This is my first time posting on a DnD forum, and I'm a little confused on how Half-Elves and/or Half-Orcs are "racist". Calling them "half" is not making them "half of a person", as I read somebody else say. No, they're just "half" of a race. I mean, look at all of the biracial people, of this world. They're still a person, even if they're "half" of one race, and "half" of another. I mean, it's like saying just because one is not 100% one race, then they're "not a person", either. It doesn't make any sense. "Half" is just a fact. Whatever emotional connotation one wants to add to the word, is on them. I've spoken to many biracial folks that identify with these "half" races, and so does their identity not matter, either? Or, are we more concerned with the "100%" folks as the "superior ones"?
If the description of these races is the issue than just re-word it. Otherwise, there's no explaining away that this new game completely removed a race, and that the message, itself, promotes MORE racism, by alienating REAL biracial people, for NOT being "100%". Absolutely appalling!
...what? Why the hell did you put "not a person" and "superior ones" in quotes? Nobody said or implied those things.
WotC is certainly not removing the concepts of inter-species mixing. If those biracial friends of yours are more comfortable with playing a bispecies character, then nothing's stopping them. It's just that there's now a more formulaic and logical way to make them that actually includes more possibilities. In 5e, if you want to make a mix besides half-elf and half-orc, you are likely to be shot down by the DM because of the lack of stats for anything besides those two options. Now, no such restrictions can apply.
Ahh so this is the culprit of an article that has been sending people frothing onto the forums and the Discord server. The framing of that as an "accusation" is already indication enough of the lack of understanding and lack of empathy to the feedback and pain of real people.
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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!
I dunno, to me, it's exactly like renaming devils into tanar'ri and demons into baatezu, so that a certain group of people stopped getting triggered over nomenclature. Once that certain group slipped out of zeitgeist and into irrelevance, things got back to how they were.
I mean, there are fiends in this game, intelligent beings that are inherently sadistic, domineering and destructive by their very nature. Isn't that in itself racist, to presume someone inherently evil because of their place of origin? Chromatic dragons are also bad and it's indicated by their skin color. Does anyone actually give a damn about that issue, or are we here to just have fun slaying dragons with no pangs of conscience?
First key difference - a DM can choose to not include fiends, or celestials, in their game. They can choose not to include dragons. They can freely choose to alter the traits and natures of those beings, in a way players are very rarely allowed to do. And even then, Wizards has been veering away from hard-coded, hard-locked characterizations and explicitly allowing and encouraging the DM to do their own thing.
Second key difference - none of those things are, under ordinary circumstances, playable. They are not things a player is expected to embody them, to align with them and immerse themselves in the persona and culture of those things. The rules concerning things that are playable are different from the rules concerning things that are not.
Is it great? No. But perfect has ever been the enemy of good, and the argument "nothing is exclusionist unless you go out of your way to actively make it exclusionist so stop doing that" has never been a valid one. That is simply not how this has ever worked.
I mean, there are fiends in this game, intelligent beings that are inherently sadistic, domineering and destructive by their very nature. Isn't that in itself racist, to presume someone inherently evil because of their place of origin? Chromatic dragons are also bad and it's indicated by their skin color. Does anyone actually give a damn about that issue, or are we here to just have fun slaying dragons with no pangs of conscience?
It's like a AI tried to summarize all the threads complaining about MMM making it so player races species don't have predefined alignments.
In short, yes it's pretty racist, which is why PC species no longer have specified alignments. Actual (non-playable) planar beings are currently different, as (non-playable) monsters. Maybe in the future they'll ditch required alignments for them, too.
I hope they don't ditch required alignments for higher-level beings; or those otherwise embroiled in those conflicts. Some storytelling benefits from having clearly defined "good" and "evil" in it. Nobody is supposed to feel sympathy for someone like Snidely Whiplash or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Mustache-twirling evil has its place.
I hope they don't ditch required alignments for higher-level beings; or those otherwise embroiled in those conflicts. Some storytelling benefits from having clearly defined "good" and "evil" in it. Nobody is supposed to feel sympathy for someone like Snidely Whiplash or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Mustache-twirling evil has its place.
