Character Origins: Race Analysis

Expected read time: about 13 minutes

UPDATE: Find the link to the survey HERE

With all the recent excitement over Wizards of the Coast’s announcement of One D&D and the slew of Unearthed Arcana articles to come, we here at Unraveled Archives have decided to give our take on the playtest options as they arrive. First up is the article on Character Origins, specifically the section on new Race options…

Download the relevant Unearthed Arcana article HERE

The intended changes to character creation have been telegraphed by recent publications such as Monsters of the Multiverse and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. So if you’ve loved those changes, there’s more of it coming your way! And if you weren’t so fond of those, you may still find yourself pleasantly surprised by these. I certainly am!

First off, bear in mind that all of these options are meant for playtesting; the designers want to know what you think! When the survey opens up to collect feedback on the contents of this and future articles, you can let them know your feelings. If you have the opportunity to give feedback and decide not to, you can’t blame the designers for not taking your opinion into account. So don’t forget to fill out the survey! It should open September 1st, and then you’ll be able to find a link to it here.

Given how long this first Unearthed Arcana article is, it’ll have to be split up over several blog articles. This first one analyzes the new options for Races!

Determining Your Origin

First off, it’s very interesting that we’re meant to pick our character’s Class first. In the 2014 Player’s Handbook it suggests first picking a Race. It’ll be interesting to put all the pieces together and see how starting with Class affects the narrative of character creation!

Second, it looks like D&D is sticking with the term “Race”, rather than opting for something like “Ancestry” or “Lineage”. This doesn’t affect me that much. Still, I feel for those people who are bothered by the continued use of these terms. I have no personal preference for what term is used, and so I’m happy to yield to the concerns of those who do care.

While on this topic of conversation, it’s worth pointing out that the writing does seem to have more tact in how it refers to races and cultures, and in its overall welcoming nature. For example, the sidebar titled “Children of Different Humanoid Kinds” is particularly glowing in how it refers to mixed parentages, which is nice to see (even if the mechanics for playing a half-elf or half-orc are fairly lackluster now).

I’m happy to see Life Span included again as a Racial Trait. One thing I didn’t like about the Races in recent publications is the lack of explanation regarding the life expectancy of the various peoples. For me, knowing that dwarves, elves, and gnomes live longer than humans is just part of what makes D&D feel like D&D.

One of the most notable changes here is that the Ability Score bonuses are now moved to Background instead of Race. I think this is going to be a popular move. It removes the problematic concept of Race determining what Class your character might be suitable for, as well as making more Race/Class combinations mechanically viable.

Now, there will be those saying that in 5e we’ve always been free to make a dwarf wizard or a gnome barbarian, or any other unusual combination, so why make the Races less flavorful by removing the Ability Score bonuses? I used to think this way as well, until I realized a few things.

  1. If I like the challenge of playing an orc wizard with lower initial Intelligence than is optimal, I can still do that. Nothing’s keeping me from doing that, or whatever other combination might have been suboptimal.

  2. We’re only talking about player characters here. Taking out the Ability Score bonuses doesn’t mean that suddenly all races are blandly unique. Elves in general are still more graceful than humans and dwarves. Dwarves are still tough as nails. The races are the same as I always knew them, but the player characters now have more options. What’s not to love about that?

  3. It really is a problem that a lot of people see the D&D fantasy races as being reflections of people and cultures in the real world. To be clear, these people aren’t causing the problem. But the problem exists, and ignoring it only feeds it. It does me no harm to make accommodations for the comfort and safety of others.

Bearing these things in mind, I support the change 100%.

Human

The inclusion of Small-sized humans is a change long since due. After all, in the real world there are tiny people who we still consider to be humans, so why not in a fantasy world? It’s past time that more people are able to look at D&D and see themselves represented as heroes in the game. I’m happy to see it happening.

In the racial traits we see the expected proficiency in a skill of your choice. However, there are two NEW things to know about human player characters, and these each tie into additional rules changes mentioned in this playtest document. Resourceful grants you Inspiration whenever you finish a long rest, and Versatile lets you pick a 1st-level feat (with Skilled being the default). We’ll talk more about new Inspiration rules and the 1st-level feats further on, but suffice it to say that these make the Human a unique, all-around good race without the blandness of the 2014 Player’s Handbook version or the feat-broken Variant Human.

