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Eiry
2016-01-23, 03:49 PM
Hello, everyone! I just signed up here to get some peer review on my custom race. I faeries, and it always makes me sad how little support there is for playing teeny-tiny creatures in d&d. So, I decided to try my best and make a race that not only is tiny, but also feels tiny.
This was originally designed for 3.5e so things might be a bit wonky in places.
I'm posting this here for criticism! Please, PLEASE outline ANYTHING you find odd, overpowered, too stifling or unnecessary!

Addition: I would post the lineart I drew of the race under the Description spoiler, but I'm not allowed to post links/images yet, so my deviantart is kkoakuma, and the lineart is my most recently-submitted (Doodle 7 - Faery).





The Faery

If you see a tiny fay,
Lying fast asleep,
Shut your eyes and run away,
Do not stay or peep;
And be sure you'll never tell,
Or you'll break a faery spell.
~”If you see a faery ring”, William Shakespeare

Living deep in the forests under the watchful eye of their ever-protective Queen, in a fantasy land of mushrooms and butterflies, Faeries are creatures born in the heart of Nature itself. Underestimate these timid and flighty beings if you dare, but be warned: These insectile humanoids don't grant wishes.

Faeries are miniscule Fey creatures with many defining features. Considered to be little more than flying vermin by many, they stand between 6 and 8 inches tall, and a faery's most noticeable trait is the set of delicate, lacy wings sprouting from her back, the source of which varies wildly from faery to faery. A faery may have wings from any insect, and her antenna will grow to match.
Faeries have only two fingers and one thumb, and their feet are little more than long, thin stilts. Faeries use their wings to balance themselves while standing, often described as appearing to squat and can both run and jump at a surprising speed.
Their skin, like humans, is a pale peach, but is covered in a thick substance secreted through their pores as a translucent gel which rapidly hardens into a protective opaque purple shell. This secretion is slippery, rubbery and easily detachable when hardened, making it easy for the faery to remain airborne and in plain sight while being protected from common predators such as frogs and birds.
Faeries do not have hair as humans and elves do, but have a cascading tangle of tensile feelers descending down their back. A faery may have anywhere from two to fifteen of these feelers, and they hang to the small of the back, though the faery can consciously contract and relax them to control their length. If cut, gripped or damaged, they will detach and begin to grow anew from the stump, allowing a faery to leave a confused predator in the dust.
While their body and head resemble that of an elf, their face has a more extreme resemblance to their insect side, and they bare two large, blue-green compound eyes located where a human's eyes would be, but extending much further around the head, which let them see in almost every direction at once (A necessity when your list of natural predators contains the common owl!). Faeries possess a human-like jaw, which is actually a joint that hides a deadly pair of mandibles that can extend approximately one inch out of their head in a split-second bite so powerful it can break fingers, making them the perfect hands-free weapon for catching food in midair.

As they are not mammals, faeries do not share the same life cycle as humans or elves. Their reproductive cycle is much closer to that of an insect colony.
Beginning life as a blind, maggot-like larva, Faeries spend the first few days of their lives feeding on honey inside protective honeycomb deep within the hive. After her time as a larva, the faery will enter a cocoon state and transform into her humanoid form.
Save the Queens, who spend many weeks building fat and muscle for the long journey to found a new hive, faeries do not age after leaving their cocoon state, remaining youthful for the rest of their lives.

