D&D 5E Kender as an appropriate race
- Thread starter Majoru Oakheart
- Start date
I still think I should geek out and totally write a pdf scenario about a hell feydark demiplane with an army of level 20 Drizzt clones. But, I may need the big bad guy to be a cult of level 20 Kender who stole the genetics to clone the Drizzt's as the "power behind the demiplane" that must be defeated to get out.
Of course, none of the Kender know where the gate key out is because it is constantly "borrowed" back and forth between the kender cult and no one gets mad because "..just awwww, how cute..."
But more seriously, I agree whole heartedly and have personally seen Kender players destroy a campaign TWICE. While I am sure there are serious players who could pull it off, the only players who would be attracted to the concept are folks who want to be disruptive and have constant attention because the racial template encourages it. I also do not think any kind of retconning or 5e playtest abilities they came up with can overcome this stigma since the behavior is SO ingrained in players and DMs alike. There IS a reason why even with toned down flaws, the idea of a canon 5e Kender was quickly swept under a rug even though there are folks attracted to it. The devs ended up learning WHY and probably had to have a stiff drink at WotC HQ after being educated.
Mouseferatu
Hero
Except for the ones who aren't, several examples of whom have been presented in this very thread.
"Most"? Maybe. But "only"? No, not unless you're assuming those of us who have seen decent players attracted to the concept are liars.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
I'd still use the name "kender". "Halfling" is more the racial slur.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
I think Kender are perfectly fine with the simple caveat that you cant steal anything important from your fellow PCs. Maybe baubles and crap, that's fine, everyone can overlook it.
There was a dragonlance hardback with a kender race, pretty sure it had a random pickpocket loot table or something the kender could roll on every now and again. It was cool. The kender would put his hands in his pockets to find out what he had "accidentally" stolen or found somewhere! YOu could do the same thing in 5e, just once every long rest or whatever the kender rolls on the pickpocket table, tada, done.
There was a dragonlance hardback with a kender race, pretty sure it had a random pickpocket loot table or something the kender could roll on every now and again. It was cool. The kender would put his hands in his pockets to find out what he had "accidentally" stolen or found somewhere! YOu could do the same thing in 5e, just once every long rest or whatever the kender rolls on the pickpocket table, tada, done.
I've heard diatribes against everything and anything at one time or another.
Kender are no more or less disruptive than assassins, paladins, lawful good characters, drow rangers, chaotic evil characters, bards who won't shut up, druids that won't let you cut firewood, gnomes with pointy hats, etc. All the non-human races and plenty of classes have traits with the potential to make them disruptive. Player characters tend evolve out of these things (like Tasselhoff did) as a matter of exposure to the wider world that their brethren don't typically experience.
If I've heard 'no evil characters' or 'no paladins' once, I've heard it a million times. It's all bunk.
In my games you can play any race/class/alignment in the game including non-standard ones as long as they aren't overpowered. I have one rule at my table that covers all the above situations and more:
I don't care what reasoning you use, I will allow no disruption to the game that makes it less fun for everyone. That includes attacking other characters or preventing their actions or deliberately annoying them. If you don't like something, discuss it. Work it out. If you can't work it out, you are out of the game. Period.
As a result I often have a mix of evil and good characters in the same party, sometimes at cross purposes. When something comes up they disagree on, the players hash out a way to make it work and the characters follow suit with a narrative that makes sense...and they have fun. We often have to push to get the game back on track sometimes due to the sheer amount of laughter bogging things down. It works for us.
Edit:
A player arguing "that's what my character would do" is a dead giveaway you are dealing with a disruptive player. I would say "Well he might have but a bolt of lightning just struck him. Roll a dex save (DC 50) or take 50d12. You failed? He is dead." and repeat it for any and all characters he creates until he gets the idea.
Kender are no more or less disruptive than assassins, paladins, lawful good characters, drow rangers, chaotic evil characters, bards who won't shut up, druids that won't let you cut firewood, gnomes with pointy hats, etc. All the non-human races and plenty of classes have traits with the potential to make them disruptive. Player characters tend evolve out of these things (like Tasselhoff did) as a matter of exposure to the wider world that their brethren don't typically experience.
If I've heard 'no evil characters' or 'no paladins' once, I've heard it a million times. It's all bunk.
