Arracor
2014-12-22, 07:21 AM
Some of you may remember me from my Homebrew Races contest thread. Well, I've been working on statting those races out, then decided to start using 5e as my main system; so, I converted/reworked them to conform to 5e. Because of my total lack of experience with 5e it's impossible for me to make judgement calls about balance. That's where you lovely folks come in!
These races are (at least initially) intended for a self-contained world, where none of the PHB races are around. So while balancing these ones with 5e as a whole is ideal, my main goal is to make sure they're balanced against each other. That said, let's get started shall we?
So there are 9 races in total. 5 are the remnant of an ancient empire, while 4 are races that have integrated into society in the hundreds and hundreds of years after that empire's fall. After each race's name, (but before their stats,) I'll provide a little blurb about them that describes them and why I designed their stats the way I did.
Dragonspawn
Dragonspawn are similar in idea to the PHB's Dragonborn, but here they're far more malleable. As they level, Dragonspawn characters choose draconic features that suit their playstyle. I tried to keep them all roughly equal in value, though I'm sure that can be balanced better.
Medium Humanoid (Draconic)
Speed 30ft
+1 to any 2 different stats
Dragon Type: At 1st level, Dragonspawn choose a type of dragon to emulate. This determines the element of their breath weapon and resistance type.
Aspects of Dragonkind: Dragonspawn become more and more like true dragons as they grow in power. At every level in which they increase ability scores, a Dragonspawn chooses one of the following Aspects. Each Aspect can only be chosen once.
Dragon Breath: (15ft cone, 1d6+1d6 every 4 levels, recharge 5-6, DC 8+Con+Proficiency vs Dex, chosen element)
Dragon Wings: Flight 30ft, Wing Attack (Str/day, 30ft Cone, DC 8+Str+Proficiency vs Str, Prone)
Dragon Scales: +2 Natural Armor, Resistance (chosen element)
Dragon Fury: Bite (1d6 Piercing), 2 Claws (1d4 Slashing), Tail (1d8 Bludgeoning), Multiattack (Bite, 2 Claws, Tail)
Dragon Fright: Frightful Presence (60ft, DC 8+Cha+Proficiency vs Wis, Frightened until save is successful)
Dragon Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Blindsight 30ft, Advantage on Perception to hear or smell
Dragon Magic: 1 Sorcerer cantrip, Identify Int/day, Advantage on saves against Charmed
Dragon Cunning: Proficiency in any 3 Skills, Advantage on Insight
Skyborne
A sort of elementally air-aligned race, I wanted them to be the primary flying choice, while also having an interesting feature to distinguish them from the others. My main goal here is to balance their flight capability so that they aren't -too- attractive a choice, which is also a concern with Dragonspawn...
Small Humanoid (Air)
Speed 25ft, Fly 30ft
-2 Str, -2 Int, +2 Wis
Resistance (Electricity)
Wispform: Wis/day, 1 minute, affected as Blur spell, gain Hover.
Slipstream: Skyborne can take an action to attempt to pull a target within 60ft towards themselves. (DC 8+Wis+Proficiency vs Str or Dex) If the target is within 30ft, they have Disadvantage on their save. On a failed save, the target is pulled 10ft closer. This ability functions on targets up to 2 sizes larger.
Arcanae
A race of beings literally composed of arcane magic. Their bodies are translucent, and filled with colorful patterns of the 9 schools of arcana. They have no special movement mode or unique ability, but they do get some limited casting ability of their own choosing, allowing players to roll say, a fighter with some Spellsword potential without having to go Eldritch for it, or burn a feat. Notably, this race has no negative physical stat modifiers; their balance comes from not having the unique special abilities the other races possess.
Medium Humanoid
Speed 30ft
+1 Int, -2 Wis, +2 Cha
Magic Resistance: Arcanae have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Murai: The patterns of magical energy inside an Arcanae, called Murai, grant them some innate arcane potential. Each day they gain 2 racial spell slots, and choose 2 schools of magic. They can cast cantrips from those schools, chosen from the Sorcerer spell list. At every level in which ability scores are raised, the Arcanae gains access to a higher level of Sorcerer spells from which to choose. These spells are always cast at the lowest possible level.
Nevigne
This one was a bit harder to convert to 5e, since types (like Plant) no longer have the standardized suite of special traits they did in 3.5. This race has the innate Climb speed, some decent resistances, a couple flavorful but not overly powerful specials, and one unique ability of decent usability. Spiderclimb is another of those highly valuable movement types, so I hope I managed to balance this one without making them either too attractive, or not interesting enough.
