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One D&D Character Races (Part 2)
So, let’s continue checking out what’s in the Arcana Unearthed regarding fantasy races. In Part 1, we looked at the more traditional classes of Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human. This time we’ll take a look at Dragonborn, Gnome, Orc, and Tiefling as well as the brand new race of Ardling.
One D&D
Dragonborn
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1. | — |
| Age. Young dragonborn grow quickly. They walk hours after hatching, attain the size and development of a 10-year-old human child by the age of 3, and reach adulthood by 15. They live to be around 80. | Life Span: 80 years on average |
| Size. Dragonborn are taller and heavier than humans, standing well over 6 feet tall and averaging almost 250 pounds. Your size is Medium. | Size: Medium (about 5–7 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Draconic Ancestry. You have draconic ancestry. Choose one type of dragon from the Draconic Ancestry table. Your breath weapon and damage resistance are determined by the dragon type, as shown in the table. | Draconic Ancestry. Your lineage stems from a dragon progenitor. Choose the type of dragon from the Draconic Ancestor table. Your choice affects your Breath Weapon and Damage Resistance traits. The chosen dragon also affects your appearance, with you displaying coloration and other features reminiscent of that dragon. |
| Breath Weapon. You can use your action to exhale destructive energy. Your draconic ancestry determines the size, shape, and damage type of the exhalation. When you use your breath weapon, each creature in the area of the exhalation must make a saving throw, the type of which is determined by your draconic ancestry. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. A creature takes 2d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 3d6 at 6th level, 4d6 at 11th level, and 5d6 at 16th level. After you use your breath weapon, you can’t use it again until you complete a short or long rest. |
Breath Weapon. As an Action, you exhale destructive energy in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus.
On a failed save, a creature takes 1d10 + your character level in damage of the type determined by your Draconic Ancestry trait. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage. You can use this Breath Weapon a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.* |
| Damage Resistance. You have resistance to the damage type associated with your draconic ancestry. | Damage Resistance. You have Resistance to the damage type determined by your Draconic Ancestry trait. |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic. Draconic is thought to be one of the oldest languages and is often used in the study of magic. The language sounds harsh to most other creatures and includes numerous hard consonants and sibilants. | Draconic Language. You instinctively know the language of dragons. You can therefore speak, read, and write Draconic. |
| — | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
Key Changes:
- It was too much info to include in this chart but one of the key changes is that the breath weapon follows just one template, cone, instead of being a line or a cone depending on “Draconic Ancestry.”
- Another change to the breath weapon is around damage. In the PHB, the damage is 2d6 damage on a failed saving throw and half that on a successful saving throw, versus 1d10 + character level on a failed and half of a successful. This change makes the damage swingier since it’s just one die and lowers the max damage, at least at first level. Instead of scaling by adding another die at 6th, 11th, and 16th, you gain an extra point of damage for each level. This simplifies what one needs to remember and makes the breath weapon fierce through level progression.
Level PHB Average PHB Max UA Average UA Max 1 7 12 6.5 11 2 7 12 7.5 12 3 7 12 8.5 13 4 7 12 9.5 14 5 7 12 10.5 15 6 10.5 18 11.5 16 - An additional change to the breath weapon is how many times it can be used/when it recharges. Under the PHB rules, it wouldn’t be available again until after the next short or long rest. This could push players to want to take short rests more often. Under the UA rules, one can use it up to a proficiency bonus number of times and all expended uses are regained after a Long Rest.
- Another change has to do with draconic. Most races don’t get a language as part of the fantasy race anymore but Dragonborn automatically know draconic, even if they haven’t been around anyone who speaks it. It’s an instinct, which is pretty cool especially since, at least according the PHB, it’s the language of magic.
