D&D 5E Super exotic races?

[77IM]

I once thunk up a setting where all the "outcast" monsters formed a country together -- wizard dwarves, goth elves, agrarian orcs, scholarly lizardfolk, criminal merfolk, "outed" lycanthropes, pious undead, etc. The PCs would be a sort of wandering party of deputies/troubleshooters/Jedi-types who help solve inter-species problems (especially clearing out dungeons full of debased human marauders).

 

[Herobizkit]

Also of interest is the intelligent Cat wizard with its human familiar.

That intelligent rock idea is also a pretty good one; psychic moon rock is how I had planned to give a character super-powers in a supers game that never got off the ground.

I have a player in my group that goes coo-coo for animalistic races. He was all psyched for the aarakocra when it came out in the 5e EE supplement; he's also played a hengeyokai, a tengu, and thri-kreen in 4e.

Bottom line, they're easy to introduce, but the more alien their behavior, the more difficult it is to make them 'believable' or even relatable.

 

[wedgeski]

After playing Abathur in "Heroes of the Storm" it occurred to me that a race that exists solely to inhabit and augment other creatures might be very interesting from both a mechanics and roleplaying stand-point.

 

[steeldragons]

How exotic is too exotic for a player race?

That is a completely subjective, table-by-table, even person-by-person question. It has no actual answer.

I have been pondering a setting with just a ludicrous amount of racial diversity where you would have telepathic goldfish doing business with demons and drakes. Just any crazy/fun race idea gets thrown in. The question is would it be possible to have a PC party where each member is radically a different race.

It is certainly possible. How advisable "just any crazy/fun race idea" would be is, again, completely subjective.

Can it be balanced?

I'm sure it can. It would depend, obviously, on what these creatures/characters are...and how much 'balance" are you talking about? Just mechanically balanced? Sure. 5e can do that. "Immersion" balanced/making sense? That's a separate question. But can certainly be done. As others have said, it just requires more work on the part of the DM and mthe willingness of the players. Someone's idea of a mouse fighter with a 20 strength? Assuming the anthro-intelligent-mouse character was a go, the 20 strength, to me, would be a no way in the 9 Hells.

Can it be fun?

"Fun" is a subjective, individual -and not even consistent within a single individual- word. So, yeah. Sure it can be...if you think it will be and want to have "fun" with it. Then you certainly can.

As someone else mentioned, a lot of the "fun" of these kinds of "freaky/weirdo/unique/exotic/special snowflake" characters are that they ARE the "odd man out" among a party of "normal" characters in a largely "normal" [to the parameters of D&D] fantasy world. A party of entire city/nation/world of them does not suit everyone for a "fun" time.

My issue is immersion and suspension of disbelief [which is just as subjective and individual as "fun"]. Can I, as a human mage, have fun with a telepathic goldfish in the group? Probably. Can I have fun as an elf ranger in a party FULL of telepathic goldfish? A world of telekinetic rocks and sentient gas clouds? A lot less likely.

When I play D&D, there are certain expectations and [I prefer] assumptions about a given setting and the proposed genre: low through high fantasy, the presence of magic, relatively rare or low tech, etc... whatever the assumptions of the game's proposed setting and genre are.

I don't want to walk into a game of D&D and be faced with a "supers" game or a game of Toon...or, at the other side of the spectrum, historical accuracy, wild west or high tech sci-fi. Of course, I wouldn't be walking in in the first place since, as a player, I would/should know what those assumptions are before play begins.

If your players are on board with this, knock yourselves out and have a blast.

How much diversity is too much?

There is no answer here. It's all just personal preference and individual enjoyment.

Just, for my own tastes, it seems with the bulk of D&D settings and OSR type fantasy-focused games, you start topping out around 10 to a dozen. More than that begins to "jump the shark", as it were, or muddies the waters of the setting just too much for my enjoyment. And if you have a whole party of "exotic", the DM after a while just can't be bothered with having every village freak at your arrival...or you're in a a setting where everyone is special...so then, what's the point? When anyone can be/do anything...no one is actually "exotic" because exotic is the norm.

Then as a fun aside, feel free to post your most out there race idea.

I don't know if I can go more "out there" than telepathic goldfish and psionic rocks and clouds...as a race. Once you're out of the "resembling anything humanoid"...or even "biological", I'm not sure there's anything "more out there" to add. A character of sentient energy that only exists when it wants to [which is really no different or more creative than a sentient gas cloud or rock]? How about we all just play omnipresent omnipotence, then? Game's over. We won.

