Ursinal was my favorite before 5e, I miss my librarians in the woods. Also, a possible house rule for Aasimar is that wings are always visible but can only fly for a minute. Thoughts?
funny thing about the dragonborn origin thing: Bahamut is "known" to travel the mortal world in a human shape, a Wizard known as Fizban the Fabulous. So I would argue that "A wizard did it" and "they were created by the dragon gods" are not mutually exclusive statements.
@@dracospawncs Dragonborn’s being made up instead of adding kobolds with the goblins as a PC race bugs me. Dragon born are so so uninspired and just… god it’s just wizards made generic dragon ppl cuz me be lizard… THATS A KOBOLD besides being uninteresting
I'm not sure why they went with such a modern concept such as cowboys for orcs. I guess it's because other historical nomadic people are pretty much what orcs already were: Nomadic Raiders who often leave destruction in their wake. Even cowboys were known for their lawlessness and rustling. I've always wrote that the evils of orcs are more of a cultural thing than racial, The Vikings and Mongols weren't evil people, their cultures just had different morals
That's just one example of a cultural aesthetic that's available to all the species. And they fit pretty perfectly in the Outlands setting, and that's been a part of D&D for decades.
Culture can be evil. The things that the Vikings and Mongols did, if I gave you a history lesson, my comment would be instantly deleted. Do not pretend that their acts were innocently committed.
@@penguinlordalan to me they aren’t a race really. It’s a humanoid monster. Humanoid does not mean “human or has “humanity” “. Take lizardmen; They are literally incapable of being moral they neutral like an animal. They are not wired for it and are literally biologically incapable of empathy. Orcs are unempathethic rage monsters that… idk what they want from ppl to eat them and their stuff? Thats why you could only play a half orc before
@@jacobnavarro3675I’m not going playing 4E or anything remotely similar but I’ve been dying to know… what are the defining qualities of the new orcs?? If it’s just jaja we travel…. Sorry that’s pathetic. A half orc wrestling with his monster half is way more Interesting than this… my interpretation is you couldn’t play orcs before cuz they aren’t a “race” they are monsters like an ogre or gnoll… like why aren’t we upset about gnolls? Humanoid is just a reference to body structure
@@monk3110 Since you mention it, it's kind of funny, you could play a Gnoll in 4e by RAW. They were an official race in that version. And that's not all that different from half orcs in 5e. With both, the option is there for the player to use that duality of conflict between the "monster" and the "person." IMO, it's one of the most interesting things about picking that race for your character. But a creative player could definitely make a character out of a half orc without such issues and have it be just as interesting.
I like the idea of humans as this indomitable spirit that lives on regardless of the conditions Vs these highly specialised species that are better at surviving in their specific environment, but struggle anywhere else. Take a dwarf out of a cave and their highly specialised adaptations suddenly don't work anymore. Put a human in a cave and they're already building a pickaxe and figuring out how to survive off of fungi that don't need light.
@@bye1551then put the same human on a random island with no caves, and he will still survive I always thought that this is why humans are always the dominant specie in fantasy. They can survive anywhere they want with ease I
@@bye1551 "humans are op cause they can get a feat at lvl 1" The thing is, with magic initiate they are just worse half elves or tieflings.. and now that everyone gets an extra feat the variant is useless (since anyone can get an OP feat which are often banned anyways) you cant compensate for the orcs endurance, you cant get resistances and you cant get darkvision so easily
@@piotrwisniewski70Also i guess their nature as chaotic and orderly beings, always trying out new things but also creating a system based on Observation and understanding That's how humans in seven deadly sins get so powerful, their highly randomised inherent powers can mean some really busted stuff, but they also train, mimic and absorb powers of other races
I’m just so baffled Wizards didn’t do the obvious choice of giving Aasimar 3 legacies that loosely parallel the Teiflings three new legacies. Re-enforcing the idea of the Aasimar being teiflings angelic mirror and stuff. Like one legacy could be your basic humanoid Angel with a pair vestigial wings and a halo etc, the other could incorporate those weird beastly elements some older celestials and aasimar had, and another could be based on biblically accurate angels with multiple eyes and extra vestigial wings. Somthing like that.
Would have worked well. Some of the good planes are nature theamed so animal Angels for those would work well. As for the wings give them wings but weak say only 10ft fly speed till higher level.
The beastly elements are easier to incorporate if you approach it from a different point of view. The Chinese Zodiac. I have a player in my campaign, you look at his character art and you think 'dog-folk reskin of Tabaxi?'. Nope, Aasimar based off of Xu Dog
I can kind of forgive that element because celestials are the only ones to have angels, and there's a general theme of greater unity among them. Their differences don't divide them as much as the fiends do.
@@kingsadvisor18that's genius actually. A lot of people immediately think angelic when they see celestial, but there's so mucb more to celestials rhan just angels.
@@PulsatingHyena Wizards didn't remove duergar, they simply didn't change them or make them a core race/subrace. If something isn't in the 2024 updated players handbook, that means you use the 2014 players handbook content or whatever special book it's from.
"They" are .-i-. *f* .-i-. .-i-. *u* .-i-. .-i-. *c* .-i-. .-i-. *k* .-i-. .-i-. *i* .-i-. .-i-. *n* .-i-. .-i-. *g* .-i-. morons who have nothing better to do than tilt at windmills.
I don't get why they don't go the Kid Icarus route for Aasimar, just give them wings but make them vestigial until they activate their celestial power like Pit does. Easy peasy.
@@guardiantree8879That's a great idea, like as long as you're not Incapacitated you automatically gain the effects of Feather Fall. If you don't want to buff them QUITE so hard, you could say they can actually cast Feather Fall without a spell slot once per day, like the tieflings with their spells. Or it's at-will, but still costs a reaction to enable, so an aasimar caster couldn't, for example, cast Counterspell mid-fall and still take no damage.
If I were in charge of creating the new Aasimar, I would've given Aasimar 3 subraces, giving one of those subraces wings that grow to their full potential at level 5. The lower levels could have effects like reducing fall damage, or maybe even a limited flight that works more like a jump. Flight is very strong, but at level 5 the DM has plenty of tools to still provide a challenge for flying characters.
As a certified elf enjoyer (TM), their cultures being so radically different to our own, largely because of lifespan, is a huge part of what makes them so intriguing. Living for a thousand years means when a tyrant arises amongst the humans, just wait. They'll just die out in relatively short order. Wood elves care infinitely more about the ecosystem because they're going to be there in it for 10 generations of humans. Elves stay aloof and have trouble creating emotional bonds because everyone they do bond with outside of their own race will die long before themselves (Frieren). Most people don't even know about the Drow that have abandoned Lolth in favor of her sister Eilistraee, pursuing peace, freedom, and beauty. The Lolthsworn Drow themselves are a fascinating society with tragic circumstances that can be an incredible breeding ground for character creation and growth. To strip all of that history away because it would be an awful reality is asinine, especially since if it bothers your table that much you can simply overwrite it yourself. That's the beauty of TTRPGs. You make the story.
i agree with you. I just wanted to note that human generations don't last 100 years. A real life human lives for multiple human generations. Really, a generation is more the time from birth to the point at which *most* of those people have reproduced (thus, the birth of a new generation). So, elves living for a thousand years are actually living something like 30-40 human generations. The amount of cultural shift that can occur in human societies over that time span. Elves must feel so... alienated amongst human societies. Like how real-world soldiers often times feel that they don't belong when they return home from war. But in this case due to time displacement of said culture rather than war trauma. I agree with you that Frieren does a great job depicting how such long lived creatures might struggle to participate in human societies.
Eilistraee is the daughter of Corellon Larethian and of Araushnee (Lolth). At the time of the Dark Elves banishment Eliistraee chose to go with them to give a nurturing and good deity to follow if any wished to.
the problem I have with what you said is that for anyone who is new to TTRPGs can't easily get assess to the lores of the older systems. Especially with WotC seemingly trying to get rid of it. And for folks like myself, who's creativity comes from looking at existing lore, being denied looking back into the past constricts and limits the ideas I can come up with.
One idea that's recently really taken root for me is to play with the post-fall-of-Rome inspired aspects of many "standard" fantasy worlds (forgotten/buried/ancient magic/tech/civilizations of great power, greater than today) and the livespans of elves (and their tendency to be portrayed as "in decline", whatever that means in-setting) in a post-apocalyptic way? A great calamity that for humans would be ancient history would affect elven culture and populations in a far more direct way still. The very common elven traits/weaknesses of a degree of unwillingness to act, relatively low numbers, being less powerful than they once were as well as isolation could extremely easily be justified as elves still effectively living in a post-apocalypse in terms of society and population numbers while humans have effectively rebuilt a long time ago. (This includes far more direct generational trauma. Elves being weird about certain kinds of magic and generally weirdly distant? Yea that's generational trauma, baby!) ...Which is not to say that I'm against adding other hard-ish tendencies, I just think that the potential of combining those two aspects alone is enough to make for some really interesting worldbuilding.
I've gotta be honest. They did orcs somewhat dirty. I don't entirely hate the change about them going nomadic, I think that can work for them, and I'm actually behind it. However, they seem to have thrown out the whole warrior culture vibe they typically have, even when they're just generic mooks, and that isn't cool. Not in the slightest. That is a part of what makes Orcs what they are to me. That's what makes them cool. I think they should've looked to Warcraft for inspiration, a spiritualistic folk that also prized strength, sometimes to a fault. That alone would've been plenty great enough, and combine them with being nomadic? Yeah, I can see that working really well, and that wouldn't upset too many people. Now, Cowboy Orc makes for a cool character. But as basically what the race is now? Yeah hard no. They took what was amongst my favourite races in fantasy, and my favourite to play and homebrew with in D&D, and made it something that just misses the mark entirely for me. Mechanically they might still work, but flavour? I am not even going to attempt to humour WotC on that one, they're just not Orcs to me. I hope that this isn't the case, but from what I've heard, that's probably how it is now. I remember seeing the artwork a month or two back too, and thought "that's seriously what Orcs are now?" Like I saw the image and just knew they were going to fuck up somehow. You can keep the brutish nature of Orcs and make great characters out of them. They did not need to go through a retcon that just turns them into something else entirely. And I am willing to bet actual money that they'll either never be played as WotC intended by a good sum of Orc enthusiasts, myself included, or they'll retcon it yet again and bring them back to being brutish barbarians yet again. WotC can do infinitely better with Orcs, honestly. At least Goliaths are cooler though. Although, one another note, I am confused on why Deep Gnomes aren't a lineage for Gnomes either. They're distinctive looking enough too. Where's the Deep Gnome? I want to play my old insane midget that wore a chest and steals eyebrows whilst screaming incoherent shite.
The funny thing is that if they really don't want all Orcs to be perceived as the same, they could just create multiple Orc culture options. There does not need to be a single society of a group; humans are not like that, so why should other species be? The nomadic peaceful Orcs could be one group of Orcs, and the classic brutish strength-obsessed Gruumsh worshipping Orcs could be another group of Orcs. Then Orcs can be played both ways easily.
WotC struggles to develop their own versions of Orcs, i agree with you that they should take inspiration elsewhere, the WoW thing is cool, Orcs being naturally a warrior culture with deep spiritual values being corrupted by the influence of a dark entity. The Elder Scrolls lore is cool too with the Orc being a cult of Elves that tried to pull some divine shit and got pretty much cursed for it. Tolkien's Orcs are elves straight up captured by Satan and turned into monsters through pain, corruption and darkness. Warhammer Orcs are the best, genetically strange passively reproducing monsters run by violent instincts and mob mentality, most likely created as tools of war by a long gone all powerful civilization to fight off the endless armies of the daemon lords. Take your pick, lookin at DnD they could make the Orcs the former fighters and custodians of a long gone deity that fell at the hand of a malevolent spirit thus taking away the guidance that shaped such hulking warriors into a civilized society, transforming them into purposeless tribes of nomadic warriors, some retaining a fragment of knowledge of their former divine mission and thus having tribes with highly praised honor codes and warrior ethics while other have degenerated into bands of absolute brutes, slavers and oppressors. That fallen deity could be corrupted or weakened, could be fragmented and guiding different tribes to different purpose, the evil deity could be a trickster and assume the role of it's victim, paladins could be channeling the spirit of their former deity, giving it strength through belief and worship and being given divine power in return. I mean there's endless cool inspirations out there, all the great settings are straight up inspired by others, why can't they pull that off correctly is beyond me.
Also in WoW the Warsong Clan is described as nomadic. So nomadic and Warrior Culture are not opposed to each other. Nomadic Lifestile and Warrior Culture do not oppose each other.
@@SweetTaleTeller True. But to be fair Nomadic also allow a broad spectrum of cultures. And Western Frontiers are the least somewhat culture I would have drawn from for it, since these are more settlers than Nomads with a functioning State supporting their effort. So for Nomadic one can drow from Sioux if you want something American, or from Huns, Seljuk or Mongols. Even Germanic tribes from the Migration Period work better than Cowboys. If you go with historical nomadic people there are plenty examples of them settleing down where they conquered and assimilate in the conquered people as the Ruling class. This would be an interesting Setting to play with I assume.
The downside to a change like letting every aasimar choose every transformation all the time is that, well, now every aasimar has the exact same abilities.
I...didnt even think about that but youre absolutely right. "So what aasimar are you?" "What do you mean?" Along with removing things like enslaver races (which sounds awful like this haha) it kinda feels like in the pursuit of trying to make things more available and customizable it lost exactly that and a lot of depth race and world wise.
@@thesaviorofsouls5210I think itd be better to think about it not as "removing enslaving races", but just changing the fact that it's no longer tied to race but culture instead Like you can still have orc raiding parties or underdark drow slavers, and those cultures are for sure evil, but you can also play an orc/drow/whatever without someone annoying going "erm so ur evil?"
@@M0nsterm0uth Have you read Drizzt? Iirc there was always an option to play a good aligned Drow, the alignment prescribed to them in the book was just a preconceived notion that they were all evil according to the other races As far as I understood it you come from a culture perceived by everyone as evil but you don't necessarily have to be evil idk I just found it makes for interesting conflict at the table, with someone going "erm so ur evil?" and you trying to convince them you are not over the course of the campaign
I just don't see the problem with Drow having an evil, matriarchal culture. Their society is dominated by a chaotic evil goddess. They aren't genetically predisposed to be bad or anything.
This is the same point that R.A Salvatore made with Drizzt decades ago. You can have a lot of the classically villianous species be villains not because they are born evil. (Though I do think it can still work look at the Skaven for instance) but because their cultures are awful. So you could still absolutely have bands of orcs that live as pillagers who have a culture inspired by the idea of "Gruumsh gave us the strength to take on the world so we will." or you can have goblins working as organized criminals creating gangs. You can even take a page out of stories like Hellboy or Devilman or even the origins of Merlin for Tieflings and it could work.
I just don't see how becoming a Drider is supposed to be a punishment. As a species that worships a spider goddess, shouldn't that be considered an upgrade?
@@Shashu_the_little_Voidling This is why Yuan-ti are better than Drow. Does the person you're speaking to have more snake bits than you do? If yes, they are your boss! Easy.
@@Shashu_the_little_Voidling Lolth basically dresses everything up as spiders (on account of being super jealous and self obsessed) so there's more cultural nuance to it than just is it a spider. For Driders they're specifically Drow that failed her so while surface dwellers might legitimately be " ah this must be a favoured champion of Lolth" Drow would culturally know it's a mark of an outcast.
Two things: 1. The familiar is an INTERN?! 2. Book of Exalted Deeds by way of Pointy Hat is an exciting idea that I am going to hold a torch for until it is done.
well, you tube won't allow other words to be used. but it's what he uses for unpaid laborers like how there were a lot of 'interns' in the American south prior to the 1860's
45:45 i love alignment as a guiding idea, not a rule, that can help me more easily say “what would my character do here?” cause i often play characters really different from me. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE THAT THEY HAD NO PLACE IN SPECIES CHOICE!!! That should be on the player to say “this is how i want to play” and not on an entire species of ppl
@@Silver_Anchor ok but why have them then? All pc races can be anything. Generally everything with a set alignment doesn’t have “humanity” as we’d think. Orcs are invasive pillaging rage monsters like would you say ogres are people and could be good or a Balor?? Or lizardmen that are neutral and cannot have morals. They are smart but purely animalistic and are biologically incapable of empathy. Like these things are what make them interesting yall are genuinely just uninspired if you like the new stuff IMO. Staying with pathfinder
In dnd I think good and evil are more how the gods view you IMO. Even cannibalism to survive is still an evil act as it surves Urgathoa even if you don’t shift for instance. This is why alignment determines whether you can be smote
Personally, as a consummate orc player whenever it's a chance in any game, my solution for including both the 'cool nomad cowboy orc' and the 'big dumb evil orc' option is basically the Warcraft solution: have a faction of orcs who took up a deal with some sort of evil power for strength, but it came at the cost of free will. When new orcs are born into this faction, they do not have the 'gift' -- and these are basically what 'half orcs' were in the old game -- until they come of age and have to drink the evil unguent, too. This way you can have both the complicated hard-boiled badlands orcs AND the uncomplicated-but-fun hooligan horde orcs, while also providing an in-universe option to play the evil ones without being evil, and it doesn't make any claims of the 'evil orcs' being 'born that way'. In my mind it side-steps basically every possible issue by making every existing take into cool faction lore instead of species lore. Do you want the evil orcs to be rarer? Make their faction a fringe cult. Want to make them more numerous? Say that they destroyed or took over the old orc capital and forced the rest into their nomadic life. Each flavour works as an interesting option without removing the other options from play.
@@viktorgabriel2554 They didn't "remove" it. The creators specifically said if something isn't in the new book, you can just play it just like you have been all this time. Do you think they removed Aarakocras bc they aren't in the new book?
@@viktorgabriel2554 Yeah, I remember the bullcrap Extra credits Orcs are black people take and well...... removing half species from the game kinda is more racist cus.... kinda suggest elves, orcs, don't overcome there wiring and breed with other races...... and let the evils one less evil cus.... no rape babies. It is just dumb. Also, don't orcs only live to about 40 years old? I imagine would be very emotionally damaging, It is harder to commit yourself to a cause of good with so little time...... the building sandcastles to kicking them down comparision. It also makes orcs that overcome there races inclinations less special. Just make half lins more numerous and accepted if you want more not evil Orcs.. to the point they brand themselves as a separate race from their ancestors. Orks.... Orkes... Orxs.
Yea, why not just have two different lineage Orcs? I'd personally feel like it'd make more sense to have the "dumb and strong" ones be the mains ones. So you have those ones still worship the Conqueror God and still want to war and pillage, but then have a nomadic faction that left that life behind; They can't settle down for fear of being conquered
@@piotrwisniewski70 Disney hasn't copyrighted hakuna matata. There's no way they even could. But they have trademarked it, which is very different, and can be done, and has been done, to plenty of phrases. Like; - "Just Do It" by Nike - "Because You're Worth It" by L'Oreal - "I'm Loving It" by McDonald's
"The reason why we wield tools that destroy trees into battle despite the fact that our caves have no trees is because the trees are where the knife-ears live!" - A dwarf
@@block4562 i first heard knife ears in WoW, so maybe thats where it comes from? The original pixels back in 2004 were so bad that their ears literally looked like comically long knives😅
Things like being small as a default with less speed is kind of the reason why I don't like these equality changes. Like what's the point of being a different species if your physical nature isn't addressed at all mechanically? Part of the fun me and my players have is figuring out how to overcome such deficiencies (almost like maybe that's the point of playing such species in the lore...).
Not me literally getting excited thinking the incogni species was real only to find out it was an ad. Jokes on you hat, now I’m going to make it anyway.
i kind of already have, one of my elf races had a tendency for genetic experiments and biological weapons, when they encountered illithids, they actively started capturing the brine pools, cultivating the tadpoles, and studying them, they turned them into a form of implant that allows them to communicate at long distance and protects them against psionic attacks
I feel like assimar should have skin that resembles polished marble/other fine stones or gleaming metals like silver and gold. I feel like the perfect statue energy could be kinda fitting. Then you just get either a celestial mark, either a birthmark or ethierial echo of their divine transformation. (Guardian get wing stuff, scourge get halo or rings with eyes, edgy boys get any of but broken/defaced.) Feels iconic while keeping the ideas and vibes.