Gnome
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2. | — |
| Size. Gnomes are between 3 and 4 feet tall and average about 40 pounds. Your size is Small. | Size: Small (about 3–4 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Age. Gnomes mature at the same rate humans do, and most are expected to settle down into an adult life by around age 40. They can live 350 to almost 500 years. | Life Span: 425 years on average |
| Darkvision. Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
| Gnome Cunning. You have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic. | Gnomish Cunning. You have Advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws. |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Gnomish. The Gnomish language, which uses the Dwarvish script, is renowned for its technical treatises and its catalogs of knowledge about the natural world. | — |
| Subrace. Two subraces of gnomes are found among the worlds of D&D: forest gnomes and rock gnomes. Choose one of these subraces. | Gnomish Lineage. You are part of a gnomish lineage that grants you supernatural abilities.
Choose a lineage from the Gnomish Lineages table: Forest Gnome, the lineage of magic-filled forests, or Rock Gnome, the lineage of primeval mountains. You gain the benefits of that lineage. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for the Spells you cast with this trait (choose the ability when you select the lineage). |
Gnomish Lineage
Forest Gnome
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1. | — |
| Natural Illusionist. You know the minor illusion cantrip. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it. | You know the Minor Illusion cantrip. |
| Speak with Small Beasts. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas with Small or smaller beasts. Forest gnomes love animals and often keep squirrels, badgers, rabbits, moles, woodpeckers, and other creatures as beloved pets. | You can also cast the Speak with Animals Spell with this trait. You can cast it with the trait a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.* You can also use any Spell Slots you have to cast the Spell. |
Rock Gnome
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1. | — |
| Artificer’s Lore. Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to magic items, alchemical objects, or technological devices, you can add twice your proficiency bonus, instead of any proficiency bonus you normally apply. | You know the Mending and Prestidigitation cantrips. |
| Tinker. You have proficiency with artisan’s tools (tinker’s tools). Using those tools, you can spend 1 hour and 10 gp worth of materials to construct a Tiny clockwork device (AC 5, 1 hp). The device ceases to function after 24 hours (unless you spend 1 hour repairing it to keep the device functioning), or when you use your action to dismantle it; at that time, you can reclaim the materials used to create it. You can have up to three such devices active at a time.
When you create a device, choose one of the following options: Clockwork Toy. This toy is a clockwork animal, monster, or person, such as a frog, mouse, bird, dragon, or soldier. When placed on the ground, the toy moves 5 feet across the ground on each of your turns in a random direction. It makes noises as appropriate to the creature it represents. Fire Starter. The device produces a miniature flame, which you can use to light a candle, torch, or campfire. Using the device requires your action. Music Box. When opened, this music box plays a single song at a moderate volume. The box stops playing when it reaches the song’s end or when it is closed. |
In addition, you can spend 10 minutes casting Prestidigitation to create a Tiny clockwork device (AC 5, 1 HP), such as a toy, a fire starter, or a music box. Casting the Spell in this way consumes 10 GP worth of raw material (string, gears, and the like), which you provide during the casting.
When you create the device, you determine its function by choosing one effect from Prestidigitation; the device produces that effect whenever you or another creature takes a Bonus Action to touch the device and activate it. If the chosen effect has options within it, you choose one of those options for the device when you create it. For example, if you choose the spell’s ignite-extinguish effect, you determine whether the device ignites or extinguishes fire; the device doesn’t do both. You can have three such devices in existence at a time, and each one dismantles itself 8 hours after its creation. You can also touch one of your devices and dismantle it as an Action. After a device is dismantled, the 10 GP of materials used to create it can be reclaimed. |
Key Changes
- For the base fantasy race, the key difference is the removal of the limitation on advantage for Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma-based saving throws.
- For the Forest Gnome, the key difference is moving from a special and unlimited trait of “Speak with Small Beasts” to the generally defined “Speak with Animals” and limiting its use without using spell slots to proficiency bonus (reset after Long Rest). This feels like it clears up misunderstandings between players and DMs and should be easier to track with a digital tracker.
