Oh yeah also only people playing with the backwards compatible races get to choose their ability scores. Everyone else has them chosen by their background now 😊💀
@BlaineSimple The only problem I have with switching from races to species is... now half-elves and other mixed races are all sterile. Two different races have a child the child can continue to reproduce. Two different species have a child that child can't have children. Think Mules (Horse + Donkey) && Liger (Tiger & Lion) That would really change some old D&D novels.
Yeah. while ASIs being tied to background makes sense... I've been enjoying custom backgrounds and picking custom score increases for a while now, and unless my DM is setting up a one-shot in a specific setting, I'll just homebrew it, and stare long and hard at a dm who doesn't allow it without a good explanation.
Well yes but actually no. Lineage is probably the right term for humanoids (or humanoid adjacent ones like changelings) but people like thri-kreen, centaurs or plasmoids do (arguably) fall out of that standard, so maybe something like origin could describe it better as species doesn't really cover reborn or dhampir.
I'm in the valley between those 2 hills: Species should give the PC 1 ability score point and let the other 2 be floating. As we are talking about species, we should consider that their bodies and minds are built differently, and that 1 fixed ASP would demonstrate that difference.
but the brain is physical and as such has different capabilities depending on the animal it is a part of. So technically mental capability is dependent on the body.
@@O-carto you cant have 2 different species of the same dog… plus people raised the same are still incredibly different, just look at siblings and twins. So follow Tasha’s rules, predispositions aren’t guaranteed and nature vs nurture makes a lot less sense when talking about different species
@@O-carto different dog breeds are not different species, just different races( in which case, differently from humans, would be the correct scientific definition of race). Also personality is different from mental abilities. Comparing species would be comparing a gorilla to a chimpanzee, which is completelly different from comparing humans since we are all from the same specie no matter our fenotype
A species is anything that can make offspring that can reproduce. Meaning the existance of half-elfs and half-orcs and in older editions of dnd dwelfs prove that humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, are the same species. Calling them races is more accurate
There's also the fact that we understand "Fantasy Race" and "Race" means different things as well. Goblins have sentient understanding of their surroundings? That's a Race of people, because Fantasy Race is actually more closer to the term Species anyway because of the linguistics when it was made
@@strangechimera9538 that... that is what that means. You can't have viable offspring with two creatures of different species. While this doesn't work for every Fantasy Race, Fantasy Race as a term means something seperate from the word "Race". It's actually why we refer to humans as "The Human Race" because that was the term before species and that's closer to when "Fantasy Race" was made as a term
@@phillipanderson7899 sure that’s the definition yes, however there’s always outliers, in particular; the lemon. To be frank though I do think a word like ancestry would be coolers but species would make sense considering the lemon is considered one as well. But hey, there’s not much any of us can do to change it.
Honestly, this is why I like the optional rule introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. To me, it makes sense for there to be a standard for individuals of a race to have ability score increases in certain stats, Orcs generally are warlike and value strength, so having an innate +2 in Strength makes sense. But Tasha's optional rule literally talks about how an individual may not fit into the standard mold of their race, allowing a player to shift around their increases.
probably the most grounded take on this so far, still feel like the race should have some influence even if it is just 1 point of a stat but perhaps a good middle ground would be to have a few versions of stat distributions? for example Orcs may have +2 Strength and +1 to Agility most of the time (adding 1 stat for more diversity) but there could be different backgrounds for the character, IE the son of a chief would likely have a Charisma stat instead of Agility, perhaps even only a +1 to Strength instead of a +2 and drop the extra stat to Charisma, so +1 Str +2 Ch
Them going for "You can just choose them as you want and there's not even a guideline" in recent 5e products was weird to me. Tasha's has it as an *optional* rule. Don't *force* the *optional* rule on me. The not even suggesting anything really speaks to me about WotCs "you'll have to figure it out yourself" philosophy regarding D&D
"Like Mules, Half Orcs and Half Elves can no longer have children." Then Arwen would never have existed. Let alone the line that ended up with Aragorn. I'm sorta joking, but still.
@@roberthradek7100well there was a god’s intervention for lúthien’s rejection of her elvishness and it was an isolated case, I doubt it would work well in a setting where half-elves are common lol That being said it’s fantasy, real world biology shouldn’t matter too much in d&d
I mean, stats is not all that there is to a race. Dragonborns can still breathe elemental thingy, Elves still immune to sleep, etc etc. But now the buffy elf barbarian being immune to sleep is also more scary.
Racial traits are always the more defining part of them anyways, the stats were more to show what the average member of that race is like statistically. It's like saying an orc army will never have mages because their stat bonuses are more for martials. It's dumb.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 Which is what I disliked about Pathfinder 2e. They give the traits so late into the game, most players will only have 1-2 by the end of the campaign (3 if lucky). Compared to 1e or D&D 5e and you have a lot more traits and earlier in the game too. Making it so a Dwarven mage is different than an elven mage. (In pathfinder 2e, the main difference would be their hp)
@@icarue993 I'm actually a fan of Pathfinder's approach to how they handle ancestries. ancestry feats are things that you get at like 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level, but what you get out of it feels more than what you get with 5e where if you're lucky, your ancestry has a feat, because you stop getting benefits past 5th level (some stuff scales past that but it still means you get nothing new after). At least in a pathfinder 2e game I can play as a kitsune and get something like the rampaging form feat where I can go full fox demon from naruto xD. The amount of starting traits you get might be lower (which really depends on the ancestry) but I kind of like not having stuff frontloaded so I can learn how all my stuff works. I'm just glad that I can get more powerful ancestry abilities later in the game. Also between an elven and dwarven mage, the difference would be things like HP, movement , whatever bonuses they get from their ancestry feats.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 This is honestly the stance I've always had for racial ASIs, I kind of feel like an Orc having the ability to close into melee more effectively, or being able to say "no" to being KOed once per day is more relevant than the stat increases lol.
@@waifusmith4043 I like Pathfinder 1e more because you have both: feats and features (plus customization of said features). Kitsunes could pounce... with a feat that require you to be a certain level. Drows have a very strong magic feat tree, even humans, elves and dwarves get to shine.
Ancestry sounds like trying to discover lines of succession. How far back were you gnomes? OH, we're just cultural gnomes. And how do you lable the different "sub-races" mountain dwarf vs gold dwarf? Forest vs moon elf?
I personally believe that species would be a better term in a mostly Sci-Fi setting. Although an Elf using vicious mockery calling a Dwarf an inferiors specie can be kind of Hilarious
but D&D has never had such careful use of words with the setting. It's not something like a Tolkien work. They already use the term "human", there are aliens and many other scientific terms. That's why I think the term species is great.
@@piratelego1 the term "human" isn't a purelly scientifical term, is a coloquial one, it is used in many different ways. Specie is much more of a precise term. Alien being used yo explain extraterrestrial creatures is also a colloquialism
@@davidecolucci6260 It being more precise is why I don't think it's suitable, since the creatures that fall under that umbrella are not strictly different species.
Tolkien already provided a suitable alternative in Treebeard's poem: "peoples"; as in "the world is home to many peoples such as humans, elves, dwarves and tieflings". Also I think more choices are always good. There are 3 separate ways to build your stats (standard array, dice, point buy) so idk why we can only have one system for racial bonuses. More choice is better for everyone.
Pathfinder just use Ancestries, and some points-to-buy systems that have things like Talents uses things like "Unique Talents" to refer to what would be Races / Species / etc.
You are not correct. More choice is NOT always better. People aren't creative. We're not. We need RESTRICTIONS to make us take a more difficult path to solve a problem. If you want to build an Orc wizard, having a plus 2 to strength and a -2 to INT is an obstacle to that, because as a player you want to be effective. So you'll need to think about ORCS, you'll need to really consider what your backstory is and how your smarter than the average Orc discovered magic and put himself on the path of wizardry. You might need to change the way you fight, the way you even approach combat. What SPELLS do you want? What spells would interest your Orc? Would the typical spells matter? Or because he's so stronk already, do spells that just hit things hard seem pointless to him? Does he discover magic that makes him STRONKER? Could he be, the BONK WIZARD!? Just with this one obstacle, look at how much MORE goes into making this one little character. Without obstacles, people will stick to the straightest line possible. If you can just totally control all of your stats for any race, if you want an Orc wizard, you'll just make an Orc that is smart. That's it. Nothing else, your backstory, if you even make one, will just be "He's really smart" And then if other Orcs are bad, but NOT YOUR ORC, cause you're JUST DIFFERENT, then your dumbass backstory will be how you wanna change the orcs and show them a better way. Cause you know, anger and violent tendencies aren't biological traits anymore. Have you ever been outside? Have you seen people crossing the road, NOT at the crosswalk? Even if it's like 20 feet away? They just cross the street wherever they are, because nothing is actually stopping them and making them take a little bit longer to cross at the safest place. That's the same thing, people will just go in a straight line for as long as possible. For most people, it's almost a reflex. If more choice is better, eventually people are just going to literally set their stats to be whatever they want. So everyone's gonna start as a level 1, oops sorry that might require a degree of thought. They'll start as a level 5 Wizard with 20 Int every time, with other stats being buffed or set to 10 depending on if they actually use them. You'll be finding a lot of Wizards with strangely high Constitutions or Dex for that added Initiative and AC. RESTRICTIONS are what invokes creativity, NOT total freedom. Humans are SHIT at being creative with no limitations. Every brilliant discovery in human history came about because someone COULDN'T do something, not because they could do everything easily. Wizards is making every race in DnD the same, they're stripping away their biology, their culture, their uniqueness. Now everything is coming down to "Which ability do you want?" Pretty soon even THAT will change. You know, cause you've decided you want to be a Dragonborn Species with Plasmoid Ancestry with a Part Goliath Subspecies and a Gnome Backstory. Congratulations, you've sucked all the creativity out of RPGs cause you thought letting people do whatever they want would breed CREATIVITY rather than habits.
@@PlatinumAltaria If all you got from my comment was this, then you're either braindead or a liar. Cause that's not what I said at all. Once again, my point is proven correct. You took the straightest line to tell me I'm wrong, because you have no incentive to actually engage my argument, because you only want to be correct. So all my points, the details? None of it matters, cause you can just say points don't matter, just be creative. Well sorry fucker, that's not how PEOPLE as a whole work. We're NOT creative if given freedom. We develop HABITS. To breed creativity, one must place obstacles. Stats are the CORE mechanic of every DnD creature, not just character, CREATURE. So if nothing you select impacts what your stats are, that's a HUGE aspect of the character creation process that just doesn't matter.
@@haku8135 "we are not that creative" and proceeds to write a long essay with points that makes no sense and some contradicts each other, but overall a bunch of ideas that show the creativity this person has to (try to) argue about the points the OP said
Honestly, I always prefer the term "ancestry", feels a bit more proper. Being a pathfinder 2e player I'm much more comfortable with it now. Also the "ABC" of character creation is so easy to remember being Ancestry, Background and Class. It's also less clunky in colloquial language, since "Ancestry" I think fits often times more for sapient creatures, which most characters are sapient to my knowledge. My opinion on racial ability scores has always been this: They're irrelevant, so let people put them as they may. Your player characters are also individuals, and I take the preset ability scores as "this is the average individual of this ancestry". If you're an orc wizard who has trained solely in magic all your life (like evocation) it makes more sense to increase something like your constitution (concentrating) and intelligence. The idea of preset ability score being irrelevant may soundweird but to me, if you want an ancestry to be better utilized by certain classes, I feel like the actual FEATURES are more important than the stat. Pigeonholing a race into benefitting certain classes because it "gives an increase to strength" instead of "Well, it allows you to do this with your attacks with melee weapons" is kinda lazy. I'm glad that ASI moved to backgrounds because I think it's better that your starting ASI is built off your character's actual backstory, not because they were born a certain way. New Orcs have adrenaline rush, which is something that is fantastic for martials because it allows them the bonus action dash and some temp HP to allow them to dive in a bit more effectively. However it also works with orc mages because they can actually get out of danger a bit easier, along with a bit of a buffer. I'd argue that it benefits martials more in this case because they generally take more damage, and not having to spend an action on a dash is big for some like fighter or barbarian. But, this is something that can be used by mages as well. Sorry if it looks like I was jumping all over the place. Thanks if you took the time to read this. Love the videos Blaine, keep up the good work.
Honestly, I disagree with the idea of “finally I can play an orc wizard”. If the lack of +2 to int was what was stopping you, that’s kind of a huge red flag in my experience.
I was originally in that camp too - that the set suboptimal ASIs made for more interesting characters - but a friend talked me around by pointing out that people can... still build suboptimally. They can still put the point increase in STR if they want. The choice of playing an Orc Wizard with a -2 INT is still just as much in the hands of the player as it always was.
Having an orc wizard with the penalty to the classes main stat is as much of a statement as it is a challenge. People should embrace the idea that someone not pre-disposed to do something trained hard and accomplished it anyway. Instead, the rules are just being changed to accommodate people who don't want to deal with a negative to get what they consider positive. Power gamers and munchkins love to min-max and build complementary classes with "species", but I have had more fun with sub-optimal characters than the calculated ubermensch you could get from picking the best in slot for each thing. And the RP you get from surprising people who expect that filthy gnoll to be a mindless monster to instead turn out to be a well spoken aristocrat sorcerer is fun to play out.
@@Bancheis Exactly. Limitations breed creativity. Freedom breeds habits. Creating a Wizard that has an intelligence penalty requires creative thinking to make it work. It will lead to FAR more interesting characters than "I can just make anything instantly with no thought".
@@thomasguay4157no, recreated it. The whole reason we say race is because eugenicists in the late 1800s to early 1900s tried to argue people of different cultures and colors were a different species.
All of this could have been avoided if it weren't for Ogilvie and Mathers. Consultancy is hacks for hacks by hacks and Hasbro could have enjoyed a renaissance after a slow business cycle if they didn't bandwagon.
