Still have the annoying thing of every race but a few get darkvision. Nine races and six of them have darkvision. They love throwing that out. Need to change that, at least have some have it at a lesser range.
I'm going through trying to decide which of these could actually lose darkvision with no issue. Assuming they won't introduce another grade of it, like low-light vision, here's my assessment:
Humans don't have it, and that's good.
Ardlings don't have it, and that's good.
Dragonborn don't need it. Controversial, I know. I'd rather seem them get an activatable blindsight, like Dwarves' new Tremorsense. It's more draconic, anyway.
Dwarf has it, and needs it.
Elf would be a prime contender for "low-light vision" if it existed or was introduced, but barring that, I'd say they need Darkvision. Especially Drow and Wood Elf.
Gnomes are subterranean, so I'd say they need it.
Halfling don't have it, and that tracks. I'd call them contenders for low-light, if it existed.
Orcs have it, and I absolutely don't think they need it. You could lose it and never notice.
Tiefling has it, and that mostly works for me, but I wish it were "shades of red" like old Fire Genasi.
So that's 3 that don't have it. One of those might be a contender for low-light if it were introduced. 6 that have it, 2 of which absolutely do not need it. 3 do, though. Dwarf, Elf, and Gnome. Tiefling probably should have it, but it could use more flavor. If it were taken off Dragonborn and Orc, we'd be down to 5/4, no/yes. Which I think is a better proportion. If they introduced low-light vision, I'd say 3 with regular eyes (Human/Ardling/Orc), 3 with low-light (Dragonborn/Halfling/Elf--exception for Drow), and 3 darkvision (Dwarf/Gnome/Tiefling), which would be a nice spread.
I like a lot of those. I also see no issue with changing the range of some of these. Like 30 feet instead of 60. Also it could be something that some don't have. City Dwarf who lived in a big city and doesn't spend time in the mines may not have it.
We also use a homebrew that darkvision has the same issue as normal people when they go from the dark to bright light just a bit more. In the dark and a big bright light gets turn on (spell or something) they feel it a little worse. Take a bit more time to adjust.
How does this new edition of races, like Dwarf and Halfling, will work in other settings that have extra subraces? (example Eberron with Dragonmarked subraces)
I think Half-Elf and Half-Orc which have big enough population in most worlds, should have a template and LORE for them in the Core Book, maybe one that is a mix of both human and orc/elf. The others mix races is fine the way they did in the playtest material.
Savage Attacker, Tavern Brawler, Crafter need a bit more work I think to be on par with the others 1st level feats.
Also, not fan of the No-crit on monster rule. But I made a post to discuss it.
Looking over the spell lists, some things I noticed:
eldritch blast is not on any spell list, which means that if Warlocks still get it or something like it, it will probably be more unique to them than before. In fact, I'd hazard to guess Eldritch Blast might even be a class feature rather than a spell in the new order of things.
spare the dying is on the primal spell list, so druids can use it now presumably.
charm person is not on the primal spell list, which makes sense to me. While I can see how that can be flavored to be something druids can potentially do (Poison Ivy immediately comes to mind), I can also see why folks might think it wouldn't fit.
Doesn't seem too big of a deal with just cantrips and 1st level spells, but I do wonder what spells are getting shuffled at higher levels.
There's more guesswork about what's not there than there is in the "playtest material", so it's more of a teaser of what they plan than an actual playtest. All of these changes fit together to make it a new edition, and with just a small piece of it, we can't really say how it'll fit into the larger set of game mechanics.
They're saying it's not a "new edition" but that's exactly what it is. They're not merely refining fifth edition, fixing poor wordings and adding improvement tweaks, they're also making substantial changes relating to format and mechanics, like having the new spell lists. It's increasingly looking like the changes they're making will frustrate attempts to use 5e material with it.
If I were to guess, I'd say the changes are likely for the purpose of making it easier for them to code their new virtual tabletop service by reigning in a lot of variety (such as the removal of half-races, telling players to just pick a race and imagine it's half-something else). I'm concerned that there will be a lot more "illusion of choice" than actual meaningful choices. That's what I felt about Pathfinder 2E, resulting in me doubling down on D&D 5E, so if "One D&D"/(6E) is going in that direction, I very well may stick with 5E, since I have physical copies of all of the books and play in person, so decreasing online support would have negligible impact on me.
But as I said in my opening statement, there's not enough here to be an actual playtest. It's a teaser for a system that they already designed and plan to use.
Savage Attacker, Tavern Brawler, Crafter need a bit more work I think to be on par with the others 1st level feats.
Looking at Savage attacker for a great axe it looks like ~2 bonus damage for every hit. Also makes you FEEL better about the rolls, rarely if ever will you hit for 1 or even 2 damage (before modifier) whereas 10 11 12 feels more plentiful. Not sure what it looks like for the like a greatsword or smaller weapons but a 30 (maybe 25)percent increase to damage feels about right. Could they add +1 to attack roll, maybe. Otherwise some other active ability like a 5 foot step after the attack could be of use.
Tavern Brawler seems fun to me, I mean you get to do 2-4 (not exactly I know) and push people around. Still get to use things as a club (stool), or great club (bench) to smack enemies on the head. A punch can become a free disengage by knocking them away from you. An Orc Wizard with Tavern Brawler now has a bunch of close combat maneuverability. Punch a dude away from you, dash away with some temp hit points, and still have another movement.
Crafter is very niche, depends on the play group. Some will love it some will hate it. Maybe you want to be the handyman for your traveling circus, purchasing supplies for the group and haggling for the best deal. Maybe a skill that reflects your bargaining prowess (persuasion, deception, insight) would be a good addition to the kit. Another thought would add on a 10% discount for magical items.
I don't personally think any of them are bad but that's just me.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Savage Attacker, Tavern Brawler, Crafter need a bit more work I think to be on par with the others 1st level feats.
Looking at Savage attacker for a great axe it looks like ~2 bonus damage for every hit. Also makes you FEEL better about the rolls, rarely if ever will you hit for 1 or even 2 damage (before modifier) whereas 10 11 12 feels more plentiful. Not sure what it looks like for the like a greatsword or smaller weapons but a 30 (maybe 25)percent increase to damage feels about right. Could they add +1 to attack roll, maybe. Otherwise some other active ability like a 5 foot step after the attack could be of use.
Tavern Brawler seems fun to me, I mean you get to do 2-4 (not exactly I know) and push people around. Still get to use things as a club (stool), or great club (bench) to smack enemies on the head. A punch can become a free disengage by knocking them away from you. An Orc Wizard with Tavern Brawler now has a bunch of close combat maneuverability. Punch a dude away from you, dash away with some temp hit points, and still have another movement.
Crafter is very niche, depends on the play group. Some will love it some will hate it. Maybe you want to be the handyman for your traveling circus, purchasing supplies for the group and haggling for the best deal. Maybe a skill that reflects your bargaining prowess (persuasion, deception, insight) would be a good addition to the kit. Another thought would add on a 10% discount for magical items.
I don't personally think any of them are bad but that's just me.
My main problem with savage attacker, is that is just don't scale at all. Compare it with the new lucky. You get 2/3/4/5/6 uses of it, while savage attackers is only ever going to be +2 damage per turn and only with 1d12 weapom. Because with other weapons on average 1~1,5 damage per turn. Maybe at level 11 been able to use twice per round. something like this:
You have trained to deal particularly damaging strikes. When you take the Attack Action and hit a target with a Weapon as part of that Action, you can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target. You can use this benefit only once per turn. Starting at level 11, you can use this benefit twice per turn.
As for crafter, i think it should focus on the time to craft, and make the number bigger, like 50%! Then you can start crafting like crazy and just remove the -20% price for nom magic items, that sounds at same time lame and abusive.
The new tavern brawl to me is almost there, not sure what to do to be honest... maybe the 1d4 becomes 1d6 on lvl11? (still way worse than monk martial dmg dice, but a bit scaling) it is very little, but as I said this one is almost there.
I can guarantee you they listen to feedback on UA. They murdered my favorite UA's in their sleep because they listened to the feedback they got.😭
They listen but don't understand the feedback. I blame the way the questions are put and what questions are asked.