- For the Rock gnome, a key difference is the move away from adding additional proficiency bonus for certain types of skill checks to getting 2 cantrips. This helps solidify the hint of magic they have.
- Also for the Rock gnome, we have a restructuring of how their tinker ability works. Instead of taking an hour and working with tools, a Rock gnome can take 10 minutes and use some magic to create a tiny clockwork device that can do one of the Prestidigitation effects. The type of creation is not predefined, but examples are given. Again, adds a bit of magic to Gnomes and streamlines the creations.
Orc
| Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse/th> | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. | — |
| Size You are Medium. | Size: Medium (about 6–7 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Adrenaline Rush You can take the Dash action as a bonus action. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Whenever you use this trait, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus. | Adrenaline Rush. You can take the Dash Action as a Bonus Action. When you do so, you gain a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to your Proficiency Bonus. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.* |
| Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray. | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
| Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. | Powerful Build. You count as one Size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. |
| Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. | Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 Hit Point instead. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.* |
Key Changes
Not surprisingly (as this race was released much later), there is only one change to this race and that’s the removal of the ability score changes.
Tiefling
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2. | — |
| Age. Tieflings mature at the same rate as humans but live a few years longer. | Life Span: 100 years on average |
| Size. Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium. | Size: Medium (about 4–7 feet tall) or Small (about 3–4 feet tall) , chosen when you select this Race |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Darkvision. Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
| Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage. | — (Moved to Infernal Legacy) |
| Infernal Legacy. You know the thaumaturgy cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the hellish rebuke spell as a 2nd-level spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. | Fiendish Legacy. You are the recipient of a fiendish legacy that grants you supernatural abilities. Choose a legacy from the Fiendish Legacies table: Abyssal, associated with Chaotic Evil planes; Chthonic, associated with Neutral Evil planes; or Infernal, associated with Lawful Evil planes. You gain the 1st-level benefit of the chosen legacy. Starting at 3rd level and again at 5th level, you gain the ability to cast a higher-level Spell with this trait, as shown on the table. Once you cast the Spell with this trait, you can’t cast that Spell with it again until you finish a Long Rest*; |
Fiendish Legacies
Unearthed Arcana adds 2 more legacies in addition to changes to the Infernal legacy as detailed in the above table. Here’s the version in UA.
| Legacy | 1st Level | 3rd Level | 5th Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abyssal | You have Resistance to Poison Damage. You also know the Poison Spray cantrip. | Ray of Sickness | Hold Person |
| Chthonic | ou have Resistance to Necrotic Damage. You also know the Chill Touch cantrip. | False Life | Ray of Enfeeblement |
| Infernal | You have Resistance to Fire Damage. You also know the Fire Bolt cantrip. | Hellish Rebuke | Darkness |
Key Changes
- Tieflings can now be size Small or Medium.
- The big change is the move from just one legacy, Infernal, to three of them, Abyssal, Chthonic, and Infernal. Hellish resistance which is resistance to fire damage and has moved to the infernal legacy and that legacy’s cantrip changes (but its spells remain the same). The two new legacies also get a type of resistance, a cantrip, and 2 spells.
Ardling
Brand new to this Unearthed Arcana is the Ardling. It’s a celestial race of the Upper Planes and also has 3 lineages, making it a good counter point to the tiefling. An interesting element here is that each Ardling has a head that resembles an animal, “typically one with virtuous associations.” It can also temporarily fly up to its speed, although if it ends its move in the air, it will fall.
The design seems to be a great way to provide a high degree of flexibility of appearance while having common mechanics.
Thoughts so Far
I don’t find these particular changes to be all that dramatic and are similar to changes that have already happened in 5e over time. One of the difficulties with a game like Dungeons & Dragons is that not everything can be known about the game upfront. It’s a living game where the designers and the players will continue to evolve it over time, and thus, it can be nice to go back and refresh things.
If they keep some fantasy races having lineages, legacies, ancestries, and such, and have others that are just the base fantasy race, that could be an interesting way to balance the desires of some players for more complexity and choices while keeping some more focused with fewer choices.
