PF2 I’m pretty sure just does it like, the feats are species specific. There’s an elven lineage feat for example. And you take that as your first level feat, and you can only take it at 1st. Then it gives you some, but not all of the elven species traits. I always thought that was a better way to get at it, instead of a single feat applied to every species, which I’d just going to be too broad l. Then you can be sure to only assign a few traits and make them, generally, worth a feat.
Obviously, you then need to make a few dozen feats, one for each species, and add a new one every time you introduce a new species, so it gets really unwieldy. But that seems like a better way to pull it off over mix-and-match freely, since you can kind of figure out what each combo could be. I wouldn’t want to be the person at WotC five years from now that has to look at their new feat in comparison to all the base species traits, but then I’d be getting paid to play D&D so I think I’d manage.
Look at Giant Ancestry from Goliath. A better version of misty step PB times per long rest seems well worth a feat to me. Fiendish Legacy and Elven Lineage seem comparable to Magic Initiate, while the Orc's Adrenaline Rush is a great use of a bonus action.
Actually, this could be fun, let's come up with some more.
... Obviously, you then need to make a few dozen feats, one for each species, and add a new one every time you introduce a new species, so it gets really unwieldy. ...
Or, and here's a novel, never-before-uttered idea...give the DM and player both some guidelines on how to mix species traits in a way suitable to their specific game.
Here. Let me give you some examples.
"If you wish to go beyond using one parent species' abilities for your character, you can work with your DM to create a homebrew mixture of traits from your parent species. When doing so, try to keep your character's inherited abilities within the same broad level of strength as a single-heritage character. Traits that affect your ability to take or deal damage, offer you alternative movement speeds or types, or which offer innate spellcasting are inherently more valuable and powerful than features that don't offer these things. As well, the less often a trait appears the more unique and valuable it tends to be. You should try to avoid making your homebrew mixed heritage a collection of just the most powerful traits from your parent species. Instead, consider the story your homebrew heritage tells about your character and how their mix of both strong and weaker traits can inform their history and upbringing."
"For example, you may wish to make a character that descends from both human and elven heritages. You've decided your character is uncomfortable in both human and elven lands, feeling like they don't properly fit in either of their parents' societies. Looking at your character's human parentage gives you three options: Resourceful, Skillful, and Versatile. Your elven parent contributes five options: Darkvision, Elven Lineage, Fey Ancestry, Keen Senses, and Trance. The human's Versatile trait is one of the most powerful species traits in the game and their most defining trait as a people, it's probably too strong to include in your homebrew heritage. Resourceful, however, is also unique to humans and fits the idea of your character as a self-sufficient wanderer that always has a reserve of heroism within them, so you decide to incorporate Resourceful into your heritage. From the elven side, Trance is the most species-defining trait of elven characters while contributing to their sense of isolation from other peoples, as they do not sleep. You decide that your character's inability to Trance is one of the largest wedges between them and their elven heritage, but your character clearly has Fey Ancestry so you include that trait in your heritage.
You now have two traits - Resourceful and Fey Ancestry. Your character has had to learn to be flexible since their earliest days and spent a lot of time bouncing between settlements, so you decide they've picked up some extra talents from their human side and also grant your character the Skillful trait from their human heritage. To finish off, you give your character a distinctly non-human ability to help set them apart from their human kin and reinforce the idea of a character that feels out of place in both worlds, and incorporate the elves' Darkvision into your heritage so you literally see the world differently than your human kin. Your homebrew heritage then consists of Resourceful, Fey Ancestry, Skillful, and Darkvision, which your DM decides is a good mix of traits and signs off on including in your game. Excellent!"
... Obviously, you then need to make a few dozen feats, one for each species, and add a new one every time you introduce a new species, so it gets really unwieldy. ...
Or, and here's a novel, never-before-uttered idea...give the DM and player both some guidelines on how to mix species traits in a way suitable to their specific game.
Here. Let me give you some examples.
"If you wish to go beyond using one parent species' abilities for your character, you can work with your DM to create a homebrew mixture of traits from your parent species. When doing so, try to keep your character's inherited abilities within the same broad level of strength as a single-heritage character. Traits that affect your ability to take or deal damage, offer you alternative movement speeds or types, or which offer innate spellcasting are inherently more valuable and powerful than features that don't offer these things. As well, the less often a trait appears the more unique and valuable it tends to be. You should try to avoid making your homebrew mixed heritage a collection of just the most powerful traits from your parent species. Instead, consider the story your homebrew heritage tells about your character and how their mix of both strong and weaker traits can inform their history and upbringing."