Snidely and Sheev weren't born evil. That's the rub: what things are you comfortable saying "this was born evil" about, and are those things supposed to represent players.
I hope they don't ditch required alignments for higher-level beings; or those otherwise embroiled in those conflicts. Some storytelling benefits from having clearly defined "good" and "evil" in it. Nobody is supposed to feel sympathy for someone like Snidely Whiplash or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Mustache-twirling evil has its place.
Well, they aren't actually listing alignments in at least some newer books, but also, it's not really clear that fiends are evil by nature, there are several alternative answers
We might be reversing cause and effect -- rather than a creature being evil because it's a fiend, it's a fiend because it's evil.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
The problem with half-X is that there's no particular reason to limit it to any specific hybrid, which means you either list (assuming 8 base species) 28 mixes, or you come up with rules for designing generic hybrids. If each species had exactly two special features, of roughly equal value, that would be pretty easy to implement, but they don't.
Also, it's not like half-elf and half-orc have any real personality in 5e. Half-elves are mechanically super generic (gain any stats and skills you need) with no strong similarity to either elf or human, half-orcs were always "I wanted to play an orc but orcs aren't in the PHB".
I hope they don't ditch required alignments for higher-level beings; or those otherwise embroiled in those conflicts. Some storytelling benefits from having clearly defined "good" and "evil" in it. Nobody is supposed to feel sympathy for someone like Snidely Whiplash or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Mustache-twirling evil has its place.
Well, they aren't actually listing alignments in at least some newer books, but also, it's not really clear that fiends are evil by nature, there are several alternative answers
We might be reversing cause and effect -- rather than a creature being evil because it's a fiend, it's a fiend because it's evil.
There's also evidence for the lower planes turning originally neutral or good creatures evil (e.g. abyssal corruption).
Alternately, the outer planes may be attractors for creatures of like alignment.
A while back someone online asked me a question in relation to Arueshalae. When I play Pathfinder (which isn't a lot, sadly), I tend to play characters who are aligned with Shelyn. To those who don't know, Shelyn is a deity who is associated with art, beauty, love, and music. She's also, quite possibly, the single most forgiving THING in the entire setting; always willing to give evildoers a chance to redeem themselves and such. Effectively the song 'Amazing Grace' personified. Arue is a succubus who, due to the actions of the goddess Desna, was given a chance to rise above her demonic nature and be redeemed.
This person, aware of my IRL Christian beliefs, affinity for Shelyn, and that I was invested in Arue's redemption, wanted to know if I believed it was really possible for a demon to be redeemed and, if I was ever presented with the chance, I would attempt to save even a demon. After some thought I answered that I believed God to be all powerful and, if he willed it, redeeming even the devil was something not beyond his power. However, the devil and all those who followed him from heaven had known God firsthand and, for whatever reason, justified or not, chosen to turn their back on it and leave to become demons. It's been countless years now during which demons have been aware of both the ultimate good as well as the evils of the devil and, for whatever reason, had not changed course. Maybe if, through some outside, divine, intervention something changed, there could be a way; but to assume that a demon was going to now, just completely out of nowhere, decide to change to become 'good' would be utterly foolish and it would be amazingly arrogant to assume that I, a literal nobody in the grand scheme of things, would be the one to facilitate such a change. To be a demon is to have turned your back on the ultimate light, ultimate good, and to refuse that offered redemption.
When it comes to playing demons in any capacity I follow the same format. If they could be good, if redemption was something they truly desired, then they wouldn't have become a demon in the first place. I am not going to say my answer is absolute, but I would say that a demon, devil, etc is, by their nature, both evil and laughs at the concecpt of 'redemption' or being anything other than the evil aligned monsters we know. If such a thing were possible without direct intervention from a deity or something, they wouldn't be a demon/devil/etc in the first place. While I am perfectly willing to believe that no being in existance is beyond redemption, I also believe that there are beings out there that would see that offer of redemption and immediately slap it aside and laugh at it.