Ardling

The easiest way to describe this completely new race is as the celestial counterpart to tieflings (that is to say mortals with supernal blood or influence in their ancestry). But what about aasimar? Weren’t they supposed to be like heavenly tieflings? Well, if the ardlings are accepted by the general populace of D&D players, they will likely either replace the aasimar, or exist alongside them as another race touched by the Upper Planes.

They actually seem pretty cool, with each ardling having the head of a noble beast. Given the number of people who enjoy playing anthropomorphic player characters (myself included), I can see this race getting a lot of attention in the feedback survey. The temporary-flight mechanic will no doubt also make it popular! I’m glad that it doesn’t have permanent flight, like the aarakocra.

Something to point out here is the recurring pattern of racial traits in this document: cantrip, then 1st- and 2nd-level spells as you progress in level. In the ardling's case, your granted spells depend on your ‘celestial legacy’, something we’ll see mirrored in the Elf and Tiefling races later on.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the prevalence of such a large part of your racial traits being made up of spells… Using spells as a mechanic to inject flavor into your character is, in my mind, way overused. That mechanic is already supporting artificers, some druids, clerics, paladins, some rangers, some sorcerers, and warlocks in the form of extra spells known or expanded spell lists (not to mention our very own Sentient Weapon class, which has Origin Spells). Having designed a fair number of classes and subclasses now, I know well that extra spells are kind of the low-hanging fruit of design. Still, I guess if WotC keeps coming back to it, it must be popular? I guess we’ll see when the official material comes out!

Dragonborn

I’ll be honest, I’ve never played the Dragonborn race in the 2014 Player’s Handbook. Simply a personal preference thing, but it just never called to me. I mean, they didn’t even get Darkvision. That preference changed with the release of Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons and its slew of new options for dragonborn. I really liked how the breath weapon was incorporated into the Attack action, rather than requiring its own separate action.

Well, that useful manipulation of the action economy is no more, apparently. The dragonborn in this document is relegated once more to using an entire action to unleash its breath weapon. However! The breath weapon’s damage scaling is actually a bit better than in Fizban’s. This Dragonborn race also misses out on the 5th-level abilities granted by Fizban’s, but they do gain Darkvision (finally). Pros and cons for each, I suppose. Dragonborn are pretty popular since their introduction in D&D 4e, so I expect WotC will receive lots of feedback about this iteration in their survey.

Dwarf

This one has already caused a great deal of excitement, as Jeremy Crawford used the Dwarf race as an example of the team’s design philosophy and approach. Most notably, the Stonecunning racial trait has gone from being able to passively notice interesting stonework, to a tremorsense bonus action! It really helps to bring in the more fantastical nature of dwarves, rather than relegating them to just stocky Scottish miners.

Some familiar traits you’ll see are the resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison, as all dwarves had that in the 2014 Players Handbook. For anyone expecting to see the return of dwarven subrace options though, you’ll be surprised, because they’ve all been rolled up into one in this iteration. Now all dwarves get extra hit points from Dwarven Toughness, which used to only be a trait of Hill Dwarves. There’s no sign of the Mountain Dwarf’s extra Strength or armor proficiencies.

It’s interesting that with so many races being able to choose between Small or Medium lately, that the Dwarf race can only be Medium. It’s something easy enough for a DM to rectify, if there’s anyone who takes issue with this.

Elf

Now this race does have subraces, here called ‘elven lineages’. Drow, High Elves, and Wood Elves are each given their own cantrip, 1st-level spell at 3rd level, and 2nd-level spell at 5th level, similar to the Ardling subrace options. Consequently, Drow end up mostly the same, though notably without the Sunlight Sensitivity trait. They even get to keep their 120-foot Darkvision, which is neat.

High Elf and Wood Elf receive similar treatment, with their own spells. They also each get a little bonus, in that high elves can swap out their cantrip on a long rest, while the wood elves get their bonus to walking speed. These are all in addition to the usual traits of Fey Ancestry and Trance.

The weapon proficiencies have all been removed, as proficiencies like those have come to be seen as coming from the culture you’re raised in, and not a biological or magical trait passed down from your parents. I suppose we’ll see fewer elf rogues with longbows now, but on the whole I think the decision is a wise one.