In my games you can play any race/class/alignment in the game including non-standard ones as long as they aren't overpowered. I have one rule at my table that covers all the above situations and more:
I don't care what reasoning you use, I will allow no disruption to the game that makes it less fun for everyone. That includes attacking other characters or preventing their actions or deliberately annoying them. If you don't like something, discuss it. Work it out. If you can't work it out, you are out of the game. Period.
As a result I often have a mix of evil and good characters in the same party, sometimes at cross purposes. When something comes up they disagree on, the players hash out a way to make it work and the characters follow suit with a narrative that makes sense...and they have fun. We often have to push to get the game back on track sometimes due to the sheer amount of laughter bogging things down. It works for us.
Edit:
A player arguing "that's what my character would do" is a dead giveaway you are dealing with a disruptive player. I would say "Well he might have but a bolt of lightning just struck him. Roll a dex save (DC 50) or take 50d12. You failed? He is dead." and repeat it for any and all characters he creates until he gets the idea.
Last edited:
the Jester
Legend
What if a pc doesn't want to overlook it? I think it's far less reasonable to ask everyone in the party to "overlook" one pc being a jerk (and that's how I see stealing from the party) than it is to ask one player to pick a different race.
I played a kender for close to 2 years... played him as written, and it was not a problem.
He stole all sorts of things from PCs, and he thought locks were purposely put in place only to 'challenge' folks. I used to 'find' all sorts of things, including gems and money. OTOH, Kender also don't care about *their* ownership either. Once we got to town, if someone was 'missing' their collection of matching rubies, they could just ask the Kender for some gems. He had a neat set of matching rubies, and even a nice emerald to go with it.
But a player, any player, playing any PC, needs to pick and choose when they play up their personality. Enmity towards a race, cowardice, avarice, chaotic tendencies, lawful tendencies, etc etc can all be problematic if the *player* allows them to be problematic.
So sure, the Kender may have found money, and may have even found a really shiny sword. But you find the sword in the morning as folks are getting ready, not in the dungeon as folks are entering the final room. Just like the fighter that *hates* elves expresses that hate in an appriopriate manner for the game, and doesn't just kill every elf he sees.
The vast majority of things we do, or don't do, in real life is because of what we have learned...what we know. It has very little to do with "fear". If I am standing on the roof of my house, the reason I don't jump off isn't because of 'fear', its because I know it can lead to a lot of physical pain and injury. A Kender would operate the same way. He is no more or less afraid then I am, but also isn't any more ignorant of the consequences.
The only difference is that if the house was on fire, and I had to jump, I would hesitate because of fear... and he would just jump, because he knows he has to.
I am sorry for you that have had such a bad time with Players abusing kenders, just like I am sorry for those of you that have had such a bad time with players abusing Paladins, or thieves, or Chaotic PCs, or PCs with stupid backstories, or ones that would run away, or whatever else the *player* decided to do.
He stole all sorts of things from PCs, and he thought locks were purposely put in place only to 'challenge' folks. I used to 'find' all sorts of things, including gems and money. OTOH, Kender also don't care about *their* ownership either. Once we got to town, if someone was 'missing' their collection of matching rubies, they could just ask the Kender for some gems. He had a neat set of matching rubies, and even a nice emerald to go with it.
But a player, any player, playing any PC, needs to pick and choose when they play up their personality. Enmity towards a race, cowardice, avarice, chaotic tendencies, lawful tendencies, etc etc can all be problematic if the *player* allows them to be problematic.
So sure, the Kender may have found money, and may have even found a really shiny sword. But you find the sword in the morning as folks are getting ready, not in the dungeon as folks are entering the final room. Just like the fighter that *hates* elves expresses that hate in an appriopriate manner for the game, and doesn't just kill every elf he sees.
The vast majority of things we do, or don't do, in real life is because of what we have learned...what we know. It has very little to do with "fear". If I am standing on the roof of my house, the reason I don't jump off isn't because of 'fear', its because I know it can lead to a lot of physical pain and injury. A Kender would operate the same way. He is no more or less afraid then I am, but also isn't any more ignorant of the consequences.
The only difference is that if the house was on fire, and I had to jump, I would hesitate because of fear... and he would just jump, because he knows he has to.