@@Merilirem I will say a guardian assimar with patches of iridescent scales and who's wings manifested rainbow colored feathers due to a connection to coatels would be really fun. I just felt that the kinda perfect statue vibe gave a good balance between perfect beauty and being a bit removed from humanity. Plus it plays into the idea of them as anti tieflings similarly to how metallic and chromatic dragons parallel each other. Also this is a spicier change but I feel volos diet warlock set up had more potential than it was given credit for. I'd have just removed the divine pseudo patron. Basically making it so any given Aasimar would be born with a divine mission they don't know but would be subconsciously driven to complete. - Guardians would be charged with keeping key people alive or healing based duties (also hot take, mechanically they shouldn't enhance damage, maybe instead getting a reaction to reduce incoming damage by prof by shielding someone with their wings, with the ability to move up to thirty ft. If a creature would be downed by the damage dealt. I just find that flying and still focusing on damage just doesn't feel very..... Guardian-y on them. To aggressive. - Scourges would be soldiers or assassins for when men, armies, ect have to die, ect. - Fallen assimar then in this context becoming what happens if a assimar fails, is at risk of corrupting or loosing their divinely empowered soul, or for some gods if they simply complete their task and have no reason to leave their divine spark on earth so they just.... Rip it out.
I am absolutely all for deeply aesthetically varied aasimar. Honestly Pointy Hat's complaints about Aasimar aesthetics feel pretty rubbish. Because, sure, some settings, GMs or players may want to restrict angels to the traditional Christian angel presentation. But it's equally legitimate to interpret them as either a servant of one of the many many good-aligned deities, all of whom will doubtless impart their own aesthetics, or extraplanar manifestations of good aligned planes. Either of these invite deeply interesting interpretation of what 'angelic' really is, and so how it should look. Iridescent scales? Maybe you're associated with an angelic servant of Bahamut, couatls are straight up good-aligned extraplanar creatures, or maybe it's just a reflection of the endless lights of the heavens? Absolutely hell yeah to any of those. Same goes for almost too-perfect features seemingly hewn of marble for that juicy 'angels as servant constructs' flavour. Or heck, maybe you're embodying an aspect of an angel of safe voyage, who would guide ships safely to shore. Your eyes are made of sea glass, your wings are those of a seagull, your skin appears carved of driftwood. Let the aesthetics of angels fly free!
I tend to think of celestials in general as playing for subtlety and working on the downlow while on the Material Plane - far too much time spent watching Touched By An Angel and Highway To Heaven with my Mom, I suppose - so I'd be more inclined to have the aasimar's signature traits be subtle as well. Mostly non-visual stuff, like the fleeting sensation of a feather brushing one's arm as an aasimar passes you on the street, a slight lifting of others' emotional gloom or bitterness when they enter a room, or a bell-like resonance to their voice when they speak with passion or sing. Visually, their hair and eyebrows might hide a few very fine, thread-thick feathers among their normal strands. Their skin pigmentation would be within the normal range for humans, but does not scar and, if bruised, turns the colors of a sunrise as it heals, rather than the usual red to blue-black to greenish to yellow.
I don’t like playing the “I’m adventuring cuz I was born badass thing” I like had to and half elves have such a built in excuse for it. They don’t age the same as either parent or anyone really. Also elves are dope and I liked multiclassing
Honestly, if I'm DMing a campaign and one of my players wants to play an Aasimar with wings, they're getting their wings. They can even have a constant flight speed at all times, dragonborn too. You just need to know how to DM around that. How to set up challenges even for characters with flight, and also to just let the players have fun and use their wings to save the day sometimes. Its all a hero fantasy at the end of the day, don't rain on a player's parade.
This! I have a DM who let me have wings for my Aasimar and that made me happy enough - it's extra nice you gave them a fly speed! I'm also a big believer in letting them fly 🤷♀ Maybe it's because all my players are cool and want to have fun - but nobody has ever tried creating a reddit horror story situation with their powers of flight
There was a post on reddit talking about how either they or their DM handles player characters with wings. Strength. The higher it is, the higher you can fly up to a certain point. Thought that was really interesting.
Makes designing fun dungeons a lot harder, especially since you don't want to limit player options but also don't want to make the solution incredibly easy. I don't think this is a fair take for most DMs who are also juggling adult/young adult responsibilities
I think I'd have it so that they can have wings and fly whenever they want, but flying is more energy intensive than walking so it tends to lead to exhaustion.
"being small is just a debuff" There are at least 2 mechanical benefits: You can use smaller mounts, for example, mastiffs You can walk in smaller spaces without suffering the downsides of being in a cramped space (basically disadvantage on everything, advantage on everything against you and half movement) it does not come up a lot, but when the halfling is the only one that can reasonably counter the kobold's side tunnels, because its a death trap for the rest, its quite valuable. Other than that, there is also little downside to being small
I was making a new character just before the new book came out and all the species who had an option to be small didnt mention the speed changing so i happily made my Fairy as small as possible and everyone at the table was happy for her to still be able to keep pace with the others 😅
I'm playing as a tiny fairy bard rn, it's actually awesome, games are about more than mechanics, so optimising all the fun out of them to make sure all the races are "balanced" just makes them boring
My view on orks is that they aren’t automatically evil. But it’s in their nature to be violent and warlike. So whilst they won’t go around murdering people for fun, they will very quickly resort to violence if they see you as a problem.
I generally take it as broadly hostile low empathy. Hurting you doesn’t really register emotionally to them. I mean 1 reason kobolds are evil is cuz they eat gnomes
"We wanted to make every _species_ option to have a deeper impact and representation of the dnd multiverse, which is why we washed hard rules and specifics from the book and made it so that anything can be anything."
Every step further D&D goes it just is homogenization. It has been happening for awhile. Give players everything so everyone can have free access to the game and you get a larger playerbase. All they care about is catering to everyone at all times so they can sell more D&D. D&D is no longer a game, the game is bland, boring and they say it themselves: Make up the rules and do whatever you want. Which is the complete opposite point of being an actual game. D&D is a franchise now. They only care about marketing everything they can as D&D. Which is easy to do if D&D is homogenized and everything fits at all times. Every race is basically just "insert fanbase" + a few simple cosplay add-ons. Because that is what sells.
@@sumotode I think my main issue is that they still haven't given us the customization options that make a more free system actually work. Unless your a warlock.
@@Merilirem Well it is all about illusion of choice with D&D. Ultimately you are hard locked into a set path and set way of building characters with the way classes are railroaded. Depending on if its martial, caster, or utility. While they give you what appears to be many flavorful options, but when it really boils down to it, mechanically, each type pretty much plays the same with a little bit of window dressing. And that is pretty much the same for every race/species. Even more so it seems as size no longer matters, movement speed is all the same, etc. Outside of a few special abilities that are pretty minor there really isnt much difference mechanically, or even visually. Just a bunch of humans with a bit of makeup or cosplay accessories attached. (But that is common fantasy / sci-fi trope) And honestly, railroading is not a bad thing in itself. If the different options have truly different game-play and uses it can make for fun decisions. However, D&D is so concerned with everyone being able to do everything and totally inclusive that they are taking all meaningful decision making and consequences out of the game. This makes for a great franchise and marketing, and so far its working as they are selling better than ever. But as a game it is pretty mediocre.
I like the Dragonborn lore more as well because… most civilizations not as technologically advanced as ours wouldn’t know the true origin story. You could argue that magic makes up for tech and archeological studies, but magic can just as easily make it much less clear. Also, for Dragonborn’s Wings, I’m personally imagining something like Bayle’s second-phase wings from Elden Ring. Look up his boss fight and it will feel a lot more draconic :3
The orc problem for me is they no longer feel like monsters. The fun of playable orcs was that disconnect between them and the usual races due to their monstrous nature, and makes the ones that try to be good more interesting. They feel like they got _gentrified._ I feel like there's a better middle ground than just turning them into grey cowboys.
IMO the only reason orcs maintained their evil stuff in the past was for similar reasons as goblins with Magublyet(sp) because Gruumsh was keeping his thumb (and eye) on them. Want them to be normal? Make up a good reason for a group of orcs to have escaped Gruumsh's influence. Maybe they're trying to save other orcs by helping them get out from under the thumb of an angry god who got a bad deal.
@@ZenFr0gmaybe your Orc is simply a hero and unique to other Orcs! I never saw them being an "evil" race as a way to limit what sort of characters you can make. All it does is add some assistance for worldbuilding and backstory :)
@@ZenFr0g my solution has always been to make mortals relationship with their deity an important factor in their existence. After all in a setting where the soul is a definite existence metaphysical threats are just a bad as physical ones. And unfortunately not everyone is magically inclined or has an iron will that can resist these forces that come for them. Want to keep a demon from claiming your immortal spirit as their chew toy for all existence? Pick a higher power to worship and now you're safe against any direct harm (they might still find a way to trick you into giving it up willing though) Don't want to end up a wandering spirit after death? Your chosen deity has created a suitable afterlife for you to be sent to after your physical body stops working (barring any magical mumbo-jumbo from a slighted wizard. The ones you worship are powerful but not all-powerful) What if you've displeased your divine patron? Well depending on who it is you might just have to repent and seek their forgiveness. Others might have you endure some kind of punishment first. Some might make your life a living hell until you prove your worth. Really piss them off though and they'll take away your metaphysical protection, leaving your soul up for grabs once more. On the subject of orcs I've always had the majority of tribes worship Gruumsh out of a mixture of respect (he is their creator after all) tradition and fear. They are violent raiders because that is how Gruumsh expects them to be and why he made them. It pleases him to see them put a village to the torch or make an enemy cower in fear at the thought of facing them in battle. Other tribes have been abandoned by Gruumsh after they failed him at some point in the past. Some found merciful gods that were willing to take them into their fold if they gave up their violent ways. Others might've made pacts with devils and became even more bloodthirsty. A few found ways so bizarre to ward off threats that their existence is doubted by even the most learned scholars.
Pointy hat I have to praise you. Thank you again and again for putting all this content in 1 place for me to watch and not have to wait piecemeal spread through 3 or 4 different videos. I can't thank you enough
21:09 "Why are the bad elves black?" Well a way of thinking of that instead of whatever the OG explanation was, their evil goddess Lolth twisted them into more of her vision of what they should be. Shes an evil spider demon, so her followers took on the dark blackish/purpley tone of the spider exoskeleton, and the white hair to match the webs they spin (metaphorical for the webs of conspiracy drow weave as well as literal webs). Just a thought
I always just assumed it was for the same reason that deep domes are kind of gray colored. Camouflage is essential in the Underdark, or you tend to get EATEN by something.
Is the only spider you've ever looked at a particularly dull black widow or something? Please, house spiders can range anywhere from marble-y brown to tan to blackish. It's literally from the 70s it should not suprise you that it's got some problematic elements😂 Also, wait, are there not already dark skined regular elves? Yeah just no, very no. Need a hard retcon no doubt about it
@@solsystem1342 I mean sure there are more than just black spiders but Lolth is always shown as a black widow type of spider, I mean that they embody Lolth and her spider aspects more than just spiders as a whole.
Aw man, I'm gonna miss Half-Elves. They were perfect for making brooding characters. They live too long to form relations with humans, but too little to be taken seriously by elves. That was a perfect reason for half-elves to become adventurers. Guess I'll give all my edge to tieflings.
You can still use them, because you can use anything from 2014+ that hasn't been explicitly updated in the 2024 book. You just adjust them to mimic the 2024 species, like dropping the ability score improvements since those are in the backgrounds.
I have in one of my campaigns that an Elfin Duke is breeding half-elves because they mature and reproduce faster as arcane shock troops. I image with 800+ year life cycles pure elf pairings just about break even in terms of procreation.
@@theslavicrat3784 I personally love 90% of what's in the 2024 update, but yeah, there's no reason to update if you don't want to. Plenty of people like previous editions better then 2014 5e, too.
My only issues with the changes are that it feels like they're watering down the different species. I don't want to play a human that happens to look like a dragonborn (as an example), i want to play a dragonborn. A non human sentient that has non human emotions and culture
Welcome to 5.1e Where everything is starting to look the exact same. I won't be shocked if soon they cut the amount of classes into like 4 very generic ones. Like warrior, thief, mage, cleric. Would fit their strategy of making everything feel the same
But the thing is. Reincarnate can revive people in the body of a different species. Their mind remains the same. This means that it logically CANT be the species itself that is responsible for the common mental traits (as then a reincarnated soul would gain them) but rather the culture.
@@svartrbrisingr6141 4E offended me so bad that when someone told me 5 is like a fixed 4 I didn’t even touch it. Pathfinder for me as far dnd is concerned
@@algotkristoffersson15 i mean not necessarily, theoretically if you're revived with the same soul in a different species body the chemical reactions in the brain WILL be different. So you WILL experience emotions differently. Your senses are different as well, so your experience and perspective of the world WILL be different. Someone who was a human but is now a dragonborn will still be different from other natural born dragonborn, but they'll still experience new desires, emotions, senses ect Of course that's just realism and can be hand waived away at any table. But if the chemical reactions are still the same then you don't have the brain of a different species, you're just a dragonborn with the brain of a human. Also sorry for the VERY late response. I actually didn't get notified of your response, i only saw it when i looked at a recent notification
I really love that they gave the gnomes in the illustration the best combination of actual, functional hats and the stupid little pointy hats (no disrespect to present company) that are so iconic for them. Like they still get the pointyness but now with the extra features that make hats look cool! Also imagine a gnome mafioso with a pinstriped cone hat with a fedora brim, a gnome cowboy with a wide-brimmed conical stetson, or a gnome sports fan with a pointy baseball cap. Edit: HEY WAIT A SECOND Antonio's human familiar is wearing a DIFFERENT POINTY WIZARD HAT during the gnome segment! Is he CHEATING ON our boy? And on camera too!
I like that the tall men actually have traits that define them: endurance and skills related to high culture (singing, acting or dancing) and being the tallest common race (Onis are taller, but they are a subtype of tall men iirc and rare)
I know you said you were only gonna talk about the changes, but I hope that Dwarves still have poison resistance. As much as it doesn't totally matter, because my beloved poison damage is so very weak anyways (with the number of creatures that have poison resistance), but it effectively gives Dwarves a proficiency in drinking. Not to mention, as a Warhammer nerd, it doubles down as Dwarves are particularly resistant to Grandfather Nurgle's plagues and disease - which is a fun carry over.
As an enjoyer of drow and their stories I have to add that the main issue here is being setting agnostic. Most of the heavy lore, history and important figures were written for the Forgotten Realms, all of the Drizzt novels, WotSQ, Starlight and Shadows and even Evermeet are exclusive to the setting and the source of all of the juicy lore. Leaving it vague -while I don't like it- it's sadly the best way to frame this in the context of this manual. My hope is that new material will surface when the Forgotten Realms guide comes up. Meanwhile, for those people who don't want to go through 40 novels I recommend getting the Legend of Drizzt Visual Dictionary. It has a lot useful of info to build a character and know the culture.
While you're not wrong, it should be noted that much of the basic stuff was instilled in Drow from the get go with the Grayhawk setting ( the original default) where they were introduced in the Against the Giants adventure module long before it got elaborated on in Forgotten Realms by Salvatore and Greenwood. Personally as someone who is also a drow enjoyer ( if my name wasn't obvious) the fact that they left it so incredibly barren ( also someone who feels that any kind of knee jerk reaction to Drow by modern audiences is on them and the lore doesn't need fixing at all) this basically satisfies nobody on either side of the argument.
I'm pretty sure the biggest problem with Drow is that a lot of their lore is based on negative stereotypes of non white cultures. That aside though, if WotC wants to write the manual to be setting agnostic then they should quit trying to tiptoe around the meta and just state that D&D has multiple settings with multiple explainations for things, like the dragonborn, and that any homebrew settings can deviate even further. It really isn't necessary for a player manual to reference settings so much. Leave that to the campaign setting books like Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Mythic Oddesies of Theros, and Explorer's Guid to Wildmount.
They've added so much "You can be anything!" and making things have very shallow lore (If any lore) to the point it's reaching "When everyone is special, no one is special." And it just ends up being really boring. Basically everyone is the same group of people you'd find in a stock photo compilation. They don't even really get into setting agnostic preferences and ideas to really springboard off of, there should be "An idea" to work with, and then if the DM wants to change it, they can, but to leave almost everything to "Just flavor it lol" makes it feel so barren. For most of them there's no visual identity that makes them unique or really stand out (Elves get pointy ears but share the same coloration as Aasimar, for example) and then things like humans being able to be small (As small as 2 feet tall, according to the PHB) makes them and halflings and gnomes just mix together, and with the shallow lore, it just becomes "I guess I'm just picking a starter feat" than any unique difference or choice without the DM picking up the slack to make more lore. Most of the differences at this point feel like half feats, if that, and at it's currently trajectory it's probably just going to end up as "Just use the custom lineage and flavor it" I've had friends so often read up on lore and go "That sounds awesome! I want to make something like that!" or want to know more, but, the split between "This is cool, I want to know more about this" and "I want it to be literally me" has tipped to the latter and lost all of it's former, and while it's good to be able to put a part of you in the character, or to relate with them, I think it's also a massive disservice to expect you to craft a fantasy character that is just you and your problems and nothing else to play with.
Also my opinion on the orc change is basically, It's so completely different from any previous orc version (I would have gone more the TES route where they're more like Warring States Japan and have honor codes but still harbor deep ferocity, but also exhibit fine craftsmanship, but also are on the brutal side of life while showing they're passionate about different endeavors, even the famous world renown chef is an orc) that I would have preferred an entirely new race, instead it feels like we lost a potential race of nomads and also lost orcs along the way. For how setting agnostic the PHB can be, giving orcs such a "It's definitely not that thing we kept insisting it was!" is going too far in the other direction and it's functionally retconned almost every part of what they were (Germanic tribes, general brutal societies) Obviously they're far removed from Tolkien orcs (Not a real species, they're warped and corrupted elves, literally just evil that twisted a biological vessel) but they've basically just gone too "Off" from what they were to really feel satisfying.
Exactly. "The Rules" should be based around the _standards_ of the race, the things that are both likely and common. Then any player can choose to bend of break whichever rules they like to make the character they want to make, but with the knowledge that they _are_ breaking those rules, and that this is likely to be a source of (good) conflict.
To be fair the combo made more sense with the pre 4th ed change to dark vision. Back when it literally allowed you to see in areas with no light coupling it with dancing lights meant you had an ability to blind opposing drow in whatever confrontation erupted. With the change to dark vision, the change to lore and so forth... yeah is silly they kept the ability even after gutting everything else.
@@Pingviinimursu The old dark vision was a completely different visual to the current. You saw things in degrees of heat. The current dark vision has more in common with the old low light vision. You see in complete darkness but its just normal vision that negates the darkness.
@@ShalimarX32 Oh, so it used to work like that! I've read some Drizzt books where it was described as the thermal based version and thought that was cool. I do agree with your point, two different types of blinding is cool and seems like a good combo, your first comment was just worded confusingly :)
@2ndacc23 Not yet. But just wait until the advent of biomodifications. This whole "culture war" about transgender people will seem harmless compared to what awaits us after transhumans become a reality.
Modern players inject themselves into games. Role Play is virtually dead. It's a reflection of the lack of mental growth. The inability to see different perspectives is a measure of mental sophistication and growth. Adult children not only play games these days, they write them.
I never understood and still don't understand why a species with darkvision would need two cantrips of light. Drows don't need Dancing Lights or Faerie Fire, there would be no reason for them to biologically learn to use their magic like that
Half of all DND rules don't make sense, they're just an incompetent bunch of random ideas. The new DND system should be entrusted to someone who understands what game design is
POTENTIALLY for farming? but i like to think of it like nightvision goggles, their eyes are sensitive enough they can see well with significantly less light, and possibly with a different spectrum of light, but adding more light can increase the clarity of their vision, just like how night vision goggles give you a green or grey monochrome in the dark, but if you add light they often give you a color picture
@@d3str0i3rshhh the other people arent creative enough to think of unintuitive reasons for things to be the way they are in the dungeons and dragons universe. Magic and gods and mythical creatures are alright, but suggest a slightly different evolution path for drow? Impossible for these people haha
Darkvision isn't equivalent to seeing in light, it treats darkness as dim light, and usually messes with color and light perception. They prefer to have lights around, they just have slightly better night vision than you or I. Even mechanically, a drow making a crossbow attack in darkness still does so with disadvantage, lights fix that.
Not an elf stan by any stretch, but this book at least made it clear that Elves are just DnD Eevees. Nothingburger lore means your special pointy eared cute woodland thing can adapt and be anything it wants based on team composition.