Gnome

The first thing I noticed is that Gnomish Cunning has changed from being advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against spells, to now being advantage on ALL of those saves, against magic or not. So, it was already an extremely potent racial trait, and has now been made even more powerful. I’m not sure it needed a boost!

To compare, elves get advantage on saves against being charmed, and halflings get advantage on saves against being frightened. Both effects are usually negated by a successful Wisdom save. So now gnomes essentially get BOTH of those features, and it’s still only a small part of what the Gnomish Cunning feature does for them. It’s really strong.

Gnomish Lineages, the subrace options, remain as Forest Gnome and Rock Gnome. They’re a bit different from what they were in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, but for the most part they essentially accomplish the same things.

Halfling

Most of what you’d expect is here: advantage on saves against being frightened, being able to move through the space of larger Size than you, and using Luck to reroll 1s during d20 Tests.

Here’s a good place to explain the concept of “d20 Tests”. It’s just a nice, tidy umbrella that encompasses ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. This is meant to distinguish them from other times a d20 might be rolled, for example as part of the Divination wizard’s Portent feature.

Halflings also get the Naturally Stealthy trait, which grants them proficiency in Stealth. It’s a nice little bonus.

Similar to the Dwarf, the Halfling subraces are gone, and with them go the Lightfoot Halfling’s ability to hide behind larger creatures. I wonder if this will come back later as a general rule for all Small creatures, rather than only halflings.

Orc

Most people seem to agree that the inclusion of the Orc is welcome and long overdue. I’m certainly happy to see it take its place alongside the other fantasy races! The description mentions Gruumsh several times, but only lauds his positive attributes and makes no mention of his previously-evil nature. Though I’ve enjoyed having Gruumsh as an overt adversary in my D&D games, I can understand why his lore is being ‘updated’. Again, if it makes people feel safer and more welcome at the game table, it’s worth doing.

This iteration of the Orc matches the one we see in Monsters of the Multiverse, its racial traits being Adrenaline Rush, Darkvision, Powerful Build, and Relentless Endurance; a combination of previous Orc and Half-Orc options. I like that it’s not complicated by spellcasting, and I’m pretty sure Relentless Endurance is Summer’s favorite feature in all of D&D! In all, it makes for a pretty compelling package of racial traits.

I’m sorry to see the Half-Orc as its own standalone race gone, but taken with the new rules on mixed ancestries, the Orc traits work absolutely fine as a Half-Orc. The only things missing from the original Half-Orc race are the Savage Attack trait and the proficiency in Intimidation. Some people will miss those, but I think it’s worth losing the stigma against orc-kind.

Tiefling

I find it funny that they felt the need to specify the pronunciation of “tiefling”, laying to rest that issue. But that’s hardly the most important thing about this race! Because yugoloths finally get a mention!

I know people have bemoaned the lack of options for demonic tieflings, but nobody ever brings up the poor yugoloths (though honestly, those fiends probably prefer it that way). In this document though, we get clear distinctions between Abyssal, Chthonic, and Infernal Legacies. And Chthonic is an awesome word to represent the Neutral Evil planes. I’m all for it.

Interestingly, the description also seems to imply that succubi and incubi are yugoloths. In past editions I’m pretty sure they were demons (or tanar’ri), from the Abyss. In any case, I love everything about the Blood War. I might do some lore dumps on it someday.

Back to the Tiefling, we once again see the distinction between the three kinds to be represented by… spells. Each Fiendish Legacy gets a cantrip, and then 1st- and 2nd-level spells as they level up. They also each get a damage resistance, which is pretty cool. But on the whole, I would very much prefer to see new, interesting mechanics written rather than resorting to just dishing out a few spells.

Wrapping It Up

So there you have it! My musings on the playtest Race options presented in the latest Unearthed Arcana article. Have any thoughts of your own? Feel free to sound off in the comments! And when WotC’s survey comes out for feedback about these races, make sure to let them know what you think!

Stay tuned for the next article, when we talk about Backgrounds and Feats!

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UPDATE: Find the link to the survey HERE

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Character Origins: Backgrounds and Feats

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