Homebrew animal shapeshifter race. Am looking for help!

[rfkannen]

So I was makeing a campaign when I realized there were no +2 wisdom races. I also realized that my want to make a seprete selkie, anansi, and kitsune races would be a bit to much. So I decided to quickly wip up this race. I think it's pretty cool but at the moment it looks kinda weak. What do you think? it clearly isn't polished yet, so what do you think should be added?

Flavor is supposed to encompass things like nekomata/kitsune as well as old fairy tales that have the big bad wolf, and native american and african tales with guys like anansi and ravem and coyote. Also selkies. Not sure where that fits but I like selkies. If anyone had any ideas of exanding that to fit more with d&d I would be very greatful. Not sure how to do the fluff.

Ability score increase; +2 wisdom
age. Depends, more natural ones like selkies live as long as a human, more magical ones like kitsune are immortal.
Alignment. Being fundamentally beings of nature shapeshifters typically go towards neutral alignments.
Size. Most shapechangers resemble humans in their base form, and as such are medium.
speed. your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. As an animal you need to see in the dark
Trained by nature. You have training in perception.
Animal nature. You are one animal. You choose this at level one and can’t change it. This effects what you look like when you shapechange and what subrace you should take. Your animal form can be tiny small or medium
language. You can speak common and communicate with animals similar to the animal you are as if you both spoke the same language.
Shapechange. You posses an object which allows you to change forms between your human and animal forms. As long as you are in possession of the object you can change forms at will. What this does is determined by your subrace. You allows perfectly resemble the animal you resemble.
Subraces. Pick one of the subraces.

Marine
When you shapechange the following happens to you
You are amphibious
you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.
You have a 1d4 finesse piercing bite attack you are proficient in.

Flying
you have a flying speed equal to your speed
you have a 1d4 finesse natural attack you are proficent in. This can be a stinger or claw or bite

Spinner.
You have a climbing speed equal to your speed
you can spend your bonus action to make a 5 foot by 5 foot area of web. This area counts as difficult terrain to everyone but you.

Land
Your speed increases by 5 feet.
You have a 1d8 finnese bite attack

 

[slightlyprime]

i choose to be an ant, i shall crawl into the enemies armor and bite them till they die. ☺
awesome, druids will always choose this race though i really like it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

rfkannen, you might want to read this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?348563-Dark-Text-on-a-Dark-Background-Tutorial

Also, welcome to ENWorld, the two of you!

 

[Connorsrpg]

Perhaps you should try to make a 5E version of the Hengeyokai. They are in old versions of Oriental Adventures. Sounds like the vide you are going for.

Probably need some restrictions on the animal you can shift into regarding size. Not sure I would limit this to having an object either. What happens if that object is lost/broken etc?

If this is not a unified race (like the hengeyokai), you might even be better off writing up the different races.

(FWIW: I have converted several races, and some are anthros and some are marine based - actually Star Wars conversions for a fantasy setting. Check them out if interested: http://connorscampaigns.wikidot.com/d-d-races).

One day I will have a go at the hengeyokai too (Also suits the African Adventures I have incorporated into several settings).

 

[steeldragons]

I think your "Land" is a bit too general...everything on land isn't a "biting" creature. What if I want to be an antelope or horse for some serious movement speed? Or, like, a mountain goat/ram for some scaling/climbing ridiculous surfaces...and a head butt. Or something that is more about their claws (badgers, felines, climbing critters like mice or squirrels) than their bite. Or something that has extraordinary senses for hearing or smell? What if someone wants something reptilian instead of mammalian? No cold-blooded v. warm-blooded limitation akin to sunlight sensitivity?

I would look, maybe, at the Unearthed Arcana pdf about Eberron stuff...they had the Eberronian Shifter Race in there...so there's teh "claws" guy, the "fangs" guy, the "tracker" guy...again, much too many as far as I'm concerned, but you might get some thoughts/ideas from there.

I would also, at least for introduction into the game purposes, pare down your initial subraces. Offer, maybe 2 options. Save the others for NPCs/to be introduced as PC options later.

I get what you're trying to do...and I applaud the effort and work put in...and there's certainly no shortage of mythological shapeshifting critters/archetypes to draw on...but I don't know if it can be done as a single race. Just seems like too many variations to chew in one bite.