I also like the move from sub races to lineages, legacies, and ancestries, although I haven’t been great about keeping the terminology consistent in these posts.
The move towards creating terms for various parts of the game, like the move to “D20 Test.” These provide a common vocabulary and can streamline rule writing. There have been movements towards that before and away as well as they try to find the right balance in terms of technical writing and prose with its ability to inspire.
Dungeons & Dragons Japan
To put some of these changes in context, it’s important to highlight that Dungeons & Dragons is expanding officially to Japan this year. They are looking to foster and grow a “truly global D&D community.” Looking at the assumptions made without intention become even more important in that move.
One D&D Character Races (Part 1)
I’ve been seeing a lot about the new Unearthed Arcana and the associated announcement of One D&D and want to explore what changes are being made.
One D&D
My understanding of what they are trying to do with the fantasy races is make sure that any crunch associated with each race is something that a member of that race would have even if they were raised by a different race and/or outside of the culture typically associated with that fantasy race.
This lets them do a few things:
- Under the theme of One D&D, a halfling in Forgotten Realms shares the overwhelming majority if not all of the same traits as a halfling in Eberron or Dark Sun. It’s less to remember as one shifts between settings, which is potentially even easier now with The Radiant Citadel and Spelljammer.
- It moves further away from some of the problematic elements of fantasy races, the ones that felt more like eugenics and racist/sexist psuedoscience than objective descriptions of fantasy races. Applying ability score changes based on fantasy race often reminded me of the attempts to measure skull shapes and the like between real world human races.
- Allows for so much more variation in characters and makes one’s background at least as important, if not more so, to character creation. The delineation appears to be if it’s something innate, it’s in the fantasy race description, and if it’s something that one learns, it’s based on your background, what you did and the culture you were around. This incorporates the reality that there is often more differences within a group than the differences between groups.
- With character race no longer defining ability scores, multi-race characters can be simplified. Just decide which parent race’s traits most defines you instead of trying to create full fantasy races for each pairing. We no longer have to pick between half elves being reviled or great at diplomacy and we can sidestep the traditional history connected to half orcs.
A few more things I noticed as I compared the Players Handbook version of each fantasy race with the Unearthed Arcana one:
- Not sure if because it’s not important in this round, but they removed the age of maturity in the switch from “Age” to “Life Span.” This could make sense as age of maturity is a cultural thing; not something innate.
- They also removed weight from “Size.” There can just be so much variation within each group, including weight never made much sense to me.
- They simplified speed. Instead of being tied to size, the base rate is 30 feet for all characters in this document. Now this could be a change that was actually made in one of the books after the Players Handbook, I haven’t kept up with the minutia of each book.
With all that, let’s look at what the changes actually entail. For this article, we’ll look at the key fantasy races of Dwarf, Halfling, Elf, and Human. We’ll look at Dragonborn, Gnome, Orc, and Tiefling in the next article.
Dwarf
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2. | — |
| Age. Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years. | Life Span: 350 years on average |
| Size. Dwarves stand between 4 and 5 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is Medium. | Size: Medium (about 4–5 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Darkvision. Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
| Dwarven Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage (explained in chapter 9, “Combat”). | Dwarven Resilience. You have Resistance to Poison Damage. You also have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Poisoned Condition on yourself. |
| Dwarven Combat Training. You have proficiency with the battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, and warhammer. | — |
| Tool Proficiency. You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools. | Forge Wise. Your divine creator gave you an uncanny affinity for working with stone or metal. You gain Tool Proficiency* with two of the following options of your choice: Jeweler’s Tools, Mason’s Tools, Smith’s Tools, or Tinker’s Tools. |
| Stonecunning. Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus | Stonecunning. As a Bonus Action, you gain Tremorsense* with a range of 60 feet for 10 minutes. You must be on a stone surface or touching such a surface to use this Tremorsense. The stone can be natural or worked. You can use this Bonus Action a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.* |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak. | — |
| — (Originally part of just hill dwarf) | Dwarven Toughness. Your Hit Point Maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level. |
Key changes for Dwarves:
- The new version of the race has a couple of items that feel like they could be part of background/culture such as Forge Wise (which gives a tool proficiency) and Stonecunning (now the granting of tremorsense), but the description of Forge Wise lays the groundwork for it being innate. In this case, the character’s divine creator gifted the Dwarf race “an uncanny affinity for working with stone or metal.” Thus a narrative justification for it being innate and making a statement about the nature of dwarves.
