D&D 5E Empowering Races

[Frozen_Heart]

Watching DnD 5e players homebrew their way to Pathfinder 2e is always amusing.

But getting picks of progressively more powerful racial feats as you level up.... that's Pathfinder 2e. I do wish DnD 5e had something like that though.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Before that there was Monte Cook's Diamond Throne RPG.

 

[jgsugden]

So are you doing it like 3.5 ECL Monster classes like Savage Species?

Essentially, except my recollection is that Savage Species allowed you to play "up to" having the stats of the monster from first level, where I generally have you start to develop 'higher level' heritage abilities once you've reached a level where it is balanced, and where it will work well with the story telling. I make these and present them as options to players when they are level 1 if they are in these races.

I have also had a few options that allow a player to go from level 1 and play as a monster, but they're mostly unconverted from 3E and 4E at this point sue to lack of demand.

However, I have updated and used my dragon, awakened brown bear, and fire giant heritage classes for players to use as PCs. These do allow you to start at level 1, and then advance in capabilities until you reach a level that is appropriate. The fire giant and dragon are both 20 level progressions, and the awakened brown bear is 6, with 4 bringing you up to level to be roughly equivalent to the brown bear in the MM (once awakened - a little tougher, actually), and levels 5 to 6 being about ways the bear could further develop beyond that to function better in PC classes (level 5 gives you a second claw attack in a multiattack, the ability to walk on your hind legs at 20 feet, and the ability to use your claws like hands (disadvantage on dexterity or strength skills requiring hands). 6th level giving you an ASI (which is a good place to take a custom feat that allows you to use your awakened status as a spell focus.

 

[CreamCloud0]

One of the things races really need to be more significant is more proficiencies, or rather for them to not exist in the same space as class/background bonuses, you have proficiency in acrobatics from both race and class? Congratulations you now have expertise, already have expertise? Triple proficiency? Natural advantage maybe? I dunno but something so that the bonuses are additive rather than mutually exclusive.

Picked a dwarf with a class that already gets med/heavy armour? Then get a flat +2 in addition to the regular AC score it provides, same thing with racial weapons but with To-Hit

Got Elven longbow training but your DEX score was (somehow) your dump stat? For the purpose of using longbows your DEX mod is considered to be 1/2 proficiency bonus!

I do think some scaling would be good too, the dragonborn’s breath weapon increases in damage, halflings start with only on use of lucky per day but gain more at higher levels, resistance becomes immunity (becomes absorption?)

And finally, spread their traits across multiple areas, PHB dragonborn was cool but with only a breath weapon and resistance (yes im aware it got buffed later i think but my point still stands) the fact you were DB didn’t actually come into play all that often mechanically so it was even easier to forget that you were actually a DB.

Some follow up thoughts to my previous post, I think it would really help races stand out if you took out armour and weapons out of the primary purview of classes and moved them more to races, not to decouple them entirely from class but most classes get blanket access to simple weapons and when they do have martial access mostly it’s the whole array of weapons IIRC.

So if each class only had their own small handful of the thematic weapon proficiencies it’d be more significant that the races are giving access to others weapons outside of those few they get from class.

Similarly for armour the race sets a baseline of what a species is proficient with and the class provides a modifier to that,
Like maybe halflings and elves usually go unarmored and start with no armour, humans and half orcs get light, dwarves get medium, but then wizard class provides +0 and ranger +1 and fighter +2 armour modifiers,
Elf wizard (0+0=0) defaults to lowest armour level, light armour
Elf ranger (0+1=1) light armour
Human ranger (1+1=2) medium armour
Dwarf ranger (2+1=3) heavy armour
Human fighter (1+2=3) heavy armour