Medium Humanoid (Plant)
Speed 25ft, Climb 25ft
+2 Wis
Spider Climb
Resistance (Light)
Vulnerability (Fire)
Advantage on saves vs Charmed, Poisoned, Stunned
Advantage on Acrobatics checks vs Grapple and Shove
Pacifying Spores: (1/day, 10ft radius, DC 8+Con+Proficiency vs Con, Stunned for 1 minute or until save is made)
Photosynthesis: Nevigne heal twice as much HP when they spend HD to recover health while resting in consistent sunlight, and need not eat as long as they get at least 1 hour of sunlight a day.
Treespeech: Nevigne can freely communicate with plants, as with the Speak With Plants spell.
Bailecroi
Easily the most mechanically tricky. I like to call this race's special trait 'discount lichdom'. Of all of them, this one's actually not quite done; there's important char-gen factors I badly need help figuring out how to stat out. The simplest way to describe this race is, they're a house spirit that can possess a custom-built doll called a Shell to go out and adventure with and get stronger. Aside from other lore motivations to do so, they reproduce by, upon reaching a certain level of power, splitting off a part of their soul and imbuing it into a structure which then becomes their 'child'. This race is the 'living construct' race, so it has no actual special abilities but instead has a suite of resistances/immunities, including against typical adventurer death. The balance to THAT needs help easing into the game mechanics, but basically those Shells are very expensive to produce, and if their Shell dies and they have no replacement then they can't exactly go out and rejoin the adventuring party until they can have a new Shell built. (Suggestions more than welcome, here.)
Medium Construct (Living)
Speed 30ft
Does not require air, food, drink, or sleep
Immunity (Poison)
Immune to Blinded, Deafened, Exhausted, Poisoned, Stunned, Unconscious
Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Bailecroi’s soul resides in its home, not in its shell. It is always aware of any damage to its structure, and as an action can shift its attention to its home form; the shell is effectively Unconscious until the Bailecroi returns to it. The destruction of a shell does not mean death, merely inconvenience. A Bailecroi does not truly die until its home form is destroyed, and it may at any time inhabit a properly attuned shell.
Bloodless Life: Bailecroi reduced to 0HP never have to roll death saves and are considered automatically stable, though their shell can still be destroyed by taking failed saves from damage.
Those were the 5 Empire races; now for the 4 Ascended ones.
Sylethans
Simply put: snake people. Aesthetically, imagine the male Naga from World of Warcraft. No special movement type, but they're the fastest race. They have minor natural armor, are good at lying no matter what class they choose, and have 2 strong natural attacks, including one with a nasty poison. If anything, I think this one might be a teensy bit underpowered when compared to the others..?
Medium Humanoid
Speed 35ft
+1 Dex, -2 Int, +2 Cha
+1 Natural Armor
Resistance (Poison)
Darkvision
Conniving: Proficiency in Insight and Deception
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the Sylethan has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Tail Slap (1d8 Bludgeoning)
Bite (1d6 Piercing; can apply Paralytic Venom on hit)
Paralytic Venom (1d8 Poison, Con save vs Poisoned, Con/day minimum 1)
Starlings
I'll be the first to admit, they could use a better name. This is the Swimming race, with a bevy of aquatic-themed abilities. They're naturally good at grappling, and can put out decent hurts for free while doing so. They notably lack the Humanoid type, providing them with some subtle immunities to common mind-affecting spells to reflect their -weird- nature; they're easily the most physically unnatural, looking essentially like a 6-limbed starfish standing on 2 legs. In an aquatic environment they shine, and everywhere else I think (hope) their racial talents are useful enough to make them a fair choice. Another contender for 'potentially underpowered'.
Medium Monstrosity (Water)
Speed 25ft, Swim 60ft
+2 Str, -2 Cha
Amphibious
Vulnerability (Electricity)
Hydrated Vitality: Starlings heal 1HP per round when fully submerged in water.
Water Sense: Starlings gain Blindsight out to 60ft in water.
Multiple Limbs: Starlings can make up to 4 attacks per round with their tentacles (1d4 Bludgeoning). If 2 consecutive tentacles attacks hit, the Starling may initiate a Grapple as a free action.
Digestive Spray: Starlings may spend their action making an acid touch attack (1d8 Acid). This attack hits Grappled foes automatically.