That's funny, I blame the way most of the "community" discusses any proposed changes whatsoever. Namely, with invective and insult, very little clarification on what their issue is, and almost no proposals as to viable alternatives.
I've been wanting to do a big cohesive write-up on where I stand with this UA for awhile, maybe even just as a reference so I know what I want to get down in the survey in a few days, and I have a little time, so I'm gonna try now. It'll be lengthy and it's somewhat for my own benefit, so feel free to skip if you don't care. This is also from the perspective of someone who has had zero time to actually playtest.
1. Character Origins:
Most of this is boilerplate UA stuff. "This is playtest material," "power levels may change," list of contents, yadda yadda. I do find it interesting they started with race/backgrounds, though. That necessitated bringing in a lot of other minor rules changes without context that seem...odd, and hard to test for. I wonder why they didn't just start with all the general rule changes, then follow up with the race/background/class/subclass/feat/etc. stuff? Lay the groundwork before focusing in on player options. I mean, that's probably why. It's player options. WotC knows there's more players than DMs, and the quickest way to get folks talking is with new player options. Setting books only generate buzz based on the handful of subclasses, spells, races, or feats they include, and adventure books tend to generate no buzz at all.
Which is pretty cynical, launching this specific portion of the UA first, largely for that marketing aspect. I would have rather just had 21 pages of what's in the "Rules Glossary" portion of this.
Determining Your Origin
I like that this assumes you choose class first. That's how I've always created my characters, because what I can do in a given game is always more important than race. I know a lot of people found this curious, but it felt very natural to me.
It is weird to me that the "three things" you choose for your character in this section are
a Race
a Background
a...language?
A language is not nearly as chunky as the first two are, and feels like it should be rolled into one of the other two. I know they want to avoid cultural stuff in race traits, but...couldn't the background just offer two languages, instead of offering one and then having you choose a second afterward as its own thing? It feels awkward and stilted.
The table of "Race Traits" is mostly boilerplate stuff since Tasha. All very familiar. The table of Background Traits, however, is far more interesting, and the first indication of a lot of the changes in this UA. But better to get into that in its own section.
2. Character Races:
Very little unique here, wouldn't be surprised if it's largely copy/pasted from the Travelers of the Multiverse UA, which was the last big race drop. Inclusion of Orc is great, and seeing an all-new race is also very fun. The excision of Half-Elf and Half-Orc is definitely intriguing, which leads to:
Children of Different Humanoid Kinds
This is not the worst thing in the document, but it is maybe the most disappointing. I absolutely understand not wanting to "codify" half-races or get into any blood quantum nonsense, and I'm on board with that. But plain and simple: even among humans in the real world, infants have traits from both parents. If you're going to include a section on how to play a character with two "racial" (in D&D terms) ancestries, then there had better be a mechanic involved and not just "yo you can reflavor." Most of the proposed ones I've seen have been way too involved and crib from DMsGuild stuff or wander into Pathfinder territory, which just...aren't things that are going to happen, and aren't things WotC wants to do. I get that. Its hard to balance and easy to exploit, and as the unreliable "Detect Balance" tool has clearly shown, you can't just assign a numerical value or tag to a trait and expect that to apply across the board and ensure any kind of equity.
I think if there's going to be a mechanic here, it needs to be the simplest one possible. My best suggestion is that each race has one trait that's labeled something like "key," or "expressed," or "swappable," depending on what sort of tone they want to strike. Maybe on Ardling it's Angelic Flight, maybe on Orc it's Relentless Endurance. Focus in on getting the most flavorful trait, not the most powerful. The one that feels most like the ur-trait of that race, the platonic ideal. The "if this race only had one trait what would it be" trait. Then let that one and only trait be swapped. So if we continue with the Ardling/Orc idea, if you chose to have parents of those two races, you could play what is an otherwise entirely an Ardling, but lacks the Angelic Flight trait and instead gets Relentless Endurance. And vice versa, you could play entirely an Orc, but you give up Relentless Endurance to get Angelic Flight.
It can't be a choose-your-own genetics smorgasbord. It just can't. It overwhelms new players, it's ripe for munchkin exploits, and it starts to feel like eugenics if you can pick and choose every dang thing. But if each race has one trait predefined as swappable for biracial characters, you can keep a much better eye on balance, prevent potential mechanical abuse, and maintain the idea of having traits of both parents without getting into eugenical "best traits" narratives.
The other mechanical option would be a list of 1st-level feats that literally replicate a racial trait, so they'd be useless to the base race they mimic. So sticking with Ardling/Orc, you could play an Ardling, then in your background take the "Orcish Endurance" feat to add the Relentless Endurance feature to your kit, forgoing any and all other 1st-level feats via background. Though, since this is additive instead of substitutional, it's much harder to balance for.
Honestly, the simplest answer is just: Don't include this section. You don't need to tell us over and over that we can flavor stuff however we like. Here it's particularly irritating because the idea of getting some interesting mechanical stuff out of it is so tantalizing, and for it just to be another "flavor is free" overture is really frustrating. I'd rather this sidebar/section just not be included than be this ultimately hollow.
As is? 1/10. Disappointing and a little insulting.
Human:
For the actual races, I'll mostly skip the fluff, though there may be some exceptions. Human is not one of those exceptions.
But honestly...it's kinda great? Everyone knows PHB human was crazy boring and Variant human was crazy boring and overpowered, so our actual real-world race has been kind of a mess in 5e thus far. That said...this kind of a huge win. It's the best (official) version of human released thus far, and isn't much removed from the alternate human I wrote when I was getting massively dissatisfied with the two we have. The new size options are great, and Resourceful is just...chef's kiss. Getting too far into that requires talking about inspiration changes, which I'll hit more later, but let's just say I'm generally in favor of them. It gets at a feature of humanity that no version in 5e has yet: not just broad adaptability, but stubbornness. When I wrote an alternate human, they had a trait that let them reroll a check they failed with advantage prof # times/LR, and if they wanted, they could use all uses they had on a single check. Because the reason we, as humans, are so adaptable is that we're stubborn af. Altering the base rules for inspiration and giving it to humans on a long rest is a very graceful way to do that.
Skillful is...whatever. It's fine. It fits the adaptable thing. I'd like it better if it could be one skill, one weapon, or one tool. Let us pick. Humans are supposed to be the versatile blank slate. So let us write on them.
Versatile is amazing in a way variant human never was, just because the attempt to rank and balance feats keeps it from being too abused. A part of me would rather see it restricted a bit more, maybe to only Crafter/Healer/Magic Initiate/Musician/Skilled. Not to keep making it about me, but when I did an alternate human, their other big feature (other than the stubborn one I talked about) was essentially a choice between a half-version of Skill Expert and a half-version of Magic Initiate. Something that indicates something you've learned. Something like Lucky or Tough doesn't play into that vibe nearly as much. That said, it's the best version of this we've gotten, though that's less because of the trait itself and more because of how feats are being treated.
Overall: 8/10, pretty rad.
Ardling:
This one is hard to really discuss without comparing to the other races, which haven't come yet, so I guess bear with me.
The fluff on this is great. A zillion times stronger than the other "celestial" race, Aasimar. They're just really pretty humans who get a little edgelordy with their "sacred mission" and "lone wanderer" vibe baked in. Aasimar (both the Volo and Multiverse versions) are mechanically great, but I still find them incredibly dull and have no interest in playing one. Ardlings, on the other hand, bring this great Egyptian/Hindu/Aztec/Navajo/etc. vibe that's a lot more refreshing. And how you interpret degrees of "a head resembling that of an animal" can help determine which mythology it evokes. Because it's not necessarily a straight-up animal head like a lot of people are assuming. It could just be sharper/rounder features with tufts of fur or patches of feathers, differently-shaped ears, or a hooked nose. There's a lot of wiggle in that description, though that wiggle room could stand to be specified a bit more so people less familiar with non-western mythologies can get the idea a bit more clearly.
