Ecology of the Hengeyokai (+ New Race Option!)

[I'm A Banana]

Why'd they get the Dex bonus?

As it sits, "tough" animals aren't reflected very well -- badgers and crabs and the like don't get tougher or more tenacious or more resilient. If you wanted to go "Intelligent" (like Foxes or some birds such as the Sparrow) you also don't have support in the race. And it's not like we needed another race with a Dex bonus...

Any reason you didn't go the Human "+2 to any one" route? I mean, I guess that steps on a human's toes a bit, but it seems the best way to fit a huge diversity of archetypes into a single race. I suppose that's why humans have it in the first place.

It's also a little odd that all the forms are Tiny, but I imagine cranes, dogs, etc. to be pretty big animals -- Small if not Medium in some cases. A little odd that my St Bernard Man can become Tiny...

It's a cool race, and the mechanics work really well for certain forms, but not so well for others...

 

[Shroomy]

Why'd they get the Dex bonus?

As it sits, "tough" animals aren't reflected very well -- badgers and crabs and the like don't get tougher or more tenacious or more resilient. If you wanted to go "Intelligent" (like Foxes or some birds such as the Sparrow) you also don't have support in the race. And it's not like we needed another race with a Dex bonus...

Any reason you didn't go the Human "+2 to any one" route? I mean, I guess that steps on a human's toes a bit, but it seems the best way to fit a huge diversity of archetypes into a single race. I suppose that's why humans have it in the first place.

It's also a little odd that all the forms are Tiny, but I imagine cranes, dogs, etc. to be pretty big animals -- Small if not Medium in some cases. A little odd that my St Bernard Man can become Tiny...

It's a cool race, and the mechanics work really well for certain forms, but not so well for others...

While I was working on the article, two themes emerged: hengeyokai were extremely mobile and agile creatures (in fact, the majority of the subraces had a Dexterity bonus in earlier editions), and they were tricksters. That naturally led me to choose Dexterity as their fixed stat (and I hope I backed up that in the flavor text) and to choose a roster of favored classes that focused on movement (thus the assassin, rogue, and monk; the choice of sorcerer reflects their inherently magical nature and the fact that the wu jen was their favored class in 3e). I originally had a wider spread of stats associated with the hengeyokai, but during development it was felt that the race was becoming too complicated, so I modified the race so it had a more traditional stat set-up. Charisma was an easy choice because it was the primary stat for sorcerers and a secondary stat for rogues and assassins (it was also the secondary stat associated with the most subraces); I also chose Wisdom for the other flex stat because it was the monk's secondary stat, it had an association with Primal power, and because it was already assigned to the second largest group of subraces. The three stats also have associations with skills that I personally associated with hengeyokai: Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Thievery.

As for their size, originally several hengeyokai subraces changed into Small forms, but most of them were Tiny. Since their animal form did not have much direct combat applications, when concerns were raised about the race's complexity, I decided to consolidate all of them into one size. Luckily, making them all Tiny increases their mobility (since they can move easier through smaller spaces or even through enemy squares) and ability to hide more effectively. In my mind, some of the forms like the crane, dog, and raccoon dog (which if I remember correctly were the Small ones) are simply on the larger end of the Tiny scale.

 

[Unwise]

I generally hate anthro characters, but I love this article as it finally gives me rules for playing Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy.

Our next campaign is going to be "Journey to the West" better known as "Monkey!" for the children of the 80s that remember the glory days of monkey magic.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That naturally led me to choose Dexterity as their fixed stat (and I hope I backed up that in the flavor text) and to choose a roster of favored classes that focused on movement (thus the assassin, rogue, and monk; the choice of sorcerer reflects their inherently magical nature and the fact that the wu jen was their favored class in 3e)

Mobility does seem a big theme! But warriors and guardians and protectors are in there flavor-wise (Badger Chanshi!) that aren't really rewarded mechanically (Badger Fighters or Crab Wardens or Dog Battleminds or Crane Swordmages aren't great choices mechanically, but flavor-wise they make a lot of sense!).

I guess that's one of the tough balancing acts of making any very diverse race. Boil it down too much and you loose some of the interesting complexity. Don't boil it down enough and you keep some of the confusion. I guess that's why I look at Humans (and, to a lesser extent, Genasi) as great examples of very diverse races done quite well.