"Suggested" is what the books says about what ability scores to use with what skills, like persuasion, deception, and intimidation are suggested to use charisma, but you can use any depending on situation and execution. A lot of people think the rule is that you have to use a specific ability score and that something like intimidation (strength) is homebrew (I think it's actually a specific example of how you can use alternate stats in core rules). It would work for ability scores for races/species. Some people would always follow it, some would do their own thing. People would interpret it the way they want to, like how it normally is. The only problem is when people try to force their opinions on others, but that will always be an issue anyway.
Halsin in BG3 is an elf. I didn't realize this at first while playing the game, I didn't think about his race one way or the other at all. He was just the heavily built Druid who I assumed had high Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom. Once I learned he was an elf it gave me a bit of mental whiplash, and I realized I had this sort of fixed idea that all elves are slender, wispy, intelligent beings. It took a moment of reevaluation to work out that yes, it would make perfect sense to have a character like Halsin. Anyway, all that to say I think the idea of customizing ability scores regardless of Species/Race makes sense to me. Is it uncommon to have a highly intelligent Half-Orc who goes around as a wizard? Sure, in Faerun, it's not typical. But it's entirely possible and a character made along these lines would make perfect sense.
I think Halsin himself jokingly suggests his large build stems from there maybe being Orc blood somewhere in his veins, don't think that'd be possible in canon, though?
@@AnotherDuck He also says he was wandering about in a bear form one time and a bear female took offense when he wasn’t interested in mating. It’s how he got the scar.
I always think that even if they look somewhat humans, they are not, they could have a different anatomy structure, since this, they have better eyes for archery and can see in the night, also, they are a natural spellcasters. I still doubt about an elf being buffed, but everyone can think about it how they want
The part I don't like about "camp inclusivity" is that they have no imagination. They need the official rule book to tell them they can make a kobold super strong or an ogre super smart, its like they are incapable of just ignoring the rule books and homebrewing whatever they want
Or rather, they just aren't happy that an Orc barbarian is more powerful than their Halfling barbarian, biological realities be damned. This one sentence tells us three things about these people: 1) They are unhappy people in general 2) They care about power above all else 3) They can easily ignore biological reality
Yeah, agreed. But then it's about cultural supremacy to them so that's why they slither into everything, take it over from within, kick out the OG homies, call them racists or sexist on their way out, and then turn the thing into something else entirely.
It's a bit weird that they're both changing the name to species and getting rid of race specific ability bonuses. Like, are you gonna argue with me that an Elephant will be more acrobatic than a Crow in any situation, even if their intelligence is equivalent and the individual might lean towards one style more? As a SPECIES, you ARE limited by your own organism. A crow isn't going to outstrength an Elephant, but an Elephant isn't going to outrun a crow either.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. In DnD? The way I've understood it is that different species are still going to get different abilities. You just don't have to point points into specific stats. Just because Orcs as a SPECIES are seen as more martial or barbaric doesn't mean your orc can't be slightly different from another member of your own species. It really does seem like it's just mostly a terminology change to get away from the word race's very real implications in our actual world. Race is a social construct. Humanity is all the same species, we're all the same race. We're only not the same race if in fantasy worlds then we all become one race apparently. Your mind should be able to just swap out WORDS. Every species is still going to be different from each other, there's just now more opportunity for differences within the species.
@@trevordonaldson7634 What I'm trying to say is that EVERY SPECIES HAS BOTH STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. What I did was show an example of IRL intelligent animals as examples of races, and said that in no world would a Crow be more resilient than an Elephant. I can agree if someone wishes to remove the mental attribute bonuses and debuffs that some races get, but removing actual physical traits like dwarves not being as fast because of their SHORT LEGS, removing Drows weakness to sunlight (which they have because they lived literal thousands of years underground, where there is no light as strong as the sun), so on and so forth, is atrocious. Let's use another real world example: humans and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are, overall, stronger than humans. But, in contrast, humans are more resilient when it comes to physical strain and prolonged stress, due to their sweat glands. Chimpanzees are also VERY aggressive, regardless of their intelligence, even with each other. Translating this to stats, humans should get a bonus in constitution, while chimps would get a bonus in strength and a debuff in wisdom. That's just an example, but it takes into account the actual physical and behavioral traits of each species.
The thing I care more about is the fixed ASP. I like each race/species having specific bonuses because biological differences would contribute to that. The ASP from your character's history are reflected in your rolled or standard array stats.
That's not how that works, species have common traits. Traits define adaptation. The thinking of statistically rounded groups of a single group has been debunked amongst animals of all types. A Bear isn't inately strong, it weighs 500 lbs, everything that is about that large is about that strong. They would have the trait powerful build. So would a few other animals.
@@EricWalkerswildrided&d doesnt have a traits based system. Traits are part of its stats-based system. Bears can move more weight than turtles. Thats why they have a higher strength score. A 15 strength isnt "relative for its species", its "can achieve a measurable criteria".
@@EricWalkerswildride But a bear is stronger than a squirrel and the different species/races have different sizes. They also aren't 1:1 to our world as it is a fantasy setting regardless of world. Brains work differently between differently between animals. Lizards do not think the same as dogs. Different animals will also have different muscle makeup as different fish species have different protein compositions in their muscles. Those different traits the species have would affect the ability scores such as whale blubber.
@@indiana47The more interesting differences are the things like Elves immunity to sleep, a Goliath’s increased carrying capacity, a kenku’s mimicry, a half-orcs brutal critical and so on. Race locked stat bonuses just make playing against type suboptimal. 5e is better without them imo
@@scarletempress2652 It's not all about being optimal. The traits and abilities of a race helping a charactet feel like a race. The suboptimal build is you don't get that +2 in the primary score.
My problem with the more customizable stats is that it’s just another change that makes the races blend more and more into each other. They less unique they are the less unique you feel from the other players aside from when you describe your character when you first start playing.
I recognize that species is the technical term, but in my games referring to a species as one of the races is a signifier that they are recognized by the other “races” as being of a equal standing. “Raciest” in my stories are easy to spot because they call the other races “species” so as to separate them and refer to them as lesser.
@@MajorCinnamonBuns I disagree I think it works as when you use species rather then race then you compare them to animals and certain monsters. Though that’s just my interpretation.
@@ayidhalotabi5862 Personally in a server I DM & Subcheck for (Custom TTRPG run on Discord), we went with "Clades" rather than Species, so I just say Clades most times now.
i heavily disagree. nature and nurture are important for individual growth. nature is the special abilities each race gets (dwarves resist poison, elves resist charms, half orcs resist dying once a day), nuture is how they grew up and what they specialized in (ability scores, if the were a jock they strong, a nerd they smart, etc.) by making the ASIs not tied to race it actually makes the choice of race much more based around what their actual unique features are, not arbitrary number bonus
That's... kind of the point? Your race/species is basically a solely roleplay piece, and has technically no impact on combat or... honestly anything that isn't just active roleplay involving the race specifically. Like your GM won't out of the blue have an enemy focus the orc barbarian over a dwarf fighter that's closer to them just because orcs are hated more, or have an NPC merchant refuse to barter with a drow bard even if they were supposed to be the party's face, since that makes it feel like a player is being punished for picking that particular race. Your character's race has honestly always been just a flavor piece for roleplay and now they're doubling down on that.
Tasha's introduced custom lineage which gave you freedom to assign 3 points into ANY ability score (max +2). 2024 PHB has them tied to Background instead, which does narrow down your options to 3 ability scores you can increase. Of course, you can just choose the background which gives you access to the two or three ability scores you desire to have increased, or just talk to your DM. According to the UA, the backgrounds provided are "SAMPLE" backgrounds, and you were encouraged to create your own background (which I believe was similar to 2014 PHB creation guidelines, but we all just used the prewritten backgrounds anyway). I think it's fair to assume that pre-Tasha's, players who would want to customize their bonuses would simply talk to their GM, with varying results depending on your GM or the game they intended to run. Regardless of which version of the rules, it's important to remember that it's your game. As GM, you have control over which version of the rules to use and within that rule set, which rules adhere to and which ones you can ignore or modify. The whole "us vs them" divisive mentality never made sense to me. 🤷
i mean like all the human-looking ones that can interbreed are the same species by definition. "a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding"
@@kipgodoftherats4074 I'm staying there is no official half-lizardfolk race in DND. Only in Half-Elve, Half-orc, half-dragon, Half-genie and there are many official half-other races due to other reasons like the prime race is elves, dwarves, orc and humans are the main race majority of people play as
I just prefer Race due to it being more iconic and less scientific sounding. Nobody says stuff like “fantasy species” and if you did people would generally think that you are talking about less intelligent creatures. But say “fantasy races” and everybody knows what you mean: elves, orcs, dwarfs, etc. it just comes across more natural and not like a science textbook classification
There could also be mutations that cause an individual to follow a different path from their species. That's how we get new species anyway. A helpful mutation allows better survival which is then passed down until the new branch is no longer recognizable as the original.
I remember in the playtest they had some stupid rule for mixed species where the character got basically something from one parent and nothing from the other. And then, in the feedback form, they didn't allow any feedback on that stupid ruling. I wonder if they kept it.
I'm definitely of two minds here. Genetics in DnD have always been weird (just look at all the half something mixes running around) so classing by race or by species is gonna be weird no matter how you slice it. Stuff like Plasmoids throws a wrench in calling them races because they are clearly a different species, but stuff like Myconids and Tieflings throw a wrench in calling them species because they're just so internally diverse as far as biology goes.
Overall in "Fantasy" settings, "Race" refers to "Intelligent species" Species is kinda overly broad and includes non sapient creatures, like species of lichen. I think "Ancestry" works better because it clearly means "Who you descend from" I do think it's silly to make a fuss about the words being used when it's pointing at the exact same thing, and unlike humans, the biology is incredibly different to the point there's a 700 year gap in life spans between some of them.
you could probably make it work if the fairy was a mage style tank, lots of barrier and aggro style spells and you've got most of what a tank is supposed to be even if your missing out on the "intimidating presence" of something thats 10 feet tall and barely fitting into the room
Given that D&D races seem to hold a pretty similar dynamic to to the human “races” of our world, the word species kinda feels like if I referred to someone as “of the Egyptian species” or “the Taiwanese species”… it just feels kinda icky to me, i dunno! XD
The reason “my elf just lifted weights instead of training in backflips” argument doesn’t make sense. Because that is already considered by your distribution of ability scores through point buy/rolling. Race/species ability scores are what the creatures genetic predisposition is. Like how Cats are more agile than snails. And dolphins more intelligent than koalas. Bears hardier than pigeons. And again, your racial/species ability score bonuses are not your only source of ability points. It’s just takes more investment because of your predisposition. Picking dwarf as a wizard and taking a dip in a class to give you heavy armor proficiency was actually a really interesting mechanical choice because it helped to get you access to better armor easier at the cost of slowing your intelligence progression. Now that interesting tradeoff is gone and there is no interesting cost to it. It’s just a slam dunk decision
The races of DnD aren’t mindless animals though, they’re intelligent and sapient people. I think the ability scores should be 100% nurture over nature, personally. And be honest. How many players these days actually use the racial ability score increases and don’t just use the optional Tasha’s rule?
@@SpookyGhostGoku you put zero thought into that reply and it shows. Do you honestly believe that a sapient mouse putting in the same amount of effort as a sapient gorilla would result in them having the same physical strength? Having salience doesn’t magically warp your bone structure into being as malleable as clay. “Most people just use Tasha’s” interesting assertion. That’s Irrelevant and baseless. No one is stopping you from using that variant tile. But removing standard racial ASIs DOES stop people from playing their way because there are no official ASIs for several races.
If a character wants to be an elf that's strength-based instead of dexterity, that doesn't negate that the elves have favored dexterity, that single character might make dexterity their dump stat, it doesn't change the race
Yep, i wish they still included the "status quo" stats in races. One of my players has been playing a tortle, mad him 30, and after a couple months of game it dawned on me he doesn't know that 30 years is the majority of the life of a Tortle. So the priorities of his character might be different than he thought them up to be initially, given that if he survives the campaign he might, if he's lucky, only have 20 years left to keep following the ways of his people (get children, tell them about the world, and make sure they will be ready to explore it) That same player also thought he could ride a Carrion Crawler, because the book doesn't give Tortle's a weight range, which lead him to no realizing he's so heavy he might break the back of most mounts
I think every race/species should have SUGGESTED ability score increases, especially the more obscure ones, to give people a better idea of the general flavour
Thats literally how the word is used in science. Species in D&D is not only MORE racist than race, but more scientifically AND historically inaccurate.
@@FastDeathbycat i saw a comment further up mentioning something about race vs species implys that they can make offspring that would then be able to breed, as far as im aware Mule's are a 1 generation thing and cant breed even with each other, though i could be mistaken
Small things can't be martial experts? I submit Hefty Smurf, Asterix, the Nac Mac Feegles, and Muscles Mouse from Tom & Jerry. Besides, aren't player characters supposed to be kind of outside the norm to start with?
Yep now I'm going to have to go make an old gnome barbarian named 'Uncle Heffy'. Backstory would be he cast fist so many times he forgot magic and became a very jovial tavern brawler barbarian. Basically a miniature dwarf disguised as a gnome.
How I see it, I'd say species is the correct turm when referring to Elves or Dwarves. But then race would refer to High Elves and Mountain Dwarves. That's just my thought on it, though. I won't force my beliefs onto others.
I like this, it's kinda accurate to real life. Like Germanic people and Japanese people are the same species, human, but would be different races if we were to use the term.
They aren't a species, they can both interbreed with humans and provide viable offspring, (yes, half dwarfs are a thing, theyre just slightly taller dwarves), and if they are a species they'd have the same name.
Would the whole collective of elves be a species while the individual would be a race. High elves and forest elves would be different races of the same species
yes, this would be correct. and i would use it that way. but if you want to not use race because of its political implications, you could also try to use tribe or folk. because slavic tribes and germanic tribes still thought they were different just like maybe golden dwarfs would from mountain dwarfes. but if they would differ that much in appereances like a drow or a duregar, than this would be similar to be as diferent from each other as africans and asians. this could also open up possibilities to have a half duregar and half mountain dwarf ancestry.
It's actually a step above, Species would apply to elves, gnomes, saytrs and centausrs all being faries. Race would apply to Sun elves, moon elves, wood elves, dark elves, ect. Ethnicity or subrace would apply to which one is your character.
Species is a weird word choice to me. I get moving away from 'races' cause it's quite frankly inaccurate, even if someone doesn't consider it problematic, but there's more interesting or more accurate words they could've used. Heritage, Lineage, Ancestry (hello Pathfinder), Kintype (hello Icon), Culture, etc. I do think that they could've avoided a lot of controversy by describing common ASI boosts for cultures/species/races, like how PF2 provides each ancestry with fixed boosts, but you're free to opt out of them and instead go for a boost to any two stats of your choice if it makes more sense for your character. Across any system I've always been significantly more in favor of not feeling like an ancestry is pigeonholed into a specific class or role, so I'm still positive to the change, even if I don't play 5e myself anymore.
I think an opt out would be the greatest boon (minus potential issues about min-maxing) because DnD's biggest feature was the sheer flexibility in adjusting and applying the setting. It just seems like it gives everyone want they want, not giving up what the ASI boosts being associated with the types of entities are saying about them, yet not saying these beings cannot be wizards and those beings must be barbarians, or somesuch. Though I guess Wizards wouldn't want to openly copycat PF2, but they probably could come up with ideas that hold a similar niche without stealing the mechanic.
@@CarissaNomadicI agree with you for the most part but I had a chuckle at racial essentialism being the only bulwark game masters had against min-maxing. Now nothing can stop us😈
For a setting I'm writing I'm using the word "kindred" for the species humans, elves, and a few others belong to. Same species, different subspecies, and some specific biological rules for half-breeds (which is that they're always half-half and never a quarter-three quarters).
My problem with "species" as a word is that it feels *way* too sciency for medieval-fantasy. It never made sense to me why WotC never thought of using another folksy term to refer to the same concept, like "ancestry", "lineage", or my personal favourite "kin".
I feel like the race/species thing should be split between different uhh *things*. Orcs, elves, humans, etc are difference races but a plasmid or aarakocra would be a different species
People keep forgetting about your normal stat distribution. THAT is what is supposed to represent your character's background, whether they work out or not, how smart they are, and so on. The racial bonuses are just genetic advantages one way or another.
I will very much admit to being in Camp Culture for Species ability scores, though for me it's more because I need a bit more guidance on what to pick for a character build (I'm one of those people who responds to "there are no limits, pick what you want" by not being sure what I want).
The only problem I have with any of this is they no longer tell you what the normal stats, alignment, or even at times lifespan the species normally have, which can inspire characters (like playing a typically evil species that wants to be good or a short lived species wanting to extend their species' lifespan)
Here's the biggest thing about creating a character. You already get to pick where 60-80 other points in your ability scores go, the race being in charge of 3 is a small thing to put some control and guidance in the game's hands. Yeah the setting problem is an issue, but thats why old setting books had content for when their races were different. 5e made it a problem.
That's something that always felt jarring to me! "You have 80 points to define your stats, but 2 of them have to go into strength" translating into "Your fate is sealed your character can only be rolled into these particular classes!" always sounded like the most minmaxy thing someone could claim. I guess stat penalties make it a more reasonable grievance, but still felt a little bit annoying rather than condemning...
Maybe something better would be to split the difference. Make the +2 star permanent for the race/species but the +1 star customizable. As each individual of a race/species has unique talents but also talents unique to the race/species. Just like every dog has personality and physical traits similar to every other dog, but anyone who’s owned a dog knows they have unique traits too. Because you’re right that a tiny character should not be putting out high strength damage, but a specific Minotaur could be more charismatic than the race/species as a whole.
Species should be picked for more than a base stat boost though. It's far more interesting to have unique features for each one and pick based on those rather than being beholden to the list of species that have a bonus aligning with your class.
I like this but would go a step further and require nonhuman races to have a -1 in a stat as well. I generally am not a fan of each race being humans with things added on.
I honestly think we should just focus more on the features, because the numerical side just nudges people into favoring certain classes. An ancestry should favor a wizard because it either synergizes with wizard or gives them something they generally need more of (maybe access to a spell they generally don't have or something magic related). I think it's better to work on giving characters more to do, rather than just "number go up". But this is coming from me being pf2epilled.
Here is a list of all the creatures I could think of that have been specifically stated as reproductively viable with humans: Dwarves, elves, orcs, tieflings, aasimar, genasi, ogres, dryads, satyrs, doppelgangers, devils, and demons. Referring to the different peoples of the D&D worlds as species not only sounds less pleasant, but it is either misleading or outright incorrect. The term species is used in biology to classify creatures based off of their genetic barriers, with the specific distinction that creatures qualify as part of the same species if they can make reproductively viable offspring, but within the fantasy setting, biology is flexible and not strictly defined.
It's more accurate than "race" is the point. If you're making the point that this is Fantasy and fantasy gets to have different rules to still means species make more sense to its rules. You can't pick and choose when to argue logic based on realism.
Not exactly sure why you're hung up on only what could be viable with a human or in relation to humans? Should It go deeper instead of only a term like species, sure, but the most is it's still MORE correct than race which never was (Americans get hung up on that word because they invented it). You could argue for family or Lineage or Ancestry (which all are all as long to say as species, so that argument goes out the window), but you cannot argue race is more correct when it literally isn't. I admit when I dug back into biology and taxonomy for my own game, I understood you're just creating your own system of terms and you just have to follow them as long as they followed some logical sense you didn't break. It's the same thing here.
oldschool gamer here who as 80s teens questioned race alignment and stat penalties for women in dnd - id used species a while and avoided implausible hybrids
It'd be less confusing to just say "different variations of a species are a race, a high elf is a different race from wood elf, but both are under the same umbrella of elf as a species"
Wrong use of sense/since. Correct usage would be since. Sense: a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch "the bear has a keen sense of smell that enables it to hunt at dusk" a feeling that something is the case "she had the sense of being a political outsider" a sane and realistic attitude to situations and problems: "he earned respect by the good sense he showed at meetings" Since: from a particular time in the past until a later time, or until now "Emma went to work in New York a year ago, and we haven't seen her since" "He started working for the company in 1995, and has been there ever since"
As a non-native speaker I've actually been using "species" to define the difference in classic DnD races for YEARS. However I've also been using "breed" to define species variants as well, so I'm giving you all something more to yell at me about. And yes, I have occasionally used "race" as well, because it was in the book, but even 20 years ago when I was young and stupder "species" just made more sense to me, so I'm kind of pleasantly surprised the new books will do it as well. Because an Arakocra, a Tabaxi and a Plasmid are less a "race" of "humanoids" than a tiger and a lion are a "species" of "large cat" (yes, specifically giving that analogy, because I've somehow had this conversation revolve around cross-breeding and halfbreeds to explain to me why "race" is more appropriate)
Exactly. The average orc being stronger than the average elf doesn't mean that your elf cant lift weights to become stronger than even that. But these people want to minmax so hard they refuse to allow lore to get in their way.
The problem with the term "species" is that it's just plain incorrect. An elf and a human are NOT different species, because they can have fertile offspring. I wish WotC would have listened to our feedback and call them "kin" or "people". If you have any other good suggestions, let us know.
I do think there should be a soft cap of ability scores for races (yes I’m still going with that) Like a fairy should never ‘naturally’ be on par strength wise to say, an orc or Goliath but a buff fairy should be able to be as strong as a weaker Orc or Goliath
To all those saying orcs and humans are technically the same species: We have reproduced with Neanderthals, they are classified as a different species. The homo genus has always had different species. One of them being able to sprint faster than us, i forgot what they were called, it was on some documentary and showed a different kind of shin bone. We as sapiens are able to throw very well compared to the other homo genus'
My number one hope for species is that they do more races do. It kinda feels like races only matter in the early game, and I would love for that to change
I prefer Race for sentient species and species for any creature that isn't. I am one of the people who will die on my hill. No problem with people using species instead, but if someone tries to "correct" me, I'll have a problem with that.
I really don’t care about all the arbitrary new changes to dnd. I’ve realized that my group has a much better time playing 1e so we just stick with that.
I feel like a good in between would be giving a player a +1 in specific skills, but the players can choose. Like a Dwarf can have a +1 in Constitution OR Strength, an elf if Dexterity OR... idk Intelligence, Charisma, whatever. Point being, I THINK (that is the key part here) that doing this hints at a possible evolutionary traits, but sine it's just a +1, it shouldn't effect desired build too much. Also I am team Ancestry from Pathfinder, though I feel like a shorter 1 syllable word LIKE Race would have been better.
quick note- people who complain that they want it to be 'allowed' for characters that break the mold of the status quo for races need to understand two things: 1. customize your origin exists, so i dont see the need for a total rework 2. if you want to go homebrew, literally no rules matter (besides the obvious guidelines) and you can make whatever you want as long as your DM and players are okay with it. 3. a bit of a reasoning fallacy, if people are asking for the 'allowance' for PCs that break the status quo, BECAUSE campaigns could follow different lore of the normal dnd world, then that doesn't really track because thats either homebrew, which, again, do whatever you want, or a world that doesnt follow that lore, which again do whatever you want. and also why would you need to be 'allowed' to do that? its a game between you and your friends, do literally whatever you want. all this update does is make things more bland for the players who already do the 'inclusivity' stuff and the homebrew stuff and make players who do stuff by the book either frustrated or indifferent. and I know that it doesnt REALLY change anything for people like me who play with the rules i make and talk through with my players but this update's changes of making stat options the same, as well as speeds, traits, languages, etc. are 'complemented' by its ability score and race changes. the rules apply and 'work with' each other. so if a group decides one part of this update isnt good and want to keep it to the old way, theres a really high likelihood that they just end up converting all the rules back lol.
The shift from race to species ist great for alle the new possibilities: 1. splitting species into different races for a more colorfull game 2. hate on dwarfs without being called 'racist' 3. finally play a loxodon rogue without pesky stat modifiers
If I were to revamp races, Id do it like this: *Domain:* Catch all categories (humanoids, stouts, exotics, etc) *Species/Race:* Self explanatory, personally I use race for humanoids, and species for more... "unique" ones *Lineage:* Basically subraces PS, If I could only choose one word, probably "lineage", "species" sounds to catch-all
1. Races to species was a long time coming. The differences between humans, elves, dwarves and the like are much more than race (elves aren't even from the material plane if we're taking lore into account). 2. I think they should just have suggested stats for each species and have Tasha's rules (what the stat change is base on) be an option from the start for those who want to be creative with their stats (like my firbolg fighter who unknowing is breaking every rule of his ancestors while trying to be like them). The suggestions would be a god send to newer player still finding their footing and give ideas how to break the rules once they understand them. 3. Goblins aren't required to be evil in the Forgotten Realms (same for orcs and drow). It's just that it's hard for them not to be due to evil gods not being fond of true free will. Even devils and angels, being of their alignment-base planes, can change their alignments. It's very rare, but does happen.
I agree with all of those statements, especially with the second one as I'm a person who mainly enjoys customizing stats with Tasha's but would welcome a base stat distribution for the newer players *and* to represent the base *normal* kind of that especies
its weird, because while they are much different in terms of physical appearance, they can still produce viable offspring together, meaning scientifically they would be classified as the same species.
@@Meanlucario depends on wich lore, if I remember correctly, many combinations were impossible or outright biologically negative like Dwarfs and Elves during 3.5 and the true Dittos would be Humans and Changelings (and Dragons, but we are talking about humanoids) I personally am okay with everyone being Ditto one way or the other because it brings funny combinations Pathfindee style like my Pixie with draconic herency
I think an easy solution would be like "elves are most often nimble and enchanting so they lean towards being dexterous and charismatic" so there's encouraged stats cor those who want it or need direction but it is not forced so others can change them to fit their individual characters
Glad your finally talking about this. The half elf ban was ridiculous. No WotC/Hasbro, just because the half elves in-universe face a lot of prejudice (at least in the official settings) does not mean that the LITERAL RACE ITSELF is offensive and needs to go. DnD races DO NOT equal real life "races", aka ethnicity. They're more like different species, albeit species that are all sentient humanoids that are fully biologically compatible with one another. It would be like if in real life black people weren't allow to publicly exist just because SOME people are racist. The whole thing with Orcs is silly too. JRR Tolkien, who invented Orcs, based them off rowdy football (soccer) fans in the UK and exadurated/parodied all their worst traits to create the monster known as orcs. The whole "orcs are black people" thing started as a 4chan troll campaign/psy-op that people on the far left started to take actually seriously similar to the "shave for BLM" hoax. Orcs arent people, they're mindless monsters and were always intended as such and were originally intended to be parodies of football fanboys, not black people. JRR Tolkien was explicitly anti-racist, especially for his time. Edit: Well I actually watched the video and what the heck? He didn't talk about the half elf and half orc ban? He didn't talk about WotC's asinine reasons for removing them from the game and making race irrelevant to builds by making all races the same? He didn't talk about the whole Orc contraversy? Bro, this video could have easily been 45 minutes with all the controversial race changes 5.5e is making, and no one but the idiotic culture warrior anti-SJW chud channels are talking about it so there's almost no rational takes on the whole situation from creators. Half of the 5 minute video was just an ad for some map making company because some people are too lazy to design their own dungeons and settings. You didn't talk about ANY of the important bits. Just "species is better than race and removing racial bonuses is good because you can just choose the default bonuses if you want okay bye!" Okay, WHAT default bonuses? They aren't listed in the new PH so new players will have no idea what they are and balance accordingly. This video is awful and doesn't address any of the big issues with race, ahem, SPECIES, in 5.5e which are numerous. Just 3 minutes of slop where the first 2 are shilling a map company that no one with the slightest bit of creativity will ever find use in.
I agree with most of your wall except some things, prime among them being "orcs are mindless monsters and were always intended as such". That, I think, is HEAVILY setting dependent and while it might be true in Forgotten Realms with all the Gruumsh pull, I prefer Wesnoth or WoW style of orcs, them being neither mindless not dumb by necessity, but being very might-oriented and tribal in their decision-making.
@@AnotherDuck Maybe, but just recently, I got into an internet argument (as valuable as internet arguments are) with some old grognard yelling at cloud that "modern kids are destroying the hobby", specifically pointing out that orcs having free will is inconceivable and ruining everything. Somehow, pointing out settings with less deific meddling, both official (e.g. Eberron, but most probably also Greyhawk) or time-honored tradition of homebrew and semi-official (Exandria, many personal worlds) made them not continue 😀the argument.
The funny part is in their playtest, WoTC could use make it less divisive and uses "lifeform & lineages" instead of "species & lineages", since a lifeform is just a kind of organism, and organism can cover anything that behaves like a living thing. So you have "synthetic lifeform" that covers warforged and astrognomes, and "necromantic lifeform" for any undead. And lifeform covers both race and species. Personally I still prefer lineages and sub-lineages, since all lifeforms are part of a lineage, even warforged is still part of a design lineage.
Species is the correct term. Race is the subcategory of species. For example, we are all part of the human species, and whites, blacks, and Asians, for example are races of the human species. So saying a tortle and a dwarf are different races, wouldn't make sense.
I will continue to use races over species for no other reason than force of habit (totally down for ability score increases being tied to backgrounds though).
I think the biggest split will be people who are focused heavily on saying either species or race and those who don’t care and will use either word interchangeably. I’ve been playing DnD over 30 years and I still use terms from older sets. Though I’m glad that the modern mechanics changes got rid of stuff like THAC0 and BB/LG
The way I see it is: Species is your general classification, race is your specific classification within the general one. Example. Species: Elf, Race, wood elf.
I like DC20's idea of a prime stat. It fixes the whole race ability score mod issue, and makes players free to roleplay and specialize into noncombat oriented roles.
Also with Ancestries being the term, being significant since Level 1 without attribute increases (only Human has attribute increase accessible) and developing with character levels.
As a biologist, i alsways wondered about the term Race and wanted to use Species all along. But yes, i think the different species should have specific stat bonuses. always. that doesnt stop you from creating it unique. you could still make a strong elf, or anything that is basically out of the ordinary. but even a fat elf will be more dexterious than a same fat human. and a weak minotaur will still be stonger than a weak a human. that doesnt stop you from making a minotaur that never worked out, has no muscles and is afraid of combat and therefore became a wizard or long range fighter or something.
I dislike species over race because of the obviousness of Hasbro and Wizard's trying to not be "racist," I just think that it's stupid because it is a fantasy setting along with (to me at least) coming off as more racist that you think people might look at a race in DND and say "I think this represents [insert ethnic background]!", and because of a taxonomical reason. In the context of how we use race in humanity, it is very similar to subspecies, with subspecies, and races, it is still the same animal, just slightly different, and so can still have fertile children together. Changing it to race now means unless humans and elves are very very close on the evolution tree, they would have infertile children, or no children, same with half orcs, and any other half-race in DND.
One thing I do want to mention is that ability scores increases during creation are tied to background rather than species which I understand the logic for but I feel like the idea of one’s background influencing such increases is how they distribute their ability scores in the first place. As far as the increases go, I still believe that they should be tied to specified and can be distributed into whichever ability scores the player wants but there could be a passage that recommends certain increases if one wants to stay “lore accurate” to the archetype of that species. Oh an when it comes to the race vs species argument, I’ve always preferred ancestry replacing “race” and lineage replacing “subrace”
I think this change away from species-specific ability scores is great. Just the day before yesterday, I played as a minotaur bard (admittedly it was a College of Swords Bard) with extra high dexterity and Charisma scores. I used 5eTools to create that character and the Mordekainen’s-Mosters-of-the-Multiverse-Version of the Race has free distribution of ability scores. I think it’s cool being able to subvert expectations and play unintuitive characters. This makes for cool role play.
In my games, I keep the +2 racial bonus, but the +1 is flexible. If it's a post-tasha race, they instead get three +1s. My biggest problem with moving the stat bonuses is how it shifted the meta. Like, if you can make any race do anything you want, Satyrs and Yuan-ti are immediately the best races. Some, like Wood Elves, don't offer enough in their features to be ever worth a choice. I think the floating +1 let's you have a bit of flexibility while keeping the original flavor.
That's why they are making the species abilities stronger and matter more. I personally like that decision, especially now that dwarves have tremorsense, or all elves get spells
@@raphaelzakhm7310 But that'll just move the goalposts. "Oh why should my Elf get spells, they're a barbarian from a magic hating society, why can't I just pick any ability to represent my life?" I can already see it happening, because it's literally the same argument.
I like the original bonus rules better. Like, if I want to play a goliath wizard, he'll be naturally strong, but the strength wouldn't be defining. I could just give one of my lower ability scores to strength, and with the bonus, he'll end up reasonably strong anyways, but my highest ability score would still go into intelligence. Because of this, among other goliaths, he's weak but he's very smart, but among other species altogether, he's considered strong and, while there are definitely smarter people, he'd be considered smart, too. I think that this is a great example of a character's race or species adding something besides appearance and maybe backstory to the character, and it actually makes a mechanical difference because of his goliath genetics.
I'm in Camp Inclusivity. There are sometimes where I wanted something specifc, but couldn't. For example, I wanted a rogue who is not good with people at all, and while a half-elf rogue interested me, due to the rogue not really fitting in, unless I got a low enough roll for rolling stats (my least favourite stat generation method), I would at least have to accept a score of 10. If it can change, I can make a half-elf without charisma.
Is it just me who feels like species feels more... degrading than race? Like in old movies when they say stuff like "women are a whole different species" like idk it feels more like an insult than anything else does. Its a way to separate other people from you in a more defininitive way than race does
I mean... if you want some races to be special and or more specialised... just give them bonus traits but -2 in a stat. Or hell, even -4. Just have them lean more into their special traits that might block out one or 2 classes like strength themed classes for tiny races. It doesn't stop people from trying to make it work but it becomes very suboptimal to do that one specific thing. This allows for more interesting races too as very few have clear drawback in exchange for power as far as I know.
How Ive been seeing it is Species is a good official term for the books in stuff but in universe people would likely still use race. This kinda thing does happen irl, in the United States at least. My mom is a Chinese Malaysian, her family on both sides are from China. When people ask I say "I'm Chinese" even though I should say "My ethnicity is chinese" or something along those lines. Maybe its a cultural thing but it is at least present in our world
I don't like "species", but I don't like "race" either. In biology, "races are distinct populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences" (the differences between them are pretty significant). A biological species is "a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring". For example, if half-elves are fertile (which I'd assume they are), then humans and elves are not from different species. I think the best choice is probably something Pathfinder already figured out, and that's "ancestry" ("the origin or genetic line of descent of one individual or family"). If two individuals have the same ancestry, then they must have had a common ancestor at some point in the past (and that describes more accurately where the separation between them is).
I've Said To People That "Race" Is Far Easier To Use/Write With, So For A Game It Makes The Most Sense, But Technically The Actual Word That Would Be More Accurate Was "Species", However, I Would NEVER Change It To That. Its Not Smart, Easier, Or Makes The Game Better By Any Stretch Of The Imagination, And As Such Shouldn't Be Used/Done In The "Core" Game. If Others Wanna House Rule It For Themselves, Like Literally Everything Else Spoken Here, Or Not Since That's How D&D Works, Then Go For It, But In Core 5E Itself? Nah Fam, I'm Not Down For That. If People Don't Like The Core Race Stats, Just House Rule An Option To Fulfill What You Need, But TBH I Like The Idea Of Getting Bonuses From Other Sources Too, So Don't Get Me Completely Wrong Here. I Would Like ALL The Choices To Effectively Play A Part, Race, Background, Class, All Of It Should Alter Your Stats IMO. Cuz Your "Natural" Biology Gives You An Edge In Certain Areas, Your Background, Essentially Where You Came From/What You Did Before Becoming A Player Would Give You Some More Advantages, And Finally The Specific Class You Are, What You "Trained" To Become (Effectively Adding/Altering Yourself By Choice Here), Should All Matter/Add To Your Character Stat Wise. Would This Be Feasible? Probably Not. I Am Personally Trying To Figure Out How, For My Own Purposes, But Haven't Figured That All Out Yet. At Least For The Time I've Put Into It, So Far Anyway. It Is Also, IMO At Least, A Change Only Being Done, Because WotC Is Politically Charged In A Certain Direction, Acting Like Everyone Is/Will Be Offended By What Would Be The Equivelent Of Getting Hit By A Foam Dart (Like Old Weak As Nerf Toys Type Stuff Y'Know?). Ultimately, I See No Improvement In The Game With This Change, Just A Longer Word To Say, Along With Altered Writing Language (To Make Sense Of Shit When Read), And That I'd Personally Rather All Aspects Effect Your Final Character (If We Are Gonna Change It Anyway), That's It. That's My Thoughts Boiled Down.
In my opinion, both sides of the racial stat debate are wrong. One side can seriously limit to create cool chatacters and the other can majorly damage the uniqueness of each species. Instead, each one should have "Recommended Ability Increases" that you are allowed to change however you like. That way, you can make whatever character you want that fits with the backstory you wrote while still getting a good baseline for what the average individual of a race/species is like. I think there's a similar issue with wotc just deciding to not put alignments on monsters in some of the later books in 5e. I get that they want to make it more open for the dm to do what they want with the monster, but sometimes I can't tell what exactky the creator was going for without alignment included. My favorite example is the gallows speaker from Van Richten's guide. I have no clue what the designers intended. Is it a vengeful amalgam of spirits that kill without mercy because of trauma from their deaths. Do they just babble incoherent without any ill will towards the living? I have no idea. Might be evil. Might be good. They never bothered to mention it having conflict with anyone so who know. This wouldn't be an issue if the just said it was evil. I'd assume it attacked pretty often. Or if it was neutral I could assume it needs to be provoked into a fight. At a certain point, it just seems like they're taking away information but acting like they're doing you a favor by "giving more freedom".
Oh yeah also only people playing with the backwards compatible races get to choose their ability scores.
Everyone else has them chosen by their background now 😊💀
Isn't the racial (whatevhz) attribute bonus rule you talk about pretty much the same one from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything?
@@theGhoulman Yeah but it was always an optional rule. Now it's mandatory for anyone using the backwards compatible races with 2024 D&D
@@BlaineSimple Nothing is mandatory if the DM allows it.
@BlaineSimple
The only problem I have with switching from races to species is...
now half-elves and other mixed races are all sterile.
Two different races have a child the child can continue to reproduce.
Two different species have a child that child can't have children. Think Mules (Horse + Donkey) && Liger (Tiger & Lion)
That would really change some old D&D novels.
Yeah. while ASIs being tied to background makes sense... I've been enjoying custom backgrounds and picking custom score increases for a while now, and unless my DM is setting up a one-shot in a specific setting, I'll just homebrew it, and stare long and hard at a dm who doesn't allow it without a good explanation.
i think, if they wanted to get away from the term "race"
they should've used Lineage instead of species
Well yes but actually no. Lineage is probably the right term for humanoids (or humanoid adjacent ones like changelings) but people like thri-kreen, centaurs or plasmoids do (arguably) fall out of that standard, so maybe something like origin could describe it better as species doesn't really cover reborn or dhampir.
Lineage would work as a replacement for "subrace", but I like species as a "race" replacement.
I really don't see what's wrong with species. They literally ARE different species, they're not just different 'races' of the same species
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868So High Elves vs Drow doesn't exist anymore?
Lineage is what's being used for Subrace now
I'm in the valley between those 2 hills: Species should give the PC 1 ability score point and let the other 2 be floating. As we are talking about species, we should consider that their bodies and minds are built differently, and that 1 fixed ASP would demonstrate that difference.
but the brain is physical and as such has different capabilities depending on the animal it is a part of. So technically mental capability is dependent on the body.
@@davidecolucci6260 but... if you had 2 species of the same dog, they would display different personalities depending on how they're raised.
@@O-carto you cant have 2 different species of the same dog… plus people raised the same are still incredibly different, just look at siblings and twins. So follow Tasha’s rules, predispositions aren’t guaranteed and nature vs nurture makes a lot less sense when talking about different species
@@O-carto different dog breeds are not different species, just different races( in which case, differently from humans, would be the correct scientific definition of race).
Also personality is different from mental abilities. Comparing species would be comparing a gorilla to a chimpanzee, which is completelly different from comparing humans since we are all from the same specie no matter our fenotype
I pretty much agree. I’m fine with just Backgrounds, but I think splitting it up if fitting too.
A species is anything that can make offspring that can reproduce. Meaning the existance of half-elfs and half-orcs and in older editions of dnd dwelfs prove that humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, are the same species. Calling them races is more accurate
There's also the fact that we understand "Fantasy Race" and "Race" means different things as well.
Goblins have sentient understanding of their surroundings? That's a Race of people, because Fantasy Race is actually more closer to the term Species anyway because of the linguistics when it was made
I see what you’re saying but just because they can reproduce together does not make them of the same species.
Agree. And as others have suggested, Ancestry would be a better and truly the correct term.
@@strangechimera9538 that... that is what that means. You can't have viable offspring with two creatures of different species. While this doesn't work for every Fantasy Race, Fantasy Race as a term means something seperate from the word "Race". It's actually why we refer to humans as "The Human Race" because that was the term before species and that's closer to when "Fantasy Race" was made as a term
@@phillipanderson7899 sure that’s the definition yes, however there’s always outliers, in particular; the lemon.
To be frank though I do think a word like ancestry would be coolers but species would make sense considering the lemon is considered one as well.
But hey, there’s not much any of us can do to change it.
Honestly, this is why I like the optional rule introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. To me, it makes sense for there to be a standard for individuals of a race to have ability score increases in certain stats, Orcs generally are warlike and value strength, so having an innate +2 in Strength makes sense. But Tasha's optional rule literally talks about how an individual may not fit into the standard mold of their race, allowing a player to shift around their increases.
I know right? What is stopping you? Just give me my set Ability scores.
@@pintipandadandontstarvetog4016I mean what stopped you from doing a base set of what was typical in the past.
probably the most grounded take on this so far, still feel like the race should have some influence even if it is just 1 point of a stat but perhaps a good middle ground would be to have a few versions of stat distributions? for example Orcs may have +2 Strength and +1 to Agility most of the time (adding 1 stat for more diversity) but there could be different backgrounds for the character, IE the son of a chief would likely have a Charisma stat instead of Agility, perhaps even only a +1 to Strength instead of a +2 and drop the extra stat to Charisma, so +1 Str +2 Ch
Them going for "You can just choose them as you want and there's not even a guideline" in recent 5e products was weird to me. Tasha's has it as an *optional* rule. Don't *force* the *optional* rule on me.
The not even suggesting anything really speaks to me about WotCs "you'll have to figure it out yourself" philosophy regarding D&D
D&D Patch notes:
-Weapons can do cool things now.
-Races have become species.
-Like Mules, Half Orcs and Half Elves can no longer have children.
"Like Mules, Half Orcs and Half Elves can no longer have children."
Then Arwen would never have existed. Let alone the line that ended up with Aragorn. I'm sorta joking, but still.
That last point is only the case because a bard hasn't tried enough.
i did not know that, because this was already the case in my homebrew world
@@roberthradek7100well there was a god’s intervention for lúthien’s rejection of her elvishness and it was an isolated case, I doubt it would work well in a setting where half-elves are common lol
That being said it’s fantasy, real world biology shouldn’t matter too much in d&d
@@waifusmith4043I'm the bard. I'm also the half elf. Still not pregnant :c
I mean, stats is not all that there is to a race. Dragonborns can still breathe elemental thingy, Elves still immune to sleep, etc etc. But now the buffy elf barbarian being immune to sleep is also more scary.
Racial traits are always the more defining part of them anyways, the stats were more to show what the average member of that race is like statistically. It's like saying an orc army will never have mages because their stat bonuses are more for martials. It's dumb.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 Which is what I disliked about Pathfinder 2e. They give the traits so late into the game, most players will only have 1-2 by the end of the campaign (3 if lucky). Compared to 1e or D&D 5e and you have a lot more traits and earlier in the game too. Making it so a Dwarven mage is different than an elven mage. (In pathfinder 2e, the main difference would be their hp)
@@icarue993 I'm actually a fan of Pathfinder's approach to how they handle ancestries. ancestry feats are things that you get at like 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level, but what you get out of it feels more than what you get with 5e where if you're lucky, your ancestry has a feat, because you stop getting benefits past 5th level (some stuff scales past that but it still means you get nothing new after).
At least in a pathfinder 2e game I can play as a kitsune and get something like the rampaging form feat where I can go full fox demon from naruto xD.
The amount of starting traits you get might be lower (which really depends on the ancestry) but I kind of like not having stuff frontloaded so I can learn how all my stuff works. I'm just glad that I can get more powerful ancestry abilities later in the game.
Also between an elven and dwarven mage, the difference would be things like HP, movement , whatever bonuses they get from their ancestry feats.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 This is honestly the stance I've always had for racial ASIs, I kind of feel like an Orc having the ability to close into melee more effectively, or being able to say "no" to being KOed once per day is more relevant than the stat increases lol.
@@waifusmith4043 I like Pathfinder 1e more because you have both: feats and features (plus customization of said features).
Kitsunes could pounce... with a feat that require you to be a certain level. Drows have a very strong magic feat tree, even humans, elves and dwarves get to shine.
I wish they went with Ancestry like Pathfinder did, species feels too sci-fi for me
I typically just call all of them lineages. I know that lineages are technically a specific thing, (Reborn, Hecblood, etc.) I just don’t care.
@@theshamonk668 that works too
if my googling is correct it was first used in the 14th century, so that dont really feel all that sci fi to me
The funny thing is that in Starfinder, races were changed to species as most were already aliens.
Ancestry sounds like trying to discover lines of succession.
How far back were you gnomes? OH, we're just cultural gnomes.
And how do you lable the different "sub-races" mountain dwarf vs gold dwarf? Forest vs moon elf?
I personally believe that species would be a better term in a mostly Sci-Fi setting.
Although an Elf using vicious mockery calling a Dwarf an inferiors specie can be kind of Hilarious
I think they should have went with the term "Ancestry" tbh lol
yeah, I just don't think that "species" rolls off the tongue as well as "race"
but D&D has never had such careful use of words with the setting. It's not something like a Tolkien work. They already use the term "human", there are aliens and many other scientific terms. That's why I think the term species is great.
@@piratelego1 the term "human" isn't a purelly scientifical term, is a coloquial one, it is used in many different ways. Specie is much more of a precise term.
Alien being used yo explain extraterrestrial creatures is also a colloquialism
@@davidecolucci6260 It being more precise is why I don't think it's suitable, since the creatures that fall under that umbrella are not strictly different species.
Tolkien already provided a suitable alternative in Treebeard's poem: "peoples"; as in "the world is home to many peoples such as humans, elves, dwarves and tieflings". Also I think more choices are always good. There are 3 separate ways to build your stats (standard array, dice, point buy) so idk why we can only have one system for racial bonuses. More choice is better for everyone.
Pathfinder just use Ancestries, and some points-to-buy systems that have things like Talents uses things like "Unique Talents" to refer to what would be Races / Species / etc.
You are not correct.
More choice is NOT always better. People aren't creative. We're not. We need RESTRICTIONS to make us take a more difficult path to solve a problem.
If you want to build an Orc wizard, having a plus 2 to strength and a -2 to INT is an obstacle to that, because as a player you want to be effective. So you'll need to think about ORCS, you'll need to really consider what your backstory is and how your smarter than the average Orc discovered magic and put himself on the path of wizardry. You might need to change the way you fight, the way you even approach combat. What SPELLS do you want? What spells would interest your Orc? Would the typical spells matter? Or because he's so stronk already, do spells that just hit things hard seem pointless to him? Does he discover magic that makes him STRONKER? Could he be, the BONK WIZARD!?
Just with this one obstacle, look at how much MORE goes into making this one little character. Without obstacles, people will stick to the straightest line possible.
If you can just totally control all of your stats for any race, if you want an Orc wizard, you'll just make an Orc that is smart. That's it. Nothing else, your backstory, if you even make one, will just be "He's really smart" And then if other Orcs are bad, but NOT YOUR ORC, cause you're JUST DIFFERENT, then your dumbass backstory will be how you wanna change the orcs and show them a better way. Cause you know, anger and violent tendencies aren't biological traits anymore.
Have you ever been outside? Have you seen people crossing the road, NOT at the crosswalk? Even if it's like 20 feet away? They just cross the street wherever they are, because nothing is actually stopping them and making them take a little bit longer to cross at the safest place. That's the same thing, people will just go in a straight line for as long as possible. For most people, it's almost a reflex.
If more choice is better, eventually people are just going to literally set their stats to be whatever they want. So everyone's gonna start as a level 1, oops sorry that might require a degree of thought.
They'll start as a level 5 Wizard with 20 Int every time, with other stats being buffed or set to 10 depending on if they actually use them. You'll be finding a lot of Wizards with strangely high Constitutions or Dex for that added Initiative and AC.
RESTRICTIONS are what invokes creativity, NOT total freedom. Humans are SHIT at being creative with no limitations. Every brilliant discovery in human history came about because someone COULDN'T do something, not because they could do everything easily. Wizards is making every race in DnD the same, they're stripping away their biology, their culture, their uniqueness. Now everything is coming down to "Which ability do you want?"
Pretty soon even THAT will change.
You know, cause you've decided you want to be a Dragonborn Species with Plasmoid Ancestry with a Part Goliath Subspecies and a Gnome Backstory. Congratulations, you've sucked all the creativity out of RPGs cause you thought letting people do whatever they want would breed CREATIVITY rather than habits.
@@haku8135 If all your creativity comes from slight statistical differences in character strength then you are a bad storyteller.
@@PlatinumAltaria If all you got from my comment was this, then you're either braindead or a liar.
Cause that's not what I said at all.
Once again, my point is proven correct. You took the straightest line to tell me I'm wrong, because you have no incentive to actually engage my argument, because you only want to be correct. So all my points, the details? None of it matters, cause you can just say points don't matter, just be creative.
Well sorry fucker, that's not how PEOPLE as a whole work. We're NOT creative if given freedom. We develop HABITS. To breed creativity, one must place obstacles. Stats are the CORE mechanic of every DnD creature, not just character, CREATURE. So if nothing you select impacts what your stats are, that's a HUGE aspect of the character creation process that just doesn't matter.
@@haku8135 "we are not that creative" and proceeds to write a long essay with points that makes no sense and some contradicts each other, but overall a bunch of ideas that show the creativity this person has to (try to) argue about the points the OP said
Honestly, I always prefer the term "ancestry", feels a bit more proper. Being a pathfinder 2e player I'm much more comfortable with it now. Also the "ABC" of character creation is so easy to remember being Ancestry, Background and Class. It's also less clunky in colloquial language, since "Ancestry" I think fits often times more for sapient creatures, which most characters are sapient to my knowledge.
My opinion on racial ability scores has always been this: They're irrelevant, so let people put them as they may. Your player characters are also individuals, and I take the preset ability scores as "this is the average individual of this ancestry". If you're an orc wizard who has trained solely in magic all your life (like evocation) it makes more sense to increase something like your constitution (concentrating) and intelligence.
The idea of preset ability score being irrelevant may soundweird but to me, if you want an ancestry to be better utilized by certain classes, I feel like the actual FEATURES are more important than the stat. Pigeonholing a race into benefitting certain classes because it "gives an increase to strength" instead of "Well, it allows you to do this with your attacks with melee weapons" is kinda lazy. I'm glad that ASI moved to backgrounds because I think it's better that your starting ASI is built off your character's actual backstory, not because they were born a certain way.
New Orcs have adrenaline rush, which is something that is fantastic for martials because it allows them the bonus action dash and some temp HP to allow them to dive in a bit more effectively. However it also works with orc mages because they can actually get out of danger a bit easier, along with a bit of a buffer. I'd argue that it benefits martials more in this case because they generally take more damage, and not having to spend an action on a dash is big for some like fighter or barbarian. But, this is something that can be used by mages as well.
Sorry if it looks like I was jumping all over the place. Thanks if you took the time to read this. Love the videos Blaine, keep up the good work.
I like ancestries because there are all of backgrounds where the characters aren't even "born" or they are "made" or "created by magi "
Agree. Ancestry is the best term.
Honestly, I disagree with the idea of “finally I can play an orc wizard”.
If the lack of +2 to int was what was stopping you, that’s kind of a huge red flag in my experience.
I was originally in that camp too - that the set suboptimal ASIs made for more interesting characters - but a friend talked me around by pointing out that people can... still build suboptimally. They can still put the point increase in STR if they want. The choice of playing an Orc Wizard with a -2 INT is still just as much in the hands of the player as it always was.
Having an orc wizard with the penalty to the classes main stat is as much of a statement as it is a challenge. People should embrace the idea that someone not pre-disposed to do something trained hard and accomplished it anyway. Instead, the rules are just being changed to accommodate people who don't want to deal with a negative to get what they consider positive. Power gamers and munchkins love to min-max and build complementary classes with "species", but I have had more fun with sub-optimal characters than the calculated ubermensch you could get from picking the best in slot for each thing. And the RP you get from surprising people who expect that filthy gnoll to be a mindless monster to instead turn out to be a well spoken aristocrat sorcerer is fun to play out.
Got to cater to the min maxers.
@@Bancheis Exactly.
Limitations breed creativity.
Freedom breeds habits.
Creating a Wizard that has an intelligence penalty requires creative thinking to make it work. It will lead to FAR more interesting characters than "I can just make anything instantly with no thought".
I prefer sticking to Race because Species, even if the correct word, has more syllables and is annoying to say.
Just say spec then, cut out the last syllable
@@Not_Dane_Heart dude solved racism
@@thomasguay4157no, recreated it. The whole reason we say race is because eugenicists in the late 1800s to early 1900s tried to argue people of different cultures and colors were a different species.
to avoid any confusion, that would be pronounced spees
And it is more sci-fi sounding than fantasy
Could have just had a SUGGESTED ability score increases, but allow people to ultimately choose. Seems like both camps could be happy.
I know right?
All of this could have been avoided if it weren't for Ogilvie and Mathers. Consultancy is hacks for hacks by hacks and Hasbro could have enjoyed a renaissance after a slow business cycle if they didn't bandwagon.
"Suggested" is what the books says about what ability scores to use with what skills, like persuasion, deception, and intimidation are suggested to use charisma, but you can use any depending on situation and execution. A lot of people think the rule is that you have to use a specific ability score and that something like intimidation (strength) is homebrew (I think it's actually a specific example of how you can use alternate stats in core rules).
It would work for ability scores for races/species. Some people would always follow it, some would do their own thing. People would interpret it the way they want to, like how it normally is. The only problem is when people try to force their opinions on others, but that will always be an issue anyway.
Now I can make my purple orc rogue. They'll never see it coming
Would be harder to see him in the woods if you kept them green. and naked.
@@bskec2177 Nonsense! Purple is the sneakiest color, ya git! Have you ever seen a purple orc?
Now Dat I thinks 'bout it. I 'ain't.
Rubbish. Red da sneakiest Ork. Coz Red da fastest, can't see em if ya too fast ta see. Oh and Waaaaagh!
@@bskec2177 Ya git, green is da best color, we da Orkz, but purpl sneakiest color!
Halsin in BG3 is an elf. I didn't realize this at first while playing the game, I didn't think about his race one way or the other at all. He was just the heavily built Druid who I assumed had high Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom. Once I learned he was an elf it gave me a bit of mental whiplash, and I realized I had this sort of fixed idea that all elves are slender, wispy, intelligent beings. It took a moment of reevaluation to work out that yes, it would make perfect sense to have a character like Halsin.