Is that a good answer? I dunno. I'm neither a lore expert on D&D (or Pathfinder) or a theologian IRL. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying something like 'with many drow expanding beyond the cities of Lloth some are choosing to defect from their old culture to embrace the ways of their new companions' as a reason to remove the evil tag from them as a race. At the same time, I also sort of feel like for other beings that hard alignment is part of who/what/etc they are and removing it is a bad idea.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
Right so there was legitimate pain about the original implementation, as I and others in the past, have been saying. They just don't like the new implementation, which is fair.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
But the fact remains that you the playtest very much allows you to play a character with mixed heritage of elven, human, and/or orc parentage. So the ability to play someone with elf and human ancestors is still there.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
So your point is that half-X and Half-Y have to give up their background where full-X or full-Y get full freedom on their background since they don't have to waste it?
Half-X and Half-Y background "mixed" - only details about being half-X and half-Y Full X or Full Y background "anything" - details about what the character did since they don't need to waste it on fleshing out their species.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
Right so there was legitimate pain about the original implementation, as I and others in the past, have been saying. They just don't like the new implementation, which is fair.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
But the fact remains that you the playtest very much allows you to play a character with mixed heritage of elven, human, and/or orc parentage. So the ability to play someone with elf and human ancestors is still there.
This is a red herring. Every character in current 5e has a background, and every character in One D&D will have a feat. All One D&D backgrounds are occupations, not species clarifications, and even before the 2020 sensitivity pivot the designers regretted introducing racial feats in Xanathar’s, so we won’t be seeing any species-specific feats going forward.
Yes, there is legitimate pain that needs remedy. We are in agreement there. The issue is that, according to the people I’m citing, WotC is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and causing further pain with the new implementation, because mechanically you’re really only one parent’s species (aside from lifespan, which is very niche in most campaigns), not both. I’ve seen said mutliracial/mixed people compare this to the infamous One-Drop Rule.
Only in terms of flavor, which we never actually needed WotC’s permission for. Mechanically, half-elf and half-orc are (almost) entirely disappearing, and the replacement “system” is highly adjacent to the WotC mantra of “I dunno, you figure it out”.
Interestingly, I have two ideas for a compromise/alternative solution. The first is, rather than having Aasimar and Eladrin in the DMG as examples in species-building, WotC could put half-elves and half-orcs there instead as examples, whether simply in species construction or as examples of a new, more robust hybridization mechanic. The other idea is for WotC to simply take a page from Pathfinder 2e’s book and implement something similar to Versatile Heritages, or even a more evolved version of the Lineages for WotC’s own Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, where half-elves and half-orcs become templates applied at character creation to a non-elf/orc PC. This also opens the door for future Half-Dwarves, Half-Gnomes, et cetera in future publications.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
Right so there was legitimate pain about the original implementation, as I and others in the past, have been saying. They just don't like the new implementation, which is fair.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
But the fact remains that you the playtest very much allows you to play a character with mixed heritage of elven, human, and/or orc parentage. So the ability to play someone with elf and human ancestors is still there.
This is a red herring. Every character in current 5e has a background, and every character in One D&D will have a feat. All One D&D backgrounds are occupations, not species clarifications, and even before the 2020 sensitivity pivot the designers regretted introducing racial feats in Xanathar’s, so we won’t be seeing any species-specific feats going forward.
Yes, there is legitimate pain that needs remedy. We are in agreement there. The issue is that, according to the people I’m citing, WotC is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and causing further pain with the new implementation, because mechanically you’re really only one parent’s species (aside from lifespan, which is very niche in most campaigns), not both. I’ve seen said mutliracial/mixed people compare this to the infamous One-Drop Rule.
Only in terms of flavor, which we never actually needed WotC’s permission for. Mechanically, half-elf and half-orc are (almost) entirely disappearing, and the replacement “system” is highly adjacent to the WotC mantra of “I dunno, you figure it out”.
Interestingly, I have two ideas for a compromise/alternative solution. The first is, rather than having Aasimar and Eladrin in the DMG as examples in species-building, WotC could put half-elves and half-orcs there instead as examples, whether simply in species construction or as examples of a new, more robust hybridization mechanic. The other idea is for WotC to simply take a page from Pathfinder 2e’s book and implement something similar to Versatile Heritages, or even a more evolved version of the Lineages for WotC’s own Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, where half-elves and half-orcs become templates applied at character creation to a non-elf/orc PC. This also opens the door for future Half-Dwarves, Half-Gnomes, et cetera in future publications.
Half elves didn’t really have anything that made them different that elves besides ability scores. Oh they got to choose two skills. Half Orcs made zero since because they had features neither humans nor Orcs had. The half races were and are bad in this system.
The only realistic fix is complicated. Give every species a list of 4-6 features to select from that are all balanced. Let’s say every character gets 4 features. Mixed species can choose from either list. Though you can be a character descended from more than 2 species, you may only choose features from your two closest common species. This gets complicated because they have to package all the features in a way that is balanced.
Interestingly, I have two ideas for a compromise/alternative solution. The first is, rather than having Aasimar and Eladrin in the DMG as examples in species-building, WotC could put half-elves and half-orcs there instead as examples, whether simply in species construction or as examples of a new, more robust hybridization mechanic.
Well, both of those are pretty bad examples because the existing half-races aren't actually hybrids, they're a mess of completely new mechanics. Still, I think there's something to the idea. How would people feel about something like this:
Hybrid Characters
A character, given an appropriate back story, might descend from more than one species. There are three ways of handling this
The descent might be cosmetic: the character functions in all ways as a member of one species, but appears in a different way.
As above, and the character may expend a first level feat (if they have more than one, such as a human, they may expend more than one) to acquire a feature from a different species. The DM might rule a particular combination is overly powerful, or might choose to grant two features if individual features seem particularly weak.
The character might be a hybrid, mixing traits from two (or more) species. It is up to the DM what combination is fair, using the guidelines for designing a new species.
An example then might be
Human-Elf Hybrid
A human-elf hybrid gains darkvision, fey ancestry, skillful, and versatile; characters who wish to be closer to their elf ancestry are encouraged to use their versatile feat to take an elven lineage.
The only realistic fix is complicated. Give every species a list of 4-6 features to select from that are all balanced. Let’s say every character gets 4 features. Mixed species can choose from either list. Though you can be a character descended from more than 2 species, you may only choose features from your two closest common species.
This gets complicated because they have to package all the features in a way that is balanced.
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design. So much so that...have you even looked at the variant half-elves in SCAG? Realism in a fantasy game simply isn't a priority. It just needs to feel right.
And therein lies the true problem: subjectivity. Since the customer is always right in matters of taste, they're always going to be justified if the decisions made for the book fail to satisfy them. It's impossible to come up with a rule to satisfy everyone. The best we can hope for is for WotC to make a decision and then explain that decision in a way that makes sense.
I look at the changes surrounding half-elves/orcs as rather Tolkienesque. Elrond gravitated toward his elven heritage, choosing immortality, while his twin brother, Elros, took a different path. The latter chose to be mortal─to live among men, age, and die─something none of their half-elven forebears chose to do. If they choose to stick with it, it's a change I can live with. I'm also justifying it with knowledge I have outside the game, and I take a similar approach with bard magic; likening it to the Music of the Ainur. But this may not be the intent of the authors, and, even if it were, we cannot count on every player and Dungeon Master having this same frame of reference. So, once again, WotC needs to explain itself.
As prospective customers, the company should be trying to sell us on whatever decision is settled upon.
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
Right so there was legitimate pain about the original implementation, as I and others in the past, have been saying. They just don't like the new implementation, which is fair.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
But the fact remains that you the playtest very much allows you to play a character with mixed heritage of elven, human, and/or orc parentage. So the ability to play someone with elf and human ancestors is still there.
This is a red herring. Every character in current 5e has a background, and every character in One D&D will have a feat. All One D&D backgrounds are occupations, not species clarifications, and even before the 2020 sensitivity pivot the designers regretted introducing racial feats in Xanathar’s, so we won’t be seeing any species-specific feats going forward.