@@ninjabluefyre3815 Nah, humans are the invasive species that can survive anywhere without changing physically. Eevee specifically changes type when it evolves. Elves literally evolve to match their environment. Drow = Underdark, High = Magical Lands, Wood = Forests, and even in other books Shadar-Kai = Shadowfell, Eladrin = Feywild, Sea = Sea, Astral = Wildspace. Imo, Humans can be found anywhere because they can survive anything if they want, while Elves can be found anywhere because each biome has its own evolutionary branch of elf.
@@sintanan469 no, they just arent in the new books. which means they can still be used as is from previous editions. "backwards compatibility". they arent gone, they just havent been changed.
with the orcs it saddens me that they did not take the opportunity to draw inspiration from all the marauding and Namadic peoples of human history (e.g. Ostrogoths, Mongols, Berbers and pirates).
Funny how they remove half races and say they want other races to be staples, yet Orcs (one of the races now a core race) is not only bland, but has lost abilities from both its old rules and half-orc rules.
@@glenmurieI agree! the whiplash I always get from how orcs are depicted in Eberron and other systems like pathfinder compared to 2014 dnd was WILD it sucked to be an Orc/half-Orc in the forgotten realms, glad that’s retconned lmao
I feel like they could have retconned the orcs without abandoning their old lore. They could be a race that strongly believes in might makes right and prefer to handle most problems with combat and that this causes them to other races to perceive them as evil.
I blame Warcraft for the Orc change. Like most kids are into this “wow, a heroic orc?” After Thrall came out. Even 3E ignored Ondonti because most players aren’t ready for “good Orc” (plus no one wanted to be farmer Orc). Same with Drows and Drizzt since few at the time would connect with Eilistraee (aside from nude female priestess) over special snowflake good Drow rebel.
The thing is, they took the orc, and turned it into something that had nothing to do with orcs. Why? Just make a new race as "big nomads" or whatever it is they wanted, and leave the orcs alone to be orcs.
Aasimar not having wings is not the issue. Aasimar dont NEED feathered wings. That's like saying that Tieflings NEED membraneous wings. Honestly, they need to focus on color palette and their extra features. Tieflings have dark, muted, and/or warm colors, while Aasimar should have light, pastel, and/or cold colors. Tieflings have shadowy/burning eyes, while Aasimar should have glowing/shocking/icy eyes. If hell is a dark lava cave, then heaven is a bright, stormy sky. Tieflings tend to have extra features like horns, and aasimars have halos. I feel like aasimar dont play around with the imagery of a halo enough. A halo is a ring; it could float above your head, but it could also be worn on the body like jewelry. A crown/circlet is a halo, a necklace/choker is a halo, a fingerring is a halo, a belt is a halo, and an anklet is a halo. A celestial could have multiple halos. They could probably make the halo a tattoo/marking on the body if they're not down with the idea of a piece of metal or bone permanently attached to their body or treating them like jewelry. As a matter of fact, high-tier angels are associated with being eyeball monsters (something about being all-seeing), so why not give them eye-shaped markings on their bodies? Although that would bring up the question as to whether tieflings would have markings, and if they did, how would they differentiate from the aasimar? Tieflings are often seen with tails, but their tails are often portrayed as hairless. Perhaps Aasimar could get feathered tails like that of a peafowl.
In the same vein of figuring out Aasimar by comparing them to Tieflings. I love the idea that the Tiefling ancesteries come from what plane their ancestor was from. Did they come from the Abyss and are demonic, the Hells and are Devilish, or the third one i don't remember. In general the upper planes are less talked about than the lower, so I don't even know how to give an example without googling. But I wonder if Aasimar could get subspecies based on different upper planes.
idk if this is a popular opinion but i really like building on the art of the aasimar with dark hair, white eyes, and gray-purple skin, which i'm pretty sure is supposed to be depicting a fallen. i like the idea of them having colorful skin, i always found most depictions of them as just humans with some sort of glowy features and wings to be boring. i also really like what bg3 did with the metallic cracks across the face, but what i imagine is almost like draenei from warcraft without the horns, hair-like tendrils, and hooves. you can play around with halos and bright or graceful features a lot with that baseline. i'm not a huge fan of a lot of the depictions of draenei with bright or richly colored blue skin, i think the ashy, muted, or softly tinted skin works really well for the otherworldly feel of aasimar. i think this would work to give them a much better visual identity aside from just "angel"
I feel like the wings are the equivalent of the tails. The misc non facial feature. Angelic entities don't really have stuff like that otherwise. But if we're ignoring tails, halo like markings or bands around the head region would be nice.
@@elegantoddity8609 it works to just play it like pit from kid icarus too. they have wings but just can't fly unless they're granted the power of flight by a specific entity or by temporarily drawing it from their soul or something. the whole "sprouting wings" always felt odd to me
In one of my campaigns, Gnomes actually used to not be able to do magic. Like they couldn’t access the weave for some reason and that caused them to be more inventive. Then, because of reasons, some people were able to siphon the magic out of the land and spray it like a humidifier over the land, which let gnomes access it. But their culture is still so dependent on the inventive stuff.
I think the problem here is that they're trying to sanitise everything to appeal to everyone despite previous editions of dnd more or less being dark fantasy. So instead of just letting there be ethically questionable things in the cultures of the various races/species, they coat over it with vagueness or simply refuse to cover it. 5e so far has been lacking in actual lore, forcing lore junkies like me to look to past editions to get anything of value. Part of playing an orc is understanding that you're playing a humanoid monster. Either embracing this aspect and becoming the party's designated war criminal or fighting against that stigma and becoming a gentle giant that the party and world at large appreciates. They've already done(or tried to) to this with hobgoblins, but methinks that the hobgoblin players(all five of them) just ignored this and made warlords anyway.
Exactly and if we play an aasimar (or I suppose for the Tiefling enjoyers, too), we should get to have those clear celestial archetypes- holy angel healer/ protector, fire purifier angel, & fallen angel. When there is clear good (or fallen good = evil) in the archetypes, that gives infinite roleplaying opportunities. It is similar if you’re playing a monster-originating species like an orc.
I just don't get it. Orcs etc being evil is something that has never really been strongly emphasized in D&D, and often outright contradicted bot in the game material and in supplementary stuff (books, video games etc). There's a strong appeal in playing the rebel from the evil empire, the reformed bandit, cultist etc. Erasing the dark parts of the culture of orcs, drow etc removes so many character hooks and much of the incentive to play them.
I think they got stamped flat because they want setting agnosticism. In your world…things work how you want them to. Lean into dinosaur riding halflings who eat their enemies. They’re giving you species, not culture. I think that’s where they messed up with elves. The High Elves don’t have to be good guys, The Drow may be justified (and their goddess driven insane by Corellon has a small evil cult). They’re handing you a toolkit, not a setting.
They are trying to sanitize it for the woke crowd who despite what they think will not buy anything or play their games because all they want to do is complain and ruin what we enjoy because they are just the most "inclusive and loving" people all while being completely the opposite.
Forgive my unfamiliarity with the Drow, but... Wouldn't an easy fix to them be "All that bad stuff you hear about them is literally just enforced on them by Lolth and her clerics. because Lolth *desperately* does not want to let them go"? So there could be plenty of Drow and Drow colonies that escaped from that and bucked the stereotypes, while also making the Drow in general be victims of Lolth instead of "lol we're evil"?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a version of this idea in BG3? If memory serves me right, I remember there being an option of two Drow backgrounds.
@@gravelycritical Basically, in BG3 you got either Lolth sworn or Seldarine drow, Lolth one being the obvious and Seldarine being more open to new connecting with other races and more loyal to one another but still having that slight edge of a very survival-of-the-fittest culture (thats the best way i can put it at least lol)
@@gravelycriticalthe good drow that either escaped or live in secret is much older than bg3. Check out the sword dancer prestige class on Google. There is tons of forgotten realms lore on this. I would love for this class to come back for clerics in 5.24e down the road-it’s basically a combo of bladesinger and swordsbard for clerics and meant to be for good aligned drow.
I love how there's never a clear consensus on what exactly orcs are... are they just a large humanoid species? Ogres with extra steps? Demon spawn? Man-bear-pigs? High-Goblinoids? They can be whatever the hell ya need
They are touched by the Feywild and thus more or less closely related to both Elves and Goblinoids. That's the closest to concrete information about their origin that I could find.
If you want to add into your world the pathfinder origins they are good ones. They clashed with dwarves in the dark lands before a quest for the sky is the short story of it that is honestly a good world building point. They just existed.
34:00 Goliath monks grappling and pushing other creatures as a large one themselves .... or your caster friend cast enlarge/reduce on you while large = you're now huge... with grappler feat you get : "You don't have to spend extra movement to move a creature Grappled by you if the creature is your size or smaller." - put sentinel on them and they can put every enemy in the same place and keep them there because they make them go prone and sentinel keeps them in place....
My favourite thing about the new dnd is I can just take the art and concepts they have that I like (such as dragon born having tails and some subclasses I can homebrew back to 2014) and then bin the rest lmao
I wished they made lizardfolk a bit more interesting imo Their ability to make gear from bones could be expanded to make semi magic items depending on the creature you used. Or give them a climbing speed or gecko like healing ability once a day.
As somebody who still likes alignment, doesn’t care for tieflings or orcs in the slightest, and repped half elves for decades I’m now sweeping my home for bugs because it is clear Wizards has chosen to attack me personally.
33:58 - You misunderstand. It's not a Large transformation people wanted, it's a permanently large state that we've been asking for. Something which Pathfinder has graciously given us with their more recent ancestry changes, but D&D lacks the courage to do.
I'm a little annoyed at the cowboy orcs, not because it's a bad idea, but because I was already making a whole orc/dwarf wild west region in my Pathfinder world, and now everyone will assume I ripped it from WOTC. Oh well, at least it'll be easier to get a hold of orc cowboy minis now.
For my games, if a player wants to play a mixed species character like a half elf or something similar, I'd use the mixed ancestry option from the Tal'Dorei Reborn book, where you can choose a base Species and replace abilities with different Species abilities based on the character's parentage. I'll probably limit it to one ability per character and restrict stacking existing abilities like spellcasting, unarmed attacks and resistances (for the sake of balance).
Yrah, it wouldn't be hard to just let players remove one trait and replace it with another. You just need some DM supervision to prevent too much min-maxing.
@@gabrielgray2345 Well players can always just customize anything they like, but it would make sense for them to at least offer that _suggestion_ to players that _if_ they want to make a half-character, then this is a method they might want to use. For players that aren't as experienced in making up their own rules.
Funfact: OG Alchemist-supreme Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim explained the spirit's desire for human-based procreation in the exact same way. A lot of actual medieval texts saw Christian lore and broader mysticism as different parts of the same spiritualistic reality, and Mr. Bombastus was no different. His IRL explanation for why the spirits of nature, such as sylvians and sirens, were invested in sharing in the production of human/half-human offspring was basically: "Obviously, only humans have immortal souls, thanks to God's blessing, but the nature spirits, though made by god, are a part of nature, and therefore have spirits, but lack an immortal-soul. The only way for these nature spirits to gain the favor of god on the same level as a human would be to have a child with a human so that their offspring subsequently inherits the immortal soul of a human." They get the immortal soul + nature spirit benefits. And yes, the reason humans could procreate with non-human things was "The immortal human spirit is just that blessed." TL;DR Paracelsus really wanted to validate his fixation with mermaids.
My rule is: If you can give your character a backstory reason for existing in the world of the game, you can play anything. There's no influence from Spelljammer? That's ok, your Thri-Kreen is from a very rare subterranean culture that's been moving to the surface for the first time ever to avoid cave-ins caused by the BBEG. We're not in Eberron? That's ok, your Shifter has a mutated form of Lycanthropy that can occur when the curse is an inherited trait. You want to be a Half-Elf? Then you are! *2024 rules simply don't exist.* Any physical traits that didn't affect mechanics were already free to apply to character design. A big thing for my group has been: follow mechanics for one race but character design for another - Human design with Orc stats because the character has been modified by magical experimentation. This is a fantasy game! Have fantasy fun! And the game already requires so much homebrew in order to function that I don't need a book from WotC on high to rescue me, I already rescued myself. I'll borrow some ideas, but I never needed permission to alter lore or aesthetics. (I'm aware that I'm more curmudgeon-y about this than necessary but WotC irks me deeply, so I'll continue yelling at clouds.)
Hmmm yeah. When I make a homebrew world I limit the number of races, but I make sure to include a LOT, and plenty of variety between them. My favorite part of worldbuilding is the cultures of all the available races, and I just would never stop if there wasn’t a limited number lol
People forget this but Thri-kreen have been around in 5e as a non-playable race long before spelljammer. It's just that they were more or less a tribal race(cut off from the skies, they had forgotten their origins) and had no reason to fight the players since they're more or less neutral.
Why don't they just make flight require concentration? The Fly spell requires concentration. Just do the same. If you fail a concentration check, you fall. Meanwhile, you can't cast any concentration spells. Having wings already prevents you from wearing heavy and medium armor.
Makes Aasimar Sorlocks really good with slinging cantrips or sniping into the back line with their light crossbow Pact weapon. Also, a fair number of leveled spells that Sorcs have access to don't need concentration, and that meshes nicely, too. Most of these are blasting spells, and those that need line of sight just got it. Flight makes you a target, though, but if you can pop up 10 feet, do your blasting, and then move back down behind cover, you've got better shooting-from-cover than Assassins. (I don't play DnD, so I don't know if movement can be split around your action / bonus action; it should be, though.)
@@tendracalrissian8820That full build description followed by "But I don't play so I'm not sure" gave me whiplash 😂 You're 100% right, you sound like a player, and yes you can split your movement however you like during your turn!
@@NoahOMorainRush I've got deep into DnD videos from TreantMonk, Colby at D4, and PointyHat. I listen while I work; I just haven't got a table play at or time to do so.
As someone who has zero problem with Drow lore as is and thinks it shouldn't be touched or updated for a "modern" audience, this also doesn't make me happy, this is a choice that satisfies nobody. I'm not in love with the direction they've taken orc either, I think Warcraft still does orcs best. If you want a nuanced take on traditional orcs, that's the way to do it. Still I am loving what they've done with Goliaths, Dragonborn and Tieflings, so two out of my three favorites races ( Dragonborn, Tieflings and Drow) are looking good, but man what they've done to Dark Elves ( or rather..*not* done) is kinda disappointing
i just can't believe they straight up axed half orcs and half elves. they are some of the most nuanced races in the game. half elves are usually neglected by their elven family for their "impure blood" and they outlive their human family. half orcs are usually born out of horrible horrible circumstances and almost never have stable family life. so many potential storytelling opportunities have been thrown out of the game for no reason.
I feel like making orcs just grey/green humans is a weird direction to take it. The reason to play something like an orc is BECAUSE they are a monsterous race, not in spite of it.
Thankfully I just make my own stuff now instead of relying on WoTC. I found that once you learn the basic templating of how races work in D&D it becomes very easy to make your own. I think some of the problems we're seeing stem from WoTC trying to both sanitize and water down complexities. This is to make the setting more palatable and easier to pick up a play. However, this comes at the cost of creativity and depth. As a DM who's been worldbuilding within D&D since 2004, I've only ever tried and to give Players flexibility and options - not deprive them of such. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to give a hard "no" to my Players. I do give content warnings before campaigns and if things get to spicy I'll ease off a little, but not so much that themes get watered down and diluted. I might adjust verbiage some, tone down painting the scene a little - but only a little. I've only had a few complaints, and only one were a guy stormed off. In that case, it was because he refused to understand what inflation was assumed they were millionaires with the chest of gold bars they were tasked with transporting. (For an Economics major this was very concerning and infinitely hilarious.) But WoTC is making a product to sell in an age were edges need to be sanded off and stark colors need to be watered down and muted.
Just make your own system. I've been at the grindstone for a year or so now, and it's coming along nicely. Sure, it's harder to find players, but I've been courting that 4e crowd pretty hard.
That new dragonborn art looks good. Looks actually draconic, rather than the old 5e art that looks like if a live action ninja turtle had relations with a meatball.
As someone who has played many many games as a Tiefling. Never **once** have I had a DM that treated my character as anything other than a *human with a funny hat* . It frustrated me to no end that my character was never treated with derision or suspicion when he/she rolled into town. I even had it as a plot point for a Paladin and went the entire campaign and it never came up. Kinda disappointed that they are even more *human with a funny hat* in this new edition (yes it’s a new edition)
Aasimar: I'm actually kinda cool with them being a "stealth" species. I like the idea of it being something that can surprise people. You THOUGHT you were dealing with just another elf, when suddenly, BAM the choral music kicks in and you realize it is a very different situation. The idea of Angels walking among us, concealing their true nature until the PRECISE moment it would have maximum impact is such a recurring motif for them, even in the Bible. I could see some utility in giving them some kind of extra boost at that moment OF the reveal. Like when they first turn on their spiritual nightlight in the birdhouse in their soul, have an extra one round effect ON TOP of the ongoing effect to add some majesty to them revealing their giant, throbbing holiness. Dragonborn: The tail is fun, and so cool they buffed the breath weapon. It is wild that they got flight, and it's better than Aasimar flying. Having their origin be vaguely multiple choice is so funny, as they keep trying to stuff 4th edition into the closet. Dwarf: Giving them Tremorsense is pretty dope. That's an ability that has a narrow niche of utility, but when it's useful it is SUUUUPER useful! Elf: It is so tiring that the elf lore refuses to just... DO something with them. Like, even if they wanted to focus on the Corellon and Lolth and Feywild stuff, there can still be a STORY there. I feel part of it is that the only logical story would be to sort of crib from Tolkien and have them be, well, kinda dying. Yes, they're long lived, yes, they have awesome mystical powers. But have them be this detached people who are exiled from their homeland. And over time, they're just slowly dwindling and losing their collective purpose. Like, they're an entire SPECIES of the aging former movie star, locked up in her mansion remembering better times but never trying to do anything new or different. That could even be part of what's going on with the Drow and Mentos Barista! In a last ditch effort to FEEL SOMETHING, and build something, they hitched their wagon to the Lolth train. Unfortunately that train only has two stops: Torture and Fascism. And if the Drow's ONLY special trait was gonna be Darkvision, they should absolutely have gotten straight up Devil Sight. For Sunlight Sensitivity, it would be kinda cool to just have a SIDEBAR that explains freshly on the surface peoples might have this issue for, like, a month. But then it goes away. So if you start your Drow (or Dwarf!) as having never ONCE been to the surface, they do have a mechanical element to that story and suffer for a little while. But it's not some permanent drawback they have to live with the entire campaign. Gnome: I do wish gnomes could get a more distinctive identity. And I even have the idea: parallel them with their long time enemies, the kobolds. In a lot of the lore for kobolds, they can almost be like rats. Leave a place unattended/unobserved for too long and they will just take it and make it their own. And have gnomes doing the same shtick but just less aggressively. Culturally, they are like "avatars of politeness". They're all either Midwesterners or British. And they just sort of fill in whatever space is big enough to hold them and no one is actively using right now. A town will suddenly realize that, without much notice, they have a whole gnomish community that's moved in. And this CAN get aggravating for some people, as they just sort of expand to the ACTIVE limits around them. And it's always important to remember: "polite" is not the same as "nice". Or "good". Goliath: I do love making Goliaths more explicitly Giant coded, I do think it's a missed opportunity to not give some of that love to Dwarves. They are also heavily linked to Giants, sometimes as life-long foes, sometimes as "the littlest giants". But I do think this version of the Goliath is absolutely perfect. - On a side note. I have a character in the pipes for a future campaign that the joke was they are basically Loki. Frost Goliath Trickery Cleric. And with that, they are a 7 ft tall twink. And I love it. Halfling: This is another one that I wish had... a stronger sense of identity? Maybe some secondary choice to bring out some flavor? Being so heavily cottagecore-coded and agrarian, maybe something with the seasons. But not linked to the time of year itself, but more about the mood of the halfling themself. Are the FEELING like a Summer? Maybe they're in a mood right now, so they're stuck in Winter mode. Human: I like the idea of "Resourceful" also just reflecting the collective "NEED DO THING! NEED DO THING NOW!" / "I CRAVE NOVELTY!" that drives humanity to just do the weirdest god damn stuff and somehow having it NOT backfire constantly. But having it be a reminder for Inspiration is also very effective. - In my home game, I do use a simple table etiquette that's caught on where the players are allowed to nominate people for inspo once per game as a way of spreading the love and keeping the resource flowing. It goes from ONE person having to remember, to 5 people each being able to offer it up. Orc: NICE! Orcs being inveterate nomads is such a quick, simple update that doesn't necessarily UNMAKE their prior lore, but adds this extra context and expands how they operate. Like, even the aggro orcs of prior stories could just be orcs that have wandered into a new area, the old hordes can become when some sort of event has disrupted the natural path of a BUNCH of orcs, so they are suddenly moving out and trying to find what their "new normal" is going to be. I do think orcs should have an array of colors almost as wide as tieflings. Grey, green, red. Hell, let em be blue or yellow. Tieflings: I'm calling it - every species should have a section on smell. We need to know what odor gnomes give off. What DO high elves bring to the ambiance? Are all halflings walking patchouli pouches? And I do love the 3 different planar influences as well. It just gives them that little extra push into being a complex species. Like, do all the different tieflings get along? How do they relate to each other?