Individual: Many faeries are magic users and are fragile and timid, often preferring to flee before danger and hide until it has passed. They are omnivorous and usually eat anything from pollen to field mice and hummingbirds. Flying is second-nature to a faery and they naturally take to the air unless sleeping or otherwise choosing to remain on the ground.
Adventurers: Faeries leave their hives for many reasons. For example, sometimes they become interested in an outside influence and, curious about this strange new experience, just wander off. Many a fairy tale has begun simply because a capricious faery stuck her nose somewhere it didn't belong. Faery adventurers prefer magic-wielding classes and many are natural-born sorcerers.
Society: Faery society is alike that of a bee or wasp society, and faeries live within large hives deep within forests. Their only recognized leader is their Queen, who is unique to each hive. Within these hives is a bustling community with a powerful sense of social responsibility. As hunter-gatherers, faeries rely entirely on their natural habitat to provide food for the hive.
Arts & Crafts: Faeries care little for complex crafting and their hives make little industrial progress. Because of this, and the lack of space for frivolous items, faeries do not own much in the way of art within the hive, including clothing. However, faeries leaving on adventures are often advised by their Queen to fashion themselves a simple dress out of leaves and scraps so as to fit in better among the larger races. Faery clothing fashioned this way appears either streamlined and lightweight, designed for maximum movement, or covered in pockets full of shiny, interesting and mostly worthless objects.
Religion: Faeries are rarely religious, and instead rely on their Queen to protect them. Some faeries acknowledge the deities of nature such as Rillifane Rallathil, and small shrines can be found nearby the hive out of respect to the divine.

Faeries often have feminine, flowery names out of human tradition. As they did not originate in their culture, Faeries are not attached to their names, and sometimes abandon them altogether in favor of a brand new one that they like better. As such, faeries can be named after all sorts of oddities.
Sample Names: Belle, Blossom, Dew, Ellette, Faye, Flitter, Lily, Rosetta, Sidhe

Faery Traits:
Ability Score Increase. Your strength score is decreased by 3 (to a minimum of 1). Your dexterity and charisma scores are increased by 2. Your dexterity is capped at 22, rather than 20.
Age. Faeries are mature as soon as they leave their cocoon, and only die when they are slain. Because of their magical nature, they do not know the sting of old age. As such, faery lifespans vary dramatically from mere days to several thousand years.
Alignment. Most faeries are chaotic, preferring a life of fun and (mostly harmless) pranks to the more rigid human societies. Despite their skittishness, the tightly-knit home that is their hive encourages a strong sense of community, so faeries tend to be good-natured when dealing with outsiders. When they decide to show themselves, faeries usually try their best to be helpful, but love having fun so much that they often wind up escalating a situation from bad to worse by accident.
Languages. Due to being hidden away in the depths of the forest, all faeries can speak Sylvan, but generally cannot read or write. Some faeries learn Common from books they find or steal. Faeries can be spoken to via the Speak with Animals spell as if you were talking to a beast.
Size. Faeries are Tiny creatures and stand between 6~8 inches tall and weigh in at 2~3lb.
Fey Creature. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep. You are a Fey creature and can be affected by anything that would normally effect fey creatures.
Speed. Faeries have a base walking speed of 20ft. Faeries possess natural flight and wield their wings like masters, boasting a flying speed of 30ft. However, faeries cannot ascend beyond 15ft as they are easily buffeted by gusts of wind. Faeries cannot fly at all while they are wearing Medium or Heavy armor, or are heavily encumbered or suffering from level 2+ exhaustion. Faeries have proficiency in the Acrobatics skill as long as they are flying.
Trance. Faeries do not need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. However, unlike their elven cousins, faeries cannot close their eyes, and so they do not dream and are aware of their surroundings as if they were awake.
Gel Armor. Faeries are coated in a thick, slippery purple rubber substance, giving them a natural +1 AC. This substance is removable and fresh armor will be secreted in minutes.
Compound Eyes. One of the most distinguishable features of a faery are their unblinking, bulbous compound eyes. Faeries have a 360-degree line of sight and cannot blink, and thus have disadvantage on saving rolls against blinding effects.
Darkvision. Thanks to your fey blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Spiderclimb. You have the ability to climb and hold on to on any non-slippery surface such as stone and fabric thanks to their tiny limbs. You require all four limbs to climb.
Weakness. Faeries are weak and fragile creatures and are unable to suffer as much damage as other creatures. A faery's hit dice is reduced by one step (d8 becomes d6, d6 becomes d4, etc.) from their standard class hit dice. Faeries cannot carry objects over twice their weight or height, and must push, drag or lift such items. A faery's carrying capacity is equal to her strength and is not multiplied by 15.

