Horwath
Legend
we have some racial feats in the game, so that can be a way to become a more "dwarfier dwarf".
but almost all elven racial feats have been baked into base features.
D&D (2024) Character Design Foundations With Bigger Budgeted Species (+)
- Thread starter CreamCloud0
- Start date
but almost all elven racial feats have been baked into base features.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
Human
Speed:30ft HP:13+2d4 Size:Medium
Resourceful: you gain a use of Heroic Inspiration after you finish a long or short rest.
Versatile: you gain an Origin feat.
Diverse Skill: you gain two skills, also pick three untrained skills, you gain half your PB to checks you make with them, if you later become proficient in any of the skills reassign the half-proficiency.
Adaptability: you may become temporarily proficient in any one skill, tool or piece of equipment over the course of a long or short rest, your proficiency lasts for 4 hours if you learnt over a short rest or 12 hours for a long rest, the known duration is doubled if you learn from someone who already has the proficiency, you may only know one proficiency at a time this way.
Leading By Example: if you succeed on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check you may use your bonus action to give advantage to someone else also attempting the same kind of d20 check who saw you.
while i'm having fun posting these statblocks i didn't create this thread purely to post them, i was genuinely interested in hearing and discussing peoples thoughts and opinions on making species more of a foundational cornerstone to character building.
Speed:30ft HP:13+2d4 Size:Medium
Resourceful: you gain a use of Heroic Inspiration after you finish a long or short rest.
Versatile: you gain an Origin feat.
Diverse Skill: you gain two skills, also pick three untrained skills, you gain half your PB to checks you make with them, if you later become proficient in any of the skills reassign the half-proficiency.
Adaptability: you may become temporarily proficient in any one skill, tool or piece of equipment over the course of a long or short rest, your proficiency lasts for 4 hours if you learnt over a short rest or 12 hours for a long rest, the known duration is doubled if you learn from someone who already has the proficiency, you may only know one proficiency at a time this way.
Leading By Example: if you succeed on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check you may use your bonus action to give advantage to someone else also attempting the same kind of d20 check who saw you.
while i'm having fun posting these statblocks i didn't create this thread purely to post them, i was genuinely interested in hearing and discussing peoples thoughts and opinions on making species more of a foundational cornerstone to character building.
jmartkdr2
Hero
I had thoughts along these lines a while back, but I went in a slightly different direction: the base idea was "what if your race was worth a whole class level?" which led me to relate each race to one or more classes:
Dwarves were initially fighter-types (more focus on defense), though barbarian wild dwarves and monkish dwarves also showed up. Elves were half- casters but what kind of magic was set by subclass (wood elf = druid, high elf = wizard, blood elf = warlock, etc.) Halflings were roguish, gnomes were either artificers or something more fey-like, dragonborn were sorcerers and/or beast barbarians (but dragony), and planestouched were warlocks.
For humans, I ended up making them the cleric race, both because they needed a niche beyond "versatile", and because I hadn't found a cleric-y race yet. I liked the answer as it made humans a little more distinct while keeping them versatile (clerics can be a lot of things). It had some other upsides (ie justifying the human pantheon while more other races were monolatrist)
I never got around to writing out stat blocks (I was more interested in the worldbuilding implications) but it's an idea you could borrow.
Dwarves were initially fighter-types (more focus on defense), though barbarian wild dwarves and monkish dwarves also showed up. Elves were half- casters but what kind of magic was set by subclass (wood elf = druid, high elf = wizard, blood elf = warlock, etc.) Halflings were roguish, gnomes were either artificers or something more fey-like, dragonborn were sorcerers and/or beast barbarians (but dragony), and planestouched were warlocks.
For humans, I ended up making them the cleric race, both because they needed a niche beyond "versatile", and because I hadn't found a cleric-y race yet. I liked the answer as it made humans a little more distinct while keeping them versatile (clerics can be a lot of things). It had some other upsides (ie justifying the human pantheon while more other races were monolatrist)
I never got around to writing out stat blocks (I was more interested in the worldbuilding implications) but it's an idea you could borrow.
ART!
Deluxe Unhuman
Watching this with keen interest! I had a similar idea recently, when I realized how few dragon-like features dragonborn actually have. They "should" have a claw attack, a bite attack, natural armor, a tail sweep atatck, breath weapon, a wing atatck?, an enhanced sense, and a Charisma-based something-or-other. these could all start at 1st level at low levels and scale up, or could start with just a few and the rest come with highe levels.
For the Charisma thing, the player could decide at chargen what direction to push that: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. I don't know if I'd make that just advantage or something else. Brain no workie right now.
For the Charisma thing, the player could decide at chargen what direction to push that: Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. I don't know if I'd make that just advantage or something else. Brain no workie right now.
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CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
Aasimar
Speed:30ft HP:13+2d4 Size:Medium
Celestial Resistance: you have resistance to Radiant and Necrotic damage.
Celestial Revelation: you can produce an aura of bright light centred on yourself for 10ft, and dim light for a further 5ft at will, or you can concentrate to increase the radius to 40/20, as a bonus action on your turn you may inflict one of the following effects on a number of creatures who are within your aura of light:
-Radiant damage equal to your CHA modifier to PB targets.