"For example, you may wish to make a character that descends from both human and elven heritages. You've decided your character is uncomfortable in both human and elven lands, feeling like they don't properly fit in either of their parents' societies. Looking at your character's human parentage gives you three options: Resourceful, Skillful, and Versatile. Your elven parent contributes five options: Darkvision, Elven Lineage, Fey Ancestry, Keen Senses, and Trance. The human's Versatile trait is one of the most powerful species traits in the game and their most defining trait as a people, it's probably too strong to include in your homebrew heritage. Resourceful, however, is also unique to humans and fits the idea of your character as a self-sufficient wanderer that always has a reserve of heroism within them, so you decide to incorporate Resourceful into your heritage. From the elven side, Trance is the most species-defining trait of elven characters while contributing to their sense of isolation from other peoples, as they do not sleep. You decide that your character's inability to Trance is one of the largest wedges between them and their elven heritage, but your character clearly has Fey Ancestry so you include that trait in your heritage.
You now have two traits - Resourceful and Fey Ancestry. Your character has had to learn to be flexible since their earliest days and spent a lot of time bouncing between settlements, so you decide they've picked up some extra talents from their human side and also grant your character the Skillful trait from their human heritage. To finish off, you give your character a distinctly non-human ability to help set them apart from their human kin and reinforce the idea of a character that feels out of place in both worlds, and incorporate the elves' Darkvision into your heritage so you literally see the world differently than your human kin. Your homebrew heritage then consists of Resourceful, Fey Ancestry, Skillful, and Darkvision, which your DM decides is a good mix of traits and signs off on including in your game. Excellent!"
This feels like more of a last resort option that WotC could throw into a book if there's nothing better. It's not really a system so much as it is a lack of one.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
WotC is not likely to go with the multiple Feat method of PF2.
What I’ve learned:
Some species individual traits could be equal to a 1st level Feat, while other species don’t have a way to use some of their traits without access to another trait (Breath Weapon doesn’t function without Draconic Ancestry)
The human’s Versatile trait destroys any hope of having one feat that could cover all species.
Giving all of the traits is too strong for a feat but for most species giving only one trait is too weak for a feat.
While I believe there is a place to mechanically support mixed species Feats doesn’t seem the place to do it easily.
This feels like more of a last resort option that WotC could throw into a book if there's nothing better. It's not really a system so much as it is a lack of one.
In the end, the way species are design isn't systematic, so any rules for combining them are also not going to be systematic.
This feels like more of a last resort option that WotC could throw into a book if there's nothing better. It's not really a system so much as it is a lack of one.
Why do so many people think there's some absolutely perfect magic-bullet elegant systematic rules solution that will work 100% of the time without fail and without any edge-case jank for combining gameplay elements (species) that were never intended, designed, or considered to be combined?
This feels like more of a last resort option that WotC could throw into a book if there's nothing better. It's not really a system so much as it is a lack of one.
Why do so many people think there's some absolutely perfect magic-bullet elegant systematic rules solution that will work 100% of the time without fail and without any edge-case jank for combining gameplay elements (species) that were never intended, designed, or considered to be combined?
I agree with you that a perfect rules solution doesn't and can't exist - but if the proposed solution really is just "if you and your DM both think your hybrid PC should have traits from both parents, figure out a combination of traits that make sense and feel balanced for your table" - then that probably doesn't even need to be stated, the tables who want that badly enough will naturally do that anyway. The "spend your feat for a single trait" rule, by contrast would be there for the groups that are less sure of themselves, and sets the ceiling low enough that if a player truly does want multiple traits from both parents, they will recognize that it's their DM being generous and doing them a solid, instead of simply getting something they feel entitled to by dint of being a half-X.
WotC is not likely to go with the multiple Feat method of PF2.
What I’ve learned:
Some species individual traits could be equal to a 1st level Feat, while other species don’t have a way to use some of their traits without access to another trait (Breath Weapon doesn’t function without Draconic Ancestry)
The human’s Versatile trait destroys any hope of having one feat that could cover all species.