I could not agree more with your section on Tieflings. It would add a dimension to character building that people otherwise don't think about at all. But I must admit, I am biased: I played a deaf Tabaxi ranger in my last campaign, and although he couldn't hear a pin drop, bro had the SHARPEST sense of smell. I'm talking a huge part of the reason he was as good of an investigator as he was, was because he could use smells to identify anything and anyone. And if you were close to him, he would have an entire profile of your smell and could sense your presence specifically in the room based on that alone.
@@giasharie274 I've been using a Githyanki Order of the Lycan Bloodhunter with enhanced hearing and smell, and I've used the smell SOOO MUCH! Like, enhanced hearing can be cool for picking up the straight forward stuff. But SNIFFING the door we're about to kick in has been amazing for knowing what's up. The idea of expanding sensory details could be SO damn cool, and having those notes in an adventure about "If you have a player with DAMN FINE senses, here's what they might pick up outside the ordinary." Even with stuff like touch and taste. Throw em in an illusory meat dungeon and have the tactile guy be like "I think this wall just licked me..."
The best change is the Dragonborn having tails. I no longer have to fistfight rules lawyers telling me my characters don't make sense when I draw them with tails.
😂 it’s true, when I draw any of the unique species characters like Dragonborn or yuan-ti there are battles in comments over the extent of their non-human traits
Thank you for putting this all in one video! It definitely made it so there was more continuity when you did comparisons between WOTC's different approaches to the changes (ex: elf vs orc)
Agreed. Pathfinder's system is just better by far, honestly. Way more options to create mixed heritages, more ancestry feats to create unique representations of ancestries, and not the "hell on Earth" this guy seems to think it is. After creating several Pathfinder characters, D&D character creation just feels so shallow to me now.
How? Species is also an old word, it was started to be used to mean "groups of living things recognizably distinct from all others by their inherited characteristics" in the 1600s. Why can't WOTC use it? The supposed thematically appropriate feeling is just a subjective opinion. Ancestry is no more fitting nor accurate than species in this context.
I both agree with this and I don't. Firstly, species, as old a word it is, does not sound authentic in a sort of quasi medieval situation. Secondly, ask a biologist what a species is and there'll be problems with the definition. Ancestry certainly sounds thematically more true, but for the purposes of replacing species, I don't think it is sufficient. If anything, ancestry is an even worse word for substituting race, at least as far as accuracy is concerned. If half-Orcs and half-Elves exist, than Humans, Elves and Orcs should not be different species, since they are capable of interbreeding, which just shows that the current definition of species is not very biologically viable.
So about the Aasimar. The one visually defining feature that I LOVE about making an Aasimar character is the Kintsugi marble skin. But one the other hand, playing an Aasimar character that looks completely human and then reveals to be Aasimar as they summon their wings during a crucial moment in the campaign is pretty epic.
Unless you're in a particular setting or have some kind of decree from a God, I feel Aasimar don't really have much of a negative reason to hide their lineage. Tieflings and changelings actually have a bunch of nasty stereotypes around them, but aasimar are the opposite where they are in fact revered as messengers of the gods (even when they aren't). It's giving "I'm so popular and amazing I have to wear a disguise when I go out so people don't swarm me asking me to cure their leprosy".
@@floofzykitty5072 I think I read somewhere [maybe the forgotten realms wiki?] that aasimar's celestial connection make them attractive targets for kidnapping and dark sacrifices
@@floofzykitty5072 Nah there's tons of cool backstory opportunities to hide the fact one is actually Aasimar. One of my favorite Critical Role characters did a cool reveal too. Don't wanna say too much about that though in case of spoilers.
This just happened with my Aasimar sorcerer! I introduced him late into a campaign and he appeared to be the only human in the group until the 3rd session - not because he was hiding it, but because he's from Sigil and he just assumed everyone could tell. We were fighting a Hag who was flying out of reach of our melee characters in a giant skull. The Rogue asked me to Vortex Warp him onto it and readied an action to stab her, but she flew out of reach. My Aasimar casually said "As you wish!", sprouted wings, flew 60ft straight up with a Dash and then Quickened Vortex Warp to yeet the Rogue into position. Only one person in the party had suspected what he was (despite a few hints), so it was a really fun moment. My Aasimar is a complete himbo and he wasn't making any effort to deceive anyone, which made it even funnier.
Genuine question, is "sounding cool" enough to be excited about them? Because mechanically tiefling are the least unique designed species in 5e and it has been so since 2014.
@@doxkowalski915 d&d is more than just combat simulator no matter how much WOTC tries to deny it so, yes, sounding cool is indeed ample enough reason to be excited.
@@deffdefying4803 Mechanics don't have to serve only combat despite 5e being designed around it. What I mean by tieflings not being in any way unique is that every single one of their traits and abilities is available to basically everyone. Resistance, spells, darkvision, they don't have anything that defines them. Take the new dwarf for example, the tremorsense is an amazing addition which can be useful in many situations and can be a basis for unique worldbuilding.
I really like the “Fly speed equal to your walking speed” it seemed so arbitrary to have it set at a constant 50ft, especially if you were playing a monk
I've got probably 95% of the 2nd ed, which I've been playing since the 1980's and see no need to change. every single step WOTC has made lately confirms this is the right decision.
I do like the idea of orcs being nomadic. But I think it would have made more sense to base them on peoples that historically were nomadic raiders, because "cowboys" just doesn't feel orcish at all. Specifically I think that Mongol-esque orcs would work very well. It would allow for them to be just as much individuals as any other species AND still fit quite well with the usual idea of orcs as being brutal raiders. But maybe that's just my obsession with the Mongol empire leaking.
That's 100% a fair point. I could also see that WOTC probably chose cowboys because they are an american company and cowboys are american so if they mess it up, theres less backlash. Mongols would be super cool, but definitely a high risk, high reward situation. Not to mention with cattle drives, a couple hundred years ago some quintessential 'cowboys' were nomadic adjacent outside of winter.
@@octaviohenrique6079I feel it’s fine to use real world cultures for inspiration but it just feels wrong to directly use an actual people group to make a race/species. Orcs with Mexican food is fine but just making orcs fantasy Mexicans feels wrong
@@octaviohenrique6079 Eh. Tolkien took heavy inspiration from real cultures all the time. Rohan is just Anglo-Saxons with horses, the dwarves are heavily inspired by the Jews to the point that Khuzdûl was even designed to resemble Semitic languages. It's only racist if you make it racist.
Easy fix concerning species with wings (Drumroll) Make them small and have them grow along as the character levels up. Doing so would easily explain why you can’t fly around for longer periods of time at lower levels. Your wings just aren’t developed/strong enough to carry your weight! But as you progress/level up they become bigger/stronger and can carry you futher
The brave choice is to just let them have the full sized wings they want, _but_ they don't actually let them fly, or even glide very well, because wings like that wouldn't work on a human anyway. Have fun with your dead weight drag machines.
In my campaign setting, the orcs are modelled as a mix of Mongolian (nomadic tribes living in yurts) and Roman legion - a very martially-focused and martially-structured nomadic tribe that moves around based on the seasons and the available hunting. They are extremely formidable foes because they can fight with either the coordination of a Roman legion or the horseback mobility of the Mongol hordes. Whether they're friendly or hostile is almost entirely dependent on the leader of the tribe and whether their objectives conflict with someone else's. They do NOT back down.
if anything, i figure the entire contemporary country movement is stolen valor, right? cheap pandering twang from rich asshats in three-thousand-dollar boots, who don't like dirt. it's an insult to the history of vaqueros and to the working-class movement of outlaw country.
Honestly Aasamir could have wings all the time, but they could only support a full fly for 1 minute every day This makes a lot of sense because humans are heavy and wings typically only support hollow bones So basically yes they always have but no they can't always fly
I think I'd make it so that they have wings all the time and could fly for longer than a minute but only if they are willing to risk the effects of exhaustion.
i let a player have wings, no real restrictions either. I was just planning on using more ways to bring him down or the enemies up to his level. In the end tho, he was more a menace to himself and the party with them than without. Nearly caused a TPK because he thought he could just fly out of any situation... in the future, i will probably add some restriction to wings on a player. im thinking something like, "You can fly up to your STR mod in minutes per short rest" as well as weight restrictions. Cant go flying around in plate armor carrying a months worth of gear. XD
@@magicalfungi3206 i do this too with aasamir: after level 13 the allways have wings but there ability to fly is restrictet on the gear the have. If the only have common cloths: fly like iccarus my son! With light armor the have there movement as flying but need to land every turn. mid armor 1/2 of there movement as flying and with heavy armor 1/3.
Hello I'm the guy who picked standard human over variant human Specifically when rolling for statistics I got mostly or only odd numbers. That's when standard humans really shine, especially as paladins and subclasses with more than 2 important ability scores. And when I don't get a lot of odd numbers when rolling statistics, I simply choose a difference race than human.
@@NoahOMorainRush It doesn't matter if my character is an orc, an elf or a halfling, who they become will still be decided by their talent, backstory and skills. And rolls represent what talent they got. I don't make characters and then roll them up, it's all one process of crafting the character as I make them.
I honestly really liked the orc pantheon, probably my favorite pantheon for any race, so rather than try to create a cultural rift or play with that they just yeeted it.
The Goliaths are really cool now to me now. They all seem very strong and feel tied to different aspects of nature in a way that feels better than “I’m a wood elf, I speak for the trees”. Gives me sort of primordial elemental vibes. I would really like an elemental species, this scratches that itch.
You forgot something about Dwarves: they no longer ignore the speed penalty from not meeting the strength requirement of Heavy Armor. That to me is devastating. Such a cool feature that allowed you to skip putting scores on both Strength and Dexterity.
I really do not like what they did with Orks, they have gone from proud warriors to grey big teethed humanoids on a family holiday in Utah. In regards to the Drow I think in an effort to placate people who find their lore offensive they have just turned them into dark skinned humanoids with pointy ears. I never found the Drow lore to be a problem, having a society that has taken a massively wrong turn like say North Korea or Germany under Hitler makes sense. If I was writing the lore explanation for the new PHB it would be something like this “The Drow, formerly know as the Dark elves in eons past, are a society of elves corrupted by Lolth the Spider Queen. Under her tyrannical rule a dark empire has arisen within the Underdark, an empire built upon cruelty, fear, paranoia, and upon the backs of slaves and the oppressed. However, there are those who resist her dark influence. Some Drow leave the Underdark in search of freedom and adventure, while others rally to the banner of the moon goddess Elistraee, a resistance movement which fights to free their people from the twisted web that Lolth has spun.” My two cents is keep the Drow dark and twisted, while also emphasising the Drow that resist that darkness at the same time.
Theses who flee the underdark meet Eilistraee who then help to liberate the people that in itself is cool big fan of drow lore but got to change it for modern audiences can't have an evil race
@@AneirinRPGpeople just don’t like having entries that describe intelligent races as having an innate pull towards evil, implying that the race as a whole is, quite literally, rotten to the core
@@AneirinRPG But in the existing lore they are not innately evil. Its Lolth’s influence over them that keeps the majority on that dark path, but its not impossible to overcome. Also you say it needs to be changed for “modern audiences”. Can you explain to me what that actually is, because it gets talked about a-lot but never defined.
@Plane-Walker so the former totally agree with but I do think there are drow who would be just evil for the hell of it too as for the latter I'd say the modern audience to me are the crowd that's easily offended are the one who complain about everything force diversity in most media concord and dustbin are latest examples and quick to call you names it you disagree I'm trying to not say woke but alot is from that crowd
@@Plane-Walker "Modern audiences" as I would describe it, is a term is generally used to describe the terminally online sort that sees the entire world through a narrow, left-wing lens where everything can be stripped down into an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. For example, the idea that if a white person does something bad, it's because they're a bad person (as they're the oppressor), but if a black person does something bad, it's because society made them to do it (as they're the oppressed). This is as opposed to the idea that while society can and definitely does impact things like crime rates, it also ignores the fact that people of all races and creeds are equally capable of being shitty. Some people are just shitty. Under this lens, the idea of a dark-skinned race being inherently evil is obviously a bad thing, and that's something I agree with, no race should be inherently bad. But rather than go with your far more interesting idea of the Drow, the modern audience would much prefer a far less ambiguous representation of a dark-skinned race, one which does not show them in a negative light (even if the reason for them being evil is because of the external influence of Lolth rather than anything inherent). tl;dr modern audiences are the people who are more interested in entertainment media as a vehicle for their politics, rather than just a vehicle for telling good stories. These things aren't mutually exclusive, but they want them to be mutually *inclusive*. Which is why you end up with things like the recent Black Myth Wukong game getting slammed by people for not being diverse enough, even though it's a game full of Chinese characters (which should be applauded for being a successful game despite featuring no white people). Adding non-Chinese people to the game would just be inappropriate in this case, as China in that era especially was very homogenous and patriarchal.
Prayer circle for celestial furries to be included in upcoming celestial book in the replies to this comment 🕯🕯🕯👼🐶🕯🕯🕯
I think it sounded so cool so I’m sad ngl
" Make it so. "
Ursinal was my favorite before 5e, I miss my librarians in the woods. Also, a possible house rule for Aasimar is that wings are always visible but can only fly for a minute. Thoughts?
My lion paladin with a glistening mane of light is gone
In short, most stuff got sanitised and robs flavour from the new species.
Dwarves are associated with axes because axes are good for cutting down trees. And Elves live in trees.
Ahh Ysgrammor and pelinal whitestrake would be the best friend with the dwarves because they're the best "lumberjack" that men ever produced.
And I’d do it again
Bloody leaf lovers!
Damn right, rock and stone
I miss my druegar 😢
funny thing about the dragonborn origin thing:
Bahamut is "known" to travel the mortal world in a human shape, a Wizard known as Fizban the Fabulous.
So I would argue that "A wizard did it" and "they were created by the dragon gods" are not mutually exclusive statements.
And maybe dragons tried to recreate it?
More like "A wizard did someone"
I did not know Fizban was Bahamut, good to know!
Fizban like from Dragonlance? Isn’t he the god of good in dragon lance?
@@kat0na_cat I don't know the lore for that setting too well
The fact that wotc gave dragonborns 10min flight and aasimar 1min feels personal
Yeah I’d like to see those stupid worms walk into a tavern without getting smited by the first paladin
@@dracospawncs Dragonborn’s being made up instead of adding kobolds with the goblins as a PC race bugs me. Dragon born are so so uninspired and just… god it’s just wizards made generic dragon ppl cuz me be lizard… THATS A KOBOLD besides being uninteresting
I'm not sure why they went with such a modern concept such as cowboys for orcs. I guess it's because other historical nomadic people are pretty much what orcs already were: Nomadic Raiders who often leave destruction in their wake. Even cowboys were known for their lawlessness and rustling. I've always wrote that the evils of orcs are more of a cultural thing than racial, The Vikings and Mongols weren't evil people, their cultures just had different morals
That's just one example of a cultural aesthetic that's available to all the species. And they fit pretty perfectly in the Outlands setting, and that's been a part of D&D for decades.
Culture can be evil. The things that the Vikings and Mongols did, if I gave you a history lesson, my comment would be instantly deleted.
Do not pretend that their acts were innocently committed.
@@penguinlordalan to me they aren’t a race really. It’s a humanoid monster. Humanoid does not mean “human or has “humanity” “. Take lizardmen; They are literally incapable of being moral they neutral like an animal. They are not wired for it and are literally biologically incapable of empathy. Orcs are unempathethic rage monsters that… idk what they want from ppl to eat them and their stuff? Thats why you could only play a half orc before
@@jacobnavarro3675I’m not going playing 4E or anything remotely similar but I’ve been dying to know… what are the defining qualities of the new orcs?? If it’s just jaja we travel…. Sorry that’s pathetic. A half orc wrestling with his monster half is way more
Interesting than this… my interpretation is you couldn’t play orcs before cuz they aren’t a “race” they are monsters like an ogre or gnoll… like why aren’t we upset about gnolls? Humanoid is just a reference to body structure
@@monk3110 Since you mention it, it's kind of funny, you could play a Gnoll in 4e by RAW. They were an official race in that version. And that's not all that different from half orcs in 5e. With both, the option is there for the player to use that duality of conflict between the "monster" and the "person." IMO, it's one of the most interesting things about picking that race for your character. But a creative player could definitely make a character out of a half orc without such issues and have it be just as interesting.
"Maybe I'll play human. What makes them special?"
"Oh. Breeding"
"Like nobility and stuff?"
".........no..."
I like the idea of humans as this indomitable spirit that lives on regardless of the conditions Vs these highly specialised species that are better at surviving in their specific environment, but struggle anywhere else. Take a dwarf out of a cave and their highly specialised adaptations suddenly don't work anymore. Put a human in a cave and they're already building a pickaxe and figuring out how to survive off of fungi that don't need light.
@@bye1551then put the same human on a random island with no caves, and he will still survive
I always thought that this is why humans are always the dominant specie in fantasy. They can survive anywhere they want with ease
I
@@bye1551 "humans are op cause they can get a feat at lvl 1" The thing is, with magic initiate they are just worse half elves or tieflings.. and now that everyone gets an extra feat the variant is useless (since anyone can get an OP feat which are often banned anyways) you cant compensate for the orcs endurance, you cant get resistances and you cant get darkvision so easily
@@piotrwisniewski70Also i guess their nature as chaotic and orderly beings, always trying out new things but also creating a system based on Observation and understanding
That's how humans in seven deadly sins get so powerful, their highly randomised inherent powers can mean some really busted stuff, but they also train, mimic and absorb powers of other races
I had a goliath bard that sired an extremely overpowered lineage of halfs once. He had a very inclusive perspective on what he felt was dating.
I’m just so baffled Wizards didn’t do the obvious choice of giving Aasimar 3 legacies that loosely parallel the Teiflings three new legacies. Re-enforcing the idea of the Aasimar being teiflings angelic mirror and stuff.
Like one legacy could be your basic humanoid Angel with a pair vestigial wings and a halo etc, the other could incorporate those weird beastly elements some older celestials and aasimar had, and another could be based on biblically accurate angels with multiple eyes and extra vestigial wings. Somthing like that.
Would have worked well. Some of the good planes are nature theamed so animal Angels for those would work well. As for the wings give them wings but weak say only 10ft fly speed till higher level.
The beastly elements are easier to incorporate if you approach it from a different point of view. The Chinese Zodiac.
I have a player in my campaign, you look at his character art and you think 'dog-folk reskin of Tabaxi?'. Nope, Aasimar based off of Xu Dog
I can kind of forgive that element because celestials are the only ones to have angels, and there's a general theme of greater unity among them. Their differences don't divide them as much as the fiends do.
@@kingsadvisor18 or egyptian, thats who i thought they were going for, though indian gods had animal heads too.
@@kingsadvisor18that's genius actually. A lot of people immediately think angelic when they see celestial, but there's so mucb more to celestials rhan just angels.
"The races with visually distinct subraces get lineages."
Where's the Duergar, WotC? Where's the Duergar!?
Where are my deep gnomes, WotC??? WHERE ARE MY SVIRNEBLINS?
They removed them. Too controversial.
They're in Monsters of the Multiverse
@@PulsatingHyena Wizards didn't remove duergar, they simply didn't change them or make them a core race/subrace. If something isn't in the 2024 updated players handbook, that means you use the 2014 players handbook content or whatever special book it's from.
Can't have racists in DND sadly
I find it really funny how not to long ago they said Orcs are stereotypes of black people and now they just made them stereotypes of Latinos.
"They" are
.-i-. *f* .-i-.
.-i-. *u* .-i-.
.-i-. *c* .-i-.
.-i-. *k* .-i-.
.-i-. *i* .-i-.
.-i-. *n* .-i-.
.-i-. *g* .-i-.
morons who have nothing better to do than tilt at windmills.
