D&D (2024) The 10 Species in "Your Ideal 2024 PHB"

[Horwath]

For some of us, the idea of the Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi being made into templates that we could then slap onto a Material Plane species would have been cool. For others though, we would miss having these planetouched races being their own thing despite their physical similarities to the Material Plane species in our playing sessions.

As for my earlier posting about returning the Eladrin to their original Celestial roots, I am okay with how they are now presented in 5e. I just wish that WoTC had come up with a new group of CG Celestials to replace them with for 5e. Did anyone homebrew up a replacement?

this.

1st level "heritage" feats to become:
Aasimar,
Tiefling,
Dragonborn,
Warforged,
Shifter,
Genasi,
Dhampir,

you can only have one heritage feat(maybe 2 as human), at can normally be taken only as 1st level feat.

Possible story rewards could be granting those feats later on.

I.E:
you perform big quest for your deity and you are granted "ascension" as Aasimar.

or Red wizards of Thay decided to turn you into their slave-guardian as Warforged and you escaped.

or weak lycan bit you, but instead of turning to fullblood lycan, you are now shifter intead.

 

[DragonLancer]

1. Human.
2. Dwarf.
3. Elf.
4. Half-Elf.
5. Halfling.
6. Gnome.
7. Half-Orc.
8. Aasimar.
9. Tiefling.
10. Tabaxi / Catfolk.

I prefer the classics.

 

[Corinnguard]

this.

1st level "heritage" feats to become:
Aasimar,
Tiefling,
Dragonborn,
Warforged,
Shifter,
Genasi,
Dhampir,

you can only have one heritage feat(maybe 2 as human), at can normally be taken only as 1st level feat.

Possible story rewards could be granting those feats later on.

I.E:
you perform big quest for your deity and you are granted "ascension" as Aasimar.

or Red wizards of Thay decided to turn you into their slave-guardian as Warforged and you escaped.

or weak lycan bit you, but instead of turning to fullblood lycan, you are now shifter intead.

With the Dragonborn, are you looking back at their 3e version from Races of the Dragon? That version's three paths (Path of the Heart, Path of the Mind and Path of the Wing) reminded me of the Dragonborn gifts in Level Up just now.

As for the Aasimar, Tiefling and Elementarii* in Level Up, they're already like PF2's versatile heritages in that they are heritage gifts (which are like 1st-level feats) for the Planetouched heritage. Using Level Up's rules on Mixed heritages, you can take Elf as your primary heritage and then simply take the Aasimar gift, the Tiefling gift or the Elementarii gift. Thus you can be an Elven Aasimar in Level Up.

There is also a Constructed Heritage in Level Up too btw. The Mixed heritage rules would allow you to create a Half-Construct.

*The name needs work. What about Jinnasi?

 

[Aldarc]

My concern is that a "planetouched" species removes the aesthetics and story of the options they are replacing and only leaves them as mechanics. The species are all too similar to begin with, making them all one blanket species further dilute them. I want more lore and more diverse abilities, not less.

On the other hand, having so many separate races also dilutes the aesthetics and story of each, particularly when there is overlap between them or as you say "are all too similar to begin with." This is a persistent problem that gnomes, for example, have faced, as many in frequent threads on the subject here say that they are stuck between the elf, the dwarf, and the halfling. Sometimes condensing races makes for a stronger story for each.

Sometimes combining races helps create greater diversity. For example, would it not be possible for a more generic Planetouched to be part Aasimar and Tiefling or even something outside of the simple spectrum of Good Upper Plane and Evil Lower Planes? With a planetouched, you can potentially lean even harder into the queerness that the LGBTQ community loves about tieflings.

I agree - Elf

Even though they are not a D&D ancestry, I actually had them partially in mind when I talked about the fifty-shades of elf or even elemental-themed elves.

I would rather have more species options by putting all of the abilities into a single DMG section, similar to the PHB section on feats, with lots more options than we currently have. And then, with your DM and maybe the whole group, build your own species. And then go nuts with aesthetics as a separate process -- seemingly every table has a player who clearly yearns to go write 5,000 words about what song elves, or whatever, are like.

Because, yeah, fire genasi are mechanically a lot like 2014 tieflings. But in play, they're quite a bit different.

So support both sides of that equation: Add more mechanical bits for groups to build their perfect versions of genasi (Are they jinn descendants? Humans who were changed by exposure to fire magic? A servitor race of elementals who broke free of their masters?) and normalize, in the PHB, lots of glorious lore and color about the premade species.

I will give DC20 more credit for doing something like this. Ancestries have list of abilities with point values associated with them, and you spend 5 points on your ancestry. These things are both innate but also cultural. You can pick up to two ancestries. You get additional ancestry points at later levels. Likewise, PF2 just makes it all feats and includes ancestry feats as part of leveling up. Likewise, Threefold - game for Modern AGE - says to pick two abilities from a list associated with your ancestry.

If you'll hunt back for my list, I didn't even include gnomes or halflings on my list. Would not break my heart at all to see them out of the PHB.