Koromet
The earth-aligned race, originally created as a slave race of miners for the old Empire who have broken free after its fall. This is the Burrowing race, and the naturally tankiest. They eat rocks and naturally process valuable metals in their furnace-like stomachs. This has the AWESOME side effect of granting them a special 'attack', in which they can make themselves vomit goddamn lava on their enemies at the cost of temporary nausea. Lava being the scary stuff it is, this ability is pretty damn strong starting out. It may require some balancing, probably in the realm of further limiting how often it can be used, or stacking additional penalties on the user. This race possibly has uncannily high utility, being natural smelters, diggers, tanks, and having a both powerful and -cool- special ability, not to mention their decent but not especially noteworthy natural attacks. They're slow, and take mental penalties, but that may not be enough of a balance.
Medium Humanoid (Earth)
Speed 25ft, Burrow 20ft
+2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
+2 Natural Armor
Burrow: Koromet can dig through earth up to solid rock.
Detect Metal: Koromet can sense the presence of metal within 30ft, as per the Detect Magic spell except that it can only be blocked by lead.
Vomit Lava: (3d8+1d8/4 levels Fire, DC 8+Con+Proficiency, Con/day, Poisoned until end of next turn)
2 Claws (1d6 Slashing)
Haaruq
Ok, let's be totally honest. These are straight-up ORCS. Or rather, half-orc stats, with the additional natural attack built in. Physically, imagine a shaggy, slightly more bestial orc with giant walrus tusks. I'm not at all worried about this race being too strong by 5e standards, but I'm a bit concerned about their standing amongst the other 9 races.
Medium Humanoid (Orc)
Speed 30ft
+2 Str, +1 Con
Darkvision 60ft
Menacing: Haaruq gain Advantage on Intimidation.
Relentless Endurance: Once per day, when a Haaruq is reduced to 0HP but not killed outright, it can drop to 1HP instead.
Savage Attacks: When a Haaruq scores a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, it can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.
Gore (1d8 Piercing)
So there you have it! Keep in mind the main goal here is to balance them all against each other, not necessarily against the PHB player races. However, that would be an added perk as long as it doesn't necessitate watering down their flavor. Suggestions and comments are of course always welcome, and if you can also help work out the kinks in the Bailecroi race's mechanics you'll have my purest gratitude. And maybe my firstborn.
These races are (at least initially) intended for a self-contained world, where none of the PHB races are around. So while balancing these ones with 5e as a whole is ideal, my main goal is to make sure they're balanced against each other. That said, let's get started shall we?
So there are 9 races in total. 5 are the remnant of an ancient empire, while 4 are races that have integrated into society in the hundreds and hundreds of years after that empire's fall. After each race's name, (but before their stats,) I'll provide a little blurb about them that describes them and why I designed their stats the way I did.
Dragonspawn
Dragonspawn are similar in idea to the PHB's Dragonborn, but here they're far more malleable. As they level, Dragonspawn characters choose draconic features that suit their playstyle. I tried to keep them all roughly equal in value, though I'm sure that can be balanced better.
Medium Humanoid (Draconic)
Speed 30ft
+1 to any 2 different stats
Dragon Type: At 1st level, Dragonspawn choose a type of dragon to emulate. This determines the element of their breath weapon and resistance type.
Aspects of Dragonkind: Dragonspawn become more and more like true dragons as they grow in power. At every level in which they increase ability scores, a Dragonspawn chooses one of the following Aspects. Each Aspect can only be chosen once.
Dragon Breath: (15ft cone, 1d6+1d6 every 4 levels, recharge 5-6, DC 8+Con+Proficiency vs Dex, chosen element)
Dragon Wings: Flight 30ft, Wing Attack (Str/day, 30ft Cone, DC 8+Str+Proficiency vs Str, Prone)
Dragon Scales: +2 Natural Armor, Resistance (chosen element)
Dragon Fury: Bite (1d6 Piercing), 2 Claws (1d4 Slashing), Tail (1d8 Bludgeoning), Multiattack (Bite, 2 Claws, Tail)
Dragon Fright: Frightful Presence (60ft, DC 8+Cha+Proficiency vs Wis, Frightened until save is successful)
Dragon Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Blindsight 30ft, Advantage on Perception to hear or smell
Dragon Magic: 1 Sorcerer cantrip, Identify Int/day, Advantage on saves against Charmed
Dragon Cunning: Proficiency in any 3 Skills, Advantage on Insight
Skyborne
A sort of elementally air-aligned race, I wanted them to be the primary flying choice, while also having an interesting feature to distinguish them from the others. My main goal here is to balance their flight capability so that they aren't -too- attractive a choice, which is also a concern with Dragonspawn...