Which I see as a good thing. The customization options in the UA are there to represent a character holistically, not just biologically. I want them reduce the focus on biology anyway, this is fantasy. Yes, everyone gets a Feat, and it can be just as important an significant a part of your origin as the species feature. The Feat can represent something from one or another of your parents. I think people are focusing way too much on some fictional notion of biological determinism, as if it's necessary to portray mixed heritage people, when I think that's not what is needed or good for the game at all. It was precisely that kind of biological determinism that made the Half Elf and Half Orc uncomfortable for me in the first place.
So it's a good thing that we're moving away from biologically determined traits.
Yes, there is legitimate pain that needs remedy. We are in agreement there. The issue is that, according to the people I’m citing, WotC is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and causing further pain with the new implementation, because mechanically you’re really only one parent’s species (aside from lifespan, which is very niche in most campaigns), not both. I’ve seen said mutliracial/mixed people compare this to the infamous One-Drop Rule.
And I personally think that this is kind of hyperfocusing on the species ability as the one and only thing that is inherited from one's parents when there's also the Feat, which can represent more facets of a character's heritage.
Only in terms of flavor, which we never actually needed WotC’s permission for. Mechanically, half-elf and half-orc are (almost) entirely disappearing, and the replacement “system” is highly adjacent to the WotC mantra of “I dunno, you figure it out”.
Yes. The Half Elf and Half Orc as mechanically distinct oddities are going away and that is exactly precisely the thing that makes me more comfortable and makes me feel more welcome. The exact implementation of what follows could stand some work, but the removal of those exact things is what was a pleasant and uplifting surprise.
I love the openness of picking your halves so I am all for this element.
That said, I do think there should be a way to combine both DNA sources such as if one race has a walking speed of 30 and another 20 then you would be 25ft as an example. One has Darkvision at 60 and the other 120 - you get 90ft. You pick a race trait from each side...I know this most of all could lead to power gaming but power gamers are going to power game so I honestly just ignore them.
I can see the "dominate gene" thing they're trying to do here by saying you have to pick one race as the mechanical side for your half race character, but to have a true mix I'd rather see a way to build from them both myself. Yeah they give you the looks side of being able to mix like a kid would be, but some kids also strongly take after one parent so you could have a PC still who looks like an elf in every sense but genetically they're half elf and half dwarf or something. Aesthetics isn't enough for me to say I'm a true half race PC, but that's me.
Again let me have some way to build a true half race with the penalities to not being a full breed of something; a reduced walking speed, a reduced Darkvision (if the other race has no Darkvision then half the one parents vision - ex: 60ft becomes 30ft for you), and mixed racial features to represent both sides. Maybe you have Relentless Endurance from an orc but you can't have Powerful Build also. If you are of two races let's see that in the PC!
I will agree that you can say you're half A and half B all you want but mechanically you play as A or B which is the same mechanically as picking A or B from the start; the whole point of playing a mixed race PC is to combine elements of both into your PC to create the truest you.
As others have said, thankfully you can ignore the official format and play this way if it's how your DM allows. D&D is becoming more and more customizable as this recent presentation shows and even before now the rulebook itself calls itself a guide line more than rule so if you want to scrap the UA/official content then do it! 🙂 I certainly will...I'm doing it for the floating ASIs also because it makes no sense to me why you can't have one +3 to a stat if you can break up the +2 and do three +1s; it's all about the roll and as long as you don't go over 20 at the start how is any different than rolling a 19 pre-additions and dropping a +1 to get the 20 that way or doing an 18 and adding the +2.
I'm very pro-customization and so again I like some of what was pitched, but I do disagree on this build format. There needs to be a way to really half up features from two races! I know there's a book on DMsGuild that works on how to do this in a more balanced fashion so hopefully Wizards will look at that because I get again what they're trying to do here thematically, but the execution fails to the point I'll do it my own way for best results.
Since you brought up DNA, I thought I should point out that genetics does not work this way AT ALL. You are not half your father and half your mother. You are the result of RANDOM traits from both parents, some of which can be recessive and even detrimental. You could end up with a child of an elf and human with a walking speed of 10 due to an inherited trait that caused muscle degeneration.
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design. So much so that...have you even looked at the variant half-elves in SCAG? Realism in a fantasy game simply isn't a priority. It just needs to feel right.