But there's a misconception that this is a "beast" or "furry" race, and it's not. It's not meant to be. It shouldn't have animal traits. That's fluff and flavor meant to evoke the fact taht there are as many religions, faiths, mythologies, and traditions that depict their deities and their servants (angels, devas, etc) as having animal features as don't. This covers a huge swath of the real world's history, and not all gods with animal features actually have, like...animal traits. Its good that the Ardling doesn't have animal traits, however...
...the traits they do have are unsatisfying. Angelic Flight isn't flight, it's just a super-jump that's like a worse version of Harengon's Rabbit Hop trait. It's a bonus action move that doesn't use your speed/movement for the turn, making it largely the same. And while it starts and stays equal to your speed, which is technically better than Rabbit Hop's 5*Prof, it doesn't negate opportunity attacks like that feature does making it substantially more niche. Making it less useful in combat makes it less useful overall. Might as well have just thrown the jump spell on a bonus action (or one of the Celestial Legacies' spell lists) and called it a day. It's tremendously underwhelming and generally not useful. At the very least, they should have it negate opportunity attacks or let you use your bonus action each turn to keep flying. 30 Feet of movement (which you can't even combine with your turn's standard movement to get 60 on that turn) as a bonus action that still provokes opportunity and punishes you for using it via dropping at the end of the 30-foot bonus action (I suppose more if you're a monk or something) is just generally...bad. There's so many maluses and limitations built in that it's functionally useless. It could be made more interesting and broadly useful without pissing off the anti-flight brigade or stepping on other races' toes, but...this ain't it, bud.
Celestial Legacy is another "Nice try, but nah" sort of trait. The three legacies aren't differentiated as well as we see later in both Elf and Tiefling, and don't grant as much, either. With both Elf and Tiefling, you get one cantrip, one 1st-level, and one 2nd-level spell, but you also get a unique thing that isn't a spell. Drow get superior darkvision, wood elf get more movement, each Tiefling gets a unique damage resistance. So basically the "Elven Lineage" and "Fiendish Legacy" traits from later races both are equal to Celestial Legacy plus the damage resistance Ardlings get, leaving Ardlings looking and feeling underpowered. Their spell lists are also too similar. Cantrips are all utility, all three get a healing or healing-adjacent spell (cure wounds, healing word, lesser restoration, with the remaining spells (animal messenger, divine favor, zone of truth) being the only ones to really underline any flavor. We need more distinction between them to really sell these Legacies as different things.
Which...what is the central flavor thesis of each legacy supposed to be? I've read it multiple times and I'm still not entirely certain. "Heroic champions" and "staunch defenders" are so similar that Exalted and Heavenly are near impossible to tell apart. Idyllic fares a little better being a "paragon of kindness," but not much. Particularly compared to Drow/High/Wood Elf or Abyssal/Chthonic/Infernal Tiefling. Calling out specific figures or monsters could help a lot, as could "unique" effects for each legacy like Elves get or Tieflings' varied damage resistance would go a long way. Just looking at monsters of the types associated with these planes, Exalted are CG-influenced like a Pegasus, so maybe their Angelic Flight is better. Heavenly are LG-influenced like a Couatl, so maybe they get the Shielded Mind trait. Idyllic are NG-influenced like...not a single published Celestial monster in 5e apparently. Starlight Apparition from Spelljammer are the only "Typically Neutral Good" Celestial in 5e, so we'll go with that: maybe Idyllic get Incorporeal Movement or Unusual Nature.
Or maybe it works like the later Gnomish Lineages, where it's a boost to your existing cantrips for each Legacy. Even something as simple as explicitly letting Exalted's use of Thaumaturgy grant advantage on the next Charisma check within a minute prof times/LR, or let Heavenly's use of Light double the range of its light or...I dunno, give disadvantage on attack rolls to creatures with darkvision prof/LR. Maybe Idyllic can use Guidance as a BA prof/LR. I'm not sure, but there's options.
The Damage Resistance is garbage. They all get the same one, which makes it massively inferior to Tieflings' (compounding that Angelic Flight sucks and Celestial Legacies is boring), particularly given that Tieflings all get resistance to more common damage types. Fire and Poison, obviously, are top of the list behind B/P/S, and Necrotic is more common than Radiant just because more campaigns feature Undead enemies than Celestial ones. Radiant damage resistance is great in one very niche place...PvP against a Paladin. Otherwise, it's barely even there. You'll forget about it. I do think you could give them a bump by making their Creature Type "Celestial" rather than "Humanoid." Probably not enough of one, but that would prevent Hold Person and stuff the same way the more recent Construct/Fey/Monstrosity/Ooze races do. It's something, at least.
So anyway, I like this race in concept, but in current execution, they utterly underperform next to every single other race in the document. I want them to stay, but I also want them fixed. Let's call it a 5.5/10: I'm in, but it needs work.
Dragonborn:
This is...kind of a massacre. Damage Resistance is fine, Draconic Language is fine, I won't bother with them. The biggest offender is obviously Breath Weapon, which is such a downgrade from the Fizban one it's embarrassing this draft made it as far as UA at all. The biggest loss is that it's now a full Action again, rather than a single Attack when using the Attack Action. That massively destroys versatility of use, particularly for the martial and half-caster classes that Dragonborn are often an appealing pick for. The scaling is also kind of a mess.
PHB Dragonborn Breath Weapon starts at 2d6 (average 7, swing of 2-12) and scales to 5d6 (average 17.5, swing of 5-30), and most people thought that was insufficient, particularly for a full action.
Fizban Dragonborn Breath Weapon starts at 1d10 (average 5.5, swing of 1-10) and scales up to 4d10 (average 22, swing of 4-40), which was mostly an improvement. It starts weaker than PHB, just all around. Lower average, lower floor, lower ceiling, but is better in all respects except the floor by the first scaling at 5th level, doing average 11 with a swing of 2-20 vs. PHB's average 10.5 with the swing of 3-18, and only surpasses it thereafter.
OneD&D Dragonborn, however...are not just generally worse, but more boring. Damage is 1d10+Character level, meaning at first your average is 6.5, with a swing of 2-11, and at max level, it's an average of 25.5 with a swing of 21-30. The average is higher and the floor is higher, which is nice, but the ceiling is back to PHB levels (max 30 vs. Fizban's max 40), and the average/floor being higher is only because of the boring part: you're rolling less dice. People like rolling dice. Clickety clackety I roll to attackety. It's what we're here for. Putting the bulk of the damage into the very static "character level" part of the calculation is reliable, but dull af. Your average is higher, but doing that damage is less fun, particularly because you're taking a kick right in the action economy to do it. I guess at least you still get Fizban's increased number of uses over PHB's crappy 1/SR
What bugs me about the breath weapon changes (in short: lower ceiling, less dice, worse action economy vs. Fizban) is that WotC seems to think that "finally" giving Dragonborn darkvision somehow offsets the absurdly reduced functionality of them. I don't care about darkvision on Dragonborn. It's boring. It's one of the most common racial traits in the game. 6/9 of the races in this document get it. I don't care. I don't care that Dragons generally get darkvision. They also get Blindsight, and the greatwyrms get truesight. I'd much rather get a prof/LR feature that let you get blindsight for 10 minutes like Dwarves' new stonecunning. That's at least unique to them.
I want the Fizban breath weapon back, and I want darkvision back, replaced by limited-use blindsight. This version of Dragonborn is not as rough as the 2014 PHB, but a huge step down from the one in Fizban. Overall: 4/10, not interested.
Dwarf:
Absolute triumph, no notes. 10/10, I've never wanted to play a dwarf this bad before. If I had to change something, I guess Forge Wise is easily removed and the same function fulfilled by the Crafter feat or approximated (somewhat) by the Musician or Skilled feats. But seriously, this Dwarf rules. The changes to Stonecunning alone had me sold in the J-Craw video before I ever read it. I also could not care less about the loss of the subraces.
Elf:
See also: Dwarf. I think this is the best Elves have been in 5e. It's mostly the stuff we've always had (darkvision, fey ancestry, keen senses, trance) but clarified and codified and better organized for easy of use. Elven Lineages is brilliantly brief and easy to read. It's also better than Ardlings' whole kit right now, but I already went into that in-depth. I think Wood Elves getting Longstrider and Pass Without Trace rules, and High Elves' spells are well-selected, too. I'm not giving them a 10/10 like Dwarf, but that's only because very little actually changed, it's more like they just...coalesced into what they already were. Elf, but clearer. 9.5/10, totes reel gud.