-cause fear for 1 round(WIS save DC=8+PB+CHA) to 1+1/2PB targets(round down), a creature who makes their save is immune to the fear effect for 24 hours.
Divine Retribution:you know the cantrips Sacred Flame and Chill Touch, CHA is your casting stat for them, when you take the attack action you may substitute one of your attacks to cast one of these cantrips, additionally when you deal damage with a weapon attack you may choose for the damage dealt by the ability modifier to count as either Radiant or Necrotic.
Winged Being: you have a large pair of wings, as a reaction while in the air you can use them to slow your decent as well as glide a horizontal distance triple the height that you started at, at 5th level you gain a fly speed equal to your walkspeed, you must maintain concentraition to remain airbourne between turns else you safely decend to the nearest available location to land, if your concentration is forcibly broken you fall to the ground, your flyspeed is halved if you are wearing heavy armour.
Healing Hands: you have a pool of d6's equal to your character level plus your WIS mod, as an action you can touch a creature to expend and roll a number of d6's up to your proficiency bonus to recover that much HP to the target, if your character is proficient in medicine they automatically maximise the amount of HP recovered, you recover all dice in your pool at the end of a long rest.
Guardian Spirit: as a reaction when an ally is attacked by a creature within 15ft of you, you may move to the nearest free adjacent position and inflict disadvantage on all attacks against them for the rest of the agressor's turn.
Speed:30ft HP:13+2d4 Size:Medium
Celestial Resistance: you have resistance to Radiant and Necrotic damage.
Celestial Revelation: you can produce an aura of bright light centred on yourself for 10ft, and dim light for a further 5ft at will, or you can concentrate to increase the radius to 40/20, as a bonus action on your turn you may inflict one of the following effects on a number of creatures who are within your aura of light:
-Radiant damage equal to your CHA modifier to PB targets.
-cause fear for 1 round(WIS save DC=8+PB+CHA) to 1+1/2PB targets(round down), a creature who makes their save is immune to the fear effect for 24 hours.
Divine Retribution:you know the cantrips Sacred Flame and Chill Touch, CHA is your casting stat for them, when you take the attack action you may substitute one of your attacks to cast one of these cantrips, additionally when you deal damage with a weapon attack you may choose for the damage dealt by the ability modifier to count as either Radiant or Necrotic.
Winged Being: you have a large pair of wings, as a reaction while in the air you can use them to slow your decent as well as glide a horizontal distance triple the height that you started at, at 5th level you gain a fly speed equal to your walkspeed, you must maintain concentraition to remain airbourne between turns else you safely decend to the nearest available location to land, if your concentration is forcibly broken you fall to the ground, your flyspeed is halved if you are wearing heavy armour.
Healing Hands: you have a pool of d6's equal to your character level plus your WIS mod, as an action you can touch a creature to expend and roll a number of d6's up to your proficiency bonus to recover that much HP to the target, if your character is proficient in medicine they automatically maximise the amount of HP recovered, you recover all dice in your pool at the end of a long rest.
Guardian Spirit: as a reaction when an ally is attacked by a creature within 15ft of you, you may move to the nearest free adjacent position and inflict disadvantage on all attacks against them for the rest of the agressor's turn.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
Personally, I'm not fond of front-loading all or most of the abilities at start - that poses some of the same problems as giving out all the class abilities at 1st level. I would certainly like to see more unique and flavorful traits added to species/races, but I think it would be good to divvy them out at various levels - 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th preferably. Also, by level-gating some of the abilities - or simply having a bushel of options but you get a small core and expand as you play, you can present some options that are fairly strong as they come on-line when it's level appropriate. It also doesn't overwhelm starting players with a batch of abilities to remember at start, and lets them ease into it over time.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
i acknowledge the rest of your post but i do disagree on this point here, mainly due to the fact you can't 'multiclass' your species, which is one of the main reasons they avoid frontloading classes with all their abilities, leaving a mass of power vulnerable to poaching from a minor dip.
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
Wouldn't that be being a half-elf?
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
idealy no more than a paladin is a multiclass fighter-cleric.Wouldn't that be being a half-elf?
fluffybunbunkittens
Hero
I think putting in more features runs the risk of class-ifying the races, as not every feature can be universally useful.
'we gave Kenders the Taunt ability, making them the only warrior-type who can actually hold aggro'
It bears noting that even with the very few features the base 5e Dragonborn gets, their breath is still useless to anyone that doesn't have extra attack, so they should only be warriors... So hell yes, I'd love chunkier races that give you more to think about, so even if one feature is wasted for your class, there's plenty of others.
'we gave Kenders the Taunt ability, making them the only warrior-type who can actually hold aggro'
It bears noting that even with the very few features the base 5e Dragonborn gets, their breath is still useless to anyone that doesn't have extra attack, so they should only be warriors... So hell yes, I'd love chunkier races that give you more to think about, so even if one feature is wasted for your class, there's plenty of others.
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