Why does there need to be aysmmetry when we get to pick our +2 and +1? This seems like it is restrictive to players
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design. So much so that...have you even looked at the variant half-elves in SCAG? Realism in a fantasy game simply isn't a priority. It just needs to feel right.
Why does there need to be aysmmetry when we get to pick our +2 and +1? This seems like it is restrictive to players
'Cause otherwise halflings can't reroll 1s.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design.
No, most asymmetry is just people being bad at balance. The problem is that species are balanced as a whole, not by individual feature, so there's no attempt to balance individual features.
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design. So much so that...have you even looked at the variant half-elves in SCAG? Realism in a fantasy game simply isn't a priority. It just needs to feel right.
Why does there need to be aysmmetry when we get to pick our +2 and +1? This seems like it is restrictive to players
The entire game is asymmetrical. Monsters have Multiattack long before anyone gets Extra Attack. There are spell attacks and magical effect which aren't actually spells, and so they cannot be subject to counterspell or dispel magic. Nine Hells, even the different player classes aren't designed to be equal to one another.
If you want every race species trait to be equal, then what becomes the baseline? What needs to be nerfed or buffed to reach this arbitrarily-decided mark twain?
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Ahh so this is the culprit of an article that has been sending people frothing onto the forums and the Discord server. The framing of that as an "accusation" is already indication enough of the lack of understanding and lack of empathy to the feedback and pain of real people.
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!
First key difference - a DM can choose to not include fiends, or celestials, in their game. They can choose not to include dragons. They can freely choose to alter the traits and natures of those beings, in a way players are very rarely allowed to do. And even then, Wizards has been veering away from hard-coded, hard-locked characterizations and explicitly allowing and encouraging the DM to do their own thing.
Second key difference - none of those things are, under ordinary circumstances, playable. They are not things a player is expected to embody them, to align with them and immerse themselves in the persona and culture of those things. The rules concerning things that are playable are different from the rules concerning things that are not.
Is it great? No. But perfect has ever been the enemy of good, and the argument "nothing is exclusionist unless you go out of your way to actively make it exclusionist so stop doing that" has never been a valid one. That is simply not how this has ever worked.
Please do not contact or message me.
I hope they don't ditch required alignments for higher-level beings; or those otherwise embroiled in those conflicts. Some storytelling benefits from having clearly defined "good" and "evil" in it. Nobody is supposed to feel sympathy for someone like Snidely Whiplash or Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine. Mustache-twirling evil has its place.
Snidely and Sheev weren't born evil. That's the rub: what things are you comfortable saying "this was born evil" about, and are those things supposed to represent players.
Well, they aren't actually listing alignments in at least some newer books, but also, it's not really clear that fiends are evil by nature, there are several alternative answers
Interestingly, the discussion of this feedback on a very large Discord server I’m on has taken a very different turn than here. There, people who are multiracial IRL have led the charge against the elimination of half-elves and half-orcs as mechanically distinct options, because the replacement system shown in the first One D&D playtest packet back in August essentially mechanically eliminates multi-species characters, reducing them to one parent’s species reskinned as a hybrid, which according to them is overly reductive and (according to them) prevents them from emulating a key part of their RL identity in the game, along with the unfortunate implications that someone who says they’re half-X and half-Y is really just X or Y on the inside.
To be clear, they did express dissatisfaction with the 2014 status quo, but they felt that rather than making a genuine effort to give such concepts a sensitive and well-thought out implementation, Wizards of the Coast took the lazy route with an option a smidgen above their usual “I 'unno, you figure it out” mantra seen in many later 5e products.
As a side note: While the viral article announcing the change is indeed click/outrage-bait, several more reputable sources have also confirmed the same basic facts with less incendiary commentary.
The problem with half-X is that there's no particular reason to limit it to any specific hybrid, which means you either list (assuming 8 base species) 28 mixes, or you come up with rules for designing generic hybrids. If each species had exactly two special features, of roughly equal value, that would be pretty easy to implement, but they don't.
Also, it's not like half-elf and half-orc have any real personality in 5e. Half-elves are mechanically super generic (gain any stats and skills you need) with no strong similarity to either elf or human, half-orcs were always "I wanted to play an orc but orcs aren't in the PHB".
A while back someone online asked me a question in relation to Arueshalae. When I play Pathfinder (which isn't a lot, sadly), I tend to play characters who are aligned with Shelyn. To those who don't know, Shelyn is a deity who is associated with art, beauty, love, and music. She's also, quite possibly, the single most forgiving THING in the entire setting; always willing to give evildoers a chance to redeem themselves and such. Effectively the song 'Amazing Grace' personified. Arue is a succubus who, due to the actions of the goddess Desna, was given a chance to rise above her demonic nature and be redeemed.
This person, aware of my IRL Christian beliefs, affinity for Shelyn, and that I was invested in Arue's redemption, wanted to know if I believed it was really possible for a demon to be redeemed and, if I was ever presented with the chance, I would attempt to save even a demon. After some thought I answered that I believed God to be all powerful and, if he willed it, redeeming even the devil was something not beyond his power. However, the devil and all those who followed him from heaven had known God firsthand and, for whatever reason, justified or not, chosen to turn their back on it and leave to become demons. It's been countless years now during which demons have been aware of both the ultimate good as well as the evils of the devil and, for whatever reason, had not changed course. Maybe if, through some outside, divine, intervention something changed, there could be a way; but to assume that a demon was going to now, just completely out of nowhere, decide to change to become 'good' would be utterly foolish and it would be amazingly arrogant to assume that I, a literal nobody in the grand scheme of things, would be the one to facilitate such a change. To be a demon is to have turned your back on the ultimate light, ultimate good, and to refuse that offered redemption.
When it comes to playing demons in any capacity I follow the same format. If they could be good, if redemption was something they truly desired, then they wouldn't have become a demon in the first place. I am not going to say my answer is absolute, but I would say that a demon, devil, etc is, by their nature, both evil and laughs at the concecpt of 'redemption' or being anything other than the evil aligned monsters we know. If such a thing were possible without direct intervention from a deity or something, they wouldn't be a demon/devil/etc in the first place. While I am perfectly willing to believe that no being in existance is beyond redemption, I also believe that there are beings out there that would see that offer of redemption and immediately slap it aside and laugh at it.
Is that a good answer? I dunno. I'm neither a lore expert on D&D (or Pathfinder) or a theologian IRL. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying something like 'with many drow expanding beyond the cities of Lloth some are choosing to defect from their old culture to embrace the ways of their new companions' as a reason to remove the evil tag from them as a race. At the same time, I also sort of feel like for other beings that hard alignment is part of who/what/etc they are and removing it is a bad idea.
Did anyone make the point that the species feature wasn't the only part of a character's origins and that the Background and Feat were also there to represent part of a character's origins, just as inherent as the species feature?
Right so there was legitimate pain about the original implementation, as I and others in the past, have been saying. They just don't like the new implementation, which is fair.
But the fact remains that you the playtest very much allows you to play a character with mixed heritage of elven, human, and/or orc parentage. So the ability to play someone with elf and human ancestors is still there.
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!
So your point is that half-X and Half-Y have to give up their background where full-X or full-Y get full freedom on their background since they don't have to waste it?
Half-X and Half-Y background "mixed" - only details about being half-X and half-Y
Full X or Full Y background "anything" - details about what the character did since they don't need to waste it on fleshing out their species.
PR style responses are considered hostile intent.
Interestingly, I have two ideas for a compromise/alternative solution. The first is, rather than having Aasimar and Eladrin in the DMG as examples in species-building, WotC could put half-elves and half-orcs there instead as examples, whether simply in species construction or as examples of a new, more robust hybridization mechanic.
The other idea is for WotC to simply take a page from Pathfinder 2e’s book and implement something similar to Versatile Heritages, or even a more evolved version of the Lineages for WotC’s own Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, where half-elves and half-orcs become templates applied at character creation to a non-elf/orc PC. This also opens the door for future Half-Dwarves, Half-Gnomes, et cetera in future publications.