Giving all of the traits is too strong for a feat but for most species giving only one trait is too weak for a feat.
While I believe there is a place to mechanically support mixed species Feats doesn’t seem the place to do it easily.
1) Well, point of order, if you use Dragonborn as the base of the hybrid then they can use their breath weapon just fine, since they'll have both the breath itself and the fueling Ancestry as well. So using this, you can have a Dragonborn with Lucky, a Dragonborn with Powerful Build, a Dragonborn with thick scaly natural armor etc just fine.
2) Human's bonus feat+ is certainly the most egregious example of a suite of traits being too much for a single feat - but it's not the only one. Getting all of Fairy's traits, Eladrin's traits, or Bugbear's traits on top of those of another race with a single 1st-level feat would be pretty crazy also.
3) The power comes not just from the trait itself (though certainly traits like flight and scaling bonus action teleportation are that strong on their own), but how it combos with the rest of the traits you got from the primary parent.
4) A feat has drawbacks, sure, but I do still see it as the best option; WotC has made a concerted effort to move away from other build resource structures like Dark Gifts, Piety, Guild Renown etc, so I dont see them re-adding a new one to cover these kinds of things. And making it free to any hybrid PC is a nonstarter too, since everyone would be at that point.
I agree with you that a perfect rules solution doesn't and can't exist - but if the proposed solution really is just "if you and your DM both think your hybrid PC should have traits from both parents, figure out a combination of traits that make sense and feel balanced for your table" - then that probably doesn't even need to be stated
You'd think so, but the evidence is that it actually does need to be stated.
I agree with you that a perfect rules solution doesn't and can't exist - but if the proposed solution really is just "if you and your DM both think your hybrid PC should have traits from both parents, figure out a combination of traits that make sense and feel balanced for your table" - then that probably doesn't even need to be stated, the tables who want that badly enough will naturally do that anyway. The "spend your feat for a single trait" rule, by contrast would be there for the groups that are less sure of themselves, and sets the ceiling low enough that if a player truly does want multiple traits from both parents, they will recognize that it's their DM being generous and doing them a solid, instead of simply getting something they feel entitled to by dint of being a half-X.
The problem with "here's a really, truly terrible default rule to do The Thing, but if you don't like the rule then you can homebrew!" is that once there's a Default Rule, the bar for homebrewing a solution becomes dramaticallyhigher. If there's nothing in the books beyond some guidelines, then the homebrew solution is simply filling in grey space left empty by the rules. But if there's a seriously extremely bad Rule in the books? Then your homebrew is overturning official rules, and that is always a vastly more difficult fight to have than simply filling in grey space. You're effectively denying homebrew to anyone who doesn't make an active habit of heavily hacking their game, and the number of people who heavily hack their game is drastically smaller than the number of people who might want to play a mixed-heritage character.
This problem is only hard to solve if you assume that the final product must be 100% compatible with previously-existing race/species system.
(As is evidenced by prior comments in this thread and others) I'd be quite happy if they systemized the species features into feat (or half-feat) sized traits and made basic "custom species" rules like the current "custom background" rules. (Probably involving a new feat category, where you get one feat's worth of species traits and some other stuff, just like Custom Lineage or whatever. And let someone substitute a level 1 feat if they don't care about "heritage" nonsense.) And all the classic species can be pre-built as examples, just like all the example backgrounds.
Building out such a feat list would also give them the opportunity to rebalance some older, broken stuff. Though I bet they've started that exercise many times before but never published it, for fear of grognard backlash.
The problem with "here's a really, truly terrible default rule to do The Thing, but if you don't like the rule then you can homebrew!" is that once there's a Default Rule, the bar for homebrewing a solution becomes dramaticallyhigher. If there's nothing in the books beyond some guidelines, then the homebrew solution is simply filling in grey space left empty by the rules. But if there's a seriously extremely bad Rule in the books? Then your homebrew is overturning official rules, and that is always a vastly more difficult fight to have than simply filling in grey space. You're effectively denying homebrew to anyone who doesn't make an active habit of heavily hacking their game, and the number of people who heavily hack their game is drastically smaller than the number of people who might want to play a mixed-heritage character.
