QB's Monstrous Races

[doctorbadwolf]

Quick thought on aranea. Let them shapeshift. If it is on the weak side, that just means you can include other stuff. If it's powerful, let it be most of what they do as a race.

I like the gnoll. I think you found a good balance with this iteration.

I still think the Naga should be capable of a jumping snake like leap, including a leaping attack, from a coiled position. If you still disagree I may have to write up my own subrace for them or Lamia, or maybe another snake person race. Could be fun to have a small snake race that can do the crazy jumps and sudden strikes that characterize some snakes.

Muls have always been vaguely boring boring to me, mechanically, but these seem fine. I usually use goliaths for what Muls are supposed to do.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Thank you for appearing. I look forward to further conversation with you, but to address this immediate thought; they actually do have a "spider-shifter" optional racial feature included in their writeup already. It just hasn't been included in the core race because it's finnicky thing to make work.

I finally managed to complete the index, so now it should be easier to find all the races I've posted and the ones I have on the "planned, but still to post". Not counting things like the Grippli (completed, not posted) or the "contemplated, but not started" races like Girtablilu, Thriae, Medusa, Serpentfolk or Deep One.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thank you for appearing. I look forward to further conversation with you, but to address this immediate thought; they actually do have a "spider-shifter" optional racial feature included in their writeup already. It just hasn't been included in the core race because it's finnicky thing to make work.

I am working on turning the second post into a functioning index. I do beg you to have patience, though, as it's slow going and I've only reached the second page so far.

Fair enough. I saw that, but it seems like adding it on top of the rest of the race might be too much?

Have you though about Quicklings, Vrylocka, Kalashtar, Kenku, or any fliers like pixies?

We disagreed on a few races previously, but I could post some ideas for the Fey races like Nymphs, satyrs, centaurs, dryads, and pixies. I also have ideas for Fey goblinoids.

 

[Leatherhead]

Thank you very much for being willing to post here. But... what do you mean by "there isn't any (easily seen) controversy"? Do my works just look okay from the start, or is it the fact that there's nobody is arguing about them to attract attention?

People here love to argue on the internet, to the point where the best way to get an answer isn't to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer.

Yes, the races seem ok at first glance. Which means there isn't anything truly "wrong" with them to talk about. Also the current discussion about races is "What's in the Volo's guide? And why aren't Gnoll's a player race?

Maybe you should talk about the method of how you made these?

 

[QuietBrowser]

Fair enough. I saw that, but it seems like adding it on top of the rest of the race might be too much?

Have you though about Quicklings, Vrylocka, Kalashtar, Kenku, or any fliers like pixies?

We disagreed on a few races previously, but I could post some ideas for the Fey races like Nymphs, satyrs, centaurs, dryads, and pixies. I also have ideas for Fey goblinoids.

Yeah, I actually received a comment on 4chan thanking me for leaving Spider-Shifter as a purely optional addition, as they opinioned it would be stupidly powerful if added to the core of the race, but utterly useless if made the base of the race. In all honesty, once I got over the shifting as being "my traditions!", I actually came to like the race's base. Even in 2e, the general assumption was that you'd spend all your time in hybrid form and claim to be warped by Red Steel to excuse it.

Vyrloka are already written up on page 2.

Kenku we're officially getting in Volo's Guide.

Quicklings... no idea what those are.

Kalashtar I'm leery of adding whilst we still have no official idea on how to do psionics in 5e, much like my hesitance to do Large races until we can see how the Firbolg is going to work next month.

More fliers? Well, I wouldn't mind.

If you'd like to talk about fae races, I'm open for it. Can we stick to just discussing the possibilities instead of leaping right ahead into statting things? I have some thoughts on centaurs, hamadryads and potentially satyrs as well. Plus, I'm a little leery of doing Tiny races simply because we know from the past that those can easily turn into a clusterfrak of rules when run alongside bigger races. Not so much I couldn't agree to do them, just, I'd need to discuss them thoroughly first.

People here love to argue on the internet, to the point where the best way to get an answer isn't to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer.

Yes, the races seem ok at first glance. Which means there isn't anything truly "wrong" with them to talk about. Also the current discussion about races is "What's in the Volo's guide? And why aren't Gnoll's a player race?