Gnome:
Generally, this is pretty good, but has some jank. Darkvision is whatever, I hardly even notice it in race descriptions. Not because it's not there, but because it's always there.
Gnomish Cunning is beefed up, but that's mostly because it kinda sucked before. Having it only work on spells means it basically never comes up in Tier I play, and not particularly often in Tier II...meaning most players might get to use the original Gnome Cunning like once or twice a campaign. There's not a lot of spellcasting enemies at lower levels or the first half of the game, so even Yuan-Ti's Magic Resistance is barely there for most players, and Gnome Cunning restricting it to three of six saves makes it even less of a factor. Yes, either version of Gnome/Gnomish Cunning gets crazy good in Tiers III and IV, but again, most players never touch those levels, meaning most players hardly use those traits, so it feels like they're just taking up space. Much like Ardling's radiant resistance, it's better in PvP than in the actual game before levels 11-13 or so. I think it also reflects that a lot of caster stat blocks are using less and less actual spells, so for this to be remotely useful it just needs to be the saves themselves. On average, I'd call the changes here kind of a wash. It comes out largely to where it was before...at most, where it should've been before.
Gnomish Lineage is pretty good. Only real notes: Forest Gnomes should basically just have speak with animals always-on like Shepherd Druid, and gosh, I hope they find a cleaner way to write up and present Rock Gnome's little prestidigibot. It is a nightmare to read right now. I think I like how it works, it's just messy to look at.
There's some sloppiness, some buffs that get things up to where they should've already been and also compensate for changing monster design, overall pretty good. 7/10 or so.
Halfling:
Not a lot to say here. Halflings were already great, and this is mostly the same. It's base Halfling from the PHB + Naturally Stealthy from the Lightfoot subrace. Not giving them Lineages like Elves and Gnomes (or Ardlings and Tieflings) loses out a little bit, but frankly, the telepathy from Ghostwise and poison resistance from Stout never felt particularly hobbity halflingy to me. Only other thing those subraces offered was alternate ASI, which is now irrelevant. I don't mind losing it at all. Lucky/Luck does get a hidden power boost given the (later) rule that natural 1s are critical failures on ability checks and saving throws now (I'll get to it), making it just...a zillion times stronger. Nat1s being harsher they were on 200% more rolls in the game really makes this a hard race to pass up. It was great before, now it's just nuts. Generally solid, slightly better than pure 5e, with less choice, though that choice was negligible to begin with. I'd say they're...basically on par with the Halflings we have, just cleaner. We'll call it a 7/10.
Orc:
I loooooooooooove that Orc is in contention for a PHB spot. Love it. I'm on record as being in favor of the loss of codified "half-" races (though some hybrid mechanics as outlined above could be fun), and we all know that Half-Orc was only ever a compromise for those who wanted to play an Orc in settings that demanded Orcs be pure evil, anyway. Just promote 'em, I'm into it. That said, this is exactly the version that was in Monsters of the Multiverse, so it ain't new to this UA. I'll just say that I think it's a great synthesis of some of the better playable Orc races (such as Eberron's) and the 2014 PHB's Half-Orc.
If I have one note, it's that...I know every past 5e version of Orc and Half-Orc has had Darkvision, but they don't need it, and as mentioned earlier, there's a glut of darkvision in the 9 PHB races here. I guess this is technically a second note, but I'd like to roll them together: I've long thought that Powerful Build should count not just for push/drag/lift, but for grappling and shoving as well. Maybe drop darkvision and upgrade Powerful Build? All told, I'll put it around where the Halfling ended up: 7/10, nothing surprising, but very, very solid.
Tiefling:
9.5/10, best this race has been in 5e. Darkvision is, again...fine. Wish they'd go back to the "shades of red" thing you got with the original Fire Genasi. Do that with all the races. Give Tritons shades of blue, Forest Gnomes and Wood Elves shades of green, etc. Have a little fun with it. But unlike some of the others, darkvision mostly fits Tieflings. Size options are also nice, I just hope they mean more in whatever OneD&D becomes than they do in 5e.
Where they're really shining is the Fiendish Legacies. Each one sells its flavor through and through. Abyssal has its sort of poison/disease vibe, Chthonic has its death/decay vibe, and Infernal has FIREFIREFIRE for that traditional tiefling. Granted, none of the spell lists are "OOPS! All bangers!," but they're not supposed to. They're supposed to sell the flavor. And some of these, like false life or hellish rebuke, you might never choose on a spellcaster PC, but you'll almost definitely use now and then if you get 'em for free. They do what they're supposed to do, and do it with style.
I would also like to point out: The "Fiendish Legacy" trait on Tiefling does the work of two of Ardlings' traits: Celestial Legacy and Damage Resistance, and does both of those traits better. So while it looks like both races have three traits, really Tiefling is squeaking in a fourth. Or Ardling is bloating one into two, depending on how you look at it. Either way, the efficiency and function of this makes Ardlings look stupid, weak, and low-effort in comparison. That's not to dump on them, I like the concept, it's just frustrating to seem the same overall structure done better twice (Elf and Tiefling, two and a half times if you count Gnomes) in the same document as Ardlings.
Otherworldly Presence is NBD, but definitely feels like it suits the flavor.
I also hope this'll shut up a lot of the people who were whining about the "loss" (if you bought the book you still have it, if you're starting play after it was deprecated you don't care, so the people who want it but don't have it are a narrow, narrow slice of the player base) of the Tiefling subraces from Tome of Foes. This makes them largely obsolete, given that their big differences were just two points:
Varying ASI, which no longer matter.
Varied spells in the otherwise standardized spellcasting traits.
The first is obviously completely irrelevant now, and the second is largely covered by these three variants, but it also gives a great template from which to homebrew other Fiendish Legacies, should you wish to do so. Pick a damage resistance, get a damage/combat cantrip that deals that damage, and two thematic spells, one from 1st level and one from 2nd. Bam. Done. This version of Tiefling does everything the other eight subraces did with more grace and efficiency. The Variant Tiefling isn't included in this new version in any way, but the SCAG also still hasn't been deprecated into "legacy" (yet, expect that to be the first book redone after the core three in 2024, it's so reviled), and the way they keep getting shy about flight, it's not a huge surprise.
Overall extremely happy with this version of the Tiefling.
WHEW
That was a lot. It took longer than I thought, and my free time today wasn't as wide as I anticipated, so I may need to do this in installments. At least one more. Possibly two. Backgrounds and Feats could get one, and everything to unpack in the Rules Glossary another. I hope to get them both at once, though.
But in summary, I'm largely very happy with the Races section of this UA. Biggest misstep is the wildly nerfed and far more boring version of the Dragonborn. Biggest disappointment is the "Children of Different Humanoid Kinds" sidebar, which would be better being fully omitted if it's not going to have any mechanics. Biggest missed opportunity is the Ardling, which I like in concept, but is surpassed in weakness of execution only by that stupid Dragonborn. If I mathematically average the semi-arbitrary numeric "scores" I gave each race, it comes to 7.5/10, which is very positive. And in fairness, many of the 7s I gave were not because the Races weren't mechanically solid and playable, but just because they didn't surprise me like the clear standout winners here: Elf, Tiefling, and especially Dwarf. Dwarf owns this entire document. Absolute unit, change nothing.
I like where this UA is pointing, at the very least for Races. My survey will reflect...everything I've said here, just hopefully more concisely. When next I get a chance: Backgrounds, Feats, and the contentious Rules Glossary.
The Ardling wings is probably the most 'meh' ability to me for them. I personally like the spell list as variations on the same theme, but you are pretty on point that they aren't really on the same level as the other caster races.
Darkvision, man that has been an issue (of sorts) for a while. Not sure why they still feel like nearly every race should have that. Definitely think Dragonborn need something else, and they should revert the breath to being used as a replacement for a single attack. Just seems way cooler to make an attack and then breath death on a group of enemies.