I don't get why they don't go the Kid Icarus route for Aasimar, just give them wings but make them vestigial until they activate their celestial power like Pit does. Easy peasy.
I would let them have feather fall active at all times though.
@@guardiantree8879That's a great idea, like as long as you're not Incapacitated you automatically gain the effects of Feather Fall. If you don't want to buff them QUITE so hard, you could say they can actually cast Feather Fall without a spell slot once per day, like the tieflings with their spells. Or it's at-will, but still costs a reaction to enable, so an aasimar caster couldn't, for example, cast Counterspell mid-fall and still take no damage.
If I were in charge of creating the new Aasimar, I would've given Aasimar 3 subraces, giving one of those subraces wings that grow to their full potential at level 5. The lower levels could have effects like reducing fall damage, or maybe even a limited flight that works more like a jump. Flight is very strong, but at level 5 the DM has plenty of tools to still provide a challenge for flying characters.
Still can't believe dragonborn get more flight than aasimar, despite dragonborn without wings being the recognized look at this point
Or make them only be able to fly for a short amount of time while having the wings all the time, make it super tiring or something.
As a certified elf enjoyer (TM), their cultures being so radically different to our own, largely because of lifespan, is a huge part of what makes them so intriguing. Living for a thousand years means when a tyrant arises amongst the humans, just wait. They'll just die out in relatively short order. Wood elves care infinitely more about the ecosystem because they're going to be there in it for 10 generations of humans. Elves stay aloof and have trouble creating emotional bonds because everyone they do bond with outside of their own race will die long before themselves (Frieren). Most people don't even know about the Drow that have abandoned Lolth in favor of her sister Eilistraee, pursuing peace, freedom, and beauty. The Lolthsworn Drow themselves are a fascinating society with tragic circumstances that can be an incredible breeding ground for character creation and growth. To strip all of that history away because it would be an awful reality is asinine, especially since if it bothers your table that much you can simply overwrite it yourself. That's the beauty of TTRPGs. You make the story.
i agree with you. I just wanted to note that human generations don't last 100 years. A real life human lives for multiple human generations. Really, a generation is more the time from birth to the point at which *most* of those people have reproduced (thus, the birth of a new generation). So, elves living for a thousand years are actually living something like 30-40 human generations. The amount of cultural shift that can occur in human societies over that time span. Elves must feel so... alienated amongst human societies. Like how real-world soldiers often times feel that they don't belong when they return home from war. But in this case due to time displacement of said culture rather than war trauma. I agree with you that Frieren does a great job depicting how such long lived creatures might struggle to participate in human societies.
Eilistraee is the daughter of Corellon Larethian and of Araushnee (Lolth). At the time of the Dark Elves banishment Eliistraee chose to go with them to give a nurturing and good deity to follow if any wished to.
Eilistraee is Lolth's daughter. She went with Lolth and her brother because she knew her kin would need her. Most Drow worship her in secret.
the problem I have with what you said is that for anyone who is new to TTRPGs can't easily get assess to the lores of the older systems. Especially with WotC seemingly trying to get rid of it. And for folks like myself, who's creativity comes from looking at existing lore, being denied looking back into the past constricts and limits the ideas I can come up with.
One idea that's recently really taken root for me is to play with the post-fall-of-Rome inspired aspects of many "standard" fantasy worlds (forgotten/buried/ancient magic/tech/civilizations of great power, greater than today) and the livespans of elves (and their tendency to be portrayed as "in decline", whatever that means in-setting) in a post-apocalyptic way?
A great calamity that for humans would be ancient history would affect elven culture and populations in a far more direct way still.
The very common elven traits/weaknesses of a degree of unwillingness to act, relatively low numbers, being less powerful than they once were as well as isolation could extremely easily be justified as elves still effectively living in a post-apocalypse in terms of society and population numbers while humans have effectively rebuilt a long time ago.
(This includes far more direct generational trauma. Elves being weird about certain kinds of magic and generally weirdly distant? Yea that's generational trauma, baby!)
...Which is not to say that I'm against adding other hard-ish tendencies, I just think that the potential of combining those two aspects alone is enough to make for some really interesting worldbuilding.
Time stamps:
00:00 Intro
03:26 Aasimar
09:19 Dragonborn
12:20 Incogni (Sponsor)
14:08 Dwarf
18:13 Elf
24:32 Half Elf and other “halfs”
28:43 Gnome
30:48 Goliath
34:25 Halfling
36:32 Human
39:45 Orc
44:45 Tiefling
51:16 Species ratung by the Hat
52:08 Outro
bro theres chapters
Always appreciate people like you❤ thank you!
This deserves to be higher
It's already in the description?
I copied them from this person, they did the work of timestamping, not me. I just put them into the video to create chapters
I've gotta be honest. They did orcs somewhat dirty. I don't entirely hate the change about them going nomadic, I think that can work for them, and I'm actually behind it. However, they seem to have thrown out the whole warrior culture vibe they typically have, even when they're just generic mooks, and that isn't cool. Not in the slightest. That is a part of what makes Orcs what they are to me. That's what makes them cool.
I think they should've looked to Warcraft for inspiration, a spiritualistic folk that also prized strength, sometimes to a fault. That alone would've been plenty great enough, and combine them with being nomadic? Yeah, I can see that working really well, and that wouldn't upset too many people.
Now, Cowboy Orc makes for a cool character. But as basically what the race is now? Yeah hard no. They took what was amongst my favourite races in fantasy, and my favourite to play and homebrew with in D&D, and made it something that just misses the mark entirely for me. Mechanically they might still work, but flavour? I am not even going to attempt to humour WotC on that one, they're just not Orcs to me. I hope that this isn't the case, but from what I've heard, that's probably how it is now.
I remember seeing the artwork a month or two back too, and thought "that's seriously what Orcs are now?" Like I saw the image and just knew they were going to fuck up somehow.
You can keep the brutish nature of Orcs and make great characters out of them. They did not need to go through a retcon that just turns them into something else entirely. And I am willing to bet actual money that they'll either never be played as WotC intended by a good sum of Orc enthusiasts, myself included, or they'll retcon it yet again and bring them back to being brutish barbarians yet again.
WotC can do infinitely better with Orcs, honestly. At least Goliaths are cooler though. Although, one another note, I am confused on why Deep Gnomes aren't a lineage for Gnomes either. They're distinctive looking enough too. Where's the Deep Gnome? I want to play my old insane midget that wore a chest and steals eyebrows whilst screaming incoherent shite.
The funny thing is that if they really don't want all Orcs to be perceived as the same, they could just create multiple Orc culture options. There does not need to be a single society of a group; humans are not like that, so why should other species be? The nomadic peaceful Orcs could be one group of Orcs, and the classic brutish strength-obsessed Gruumsh worshipping Orcs could be another group of Orcs. Then Orcs can be played both ways easily.
WotC struggles to develop their own versions of Orcs, i agree with you that they should take inspiration elsewhere, the WoW thing is cool, Orcs being naturally a warrior culture with deep spiritual values being corrupted by the influence of a dark entity.
The Elder Scrolls lore is cool too with the Orc being a cult of Elves that tried to pull some divine shit and got pretty much cursed for it.
Tolkien's Orcs are elves straight up captured by Satan and turned into monsters through pain, corruption and darkness.
Warhammer Orcs are the best, genetically strange passively reproducing monsters run by violent instincts and mob mentality, most likely created as tools of war by a long gone all powerful civilization to fight off the endless armies of the daemon lords.
Take your pick, lookin at DnD they could make the Orcs the former fighters and custodians of a long gone deity that fell at the hand of a malevolent spirit thus taking away the guidance that shaped such hulking warriors into a civilized society, transforming them into purposeless tribes of nomadic warriors, some retaining a fragment of knowledge of their former divine mission and thus having tribes with highly praised honor codes and warrior ethics while other have degenerated into bands of absolute brutes, slavers and oppressors.
That fallen deity could be corrupted or weakened, could be fragmented and guiding different tribes to different purpose, the evil deity could be a trickster and assume the role of it's victim, paladins could be channeling the spirit of their former deity, giving it strength through belief and worship and being given divine power in return.
I mean there's endless cool inspirations out there, all the great settings are straight up inspired by others, why can't they pull that off correctly is beyond me.
Also in WoW the Warsong Clan is described as nomadic. So nomadic and Warrior Culture are not opposed to each other.
Nomadic Lifestile and Warrior Culture do not oppose each other.
@@dawoifee Fair, they can still do both. Humans, Elves, & Dwarfs have Multiple cultures so idk why Orcs can't.
@@SweetTaleTeller True. But to be fair Nomadic also allow a broad spectrum of cultures. And Western Frontiers are the least somewhat culture I would have drawn from for it, since these are more settlers than Nomads with a functioning State supporting their effort.
So for Nomadic one can drow from Sioux if you want something American, or from Huns, Seljuk or Mongols. Even Germanic tribes from the Migration Period work better than Cowboys.
If you go with historical nomadic people there are plenty examples of them settleing down where they conquered and assimilate in the conquered people as the Ruling class. This would be an interesting Setting to play with I assume.
The downside to a change like letting every aasimar choose every transformation all the time is that, well, now every aasimar has the exact same abilities.
Most of the new book seems to be a stampede to sameness.
I...didnt even think about that but youre absolutely right.
"So what aasimar are you?"
"What do you mean?"
Along with removing things like enslaver races (which sounds awful like this haha) it kinda feels like in the pursuit of trying to make things more available and customizable it lost exactly that and a lot of depth race and world wise.
@thesaviorofsouls5210 exactly right. When everyone is special, no one is special. 🤷♂️
@@thesaviorofsouls5210I think itd be better to think about it not as "removing enslaving races", but just changing the fact that it's no longer tied to race but culture instead
Like you can still have orc raiding parties or underdark drow slavers, and those cultures are for sure evil, but you can also play an orc/drow/whatever without someone annoying going "erm so ur evil?"
@@M0nsterm0uth Have you read Drizzt?
Iirc there was always an option to play a good aligned Drow, the alignment prescribed to them in the book was just a preconceived notion that they were all evil according to the other races
As far as I understood it
you come from a culture perceived by everyone as evil but you don't necessarily have to be evil
idk I just found it makes for interesting conflict at the table, with someone going "erm so ur evil?" and you trying to convince them you are not over the course of the campaign
I just don't see the problem with Drow having an evil, matriarchal culture. Their society is dominated by a chaotic evil goddess. They aren't genetically predisposed to be bad or anything.
This is the same point that R.A Salvatore made with Drizzt decades ago. You can have a lot of the classically villianous species be villains not because they are born evil. (Though I do think it can still work look at the Skaven for instance) but because their cultures are awful. So you could still absolutely have bands of orcs that live as pillagers who have a culture inspired by the idea of "Gruumsh gave us the strength to take on the world so we will." or you can have goblins working as organized criminals creating gangs. You can even take a page out of stories like Hellboy or Devilman or even the origins of Merlin for Tieflings and it could work.
I just don't see how becoming a Drider is supposed to be a punishment. As a species that worships a spider goddess, shouldn't that be considered an upgrade?
@@Shashu_the_little_Voidling I admit that is an odd point.
@@Shashu_the_little_Voidling This is why Yuan-ti are better than Drow. Does the person you're speaking to have more snake bits than you do? If yes, they are your boss! Easy.
@@Shashu_the_little_Voidling Lolth basically dresses everything up as spiders (on account of being super jealous and self obsessed) so there's more cultural nuance to it than just is it a spider. For Driders they're specifically Drow that failed her so while surface dwellers might legitimately be " ah this must be a favoured champion of Lolth" Drow would culturally know it's a mark of an outcast.
Two things:
1. The familiar is an INTERN?!
2. Book of Exalted Deeds by way of Pointy Hat is an exciting idea that I am going to hold a torch for until it is done.
The intern thing has been implied for a while
work out to hold that torch for a quite a bit
This cannot be stood for. We must boycott his videos until he pays his familiar a fair wage!
I've never paid my familiar... so yes. It feels really awful now that I think about it.
well, you tube won't allow other words to be used. but it's what he uses for unpaid laborers like how there were a lot of 'interns' in the American south prior to the 1860's
45:45 i love alignment as a guiding idea, not a rule, that can help me more easily say “what would my character do here?” cause i often play characters really different from me. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE THAT THEY HAD NO PLACE IN SPECIES CHOICE!!! That should be on the player to say “this is how i want to play” and not on an entire species of ppl
@@Silver_Anchor ok but why have them then? All pc races can be anything. Generally everything with a set alignment doesn’t have “humanity” as we’d think. Orcs are invasive pillaging rage monsters like would you say ogres are people and could be good or a Balor?? Or lizardmen that are neutral and cannot have morals. They are smart but purely animalistic and are biologically incapable of empathy. Like these things are what make them interesting yall are genuinely just uninspired if you like the new stuff IMO. Staying with pathfinder
In dnd I think good and evil are more how the gods view you IMO. Even cannibalism to survive is still an evil act as it surves Urgathoa even if you don’t shift for instance. This is why alignment determines whether you can be smote
Personally, as a consummate orc player whenever it's a chance in any game, my solution for including both the 'cool nomad cowboy orc' and the 'big dumb evil orc' option is basically the Warcraft solution: have a faction of orcs who took up a deal with some sort of evil power for strength, but it came at the cost of free will. When new orcs are born into this faction, they do not have the 'gift' -- and these are basically what 'half orcs' were in the old game -- until they come of age and have to drink the evil unguent, too.
This way you can have both the complicated hard-boiled badlands orcs AND the uncomplicated-but-fun hooligan horde orcs, while also providing an in-universe option to play the evil ones without being evil, and it doesn't make any claims of the 'evil orcs' being 'born that way'. In my mind it side-steps basically every possible issue by making every existing take into cool faction lore instead of species lore. Do you want the evil orcs to be rarer? Make their faction a fringe cult. Want to make them more numerous? Say that they destroyed or took over the old orc capital and forced the rest into their nomadic life. Each flavour works as an interesting option without removing the other options from play.
Those are some excellent ideas. I would love to see them in a setting
or just not remove Half Orks from the game maby
@@viktorgabriel2554 They didn't "remove" it. The creators specifically said if something isn't in the new book, you can just play it just like you have been all this time. Do you think they removed Aarakocras bc they aren't in the new book?
@@viktorgabriel2554 Yeah, I remember the bullcrap Extra credits Orcs are black people take and well...... removing half species from the game kinda is more racist cus.... kinda suggest elves, orcs, don't overcome there wiring and breed with other races...... and let the evils one less evil cus.... no rape babies. It is just dumb. Also, don't orcs only live to about 40 years old? I imagine would be very emotionally damaging, It is harder to commit yourself to a cause of good with so little time...... the building sandcastles to kicking them down comparision. It also makes orcs that overcome there races inclinations less special. Just make half lins more numerous and accepted if you want more not evil Orcs.. to the point they brand themselves as a separate race from their ancestors. Orks.... Orkes... Orxs.
Yea, why not just have two different lineage Orcs? I'd personally feel like it'd make more sense to have the "dumb and strong" ones be the mains ones. So you have those ones still worship the Conqueror God and still want to war and pillage, but then have a nomadic faction that left that life behind; They can't settle down for fear of being conquered
One obvious reason to name them "Drow" and not "Dark Elves" is because "Drow" can be copyrighted.
Can it be copyrighted? It's not a made up term. Obscure, but it is a Scottish form of the term troll.
@@Liethen if Disney can copyright "hakuna matata" (actual saying in Africa) then wizards can copyright Drow as well
@@piotrwisniewski70 Disney hasn't copyrighted hakuna matata. There's no way they even could. But they have trademarked it, which is very different, and can be done, and has been done, to plenty of phrases. Like;
- "Just Do It" by Nike
- "Because You're Worth It" by L'Oreal
- "I'm Loving It" by McDonald's
@@TheRawrnstuff right, sorry, I always mistake copyright with trademark
@@TheRawrnstuff Fun Fact: West End Games trademarked "Nazi" back in the 80s when they made their D6 Indiana Jones game.
"The reason why we wield tools that destroy trees into battle despite the fact that our caves have no trees is because the trees are where the knife-ears live!" - A dwarf
I don't get "knife-ears" as an insult. In fact I kind of hate it. It's so dumb lol
@@block4562 i first heard knife ears in WoW, so maybe thats where it comes from? The original pixels back in 2004 were so bad that their ears literally looked like comically long knives😅
Things like being small as a default with less speed is kind of the reason why I don't like these equality changes. Like what's the point of being a different species if your physical nature isn't addressed at all mechanically? Part of the fun me and my players have is figuring out how to overcome such deficiencies (almost like maybe that's the point of playing such species in the lore...).
Not me literally getting excited thinking the incogni species was real only to find out it was an ad. Jokes on you hat, now I’m going to make it anyway.
LITERALLY SAME
Yah, I was like "oh, this is new and interesting. But if it's new, why does the name sound so familiar?"
Changing coming back? I still miss my 4E Changling.
i kind of already have, one of my elf races had a tendency for genetic experiments and biological weapons, when they encountered illithids, they actively started capturing the brine pools, cultivating the tadpoles, and studying them, they turned them into a form of implant that allows them to communicate at long distance and protects them against psionic attacks
@@d3str0i3r idk the context for you replying with this but this is so fun???? Do you have any writing on them?
I feel like assimar should have skin that resembles polished marble/other fine stones or gleaming metals like silver and gold. I feel like the perfect statue energy could be kinda fitting.
Then you just get either a celestial mark, either a birthmark or ethierial echo of their divine transformation. (Guardian get wing stuff, scourge get halo or rings with eyes, edgy boys get any of but broken/defaced.)
Feels iconic while keeping the ideas and vibes.
the genasi?
I would argue aasimar would look like bibilcally accurate angels or apostles from Berserk.
Just looking like dnd celestials would be correct.
@@Merilirem I will say a guardian assimar with patches of iridescent scales and who's wings manifested rainbow colored feathers due to a connection to coatels would be really fun.
I just felt that the kinda perfect statue vibe gave a good balance between perfect beauty and being a bit removed from humanity. Plus it plays into the idea of them as anti tieflings similarly to how metallic and chromatic dragons parallel each other.
Also this is a spicier change but I feel volos diet warlock set up had more potential than it was given credit for. I'd have just removed the divine pseudo patron. Basically making it so any given Aasimar would be born with a divine mission they don't know but would be subconsciously driven to complete.
- Guardians would be charged with keeping key people alive or healing based duties (also hot take, mechanically they shouldn't enhance damage, maybe instead getting a reaction to reduce incoming damage by prof by shielding someone with their wings, with the ability to move up to thirty ft. If a creature would be downed by the damage dealt. I just find that flying and still focusing on damage just doesn't feel very..... Guardian-y on them. To aggressive.
- Scourges would be soldiers or assassins for when men, armies, ect have to die, ect.
- Fallen assimar then in this context becoming what happens if a assimar fails, is at risk of corrupting or loosing their divinely empowered soul, or for some gods if they simply complete their task and have no reason to leave their divine spark on earth so they just.... Rip it out.
I am absolutely all for deeply aesthetically varied aasimar. Honestly Pointy Hat's complaints about Aasimar aesthetics feel pretty rubbish.
Because, sure, some settings, GMs or players may want to restrict angels to the traditional Christian angel presentation. But it's equally legitimate to interpret them as either a servant of one of the many many good-aligned deities, all of whom will doubtless impart their own aesthetics, or extraplanar manifestations of good aligned planes. Either of these invite deeply interesting interpretation of what 'angelic' really is, and so how it should look.
Iridescent scales? Maybe you're associated with an angelic servant of Bahamut, couatls are straight up good-aligned extraplanar creatures, or maybe it's just a reflection of the endless lights of the heavens? Absolutely hell yeah to any of those. Same goes for almost too-perfect features seemingly hewn of marble for that juicy 'angels as servant constructs' flavour. Or heck, maybe you're embodying an aspect of an angel of safe voyage, who would guide ships safely to shore. Your eyes are made of sea glass, your wings are those of a seagull, your skin appears carved of driftwood.
Let the aesthetics of angels fly free!
I tend to think of celestials in general as playing for subtlety and working on the downlow while on the Material Plane - far too much time spent watching Touched By An Angel and Highway To Heaven with my Mom, I suppose - so I'd be more inclined to have the aasimar's signature traits be subtle as well. Mostly non-visual stuff, like the fleeting sensation of a feather brushing one's arm as an aasimar passes you on the street, a slight lifting of others' emotional gloom or bitterness when they enter a room, or a bell-like resonance to their voice when they speak with passion or sing. Visually, their hair and eyebrows might hide a few very fine, thread-thick feathers among their normal strands. Their skin pigmentation would be within the normal range for humans, but does not scar and, if bruised, turns the colors of a sunrise as it heals, rather than the usual red to blue-black to greenish to yellow.