Maybe you should talk about the method of how you made these?

Thank you for elaborating. Though, I don't recall seeing debates about the gnolls since my topic on the subject was wiped in the forum crash?

As for making these... I'm not really sure. Basically, I used the existing races and the DMG notes as a basic guideline, looked over the lore for the races, particularly their stats for Pathfinder and past editions of D&D, and just tried to hash things out from there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Centaurs, i have basically as elves with some size stuff. They are Large, but use medium tools, weapons, and armor, 35ft base speed, dash at, IIRC, 50ft, and can jump higher and further with a running start. And then the natural weapon, I haven't worked out.

Satyrs, I figure need to be good athletes, performers, charmers, and have some amount of low key Fey magic about them. I think it would make sense to have a stronger, high jumping, warrior satyrs, and smaller, prettier, more trickster satyrs. Maybe even run the gamut from Pans Laberynth to Narnia to Ancient Greek.

I thought pixies were great in 4e, and in 5e could simply deal with lesser weapons, and have more magic. Not sure about the weird flight restrictions from 4e, though.

Nymphs and dryads, IMO, work best as a single race, with different types as Subraces.

I wonder if if we can balance dryads being able to Treestride at lower levels, along with some manner of Fey magic and being able to hide inside trees and/or turn into one. Perhaps they can find out cool stuff when in tree form, but tree form is a multi hour commitment?

If we have nymphs, what about the less universally malignant, but off maligned, hidden folk.


The fey goblinoids id like to wait for volo's to see how standard gobs are done, and do the Fey ones as sub-races.

Also, ever given any thought to less traditional for DnD nature spirits as PCs? Stuff that's a bit less "here is a race of beings based on tree spirits", and more, "here, a river spirit."

Quicklings are basically small fey tricksters that run super fast, climb well, and hide extremely well, and mainly live in deep forests and jungles and the like.

Flyers, in genral, are going to be controversial, but IMO they have too strong a place to ignore them. First, we gotta agree on what we think of the aarakokra. Im of the opinion that they are underpowered, many think flight is too powerful all by itself.

 

[GreenTengu]

I look at this list and the first thing that jumps out at me.

Dragonborn is "Demihuman" and Lizardfolk is "humanoid"... *sigh*

Such a stupid and archiac concept to even bother acknowledging.

"See da de-mi-hooman es da-da-da gud guy and if it not the gud guy den, den, den it a hoomanoid not a de-mi-hooman. 'Cause de-mi-hooman mean da gud guy."

This garbage definition has been dropped from official products for 3 editions now and you drag it up for... what reason exactly?

If in the very least you were defining it as "can breed with humans" then that would make Orcs and Goblins "demihumans" and Dragonborn absolutely not. But even if that were the case, its not like anyone needs to know who smushing unmentionables could produce a child is a useful enough to gameplay to have its own term. But, worse, you throw it around as a term to place on the generally "gud guy" races-- quite obviously so if you are using any definition that could possibly include Dragonborn.

Yeah, it is a weird take-away of looking at your document as even I feel it "misses the point" but when you are advocating actually using these races, unnecessarily including a term to discourage it seems counter-productive.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Okay, let me try and break this down...

Centaurs:
The thing about Centaurs is that there's at least two different "archetypes" to them that I can recall; the brutal, war-like and savage centaur, and the swift-running and agile centaur. I think also that centaur lore traditionally portrays the herd's shamans as literally born different to the rest of the herd?

With this in mind, what I'm currently leaning towards is a sub-race approach; one "warlike bruisers" sub-race, one swift-runners sub-race, and, most tentatively of all, a shamanic sub-race. Figuring out distinguishing traits for the sub-races is proving difficult, though.

Also, traditionally, centaurs haven't been fae in D&D so much as they've been monstrous humanoids who get on well with elves. For this reason, what I'm thinking of doing is giving them the option to add Fey Ancestry in a sidebar; this supports DMs who want them to be fae, as they were in 4e, or purists who prefer them as purely mundane monstrous humanoids.