FWIW, I think 95% of anyone who plays a hengeyokai will be quite satisfied. The corner cases of the more defensive oriented / "tough" archetype characters not being fully mechanically ideal is a pretty minor point.

Besides, some of my bias against "everyone loves strikers" probably came in when I saw that their favored classes were ALL strikers. "Great, yet another awesome race for rogues. No love for Defenders." That, and the fact that a quick, charismatic Badger or Crab or Carp is...a little hard to wrap my brain around...are the main reasons I bring it up.

Thanks for the hard work!

 

[Shroomy]

Luckily, Intimidate is a Charisma-based skill.

Make sure to send in your feedback to the playtest email!

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I generally hate anthro characters, but *snip*

I have to admit, this is where a lot of my issue with this comes from. No offense, Shroomy, or to those of you out there that are *ahem* partial to it, but yeah... anthros, meet wood chipper.

I didn't like Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved for this reason, I almost didn't like 4e for the same. I have since gotten over it by banning Dragonborn and similar from my games. You can still use their stats if you like, but not the fluff.

But it's a big wide world of gaming out there, so if that's your thing, more power to ya!

 

[Dire Bare]

IMHO, this is more option bloat. The game already covers shapeshifting humanoids; they're called Shifters. No reason that this couldn't have been done as alternate race features for Shifters similar to what they put in Neverwinter for Dwarves and Elves.

No offense to the author, of course. I'd love to be published in Dragon someday myself, but I just don't think this niche race adds anything to the game besides bloat.

Finally got to the end of the "debate", and I kinda-sorta agree with you. I wouldn't use the term "option bloat", but I've always felt the anthropomorphic animal races needed to be cleaned up. Just like the 4e designers felt there were too many "dragon-men" and "half-dragon" concepts floating around and so wrapped them up into the new dragonborn race, I'd like to see the same thing happen with animal-head-people!

Shifters, Hengeyokai, Cat-folk (Rakasta & Tabaxi) and the other animal peoples like the Lupin, Tortle, etc, etc. I'd love to see one race concept that brought all of that together. Maybe for 5e, huh?

However, as it stands now, I do think that the Hengeyokai concept from earlier editions doesn't mesh well enough with the current Shifter race to simply make the "new" Hengeyokai types of Shifters. I wouldn't have minded seeing a little 4e style re-conception, however!

 

[Dire Bare]

Yep, if included every subrace that appeared in previous editions we'd also have the following: drake, weasel, panda, tiger, lynx, owl, hawk, frog, lizard, turtle, and octopus (there may be more, I'm listing these off the top of my head).

Panda-men! I knew something was missing from the article!!! Ski-doosh!

Well, time to get busy on the followup article so we can have the complete list!

Good work on this one, Shroomy!

 

[Droogie128]

Every bird flies

 

[Klaus]

Finally got to the end of the "debate", and I kinda-sorta agree with you. I wouldn't use the term "option bloat", but I've always felt the anthropomorphic animal races needed to be cleaned up. Just like the 4e designers felt there were too many "dragon-men" and "half-dragon" concepts floating around and so wrapped them up into the new dragonborn race, I'd like to see the same thing happen with animal-head-people!

Shifters, Hengeyokai, Cat-folk (Rakasta & Tabaxi) and the other animal peoples like the Lupin, Tortle, etc, etc. I'd love to see one race concept that brought all of that together. Maybe for 5e, huh?

However, as it stands now, I do think that the Hengeyokai concept from earlier editions doesn't mesh well enough with the current Shifter race to simply make the "new" Hengeyokai types of Shifters. I wouldn't have minded seeing a little 4e style re-conception, however!

You might think these concepts are related, because they all add "animal" to a humanoid, but they "how" they do it is actually very different:

- Shifter: humanoids with a "rage" type effect when bloodied.
- Hengeyokai: shapechanging into animal shapes.
- Rakasta, Lupin, etc: humanoids with constant animal characteristics.

The third group there is already mimicked by most races we have. Rakasta, catfolk and tabaxi can be done with elves. Lupins can be done with gnolls. Bearfolk (or Pandaren, for the WoW-inclined) can be done with goliaths or even minotaurs (refluff gore with bear claws). Ratfolk can be done with halflings.