Small Humanoid (Air)
Speed 25ft, Fly 30ft
-2 Str, -2 Int, +2 Wis
Resistance (Electricity)
Wispform: Wis/day, 1 minute, affected as Blur spell, gain Hover.
Slipstream: Skyborne can take an action to attempt to pull a target within 60ft towards themselves. (DC 8+Wis+Proficiency vs Str or Dex) If the target is within 30ft, they have Disadvantage on their save. On a failed save, the target is pulled 10ft closer. This ability functions on targets up to 2 sizes larger.
Arcanae
A race of beings literally composed of arcane magic. Their bodies are translucent, and filled with colorful patterns of the 9 schools of arcana. They have no special movement mode or unique ability, but they do get some limited casting ability of their own choosing, allowing players to roll say, a fighter with some Spellsword potential without having to go Eldritch for it, or burn a feat. Notably, this race has no negative physical stat modifiers; their balance comes from not having the unique special abilities the other races possess.
Medium Humanoid
Speed 30ft
+1 Int, -2 Wis, +2 Cha
Magic Resistance: Arcanae have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Murai: The patterns of magical energy inside an Arcanae, called Murai, grant them some innate arcane potential. Each day they gain 2 racial spell slots, and choose 2 schools of magic. They can cast cantrips from those schools, chosen from the Sorcerer spell list. At every level in which ability scores are raised, the Arcanae gains access to a higher level of Sorcerer spells from which to choose. These spells are always cast at the lowest possible level.
Nevigne
This one was a bit harder to convert to 5e, since types (like Plant) no longer have the standardized suite of special traits they did in 3.5. This race has the innate Climb speed, some decent resistances, a couple flavorful but not overly powerful specials, and one unique ability of decent usability. Spiderclimb is another of those highly valuable movement types, so I hope I managed to balance this one without making them either too attractive, or not interesting enough.
Medium Humanoid (Plant)
Speed 25ft, Climb 25ft
+2 Wis
Spider Climb
Resistance (Light)
Vulnerability (Fire)
Advantage on saves vs Charmed, Poisoned, Stunned
Advantage on Acrobatics checks vs Grapple and Shove
Pacifying Spores: (1/day, 10ft radius, DC 8+Con+Proficiency vs Con, Stunned for 1 minute or until save is made)
Photosynthesis: Nevigne heal twice as much HP when they spend HD to recover health while resting in consistent sunlight, and need not eat as long as they get at least 1 hour of sunlight a day.
Treespeech: Nevigne can freely communicate with plants, as with the Speak With Plants spell.
Bailecroi
Easily the most mechanically tricky. I like to call this race's special trait 'discount lichdom'. Of all of them, this one's actually not quite done; there's important char-gen factors I badly need help figuring out how to stat out. The simplest way to describe this race is, they're a house spirit that can possess a custom-built doll called a Shell to go out and adventure with and get stronger. Aside from other lore motivations to do so, they reproduce by, upon reaching a certain level of power, splitting off a part of their soul and imbuing it into a structure which then becomes their 'child'. This race is the 'living construct' race, so it has no actual special abilities but instead has a suite of resistances/immunities, including against typical adventurer death. The balance to THAT needs help easing into the game mechanics, but basically those Shells are very expensive to produce, and if their Shell dies and they have no replacement then they can't exactly go out and rejoin the adventuring party until they can have a new Shell built. (Suggestions more than welcome, here.)
Medium Construct (Living)
Speed 30ft
Does not require air, food, drink, or sleep
Immunity (Poison)
Immune to Blinded, Deafened, Exhausted, Poisoned, Stunned, Unconscious
Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Bailecroi’s soul resides in its home, not in its shell. It is always aware of any damage to its structure, and as an action can shift its attention to its home form; the shell is effectively Unconscious until the Bailecroi returns to it. The destruction of a shell does not mean death, merely inconvenience. A Bailecroi does not truly die until its home form is destroyed, and it may at any time inhabit a properly attuned shell.
Bloodless Life: Bailecroi reduced to 0HP never have to roll death saves and are considered automatically stable, though their shell can still be destroyed by taking failed saves from damage.
