D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Maxperson]

And NONE of you answered my two hypotheticals: what do you do with a Turani/Shou and a Drow/High elf using the current system? The reason is because you can't do anything except "pick a set of stats, and flavor in the other parent." Culture in D&D has no rules, so showing Turani and Shou heritage is 100% flavor text and description. The high/drow elf still must choose if they are getting a wizard cantrip or 120 ft darkvision. The problem has ALWAYS existed, but because they removed two redundant half-races, people are crying about it.

Turani/Shou are both human and have identical mechanics. The differences will be purely cosmetic and the player can figure those out. The Drow/High Elf doesn't fit into the same mold, but if allow some traits to be chosen from each side it should all work out.

The Drow/High Elf thing is just a distraction, though. The existence of a difficult mix doesn't mean that the ones that are easy shouldn't be made.

 

[Maxperson]

What are you cutting from the DMG to fit it in?

Please let it be the adventuring day.

 

[Clint_L]

And that's all ignoring the fact that WotC evidently finds the very existence of mixed species people to be 'problematic'.

Citation needed.

[checks UA]

Nope, apparently you can now choose any mix of species you like for your character, not just the two from Tolkien.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Citation needed.

[checks UA]

Nope, apparently you can now choose any mix of species you like for your character, not just the two from Tolkien.

They've literally gone in and retconned out existing half-orc and half-elven characters from newer published content.

 

[Yaarel]

Here are stats for a "Half-Elf" for 5e 2024.

HUMAN-ELF TRAITS
Creature Type: Humanoid, Fey Ancestry
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Lifespan: adult about 20, living 400 years on average
Languages: Common, Elven, a language of your choice.
Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a long rest.
Versatile. You gain the Skilled feat, or an other background feat of your choice.

If seeking elven magic, use Versatile to gain the Magic Initiate feat.

(Instead of Darkvision or Resourceful: Trance and Charm save advantage.)

Work with the DM to create a custom background for your character concept. But Wayfarer, Entertainer, Merchant, and Noble, and can work for a sense of people skills and between two worlds.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Honestly it's not just orcs, it's just that orcs are the most obviously effected.

All the species seem to be more visually human in the art.

it is a question of how do you remove the human without making them too monstrous to fill their role, elves are to be a fantasy, dwarves are endurance, orcs are brutality and so on.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

it is a question of how do you remove the human without making them too monstrous to fill their role, elves are to be a fantasy, dwarves are endurance, orcs are brutality and so on.

I mean why does something need to look 'human' to be playable?

Nothing preventing monstrous looking orcs from still being morally good.

 

[Remathilis]

Turani/Shou are both human and have identical mechanics. The differences will be purely cosmetic and the player can figure those out. The Drow/High Elf doesn't fit into the same mold, but if allow some traits to be chosen from each side it should all work out.

The Drow/High Elf thing is just a distraction, though. The existence of a difficult mix doesn't mean that the ones that are easy shouldn't be made.

The Turani/Shou is literally the same of @Mistwell 's Korean/African example. Human heritage in 5e has no mechanical representation. Any attempt to represent such a blending is 100% RP. And we're fine with that because we wouldn't DARE give human heritages any mechanical standing. It shows that we as players tolerate the concept of mixed ancestry being only aesthetic as long as there are no mechanical elements attached.

The high/Drow example shows a much better example. They are both elves and there should be no logical reason they can't interbreed. But the two types have mechanical differences. They are 75% the same traits, but the question comes on how you represent that remaining 25%.

You could have the PC pick one subtype and flavor the other in, but that's no different than the current mixing rule people are railing against. If that works for high/drow elf, it should work for human/elf. If you argue there should be a mechanical representation of that blending, I ask how. Player picks which spells/features? Do you create a "new" subtype that represents that? There are no rules for that, so you're at the mercy of what you DM allows, which can be "customized stats" to "not allowed." I don't even know if a system like Level Up is granular enough to represent a high/drow mix. And you'd think that would be easier since they literally share the majority of the same traits! But the devil is in the details.

Suffiice to say that if "pick an elf, re flavor it to half-elf/human" is bad and possibly offensive because it reduces the effect of the second parent to only aesthetics, then the Turani/Shou should be similarly bad (both parents are only aesthetics) and the high/drow elf as bad. And we let both of these corner cases ride because nobody cared until they removed half-bteed races from the game.

Which brings me to the only solutions. You either completely redesign the species system with an eye towards intermixing traits, most likely though a customization system (which, knowing most players, means pure blood species will never be used. Look at how the fixed backgrounds are already being rejected for customized ones. You really think a species mixing system isn't going to be similarly used to pick all the best traits?) or you make it purely aesthetic and just pick one set of stats.

Or I guess you decide all species and subspecies are infertile. But that seems particularly bleak, despite the fact that was the norm until just recently.

 

[Micah Sweet]

it is a question of how do you remove the human without making them too monstrous to fill their role, elves are to be a fantasy, dwarves are endurance, orcs are brutality and so on.

It didn't seem all that difficult to do for the last fifty years. Why are they having trouble now?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Turani/Shou is literally the same of @Mistwell 's Korean/African example. Human heritage in 5e has no mechanical representation. Any attempt to represent such a blending is 100% RP. And we're fine with that because we wouldn't DARE give human heritages any mechanical standing. It shows that we as players tolerate the concept of mixed ancestry being only aesthetic as long as there are no mechanical elements attached.

The high/Drow example shows a much better example. They are both elves and there should be no logical reason they can't interbreed. But the two types have mechanical differences. They are 75% the same traits, but the question comes on how you represent that remaining 25%.

You could have the PC pick one subtype and flavor the other in, but that's no different than the current mixing rule people are railing against. If that works for high/drow elf, it should work for human/elf. If you argue there should be a mechanical representation of that blending, I ask how. Player picks which spells/features? Do you create a "new" subtype that represents that? There are no rules for that, so you're at the mercy of what you DM allows, which can be "customized stats" to "not allowed." I don't even know if a system like Level Up is granular enough to represent a high/drow mix. And you'd think that would be easier since they literally share the majority of the same traits! But the devil is in the details.

Suffiice to say that if "pick an elf, re flavor it to half-elf/human" is bad and possibly offensive because it reduces the effect of the second parent to only aesthetics, then the Turani/Shou should be similarly bad (both parents are only aesthetics) and the high/drow elf as bad. And we let both of these corner cases ride because nobody cared until they removed half-bteed races from the game.

Which brings me to the only solutions. You either completely redesign the species system with an eye towards intermixing traits, most likely though a customization system (which, knowing most players, means pure blood species will never be used. Look at how the fixed backgrounds are already being rejected for customized ones. You really think a species mixing system isn't going to be similarly used to pick all the best traits?) or you make it purely aesthetic and just pick one set of stats.

Or I guess you decide all species and subspecies are infertile. But that seems particularly bleak, despite the fact that was the norm until just recently.

As has been said, Level Up uses a mix and match system to represent this kind of character. I've played and ran several A5e games, and as yet no one has used the mixed heritage rules. So in my experience having such doesn't lead inevitably to min-maxing in this area.