Anyway, all that to say I think the idea of customizing ability scores regardless of Species/Race makes sense to me. Is it uncommon to have a highly intelligent Half-Orc who goes around as a wizard? Sure, in Faerun, it's not typical. But it's entirely possible and a character made along these lines would make perfect sense.
I think Halsin himself jokingly suggests his large build stems from there maybe being Orc blood somewhere in his veins, don't think that'd be possible in canon, though?
@@KorotasGeckoGamingCorner Judging by the game, I wouldn't be surprised if it's bear blood...
@@AnotherDuck He also says he was wandering about in a bear form one time and a bear female took offense when he wasn’t interested in mating. It’s how he got the scar.
I always think that even if they look somewhat humans, they are not, they could have a different anatomy structure, since this, they have better eyes for archery and can see in the night, also, they are a natural spellcasters. I still doubt about an elf being buffed, but everyone can think about it how they want
You know, I'm something of a races myself
nascar, indy, or drag?
The part I don't like about "camp inclusivity" is that they have no imagination.
They need the official rule book to tell them they can make a kobold super strong or an ogre super smart, its like they are incapable of just ignoring the rule books and homebrewing whatever they want
Or rather, they just aren't happy that an Orc barbarian is more powerful than their Halfling barbarian, biological realities be damned. This one sentence tells us three things about these people:
1) They are unhappy people in general
2) They care about power above all else
3) They can easily ignore biological reality
Yeah, agreed. But then it's about cultural supremacy to them so that's why they slither into everything, take it over from within, kick out the OG homies, call them racists or sexist on their way out, and then turn the thing into something else entirely.
It's a bit weird that they're both changing the name to species and getting rid of race specific ability bonuses. Like, are you gonna argue with me that an Elephant will be more acrobatic than a Crow in any situation, even if their intelligence is equivalent and the individual might lean towards one style more? As a SPECIES, you ARE limited by your own organism. A crow isn't going to outstrength an Elephant, but an Elephant isn't going to outrun a crow either.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. In DnD? The way I've understood it is that different species are still going to get different abilities. You just don't have to point points into specific stats. Just because Orcs as a SPECIES are seen as more martial or barbaric doesn't mean your orc can't be slightly different from another member of your own species.
It really does seem like it's just mostly a terminology change to get away from the word race's very real implications in our actual world. Race is a social construct. Humanity is all the same species, we're all the same race. We're only not the same race if in fantasy worlds then we all become one race apparently. Your mind should be able to just swap out WORDS. Every species is still going to be different from each other, there's just now more opportunity for differences within the species.
@@trevordonaldson7634 What I'm trying to say is that EVERY SPECIES HAS BOTH STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. What I did was show an example of IRL intelligent animals as examples of races, and said that in no world would a Crow be more resilient than an Elephant. I can agree if someone wishes to remove the mental attribute bonuses and debuffs that some races get, but removing actual physical traits like dwarves not being as fast because of their SHORT LEGS, removing Drows weakness to sunlight (which they have because they lived literal thousands of years underground, where there is no light as strong as the sun), so on and so forth, is atrocious. Let's use another real world example: humans and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are, overall, stronger than humans. But, in contrast, humans are more resilient when it comes to physical strain and prolonged stress, due to their sweat glands. Chimpanzees are also VERY aggressive, regardless of their intelligence, even with each other. Translating this to stats, humans should get a bonus in constitution, while chimps would get a bonus in strength and a debuff in wisdom. That's just an example, but it takes into account the actual physical and behavioral traits of each species.
thats why u get to choose
The thing I care more about is the fixed ASP. I like each race/species having specific bonuses because biological differences would contribute to that. The ASP from your character's history are reflected in your rolled or standard array stats.
That's not how that works, species have common traits. Traits define adaptation. The thinking of statistically rounded groups of a single group has been debunked amongst animals of all types. A Bear isn't inately strong, it weighs 500 lbs, everything that is about that large is about that strong. They would have the trait powerful build. So would a few other animals.
@@EricWalkerswildrided&d doesnt have a traits based system. Traits are part of its stats-based system. Bears can move more weight than turtles. Thats why they have a higher strength score.
A 15 strength isnt "relative for its species", its "can achieve a measurable criteria".
@@EricWalkerswildride But a bear is stronger than a squirrel and the different species/races have different sizes. They also aren't 1:1 to our world as it is a fantasy setting regardless of world. Brains work differently between differently between animals. Lizards do not think the same as dogs. Different animals will also have different muscle makeup as different fish species have different protein compositions in their muscles. Those different traits the species have would affect the ability scores such as whale blubber.
@@indiana47The more interesting differences are the things like Elves immunity to sleep, a Goliath’s increased carrying capacity, a kenku’s mimicry, a half-orcs brutal critical and so on.
Race locked stat bonuses just make playing against type suboptimal. 5e is better without them imo
@@scarletempress2652 It's not all about being optimal. The traits and abilities of a race helping a charactet feel like a race. The suboptimal build is you don't get that +2 in the primary score.
My problem with the more customizable stats is that it’s just another change that makes the races blend more and more into each other. They less unique they are the less unique you feel from the other players aside from when you describe your character when you first start playing.
I recognize that species is the technical term, but in my games referring to a species as one of the races is a signifier that they are recognized by the other “races” as being of a equal standing. “Raciest” in my stories are easy to spot because they call the other races “species” so as to separate them and refer to them as lesser.
They had to invent a new definition of species for it to work. Species should really only apply to non-humanoid monsters.
@@MajorCinnamonBuns I disagree I think it works as when you use species rather then race then you compare them to animals and certain monsters. Though that’s just my interpretation.
@@ayidhalotabi5862 Personally in a server I DM & Subcheck for (Custom TTRPG run on Discord), we went with "Clades" rather than Species, so I just say Clades most times now.
I really don't like this generalization of abilities, it functionally turns all species (races or whatever) into fancy skins and little more.
WOTC should go all in on unique features for each species, rather than making it just a character story beat
i heavily disagree. nature and nurture are important for individual growth. nature is the special abilities each race gets (dwarves resist poison, elves resist charms, half orcs resist dying once a day), nuture is how they grew up and what they specialized in (ability scores, if the were a jock they strong, a nerd they smart, etc.) by making the ASIs not tied to race it actually makes the choice of race much more based around what their actual unique features are, not arbitrary number bonus
That's... kind of the point? Your race/species is basically a solely roleplay piece, and has technically no impact on combat or... honestly anything that isn't just active roleplay involving the race specifically. Like your GM won't out of the blue have an enemy focus the orc barbarian over a dwarf fighter that's closer to them just because orcs are hated more, or have an NPC merchant refuse to barter with a drow bard even if they were supposed to be the party's face, since that makes it feel like a player is being punished for picking that particular race. Your character's race has honestly always been just a flavor piece for roleplay and now they're doubling down on that.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 if your DM sucks, just say that.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 so we turn fantasy adventure into imaginary cosplay party, great
Tasha's introduced custom lineage which gave you freedom to assign 3 points into ANY ability score (max +2). 2024 PHB has them tied to Background instead, which does narrow down your options to 3 ability scores you can increase. Of course, you can just choose the background which gives you access to the two or three ability scores you desire to have increased, or just talk to your DM. According to the UA, the backgrounds provided are "SAMPLE" backgrounds, and you were encouraged to create your own background (which I believe was similar to 2014 PHB creation guidelines, but we all just used the prewritten backgrounds anyway).
I think it's fair to assume that pre-Tasha's, players who would want to customize their bonuses would simply talk to their GM, with varying results depending on your GM or the game they intended to run. Regardless of which version of the rules, it's important to remember that it's your game. As GM, you have control over which version of the rules to use and within that rule set, which rules adhere to and which ones you can ignore or modify. The whole "us vs them" divisive mentality never made sense to me. 🤷
I know right? Who would stop you from using custom ability score increases. I always loved to have atleast some example.
i mean like all the human-looking ones that can interbreed are the same species by definition. "a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding"
You can still mate with a dragon, lizardfolk and so on as a human and have an offspring. So that argument is out of the window
@majesticgothitelle1802 no u can't, bro a human can't mate with lizardfolk
@@kipgodoftherats4074 because there is no official race that why
@@majesticgothitelle1802 ya duh
@@kipgodoftherats4074 I'm staying there is no official half-lizardfolk race in DND. Only in Half-Elve, Half-orc, half-dragon, Half-genie and there are many official half-other races due to other reasons like the prime race is elves, dwarves, orc and humans are the main race majority of people play as
I just prefer Race due to it being more iconic and less scientific sounding. Nobody says stuff like “fantasy species” and if you did people would generally think that you are talking about less intelligent creatures. But say “fantasy races” and everybody knows what you mean: elves, orcs, dwarfs, etc. it just comes across more natural and not like a science textbook classification
Honestly lineages or ancestries would also have sounded better IMO.
There could also be mutations that cause an individual to follow a different path from their species. That's how we get new species anyway. A helpful mutation allows better survival which is then passed down until the new branch is no longer recognizable as the original.
I remember in the playtest they had some stupid rule for mixed species where the character got basically something from one parent and nothing from the other. And then, in the feedback form, they didn't allow any feedback on that stupid ruling. I wonder if they kept it.
I prefer race cause its just faster to say i might not even use the word I'm more likely to say "im playing a-" over "I'm choosing - for my race"
I'm definitely of two minds here.
Genetics in DnD have always been weird (just look at all the half something mixes running around) so classing by race or by species is gonna be weird no matter how you slice it.
Stuff like Plasmoids throws a wrench in calling them races because they are clearly a different species, but stuff like Myconids and Tieflings throw a wrench in calling them species because they're just so internally diverse as far as biology goes.
If they can interbreed I call them races, if they can't I call them species. Basically like it always was.
agreed, ima stick to races because thats what im used to, also sounds cooler in a fantasy setting
Overall in "Fantasy" settings, "Race" refers to "Intelligent species"
Species is kinda overly broad and includes non sapient creatures, like species of lichen.
I think "Ancestry" works better because it clearly means "Who you descend from"
I do think it's silly to make a fuss about the words being used when it's pointing at the exact same thing, and unlike humans, the biology is incredibly different to the point there's a 700 year gap in life spans between some of them.
“Ancestry” or “lineage” seem to be the obviously best terms to me
I love the thought of a fairy barbarian being a main tank for a party lol.
My bias here, never cared for actual faries being playable.
@@sheakennedy-ordway1156 TBH Kinda Agree.
you could probably make it work if the fairy was a mage style tank, lots of barrier and aggro style spells and you've got most of what a tank is supposed to be even if your missing out on the "intimidating presence" of something thats 10 feet tall and barely fitting into the room
Given that D&D races seem to hold a pretty similar dynamic to to the human “races” of our world, the word species kinda feels like if I referred to someone as “of the Egyptian species” or “the Taiwanese species”… it just feels kinda icky to me, i dunno! XD
The reason “my elf just lifted weights instead of training in backflips” argument doesn’t make sense. Because that is already considered by your distribution of ability scores through point buy/rolling. Race/species ability scores are what the creatures genetic predisposition is. Like how Cats are more agile than snails. And dolphins more intelligent than koalas. Bears hardier than pigeons. And again, your racial/species ability score bonuses are not your only source of ability points. It’s just takes more investment because of your predisposition. Picking dwarf as a wizard and taking a dip in a class to give you heavy armor proficiency was actually a really interesting mechanical choice because it helped to get you access to better armor easier at the cost of slowing your intelligence progression. Now that interesting tradeoff is gone and there is no interesting cost to it. It’s just a slam dunk decision
The races of DnD aren’t mindless animals though, they’re intelligent and sapient people. I think the ability scores should be 100% nurture over nature, personally.
And be honest. How many players these days actually use the racial ability score increases and don’t just use the optional Tasha’s rule?
@@SpookyGhostGoku you put zero thought into that reply and it shows. Do you honestly believe that a sapient mouse putting in the same amount of effort as a sapient gorilla would result in them having the same physical strength? Having salience doesn’t magically warp your bone structure into being as malleable as clay.
“Most people just use Tasha’s” interesting assertion. That’s Irrelevant and baseless. No one is stopping you from using that variant tile. But removing standard racial ASIs DOES stop people from playing their way because there are no official ASIs for several races.
If a character wants to be an elf that's strength-based instead of dexterity, that doesn't negate that the elves have favored dexterity, that single character might make dexterity their dump stat, it doesn't change the race
YOU ARE RİGHT
Yep, i wish they still included the "status quo" stats in races. One of my players has been playing a tortle, mad him 30, and after a couple months of game it dawned on me he doesn't know that 30 years is the majority of the life of a Tortle. So the priorities of his character might be different than he thought them up to be initially, given that if he survives the campaign he might, if he's lucky, only have 20 years left to keep following the ways of his people (get children, tell them about the world, and make sure they will be ready to explore it)
That same player also thought he could ride a Carrion Crawler, because the book doesn't give Tortle's a weight range, which lead him to no realizing he's so heavy he might break the back of most mounts
I think every race/species should have SUGGESTED ability score increases, especially the more obscure ones, to give people a better idea of the general flavour
THIS!
If it can crossbreed with a human Race if it can not species. No idea if it is correct but my players like it
Thats literally how the word is used in science. Species in D&D is not only MORE racist than race, but more scientifically AND historically inaccurate.
Also, robot races are a thing.
@@aetherkidI feel like this entire argument is disproven on whether or not mules are real which is a mindset I guess.
@@FastDeathbycat i saw a comment further up mentioning something about race vs species implys that they can make offspring that would then be able to breed, as far as im aware Mule's are a 1 generation thing and cant breed even with each other, though i could be mistaken
You're playing a game where humans can crossbreed with demons, who are not eve made of the same construction as mortals
Small things can't be martial experts? I submit Hefty Smurf, Asterix, the Nac Mac Feegles, and Muscles Mouse from Tom & Jerry. Besides, aren't player characters supposed to be kind of outside the norm to start with?
Thats why you put your 15 into strength while a commoner has a 10.