 

[kerleth]

My group made a couple of go's at 3rd edition's The World's Largest Dungeon (great read and map rescource, horrible adventure to play through from my experience). At one point we used savage species "monster levels" + unearthed arcana gestalt rules. I was a vampire ogre. Somebody else was a paragon illithid. A different party was composed of a mohrg, a cleric of tharizdun, a necrocarnate, and.... I can't remember the last one. He may have been a telepathic ice cream cone (joking, but only on the last one). We ran parts of the adventure a few times, it was tedious but we were stubborn, so we ran the gamut from serious parties to WTHOMGBBQ.

As an aside

How about we all just play omnipresent omnipotence, then? Game's over. We won.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?p=6570464&noquote=1#ixzz3VPEOz3B6

These sorts of responses blow me away. It is possible to challenge characters who are not humanoids. Heck, it's possible to challenge characters who are invincible, for that matter. Comparing playing an odd character concept to being all powerful is ridiculous. If you don't like the flavor, fine. If the character would ruin the theme and feel of a game, also fine. But jumping down the slippery slope fallacy with both feet, hands tied behind your back, eyes glued shut,...well you get the idea. Bad form. In all fairness that claim is part of a much smaller post, and I have no disagreement with the "it's all subjective" point being made in the rest of it. Just addressing this one point.

 

[Roger]

You might enjoy this account of someone playing a steam engine. Like a Thomas the Tank Engine sort of character.

Sounds like everyone had a good time.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[steeldragons]

My group made a couple of go's at 3rd edition's The World's Largest Dungeon (great read and map rescource, horrible adventure to play through from my experience). At one point we used savage species "monster levels" + unearthed arcana gestalt rules. I was a vampire ogre. Somebody else was a paragon illithid. A different party was composed of a mohrg, a cleric of tharizdun, a necrocarnate, and.... I can't remember the last one. He may have been a telepathic ice cream cone (joking, but only on the last one). We ran parts of the adventure a few times, it was tedious but we were stubborn, so we ran the gamut from serious parties to WTHOMGBBQ.

As an aside

These sorts of responses blow me away. It is possible to challenge characters who are not humanoids. Heck, it's possible to challenge characters who are invincible, for that matter. Comparing playing an odd character concept to being all powerful is ridiculous. If you don't like the flavor, fine. If the character would ruin the theme and feel of a game, also fine. But jumping down the slippery slope fallacy with both feet, hands tied behind your back, eyes glued shut,...well you get the idea. Bad form. In all fairness that claim is part of a much smaller post, and I have no disagreement with the "it's all subjective" point being made in the rest of it. Just addressing this one point.

I was not comparing the two. Or asserting in anyway there's no way to challenge non-humanoid characters..."invicible ones"...we might have a debate there. But I wasn't say that either.

I was trying to think of what would be more "out there", as requested by the OP, than a telepathic goldfish, sentient cloud or psionic rock. The onlyfirst place my mind went leads to a creature of pure energy...which leads, ultimately and eventually, when looking to "top that exotic", to something literally "all powerful." And at that point, yes, I would say "what's the point"? But that's a different conversation.

Probably should a put a smiley face at the end there to convey some semblance of tongue-in-cheekiness.

 

[Minigiant]

My setting has fey kitten barbarians and talking horse fighters.

Action surge with +2 horseshoes.

 

[Mercurius]

OP, check out Talislanta. It does exotic races best, in my opinion. Everything is free in downloadable form on talislanta.com.

As for your question, I personally dislike cutesy or humorous races, thus my aversion to Glorantha's ducks. I mean, really.

But in terms of what races I allow, it depends upon the campaign. My current one just starting is relatively traditional, so I gave them the PHB options only. If and when the campaign develops over years, more races will be introduced - both from D&D canon but also perhaps of my own design, but only if it makes sense within the setting context. I'm a bit proponent of internal consistency and design aesthetic.

 

[Tormyr]

My campaign has a half-gnoll Paladin with 8 Charisma. Beware his smites.

He is the son of the player's human druid who caught the eye of a healer in a village of gnoll aasimar from one of our adventures during the Next play test.

I think any exotic (non-PHB) race is a case by case decision between the player and DM.