D&D 5E DMG Excerpt: Creating a New Race

[Tormyr]

Again.

How do I match up the stats of monster humaniods in the MM and the PC races that would match those in the PHB?

I'm not talking minotaurs.

I mean
Kobolds (MM kobold stats suck compared to PC stats)
Hobgoblin (MM hobgobs's Martial Advantage is too strong for a PC)
Bugbears (MM bugbear's Brute and Surprise attack are too strong for a PC)
Satyrs (is Magic resistance fair for a PC?)
Gith (Psionics is cray-zay, man)
Gnolls (is Bite and Rampage good enough for a PC?)
Goblins (Nimble Escape?)

In general, I would suggest the following. You need to identify the following things when possible.
1. Primary and secondary abilties.
2. Age range (not as important
3. General alignment
4. Size
5. Speed
6. Vision
7. Language
8. Traits
9. Proficiencies

For the Half-Gnoll Paladin whose father was a human and mother was a Gnoll Aasimar, I gave him the following things
1. +2 Str, +1 Dex
2. 16 (He decided to be really young
3. Neutral Good leaning Chaotic from his Druid father and Gnoll Aasimar mother
4. Medium
5. 30 ft.
6. Darkvision 60 ft.
7. Common, Gnoll
8. Rampage, but because he is descended from good gnolls, it is a weapon attack instead of a bite. I decided that was enough because the player wanted to play an exotic race. However, with the release of the DMG, I will check to see if there is 1 or 2 things I am willing to bring over from the Aasimar.
9. No proficiencies

An Kiobold might look like:
1. +2 Dex, +1 another ability
2. ?
3. Generally lawful evil
4. Small
5. 30 ft.
6. Darkvision 60 ft.
7. Common, Draconic
8. Sunlight Sensitivity, Pack Tactics
9. No proficiencies

Generally the exotic races should be as good or worse than the regular races. Playing an exotic race should be a bit of a bonus itself.

 

[Tormyr]

I understand that there is a difference standard and heroic version of the monster races. My issue is how FAR the difference is.

MM kobolds are pathetic and have little power. All MM kobolds have are high Dex and skill with traps. Creation of a PC race would mean taping tons of abilities onto it to balance it. But then the PC kobold and MM kobold look nothing alike.
Give them +2 Dex, +1 Int, proficiency with tinker tools and craft of 3 traps? I have a weak rock gnome not a kobold.

And what do I give to compensate for being small?

Based on the MM... I got nothing. The MM kobold sucks and has no compensation or even any features I can snag and boost. The fluff adds nothing either. I can even good Dex +3 or +4 because it breaks the general baseline for the game.

Same with hobgoblins and bugbears but in the opposite direction. The MM stuff is too powerful but there is little leeway to weaken them without making them too weak or copycats of existing races.

This is why I loved 4e's racial power method so much. You could take almost any humanoid monster and pluck out its ability bonuses and racial power. Then give it to players for PCs or swap them on monsters as a DM or adventure designer. Even 3e had its races despite being faulty.

5e seems like the worse of both worlds. Monsters have no underlying rules for reverse engineering for PCs. The rules for reverse engineering for monster to monster swaps seem long. And if you DO create monster PC races, t
many of them will look nothing like their PC versions.

Check my other reply to you for an example Kobold. To expand on my other post a bit, treat them as regular player characters and port over what seems reasonable from the Monster Manual. Every character, regardless of race, should be using the same stat generation as everyone else. So everyone does point buy, standard array, or roll for abilities. Kobolds get pack tactics which is huge and really negates the need for other traits. A 20th level Kobold fighter with 5 hits with a light weapon at advantage on most attacks would be cool/powerful. Sunlight Sensitivity would negate some of that advantage, so the Kobold will often look to be attacking in shadow.

For the bugbear, give it a +2 Str. +1 Dex. Give it Brute and Surprise Attack. But that is all that race gets in traits. If you still feel that is too powerful after comparing that to the longer list of stuff that the other races get, then don't give Brute. The thing is, the bugbear is only going to be good at fighting rather than the utility stuff (at least from its racial traits).


Same thing with the hobgoblin. Give it martial advantage and call it good. That martial advantage will shape how the hobgoblin player fights. It will only have that attack ability vs. the additional stuff other races get like Lucky, advanced hiding abilities, innate magic, etc.

I would encourage you to keep it simple.

 

[Lord Zack]

My problem with saying "well just house rule it" is that I have rarely met anyone willing to accept any house rules that make 4e more like earlier editions. Usually not enough to fill a group at one time. The response I usually get is "If you want to play something similar to earlier editions, why not just play those editions?". So while eliminating Eladrin as a player choice and having halflings be similar to hobbits for instance is theoretically possible, practically it might not happen so easily.

 

[Nellisir]

My problem with saying "well just house rule it" is that I have rarely met anyone willing to accept any house rules that make 4e more like earlier editions. Usually not enough to fill a group at one time. The response I usually get is "If you want to play something similar to earlier editions, why not just play those editions?". So while eliminating Eladrin as a player choice and having halflings be similar to hobbits for instance is theoretically possible, practically it might not happen so easily.

Speaking strictly to modifying races, I've done so extensively for years and never had anyone seriously object. I spend more time explaining it on message boards than I do to my players.

Also, hello from Lansing!

 

[Hussar]

I gotta go with Nellisir here. Most DM's get to define their campaign worlds. If you say, no eladrin, and someone comes up and says, "Hey, I want to play an eladrin", well, it's time to do a bit of horse trading. Why do they want to play this specific race, and how can we compromise so everyone is happy. Most of the time, if you say, Hey, I don't want this in the game, that's generally the end of the conversation.

Heck, it's not like Eladrin are all that intrinsic to anything anyway. You still have elves, even if you don't have eladrin specifically.