- There are no separate classifications of Dwarf such as Hill and Mountain as in the Players Handbook. This could signify a go forward change or it could be that they want more time to figure out what makes those sub races key. The reason I say that is both Mountain Dwarf abilities are tied to things that should likely be part of culture/background (a strength ability score increase and the armor training) and one of the two items for Hill Dwarf was incorporated into the main race description (with the other being the ability score bump).
- May just be me, but Tremorsense is way cooler than a history check as something iconic to a Dwarf. It helps with the “dwarfiest dwarf” goal.
Elf
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2. | — |
| Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old. | Life Span: 750 years on average |
| Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium. | Size: Medium (about 5–6 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. | Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. |
| Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill. | Keen Senses. You have Proficiency in the Perception Skill. |
| Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep. | Fey Ancestry. You have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Charmed Condition on yourself. |
| Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. | Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a Long Rest* in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness. |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish. Elvish is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires. | — |
Subraces
Drow
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1. | — |
| Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet. | The range of your Darkvision increases to 120 feet. |
| Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight. | — |
| Drow Magic. You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. | ou also know the Dancing Lights cantrip 3rd level: Faerie Fire 5th level: Darkness |
| Drow Weapon Training. You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows. | — |
High Elf
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1. | — |
| Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow. | — |
| Cantrip. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it. | You know the Prestidigitation cantrip. Whenever you finish a Long Rest,* you can replace that cantrip with a different cantrip from the Arcane Spell List.* 3rd Level: Detect Magic 5th Level: Misty Step |
| Extra Language. You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice. | — |
Wood Elf
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1. | — |
| Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet. | Your Speed increases to 35 feet. |
| Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena. | You also know the Druidcraft cantrip. 3rd Level: Longstrider 5th Level:Pass without Trace |
Key Changes:
- Most of the changes to the base fantasy race are to remove things that belong in backgrounds now and to restructure some details (such as moving “magic cannot put you to sleep” from “Fey Ancestry” to “Trance”
- The key changes are in the lineages, streamlining them so each lineage gets a minor trait and a first level cantrip and then spells at 3rd and 5th level.
Halfling
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2. | — |
| Age. A halfling reaches adulthood at the age of 20 and generally lives into the middle of his or her second century. | Life Span: 150 years on average |
| Size. Halflings average about 3 feet tall and weigh about 40 pounds. Your size is Small. | Size: Small (about 2–3 feet tall) |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Luck. When you roll a 1 on the d20 of a d20 Test,* you can reroll the die, and you must use the new roll. | |
| Brave. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened. | Brave. You have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Frightened Condition on yourself. |
| Halfling Nimbleness. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours. | Halfling Nimbleness. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a Size larger than yours, but you can’t stop there. |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Halfling. The Halfling language isn’t secret, but halflings are loath to share it with others. They write very little, so they don’t have a rich body of literature. Their oral tradition, however, is very strong. Almost all halflings speak Common to converse with the people in whose lands they dwell or through which they are traveling. | — |
| — | Naturally Stealthy. You have Proficiency in the Stealth Skill. |
Key Changes
- As with the Dwarves, the subraces of halfling have been removed and one of the traits of one of the subraces became part of the main fantasy race, in this case “Naturally Stealthy” from the “Lightfoot” sub race.