As a half-elf enjoyer, this is outrageous
I don’t like playing the “I’m adventuring cuz I was born badass thing” I like had to and half elves have such a built in excuse for it. They don’t age the same as either parent or anyone really.
Also elves are dope and I liked multiclassing
27:18 *whips out the 3e "Interspecies Relationships" compatibility chart*😮
I totally did not skip to see the Dragonborn part because I am a normal dnd player
Based,
Honestly, if I'm DMing a campaign and one of my players wants to play an Aasimar with wings, they're getting their wings. They can even have a constant flight speed at all times, dragonborn too. You just need to know how to DM around that. How to set up challenges even for characters with flight, and also to just let the players have fun and use their wings to save the day sometimes. Its all a hero fantasy at the end of the day, don't rain on a player's parade.
This! I have a DM who let me have wings for my Aasimar and that made me happy enough - it's extra nice you gave them a fly speed! I'm also a big believer in letting them fly 🤷♀ Maybe it's because all my players are cool and want to have fun - but nobody has ever tried creating a reddit horror story situation with their powers of flight
There was a post on reddit talking about how either they or their DM handles player characters with wings. Strength. The higher it is, the higher you can fly up to a certain point. Thought that was really interesting.
Makes designing fun dungeons a lot harder, especially since you don't want to limit player options but also don't want to make the solution incredibly easy. I don't think this is a fair take for most DMs who are also juggling adult/young adult responsibilities
i let a player have wings. they mostly just used them to nearly get themselves or the party killed.. XD
I think I'd have it so that they can have wings and fly whenever they want, but flying is more energy intensive than walking so it tends to lead to exhaustion.
"being small is just a debuff"
There are at least 2 mechanical benefits:
You can use smaller mounts, for example, mastiffs
You can walk in smaller spaces without suffering the downsides of being in a cramped space (basically disadvantage on everything, advantage on everything against you and half movement) it does not come up a lot, but when the halfling is the only one that can reasonably counter the kobold's side tunnels, because its a death trap for the rest, its quite valuable.
Other than that, there is also little downside to being small
Gnome fighters riding mastiffs down a hallway, getting the Mounted Combatant benefits, shall not be denied!
@@Reepicheep-1 Isn't that just that knight guy from Labyrinth?
Don't forget about the Fastball Special
I was making a new character just before the new book came out and all the species who had an option to be small didnt mention the speed changing so i happily made my Fairy as small as possible and everyone at the table was happy for her to still be able to keep pace with the others 😅
I'm playing as a tiny fairy bard rn, it's actually awesome, games are about more than mechanics, so optimising all the fun out of them to make sure all the races are "balanced" just makes them boring
My view on orks is that they aren’t automatically evil. But it’s in their nature to be violent and warlike. So whilst they won’t go around murdering people for fun, they will very quickly resort to violence if they see you as a problem.
Bhaalspawn as a race, essentially. "You can be good, but your life will be a maelstrom of chaos and violence regardless."
Orks? This ain't 40k. ;)
@@erikc5797 I legit forgot it isn’t normally spelled with a k.
@@Mr.Goufball LOL I approve! I also like it when I see folks spell it Dwarfs and not Dwarves because I know they are Warhammer players.
I generally take it as broadly hostile low empathy. Hurting you doesn’t really register emotionally to them.
I mean 1 reason kobolds are evil is cuz they eat gnomes
"We wanted to make every _species_ option to have a deeper impact and representation of the dnd multiverse, which is why we washed hard rules and specifics from the book and made it so that anything can be anything."
Every step further D&D goes it just is homogenization. It has been happening for awhile. Give players everything so everyone can have free access to the game and you get a larger playerbase. All they care about is catering to everyone at all times so they can sell more D&D. D&D is no longer a game, the game is bland, boring and they say it themselves: Make up the rules and do whatever you want. Which is the complete opposite point of being an actual game.
D&D is a franchise now. They only care about marketing everything they can as D&D. Which is easy to do if D&D is homogenized and everything fits at all times. Every race is basically just "insert fanbase" + a few simple cosplay add-ons. Because that is what sells.
3.5, I keep telling everyone 3.5. Pathfinder 1e is also good, but I prefer 3.5.
@@sumotode I think my main issue is that they still haven't given us the customization options that make a more free system actually work. Unless your a warlock.
@@Merilirem Well it is all about illusion of choice with D&D. Ultimately you are hard locked into a set path and set way of building characters with the way classes are railroaded. Depending on if its martial, caster, or utility. While they give you what appears to be many flavorful options, but when it really boils down to it, mechanically, each type pretty much plays the same with a little bit of window dressing.
And that is pretty much the same for every race/species. Even more so it seems as size no longer matters, movement speed is all the same, etc. Outside of a few special abilities that are pretty minor there really isnt much difference mechanically, or even visually. Just a bunch of humans with a bit of makeup or cosplay accessories attached. (But that is common fantasy / sci-fi trope)
And honestly, railroading is not a bad thing in itself. If the different options have truly different game-play and uses it can make for fun decisions. However, D&D is so concerned with everyone being able to do everything and totally inclusive that they are taking all meaningful decision making and consequences out of the game. This makes for a great franchise and marketing, and so far its working as they are selling better than ever. But as a game it is pretty mediocre.
Honestly, just keep the Drow the way they were. Societies, just like people, have flaws and those flaws make for good story telling.
I like the Dragonborn lore more as well because… most civilizations not as technologically advanced as ours wouldn’t know the true origin story. You could argue that magic makes up for tech and archeological studies, but magic can just as easily make it much less clear.
Also, for Dragonborn’s Wings, I’m personally imagining something like Bayle’s second-phase wings from Elden Ring. Look up his boss fight and it will feel a lot more draconic :3
CURSE YOU BAYLE!
@@forcefulstorm6187 HERE I VOW, YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY!
@@danielv4793 BEHOLD, A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR! AND I, IGON!
@@danielv4793 BEHOLD, A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR! AND I, IGON!
The same thoughts on BAYLLE!. When I get my hands on that book. I will make a character like BAYLLE!.
The orc problem for me is they no longer feel like monsters. The fun of playable orcs was that disconnect between them and the usual races due to their monstrous nature, and makes the ones that try to be good more interesting. They feel like they got _gentrified._ I feel like there's a better middle ground than just turning them into grey cowboys.
Love it, orcs got gentrified. Also nice pfp.
IMO the only reason orcs maintained their evil stuff in the past was for similar reasons as goblins with Magublyet(sp) because Gruumsh was keeping his thumb (and eye) on them.
Want them to be normal? Make up a good reason for a group of orcs to have escaped Gruumsh's influence. Maybe they're trying to save other orcs by helping them get out from under the thumb of an angry god who got a bad deal.
@@ZenFr0gmaybe your Orc is simply a hero and unique to other Orcs! I never saw them being an "evil" race as a way to limit what sort of characters you can make. All it does is add some assistance for worldbuilding and backstory :)
@@ZenFr0g my solution has always been to make mortals relationship with their deity an important factor in their existence. After all in a setting where the soul is a definite existence metaphysical threats are just a bad as physical ones. And unfortunately not everyone is magically inclined or has an iron will that can resist these forces that come for them.
Want to keep a demon from claiming your immortal spirit as their chew toy for all existence? Pick a higher power to worship and now you're safe against any direct harm (they might still find a way to trick you into giving it up willing though)
Don't want to end up a wandering spirit after death? Your chosen deity has created a suitable afterlife for you to be sent to after your physical body stops working (barring any magical mumbo-jumbo from a slighted wizard. The ones you worship are powerful but not all-powerful)
What if you've displeased your divine patron? Well depending on who it is you might just have to repent and seek their forgiveness. Others might have you endure some kind of punishment first. Some might make your life a living hell until you prove your worth. Really piss them off though and they'll take away your metaphysical protection, leaving your soul up for grabs once more.
On the subject of orcs I've always had the majority of tribes worship Gruumsh out of a mixture of respect (he is their creator after all) tradition and fear. They are violent raiders because that is how Gruumsh expects them to be and why he made them. It pleases him to see them put a village to the torch or make an enemy cower in fear at the thought of facing them in battle.
Other tribes have been abandoned by Gruumsh after they failed him at some point in the past. Some found merciful gods that were willing to take them into their fold if they gave up their violent ways. Others might've made pacts with devils and became even more bloodthirsty. A few found ways so bizarre to ward off threats that their existence is doubted by even the most learned scholars.
The steppe nomads are that middle ground
Pointy hat I have to praise you. Thank you again and again for putting all this content in 1 place for me to watch and not have to wait piecemeal spread through 3 or 4 different videos. I can't thank you enough
21:09 "Why are the bad elves black?" Well a way of thinking of that instead of whatever the OG explanation was, their evil goddess Lolth twisted them into more of her vision of what they should be. Shes an evil spider demon, so her followers took on the dark blackish/purpley tone of the spider exoskeleton, and the white hair to match the webs they spin (metaphorical for the webs of conspiracy drow weave as well as literal webs). Just a thought
I always just assumed it was for the same reason that deep domes are kind of gray colored. Camouflage is essential in the Underdark, or you tend to get EATEN by something.
This is more or less the canon explanation
Drow haters when they conveniently forget about moon elves
Is the only spider you've ever looked at a particularly dull black widow or something?
Please, house spiders can range anywhere from marble-y brown to tan to blackish. It's literally from the 70s it should not suprise you that it's got some problematic elements😂
Also, wait, are there not already dark skined regular elves? Yeah just no, very no. Need a hard retcon no doubt about it
@@solsystem1342 I mean sure there are more than just black spiders but Lolth is always shown as a black widow type of spider, I mean that they embody Lolth and her spider aspects more than just spiders as a whole.
"I am not sponsored by WOC"
Meanwhile pinkertons aim shotguns off camera.
Nah, they got a pair of scissors up to his brim.
@terrat0mere , everyone say hello to Mr. Stitchpuller!
"oh looks like I got a pack of the new cards in the mail"
prepare to reenact the finale to red dead redemption.
Aw man, I'm gonna miss Half-Elves. They were perfect for making brooding characters.
They live too long to form relations with humans, but too little to be taken seriously by elves. That was a perfect reason for half-elves to become adventurers.
Guess I'll give all my edge to tieflings.
Dungeon meshi made me want to play half elves.
You can still use them, because you can use anything from 2014+ that hasn't been explicitly updated in the 2024 book. You just adjust them to mimic the 2024 species, like dropping the ability score improvements since those are in the backgrounds.
I have in one of my campaigns that an Elfin Duke is breeding half-elves because they mature and reproduce faster as arcane shock troops. I image with 800+ year life cycles pure elf pairings just about break even in terms of procreation.
Recommendation : just ignore the update. Its DnD brother. The new books are pretty much already worse what was in 5E imo.
@@theslavicrat3784 I personally love 90% of what's in the 2024 update, but yeah, there's no reason to update if you don't want to. Plenty of people like previous editions better then 2014 5e, too.
"Demon enjoyers, make some noise" **Hollywood applause**
Very fitting.....
Just what i'm thinking! XD
My only issues with the changes are that it feels like they're watering down the different species. I don't want to play a human that happens to look like a dragonborn (as an example), i want to play a dragonborn. A non human sentient that has non human emotions and culture
Welcome to 5.1e
Where everything is starting to look the exact same.
I won't be shocked if soon they cut the amount of classes into like 4 very generic ones. Like warrior, thief, mage, cleric.
Would fit their strategy of making everything feel the same
But the thing is. Reincarnate can revive people in the body of a different species. Their mind remains the same. This means that it logically CANT be the species itself that is responsible for the common mental traits (as then a reincarnated soul would gain them) but rather the culture.
@@svartrbrisingr6141 4E offended me so bad that when someone told me 5 is like a fixed 4 I didn’t even touch it. Pathfinder for me as far dnd is concerned
@monk3110 honestly been thinking of moving to pathfinder. But I'm going to try dnd 3.5 first
@@algotkristoffersson15 i mean not necessarily, theoretically if you're revived with the same soul in a different species body the chemical reactions in the brain WILL be different. So you WILL experience emotions differently. Your senses are different as well, so your experience and perspective of the world WILL be different. Someone who was a human but is now a dragonborn will still be different from other natural born dragonborn, but they'll still experience new desires, emotions, senses ect
Of course that's just realism and can be hand waived away at any table. But if the chemical reactions are still the same then you don't have the brain of a different species, you're just a dragonborn with the brain of a human.
Also sorry for the VERY late response. I actually didn't get notified of your response, i only saw it when i looked at a recent notification
I really love that they gave the gnomes in the illustration the best combination of actual, functional hats and the stupid little pointy hats (no disrespect to present company) that are so iconic for them. Like they still get the pointyness but now with the extra features that make hats look cool!
Also imagine a gnome mafioso with a pinstriped cone hat with a fedora brim, a gnome cowboy with a wide-brimmed conical stetson, or a gnome sports fan with a pointy baseball cap.
Edit: HEY WAIT A SECOND Antonio's human familiar is wearing a DIFFERENT POINTY WIZARD HAT during the gnome segment! Is he CHEATING ON our boy? And on camera too!
I just want the Dungeon Meshi approach to be standardised. Tall men is such a good invention.
Yes yes, All races have nuances and besides, they don't sweep discussions involving racism and hybrids under the rug...
@@octaviohenrique6079 lmao
Her design for all the races in meshi is peak
I like that the tall men actually have traits that define them: endurance and skills related to high culture (singing, acting or dancing) and being the tallest common race (Onis are taller, but they are a subtype of tall men iirc and rare)
@@octaviohenrique6079 Did you only watched the anime ?
I know you said you were only gonna talk about the changes, but I hope that Dwarves still have poison resistance. As much as it doesn't totally matter, because my beloved poison damage is so very weak anyways (with the number of creatures that have poison resistance), but it effectively gives Dwarves a proficiency in drinking. Not to mention, as a Warhammer nerd, it doubles down as Dwarves are particularly resistant to Grandfather Nurgle's plagues and disease - which is a fun carry over.
As an enjoyer of drow and their stories I have to add that the main issue here is being setting agnostic. Most of the heavy lore, history and important figures were written for the Forgotten Realms, all of the Drizzt novels, WotSQ, Starlight and Shadows and even Evermeet are exclusive to the setting and the source of all of the juicy lore. Leaving it vague -while I don't like it- it's sadly the best way to frame this in the context of this manual. My hope is that new material will surface when the Forgotten Realms guide comes up.
Meanwhile, for those people who don't want to go through 40 novels I recommend getting the Legend of Drizzt Visual Dictionary. It has a lot useful of info to build a character and know the culture.
While you're not wrong, it should be noted that much of the basic stuff was instilled in Drow from the get go with the Grayhawk setting ( the original default) where they were introduced in the Against the Giants adventure module long before it got elaborated on in Forgotten Realms by Salvatore and Greenwood. Personally as someone who is also a drow enjoyer ( if my name wasn't obvious) the fact that they left it so incredibly barren ( also someone who feels that any kind of knee jerk reaction to Drow by modern audiences is on them and the lore doesn't need fixing at all) this basically satisfies nobody on either side of the argument.
Was the drow lore different for the Greyhawk setting?
@suggiethames9870 no the basic stuff was largely the same, that was my point. Subterranean, evil elves with dark skin , worship of Lollth
I'm pretty sure the biggest problem with Drow is that a lot of their lore is based on negative stereotypes of non white cultures. That aside though, if WotC wants to write the manual to be setting agnostic then they should quit trying to tiptoe around the meta and just state that D&D has multiple settings with multiple explainations for things, like the dragonborn, and that any homebrew settings can deviate even further. It really isn't necessary for a player manual to reference settings so much. Leave that to the campaign setting books like Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Mythic Oddesies of Theros, and Explorer's Guid to Wildmount.
@@HaughtyToast What non-white cultures are stereotyped as matriarchal spider worshipers?
They've added so much "You can be anything!" and making things have very shallow lore (If any lore) to the point it's reaching "When everyone is special, no one is special." And it just ends up being really boring. Basically everyone is the same group of people you'd find in a stock photo compilation.
They don't even really get into setting agnostic preferences and ideas to really springboard off of, there should be "An idea" to work with, and then if the DM wants to change it, they can, but to leave almost everything to "Just flavor it lol" makes it feel so barren. For most of them there's no visual identity that makes them unique or really stand out (Elves get pointy ears but share the same coloration as Aasimar, for example) and then things like humans being able to be small (As small as 2 feet tall, according to the PHB) makes them and halflings and gnomes just mix together, and with the shallow lore, it just becomes "I guess I'm just picking a starter feat" than any unique difference or choice without the DM picking up the slack to make more lore.
Most of the differences at this point feel like half feats, if that, and at it's currently trajectory it's probably just going to end up as "Just use the custom lineage and flavor it"
I've had friends so often read up on lore and go "That sounds awesome! I want to make something like that!" or want to know more, but, the split between "This is cool, I want to know more about this" and "I want it to be literally me" has tipped to the latter and lost all of it's former, and while it's good to be able to put a part of you in the character, or to relate with them, I think it's also a massive disservice to expect you to craft a fantasy character that is just you and your problems and nothing else to play with.
Modern audiences
Also my opinion on the orc change is basically,
It's so completely different from any previous orc version (I would have gone more the TES route where they're more like Warring States Japan and have honor codes but still harbor deep ferocity, but also exhibit fine craftsmanship, but also are on the brutal side of life while showing they're passionate about different endeavors, even the famous world renown chef is an orc) that I would have preferred an entirely new race, instead it feels like we lost a potential race of nomads and also lost orcs along the way.
For how setting agnostic the PHB can be, giving orcs such a "It's definitely not that thing we kept insisting it was!" is going too far in the other direction and it's functionally retconned almost every part of what they were (Germanic tribes, general brutal societies)
Obviously they're far removed from Tolkien orcs (Not a real species, they're warped and corrupted elves, literally just evil that twisted a biological vessel) but they've basically just gone too "Off" from what they were to really feel satisfying.
Exactly. "The Rules" should be based around the _standards_ of the race, the things that are both likely and common. Then any player can choose to bend of break whichever rules they like to make the character they want to make, but with the knowledge that they _are_ breaking those rules, and that this is likely to be a source of (good) conflict.
@@AneirinRPGcorrect answer in my opinion
100% this.
Darkvision and dancing lights is such a funny combo of abilities lmao
To be fair the combo made more sense with the pre 4th ed change to dark vision. Back when it literally allowed you to see in areas with no light coupling it with dancing lights meant you had an ability to blind opposing drow in whatever confrontation erupted. With the change to dark vision, the change to lore and so forth... yeah is silly they kept the ability even after gutting everything else.
@@ShalimarX32 What do you think current darkvision does if it doesn't allow you to see in areas with no light?
@@Pingviinimursu The old dark vision was a completely different visual to the current. You saw things in degrees of heat. The current dark vision has more in common with the old low light vision. You see in complete darkness but its just normal vision that negates the darkness.
@@ShalimarX32 Oh, so it used to work like that! I've read some Drizzt books where it was described as the thermal based version and thought that was cool. I do agree with your point, two different types of blinding is cool and seems like a good combo, your first comment was just worded confusingly :)
@@ShalimarX32 IIRC, the term for that was "Infravision".
DND slowly turning from fantasy to a reflection of our modern reality.
Perfect for
THE MEESAGE
Damn, didnt know tieflings exist irl
@2ndacc23 Not yet. But just wait until the advent of biomodifications.
This whole "culture war" about transgender people will seem harmless compared to what awaits us after transhumans become a reality.
Modern players inject themselves into games. Role Play is virtually dead. It's a reflection of the lack of mental growth. The inability to see different perspectives is a measure of mental sophistication and growth. Adult children not only play games these days, they write them.
I never understood and still don't understand why a species with darkvision would need two cantrips of light. Drows don't need Dancing Lights or Faerie Fire, there would be no reason for them to biologically learn to use their magic like that
It's Purely used for backstabbing
Half of all DND rules don't make sense, they're just an incompetent bunch of random ideas. The new DND system should be entrusted to someone who understands what game design is
POTENTIALLY for farming? but i like to think of it like nightvision goggles, their eyes are sensitive enough they can see well with significantly less light, and possibly with a different spectrum of light, but adding more light can increase the clarity of their vision, just like how night vision goggles give you a green or grey monochrome in the dark, but if you add light they often give you a color picture
@@d3str0i3rshhh the other people arent creative enough to think of unintuitive reasons for things to be the way they are in the dungeons and dragons universe. Magic and gods and mythical creatures are alright, but suggest a slightly different evolution path for drow? Impossible for these people haha
Darkvision isn't equivalent to seeing in light, it treats darkness as dim light, and usually messes with color and light perception. They prefer to have lights around, they just have slightly better night vision than you or I.