All told I have similar feelings about the current set of races.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
On the rock Gnome Gnomish Lineage's expanded prestidigitation:
Looking through it I realized it has a lot of things in common with ritual spells.
It extends the casting time by 10 minutes, has "material components" with a gold cost attached, predefined duration, etc.
I think the way to improve this feature, both in how its text is presented in the race and in how it's an interesting mechanic currently restricted to just one lineage of Gnomes, is to convert it into a 1st level spell with the ritual tag.
Instead of just aping the features of prestidigitation define a bunch of options within the text of the spell similar to what's already in the Rock Gnome's Tinker trait and/or some of the options in the Wonder Maker feat from the 2017 Feats for Races UA. It'd be like a lower level version of Tiny Servant, creating a minor clockwork device. Could even include the options of prestidigitation in that list as well, really.
Then just like how Forest Gnomes in this UA get one 1st level ritual spell as part of their lineage, Rock Gnomes would get the same.
Finally, just make both lineages able to cast their respective spell as a ritual.
I do wonder why they didn't go with the dragonborn design in Fizban's for this.
Because they've already got that, so it doesn't need playtesting. For whatever reason, they wanted to try a different version, and they can always use that (or the PHB version) if nothing else they try works out better.
I can guarantee you they listen to feedback on UA. They murdered my favorite UA's in their sleep because they listened to the feedback they got.😭
They listen but don't understand the feedback. I blame the way the questions are put and what questions are asked.
That's funny, I blame the way most of the "community" discusses any proposed changes whatsoever. Namely, with invective and insult, very little clarification on what their issue is, and almost no proposals as to viable alternatives.
As well. But for example, the spell questionnaire was a small disaster. Give a score from one to five but no real way to explain why you voted like that but, if I remember correctly, an option at the end of it. So we both could give a one on a spell, but for opposing reasons. Or the total disaster that came out off Strixhaven. Where finally we were getting something completely new, mixed classes, but was scrapped because instead of adding something for martials (completely unnecessary in my opinion) they removed all sub classes, and so removing the best part of the UA.
I do wonder why they didn't go with the dragonborn design in Fizban's for this.
Because they've already got that, so it doesn't need playtesting.
I mean, that's definitely not the issue, given that the Orc in the playtest document is exactly the Orc from Multiverse of Monsters.
All that means is that they're happy with the Orc version from MMM, and don't want to test alternate versions.
I think they essentially just want to state their intentions to basically make Orc a standard PHB race. I feel like if a race shows up in the PHB, it is a sort of sign that they are more commonly seen and should be available in any campaign. Like there is a sort of different feeling in using a PHB race than one from a supplemental book.
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That does seem a tad excessive
But at least the new one doesn't have it!
I'm going through trying to decide which of these could actually lose darkvision with no issue. Assuming they won't introduce another grade of it, like low-light vision, here's my assessment:
So that's 3 that don't have it. One of those might be a contender for low-light if it were introduced. 6 that have it, 2 of which absolutely do not need it. 3 do, though. Dwarf, Elf, and Gnome. Tiefling probably should have it, but it could use more flavor. If it were taken off Dragonborn and Orc, we'd be down to 5/4, no/yes. Which I think is a better proportion. If they introduced low-light vision, I'd say 3 with regular eyes (Human/Ardling/Orc), 3 with low-light (Dragonborn/Halfling/Elf--exception for Drow), and 3 darkvision (Dwarf/Gnome/Tiefling), which would be a nice spread.
I like a lot of those. I also see no issue with changing the range of some of these. Like 30 feet instead of 60.
Also it could be something that some don't have. City Dwarf who lived in a big city and doesn't spend time in the mines may not have it.
We also use a homebrew that darkvision has the same issue as normal people when they go from the dark to bright light just a bit more. In the dark and a big bright light gets turn on (spell or something) they feel it a little worse. Take a bit more time to adjust.
How does this new edition of races, like Dwarf and Halfling, will work in other settings that have extra subraces? (example Eberron with Dragonmarked subraces)
I think Half-Elf and Half-Orc which have big enough population in most worlds, should have a template and LORE for them in the Core Book, maybe one that is a mix of both human and orc/elf. The others mix races is fine the way they did in the playtest material.
Savage Attacker, Tavern Brawler, Crafter need a bit more work I think to be on par with the others 1st level feats.
Also, not fan of the No-crit on monster rule. But I made a post to discuss it.
Looking over the spell lists, some things I noticed:
Doesn't seem too big of a deal with just cantrips and 1st level spells, but I do wonder what spells are getting shuffled at higher levels.
There's more guesswork about what's not there than there is in the "playtest material", so it's more of a teaser of what they plan than an actual playtest. All of these changes fit together to make it a new edition, and with just a small piece of it, we can't really say how it'll fit into the larger set of game mechanics.
They're saying it's not a "new edition" but that's exactly what it is. They're not merely refining fifth edition, fixing poor wordings and adding improvement tweaks, they're also making substantial changes relating to format and mechanics, like having the new spell lists. It's increasingly looking like the changes they're making will frustrate attempts to use 5e material with it.
If I were to guess, I'd say the changes are likely for the purpose of making it easier for them to code their new virtual tabletop service by reigning in a lot of variety (such as the removal of half-races, telling players to just pick a race and imagine it's half-something else). I'm concerned that there will be a lot more "illusion of choice" than actual meaningful choices. That's what I felt about Pathfinder 2E, resulting in me doubling down on D&D 5E, so if "One D&D"/(6E) is going in that direction, I very well may stick with 5E, since I have physical copies of all of the books and play in person, so decreasing online support would have negligible impact on me.
But as I said in my opening statement, there's not enough here to be an actual playtest. It's a teaser for a system that they already designed and plan to use.
Looking at Savage attacker for a great axe it looks like ~2 bonus damage for every hit. Also makes you FEEL better about the rolls, rarely if ever will you hit for 1 or even 2 damage (before modifier) whereas 10 11 12 feels more plentiful. Not sure what it looks like for the like a greatsword or smaller weapons but a 30 (maybe 25)percent increase to damage feels about right. Could they add +1 to attack roll, maybe. Otherwise some other active ability like a 5 foot step after the attack could be of use.
Tavern Brawler seems fun to me, I mean you get to do 2-4 (not exactly I know) and push people around. Still get to use things as a club (stool), or great club (bench) to smack enemies on the head. A punch can become a free disengage by knocking them away from you. An Orc Wizard with Tavern Brawler now has a bunch of close combat maneuverability. Punch a dude away from you, dash away with some temp hit points, and still have another movement.
Crafter is very niche, depends on the play group. Some will love it some will hate it. Maybe you want to be the handyman for your traveling circus, purchasing supplies for the group and haggling for the best deal. Maybe a skill that reflects your bargaining prowess (persuasion, deception, insight) would be a good addition to the kit. Another thought would add on a 10% discount for magical items.
I don't personally think any of them are bad but that's just me.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
My main problem with savage attacker, is that is just don't scale at all. Compare it with the new lucky. You get 2/3/4/5/6 uses of it, while savage attackers is only ever going to be +2 damage per turn and only with 1d12 weapom. Because with other weapons on average 1~1,5 damage per turn. Maybe at level 11 been able to use twice per round. something like this:
As for crafter, i think it should focus on the time to craft, and make the number bigger, like 50%! Then you can start crafting like crazy and just remove the -20% price for nom magic items, that sounds at same time lame and abusive.
The new tavern brawl to me is almost there, not sure what to do to be honest... maybe the 1d4 becomes 1d6 on lvl11? (still way worse than monk martial dmg dice, but a bit scaling) it is very little, but as I said this one is almost there.
If, as I suspect, sneak attack gets classified as part of the weapon damage, Savage Attacker could be very useful.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
They listen but don't understand the feedback. I blame the way the questions are put and what questions are asked.
That's funny, I blame the way most of the "community" discusses any proposed changes whatsoever. Namely, with invective and insult, very little clarification on what their issue is, and almost no proposals as to viable alternatives.