Satyrs:
Hmm... I'm still struggling to find a niche for Satyrs, but, with the lore on them compared to fauns, your suggestion of more "primal/warlike" satyrs vs. more "tame" satyrs makes sense. The mythology amateur in me is now wondering if it's possible to add in the Ipotanes (horse-satyrs) in some fashion...

Hmm, I may have some ideas. I'll see if I can post them up here at some point.


Nymphs/Nature Spirits:
The big problem with nymphs in general is how to make them interesting. Generally, your nymph is just an uber-beautiful female elf... now, don't get me wrong, I love me some cute monstergirls and would love to explore better meshing that trope with D&D, but this isn't the kind of forum where it's safe to do so. THough, I think I recall seeing a homebrew about 5e racial writeups for the races from Daily Life with Monstergirl... moving right along!

The problem with doing nature spirits is pretty close to the problem with doing nymphs: how do you do them well? I mean, who honestly remembers Spirit Folk, which were literally "nature spirits in humanoid form" from 3e's Unapproachable East and Oriental Adventures splatbooks?

Heck, I could easily plop down elemental nymphs in my games by just reskinning & renaming the genasi as appropriate and giving them Fey Ancestry.

I'm not averse to it, but we need to come up with a way to make them actually interesting.


Dryads:
Here's the two big issues with Dryads, leaving aside balance; how do we make them more interesting than just "green-skinned she-elf druid/enchanter multiclassed", and how do we account for the whole "stuck with their tree" thing?

That's partly why I started with just the Hamadryad, which is a more powerful version of the Dryad from AD&D that was characterized by its ability to leave its tree: http://www.lomion.de/cmm/hamadrya.php

Honestly, I'm quite a fan of 4e and Warhammer's idea that Dryads are fae tree spirits who, thusly, can shapeshift between more human and more plant-like forms, which would certainly be easier (and, in my opinion, more interesting) than trying to balance them having access to high-level druidic spells and abilities.

There was a Dryad/Hamadryad in 4e's Heroes of the Feywild that might be interesting to look at for a design basis, perhaps?


Fae Goblins:
Honestly, I agree; heck, probably the simplest way to get a "fae goblin" is to take the gobbo from Volo's Guide, slap on Fey Ancestry, and bam, you're done.


Tinies:
I really need to dig up the Heroes of the Feywild and the 5e MM before I can properly comment on doing these. I suppose the big thing to answer is "would Sprites and Pixies be separate races, or sub-races of the same Fairy race"?


Flyers:
For the Aaracokra, personally, I agree that it's underpowered for what it's supposed to do.

That said, I also can agree that flight should probably suffer some restrictions based on being heavily burdened or paralyzed because, really, how do you expect someone to fly in non-magical platemail?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Centaurs: those seem like social/cultural differences to me, mostly. A subrace born with some magical talent would be fun.

Satyrs: Tame is the wrong word, but I'll let it slide cuz you're foreign. no satyr or faun race/subrace should be tame. Even the less wild ones should, IMO, be prone to being tricksters, and make good bards.

Dryads: how is that not interesting enough for a playable race? They're free people who can live inside of and become trees, and have some amount of nature and/or Fey magic. That is more than enough

nymphs: see above. Nature spirits, with natures determined by what sort of spirit hey are, tree or river or lake or woods, etc. charm and unnatural beauty is just icing. Don't try to reinvent them or anything, just work with what's there. Dryads could easily be a type of nymph, and serve as a template for the rest.

Pixies: I dislike "fairies" as a race, unless that race is quite broad. Pixies and brownies are both fairies, for instance, depending on what area and era you're using to define terms.

Flight: restrictions like encumbrance make sense. Just not like the 4e pixie, that couldn't fly higher than 2 squares.

Fey goblins: I don't think Fey Ancsstry does it. I'm happy to handle that one myself, though, once Volos is out

 

[QuietBrowser]

I've come down with a mild case of food poisoning and it's affecting my mind, so apologies in advance for any brusqueness with this...

Centaurs: Think the difference between a draft horse and a racing horse. You would agree that, despite their fundamental shared horseiness, they are still very different to each other in terms of physical capabilities, yes? That's basically the lines I was thinking down. But, I may just be influenced too much by memories of Monster Musume, where centaurs are divided into Common, Heavyweight (warhorse-based), Lightweight (racehorse-based) and a farmhorse-based race I will not name. So... yeah, maybe just making them stand on their own as a singular race and restricting the diversity to "do they have Fey Ancestry or not?" is best.

Satyrs: You do have to admit, Fauns were basically characterised as being sweeter, more rational, and generally not wild drunks all the time like their Satyr kin, which is why Nymphs wanted them instead, so, yeah, they technically are the "tamest" of the three. There's a reason why Pathfinder's writeup basically goes "satyrs are all wilderness-wandering party-animals; fauns still like to party, but actually settle down and do work too".

Dryads: Because, as I said, I can already replicate all that flavor with an existing class/race combination and marginal reskinning. Female Wild Elf Forest Druid/Enchantress with "Wild Shape" replaced by "Plant Shape", class powers all fluffed as innate magic, casting ability score unified as Charisma, and BAM, I'm done, I have a fully-functional Dryad. Plus, as I said, there's still the whole "I can't go more than X distance from my tree; it's physically impossible!" thing that needs to be essentially replaced for the race to make sense. It's why Anchorites, a priest kit in 2e Ravenloft that lost all their class powers if they went more than 100 meters from their place of worship, were never repeated in any edition afterwards. I do think that Dryads can work, but they need an angle that's more than just "beautiful tree elf plus". The Hamadryad from 4e was actually a pretty good example of this; their flavor is that they represent an "intermediate" point between the generic fae nymphs and the editions' take on Dryads. Still full of faerie magic, but a little more "living tree" than "elf who lives inside a tree", complete with the ability to assume either a dryad's wooden skin for armor or a nymph's blinding beauty as the situation called for.

Nymph: At that point, "Nymph" basically becomes less a core race and more a "racial term" (ala "fairy" or "demihuman") that covers all manner of elf-like fae. Note that I do not disapprove of this, as honestly it does mesh up with the real world use of the term better than a subrace system probably does. My big issue is, as I said, each kind of nymph needs to be both playable AND interesting to play. I can already make nymphs of earth, air, water and fire by just adding Fey Ancestry to refluffed Genasi; I want my nymphs to have their own distinctive flavor and feel like interesting races. We had Spirit Folk, which are basically more "Japanese" flavored nymphs, back in 3e, and nobody remembers them. That's not a mistake I want to repeat.

Fairies: Honestly, I prefer to use "fairy" as "generic term for any Small creature with Fey Ancestry" myself, so keeping Pixies, Sprites and other such "wee folk" with entirely separate racial profiles is all good as far as I'm concerned.

Flight: Yeah, I mean, I can see situations where restricting flight at less than 100 feet per turn makes sense, but crippling it all the way down to, like, 10 feet a round doesn't make a lot of sense without very good reason (as with my "flying frog" grippli, who're supposed to be gliding on the wind anyway). that's probably why the Aarakocra came out so weak; WoTC was afraid of its potential to dominate with a 50ft Fly Speed.

Fae Goblins: I did say it was a quick and dirty approach. It depends on what kind of flavor you want your "faeblins" to have. But don't underestimate just what playing them up as coming from faerie can do, especially with the unifying fae racial trait.

In general... you want to respect the mythos. I take it you're Greek, and I can respect that. But, at the same time, D&D isn't real-life mythology, and sometimes one needs to bend, tweak or outright break the rules in order to make something that people can actually play. Dwarves in D&D are nothing like Nordic Dwarfs - for starters, they've got females, they act with honor, they don't turn into stone when touched by sunlight. Sometimes, things need to change.

So, yes, I do understand that this is important to you. But, sometimes, purity does not equate to playability. Who'd want to play a clurichaun if the mechanics enforced that you have to find yourself a wine butty and settle there like a toad in a stone, violently rejecting all attempts to get you to move on whilst there's a drop of booze left in the joint? That's not a lot of fun to adventure with. It's why Halflings in D&D went from straight up Hobbit expies to more adventurous over the editions, to make them more appealing to actually play.

I do value your input and your insight. But, sometimes, I can't be 100% mythologically accurate. I'm sorry.