Even mechanically, a drow making a crossbow attack in darkness still does so with disadvantage, lights fix that.
Not an elf stan by any stretch, but this book at least made it clear that Elves are just DnD Eevees. Nothingburger lore means your special pointy eared cute woodland thing can adapt and be anything it wants based on team composition.
Isn't that what humans are supposed to be? I thought elves were supposed to be more like...psychic types?
@@ninjabluefyre3815 Nah, humans are the invasive species that can survive anywhere without changing physically. Eevee specifically changes type when it evolves. Elves literally evolve to match their environment. Drow = Underdark, High = Magical Lands, Wood = Forests, and even in other books Shadar-Kai = Shadowfell, Eladrin = Feywild, Sea = Sea, Astral = Wildspace.
Imo, Humans can be found anywhere because they can survive anything if they want, while Elves can be found anywhere because each biome has its own evolutionary branch of elf.
@@MrAthens25 Eladrin, Sea, and Astral are gone now.
@@MrAthens25welp now I'm stuck calling them elvees. Thanks
@@sintanan469 no, they just arent in the new books. which means they can still be used as is from previous editions. "backwards compatibility". they arent gone, they just havent been changed.
2:30 - Overall changes
3:27 - Aasimar
9:19 - Dragonborn
12:20 - Sponsor
14:08 - Dwarf
18:14 - Elf
28:43 - Gnome
30:49 - Goliath
34:26 - Halfling
36:32 - Human
39:46 - Orc
44:46 - Tiefling
51:19 - Final ranking
thank you for this timeline list❤
PH: "So why get rid of half elves/orcs?"
JC: *Says a whole novel that doesn't actually answer the question*
Welcome to their way of thinking.
@Ragitsu whose way of thinking? 🤨
with the orcs it saddens me that they did not take the opportunity to draw inspiration from all the marauding and Namadic peoples of human history (e.g. Ostrogoths, Mongols, Berbers and pirates).
C'mon, they would not dare to make orc mongols.
@@Rzepik yes, they wouldn't have the courage to do that (especially knowing that people are complaining about ogres as a Mexican stereotype)
@@matteoguastapaglia6994 Ogres... Mexican...
Lol, in Tekken maybe.
@@Rzepik XD
You think of nomadic people as orc ?
Funny how they remove half races and say they want other races to be staples, yet Orcs (one of the races now a core race) is not only bland, but has lost abilities from both its old rules and half-orc rules.
There's a lot of horrible baggage from the old days I'm just as happy to see gone.
@@glenmurieI agree!
the whiplash I always get from how orcs are depicted in Eberron and other systems like pathfinder compared to 2014 dnd was WILD
it sucked to be an Orc/half-Orc in the forgotten realms, glad that’s retconned lmao
I feel like they could have retconned the orcs without abandoning their old lore. They could be a race that strongly believes in might makes right and prefer to handle most problems with combat and that this causes them to other races to perceive them as evil.
I blame Warcraft for the Orc change.
Like most kids are into this “wow, a heroic orc?” After Thrall came out.
Even 3E ignored Ondonti because most players aren’t ready for “good Orc” (plus no one wanted to be farmer Orc). Same with Drows and Drizzt since few at the time would connect with Eilistraee (aside from nude female priestess) over special snowflake good Drow rebel.
The thing is, they took the orc, and turned it into something that had nothing to do with orcs. Why? Just make a new race as "big nomads" or whatever it is they wanted, and leave the orcs alone to be orcs.
Aasimar not having wings is not the issue. Aasimar dont NEED feathered wings. That's like saying that Tieflings NEED membraneous wings.
Honestly, they need to focus on color palette and their extra features. Tieflings have dark, muted, and/or warm colors, while Aasimar should have light, pastel, and/or cold colors.
Tieflings have shadowy/burning eyes, while Aasimar should have glowing/shocking/icy eyes. If hell is a dark lava cave, then heaven is a bright, stormy sky.
Tieflings tend to have extra features like horns, and aasimars have halos. I feel like aasimar dont play around with the imagery of a halo enough. A halo is a ring; it could float above your head, but it could also be worn on the body like jewelry. A crown/circlet is a halo, a necklace/choker is a halo, a fingerring is a halo, a belt is a halo, and an anklet is a halo. A celestial could have multiple halos.
They could probably make the halo a tattoo/marking on the body if they're not down with the idea of a piece of metal or bone permanently attached to their body or treating them like jewelry. As a matter of fact, high-tier angels are associated with being eyeball monsters (something about being all-seeing), so why not give them eye-shaped markings on their bodies? Although that would bring up the question as to whether tieflings would have markings, and if they did, how would they differentiate from the aasimar?
Tieflings are often seen with tails, but their tails are often portrayed as hairless. Perhaps Aasimar could get feathered tails like that of a peafowl.
In the same vein of figuring out Aasimar by comparing them to Tieflings. I love the idea that the Tiefling ancesteries come from what plane their ancestor was from. Did they come from the Abyss and are demonic, the Hells and are Devilish, or the third one i don't remember.
In general the upper planes are less talked about than the lower, so I don't even know how to give an example without googling. But I wonder if Aasimar could get subspecies based on different upper planes.
idk if this is a popular opinion but i really like building on the art of the aasimar with dark hair, white eyes, and gray-purple skin, which i'm pretty sure is supposed to be depicting a fallen. i like the idea of them having colorful skin, i always found most depictions of them as just humans with some sort of glowy features and wings to be boring. i also really like what bg3 did with the metallic cracks across the face, but what i imagine is almost like draenei from warcraft without the horns, hair-like tendrils, and hooves. you can play around with halos and bright or graceful features a lot with that baseline. i'm not a huge fan of a lot of the depictions of draenei with bright or richly colored blue skin, i think the ashy, muted, or softly tinted skin works really well for the otherworldly feel of aasimar. i think this would work to give them a much better visual identity aside from just "angel"
I feel like the wings are the equivalent of the tails. The misc non facial feature. Angelic entities don't really have stuff like that otherwise. But if we're ignoring tails, halo like markings or bands around the head region would be nice.
I have two planned Aasimar characters, and my art for both gives them halos as a distinguishing factor.
@@elegantoddity8609 it works to just play it like pit from kid icarus too. they have wings but just can't fly unless they're granted the power of flight by a specific entity or by temporarily drawing it from their soul or something. the whole "sprouting wings" always felt odd to me
In one of my campaigns, Gnomes actually used to not be able to do magic. Like they couldn’t access the weave for some reason and that caused them to be more inventive. Then, because of reasons, some people were able to siphon the magic out of the land and spray it like a humidifier over the land, which let gnomes access it. But their culture is still so dependent on the inventive stuff.
I think the problem here is that they're trying to sanitise everything to appeal to everyone despite previous editions of dnd more or less being dark fantasy. So instead of just letting there be ethically questionable things in the cultures of the various races/species, they coat over it with vagueness or simply refuse to cover it. 5e so far has been lacking in actual lore, forcing lore junkies like me to look to past editions to get anything of value.
Part of playing an orc is understanding that you're playing a humanoid monster. Either embracing this aspect and becoming the party's designated war criminal or fighting against that stigma and becoming a gentle giant that the party and world at large appreciates. They've already done(or tried to) to this with hobgoblins, but methinks that the hobgoblin players(all five of them) just ignored this and made warlords anyway.
Exactly and if we play an aasimar (or I suppose for the Tiefling enjoyers, too), we should get to have those clear celestial archetypes- holy angel healer/ protector, fire purifier angel, & fallen angel. When there is clear good (or fallen good = evil) in the archetypes, that gives infinite roleplaying opportunities. It is similar if you’re playing a monster-originating species like an orc.
Yeah, they neutered everyone.
I just don't get it. Orcs etc being evil is something that has never really been strongly emphasized in D&D, and often outright contradicted bot in the game material and in supplementary stuff (books, video games etc). There's a strong appeal in playing the rebel from the evil empire, the reformed bandit, cultist etc. Erasing the dark parts of the culture of orcs, drow etc removes so many character hooks and much of the incentive to play them.
I think they got stamped flat because they want setting agnosticism. In your world…things work how you want them to. Lean into dinosaur riding halflings who eat their enemies. They’re giving you species, not culture. I think that’s where they messed up with elves. The High Elves don’t have to be good guys, The Drow may be justified (and their goddess driven insane by Corellon has a small evil cult). They’re handing you a toolkit, not a setting.
They are trying to sanitize it for the woke crowd who despite what they think will not buy anything or play their games because all they want to do is complain and ruin what we enjoy because they are just the most "inclusive and loving" people all while being completely the opposite.
Forgive my unfamiliarity with the Drow, but... Wouldn't an easy fix to them be "All that bad stuff you hear about them is literally just enforced on them by Lolth and her clerics. because Lolth *desperately* does not want to let them go"? So there could be plenty of Drow and Drow colonies that escaped from that and bucked the stereotypes, while also making the Drow in general be victims of Lolth instead of "lol we're evil"?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a version of this idea in BG3? If memory serves me right, I remember there being an option of two Drow backgrounds.
@@gravelycritical Basically, in BG3 you got either Lolth sworn or Seldarine drow, Lolth one being the obvious and Seldarine being more open to new connecting with other races and more loyal to one another but still having that slight edge of a very survival-of-the-fittest culture (thats the best way i can put it at least lol)
@@gravelycritical That Seldarine drow hoe in BG3 was super evil though.
That much gold for some kind of lame ASMR experience?! That's a crime!
@@gravelycriticalthe good drow that either escaped or live in secret is much older than bg3. Check out the sword dancer prestige class on Google. There is tons of forgotten realms lore on this. I would love for this class to come back for clerics in 5.24e down the road-it’s basically a combo of bladesinger and swordsbard for clerics and meant to be for good aligned drow.
I love how there's never a clear consensus on what exactly orcs are... are they just a large humanoid species? Ogres with extra steps? Demon spawn? Man-bear-pigs? High-Goblinoids?
They can be whatever the hell ya need
Its just WotC trying to wash the taint off of their problematic worldbuilding with a coat of whitewash.
Fungus monsters!
1. They smell.
2. They are a source of XP.
They are touched by the Feywild and thus more or less closely related to both Elves and Goblinoids.
That's the closest to concrete information about their origin that I could find.
If you want to add into your world the pathfinder origins they are good ones. They clashed with dwarves in the dark lands before a quest for the sky is the short story of it that is honestly a good world building point. They just existed.
34:00 Goliath monks grappling and pushing other creatures as a large one themselves .... or your caster friend cast enlarge/reduce on you while large = you're now huge... with grappler feat you get : "You don't have to spend extra movement to move a creature Grappled by you if the creature is your size or smaller." - put sentinel on them and they can put every enemy in the same place and keep them there because they make them go prone and sentinel keeps them in place....
9:33 "Dragonborn have tails"
Welp i'm sold
My favourite thing about the new dnd is I can just take the art and concepts they have that I like (such as dragon born having tails and some subclasses I can homebrew back to 2014) and then bin the rest lmao
I wished they made lizardfolk a bit more interesting imo
Their ability to make gear from bones could be expanded to make semi magic items depending on the creature you used.
Or give them a climbing speed or gecko like healing ability once a day.
@@kitnal4143 And then there's the dragons, where you do the exact opposite. Bin the art.
34:33 “they can’t all be winners, I would argue none of them are” such rich aunt that looks down on you vibes
They should have just made Half Elf and Half Orc Human Lineages.
Pathfinder fixes this.
As somebody who still likes alignment, doesn’t care for tieflings or orcs in the slightest, and repped half elves for decades I’m now sweeping my home for bugs because it is clear Wizards has chosen to attack me personally.
A pox on this obnoxious notion of "realism" and modern politics in medieval fantasy escapism.
33:58 - You misunderstand. It's not a Large transformation people wanted, it's a permanently large state that we've been asking for. Something which Pathfinder has graciously given us with their more recent ancestry changes, but D&D lacks the courage to do.
I'm a little annoyed at the cowboy orcs, not because it's a bad idea, but because I was already making a whole orc/dwarf wild west region in my Pathfinder world, and now everyone will assume I ripped it from WOTC. Oh well, at least it'll be easier to get a hold of orc cowboy minis now.
Don't worry about it, next to how much Pathfinder ripped things from D&D, nobody will notice.
For my games, if a player wants to play a mixed species character like a half elf or something similar, I'd use the mixed ancestry option from the Tal'Dorei Reborn book, where you can choose a base Species and replace abilities with different Species abilities based on the character's parentage. I'll probably limit it to one ability per character and restrict stacking existing abilities like spellcasting, unarmed attacks and resistances (for the sake of balance).
Honestly annoyed they didnt do this. Would've been nice to have those options for character creation on dnd beyond
Yrah, it wouldn't be hard to just let players remove one trait and replace it with another. You just need some DM supervision to prevent too much min-maxing.
@timogul I mean they already have a feature like it with the customize racial traits feature
@@gabrielgray2345 Well players can always just customize anything they like, but it would make sense for them to at least offer that _suggestion_ to players that _if_ they want to make a half-character, then this is a method they might want to use. For players that aren't as experienced in making up their own rules.
Funfact: OG Alchemist-supreme Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim explained the spirit's desire for human-based procreation in the exact same way. A lot of actual medieval texts saw Christian lore and broader mysticism as different parts of the same spiritualistic reality, and Mr. Bombastus was no different. His IRL explanation for why the spirits of nature, such as sylvians and sirens, were invested in sharing in the production of human/half-human offspring was basically: "Obviously, only humans have immortal souls, thanks to God's blessing, but the nature spirits, though made by god, are a part of nature, and therefore have spirits, but lack an immortal-soul. The only way for these nature spirits to gain the favor of god on the same level as a human would be to have a child with a human so that their offspring subsequently inherits the immortal soul of a human." They get the immortal soul + nature spirit benefits. And yes, the reason humans could procreate with non-human things was "The immortal human spirit is just that blessed."
TL;DR Paracelsus really wanted to validate his fixation with mermaids.
My rule is: If you can give your character a backstory reason for existing in the world of the game, you can play anything.
There's no influence from Spelljammer? That's ok, your Thri-Kreen is from a very rare subterranean culture that's been moving to the surface for the first time ever to avoid cave-ins caused by the BBEG.
We're not in Eberron? That's ok, your Shifter has a mutated form of Lycanthropy that can occur when the curse is an inherited trait.
You want to be a Half-Elf? Then you are! *2024 rules simply don't exist.*
Any physical traits that didn't affect mechanics were already free to apply to character design. A big thing for my group has been: follow mechanics for one race but character design for another - Human design with Orc stats because the character has been modified by magical experimentation.
This is a fantasy game! Have fantasy fun! And the game already requires so much homebrew in order to function that I don't need a book from WotC on high to rescue me, I already rescued myself. I'll borrow some ideas, but I never needed permission to alter lore or aesthetics.
(I'm aware that I'm more curmudgeon-y about this than necessary but WotC irks me deeply, so I'll continue yelling at clouds.)
I run the same way! Flavour is free as always!
Hmmm yeah. When I make a homebrew world I limit the number of races, but I make sure to include a LOT, and plenty of variety between them. My favorite part of worldbuilding is the cultures of all the available races, and I just would never stop if there wasn’t a limited number lol
❤ this is the best DM type to have
This! The flavour text of the books was always suggestions and guidelines!
People forget this but Thri-kreen have been around in 5e as a non-playable race long before spelljammer. It's just that they were more or less a tribal race(cut off from the skies, they had forgotten their origins) and had no reason to fight the players since they're more or less neutral.
Why don't they just make flight require concentration? The Fly spell requires concentration. Just do the same. If you fail a concentration check, you fall. Meanwhile, you can't cast any concentration spells. Having wings already prevents you from wearing heavy and medium armor.
Makes Aasimar Sorlocks really good with slinging cantrips or sniping into the back line with their light crossbow Pact weapon. Also, a fair number of leveled spells that Sorcs have access to don't need concentration, and that meshes nicely, too. Most of these are blasting spells, and those that need line of sight just got it. Flight makes you a target, though, but if you can pop up 10 feet, do your blasting, and then move back down behind cover, you've got better shooting-from-cover than Assassins. (I don't play DnD, so I don't know if movement can be split around your action / bonus action; it should be, though.)
@@tendracalrissian8820That full build description followed by "But I don't play so I'm not sure" gave me whiplash 😂 You're 100% right, you sound like a player, and yes you can split your movement however you like during your turn!
@@NoahOMorainRush I've got deep into DnD videos from TreantMonk, Colby at D4, and PointyHat. I listen while I work; I just haven't got a table play at or time to do so.
So if tieflings were great for warlocks assimar are great for sorcerors. I like it
Thats more or less how it works in pathfinder and it works pretty well, needing to use your bonus action to fly would be a more apt comparison though
As someone who has zero problem with Drow lore as is and thinks it shouldn't be touched or updated for a "modern" audience, this also doesn't make me happy, this is a choice that satisfies nobody. I'm not in love with the direction they've taken orc either, I think Warcraft still does orcs best. If you want a nuanced take on traditional orcs, that's the way to do it. Still I am loving what they've done with Goliaths, Dragonborn and Tieflings, so two out of my three favorites races ( Dragonborn, Tieflings and Drow) are looking good, but man what they've done to Dark Elves ( or rather..*not* done) is kinda disappointing
i just can't believe they straight up axed half orcs and half elves. they are some of the most nuanced races in the game. half elves are usually neglected by their elven family for their "impure blood" and they outlive their human family. half orcs are usually born out of horrible horrible circumstances and almost never have stable family life. so many potential storytelling opportunities have been thrown out of the game for no reason.
Judging by your three favorite races, you are either:
A furry
Neurodivergent
A forever dm
Or all three
How do I know? I’m the same.
@@friedtoads13good thing WotC isnt holding us at gunpoint when we play. I hate 90% of these changes. Aesthetic and mechanics.
I feel like making orcs just grey/green humans is a weird direction to take it. The reason to play something like an orc is BECAUSE they are a monsterous race, not in spite of it.
They literally removed mixed raced to be “less problematic”
Well, I'm happy I still run races and settings "the problematic" way as the creeps would call it.
Thankfully I just make my own stuff now instead of relying on WoTC. I found that once you learn the basic templating of how races work in D&D it becomes very easy to make your own.
I think some of the problems we're seeing stem from WoTC trying to both sanitize and water down complexities. This is to make the setting more palatable and easier to pick up a play. However, this comes at the cost of creativity and depth.
As a DM who's been worldbuilding within D&D since 2004, I've only ever tried and to give Players flexibility and options - not deprive them of such. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to give a hard "no" to my Players.
I do give content warnings before campaigns and if things get to spicy I'll ease off a little, but not so much that themes get watered down and diluted. I might adjust verbiage some, tone down painting the scene a little - but only a little.
I've only had a few complaints, and only one were a guy stormed off. In that case, it was because he refused to understand what inflation was assumed they were millionaires with the chest of gold bars they were tasked with transporting. (For an Economics major this was very concerning and infinitely hilarious.)
But WoTC is making a product to sell in an age were edges need to be sanded off and stark colors need to be watered down and muted.
Just make your own system. I've been at the grindstone for a year or so now, and it's coming along nicely. Sure, it's harder to find players, but I've been courting that 4e crowd pretty hard.
R.I.P Half-Elfs and Half-Orcs, you shall be missed 😭
Well they’ll still be available (I think) just not updated
R.I.P. my two favorite races/species to play as
You just have finagle the abilities, in the new campaign we have 2 half-elf PCs both are different
I love half elfs
Well you can always use them if the DM allows it.
That new dragonborn art looks good. Looks actually draconic, rather than the old 5e art that looks like if a live action ninja turtle had relations with a meatball.
This is so accurate omg
As someone who has played many many games as a Tiefling. Never **once** have I had a DM that treated my character as anything other than a *human with a funny hat* . It frustrated me to no end that my character was never treated with derision or suspicion when he/she rolled into town.
I even had it as a plot point for a Paladin and went the entire campaign and it never came up.
