D&D (2024) D&D species article

[Chaosmancer]

*from the playtest

35' walking speed and get big is the base.
Subspecies gives you another thing proficiency times a day, based on a giant
Cloud teleports
Fire adds fire damage.
Hill knocks prone
Storm is reaction damage.

Keep in mind, species are a bit weaker than before, as background got a half-feat.

Two things you missed.

Stone giant still gets the d12 reduction
Powerful Build includes advantage to break free of grapples.
The increase to large size also increases their movement speed by 10 ft, giving them a temp 45 ft and advantage on strength checks (but not saves)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Definitely feels like it's part of the "minimizing species impact" angle. Can't even let characters move at different speeds, unless it's a class thing.

The real problem was slightly more complex than that.

Goblins and Kobolds.

See, if you look at just the small races you would notice something. Outside of halfling, gnome and dwarf ZERO of the small species had a 25 movement speed.

Goblin? 30
Kobold? 30
Autognome? 30
Owlin? 30
Fairy? 30

And then you had a bunch of options that could be small or medium, like Dhampir that had 35, Genasi, Harengon, Hexblood, Kenku, Changeling, Tabaxi, Tortle, Plasmoid.

So, it was a unique penalty, only applying to halflings, gnomes, dwarves, and Aarcrockra (only in Elemental Evil) and no one else. And the thing is.... none of those species were powerful enough to justify the penalty.

So, it isn't even minimizing the species impact, because in fact by the year 2022 the MAJORITY of small species were moving at 30 ft. Heck, if you pull out your 2014 Monster Manual and look for small monsters, out of the 30 small monsters in the book, only 7 had a speed lower than 30ft, the dretch, the mane, the twig blight, the awakened shrub, the myconid sprout, the deep gnome, and the mud mephit. 17 of them had a speed of 30 and 6 had a speed higher than 30ft.

 

[mellored]

Two things you missed.

Stone giant still gets the d12 reduction
Powerful Build includes advantage to break free of grapples.
The increase to large size also increases their movement speed by 10 ft, giving them a temp 45 ft and advantage on strength checks (but not saves)

There is also a frost giant...
Forgot what that one did.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Honestly, I am getting frustrated with this community. We seem to latch onto narratives and just run with them despite the evidence.

No, they are not turning everything into spells. They made sure the elf design matched the elf design, and gave the Rock Gnomes spells, to match with the Forest and Deep gnomes. The Forest Gnome speak with animals is actually a boon as I have shown multiple times. Meanwhile, tremorsense isn't a spell, gaining inspiration every day isn't a spell, Adrenaline rush isn't a spell.

Are they anti-complexity? Not really. DnD is still a pretty complex system, and despite what you may think "Elves get +2 charisma, +1 Wisdom, +3 Dexterity, -2 Strength, -3 constitution" isn't complex. It is just basic 2nd grade math, and that fight is over. You are free to use those things at your table, but the game no longer does ASI's that way. We haven't for years.

We haven't done that for years.... and species STILL MATTER at our tables, they STILL have an impact on game play. Playing an Elf still feels completely different than playing a Reborn still feels completely different than playing a dwarf. Playing these things at the table feels EXACTLY THE SAME as it always did. Because those differences in base line numbers never actually felt impactful at the table, because we just built our characters to emphasize them. Anyone attempting to do anything with dexterity picked species with dexterity bonuses, so they never felt unusually dexterous. And again, this entire conversation about racial ASI's is over. It was over years ago. We are not going to go back in the larger DnD community.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is also a frost giant...
Forgot what that one did.

takes a look

d6 cold damage and reduce enemy speed by 10 ft

 

[Micah Sweet]

ok, but that kinda is the same thing, if everyone never wants to be worse, then all options have to be equal

It's the attitude. They're not thinking about everyone, or each other, or the game. They're thinking about themselves IMO.

 

[CreamCloud0]

And I don't even think the community even wants there be no difference between small and medium creatures.

my personal take on it would be i'd be glad for creatures of different sizes to have different strengths and weaknesses, but at the same time that more of less shouldn't cut any of them off from performing any given role, even if they have to take different paths to get there.

so maybe, entirely as example, small creatures only get 20ft movement, but they can dash as a bonus action, it's a distinction that provides a different playstyle option without being strictly stronger or weaker than the flat 30ft for medium creatures.
they can't use the strong heavy weapons, but maybe they get an extra +1AC from armour and shields, or some special way to use light weapons.

let there be give and take.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Those are all the classes and subclasses to whom the weapon and armor profs are useless either in part or in whole. So, out of 48 subclasses, that would represent... about 38 of them? So those abilities I called "niche" would have been mostly useless for about 80% of characters.

Assuming all options are equally popular or equally used by all players. Is that an assumption we're making now? I famously don't even care about popularity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Big things are not better at jumping
Big things are not better at climbing
And if you want to argue swimming, I'd suggest you look up what a swimmer's build means. They don't look like body builders.



No physical mechanical differences.... except if you shot both of them in the head with a crossbow bolt, one of them would stand back up and commence trying to break your arms, and if you tried to run, they would have an immense burst of speed and still be able to break your arms.

But yeah, absolutely no possible differences in their physicality here.

You can't shoot people in the head in most versions of D&D. You can only shoot them in the hit points.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The real problem was slightly more complex than that.

Goblins and Kobolds.

See, if you look at just the small races you would notice something. Outside of halfling, gnome and dwarf ZERO of the small species had a 25 movement speed.

Goblin? 30
Kobold? 30
Autognome? 30
Owlin? 30
Fairy? 30

And then you had a bunch of options that could be small or medium, like Dhampir that had 35, Genasi, Harengon, Hexblood, Kenku, Changeling, Tabaxi, Tortle, Plasmoid.

So, it was a unique penalty, only applying to halflings, gnomes, dwarves, and Aarcrockra (only in Elemental Evil) and no one else. And the thing is.... none of those species were powerful enough to justify the penalty.

So, it isn't even minimizing the species impact, because in fact by the year 2022 the MAJORITY of small species were moving at 30 ft. Heck, if you pull out your 2014 Monster Manual and look for small monsters, out of the 30 small monsters in the book, only 7 had a speed lower than 30ft, the dretch, the mane, the twig blight, the awakened shrub, the myconid sprout, the deep gnome, and the mud mephit. 17 of them had a speed of 30 and 6 had a speed higher than 30ft.

I'd rather mod all the other small races down to 25. Slower with shorter legs make more logical sense to me.