I've been wanting to do a big cohesive write-up on where I stand with this UA for awhile, maybe even just as a reference so I know what I want to get down in the survey in a few days, and I have a little time, so I'm gonna try now. It'll be lengthy and it's somewhat for my own benefit, so feel free to skip if you don't care. This is also from the perspective of someone who has had zero time to actually playtest.
1. Character Origins:
Most of this is boilerplate UA stuff. "This is playtest material," "power levels may change," list of contents, yadda yadda. I do find it interesting they started with race/backgrounds, though. That necessitated bringing in a lot of other minor rules changes without context that seem...odd, and hard to test for. I wonder why they didn't just start with all the general rule changes, then follow up with the race/background/class/subclass/feat/etc. stuff? Lay the groundwork before focusing in on player options. I mean, that's probably why. It's player options. WotC knows there's more players than DMs, and the quickest way to get folks talking is with new player options. Setting books only generate buzz based on the handful of subclasses, spells, races, or feats they include, and adventure books tend to generate no buzz at all.
Which is pretty cynical, launching this specific portion of the UA first, largely for that marketing aspect. I would have rather just had 21 pages of what's in the "Rules Glossary" portion of this.
I like that this assumes you choose class first. That's how I've always created my characters, because what I can do in a given game is always more important than race. I know a lot of people found this curious, but it felt very natural to me.
It is weird to me that the "three things" you choose for your character in this section are
A language is not nearly as chunky as the first two are, and feels like it should be rolled into one of the other two. I know they want to avoid cultural stuff in race traits, but...couldn't the background just offer two languages, instead of offering one and then having you choose a second afterward as its own thing? It feels awkward and stilted.
The table of "Race Traits" is mostly boilerplate stuff since Tasha. All very familiar. The table of Background Traits, however, is far more interesting, and the first indication of a lot of the changes in this UA. But better to get into that in its own section.
2. Character Races:
Very little unique here, wouldn't be surprised if it's largely copy/pasted from the Travelers of the Multiverse UA, which was the last big race drop. Inclusion of Orc is great, and seeing an all-new race is also very fun. The excision of Half-Elf and Half-Orc is definitely intriguing, which leads to:
This is not the worst thing in the document, but it is maybe the most disappointing. I absolutely understand not wanting to "codify" half-races or get into any blood quantum nonsense, and I'm on board with that. But plain and simple: even among humans in the real world, infants have traits from both parents. If you're going to include a section on how to play a character with two "racial" (in D&D terms) ancestries, then there had better be a mechanic involved and not just "yo you can reflavor." Most of the proposed ones I've seen have been way too involved and crib from DMsGuild stuff or wander into Pathfinder territory, which just...aren't things that are going to happen, and aren't things WotC wants to do. I get that. Its hard to balance and easy to exploit, and as the unreliable "Detect Balance" tool has clearly shown, you can't just assign a numerical value or tag to a trait and expect that to apply across the board and ensure any kind of equity.
I think if there's going to be a mechanic here, it needs to be the simplest one possible. My best suggestion is that each race has one trait that's labeled something like "key," or "expressed," or "swappable," depending on what sort of tone they want to strike. Maybe on Ardling it's Angelic Flight, maybe on Orc it's Relentless Endurance. Focus in on getting the most flavorful trait, not the most powerful. The one that feels most like the ur-trait of that race, the platonic ideal. The "if this race only had one trait what would it be" trait. Then let that one and only trait be swapped. So if we continue with the Ardling/Orc idea, if you chose to have parents of those two races, you could play what is an otherwise entirely an Ardling, but lacks the Angelic Flight trait and instead gets Relentless Endurance. And vice versa, you could play entirely an Orc, but you give up Relentless Endurance to get Angelic Flight.
It can't be a choose-your-own genetics smorgasbord. It just can't. It overwhelms new players, it's ripe for munchkin exploits, and it starts to feel like eugenics if you can pick and choose every dang thing. But if each race has one trait predefined as swappable for biracial characters, you can keep a much better eye on balance, prevent potential mechanical abuse, and maintain the idea of having traits of both parents without getting into eugenical "best traits" narratives.
The other mechanical option would be a list of 1st-level feats that literally replicate a racial trait, so they'd be useless to the base race they mimic. So sticking with Ardling/Orc, you could play an Ardling, then in your background take the "Orcish Endurance" feat to add the Relentless Endurance feature to your kit, forgoing any and all other 1st-level feats via background. Though, since this is additive instead of substitutional, it's much harder to balance for.
Honestly, the simplest answer is just: Don't include this section. You don't need to tell us over and over that we can flavor stuff however we like. Here it's particularly irritating because the idea of getting some interesting mechanical stuff out of it is so tantalizing, and for it just to be another "flavor is free" overture is really frustrating. I'd rather this sidebar/section just not be included than be this ultimately hollow.
As is? 1/10. Disappointing and a little insulting.
For the actual races, I'll mostly skip the fluff, though there may be some exceptions. Human is not one of those exceptions.
But honestly...it's kinda great? Everyone knows PHB human was crazy boring and Variant human was crazy boring and overpowered, so our actual real-world race has been kind of a mess in 5e thus far. That said...this kind of a huge win. It's the best (official) version of human released thus far, and isn't much removed from the alternate human I wrote when I was getting massively dissatisfied with the two we have. The new size options are great, and Resourceful is just...chef's kiss. Getting too far into that requires talking about inspiration changes, which I'll hit more later, but let's just say I'm generally in favor of them. It gets at a feature of humanity that no version in 5e has yet: not just broad adaptability, but stubbornness. When I wrote an alternate human, they had a trait that let them reroll a check they failed with advantage prof # times/LR, and if they wanted, they could use all uses they had on a single check. Because the reason we, as humans, are so adaptable is that we're stubborn af. Altering the base rules for inspiration and giving it to humans on a long rest is a very graceful way to do that.
Skillful is...whatever. It's fine. It fits the adaptable thing. I'd like it better if it could be one skill, one weapon, or one tool. Let us pick. Humans are supposed to be the versatile blank slate. So let us write on them.
Versatile is amazing in a way variant human never was, just because the attempt to rank and balance feats keeps it from being too abused. A part of me would rather see it restricted a bit more, maybe to only Crafter/Healer/Magic Initiate/Musician/Skilled. Not to keep making it about me, but when I did an alternate human, their other big feature (other than the stubborn one I talked about) was essentially a choice between a half-version of Skill Expert and a half-version of Magic Initiate. Something that indicates something you've learned. Something like Lucky or Tough doesn't play into that vibe nearly as much. That said, it's the best version of this we've gotten, though that's less because of the trait itself and more because of how feats are being treated.
Overall: 8/10, pretty rad.
This one is hard to really discuss without comparing to the other races, which haven't come yet, so I guess bear with me.
The fluff on this is great. A zillion times stronger than the other "celestial" race, Aasimar. They're just really pretty humans who get a little edgelordy with their "sacred mission" and "lone wanderer" vibe baked in. Aasimar (both the Volo and Multiverse versions) are mechanically great, but I still find them incredibly dull and have no interest in playing one. Ardlings, on the other hand, bring this great Egyptian/Hindu/Aztec/Navajo/etc. vibe that's a lot more refreshing. And how you interpret degrees of "a head resembling that of an animal" can help determine which mythology it evokes. Because it's not necessarily a straight-up animal head like a lot of people are assuming. It could just be sharper/rounder features with tufts of fur or patches of feathers, differently-shaped ears, or a hooked nose. There's a lot of wiggle in that description, though that wiggle room could stand to be specified a bit more so people less familiar with non-western mythologies can get the idea a bit more clearly.
But there's a misconception that this is a "beast" or "furry" race, and it's not. It's not meant to be. It shouldn't have animal traits. That's fluff and flavor meant to evoke the fact taht there are as many religions, faiths, mythologies, and traditions that depict their deities and their servants (angels, devas, etc) as having animal features as don't. This covers a huge swath of the real world's history, and not all gods with animal features actually have, like...animal traits. Its good that the Ardling doesn't have animal traits, however...
