Even in a fantasy setting all black people are required to wear afros/dreadlocks because the people making these arts can't fathom any other hairstyle for them

By your logic, they should just give regular humans dark vision because

'Have you tried to play a human it was a nightmare the change is good show me another races trait as bad '

it's a race that specifically lives basically all it's life in darkness and never sees the sun and can be worked around

In v3.5, there was a class from either RACES OF STONE or RACES OF DESTINEY that was called underfolk, and basically were Underdark humans.

That is cool, too bad it will never be offical.

Also on the side note the changes to dark visions basically invalidate a lot of class features. Like gloom stalkers, will they get super ultra darkvision now of 240 feet? Same with devil sight etc. In addition native underdark people now have no advantage. Over surface dwellers as a random elf can see just as easily in the under dark as a Drow. Their sunlight sensitively was taken away but now the thing that made them unique and the advantage they have is gone.

First of all yes there is. Be it the offical human art for 5e beings black women with dreadlocks to the art above I just mentioned etc, you not ‘seeing it’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist it just shows you’ve not really looked.

Secondly I didn’t sat it’s a rule that all black character need to look like that (though if it becomes the norm sooner or later your going to have bad players/DMs demand it be the case). I’m simply pointing out how the certain type of people WOTC hires to make this art only see black people in a certain way.

Really this is what you are worried about?

They all seem so much more bland now. And increasing the movement speed for smaller folk is a bad move. 

Also cool im not forced to choose my race based on my class... im forced to choose my background based on my class instead? But also backgrounds dont include cool frstures anymore? 

Idk feels like musical chairs with fewer chairs left when we sit down

Given that all the other smaller folk (humans, goblins, kobolds, autognome, everything that was small innately and could be chosen to be small at character creation, dhampir with 35 and can be small, updated deep gnome and duergar) also got 30 movement it just felt bad for the OG small folk to not get the quality of life boost, especially since dwarves got the movement boost as well.

And like I said elsewhere, the background features were situational to the point where people tended to forget that they even existed. So hey now people get a level 1 feat, something that people did as a houserule on occasion anyway. So we really only ever gained things.

This method will take me longer to make a character than play the game. Is Chose Race, Class, BG easier than reading about half a book just to get the perfect Halfling rogue or Wood Elf Druid  etc. I might end up writing a 64 page autobiography on why did this Halfling become a Rogue or that Elf become Druid.

At least there is one  decent thing they left alone... They didnt remove Half from Half ling.

Quote from vmeemo >>

Given that all the other smaller folk (humans, goblins, kobolds, autognome, everything that was small innately and could be chosen to be small at character creation, dhampir with 35 and can be small, updated deep gnome and duergar) also got 30 movement it just felt bad for the OG small folk to not get the quality of life boost, especially since dwarves got the movement boost as well.

And like I said elsewhere, the background features were situational to the point where people tended to forget that they even existed. So hey now people get a level 1 feat, something that people did as a houserule on occasion anyway. So we really only ever gained things.

If you have a thing thata forgotten sometimes thats better than not having it at all. 

At this point i preferred the old way of background and races. Yes the origin fest is nice but honestly every dm ive ever played with has been cool with letting everyone take 1 feat at level 1 even if thars not raw so this doesnt feel new for me. 

Ultimately this forms a basis for what the game can be - i would talk to my DM about importing a feature that made sense for my character or making up a new one. I would have preferred each background come with an optional or recommended feature or two to help guide players as to what might make sense for them as a bonus social or exploration feature. Having the outlander feature that means you can forage for food and dont need to buy rations is practical, situational, sensible for the background, and not game breaking. that's precisely the sort of thing that should stay IN the game. 

Honesty, they should have kept backgrounds and races (species) mostly the same, and just removed ASI to something else entirely. when you distribute or roll you can just add +1 and +2 or 3x +1. Dont tie it to anything. Moving them from race to backgrouond doesnt fix the problem of being forced to be one this to optimise your character. 