Tieflings, OTOH, do share a LOT with other planar species. Like I said, there's so little difference between fire genasi and tiefling that I've seen players be honestly confused as to which is which.

But, I do think you're conflating a couple of things. Mechanics =/= aesthetics. They have virtually nothing to do with each other. And, I don't want fifteen different variations of the same sort of thing (here we have a dog headed humanoid, there we have a cat headed on, over there we have a racoon head) spread across a bunch of books.

I'd much rather have broader options and let the players bring the lore and flavor to the table than have to buy three or four different books just to get the options out there, most of whom will never see the light of day. So, yeah, I'd much, much rather have broad "template" style races in the PHB which cover pretty much all the bases than individualized, tight packages where you have to hunt through a bunch of different sources.

Put it another way. Do we really need grung, grippli AND bullywugs as PC races?

This doesn't even touch on the new goliaths, who now have subtypes modeled after giants, who - let me check - are likewise elemental themed. So there may be fiery Infernal Tieflings, Fire Genasi, and Fire Giant Goliaths.

The Half Elves get a extra skills and languages to represent their natural diplomat or wanderer flavor. The half orcs had mightier melee crits. They also qualified for exclusive feats and magic items. It's a shame WOTC and many DMs don't expand the options of their species more. Species exclusive gear and options tailord to the species was often beloved by players and DMs.

The Half Elf in modern D&D is the diplomat and skill monkey species. It's not a major niche but if I had 12 slots, I would be a major one to fill.

If half-elves are in the game, they should be represented as being more than the sum of their parts or just the lesser traits of the elves.

 

[Corinnguard]

Sometimes combining races helps create greater diversity. For example, would it not be possible for a more generic Planetouched to be part Aasimar and Tiefling or even something outside of the simple spectrum of Good Upper Plane and Evil Lower Planes? With a planetouched, you can potentially lean even harder into the queerness that the LGBTQ community loves about tieflings.

The new PF2 Core PHB has combined the Aasimar and the Tiefling into the new Nephilim versatile heritage. Their appearance varies greatly with some looking angelic, some looking fiendish and others having both angelic and fiendish features. These features are dependent on which Lineage feat you take as a Nephilim character.

 

[Remathilis]

2024 D&D could have borrowed the PF2's idea of versatile heritages. Had they done so, we would be looking at High Elf Aasimars, Lightfoot Halfling Tieflings and Mountain Dwarf Earth Genasi in 2024 D&D. For some of us, the idea of the Aasimar, Tiefling and Genasi being made into templates that we could then slap onto a Material Plane species would have been cool. For others though, we would miss having these planetouched races being their own thing despite their physical similarities to the Material Plane species in our playing sessions.

As for my earlier posting about returning the Eladrin to their original Celestial roots, I am okay with how they are now presented in 5e. I just wish that WoTC had come up with a new group of CG Celestials to replace them with for 5e. Did anyone homebrew up a replacement?

I would have preferred Van Richten lineages which replace your old features with the lineage ones except for size, skills and locomotion. It keeps the rules clear without adding a new optimization route. Your dwarven dhampir is essentially a dhampir except they have a 25 ft movement speed and proficiency in hammers. They could have gone that route with planar species as well.

 

[Horwath]

I would have preferred Van Richten lineages which replace your old features with the lineage ones except for size, skills and locomotion. It keeps the rules clear without adding a new optimization route. Your dwarven dhampir is essentially a dhampir except they have a 25 ft movement speed and proficiency in hammers. They could have gone that route with planar species as well.

what is wrong in pasting dhampir's traits on top of base humanoid for a cost?

 

[Hussar]

The Half Elves get a extra skills and languages to represent their natural diplomat or wanderer flavor. The half orcs had mightier melee crits. They also qualified for exclusive feats and magic items. It's a shame WOTC and many DMs don't expand the options of their species more. Species exclusive gear and options tailord to the species was often beloved by players and DMs.

The Half Elf in modern D&D is the diplomat and skill monkey species. It's not a major niche but if I had 12 slots, I would be a major one to fill.

Meh. The difference between having six or seven skills is so minor that no one really notices. Can you actually tell me how many trained skills any of the other players have at your table? I can't. No idea. And considering languages are a downtime away from getting, again, who cares? Most characters get two or three languages anyway. Your half elf having four isn't a big enough difference to matter.

 

[Aldarc]

Meh. The difference between having six or seven skills is so minor that no one really notices. Can you actually tell me how many trained skills any of the other players have at your table? I can't. No idea. And considering languages are a downtime away from getting, again, who cares? Most characters get two or three languages anyway. Your half elf having four isn't a big enough difference to matter.

There are several other threads talking about half-elves already. Would you mind moving your half-elf hating to one of those other threads, please?

 

[Remathilis]

what is wrong in pasting dhampir's traits on top of base humanoid for a cost?

Because then it becomes an exercise in finding the most synergistic combos with the least amount of penalty. Penalties rarely work; players either figure ways around them or they are so heavy that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I'd rather replace the features with the lineage features because that's clean, elegant and balanced. Multi classing breaks the system enough, I don't want multi racing added on.