- Here is the first use in this document of a new term, “d20 Test.” This term defines certain d20 die rolls where inspiration points and luck may be used.
Human
| Players Handbook | Unearthed Arcana |
|---|---|
| Ability Score Increase. Your ability scores each increase by 1. | — |
| Age. Humans reach adulthood in their late teens and live less than a century. | 80 years on average |
| Size. Humans vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium. | Size: Medium (about 4–7 feet tall) or Small (about 2–4 feet tall), chosen when you select this Race |
| Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. | Speed: 30 feet |
| Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice. Humans typically learn the languages of other peoples they deal with, including obscure dialects. They are fond of sprinkling their speech with words borrowed from other tongues: Orc curses, Elvish musical expressions, Dwarvish military phrases, and so on. | — |
| — | Resourceful. You gain Inspiration* whenever you finish a Long Rest.* |
| — (Matches variant rules in PHB) | Skillful. You gain Proficiency in one Skill of your choice. |
| — (Matches variant rules in PHB) | Versatile. You gain the Skilled Feat or another 1st-level Feat of your choice |
Key Changes
- Giving an average life span for humans of 80 years is interesting. It keeps the maximum lifespan a mystery which could be nice for some characters (in our real world, we have humans who live past 110 years for instance). It also counteracts a lot of the assumptions about the world where folks want to apply a medieval life span of something like 40 years.
- I believe the ability to pick a different size than medium has been around for a bit now but again, makes total sense to include as we have real life humans who are under 4 feet tall. I’m wondering if this is part of the reason for the change to a base speed of 30 for most fantasy races, rather than having it based on size.
- Adding a link to inspiration as part of a human trait might signal trying to incorporate it more in the game. It’s been a while but I feel like inspiration was often seen as a bolt on system that folks might or might not use.
- Adding the two variant traits to the base race is really nice because it signifies more clearly the versatility and skillfulness of humans, rather than just bumping ability scores which might not have much if any affect, at least for early levels.
Thoughts so Far
I’m enjoying this restructuring of the core fantasy races and the intentionality around separating what is innate about a character versus what is more about life experience. I like that the non-human races all have a bit of magic to them. This should also help the races seem more distinct.
I also get why they can’t just get rid of races entirely. They were core to the start of D&D and are something that most players are expecting when they play.
A Look At Gender in Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Warning: There will be some minor spoilers for the adventure, Stormwreck Isle, in this blog post.
I recently purchased the new Starter Set, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, from Target. I have a bit of a soft spot for starter sets and I was interested to see how things have changed from the first 5e starter set, Mines of Phandelver.
My son has been asking to start doing his own YouTube videos so I convinced him to do an unboxing of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle with me.
Over the past few years, I've really felt that the adventures have become more inclusive and intentional, at least when it comes to gender. I know at the beginning of 5e, I used to be keep count of how often named characters were mentioned and which pronouns were used in the text, and, well, I decided to check this adventure using that methodology.
Before we dive into the results, I'd like to define my approach. I only counted characters that were named. So I didn't capture references to a certain type of dragon, the harpy, or to a character's unnamed lover.
Additionally, I'm struggling a little on how to talk about pronouns versus gender. I did a quick search on myconids and saw them referred to as gender neutral and no pronouns were really used for them. I captured when she/her vs he/him were used. I didn't notice any uses of 'they' about named characters but I may have missed something. There are some characters where nothing more than a name is given and they are listed as unknown.
I also did not look at any of the information within the appendices.
I want to stress this is something I put together in about two hours, so it's not scientifically rigorous. :)
Frequency of Names Mentioned
First thing I'd like to look at is just how often characters' names appear in the adventure. Each time a character's name was mentioned, I put a little tick and added it up in the end to create the following chart.
Number of Mentions vs. Character Name - Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
The counts show two primary NPCs, Runara (she/her) and Sparkrender (he/him) with Tarak (he/him) and Aidron (he/him) as secondary NPCs. There is then a fairly large cast of additional characters with about 47 named NPCs in total.