We're going to just see a plethora of soldier (or whatever) Paladins because thats optimal in 24, instead of Duergar paladins (because thats optimal in 14). i dont see how thats better. 

Quote from CaptainRelyk >>

Quote from Seravorn >>

Quote from vmeemo >>

Given that all the other smaller folk (humans, goblins, kobolds, autognome, everything that was small innately and could be chosen to be small at character creation, dhampir with 35 and can be small, updated deep gnome and duergar) also got 30 movement it just felt bad for the OG small folk to not get the quality of life boost, especially since dwarves got the movement boost as well.

And like I said elsewhere, the background features were situational to the point where people tended to forget that they even existed. So hey now people get a level 1 feat, something that people did as a houserule on occasion anyway. So we really only ever gained things.

If you have a thing thata forgotten sometimes thats better than not having it at all. 

At this point i preferred the old way of background and races. Yes the origin fest is nice but honestly every dm ive ever played with has been cool with letting everyone take 1 feat at level 1 even if thars not raw so this doesnt feel new for me. 

 I prefer old way of backgrounds too, 

The roleplay centric features of the old backgrounds were nice due to 5e lacking support for social features as a whole. And this is especially true for 2024, where WoTC gutted fun Roleplay features like glamour bard’s enthralling performance or the social stealth features of assassin rogue 

The bard and assassin features were eliminated because the vast majority of players never used them. They might come up in home brew campaigns but in all of the officially published adventures they were almost useless. Years ago they did survey's and these features were not liked, so they opted to replace them. Personally I support this change, I'd rather have something that's useful in most campaigns than a feature that is highly campaign dependent and is not going to come up often.

As for the background features I think these were removed to please DMs. I played with at least 3 DMs that HATED these features with a passion because they felt it was WotC telling them how to run their games/NPCs. The most hated one by far was Outlander as it trivialized survival campaigns. 

Is the change in Tiefling's subraces an incorporation of the "Tiefling Variants" rules for non-infernal Tieflings?

I mean, the dm can just say "for this campaign resource management will be really important so the outlander festure doesnt apply here". Thsts what session 0 is for 🤷🏽‍♂️

I just don’t understand why have Minotaur as a Playable species in the Play test but not include them in the 2024 PHB? 

Quote from CaptainRelyk >>

Quote from DaBeef2112 >>

Quote from CaptainRelyk >>

Quote from Seravorn >>

Quote from vmeemo >>

Given that all the other smaller folk (humans, goblins, kobolds, autognome, everything that was small innately and could be chosen to be small at character creation, dhampir with 35 and can be small, updated deep gnome and duergar) also got 30 movement it just felt bad for the OG small folk to not get the quality of life boost, especially since dwarves got the movement boost as well.

And like I said elsewhere, the background features were situational to the point where people tended to forget that they even existed. So hey now people get a level 1 feat, something that people did as a houserule on occasion anyway. So we really only ever gained things.

If you have a thing thata forgotten sometimes thats better than not having it at all. 

At this point i preferred the old way of background and races. Yes the origin fest is nice but honestly every dm ive ever played with has been cool with letting everyone take 1 feat at level 1 even if thars not raw so this doesnt feel new for me. 

 I prefer old way of backgrounds too, 

The roleplay centric features of the old backgrounds were nice due to 5e lacking support for social features as a whole. And this is especially true for 2024, where WoTC gutted fun Roleplay features like glamour bard’s enthralling performance or the social stealth features of assassin rogue 

The bard and assassin features were eliminated because the vast majority of players never used them. They might come up in home brew campaigns but in all of the officially published adventures they were almost useless. Years ago they did survey's and these features were not liked, so they opted to replace them. Personally I support this change, I'd rather have something that's useful in most campaigns than a feature that is highly campaign dependent and is not going to come up often.