Yep now I'm going to have to go make an old gnome barbarian named 'Uncle Heffy'. Backstory would be he cast fist so many times he forgot magic and became a very jovial tavern brawler barbarian. Basically a miniature dwarf disguised as a gnome.
I meant tiny creatures specifically, but there's easier logic in small creatures being capable fighters lol
How I see it, I'd say species is the correct turm when referring to Elves or Dwarves.
But then race would refer to High Elves and Mountain Dwarves.
That's just my thought on it, though. I won't force my beliefs onto others.
I like this, it's kinda accurate to real life. Like Germanic people and Japanese people are the same species, human, but would be different races if we were to use the term.
They aren't a species, they can both interbreed with humans and provide viable offspring, (yes, half dwarfs are a thing, theyre just slightly taller dwarves), and if they are a species they'd have the same name.
Would the whole collective of elves be a species while the individual would be a race. High elves and forest elves would be different races of the same species
yes, this would be correct. and i would use it that way. but if you want to not use race because of its political implications, you could also try to use tribe or folk. because slavic tribes and germanic tribes still thought they were different just like maybe golden dwarfs would from mountain dwarfes.
but if they would differ that much in appereances like a drow or a duregar, than this would be similar to be as diferent from each other as africans and asians.
this could also open up possibilities to have a half duregar and half mountain dwarf ancestry.
It's actually a step above, Species would apply to elves, gnomes, saytrs and centausrs all being faries. Race would apply to Sun elves, moon elves, wood elves, dark elves, ect. Ethnicity or subrace would apply to which one is your character.
Species is a weird word choice to me. I get moving away from 'races' cause it's quite frankly inaccurate, even if someone doesn't consider it problematic, but there's more interesting or more accurate words they could've used. Heritage, Lineage, Ancestry (hello Pathfinder), Kintype (hello Icon), Culture, etc.
I do think that they could've avoided a lot of controversy by describing common ASI boosts for cultures/species/races, like how PF2 provides each ancestry with fixed boosts, but you're free to opt out of them and instead go for a boost to any two stats of your choice if it makes more sense for your character. Across any system I've always been significantly more in favor of not feeling like an ancestry is pigeonholed into a specific class or role, so I'm still positive to the change, even if I don't play 5e myself anymore.
I think an opt out would be the greatest boon (minus potential issues about min-maxing) because DnD's biggest feature was the sheer flexibility in adjusting and applying the setting. It just seems like it gives everyone want they want, not giving up what the ASI boosts being associated with the types of entities are saying about them, yet not saying these beings cannot be wizards and those beings must be barbarians, or somesuch. Though I guess Wizards wouldn't want to openly copycat PF2, but they probably could come up with ideas that hold a similar niche without stealing the mechanic.
@@CarissaNomadicI agree with you for the most part but I had a chuckle at racial essentialism being the only bulwark game masters had against min-maxing.
Now nothing can stop us😈
For a setting I'm writing I'm using the word "kindred" for the species humans, elves, and a few others belong to. Same species, different subspecies, and some specific biological rules for half-breeds (which is that they're always half-half and never a quarter-three quarters).
I use “ Mortals”
My problem with "species" as a word is that it feels *way* too sciency for medieval-fantasy. It never made sense to me why WotC never thought of using another folksy term to refer to the same concept, like "ancestry", "lineage", or my personal favourite "kin".
I feel like the race/species thing should be split between different uhh *things*. Orcs, elves, humans, etc are difference races but a plasmid or aarakocra would be a different species
Yeah, the thing is that DND Took of the Monstrous humanoid, a separation that existed in 3.5
Or WoTC can just use the more universal term lifeform and make it "lifeforms & lineages" instead :p
People keep forgetting about your normal stat distribution. THAT is what is supposed to represent your character's background, whether they work out or not, how smart they are, and so on. The racial bonuses are just genetic advantages one way or another.
I will very much admit to being in Camp Culture for Species ability scores, though for me it's more because I need a bit more guidance on what to pick for a character build (I'm one of those people who responds to "there are no limits, pick what you want" by not being sure what I want).
The only problem I have with any of this is they no longer tell you what the normal stats, alignment, or even at times lifespan the species normally have, which can inspire characters (like playing a typically evil species that wants to be good or a short lived species wanting to extend their species' lifespan)
Are we race gang or species gang in this household?
species
This sounds very wrong out of context
im a racist, i will NEVER use species... /j
Species
Ancestry / Lineage
Here's the biggest thing about creating a character. You already get to pick where 60-80 other points in your ability scores go, the race being in charge of 3 is a small thing to put some control and guidance in the game's hands.
Yeah the setting problem is an issue, but thats why old setting books had content for when their races were different. 5e made it a problem.
That's something that always felt jarring to me! "You have 80 points to define your stats, but 2 of them have to go into strength" translating into "Your fate is sealed your character can only be rolled into these particular classes!" always sounded like the most minmaxy thing someone could claim. I guess stat penalties make it a more reasonable grievance, but still felt a little bit annoying rather than condemning...
Maybe something better would be to split the difference. Make the +2 star permanent for the race/species but the +1 star customizable. As each individual of a race/species has unique talents but also talents unique to the race/species. Just like every dog has personality and physical traits similar to every other dog, but anyone who’s owned a dog knows they have unique traits too.
Because you’re right that a tiny character should not be putting out high strength damage, but a specific Minotaur could be more charismatic than the race/species as a whole.
Species should be picked for more than a base stat boost though. It's far more interesting to have unique features for each one and pick based on those rather than being beholden to the list of species that have a bonus aligning with your class.
@@gamebotsonlineyou mean the unique features that tend to compliment specific classes?
I like this but would go a step further and require nonhuman races to have a -1 in a stat as well. I generally am not a fan of each race being humans with things added on.
@@epicsavagebros7400 Just add more to humans, easy solution. Why do humans have nothing added to them?
I honestly think we should just focus more on the features, because the numerical side just nudges people into favoring certain classes. An ancestry should favor a wizard because it either synergizes with wizard or gives them something they generally need more of (maybe access to a spell they generally don't have or something magic related).
I think it's better to work on giving characters more to do, rather than just "number go up". But this is coming from me being pf2epilled.
Here is a list of all the creatures I could think of that have been specifically stated as reproductively viable with humans:
Dwarves, elves, orcs, tieflings, aasimar, genasi, ogres, dryads, satyrs, doppelgangers, devils, and demons.
Referring to the different peoples of the D&D worlds as species not only sounds less pleasant, but it is either misleading or outright incorrect. The term species is used in biology to classify creatures based off of their genetic barriers, with the specific distinction that creatures qualify as part of the same species if they can make reproductively viable offspring, but within the fantasy setting, biology is flexible and not strictly defined.
I know right? People who think species is more accurate literally don't even know what it means.
It's more accurate than "race" is the point. If you're making the point that this is Fantasy and fantasy gets to have different rules to still means species make more sense to its rules. You can't pick and choose when to argue logic based on realism.
Not exactly sure why you're hung up on only what could be viable with a human or in relation to humans? Should It go deeper instead of only a term like species, sure, but the most is it's still MORE correct than race which never was (Americans get hung up on that word because they invented it). You could argue for family or Lineage or Ancestry (which all are all as long to say as species, so that argument goes out the window), but you cannot argue race is more correct when it literally isn't.
I admit when I dug back into biology and taxonomy for my own game, I understood you're just creating your own system of terms and you just have to follow them as long as they followed some logical sense you didn't break. It's the same thing here.
oldschool gamer here who as 80s teens questioned race alignment and stat penalties for women in dnd - id used species a while and avoided implausible hybrids
I'm far more concerned with how they erased any meaningful differences between the races/species/kin
"Race" is a lot easier for me to pronounce as "species," since English is my 2nd language.
It'd be less confusing to just say "different variations of a species are a race, a high elf is a different race from wood elf, but both are under the same umbrella of elf as a species"
As both a dm and a player I like the change sense there are races now that aren’t humanoid.
Wrong use of sense/since. Correct usage would be since.
Sense: a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch
"the bear has a keen sense of smell that enables it to hunt at dusk"
a feeling that something is the case
"she had the sense of being a political outsider"
a sane and realistic attitude to situations and problems:
"he earned respect by the good sense he showed at meetings"
Since: from a particular time in the past until a later time, or until now
"Emma went to work in New York a year ago, and we haven't seen her since"
"He started working for the company in 1995, and has been there ever since"
As a non-native speaker I've actually been using "species" to define the difference in classic DnD races for YEARS. However I've also been using "breed" to define species variants as well, so I'm giving you all something more to yell at me about. And yes, I have occasionally used "race" as well, because it was in the book, but even 20 years ago when I was young and stupder "species" just made more sense to me, so I'm kind of pleasantly surprised the new books will do it as well.
Because an Arakocra, a Tabaxi and a Plasmid are less a "race" of "humanoids" than a tiger and a lion are a "species" of "large cat" (yes, specifically giving that analogy, because I've somehow had this conversation revolve around cross-breeding and halfbreeds to explain to me why "race" is more appropriate)
You make a strong point.
We could have just gone with "Humanoid."
Humanoid has a defined meaning and not every playable race is a humanoid.
@@DuckCeci the majority of them are, and all original were
“If we like playing as monsters we should drop the term race”
To be honest, I don’t allow any of that shit at my table. No you can’t be a monster.
if you play a monster, expect the townsfolk to get their pitchforks when you try to enter
4:16 that’s not your racial bonus, that’s you increasing strength in the point buy calculator
Exactly. The average orc being stronger than the average elf doesn't mean that your elf cant lift weights to become stronger than even that. But these people want to minmax so hard they refuse to allow lore to get in their way.
@@aetherkid I know right ?!
The problem with the term "species" is that it's just plain incorrect. An elf and a human are NOT different species, because they can have fertile offspring. I wish WotC would have listened to our feedback and call them "kin" or "people". If you have any other good suggestions, let us know.
You are correct on all counts. And i like the suggestion of others that Ancestry is the best term.
I do think there should be a soft cap of ability scores for races (yes I’m still going with that)
Like a fairy should never ‘naturally’ be on par strength wise to say, an orc or Goliath but a buff fairy should be able to be as strong as a weaker Orc or Goliath
Fairies are fey creatures though, so you could argue that their body sizes just don’t obey the traditional laws of physics.
Here's how I see it. It is actually anti-racist to use the word race because it means that there is one human race characterized by ethnic diversity.
The Custom Racial Ability Score Bonuses were a thing in Tasha's Cauldron, 2024 removed Racial Ability Score Bonuses
To all those saying orcs and humans are technically the same species:
We have reproduced with Neanderthals, they are classified as a different species. The homo genus has always had different species. One of them being able to sprint faster than us, i forgot what they were called, it was on some documentary and showed a different kind of shin bone. We as sapiens are able to throw very well compared to the other homo genus'
My number one hope for species is that they do more races do. It kinda feels like races only matter in the early game, and I would love for that to change
I prefer Race for sentient species and species for any creature that isn't.
I am one of the people who will die on my hill. No problem with people using species instead, but if someone tries to "correct" me, I'll have a problem with that.
I really don’t care about all the arbitrary new changes to dnd. I’ve realized that my group has a much better time playing 1e so we just stick with that.
Races > Species
Also limitation bears creativity, making things too flexible can also make it boring
I feel like a good in between would be giving a player a +1 in specific skills, but the players can choose. Like a Dwarf can have a +1 in Constitution OR Strength, an elf if Dexterity OR... idk Intelligence, Charisma, whatever. Point being, I THINK (that is the key part here) that doing this hints at a possible evolutionary traits, but sine it's just a +1, it shouldn't effect desired build too much.
Also I am team Ancestry from Pathfinder, though I feel like a shorter 1 syllable word LIKE Race would have been better.
quick note- people who complain that they want it to be 'allowed' for characters that break the mold of the status quo for races need to understand two things:
1. customize your origin exists, so i dont see the need for a total rework
2. if you want to go homebrew, literally no rules matter (besides the obvious guidelines) and you can make whatever you want as long as your DM and players are okay with it.
3. a bit of a reasoning fallacy, if people are asking for the 'allowance' for PCs that break the status quo, BECAUSE campaigns could follow different lore of the normal dnd world, then that doesn't really track because thats either homebrew, which, again, do whatever you want, or a world that doesnt follow that lore, which again do whatever you want.
and also why would you need to be 'allowed' to do that? its a game between you and your friends, do literally whatever you want. all this update does is make things more bland for the players who already do the 'inclusivity' stuff and the homebrew stuff and make players who do stuff by the book either frustrated or indifferent. and I know that it doesnt REALLY change anything for people like me who play with the rules i make and talk through with my players but this update's changes of making stat options the same, as well as speeds, traits, languages, etc. are 'complemented' by its ability score and race changes. the rules apply and 'work with' each other. so if a group decides one part of this update isnt good and want to keep it to the old way, theres a really high likelihood that they just end up converting all the rules back lol.
The shift from race to species ist great for alle the new possibilities:
1. splitting species into different races for a more colorfull game
2. hate on dwarfs without being called 'racist'
3. finally play a loxodon rogue without pesky stat modifiers
You and always say specieist
If I were to revamp races, Id do it like this:
*Domain:* Catch all categories (humanoids, stouts, exotics, etc)
*Species/Race:* Self explanatory, personally I use race for humanoids, and species for more... "unique" ones
*Lineage:* Basically subraces
PS, If I could only choose one word, probably "lineage", "species" sounds to catch-all
1. Races to species was a long time coming. The differences between humans, elves, dwarves and the like are much more than race (elves aren't even from the material plane if we're taking lore into account).
2. I think they should just have suggested stats for each species and have Tasha's rules (what the stat change is base on) be an option from the start for those who want to be creative with their stats (like my firbolg fighter who unknowing is breaking every rule of his ancestors while trying to be like them). The suggestions would be a god send to newer player still finding their footing and give ideas how to break the rules once they understand them.
3. Goblins aren't required to be evil in the Forgotten Realms (same for orcs and drow). It's just that it's hard for them not to be due to evil gods not being fond of true free will. Even devils and angels, being of their alignment-base planes, can change their alignments. It's very rare, but does happen.