Half elves didn’t really have anything that made them different that elves besides ability scores. Oh they got to choose two skills.
Half Orcs made zero since because they had features neither humans nor Orcs had.
The half races were and are bad in this system.
The only realistic fix is complicated. Give every species a list of 4-6 features to select from that are all balanced. Let’s say every character gets 4 features. Mixed species can choose from either list. Though you can be a character descended from more than 2 species, you may only choose features from your two closest common species.
This gets complicated because they have to package all the features in a way that is balanced.
Well, both of those are pretty bad examples because the existing half-races aren't actually hybrids, they're a mess of completely new mechanics. Still, I think there's something to the idea. How would people feel about something like this:
An example then might be
Which isn't going to happen because that's not only complicated but restrictive as well. Having everything be equal means a dragonborn's Breath Weapon now needs to be on equal footing to Darkvision. Actually, everything needs to be equal to a 1st-level feat. And that's just not possible. Intentional asymmetry is part of the game's design. So much so that...have you even looked at the variant half-elves in SCAG? Realism in a fantasy game simply isn't a priority. It just needs to feel right.
And therein lies the true problem: subjectivity. Since the customer is always right in matters of taste, they're always going to be justified if the decisions made for the book fail to satisfy them. It's impossible to come up with a rule to satisfy everyone. The best we can hope for is for WotC to make a decision and then explain that decision in a way that makes sense.
I look at the changes surrounding half-elves/orcs as rather Tolkienesque. Elrond gravitated toward his elven heritage, choosing immortality, while his twin brother, Elros, took a different path. The latter chose to be mortal─to live among men, age, and die─something none of their half-elven forebears chose to do. If they choose to stick with it, it's a change I can live with. I'm also justifying it with knowledge I have outside the game, and I take a similar approach with bard magic; likening it to the Music of the Ainur. But this may not be the intent of the authors, and, even if it were, we cannot count on every player and Dungeon Master having this same frame of reference. So, once again, WotC needs to explain itself.
As prospective customers, the company should be trying to sell us on whatever decision is settled upon.
Which I see as a good thing. The customization options in the UA are there to represent a character holistically, not just biologically. I want them reduce the focus on biology anyway, this is fantasy. Yes, everyone gets a Feat, and it can be just as important an significant a part of your origin as the species feature. The Feat can represent something from one or another of your parents. I think people are focusing way too much on some fictional notion of biological determinism, as if it's necessary to portray mixed heritage people, when I think that's not what is needed or good for the game at all. It was precisely that kind of biological determinism that made the Half Elf and Half Orc uncomfortable for me in the first place.
So it's a good thing that we're moving away from biologically determined traits.
And I personally think that this is kind of hyperfocusing on the species ability as the one and only thing that is inherited from one's parents when there's also the Feat, which can represent more facets of a character's heritage.
Yes. The Half Elf and Half Orc as mechanically distinct oddities are going away and that is exactly precisely the thing that makes me more comfortable and makes me feel more welcome. The exact implementation of what follows could stand some work, but the removal of those exact things is what was a pleasant and uplifting surprise.
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!
Since you brought up DNA, I thought I should point out that genetics does not work this way AT ALL. You are not half your father and half your mother. You are the result of RANDOM traits from both parents, some of which can be recessive and even detrimental. You could end up with a child of an elf and human with a walking speed of 10 due to an inherited trait that caused muscle degeneration.
Just saying...
Why does there need to be aysmmetry when we get to pick our +2 and +1? This seems like it is restrictive to players
PR style responses are considered hostile intent.
'Cause otherwise halflings can't reroll 1s.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
No, most asymmetry is just people being bad at balance. The problem is that species are balanced as a whole, not by individual feature, so there's no attempt to balance individual features.
The entire game is asymmetrical. Monsters have Multiattack long before anyone gets Extra Attack. There are spell attacks and magical effect which aren't actually spells, and so they cannot be subject to counterspell or dispel magic. Nine Hells, even the different player classes aren't designed to be equal to one another.
If you want every
racespecies trait to be equal, then what becomes the baseline? What needs to be nerfed or buffed to reach this arbitrarily-decided mark twain?