would like them to take it one step further and allow any race to take any racial feat and just say that the racial feat is just an expression of a character's mixed heritage. Since they already allow swapping ASIs and proficiencies, might as well go one step further and remove racial requirements on feats.
I do not feel like I have DMed enough to make a judgement about balance, but on the surface of things, removing racial requirement does not seem to make much of a difference in my opinion since it is balanced around ASIs.
And as you say, if you are to play a half elf with mixed elven heritage and you want to grab all the elven racial feats to represent the half elf fully embracing elven culture or whatever, that feels more flavorful than powerful in my opinion. However, there may be some combination of race, racial feat, class/subclass feature, etc. that might be more powerful that I am not aware of.
Maybe half-orc fighter/rogue (champion 16 assassin 4) with Elven Accuracy and Savage Attacker feat? You get something that is super accurate with deadly criticals.
Yeah, I hope they incorporate more mixed-race playable characters in future adventures and give us a pregenerated character examples incorporating Custom Lineage. That way, it would lend more "officialness" or weight to the Custom Lineage system.
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Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
RAW I'd say you dont qualify for racial feats "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them:"
I read the Bolded section to say you are not one of the games races. That said, personally I would rule that you can take racial feats but only for one race. For example, you could have either Elven accuracy or Dragon Hide but not both. If you chose Dragon Hide I would count you as a form of dragon born going forward allowing you to later take Dragon fear for example(which would be pointless because it uses a resource you don't have with custom lineage but that's a completely separate conversation)
That's my take on it as well. You're not creating a variant of an existing race, you're creating something that through whatever vagaries of fate is unique.
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I agree, part of the tradeoff for the flexibility of the Custom Lineage option is losing access to the "archtypal" features of that race, like the unique racial abilities such as innate spellcasting of Drow & Tieflings, the Goliath's Powerful Build and Stone's Endurance, etc. I would argue that includes the racial feats too. If you want access to those feats without fully conforming to the standard racial traits, Tasha's offers a middle-ground with the ability score & proficiency swaps you can make.
I read, "instead of choosing one of the games races", to mean, you can create your own version of one of these races with completely different race traits. This reading agrees better with the text elsewhere, such as how much you want your character to resemble the other members of the race, or not.
he / him
That would be worded like "Instead of choosing one of the game’s races' racial bonuses... you can use the following ...". The RAW wording replaces the existing race with the "custom lineage" race mechanics-wise
The wording gives you "full control" to create your own version of a high elf, if you dont want to use the one that the game provides.
he / him
I'm sure that's how you're reading it, but for equally sure that's not how it reads to me. Instead of A, you do B. Doing B excludes A. You're not doing A, so you're not choosing one of the game's races. What you choose is something else.
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Heh. Hence the need for an official rules clarification.
he / him
Are you looking to convince your DM? try reaching out to sage advice.
Are you a DM looking for guidance? It sounds like you have made up your mind.
Are you looking for Community Opinions? you have a few at the start that agree with you and a couple that don't.
RAW I say you are not any official race, Personal ruling I think its fun to let you count as one race of your choice.
Here is the text in question.
"
Instead of choosing one of the game's races [such as the high elf] for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your [own version of the] character's [high elf] lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them.
Creature Type. You are a humanoid. You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your [other high elf] kin.
"
he / him
I am a DM.
Custom Lineage is an official rule that I plan to implement heavily, according to the Rules-As-Written and the Rules-As-Intended.
I need WotC to clarify what the official rule is.
he / him
That would be the actual text, except you added the parts between []. I mean, I can just as easily claim it says "Instead of choosing one of the game's races [such as the high elf] for your character at 1st level, you can [choose the race of your character to be something completely different and] use the following traits to represent your character's lineage, giving you full control over how your character's origin shaped them."
The actual text also says you can choose your size. I'm fairly sure high elves are not supposed to be small.
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Per RAW as I read it, Custom Lineage is your the race. Choosing to have your character look like an Elf has no mechanical bearing on the rules.
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