D&D 5E Racial abilities that have gone by the wayside

[the Jester]

So over the years, D&D has given a lot of its races a variety of interesting and unique abilities. The brown race books in 2e, various racial substitution levels in 3e, things with racial prerequisites in any edition you'd care to name, and perhaps especially in 4e with the variety of extremely flavorful racial abilities and feats that built off of them- all of these have offered a plethora of ways to make your race a more important part of your character.

I've been thinking about how to port some of these things over to 5e, at least as options. I think some (such as racial substitution level) can probably be worked in as subclasses, while others (such as many of the 4e racial abilities) might be better suited to being reincarnated as feats.

What do you guys think? How would/do you plan to convert this kind of stuff over?

Here is my first, gnome-oriented, stab at converting racial stuff forward:


Sneaky Gnome

PREREQUISITES: Gnome

You have the gnomish propensity for disappearing down pat. You gain the following benefits:

• When you are hit by an attack, you may use your reaction to turn invisible until the end of your next turn or until you attack. Once you use this ability, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.
• While you are invisible, you do not trigger opportunity attacks.
• While you are invisible, enemies have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Does this seem to be in line with other feats in 5e? Is it too strong or too weak? How would you convert the gnomish Fade Away racial ability, and other racial elements, to 5e?

 

[CM]

• While you are invisible, you do not trigger opportunity attacks.

I think this may be superfluous? PHB Page 195 says movement only provokes when the attacker can see you. There may be other actions that trigger OA that I'm unaware of, I haven't fully read the combat rules yet.

• 
  While you are invisible, enemies have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Do you want this to work any time the gnome is invisible (say, from other invisibility spells or items) or only after using fade away? I'd be a little leery about gnome wizards dropping an invisibility and following up with some crippling Save or Suck spell. You might also want to limit the save disadvantage to a single target?

I'd approve this feat for use IMC if the save disadvantage was limited to this feat's invisibility effect.

 

[keterys]

While you are invisible, you do not trigger opportunity attacks.

This is already basically true: you only opportunity attack creatures you can see. Unless you want the gnome to avoid opportunity attacks while invisible even from things that can see it.

Gives room to add something else, though. Could probably just put +1 to a racial appropriate stat, though.

 

[the Jester]

This is already basically true: you only opportunity attack creatures you can see.

Ahh, I missed that. Thanks!

 

[tuxgeo]

< snip Intro >
Sneaky Gnome

PREREQUISITES: Gnome

You have the gnomish propensity for disappearing down pat. You gain the following benefits:

• When you are hit by an attack, you may use your reaction to turn invisible until the end of your next turn or until you attack. Once you use this ability, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.
• While you are invisible, you do not trigger opportunity attacks.
• While you are invisible, enemies have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

< snip remainder>

[emphasis added]
How about this: ". . . until the end of your next turn, until you attack, or until you cast a spell that targets any creature other than yourself."

I'm concerned that the many offensive spells that lack attack rolls could be considered not to be an "attack" when cast.

 

[the Jester]

Okay, here's a v2:

Sneaky Gnome

PREREQUISITES: Gnome

You have the gnomish propensity for disappearing down pat. You gain the following benefits:

• When you are hit by an attack, you may use your reaction to turn invisible until the end of your next turn, until you attack or until you cast a spell that targets any creature other than yourself. Once you use this ability, you must complete a short or long rest before you can use it again.
• While you are invisible, you gain a bonus action on your turn that you can use to dash or disengage. If you are suffering from an effect that you can attempt to end by making a saving throw as an action, you may instead attempt to make that saving throw as your bonus action.
• While you are invisible, adjacent enemies have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

 

[Khaalis]

Okay, here's a v2:

Sneaky Gnome

• While you are invisible, adjacent enemies have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

Why adjacent only for spells? I could see it for melee, but it doesn't click logically for me as-is.

I'd go with
"While you are invisible, enemies within 30 feet have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells."
This take into account the built in bonus action Dash. Thus you get hit, trigger invisibility, dash away, strike with a spell, become visible at a more safe distance of 30 feet.

As an aside, just curious why would this be only a Gnome feat? Is this a conversion of some specific source?

 

[Joe Liker]

Why not just use the language of the invisibility spell and say "until you attack or cast a spell"?

To me, the benefits of keeping it consistent outweigh the quirky hijinks you allow by letting the invisible gnome cast spells on him- or herself.

Also, there is no reason to disengage while invisible, as opponents cannot make opportunity attacks against you anyway.

 

[the Jester]

Why adjacent only for spells? I could see it for melee, but it doesn't click logically for me as-is.

I thought my initial version might be too strong.

As an aside, just curious why would this be only a Gnome feat? Is this a conversion of some specific source?

Yes. In 4e, gnomes have a racial ability to Fade Away (turn invisible once hit). The 4e Sneaky Gnome feat builds upon this.

Why not just use the language of the invisibility spell and say "until you attack or cast a spell"?

I'll do this- I hadn't yet gotten around to checking for consistency with other invisibility effects.

Also, there is no reason to disengage while invisible, as opponents cannot make opportunity attacks against you anyway.

Ahh, of course not.