What's interesting here, is that Sparkrender has more mentions than Runara and overall the mentions of male NPCs is a bit higher than those of female NPCs.
Number of Pages Where Names Are Mentioned
However, one of the things I noticed as I read through is that often the character needed to be named repeatedly on a page in order to reduce confusion. This is partly due to the NPCs being in spaces together where they can interact. So when we look at the number of pages that each character is mentioned on, it looks a bit different.
Number of Pages vs. Character Name - Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
One character, Runara, is mentioned consistently throughout the adventure. Sparkrender and Aidron are still near the top of the list, but we see additional characters come through as well, ones that often didn't have their name repeated for clarity.
Overall Comparison by Pronouns
The next check is to see how many named characters are in each pronoun designation.
Numbers by Pronoun Designation - Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Here number of characters using he/him (13) is a bit more the number of characters using she/her (10). We also have 16 characters, Myconids, whose group doesn't have genders and 8 characters where no pronouns were used and are marked as unknown.
While the number of overall mentions is much higher for characters with he/him pronouns, the number of pages is much closer (47 vs 45).
Comparison to Mines of Phandelver
Next, I wanted to compare this to what I saw in Mines of Phandelver.
Gender in Mines of Phandelver and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Here we're just looking at the number of named characters grouped by gender/pronoun groups. In Mines, we had 27 named male characters, 9 female, and 7 unknown whereas in Dragons we have 13 male, 10 female, 8 unknown, and 16 with no gender. This definitely explains why I felt the adventure was more balanced when it came to gender.
Qualitative Remarks
The numbers are definitely exciting to me but there were a few more qualitative things I noticed in reading through the adventure.
One of the characters has a former lover mentioned. We don't get a name and gender pronouns are never used, giving space for the Dungeon Master to add a non-heterosexual relationship to the adventure. In fact, I only remember reading two defined relationships, one that is heterosexual and this one. I'm a bit torn overall on this one, but it seems clear that the ambiguity was intentionally there.
The myconids and the lack of gender pronouns in that section was very interesting. I knew before reading this adventure that they had gone that direction but it was interesting to see it here.
I loved that detail given that Tarak (male) is the botanist and the best cook of the lot and that Varnoth (female) is a retired soldier who is well-known.
I'm sure I could go into more, but I don't want to give away too many spoilers. I hope to write up my thoughts on the adventure itself in a separate post.
Using Paprika 3 for menu planning and grocery shopping
Right around when the pandemic started, I had decided to make some significant changes to my life in an attempt to tackle my type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. As I was talking about the changes I was making, Jeff thought it might make for an interesting podcast and we started Fit for D&D.
I had just changed my work schedule, going in slightly earlier so that I could have time to use the walking treadmill desk first thing and getting home in time to cook a meal that concentrated on vegetables and proteins. It also allowed me to get up early and hit the gym in the apartment complex we had recently moved to and to take a walk after dinner. Finally, I had started shopping at Trader Joe's while Fred was in the gym nearby, concentrating on lots of veggie options and semi-prepared meals.
This system worked for a good 2 months. My post meal blood sugars were in great ranges and I was feeling better about myself and had more energy.
Then the pandemic hit. The move to work-from-home, the concerns about going to the grocery store, and just trying to juggle parents each with a full-time job while having a 3 1/2 year old at home just proved too much for sustainability. I was able to hold it together for about a month and it started falling apart. It just about completely went away when I had to spend most of a summer in an uninsulated shed in my parents' backyard in order to just make everything sorta work while there was no childcare options.
While I'm still working on figuring out what works today and to try to get back to that combination of activity and good food choices for my medical condition, I wanted to share something that has worked for me pretty well over the past year, and that is Paprika 3 for collecting recipes, menu planning, and grocery shopping.