I am sorry for you that have had such a bad time with Players abusing kenders, just like I am sorry for those of you that have had such a bad time with players abusing Paladins, or thieves, or Chaotic PCs, or PCs with stupid backstories, or ones that would run away, or whatever else the *player* decided to do.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
Fair enough - in that case the player should not steal anything from the PCs at all.
Desh-Rae-Halra
Explorer
I played a kender clone in a Rolemaster game back in the 90s (this opening line feels like announcing yourself at an AA meeting or something!!)
It was in a mixed group where some people role-played their characters, and others just kind of narrated from the 3rd person.
Playing the kender did bring a little inter-party tension with my problem of "finding" things, but it was never this 'game-stopping, we must kill this PC' scenario I am hearing about.
As for the "fearless" aspect, one way it manifested was in the scenario the party was dungeon crawling through a trap laden fortress set for bigger races (most traps with projectiles were set to fire at things human height, so small creatures like goblins wouldnt set them off).
So anytime the party (everyone else was human sized) came to a locked door, the question would be asked "Ok, who is going to open the door?"
My PC would excitedly volunteer "I will"
And in unison, several party members would shout "NO!"
Same kind of situation if there was a lever on the wall. All the other PCs are scared to pull it, but I would volunteer, which then offered the PCs the chance to debate if this was some kind of deadly trap, did it fit with their morals to allow me to do so. And the leader of the party was a Paladin.
So in some way,this PC was very much like what people often use their Eidolons for in Pathfinder. Go in that room, climb up there and get a look, etc.
It was tempered with the other narrative dynamic that the party realized the had a highly skilled rogue at their disposal, they just had to figure out how to channel it.
As a strategy, I tried to embrace a child-like curiosity about people and the world, which was very different from the other characters who were grim mercenaries.
On a different note: I firmly disagree that "A player arguing "that's what my character would do" is a dead giveaway you are dealing with a disruptive player and that they deserve to insta-die (summarizing from MG.0's post).
If that is the case, then you should throw out any Bonds, Paladin Oaths, etc because those affect what a character should do. In fact, extending that logic, we should altogether ban archetypes and classes since someone might use those to help determine what their character would do.
From the 5E Players Handbook:
"Class is the primary definition of what your character can do. it is more than a profession, it is your characters calling. Class shapes the way you think about the world and interact with it and your relationship with other people and powers in the multiverse" (p. 45).
It was in a mixed group where some people role-played their characters, and others just kind of narrated from the 3rd person.
Playing the kender did bring a little inter-party tension with my problem of "finding" things, but it was never this 'game-stopping, we must kill this PC' scenario I am hearing about.
As for the "fearless" aspect, one way it manifested was in the scenario the party was dungeon crawling through a trap laden fortress set for bigger races (most traps with projectiles were set to fire at things human height, so small creatures like goblins wouldnt set them off).
So anytime the party (everyone else was human sized) came to a locked door, the question would be asked "Ok, who is going to open the door?"
My PC would excitedly volunteer "I will"
And in unison, several party members would shout "NO!"
Same kind of situation if there was a lever on the wall. All the other PCs are scared to pull it, but I would volunteer, which then offered the PCs the chance to debate if this was some kind of deadly trap, did it fit with their morals to allow me to do so. And the leader of the party was a Paladin.
So in some way,this PC was very much like what people often use their Eidolons for in Pathfinder. Go in that room, climb up there and get a look, etc.
It was tempered with the other narrative dynamic that the party realized the had a highly skilled rogue at their disposal, they just had to figure out how to channel it.
As a strategy, I tried to embrace a child-like curiosity about people and the world, which was very different from the other characters who were grim mercenaries.
On a different note: I firmly disagree that "A player arguing "that's what my character would do" is a dead giveaway you are dealing with a disruptive player and that they deserve to insta-die (summarizing from MG.0's post).
If that is the case, then you should throw out any Bonds, Paladin Oaths, etc because those affect what a character should do. In fact, extending that logic, we should altogether ban archetypes and classes since someone might use those to help determine what their character would do.
From the 5E Players Handbook:
"Class is the primary definition of what your character can do. it is more than a profession, it is your characters calling. Class shapes the way you think about the world and interact with it and your relationship with other people and powers in the multiverse" (p. 45).