Kinda disappointed that they are even more *human with a funny hat* in this new edition (yes it’s a new edition)
Aasimar: I'm actually kinda cool with them being a "stealth" species. I like the idea of it being something that can surprise people. You THOUGHT you were dealing with just another elf, when suddenly, BAM the choral music kicks in and you realize it is a very different situation. The idea of Angels walking among us, concealing their true nature until the PRECISE moment it would have maximum impact is such a recurring motif for them, even in the Bible. I could see some utility in giving them some kind of extra boost at that moment OF the reveal. Like when they first turn on their spiritual nightlight in the birdhouse in their soul, have an extra one round effect ON TOP of the ongoing effect to add some majesty to them revealing their giant, throbbing holiness.
Dragonborn: The tail is fun, and so cool they buffed the breath weapon. It is wild that they got flight, and it's better than Aasimar flying. Having their origin be vaguely multiple choice is so funny, as they keep trying to stuff 4th edition into the closet.
Dwarf: Giving them Tremorsense is pretty dope. That's an ability that has a narrow niche of utility, but when it's useful it is SUUUUPER useful!
Elf: It is so tiring that the elf lore refuses to just... DO something with them. Like, even if they wanted to focus on the Corellon and Lolth and Feywild stuff, there can still be a STORY there. I feel part of it is that the only logical story would be to sort of crib from Tolkien and have them be, well, kinda dying. Yes, they're long lived, yes, they have awesome mystical powers. But have them be this detached people who are exiled from their homeland. And over time, they're just slowly dwindling and losing their collective purpose. Like, they're an entire SPECIES of the aging former movie star, locked up in her mansion remembering better times but never trying to do anything new or different. That could even be part of what's going on with the Drow and Mentos Barista! In a last ditch effort to FEEL SOMETHING, and build something, they hitched their wagon to the Lolth train. Unfortunately that train only has two stops: Torture and Fascism. And if the Drow's ONLY special trait was gonna be Darkvision, they should absolutely have gotten straight up Devil Sight.
For Sunlight Sensitivity, it would be kinda cool to just have a SIDEBAR that explains freshly on the surface peoples might have this issue for, like, a month. But then it goes away. So if you start your Drow (or Dwarf!) as having never ONCE been to the surface, they do have a mechanical element to that story and suffer for a little while. But it's not some permanent drawback they have to live with the entire campaign.
Gnome: I do wish gnomes could get a more distinctive identity. And I even have the idea: parallel them with their long time enemies, the kobolds. In a lot of the lore for kobolds, they can almost be like rats. Leave a place unattended/unobserved for too long and they will just take it and make it their own. And have gnomes doing the same shtick but just less aggressively. Culturally, they are like "avatars of politeness". They're all either Midwesterners or British. And they just sort of fill in whatever space is big enough to hold them and no one is actively using right now. A town will suddenly realize that, without much notice, they have a whole gnomish community that's moved in. And this CAN get aggravating for some people, as they just sort of expand to the ACTIVE limits around them. And it's always important to remember: "polite" is not the same as "nice". Or "good".
Goliath: I do love making Goliaths more explicitly Giant coded, I do think it's a missed opportunity to not give some of that love to Dwarves. They are also heavily linked to Giants, sometimes as life-long foes, sometimes as "the littlest giants". But I do think this version of the Goliath is absolutely perfect.
- On a side note. I have a character in the pipes for a future campaign that the joke was they are basically Loki. Frost Goliath Trickery Cleric. And with that, they are a 7 ft tall twink. And I love it.
Halfling: This is another one that I wish had... a stronger sense of identity? Maybe some secondary choice to bring out some flavor? Being so heavily cottagecore-coded and agrarian, maybe something with the seasons. But not linked to the time of year itself, but more about the mood of the halfling themself. Are the FEELING like a Summer? Maybe they're in a mood right now, so they're stuck in Winter mode.
Human: I like the idea of "Resourceful" also just reflecting the collective "NEED DO THING! NEED DO THING NOW!" / "I CRAVE NOVELTY!" that drives humanity to just do the weirdest god damn stuff and somehow having it NOT backfire constantly. But having it be a reminder for Inspiration is also very effective.
- In my home game, I do use a simple table etiquette that's caught on where the players are allowed to nominate people for inspo once per game as a way of spreading the love and keeping the resource flowing. It goes from ONE person having to remember, to 5 people each being able to offer it up.
Orc: NICE! Orcs being inveterate nomads is such a quick, simple update that doesn't necessarily UNMAKE their prior lore, but adds this extra context and expands how they operate. Like, even the aggro orcs of prior stories could just be orcs that have wandered into a new area, the old hordes can become when some sort of event has disrupted the natural path of a BUNCH of orcs, so they are suddenly moving out and trying to find what their "new normal" is going to be.
I do think orcs should have an array of colors almost as wide as tieflings. Grey, green, red. Hell, let em be blue or yellow.
Tieflings: I'm calling it - every species should have a section on smell. We need to know what odor gnomes give off. What DO high elves bring to the ambiance? Are all halflings walking patchouli pouches? And I do love the 3 different planar influences as well. It just gives them that little extra push into being a complex species. Like, do all the different tieflings get along? How do they relate to each other?
I could not agree more with your section on Tieflings. It would add a dimension to character building that people otherwise don't think about at all. But I must admit, I am biased: I played a deaf Tabaxi ranger in my last campaign, and although he couldn't hear a pin drop, bro had the SHARPEST sense of smell. I'm talking a huge part of the reason he was as good of an investigator as he was, was because he could use smells to identify anything and anyone. And if you were close to him, he would have an entire profile of your smell and could sense your presence specifically in the room based on that alone.
@@giasharie274 I've been using a Githyanki Order of the Lycan Bloodhunter with enhanced hearing and smell, and I've used the smell SOOO MUCH! Like, enhanced hearing can be cool for picking up the straight forward stuff. But SNIFFING the door we're about to kick in has been amazing for knowing what's up. The idea of expanding sensory details could be SO damn cool, and having those notes in an adventure about "If you have a player with DAMN FINE senses, here's what they might pick up outside the ordinary."
Even with stuff like touch and taste. Throw em in an illusory meat dungeon and have the tactile guy be like "I think this wall just licked me..."
The best change is the Dragonborn having tails. I no longer have to fistfight rules lawyers telling me my characters don't make sense when I draw them with tails.
Jeez dude not letting you have a tail is way past being a rule lawyer that’s just straight up being a fun limiter
"I'm not asking for an extra ability, it changes nothing but vibes"
"NO"
@@grantparker6092 It doesn't happen often, but some westmarch DMs are strict sticklers for the rules.
@@ZenFr0g Genuinely how it feels sometimes.
😂 it’s true, when I draw any of the unique species characters like Dragonborn or yuan-ti there are battles in comments over the extent of their non-human traits
i confused my family by audibly whooping when you said for yugoloth enjoyers to make some noise lmao
Thank you for putting this all in one video! It definitely made it so there was more continuity when you did comparisons between WOTC's different approaches to the changes (ex: elf vs orc)
I still think Pathfinder's use of the word "Ancestry" feels more thematically appropriate than "Species"
Agreed. Pathfinder's system is just better by far, honestly. Way more options to create mixed heritages, more ancestry feats to create unique representations of ancestries, and not the "hell on Earth" this guy seems to think it is. After creating several Pathfinder characters, D&D character creation just feels so shallow to me now.
5e is a terrible game. In other news, water is wet.
@@lallen1395 yeah I did not like Pointy's take on ancestry from pathfinder while burying half-races.
How? Species is also an old word, it was started to be used to mean "groups of living things recognizably distinct from all others by their inherited characteristics" in the 1600s. Why can't WOTC use it? The supposed thematically appropriate feeling is just a subjective opinion. Ancestry is no more fitting nor accurate than species in this context.
I both agree with this and I don't. Firstly, species, as old a word it is, does not sound authentic in a sort of quasi medieval situation. Secondly, ask a biologist what a species is and there'll be problems with the definition. Ancestry certainly sounds thematically more true, but for the purposes of replacing species, I don't think it is sufficient. If anything, ancestry is an even worse word for substituting race, at least as far as accuracy is concerned.
If half-Orcs and half-Elves exist, than Humans, Elves and Orcs should not be different species, since they are capable of interbreeding, which just shows that the current definition of species is not very biologically viable.
So about the Aasimar. The one visually defining feature that I LOVE about making an Aasimar character is the Kintsugi marble skin. But one the other hand, playing an Aasimar character that looks completely human and then reveals to be Aasimar as they summon their wings during a crucial moment in the campaign is pretty epic.
Unless you're in a particular setting or have some kind of decree from a God, I feel Aasimar don't really have much of a negative reason to hide their lineage. Tieflings and changelings actually have a bunch of nasty stereotypes around them, but aasimar are the opposite where they are in fact revered as messengers of the gods (even when they aren't). It's giving "I'm so popular and amazing I have to wear a disguise when I go out so people don't swarm me asking me to cure their leprosy".
@@floofzykitty5072 I think I read somewhere [maybe the forgotten realms wiki?] that aasimar's celestial connection make them attractive targets for kidnapping and dark sacrifices
@@floofzykitty5072 Nah there's tons of cool backstory opportunities to hide the fact one is actually Aasimar. One of my favorite Critical Role characters did a cool reveal too. Don't wanna say too much about that though in case of spoilers.
This just happened with my Aasimar sorcerer! I introduced him late into a campaign and he appeared to be the only human in the group until the 3rd session - not because he was hiding it, but because he's from Sigil and he just assumed everyone could tell.
We were fighting a Hag who was flying out of reach of our melee characters in a giant skull. The Rogue asked me to Vortex Warp him onto it and readied an action to stab her, but she flew out of reach. My Aasimar casually said "As you wish!", sprouted wings, flew 60ft straight up with a Dash and then Quickened Vortex Warp to yeet the Rogue into position. Only one person in the party had suspected what he was (despite a few hints), so it was a really fun moment. My Aasimar is a complete himbo and he wasn't making any effort to deceive anyone, which made it even funnier.
From what I’ve heard before watching this I’m most excited for Chthonic Tiefling because they sound so cool
Mine is already all set to start a new campaign!
Genuine question, is "sounding cool" enough to be excited about them? Because mechanically tiefling are the least unique designed species in 5e and it has been so since 2014.
@@doxkowalski915 only “exciting change” was Goliath. Most races/species are the same kinda more balanced
@@doxkowalski915 d&d is more than just combat simulator no matter how much WOTC tries to deny it so, yes, sounding cool is indeed ample enough reason to be excited.
@@deffdefying4803 Mechanics don't have to serve only combat despite 5e being designed around it. What I mean by tieflings not being in any way unique is that every single one of their traits and abilities is available to basically everyone. Resistance, spells, darkvision, they don't have anything that defines them.
Take the new dwarf for example, the tremorsense is an amazing addition which can be useful in many situations and can be a basis for unique worldbuilding.
Orcs 41:22 especially in LOTR are exactly that. The embodiment of evil. Blunt tools for Sauron to send endlessly without mourning.
Some of them are descendants from elves though aren't they?
I really like the “Fly speed equal to your walking speed” it seemed so arbitrary to have it set at a constant 50ft, especially if you were playing a monk
I'm definitely gonna continue to fly the jolly Roger to get my dnd info.
Can you even call it pirating when there’s like 20 websites that just upload everything for free 😂
@@stumbling_ fair point
@@stumbling_ arrrgghhh gives me the coordinates matey since the winds is fair and it's time sail.
I've got probably 95% of the 2nd ed, which I've been playing since the 1980's and see no need to change.
every single step WOTC has made lately confirms this is the right decision.
Might I be told of a mighty ship I can use to aquire this booty?
I do like the idea of orcs being nomadic. But I think it would have made more sense to base them on peoples that historically were nomadic raiders, because "cowboys" just doesn't feel orcish at all. Specifically I think that Mongol-esque orcs would work very well. It would allow for them to be just as much individuals as any other species AND still fit quite well with the usual idea of orcs as being brutal raiders.
But maybe that's just my obsession with the Mongol empire leaking.
That's 100% a fair point. I could also see that WOTC probably chose cowboys because they are an american company and cowboys are american so if they mess it up, theres less backlash.
Mongols would be super cool, but definitely a high risk, high reward situation.
Not to mention with cattle drives, a couple hundred years ago some quintessential 'cowboys' were nomadic adjacent outside of winter.
They chose to give them a Mexican stretch, which to me is quite racist. Please let's not base non-human species entirely on a real world culture.
And them Don't have Worgs.
@@octaviohenrique6079I feel it’s fine to use real world cultures for inspiration but it just feels wrong to directly use an actual people group to make a race/species.
Orcs with Mexican food is fine but just making orcs fantasy Mexicans feels wrong
@@octaviohenrique6079 Eh. Tolkien took heavy inspiration from real cultures all the time. Rohan is just Anglo-Saxons with horses, the dwarves are heavily inspired by the Jews to the point that Khuzdûl was even designed to resemble Semitic languages.
It's only racist if you make it racist.
I'm just glad I don't have to associate or recognize the new direction haha
Easy fix concerning species with wings
(Drumroll)
Make them small and have them grow along as the character levels up. Doing so would easily explain why you can’t fly around for longer periods of time at lower levels. Your wings just aren’t developed/strong enough to carry your weight! But as you progress/level up they become bigger/stronger and can carry you futher
The brave choice is to just let them have the full sized wings they want, _but_ they don't actually let them fly, or even glide very well, because wings like that wouldn't work on a human anyway. Have fun with your dead weight drag machines.
So Pathfinder
@@adantez7268 Haven’t played Pathfinder so I wouldn’t know
In my campaign setting, the orcs are modelled as a mix of Mongolian (nomadic tribes living in yurts) and Roman legion - a very martially-focused and martially-structured nomadic tribe that moves around based on the seasons and the available hunting. They are extremely formidable foes because they can fight with either the coordination of a Roman legion or the horseback mobility of the Mongol hordes. Whether they're friendly or hostile is almost entirely dependent on the leader of the tribe and whether their objectives conflict with someone else's. They do NOT back down.
Just wanna say as a Texan your "cowboy hat" feels more authentic than a lot of costume ones so you're doing fine 👍😂
if anything, i figure the entire contemporary country movement is stolen valor, right? cheap pandering twang from rich asshats in three-thousand-dollar boots, who don't like dirt.
it's an insult to the history of vaqueros and to the working-class movement of outlaw country.
18:28, NOT THE BEARD!!!
Honestly Aasamir could have wings all the time, but they could only support a full fly for 1 minute every day
This makes a lot of sense because humans are heavy and wings typically only support hollow bones
So basically yes they always have but no they can't always fly
I think I'd make it so that they have wings all the time and could fly for longer than a minute but only if they are willing to risk the effects of exhaustion.
i let a player have wings, no real restrictions either. I was just planning on using more ways to bring him down or the enemies up to his level. In the end tho, he was more a menace to himself and the party with them than without. Nearly caused a TPK because he thought he could just fly out of any situation...
in the future, i will probably add some restriction to wings on a player. im thinking something like, "You can fly up to your STR mod in minutes per short rest" as well as weight restrictions. Cant go flying around in plate armor carrying a months worth of gear. XD
Nice!
I would just rule that they have eternal wings all of the time that they can materialize once per day when they unlock that ability.
@@magicalfungi3206 i do this too with aasamir: after level 13 the allways have wings but there ability to fly is restrictet on the gear the have. If the only have common cloths: fly like iccarus my son! With light armor the have there movement as flying but need to land every turn. mid armor 1/2 of there movement as flying and with heavy armor 1/3.
Hello
I'm the guy who picked standard human over variant human
Specifically when rolling for statistics I got mostly or only odd numbers. That's when standard humans really shine, especially as paladins and subclasses with more than 2 important ability scores. And when I don't get a lot of odd numbers when rolling statistics, I simply choose a difference race than human.
Name: John Guy
Class: Fighter
Weapon specialization: Sword
You choose your race based on what stats you roll and not based on a character design? 🤢
@@NoahOMorainRush
You let race decide who your character is?
@@starhalv2427 No, I let my character decide my race
@@NoahOMorainRush
It doesn't matter if my character is an orc, an elf or a halfling, who they become will still be decided by their talent, backstory and skills. And rolls represent what talent they got. I don't make characters and then roll them up, it's all one process of crafting the character as I make them.
38:06 "Humans will pack-bond with anything"
Your human costume was so on point. The amount of effort put into the outfit changes is insane!
I honestly really liked the orc pantheon, probably my favorite pantheon for any race, so rather than try to create a cultural rift or play with that they just yeeted it.
Bruh what did they do to my Orcs?? They look so bad in that thumbnail💀
Ayayayayayayay! Arriba! Adelante!
WOTC thought they seemed too racist against black people somehow so they turned them into stereotypical Mexicans instead
The Goliaths are really cool now to me now. They all seem very strong and feel tied to different aspects of nature in a way that feels better than “I’m a wood elf, I speak for the trees”. Gives me sort of primordial elemental vibes.
I would really like an elemental species, this scratches that itch.
You mean like Genasi?
You forgot something about Dwarves: they no longer ignore the speed penalty from not meeting the strength requirement of Heavy Armor.
That to me is devastating. Such a cool feature that allowed you to skip putting scores on both Strength and Dexterity.
11:38 "not sure how that's draconic in any way"
Queue that one moment with bayle the dread
I really do not like what they did with Orks, they have gone from proud warriors to grey big teethed humanoids on a family holiday in Utah. In regards to the Drow I think in an effort to placate people who find their lore offensive they have just turned them into dark skinned humanoids with pointy ears. I never found the Drow lore to be a problem, having a society that has taken a massively wrong turn like say North Korea or Germany under Hitler makes sense. If I was writing the lore explanation for the new PHB it would be something like this “The Drow, formerly know as the Dark elves in eons past, are a society of elves corrupted by Lolth the Spider Queen. Under her tyrannical rule a dark empire has arisen within the Underdark, an empire built upon cruelty, fear, paranoia, and upon the backs of slaves and the oppressed. However, there are those who resist her dark influence. Some Drow leave the Underdark in search of freedom and adventure, while others rally to the banner of the moon goddess Elistraee, a resistance movement which fights to free their people from the twisted web that Lolth has spun.” My two cents is keep the Drow dark and twisted, while also emphasising the Drow that resist that darkness at the same time.
Theses who flee the underdark meet Eilistraee who then help to liberate the people that in itself is cool big fan of drow lore but got to change it for modern audiences can't have an evil race
@@AneirinRPGpeople just don’t like having entries that describe intelligent races as having an innate pull towards evil, implying that the race as a whole is, quite literally, rotten to the core
@@AneirinRPG But in the existing lore they are not innately evil. Its Lolth’s influence over them that keeps the majority on that dark path, but its not impossible to overcome. Also you say it needs to be changed for “modern audiences”. Can you explain to me what that actually is, because it gets talked about a-lot but never defined.
@Plane-Walker so the former totally agree with but I do think there are drow who would be just evil for the hell of it too as for the latter I'd say the modern audience to me are the crowd that's easily offended are the one who complain about everything force diversity in most media concord and dustbin are latest examples and quick to call you names it you disagree I'm trying to not say woke but alot is from that crowd
@@Plane-Walker "Modern audiences" as I would describe it, is a term is generally used to describe the terminally online sort that sees the entire world through a narrow, left-wing lens where everything can be stripped down into an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. For example, the idea that if a white person does something bad, it's because they're a bad person (as they're the oppressor), but if a black person does something bad, it's because society made them to do it (as they're the oppressed).
This is as opposed to the idea that while society can and definitely does impact things like crime rates, it also ignores the fact that people of all races and creeds are equally capable of being shitty. Some people are just shitty.
Under this lens, the idea of a dark-skinned race being inherently evil is obviously a bad thing, and that's something I agree with, no race should be inherently bad. But rather than go with your far more interesting idea of the Drow, the modern audience would much prefer a far less ambiguous representation of a dark-skinned race, one which does not show them in a negative light (even if the reason for them being evil is because of the external influence of Lolth rather than anything inherent).
tl;dr modern audiences are the people who are more interested in entertainment media as a vehicle for their politics, rather than just a vehicle for telling good stories. These things aren't mutually exclusive, but they want them to be mutually *inclusive*. Which is why you end up with things like the recent Black Myth Wukong game getting slammed by people for not being diverse enough, even though it's a game full of Chinese characters (which should be applauded for being a successful game despite featuring no white people). Adding non-Chinese people to the game would just be inappropriate in this case, as China in that era especially was very homogenous and patriarchal.
HAIL TO THE HAT FOR GIVING US ANOTHER GLIMPSE INTO THE NEW HANDBOOK!!!
Oh, and the human familiar. He helped, too.