Paprika 3 Recipe List
The foundation of the system is collecting the recipes. I'm blessed to have a number of cookbooks with sources of lower carb meals perfect for my diabetes, including some InstantPot ones. I've invested some time and effort to add them to the Paprika recipe manager.
For online recipes, it's super simple. I can use the built in browser to find a recipe I like and click on the Download button to import it into Paprika. It's been pretty good at parsing ingredient lists and instructions.
The recipes can be organized into a number of categories, which can work great for finding inspiration later.
Paprika 3 Meals List
Once the recipes are in the system, I can do two things. The main thing I do is on Saturday, I look at the next week and our schedule and I pick recipes to make for most nights of the week. Son has a baseball game after school? That's a great night to make a super fast meal, like frank and beans or grilled cheese.
Paprika 3 Menus List
The other thing I can do, and I've mostly just experimented with this, is that I can actually create menus for an entire week that work well together. I actually did this more when I first started because I had the idea of creating theme nights and then instead of thinking which of all of these recipes I wanted to make, I'd just see it was a night I had set aside for cooking an Indian-inspired dish and look for a recipe that fit that theme. I want to get back to this, at some point, especially since some recipes work well together, like crispy pork gyros (which is essentially carnitas) one night and then use the leftover pork to make quesadillas.
Once the week's recipes are in, I can choose each one and add the ingredient list to the grocery list. Paprika does its best to group like items together and if the ingredient is exactly the same, it will add them together. For instance, if you need a can of black beans for two different recipes, it will present one line with two cans of black beans instead of two separate lines.
Paprika 3 Menus List
Another helpful feature that I'd like to use more in the future is the pantry feature. If it knows you have an item in your pantry, it won't add it to the shopping list. And you can import your shopped items into the pantry.
After I've built the grocery list, it's super simple to split my iPad or laptop screen in half, with Paprika's grocery list on one side and my local grocery store's website on the other (they have online ordering for curbside pickup). I go through the list, add the items to the cart, check it off in Paprika, and then check out.
The only thing that hasn't been great about this system is while I can capture amount of time to prepare and difficulty of the preparation, it feels like no one is capturing how complex clean up is after. And for me, that's actually a big deal, as between work, chores, and living with a 6 year-old, I'm dang tired at the end of the day.
If you are interested in learning more, Paprika's website has a lot more detail. It is available for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
So...um...hi!
I'll be honest, trying to write, especially here, over the past few years has been a challenge. A LOT has happened to me and, well, everyone, over the past 6 years. Thinking about this site and who I was gives me imposter syndrome something fierce. But I really miss writing and sharing myself, so let's give it a shot.
LEGO Owl
First, my tech career sort of took a rapid incline. I've made it all the way to Sr Principal Engineer at this point and over the 6 years, I've sat in operations, development, and now security. My job takes a significant portion of my time and I haven't had as much to update this site, etc. Hopefully I can work on that some more now that other areas of my life are getting a little easier.
Speaking of which, the biggest project of my life turned 6 years old last week. I'm not sure who ok'ed that milestone happening, but here we are. He keeps me on my toes, loves games and silly voices and wants to be a YouTuber, so hopefully I can get him rolling some dice soon.
I did art. A fair bit of art. I'm getting...less embarrassed by it, so there's that! :)
And I kept podcasting, as much as I could with what's on my plate.
Speaking of which, the pandemic has been interesting for us. I was able to keep working through it (both kept my job and always found a way to keep an eye on the little dude). We moved to be closer to my parents which has also given some breathing room. We lost some folks in our network and had more who got long COVID, but overall we've made it through with our health and some sanity.
I'm hoping to get back to playing soon. I just got a new laptop which will help with the writing here and playing at least some computer games. Already installed Steam and played Botanicula of all games. Have lots I want to talk and write about. Have you seen the explosion of view points in D&D?
Anyway, thanks for being here.
Send feedback using the contact form or through twitter, @sarahdarkmagic.