...the traits they do have are unsatisfying. Angelic Flight isn't flight, it's just a super-jump that's like a worse version of Harengon's Rabbit Hop trait. It's a bonus action move that doesn't use your speed/movement for the turn, making it largely the same. And while it starts and stays equal to your speed, which is technically better than Rabbit Hop's 5*Prof, it doesn't negate opportunity attacks like that feature does making it substantially more niche. Making it less useful in combat makes it less useful overall. Might as well have just thrown the jump spell on a bonus action (or one of the Celestial Legacies' spell lists) and called it a day. It's tremendously underwhelming and generally not useful. At the very least, they should have it negate opportunity attacks or let you use your bonus action each turn to keep flying. 30 Feet of movement (which you can't even combine with your turn's standard movement to get 60 on that turn) as a bonus action that still provokes opportunity and punishes you for using it via dropping at the end of the 30-foot bonus action (I suppose more if you're a monk or something) is just generally...bad. There's so many maluses and limitations built in that it's functionally useless. It could be made more interesting and broadly useful without pissing off the anti-flight brigade or stepping on other races' toes, but...this ain't it, bud.
Celestial Legacy is another "Nice try, but nah" sort of trait. The three legacies aren't differentiated as well as we see later in both Elf and Tiefling, and don't grant as much, either. With both Elf and Tiefling, you get one cantrip, one 1st-level, and one 2nd-level spell, but you also get a unique thing that isn't a spell. Drow get superior darkvision, wood elf get more movement, each Tiefling gets a unique damage resistance. So basically the "Elven Lineage" and "Fiendish Legacy" traits from later races both are equal to Celestial Legacy plus the damage resistance Ardlings get, leaving Ardlings looking and feeling underpowered. Their spell lists are also too similar. Cantrips are all utility, all three get a healing or healing-adjacent spell (cure wounds, healing word, lesser restoration, with the remaining spells (animal messenger, divine favor, zone of truth) being the only ones to really underline any flavor. We need more distinction between them to really sell these Legacies as different things.
Which...what is the central flavor thesis of each legacy supposed to be? I've read it multiple times and I'm still not entirely certain. "Heroic champions" and "staunch defenders" are so similar that Exalted and Heavenly are near impossible to tell apart. Idyllic fares a little better being a "paragon of kindness," but not much. Particularly compared to Drow/High/Wood Elf or Abyssal/Chthonic/Infernal Tiefling. Calling out specific figures or monsters could help a lot, as could "unique" effects for each legacy like Elves get or Tieflings' varied damage resistance would go a long way. Just looking at monsters of the types associated with these planes, Exalted are CG-influenced like a Pegasus, so maybe their Angelic Flight is better. Heavenly are LG-influenced like a Couatl, so maybe they get the Shielded Mind trait. Idyllic are NG-influenced like...not a single published Celestial monster in 5e apparently. Starlight Apparition from Spelljammer are the only "Typically Neutral Good" Celestial in 5e, so we'll go with that: maybe Idyllic get Incorporeal Movement or Unusual Nature.
Or maybe it works like the later Gnomish Lineages, where it's a boost to your existing cantrips for each Legacy. Even something as simple as explicitly letting Exalted's use of Thaumaturgy grant advantage on the next Charisma check within a minute prof times/LR, or let Heavenly's use of Light double the range of its light or...I dunno, give disadvantage on attack rolls to creatures with darkvision prof/LR. Maybe Idyllic can use Guidance as a BA prof/LR. I'm not sure, but there's options.
The Damage Resistance is garbage. They all get the same one, which makes it massively inferior to Tieflings' (compounding that Angelic Flight sucks and Celestial Legacies is boring), particularly given that Tieflings all get resistance to more common damage types. Fire and Poison, obviously, are top of the list behind B/P/S, and Necrotic is more common than Radiant just because more campaigns feature Undead enemies than Celestial ones. Radiant damage resistance is great in one very niche place...PvP against a Paladin. Otherwise, it's barely even there. You'll forget about it. I do think you could give them a bump by making their Creature Type "Celestial" rather than "Humanoid." Probably not enough of one, but that would prevent Hold Person and stuff the same way the more recent Construct/Fey/Monstrosity/Ooze races do. It's something, at least.
So anyway, I like this race in concept, but in current execution, they utterly underperform next to every single other race in the document. I want them to stay, but I also want them fixed. Let's call it a 5.5/10: I'm in, but it needs work.
This is...kind of a massacre. Damage Resistance is fine, Draconic Language is fine, I won't bother with them. The biggest offender is obviously Breath Weapon, which is such a downgrade from the Fizban one it's embarrassing this draft made it as far as UA at all. The biggest loss is that it's now a full Action again, rather than a single Attack when using the Attack Action. That massively destroys versatility of use, particularly for the martial and half-caster classes that Dragonborn are often an appealing pick for. The scaling is also kind of a mess.
What bugs me about the breath weapon changes (in short: lower ceiling, less dice, worse action economy vs. Fizban) is that WotC seems to think that "finally" giving Dragonborn darkvision somehow offsets the absurdly reduced functionality of them. I don't care about darkvision on Dragonborn. It's boring. It's one of the most common racial traits in the game. 6/9 of the races in this document get it. I don't care. I don't care that Dragons generally get darkvision. They also get Blindsight, and the greatwyrms get truesight. I'd much rather get a prof/LR feature that let you get blindsight for 10 minutes like Dwarves' new stonecunning. That's at least unique to them.
I want the Fizban breath weapon back, and I want darkvision back, replaced by limited-use blindsight. This version of Dragonborn is not as rough as the 2014 PHB, but a huge step down from the one in Fizban. Overall: 4/10, not interested.
Absolute triumph, no notes. 10/10, I've never wanted to play a dwarf this bad before. If I had to change something, I guess Forge Wise is easily removed and the same function fulfilled by the Crafter feat or approximated (somewhat) by the Musician or Skilled feats. But seriously, this Dwarf rules. The changes to Stonecunning alone had me sold in the J-Craw video before I ever read it. I also could not care less about the loss of the subraces.
See also: Dwarf. I think this is the best Elves have been in 5e. It's mostly the stuff we've always had (darkvision, fey ancestry, keen senses, trance) but clarified and codified and better organized for easy of use. Elven Lineages is brilliantly brief and easy to read. It's also better than Ardlings' whole kit right now, but I already went into that in-depth. I think Wood Elves getting Longstrider and Pass Without Trace rules, and High Elves' spells are well-selected, too. I'm not giving them a 10/10 like Dwarf, but that's only because very little actually changed, it's more like they just...coalesced into what they already were. Elf, but clearer. 9.5/10, totes reel gud.
Generally, this is pretty good, but has some jank. Darkvision is whatever, I hardly even notice it in race descriptions. Not because it's not there, but because it's always there.
Gnomish Cunning is beefed up, but that's mostly because it kinda sucked before. Having it only work on spells means it basically never comes up in Tier I play, and not particularly often in Tier II...meaning most players might get to use the original Gnome Cunning like once or twice a campaign. There's not a lot of spellcasting enemies at lower levels or the first half of the game, so even Yuan-Ti's Magic Resistance is barely there for most players, and Gnome Cunning restricting it to three of six saves makes it even less of a factor. Yes, either version of Gnome/Gnomish Cunning gets crazy good in Tiers III and IV, but again, most players never touch those levels, meaning most players hardly use those traits, so it feels like they're just taking up space. Much like Ardling's radiant resistance, it's better in PvP than in the actual game before levels 11-13 or so. I think it also reflects that a lot of caster stat blocks are using less and less actual spells, so for this to be remotely useful it just needs to be the saves themselves. On average, I'd call the changes here kind of a wash. It comes out largely to where it was before...at most, where it should've been before.
Gnomish Lineage is pretty good. Only real notes: Forest Gnomes should basically just have speak with animals always-on like Shepherd Druid, and gosh, I hope they find a cleaner way to write up and present Rock Gnome's little prestidigibot. It is a nightmare to read right now. I think I like how it works, it's just messy to look at.
There's some sloppiness, some buffs that get things up to where they should've already been and also compensate for changing monster design, overall pretty good. 7/10 or so.