I find your premise quite odd. The default rule right now is You Can't Do The Thing. The RAW in the most recent UA is simply - pick one parent, get their set of traits, and the other parent does not exist for you except in terms of minor cosmetics that have no mechanical impact. How is that somehow a lower bar for homebrew than suggesting a way it can be done? It doesn't follow at all to me.
The RAW in the most recent UA is simply - pick one parent, get their set of traits, and the other parent does not exist for you except in terms of minor cosmetics that have no mechanical impact.
I find this to be a misstatement of the UA and one that I've seen used to deliberately hit people where they hurt. You have a whole entire Feat that you can use to help represent the various abilities of the character which can also portray something inborn.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
You'd think so, but the evidence is that it actually does need to be stated.
Technically, "you can use homebrew to alter any printed rules you want" is in fact stated, and for more than just species.
Sure, but there really is a psychological effect of "A published rule exists", so if they publish a rule describing the default "Pick one parent, get their traits" it would be useful to just add an additional sentence. For example, consider the existing text with the following addition (in bold):
If you’d like to play the child of such a wondrous pairing, choose two Race options that are Humanoid to represent your parents. Then determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits. If you would prefer a mixture of traits from your ancestors, work with your DM to determine a fair and appropriate combination.
This doesn't add any significant amount of new rules complexity, or really allow anything that wasn't already possible, but psychologically it's helpful, because (a) it admits that such things can happen, and (b) it means that when you allow such combinations, you aren't overriding an existing rule -- and for many people, that matters.
I find this to be a misstatement of the UA and one that I've seen used to deliberately hit people where they hurt. You have a whole entire Feat that you can use to help represent the various abilities of the character which can also portray something inborn.
Sure, fair point, you can use your starting feat to get close-ish to some of the abilities of the other parent so long as those abilities can be expressed via Skilled, Tough etc. But it doesn't change my argument - if the existence of a feat that would get you a species trait is somehow clamping down on homebrew, I don't see how lacking such an option at all wouldn't be.
You'd think so, but the evidence is that it actually does need to be stated.
Technically, "you can use homebrew to alter any printed rules you want" is in fact stated, and for more than just species.
Sure, but there really is a psychological effect of "A published rule exists", so if they publish a rule describing the default "Pick one parent, get their traits" it would be useful to just add an additional sentence. For example, consider the existing text with the following addition (in bold):
If you’d like to play the child of such a wondrous pairing, choose two Race options that are Humanoid to represent your parents. Then determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits. If you would prefer a mixture of traits from your ancestors, work with your DM to determine a fair and appropriate combination.
This doesn't add any significant amount of new rules complexity, or really allow anything that wasn't already possible, but psychologically it's helpful, because (a) it admits that such things can happen, and (b) it means that when you allow such combinations, you aren't overriding an existing rule -- and for many people, that matters.
From a psychological standpoint I think that sentence would have as much ability to harm as it would to help. Because now instead of the default being "you get one parent's set of traits, anything more than that is your DM being generous" now it's closer to "anytime you make a half-X, consider badgering your DM to get the perfect mix of traits for your build, they have to at least think about it after all."
I find this to be a misstatement of the UA and one that I've seen used to deliberately hit people where they hurt. You have a whole entire Feat that you can use to help represent the various abilities of the character which can also portray something inborn.
Sure, fair point, you can use your starting feat to get close-ish to some of the abilities of the other parent so long as those abilities can be expressed via Skilled, Tough etc. But it doesn't change my argument - if the existence of a feat that would get you a species trait is somehow clamping down on homebrew, I don't see how lacking such an option at all wouldn't be.
None of which I had anything to say about, I just wish people would stop saying that the UA makes one side of the heritage disappear or not matter.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
From a psychological standpoint I think that sentence would have as much ability to harm as it would to help. Because now instead of the default being "you get one parent's set of traits, anything more than that is your DM being generous" now it's closer to "anytime you make a half-X, consider badgering your DM to get the perfect mix of traits for your build, they have to at least think about it after all."
You could add a note of "At DMs discretion" or some such, but the people likely to badger the DM are likely to badger the DM anyway.
You could add a note of "At DMs discretion" or some such, but the people likely to badger the DM are likely to badger the DM anyway.
Sure but let me put it this way - why do you think the language right now says "pick one parent?" They could have done the mix traits thing from the get-go. They're obviously trying to prevent such badgering from taking place to begin with.
