D&D 5E Better Leonin

[Marandahir]

Giving a ton of races boosts to strength and constitution does nothing to address the design issues with dexterity. Too many str/con races and dex doing too much are unrelated issues.

Adding in Fairy-type to deal with the ubiquity of Fighting, Dragon, and Dark types doesn't help if your problem is too many Fighting/Fire starters. I mean, that fairy doesn't even have type advantage due to the fire typing!

Lions themselves aren’t that charismatic, though. More than tigers, sure, being more social, but they’re still territorial jerks.

And there are plenty of Cha races already.

But most importantly, Cha isn’t needed to be proud, Noble, etc. They can intimidate with strength at most tables, and their story in the world they come from is more important than a generalized idea of what lions represent.

I had forgotten about Intimidation with Strength (variant abilities for skills). This of course also doesn't solve the Dexterity rools problem, actually it can exacerbate it because the +Dex race Rogue is going to be asking to make every skill check a variant one using Dex instead of Cha, Int, etc.

Ultimately, if you (untargeted you used here) want Dex or Cha on your Leonin, why aren't you playing a Tabaxi?

 

[Todd Roybark]

Firstly, having multiple variants of PC races for Tritons, Eladrins, Minotaurs etc isn’t a major problem, from my viewpoint.

Individual DMs will select whichever one they wish to use, just like with Humans/Variant Humans.

One can chose to use all of a particular races’ variants, and now have, in effect, subraces for Tritons etc.

We, certainly do not know if WoTC will release another MtG inspired setting. So the ontic truth is for 5e D&D, Leonin are a race for a particular setting.

Future products, can deal with any needed design changes to match flavor differences between MtG sets.

As for DnD Beyond implementation issues, said issues are external to D&D. To put it bluntly it is DnD Beyond’s problem, not Wizard of the Coast’s.

For WoTC to codify a final version of all published races, would mean a separate Races of D&D book, which is the beginning of D&D 5.5.

I think it more likely, WoTC will keep on doing things as is, and let individual DMs decide what they want to use for their games.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Adding in Fairy-type to deal with the ubiquity of Fighting, Dragon, and Dark types doesn't help if your problem is too many Fighting/Fire starters. I mean, that fairy doesn't even have type advantage due to the fire typing!

Some of the terminology in this thread is losing me. Not sure if I wandered into a 4e thread, or this is M:tG....

 

[Marandahir]

Some of the terminology in this thread is losing me. Not sure if I wandered into a 4e thread, or this is M:tG....

Sorry, I was making a (rather inside) joke based off of Charlaquin's earlier Fire/Fighting comment on Page 1. It's a Pokémon reference, though I get the confusion.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Sorry, I was making a (rather inside) joke based off of Charlaquin's earlier Fire/Fighting comment on Page 1. It's a Pokémon reference, though I get the confusion.

Now I feel really un-cool. Which, on a website for RPG geeks, is something of an accomplishment.

 

[Marandahir]

Now I feel really un-cool. Which, on a website for RPG geeks, is something of an accomplishment.

No worries, I sure won't hold it against ya. If someone dropped, say, a Dark Souls reference, or perhance, a Witcher reference, I'd have no idea what they're talking about. There's only enough time in a life to know some limited things.

 

[Stormonu]

I think I’d leave the claws at 1d4, if you can attack with both. Perhaps a feat to increase damage (and other features).

Personally, when I think about Leonin, Lion man of the old Flash Gordon cartoon comes to mind. But isn’t the stereotypical Leonin of MtG Ajani?

 

[Mecheon]

As an aside, I dislike playable animal races in general. Tabaxi, Dragonborn, Tortles, Aarakokra... get rid of them all.

Its a longset fantasy thing. In D&D alone Tortles and various forms of cat and dog people date back to 1E. Tortles and Aarakocra especially have their fans as well, and Dragonborn definitely fill a niche that older races weren't filling

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I thought the complaint was always that there weren't enough melee characters being played because Dexterity was so good of a stat? So they go and create another race to help inspire people to play melee warriors and now the complaint is that they should have a high Charisma... thereby guaranteeing we'd see a whole new set of Warlock/Sorcerer/Bard multiclasses that make no story sense and are done purely for the mechanical min-maxing of staying in the back and throwing all kinds of weirdly boosted Eldritch Blasts?

Nothing sadder than for a Sorcerer, born with innate magic and beholden to nobody and to no thing, to take Warlock levels. Seriously, other people should be selling their souls to you, and you're going to suck up to some other magic being like a wimpy little Cleric? Do you really need the fairy queen to hold your hand?

Bonus loser points if you go Hexblade and let yourself get bossed around by an inanimate object.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Advice has been taken on board. I have edited the OP. With ->

BEST LEONIN
Ability Scores: Cha +1, Str +1, Wis +1
Other racial features remain.
Claws: Slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier.