With the announcement of the upcoming update to Dungeons and Dragons rule set, One D&D, comes a bit of hope and apprehension. The hope is that there is clarification on some of the more discussed rules and apprehension that they will break things that worked really well in fifth edition. This, of course, happens anytime an update comes out for anything these day but I, for one, am leaning more on the hopeful side of things.
The New Character Creation.
That hope has grown after reviewing the newly released Unearthed Arcana character creation pdf for One D&D. In 5e, you choose a class and race with a background for flavor and a small boost to your proficiency options. This meant that there were certain race/class combos that worked well together. With the new rules, this is no longer the case. They have removed the attributes from the race option and made it part of your background. This means you can essentially optimize any race for whatever class you choose.
This makes sense not only from a game-play standpoint, but also from a ‘wow that makes way more sense’ kind of way. When you think about it, race is all about your parents. Where they were from and any inherent abilities like dark vision, life expectancy and size. Where as your background is about what you chose to learn about growing up. Were you into running, jumping, and climbing trees? If so, your strength or dexterity scores are higher. Perhaps you spent a lot of time studying at the local library which means your intelligence is higher. Maybe your days were spent at the local tavern entertaining all the travelers so you became very charismatic.
What it really comes down to is that your race no longer defines what you’re good at, your background does. This means you can have an elf barbarian or a dragonborn rogue in your party making for much more dynamic game play.
Check out the One D&D Play-Test material by clicking here.
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