None of which I had anything to say about, I just wish people would stop saying that the UA makes one side of the heritage disappear or not matter.
I agree it matters but as it currently stands, if you want a trait that doesn't fit into the narrow expression space of the existing 1st-level feats, you have no recourse but disappointment. All I'm proposing is that space be widened.
Like sure, you can say that my Elf-Aarakocra's Skilled Feat for Athletics and Acrobatics represents his more avian frame's jumping ability.... but if I could instead spend that feat on a pair of wings for him and say he's a Raptoran or Avariel, the fiction is that much stronger without being unbalanced. That feat was a big tradeoff for him.
I find your premise quite odd. The default rule right now is You Can't Do The Thing. The RAW in the most recent UA is simply - pick one parent, get their set of traits, and the other parent does not exist for you except in terms of minor cosmetics that have no mechanical impact. How is that somehow a lower bar for homebrew than suggesting a way it can be done? It doesn't follow at all to me.
RAW is, technically, that mixed-heritage characters don't exist. You can do it narratively/cosmetically, but not mechanically. That's the thing that's bothering people. My take is that a section in the ballpark of what I wrote earlier would explicitly call out that a DM can/should be permissive of homebrew mixes that aren't bullshit, i.e. actively encouraging homebrew. As opposed to the current "Pick one species and look like whatever you want" which largely discourages it, or making it the worst feat to've ever been released in D&D history and actively disallowing creative homebrew solutions. I mean, can you imagine how awful it would be to take a "Diverse Heritage" feat to gain nothing but Fey Ancestry? The new version, that only works against charm effects? What an absolutely stupendous waste of a resource - and yet that would be what people were expected to do, because using the feat to take one of the maybe three or four species traits that actually merits a feat would be seen as egregious and unforgiveable powergaming munchkinism of the worst sort.
the worst feat to've ever been released in D&D history
I see your usual commitment to nuance and temperance remains intact 😛
And no, I don't expect anyone to spend a feat on grabbing Fey Ancestry, any more than I'd expect them to spend Magic Initiate on grabbing True Strike, or Weapon Master to gain proficiency with four simple weapons. A feat isn't automatically bad because a bad player can pick bad options with it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
PF2 I’m pretty sure just does it like, the feats are species specific. There’s an elven lineage feat for example. And you take that as your first level feat, and you can only take it at 1st. Then it gives you some, but not all of the elven species traits.
I always thought that was a better way to get at it, instead of a single feat applied to every species, which I’d just going to be too broad l. Then you can be sure to only assign a few traits and make them, generally, worth a feat.
Obviously, you then need to make a few dozen feats, one for each species, and add a new one every time you introduce a new species, so it gets really unwieldy. But that seems like a better way to pull it off over mix-and-match freely, since you can kind of figure out what each combo could be. I wouldn’t want to be the person at WotC five years from now that has to look at their new feat in comparison to all the base species traits, but then I’d be getting paid to play D&D so I think I’d manage.
Actually, this could be fun, let's come up with some more.
And all of the above ignore the combinations that give flight or teleportation, which are worth a 1st-level feat on their own.
Or, and here's a novel, never-before-uttered idea...give the DM and player both some guidelines on how to mix species traits in a way suitable to their specific game.
Here. Let me give you some examples.
"If you wish to go beyond using one parent species' abilities for your character, you can work with your DM to create a homebrew mixture of traits from your parent species. When doing so, try to keep your character's inherited abilities within the same broad level of strength as a single-heritage character. Traits that affect your ability to take or deal damage, offer you alternative movement speeds or types, or which offer innate spellcasting are inherently more valuable and powerful than features that don't offer these things. As well, the less often a trait appears the more unique and valuable it tends to be. You should try to avoid making your homebrew mixed heritage a collection of just the most powerful traits from your parent species. Instead, consider the story your homebrew heritage tells about your character and how their mix of both strong and weaker traits can inform their history and upbringing."