I agree with all of those statements, especially with the second one as I'm a person who mainly enjoys customizing stats with Tasha's but would welcome a base stat distribution for the newer players *and* to represent the base *normal* kind of that especies
its weird, because while they are much different in terms of physical appearance, they can still produce viable offspring together, meaning scientifically they would be classified as the same species.
@@kuroshinigami9143 Fantasy is weird about that. Everyone is a ditto I guess.
@@Meanlucario depends on wich lore, if I remember correctly, many combinations were impossible or outright biologically negative like Dwarfs and Elves during 3.5 and the true Dittos would be Humans and Changelings (and Dragons, but we are talking about humanoids) I personally am okay with everyone being Ditto one way or the other because it brings funny combinations Pathfindee style like my Pixie with draconic herency
@@RositaDepre 3.5 was mostly Greyhawk, where Forgotten Realms isn't as restrictive if I remember correctly.
I think an easy solution would be like "elves are most often nimble and enchanting so they lean towards being dexterous and charismatic" so there's encouraged stats cor those who want it or need direction but it is not forced so others can change them to fit their individual characters
Glad your finally talking about this. The half elf ban was ridiculous. No WotC/Hasbro, just because the half elves in-universe face a lot of prejudice (at least in the official settings) does not mean that the LITERAL RACE ITSELF is offensive and needs to go. DnD races DO NOT equal real life "races", aka ethnicity. They're more like different species, albeit species that are all sentient humanoids that are fully biologically compatible with one another. It would be like if in real life black people weren't allow to publicly exist just because SOME people are racist.
The whole thing with Orcs is silly too. JRR Tolkien, who invented Orcs, based them off rowdy football (soccer) fans in the UK and exadurated/parodied all their worst traits to create the monster known as orcs. The whole "orcs are black people" thing started as a 4chan troll campaign/psy-op that people on the far left started to take actually seriously similar to the "shave for BLM" hoax. Orcs arent people, they're mindless monsters and were always intended as such and were originally intended to be parodies of football fanboys, not black people. JRR Tolkien was explicitly anti-racist, especially for his time.
Edit: Well I actually watched the video and what the heck? He didn't talk about the half elf and half orc ban? He didn't talk about WotC's asinine reasons for removing them from the game and making race irrelevant to builds by making all races the same? He didn't talk about the whole Orc contraversy? Bro, this video could have easily been 45 minutes with all the controversial race changes 5.5e is making, and no one but the idiotic culture warrior anti-SJW chud channels are talking about it so there's almost no rational takes on the whole situation from creators.
Half of the 5 minute video was just an ad for some map making company because some people are too lazy to design their own dungeons and settings. You didn't talk about ANY of the important bits. Just "species is better than race and removing racial bonuses is good because you can just choose the default bonuses if you want okay bye!" Okay, WHAT default bonuses? They aren't listed in the new PH so new players will have no idea what they are and balance accordingly. This video is awful and doesn't address any of the big issues with race, ahem, SPECIES, in 5.5e which are numerous. Just 3 minutes of slop where the first 2 are shilling a map company that no one with the slightest bit of creativity will ever find use in.
I agree with most of your wall except some things, prime among them being "orcs are mindless monsters and were always intended as such". That, I think, is HEAVILY setting dependent and while it might be true in Forgotten Realms with all the Gruumsh pull, I prefer Wesnoth or WoW style of orcs, them being neither mindless not dumb by necessity, but being very might-oriented and tribal in their decision-making.
@@Alche_mist She's talking about Tolkien orcs being mindless, not DnD orcs. I think.
@@AnotherDuck Maybe, but just recently, I got into an internet argument (as valuable as internet arguments are) with some old grognard yelling at cloud that "modern kids are destroying the hobby", specifically pointing out that orcs having free will is inconceivable and ruining everything.
Somehow, pointing out settings with less deific meddling, both official (e.g. Eberron, but most probably also Greyhawk) or time-honored tradition of homebrew and semi-official (Exandria, many personal worlds) made them not continue 😀the argument.
The funny part is in their playtest, WoTC could use make it less divisive and uses "lifeform & lineages" instead of "species & lineages", since a lifeform is just a kind of organism, and organism can cover anything that behaves like a living thing. So you have "synthetic lifeform" that covers warforged and astrognomes, and "necromantic lifeform" for any undead. And lifeform covers both race and species. Personally I still prefer lineages and sub-lineages, since all lifeforms are part of a lineage, even warforged is still part of a design lineage.
Species is the correct term. Race is the subcategory of species. For example, we are all part of the human species, and whites, blacks, and Asians, for example are races of the human species.
So saying a tortle and a dwarf are different races, wouldn't make sense.
I will continue to use races over species for no other reason than force of habit (totally down for ability score increases being tied to backgrounds though).
Never thought "races" made sense in the first place. "Species" is much more descriptive.
I think the biggest split will be people who are focused heavily on saying either species or race and those who don’t care and will use either word interchangeably.
I’ve been playing DnD over 30 years and I still use terms from older sets. Though I’m glad that the modern mechanics changes got rid of stuff like THAC0 and BB/LG
This change is weird and clearly politically motivated, the same way that MTG decided to change "tribe" to "kindred"
The way I see it is: Species is your general classification, race is your specific classification within the general one. Example. Species: Elf, Race, wood elf.
I like DC20's idea of a prime stat. It fixes the whole race ability score mod issue, and makes players free to roleplay and specialize into noncombat oriented roles.
Also with Ancestries being the term, being significant since Level 1 without attribute increases (only Human has attribute increase accessible) and developing with character levels.
As a biologist, i alsways wondered about the term Race and wanted to use Species all along.
But yes, i think the different species should have specific stat bonuses. always. that doesnt stop you from creating it unique. you could still make a strong elf, or anything that is basically out of the ordinary. but even a fat elf will be more dexterious than a same fat human. and a weak minotaur will still be stonger than a weak a human. that doesnt stop you from making a minotaur that never worked out, has no muscles and is afraid of combat and therefore became a wizard or long range fighter or something.
I dislike species over race because of the obviousness of Hasbro and Wizard's trying to not be "racist," I just think that it's stupid because it is a fantasy setting along with (to me at least) coming off as more racist that you think people might look at a race in DND and say "I think this represents [insert ethnic background]!", and because of a taxonomical reason. In the context of how we use race in humanity, it is very similar to subspecies, with subspecies, and races, it is still the same animal, just slightly different, and so can still have fertile children together. Changing it to race now means unless humans and elves are very very close on the evolution tree, they would have infertile children, or no children, same with half orcs, and any other half-race in DND.
It kinda sounds the difference between eating beef or cattle for dinner. Same thing with a translation/cultural glitch.
Gameplay was not the inspiration for these changes. Quite dishonest.
One thing I do want to mention is that ability scores increases during creation are tied to background rather than species which I understand the logic for but I feel like the idea of one’s background influencing such increases is how they distribute their ability scores in the first place.
As far as the increases go, I still believe that they should be tied to specified and can be distributed into whichever ability scores the player wants but there could be a passage that recommends certain increases if one wants to stay “lore accurate” to the archetype of that species.
Oh an when it comes to the race vs species argument, I’ve always preferred ancestry replacing “race” and lineage replacing “subrace”
In all my years as a DM, I've always said species and never allowed mixed species
I think this change away from species-specific ability scores is great. Just the day before yesterday, I played as a minotaur bard (admittedly it was a College of Swords Bard) with extra high dexterity and Charisma scores. I used 5eTools to create that character and the Mordekainen’s-Mosters-of-the-Multiverse-Version of the Race has free distribution of ability scores. I think it’s cool being able to subvert expectations and play unintuitive characters. This makes for cool role play.
I like that stripping identity means being inclusive now
In my games, I keep the +2 racial bonus, but the +1 is flexible. If it's a post-tasha race, they instead get three +1s.
My biggest problem with moving the stat bonuses is how it shifted the meta. Like, if you can make any race do anything you want, Satyrs and Yuan-ti are immediately the best races. Some, like Wood Elves, don't offer enough in their features to be ever worth a choice.
I think the floating +1 let's you have a bit of flexibility while keeping the original flavor.
That's why they are making the species abilities stronger and matter more. I personally like that decision, especially now that dwarves have tremorsense, or all elves get spells
@@raphaelzakhm7310 But that'll just move the goalposts. "Oh why should my Elf get spells, they're a barbarian from a magic hating society, why can't I just pick any ability to represent my life?"
I can already see it happening, because it's literally the same argument.
I like the original bonus rules better. Like, if I want to play a goliath wizard, he'll be naturally strong, but the strength wouldn't be defining. I could just give one of my lower ability scores to strength, and with the bonus, he'll end up reasonably strong anyways, but my highest ability score would still go into intelligence. Because of this, among other goliaths, he's weak but he's very smart, but among other species altogether, he's considered strong and, while there are definitely smarter people, he'd be considered smart, too. I think that this is a great example of a character's race or species adding something besides appearance and maybe backstory to the character, and it actually makes a mechanical difference because of his goliath genetics.
I'm in Camp Inclusivity. There are sometimes where I wanted something specifc, but couldn't. For example, I wanted a rogue who is not good with people at all, and while a half-elf rogue interested me, due to the rogue not really fitting in, unless I got a low enough roll for rolling stats (my least favourite stat generation method), I would at least have to accept a score of 10. If it can change, I can make a half-elf without charisma.
just roleplay them as not being a people person? stats are not everything
Is it just me who feels like species feels more... degrading than race? Like in old movies when they say stuff like "women are a whole different species" like idk it feels more like an insult than anything else does. Its a way to separate other people from you in a more defininitive way than race does
You're not wrong, WOTC doesn't realize that.
I mean... if you want some races to be special and or more specialised... just give them bonus traits but -2 in a stat. Or hell, even -4. Just have them lean more into their special traits that might block out one or 2 classes like strength themed classes for tiny races. It doesn't stop people from trying to make it work but it becomes very suboptimal to do that one specific thing. This allows for more interesting races too as very few have clear drawback in exchange for power as far as I know.
How Ive been seeing it is Species is a good official term for the books in stuff but in universe people would likely still use race. This kinda thing does happen irl, in the United States at least. My mom is a Chinese Malaysian, her family on both sides are from China. When people ask I say "I'm Chinese" even though I should say "My ethnicity is chinese" or something along those lines. Maybe its a cultural thing but it is at least present in our world
my biggest gripe about the change is jocat's race song won't flow off the tongue as well now that race is species. oh the humanity
I don't like "species", but I don't like "race" either.
In biology, "races are distinct populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences" (the differences between them are pretty significant).
A biological species is "a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring". For example, if half-elves are fertile (which I'd assume they are), then humans and elves are not from different species.
I think the best choice is probably something Pathfinder already figured out, and that's "ancestry" ("the origin or genetic line of descent of one individual or family"). If two individuals have the same ancestry, then they must have had a common ancestor at some point in the past (and that describes more accurately where the separation between them is).
I've Said To People That "Race" Is Far Easier To Use/Write With, So For A Game It Makes The Most Sense, But Technically The Actual Word That Would Be More Accurate Was "Species", However, I Would NEVER Change It To That. Its Not Smart, Easier, Or Makes The Game Better By Any Stretch Of The Imagination, And As Such Shouldn't Be Used/Done In The "Core" Game.
If Others Wanna House Rule It For Themselves, Like Literally Everything Else Spoken Here, Or Not Since That's How D&D Works, Then Go For It, But In Core 5E Itself? Nah Fam, I'm Not Down For That. If People Don't Like The Core Race Stats, Just House Rule An Option To Fulfill What You Need, But TBH I Like The Idea Of Getting Bonuses From Other Sources Too, So Don't Get Me Completely Wrong Here. I Would Like ALL The Choices To Effectively Play A Part, Race, Background, Class, All Of It Should Alter Your Stats IMO. Cuz Your "Natural" Biology Gives You An Edge In Certain Areas, Your Background, Essentially Where You Came From/What You Did Before Becoming A Player Would Give You Some More Advantages, And Finally The Specific Class You Are, What You "Trained" To Become (Effectively Adding/Altering Yourself By Choice Here), Should All Matter/Add To Your Character Stat Wise. Would This Be Feasible? Probably Not. I Am Personally Trying To Figure Out How, For My Own Purposes, But Haven't Figured That All Out Yet. At Least For The Time I've Put Into It, So Far Anyway.
It Is Also, IMO At Least, A Change Only Being Done, Because WotC Is Politically Charged In A Certain Direction, Acting Like Everyone Is/Will Be Offended By What Would Be The Equivelent Of Getting Hit By A Foam Dart (Like Old Weak As Nerf Toys Type Stuff Y'Know?).
Ultimately, I See No Improvement In The Game With This Change, Just A Longer Word To Say, Along With Altered Writing Language (To Make Sense Of Shit When Read), And That I'd Personally Rather All Aspects Effect Your Final Character (If We Are Gonna Change It Anyway), That's It. That's My Thoughts Boiled Down.
In my opinion, both sides of the racial stat debate are wrong. One side can seriously limit to create cool chatacters and the other can majorly damage the uniqueness of each species. Instead, each one should have "Recommended Ability Increases" that you are allowed to change however you like. That way, you can make whatever character you want that fits with the backstory you wrote while still getting a good baseline for what the average individual of a race/species is like.
I think there's a similar issue with wotc just deciding to not put alignments on monsters in some of the later books in 5e. I get that they want to make it more open for the dm to do what they want with the monster, but sometimes I can't tell what exactky the creator was going for without alignment included. My favorite example is the gallows speaker from Van Richten's guide. I have no clue what the designers intended. Is it a vengeful amalgam of spirits that kill without mercy because of trauma from their deaths. Do they just babble incoherent without any ill will towards the living? I have no idea. Might be evil. Might be good. They never bothered to mention it having conflict with anyone so who know. This wouldn't be an issue if the just said it was evil. I'd assume it attacked pretty often. Or if it was neutral I could assume it needs to be provoked into a fight.
At a certain point, it just seems like they're taking away information but acting like they're doing you a favor by "giving more freedom".