Talk:Half-Dwarven (5e Subrace)

I am disappointed with this subrace. All it grants is a reduced version of darkvision. This is the only apparently biologically inheritable trait the base dwarf race has. Everything else is cultural, and therefore is not passed by blood. Including the other features would imply a character was raised, at least in part, by their dwarven father, which restricts background writing. I do not like the idea of partial-blood granting whole new sensory capabilities to a base race, and would prefer to not include darkvision at all. However, being able to see in the dark seems so iconic and fundamental to the dwarven image, it's hard to justify why their halfbreed children wouldn't be able to. I would like to avoid halfbreed subraces having more than one unique trait. The main problems are that the other humanoid subraces are more powerful, and the only base races that gain anything from this are Humans and Halflings. Elves and Gnomes can already see in the dark better, so they gain nothing from this, making this subrace incapable of competing with the core elven subraces. I would prefer to use only traits from the core base race, but I'm willing to tweak those features slightly for mechanical purposes. Any suggestions? --Kydo (talk) 17:19, 13 January 2016 (MST)

I'll take a look at the PHB tonight. You're right, the weapon training and stonecunning are cultural. Do they have poison resistance or somesuch? And then 30 ft. darkvision is trivial enough that its nice for the base race that doesn't have it, and elves won't feel like they're missing out on anything. Marasmusine (talk) 11:21, 18 May 2016 (MDT)

Thinking back to older editions, you could argue that stonecunning is inate rather than cultural. Marasmusine (talk) 11:22, 18 May 2016 (MDT)