"For example, you may wish to make a character that descends from both human and elven heritages. You've decided your character is uncomfortable in both human and elven lands, feeling like they don't properly fit in either of their parents' societies. Looking at your character's human parentage gives you three options: Resourceful, Skillful, and Versatile. Your elven parent contributes five options: Darkvision, Elven Lineage, Fey Ancestry, Keen Senses, and Trance. The human's Versatile trait is one of the most powerful species traits in the game and their most defining trait as a people, it's probably too strong to include in your homebrew heritage. Resourceful, however, is also unique to humans and fits the idea of your character as a self-sufficient wanderer that always has a reserve of heroism within them, so you decide to incorporate Resourceful into your heritage. From the elven side, Trance is the most species-defining trait of elven characters while contributing to their sense of isolation from other peoples, as they do not sleep. You decide that your character's inability to Trance is one of the largest wedges between them and their elven heritage, but your character clearly has Fey Ancestry so you include that trait in your heritage.
You now have two traits - Resourceful and Fey Ancestry. Your character has had to learn to be flexible since their earliest days and spent a lot of time bouncing between settlements, so you decide they've picked up some extra talents from their human side and also grant your character the Skillful trait from their human heritage. To finish off, you give your character a distinctly non-human ability to help set them apart from their human kin and reinforce the idea of a character that feels out of place in both worlds, and incorporate the elves' Darkvision into your heritage so you literally see the world differently than your human kin. Your homebrew heritage then consists of Resourceful, Fey Ancestry, Skillful, and Darkvision, which your DM decides is a good mix of traits and signs off on including in your game. Excellent!"
Please do not contact or message me.
This feels like more of a last resort option that WotC could throw into a book if there's nothing better. It's not really a system so much as it is a lack of one.
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)
WotC is not likely to go with the multiple Feat method of PF2.
What I’ve learned:
In the end, the way species are design isn't systematic, so any rules for combining them are also not going to be systematic.
Why do so many people think there's some absolutely perfect magic-bullet elegant systematic rules solution that will work 100% of the time without fail and without any edge-case jank for combining gameplay elements (species) that were never intended, designed, or considered to be combined?
Please do not contact or message me.
I agree with you that a perfect rules solution doesn't and can't exist - but if the proposed solution really is just "if you and your DM both think your hybrid PC should have traits from both parents, figure out a combination of traits that make sense and feel balanced for your table" - then that probably doesn't even need to be stated, the tables who want that badly enough will naturally do that anyway. The "spend your feat for a single trait" rule, by contrast would be there for the groups that are less sure of themselves, and sets the ceiling low enough that if a player truly does want multiple traits from both parents, they will recognize that it's their DM being generous and doing them a solid, instead of simply getting something they feel entitled to by dint of being a half-X.
1) Well, point of order, if you use Dragonborn as the base of the hybrid then they can use their breath weapon just fine, since they'll have both the breath itself and the fueling Ancestry as well. So using this, you can have a Dragonborn with Lucky, a Dragonborn with Powerful Build, a Dragonborn with thick scaly natural armor etc just fine.
2) Human's bonus feat+ is certainly the most egregious example of a suite of traits being too much for a single feat - but it's not the only one. Getting all of Fairy's traits, Eladrin's traits, or Bugbear's traits on top of those of another race with a single 1st-level feat would be pretty crazy also.
3) The power comes not just from the trait itself (though certainly traits like flight and scaling bonus action teleportation are that strong on their own), but how it combos with the rest of the traits you got from the primary parent.
4) A feat has drawbacks, sure, but I do still see it as the best option; WotC has made a concerted effort to move away from other build resource structures like Dark Gifts, Piety, Guild Renown etc, so I dont see them re-adding a new one to cover these kinds of things. And making it free to any hybrid PC is a nonstarter too, since everyone would be at that point.
You'd think so, but the evidence is that it actually does need to be stated.
The problem with "here's a
really, truly terribledefault rule to do The Thing, but if you don't like the rule then you can homebrew!" is that once there's a Default Rule, the bar for homebrewing a solution becomes dramatically higher. If there's nothing in the books beyond some guidelines, then the homebrew solution is simply filling in grey space left empty by the rules. But if there's aseriously extremely badRule in the books? Then your homebrew is overturning official rules, and that is always a vastly more difficult fight to have than simply filling in grey space. You're effectively denying homebrew to anyone who doesn't make an active habit of heavily hacking their game, and the number of people who heavily hack their game is drastically smaller than the number of people who might want to play a mixed-heritage character.Please do not contact or message me.
This problem is only hard to solve if you assume that the final product must be 100% compatible with previously-existing race/species system.
