Mixed Ancestry for D&D 5r (2024)

Why Mixed Ancestry?

The 2024 rules for D&D 5e no longer include any "Half-Race" type species. I have seen many comments and requests for a way to bring that flavor/flexibility back to the game. Here is an optional method of putting together Half-Species. (Bio tangent incoming) Species are a group of individuals that can produce fertile offspring. If an Orc and a Halfling can make a baby which can also have kids then Halflings and Orcs would be considered the same species, but by the rules they are not. Due to this inconsistency I chose to call these optional character options Mixed Ancestry.

But Why do we need rules for this?

Of course as always, flavor is free. If you want to play a character with multiple species as parents for the roleplay possibilities of being stuck between two worlds, but don't need mechanics that back that up, by all means choose one species and go with that. I prefer to have mechanics that align with my characterization so I put this together.

How were the Power Budget numbers decided?

I went through and tried to assign a value number to each trait so that we can easily mix and match from the list without making anything that is clearly stronger than the preexisting PHB species. I started with the least impactful traits and assigned them a 1. From there I assigned an increasing value to traits that were more impactful or would be seen or used more often. After doing this most of the species ended up having 7 as the sum of their trait power budget. Aasimars and Elves had a point or two more, but that is because they got more traits than the other species. Since most of the species ended up at 7 that is what I chose for the Mixed Ancestry power budget.

Other notes

• Any rule (feat/item/other) that has a species as a prerequisite, a Mixed Ancestry PC is considered eligible for each of the two PHB species chosen to create that Mixed Ancestry.
• As always, ask your DM before bringing this to a table.
• Of course these power values were my subjective opinion. If you and your DM determine different values to mix then by all means, use different values.
• For any Species that would give you the 120ft darkvision for 2 power budget you can instead take a 60ft darkvision for 1 power budget
• There are probably going to be ways for power gamers to optimize this species generation method. That isn't my main concern. This should be used only if you have character justification to have Mixed Ancestry and you want some mechanics to back it up.
• I didn't type out the full trait descriptions for three reasons. I don't want to just include portions of the PHB, these are just for reference, I wanted to keep my tables compact, and I might be a bit lazy.
• If you want more traits from a given species you could forgo the Origin Feat you would get from your background for an additional 4 Power Budget points.