Those were the 5 Empire races; now for the 4 Ascended ones.
Sylethans
Simply put: snake people. Aesthetically, imagine the male Naga from World of Warcraft. No special movement type, but they're the fastest race. They have minor natural armor, are good at lying no matter what class they choose, and have 2 strong natural attacks, including one with a nasty poison. If anything, I think this one might be a teensy bit underpowered when compared to the others..?
Medium Humanoid
Speed 35ft
+1 Dex, -2 Int, +2 Cha
+1 Natural Armor
Resistance (Poison)
Darkvision
Conniving: Proficiency in Insight and Deception
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, the Sylethan has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Tail Slap (1d8 Bludgeoning)
Bite (1d6 Piercing; can apply Paralytic Venom on hit)
Paralytic Venom (1d8 Poison, Con save vs Poisoned, Con/day minimum 1)
Starlings
I'll be the first to admit, they could use a better name. This is the Swimming race, with a bevy of aquatic-themed abilities. They're naturally good at grappling, and can put out decent hurts for free while doing so. They notably lack the Humanoid type, providing them with some subtle immunities to common mind-affecting spells to reflect their -weird- nature; they're easily the most physically unnatural, looking essentially like a 6-limbed starfish standing on 2 legs. In an aquatic environment they shine, and everywhere else I think (hope) their racial talents are useful enough to make them a fair choice. Another contender for 'potentially underpowered'.
Medium Monstrosity (Water)
Speed 25ft, Swim 60ft
+2 Str, -2 Cha
Amphibious
Vulnerability (Electricity)
Hydrated Vitality: Starlings heal 1HP per round when fully submerged in water.
Water Sense: Starlings gain Blindsight out to 60ft in water.
Multiple Limbs: Starlings can make up to 4 attacks per round with their tentacles (1d4 Bludgeoning). If 2 consecutive tentacles attacks hit, the Starling may initiate a Grapple as a free action.
Digestive Spray: Starlings may spend their action making an acid touch attack (1d8 Acid). This attack hits Grappled foes automatically.
Koromet
The earth-aligned race, originally created as a slave race of miners for the old Empire who have broken free after its fall. This is the Burrowing race, and the naturally tankiest. They eat rocks and naturally process valuable metals in their furnace-like stomachs. This has the AWESOME side effect of granting them a special 'attack', in which they can make themselves vomit goddamn lava on their enemies at the cost of temporary nausea. Lava being the scary stuff it is, this ability is pretty damn strong starting out. It may require some balancing, probably in the realm of further limiting how often it can be used, or stacking additional penalties on the user. This race possibly has uncannily high utility, being natural smelters, diggers, tanks, and having a both powerful and -cool- special ability, not to mention their decent but not especially noteworthy natural attacks. They're slow, and take mental penalties, but that may not be enough of a balance.
Medium Humanoid (Earth)
Speed 25ft, Burrow 20ft
+2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
+2 Natural Armor
Burrow: Koromet can dig through earth up to solid rock.
Detect Metal: Koromet can sense the presence of metal within 30ft, as per the Detect Magic spell except that it can only be blocked by lead.
Vomit Lava: (3d8+1d8/4 levels Fire, DC 8+Con+Proficiency, Con/day, Poisoned until end of next turn)
2 Claws (1d6 Slashing)
Haaruq
Ok, let's be totally honest. These are straight-up ORCS. Or rather, half-orc stats, with the additional natural attack built in. Physically, imagine a shaggy, slightly more bestial orc with giant walrus tusks. I'm not at all worried about this race being too strong by 5e standards, but I'm a bit concerned about their standing amongst the other 9 races.
Medium Humanoid (Orc)
Speed 30ft
+2 Str, +1 Con
Darkvision 60ft
Menacing: Haaruq gain Advantage on Intimidation.
Relentless Endurance: Once per day, when a Haaruq is reduced to 0HP but not killed outright, it can drop to 1HP instead.
Savage Attacks: When a Haaruq scores a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, it can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.
Gore (1d8 Piercing)
So there you have it! Keep in mind the main goal here is to balance them all against each other, not necessarily against the PHB player races. However, that would be an added perk as long as it doesn't necessitate watering down their flavor. Suggestions and comments are of course always welcome, and if you can also help work out the kinks in the Bailecroi race's mechanics you'll have my purest gratitude. And maybe my firstborn.