(As is evidenced by prior comments in this thread and others) I'd be quite happy if they systemized the species features into feat (or half-feat) sized traits and made basic "custom species" rules like the current "custom background" rules. (Probably involving a new feat category, where you get one feat's worth of species traits and some other stuff, just like Custom Lineage or whatever. And let someone substitute a level 1 feat if they don't care about "heritage" nonsense.) And all the classic species can be pre-built as examples, just like all the example backgrounds.
Building out such a feat list would also give them the opportunity to rebalance some older, broken stuff. Though I bet they've started that exercise many times before but never published it, for fear of grognard backlash.
Technically, "you can use homebrew to alter any printed rules you want" is in fact stated, and for more than just species.
I find your premise quite odd. The default rule right now is You Can't Do The Thing. The RAW in the most recent UA is simply - pick one parent, get their set of traits, and the other parent does not exist for you except in terms of minor cosmetics that have no mechanical impact. How is that somehow a lower bar for homebrew than suggesting a way it can be done? It doesn't follow at all to me.
I find this to be a misstatement of the UA and one that I've seen used to deliberately hit people where they hurt. You have a whole entire Feat that you can use to help represent the various abilities of the character which can also portray something inborn.
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!
Sure, but there really is a psychological effect of "A published rule exists", so if they publish a rule describing the default "Pick one parent, get their traits" it would be useful to just add an additional sentence. For example, consider the existing text with the following addition (in bold):
This doesn't add any significant amount of new rules complexity, or really allow anything that wasn't already possible, but psychologically it's helpful, because (a) it admits that such things can happen, and (b) it means that when you allow such combinations, you aren't overriding an existing rule -- and for many people, that matters.
Sure, fair point, you can use your starting feat to get close-ish to some of the abilities of the other parent so long as those abilities can be expressed via Skilled, Tough etc. But it doesn't change my argument - if the existence of a feat that would get you a species trait is somehow clamping down on homebrew, I don't see how lacking such an option at all wouldn't be.
From a psychological standpoint I think that sentence would have as much ability to harm as it would to help. Because now instead of the default being "you get one parent's set of traits, anything more than that is your DM being generous" now it's closer to "anytime you make a half-X, consider badgering your DM to get the perfect mix of traits for your build, they have to at least think about it after all."
None of which I had anything to say about, I just wish people would stop saying that the UA makes one side of the heritage disappear or not matter.
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!
You could add a note of "At DMs discretion" or some such, but the people likely to badger the DM are likely to badger the DM anyway.
Sure but let me put it this way - why do you think the language right now says "pick one parent?" They could have done the mix traits thing from the get-go. They're obviously trying to prevent such badgering from taking place to begin with.
I agree it matters but as it currently stands, if you want a trait that doesn't fit into the narrow expression space of the existing 1st-level feats, you have no recourse but disappointment. All I'm proposing is that space be widened.
Like sure, you can say that my Elf-Aarakocra's Skilled Feat for Athletics and Acrobatics represents his more avian frame's jumping ability.... but if I could instead spend that feat on a pair of wings for him and say he's a Raptoran or Avariel, the fiction is that much stronger without being unbalanced. That feat was a big tradeoff for him.
RAW is, technically, that mixed-heritage characters don't exist. You can do it narratively/cosmetically, but not mechanically. That's the thing that's bothering people. My take is that a section in the ballpark of what I wrote earlier would explicitly call out that a DM can/should be permissive of homebrew mixes that aren't bullshit, i.e. actively encouraging homebrew. As opposed to the current "Pick one species and look like whatever you want" which largely discourages it, or making it the worst feat to've ever been released in D&D history and actively disallowing creative homebrew solutions. I mean, can you imagine how awful it would be to take a "Diverse Heritage" feat to gain nothing but Fey Ancestry? The new version, that only works against charm effects? What an absolutely stupendous waste of a resource - and yet that would be what people were expected to do, because using the feat to take one of the maybe three or four species traits that actually merits a feat would be seen as egregious and unforgiveable powergaming munchkinism of the worst sort.
Please do not contact or message me.
I see your usual commitment to nuance and temperance remains intact 😛
And no, I don't expect anyone to spend a feat on grabbing Fey Ancestry, any more than I'd expect them to spend Magic Initiate on grabbing True Strike, or Weapon Master to gain proficiency with four simple weapons. A feat isn't automatically bad because a bad player can pick bad options with it.