Not a lot to say here. Halflings were already great, and this is mostly the same. It's base Halfling from the PHB + Naturally Stealthy from the Lightfoot subrace. Not giving them Lineages like Elves and Gnomes (or Ardlings and Tieflings) loses out a little bit, but frankly, the telepathy from Ghostwise and poison resistance from Stout never felt particularly
hobbityhalflingy to me. Only other thing those subraces offered was alternate ASI, which is now irrelevant. I don't mind losing it at all. Lucky/Luck does get a hidden power boost given the (later) rule that natural 1s are critical failures on ability checks and saving throws now (I'll get to it), making it just...a zillion times stronger. Nat1s being harsher they were on 200% more rolls in the game really makes this a hard race to pass up. It was great before, now it's just nuts. Generally solid, slightly better than pure 5e, with less choice, though that choice was negligible to begin with. I'd say they're...basically on par with the Halflings we have, just cleaner. We'll call it a 7/10.I loooooooooooove that Orc is in contention for a PHB spot. Love it. I'm on record as being in favor of the loss of codified "half-" races (though some hybrid mechanics as outlined above could be fun), and we all know that Half-Orc was only ever a compromise for those who wanted to play an Orc in settings that demanded Orcs be pure evil, anyway. Just promote 'em, I'm into it. That said, this is exactly the version that was in Monsters of the Multiverse, so it ain't new to this UA. I'll just say that I think it's a great synthesis of some of the better playable Orc races (such as Eberron's) and the 2014 PHB's Half-Orc.
If I have one note, it's that...I know every past 5e version of Orc and Half-Orc has had Darkvision, but they don't need it, and as mentioned earlier, there's a glut of darkvision in the 9 PHB races here. I guess this is technically a second note, but I'd like to roll them together: I've long thought that Powerful Build should count not just for push/drag/lift, but for grappling and shoving as well. Maybe drop darkvision and upgrade Powerful Build? All told, I'll put it around where the Halfling ended up: 7/10, nothing surprising, but very, very solid.
9.5/10, best this race has been in 5e. Darkvision is, again...fine. Wish they'd go back to the "shades of red" thing you got with the original Fire Genasi. Do that with all the races. Give Tritons shades of blue, Forest Gnomes and Wood Elves shades of green, etc. Have a little fun with it. But unlike some of the others, darkvision mostly fits Tieflings. Size options are also nice, I just hope they mean more in whatever OneD&D becomes than they do in 5e.
Where they're really shining is the Fiendish Legacies. Each one sells its flavor through and through. Abyssal has its sort of poison/disease vibe, Chthonic has its death/decay vibe, and Infernal has FIREFIREFIRE for that traditional tiefling. Granted, none of the spell lists are "OOPS! All bangers!," but they're not supposed to. They're supposed to sell the flavor. And some of these, like false life or hellish rebuke, you might never choose on a spellcaster PC, but you'll almost definitely use now and then if you get 'em for free. They do what they're supposed to do, and do it with style.
I would also like to point out: The "Fiendish Legacy" trait on Tiefling does the work of two of Ardlings' traits: Celestial Legacy and Damage Resistance, and does both of those traits better. So while it looks like both races have three traits, really Tiefling is squeaking in a fourth. Or Ardling is bloating one into two, depending on how you look at it. Either way, the efficiency and function of this makes Ardlings look stupid, weak, and low-effort in comparison. That's not to dump on them, I like the concept, it's just frustrating to seem the same overall structure done better twice (Elf and Tiefling, two and a half times if you count Gnomes) in the same document as Ardlings.
Otherworldly Presence is NBD, but definitely feels like it suits the flavor.
I also hope this'll shut up a lot of the people who were whining about the "loss" (if you bought the book you still have it, if you're starting play after it was deprecated you don't care, so the people who want it but don't have it are a narrow, narrow slice of the player base) of the Tiefling subraces from Tome of Foes. This makes them largely obsolete, given that their big differences were just two points:
The first is obviously completely irrelevant now, and the second is largely covered by these three variants, but it also gives a great template from which to homebrew other Fiendish Legacies, should you wish to do so. Pick a damage resistance, get a damage/combat cantrip that deals that damage, and two thematic spells, one from 1st level and one from 2nd. Bam. Done. This version of Tiefling does everything the other eight subraces did with more grace and efficiency. The Variant Tiefling isn't included in this new version in any way, but the SCAG also still hasn't been deprecated into "legacy" (yet, expect that to be the first book redone after the core three in 2024, it's so reviled), and the way they keep getting shy about flight, it's not a huge surprise.
Overall extremely happy with this version of the Tiefling.
WHEW
That was a lot. It took longer than I thought, and my free time today wasn't as wide as I anticipated, so I may need to do this in installments. At least one more. Possibly two. Backgrounds and Feats could get one, and everything to unpack in the Rules Glossary another. I hope to get them both at once, though.
But in summary, I'm largely very happy with the Races section of this UA. Biggest misstep is the wildly nerfed and far more boring version of the Dragonborn. Biggest disappointment is the "Children of Different Humanoid Kinds" sidebar, which would be better being fully omitted if it's not going to have any mechanics. Biggest missed opportunity is the Ardling, which I like in concept, but is surpassed in weakness of execution only by that stupid Dragonborn. If I mathematically average the semi-arbitrary numeric "scores" I gave each race, it comes to 7.5/10, which is very positive. And in fairness, many of the 7s I gave were not because the Races weren't mechanically solid and playable, but just because they didn't surprise me like the clear standout winners here: Elf, Tiefling, and especially Dwarf. Dwarf owns this entire document. Absolute unit, change nothing.
I like where this UA is pointing, at the very least for Races. My survey will reflect...everything I've said here, just hopefully more concisely. When next I get a chance: Backgrounds, Feats, and the contentious Rules Glossary.
The Ardling wings is probably the most 'meh' ability to me for them. I personally like the spell list as variations on the same theme, but you are pretty on point that they aren't really on the same level as the other caster races.
Darkvision, man that has been an issue (of sorts) for a while. Not sure why they still feel like nearly every race should have that. Definitely think Dragonborn need something else, and they should revert the breath to being used as a replacement for a single attack. Just seems way cooler to make an attack and then breath death on a group of enemies.
All told I have similar feelings about the current set of races.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
On the rock Gnome Gnomish Lineage's expanded prestidigitation:
Looking through it I realized it has a lot of things in common with ritual spells.
It extends the casting time by 10 minutes, has "material components" with a gold cost attached, predefined duration, etc.
I think the way to improve this feature, both in how its text is presented in the race and in how it's an interesting mechanic currently restricted to just one lineage of Gnomes, is to convert it into a 1st level spell with the ritual tag.
Instead of just aping the features of prestidigitation define a bunch of options within the text of the spell similar to what's already in the Rock Gnome's Tinker trait and/or some of the options in the Wonder Maker feat from the 2017 Feats for Races UA. It'd be like a lower level version of Tiny Servant, creating a minor clockwork device. Could even include the options of prestidigitation in that list as well, really.
Then just like how Forest Gnomes in this UA get one 1st level ritual spell as part of their lineage, Rock Gnomes would get the same.
Finally, just make both lineages able to cast their respective spell as a ritual.
I do wonder why they didn't go with the dragonborn design in Fizban's for this.
Because they've already got that, so it doesn't need playtesting. For whatever reason, they wanted to try a different version, and they can always use that (or the PHB version) if nothing else they try works out better.
As well. But for example, the spell questionnaire was a small disaster. Give a score from one to five but no real way to explain why you voted like that but, if I remember correctly, an option at the end of it. So we both could give a one on a spell, but for opposing reasons. Or the total disaster that came out off Strixhaven. Where finally we were getting something completely new, mixed classes, but was scrapped because instead of adding something for martials (completely unnecessary in my opinion) they removed all sub classes, and so removing the best part of the UA.
I mean, that's definitely not the issue, given that the Orc in the playtest document is exactly the Orc from Multiverse of Monsters.
All that means is that they're happy with the Orc version from MMM, and don't want to test alternate versions.
I think they essentially just want to state their intentions to basically make Orc a standard PHB race. I feel like if a race shows up in the PHB, it is a sort of sign that they are more commonly seen and should be available in any campaign. Like there is a sort of different feeling in using a PHB race than one from a supplemental book.