As for the background features I think these were removed to please DMs. I played with at least 3 DMs that HATED these features with a passion because they felt it was WotC telling them how to run their games/NPCs. The most hated one by far was Outlander as it trivialized survival campaigns. 

 The obvious solution would be to improve said features rather then axe then 

did they really need to remove fey charm and make 2024 archfey warlock “a completely different subclass” or could they have just improved fey charm? 

the fact of the matter is not all subclasses are made with everyone in mind. Glamour bard was made for role players in mind, not minmaxers, 

same case with background features. They were flawed but the only thing in the game that allowed a character’s backstory to actually matter. So why not improve those backgrounds, or even just move the features away from background and have it be a base rule. There is nothing RAW that allows an acolyte to get guaranteed lodging and help at a temple. DMs are gonna force players to roll persuasion checks against follows of their own religion. What about nobles? There is nothing now that makes being a member of a noble house actually matter.  

and what we got is arguably worse then what we got in 2014. Backstory, of all things, is the one thing that people shouldn’t have to “optimize”. It should at most be a couple skills (OF THE PLAYER’s CHOICE) and a choice of languages or tools. Ability scores should never be tied to backgrounds. A zealot barbarian who was raised at a temple shouldn’t have to suck because of it. Backgrounds re-introduces the problem TCOE solved. But I don’t think Jeremy Crawford or the others care about backstory and how important it is to players. They seem to only care about minmax and combat as of late 

 

This sounds more like inexperienced DMs thinking they need to roll for everything. Rather than put them back I'd rather that they add guidance for skill checks in the DMs guide. I don't think forcing DMs to do stuff because the background says so is really needed. My very experienced DM wouldn't roll for most if not all of your examples. The issue with these background features was that some were campaign breaking and others were basically nothing but fluff. 

While these could be addressed in a session zero they might be overlooked because in my experience only a small percentage of players ever try and use these features. When they do they often catch the DM off guard because the DM never expected anyone to remember they exists and DMs rarely look at what backgrounds are chosen by the players.

I do agree stat bonuses/origin feats shouldn't be part of the backgrounds they should be completely separate.

Removing functions because the dm might forget about them is a poor design philosophy imo. No question some sre much better than others but thsts a justification to balance rsther than scrap. 

An ideal character creation should be a combination of who sre you, what are you good at, and where did you come from. 

Imo backgrounds biggest probpem is its called background. Most players create thier own character background so thet snd dms forget the backgrounds functional bits. 

Character creation could simply be chosing

- Race 

- Class

- Origin feat

- Background trait

- Stat bonuses 

All separately. So i can be a lucky criminal humam wozard with +2 int and +1 cha, and you can be an alert outander human wizard with the same stats. Or a lucky outlander. Or an alert criminal or anything else 

The only.good thing really is that 2014 background bonuses are largely textual.so.you could.just create a new feat with the text copied over and give it.to your player so it shows in their feat list and it wont break the game.

And "background" can be whatever you want it to be the way your write it up. 

You could call "background traits" "capabilities" or "advantage". Players understand the concept of advantage. In a context you get a buff.  And the advantage goes in your feat list at character creation so you dont forget about them. 

What about the picture of the fighter in the 5e14 Players Handbook?

Quote from CaptainRelyk >>

idk if you’ve noticed or not but the last couple years D&D has gotten more wargamey and WoTC has been focusing on nothing but combat.  

 Which is ironic, given that 1st printing, 1st edition of D&D was derived from the tabletop miniatures wargaming rules set called Chainmail back in the 70's that focused solely on combat. I know this because I and some friends were playing Chainmail, published by Tactical Studies Rules, at the time along with its "fantasy" supplement that added rules for magic, wizards, elves, orcs, dwarfs, etc. I was intrigued by a cool sounding game "Dungeons and Dragons" by the same company when I first saw it in my local miniatures gaming store in its little cardboard box. Little did anyone at the time know that it was the start of a world-wide multi-decade RPG industry.