Level Up (A5E) [POLL] What are your top 5 cultures in Level Up?

[Timespike]

So there's been some fun discussion of favorite heritages, which class is most improved, etc. And I've participated in several of those discussions and enjoyed them, but for my money, I think cultures are where things get really cool in A5E character creation; the design team came up with so many awesome environments for a character to come from, and a bunch of them have cool mechanical aspects, too. I'll give my top 5 and why in a reply.

 

[Timespike]

My personal top 5:

Cosmopolitan: If you've read my third-party material, you probably won't find it too shocking that I like the culture that's good at carrying concealed weapons. I rarely play actual rogues, but I like some covert skills in my PCs, and everything about Cosmopolitan does that perfectly.

Grimlock: This one is very personal to me; after we finished with the new monster lore for them while working on the MoMe, I really wanted them to be playable. I had to lobby pretty hard for these folks, but I love my blind, technological, security-obsessed geology stabilizers and I'm so glad I'll have the means to play one some day.

Steamforged: I love the possibilities of this - particularly because I really enjoy playing divinely-empowered characters like clerics and heralds. The idea of a Steamforged cleric is fun to me; here's a person who cuts against the grain of their society in some ways, but is also a huge fan of things like education and democracy.

Stoic Orc: There's nothing about this culture I don't absolutely love. I like the compassion inherent in the culture as they take in the traumatized and help them process. I love the mechanical abilities. And I love the contrast, but not conflict, that exists with regard to more "mainstream" orc culture. A really well-done and fascinating culture.

Tunnel Halfling: I love the defiant resolve that oozes from every piece of this culture. I can easily imagine a society of underground freedom fighters rising up and crushing some horrible empire from within. And I appreciate the harder edge that this gives halflings without completely turning into something unrecognizable.

 

[Pedantic]

Immediately I matched on those top two, for just about the same reasons. I was particularly impressed with what the Grimlock culture shows you can do with the Culture slot as a building block for a character. Stoic Orc was probably my 6th position, just below the cut, and Tunnel Halfling is right afterwards, those are some my top ones that have a particular heritage flair associated.

I picked Dragoncult, again because I really like specificity of its mechanics, it gives you a really unique widget to play with that grounds you in a specific place to have those abilities. In particular I like the idea of a character escaping or leaving a dragon cult behind, and still having that mark and power left to call them out.

I picked Eladrin, because honestly I've never liked the presentation of Eladrin in their 4e roots. Splitting elves into two distinct species always struck me as weird, and it seemed very strange to present a player race that was theoretically from the weird faerie realms, but not to give it any grounding in the weird norms of that place, nor enough power to compete with the rest of the fey. Eladrin as a culture however, squares the circle nicely and really makes me more excited about such characters.

And then finally I picked Bloodmarked, because I really liked the Zeitgeist take on gnolls, and because I thought the mechanics are very solid. It's a really good example of distilling adventuring relevant abilities from a social background, while making them distinct and not entirely passive abilities that fade alongside class stuff.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

my top 5 weren't really at all what i was expecting them to be, and i ended up deciding them largely on one feature they had i just thought was neat:

Spinner Cult: i love cold read just from...well...READING it. i just have this mental image of talking to someone the party needs to blackmail for a minute and then, completely out of the blue, going "oh by the way, how are your kids doing?".

Steelmarked: breaking touch is super neat and seems super useful. the metal taboo is also really nice flavour for a character.

Villager: tall tales i think captures the idea of a character who hasn't really left their own village before really well, and i can see it leading to some hilarious rp opportunities.

Tyrannized: this is just a sort of culture i don't see explored super often with player characters, and i think it does a good job portraying what it wants to.

Settler: claim staker makes me want to roll up a paranoid trapmaster with a musket who always thinks tonight's gonna be the night someone tries to stab him in his sleep.

i also had 3 runner ups that were tough to rule out when i was thinking about this:

Wildling: this one mostly just got beat out by the others.

Steamforged: student of martial arts seems like an accidental trap option. i mean...where does the expertise die even go for disarming, grappling, and shoving? you're not rolling anything. and tumble doesn't even exist. other then that, i think it's mechanically fine and i like the flavour.

Lone Wanderer: i thought you could get a masterwork vicious greatsword out of this, which i thought was pretty damn good, but vicious isn't one of the properties a crafter can add like i thought it was. still arguably the best culture if you want to be a skill monkey just because you can get 4 skill proficiencies from it for some insane reason, but other then that it just kind of exists.

 

[RangerWickett]

Steamforged: student of martial arts seems like an accidental trap option. i mean...where does the expertise die even go for disarming, grappling, and shoving? you're not rolling anything. and tumble doesn't even exist. other then that, i think it's mechanically fine and i like the flavour

I think that's an artifact of combat rules changing after the cultures were written. I think I wrote this one, but it was a long while ago and I might've just imagined it was mine because it fits ZEITGEIST really well. In any case, I would have the expertise die add to your Maneuver DC.

I did write Steelmarked and Tyrannized, so I'll call your post an overall win for boosting my ego.

 

[Xethreau]

I think that's an artifact of combat rules changing after the cultures were written. I think I wrote this one, but it was a long while ago and I might've just imagined it was mine because it fits ZEITGEIST really well.

(It was me, but it was overtly based on your work.)