M Placeholder
2016-01-23, 04:05 PM
The Vermin creature type was merged with animals into Beast for 5th, so put them down as fey and state that they are considered vermin by some people in the description.

Eiry
2016-01-23, 04:16 PM
The Vermin creature type was merged with animals into Beast for 5th, so put them down as fey and state that they are considered vermin by some people in the description.

Change has been made! Thank you for taking the time to read through my post!
Guess I'm too used to pathfinder, haha.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-01-23, 06:03 PM
It's an interesting take on faeries, with all the insectoid features. I'm not convinced by the tiny mechanics though... Taking a whole die of extra damage from basically every attack you'll ever face seems very harsh. And I haven't done the maths, but it looks like you'll have a hard time carrying armour as well. So survivability is a definite issue even with the weird gel.

Eiry
2016-01-23, 06:30 PM
It's an interesting take on faeries, with all the insectoid features. I'm not convinced by the tiny mechanics though... Taking a whole die of extra damage from basically every attack you'll ever face seems very harsh. And I haven't done the maths, but it looks like you'll have a hard time carrying armour as well. So survivability is a definite issue even with the weird gel.

Funnily enough, I just opened my post again to fix that.

The reason I originally implemented the extra die of damage and the maximum height limit on flight is because I playtested a precursor to this race in a pathfinder campaign.
Free flight on a tiny faerie sorcerer is just way too powerful. I was vulnerable only to arrows, which I could dodge easily, and magic, which I and the rest of the party could focus down.
However, after reading through your fey supplement a few hours ago, I've been making a bunch of tweaks and consulting some DM friends and I've come to agree that the extra dice is a bit harsh, so I'm using your idea and knocking down the hit die by a level, and the faery's strength score by 3. (Thanks for that > w<b)

It'll be updated in a few moments.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-01-23, 06:38 PM
Funnily enough, I just opened my post again to fix that.

The reason I originally implemented the extra die of damage and the maximum height limit on flight is because I playtested a precursor to this race in a pathfinder campaign.
Free flight on a tiny faerie sorcerer is just way too powerful. I was vulnerable only to arrows, which I could dodge easily, and magic, which I and the rest of the party could focus down.
However, after reading through your fey supplement a few hours ago, I've been making a bunch of tweaks and consulting some DM friends and I've come to agree that the extra dice is a bit harsh, so I'm taking Ninja_Prawn's idea and knocking down the hit die by a level, and the faery's strength score by 3.

It'll be updated in a few moments.

Glad to be able to provide some inspiration! I would note that I'm considering revising my carry capacity rules. Playtesting indicates that "1 times your strength in lbs" is not enough, even if you rescale all the weights for tiny items.

For what it's worth, I've been running a couple of games with tiny fliers, and I haven't noticed any balance issues in relation to flight. You have to think a bit more about how you design encounters, but it's quite manageable.

Eiry
2016-01-23, 06:47 PM
Glad to be able to provide some inspiration! I would note that I'm considering revising my carry capacity rules. Playtesting indicates that "1 times your strength in lbs" is not enough, even if you rescale all the weights for tiny items.

For what it's worth, I've been running a couple of games with tiny fliers, and I haven't noticed any balance issues. You have to think a bit more about how you design encounters, but it's quite manageable.

I've done some math and biologically speaking, 1 times your strength in lbs is considerably more than what a 2~3lb faerie would actually be able to carry if your strength winds up being 3 or more, so I think it's fine as is. You have to keep in mind that fey aren't creatures to hoard items, nor are they meant to wear much in the way of armor as it would interfere with their flight. A faery (in my case, anyway), wouldn't hold much beyond a weapon, some clothes and perhaps a few shiny gemstones and such.

I think the big issue is that it irritates the DM. My DM cried out in joy when his dual-wielding genie finally managed to kill me.

PoeticDwarf
2016-01-24, 01:12 PM
They look too weak.

Lower HD is bad but not the worst. Giving -1str and not -3 makes it more balanced. One tiny thing more could make it

Nice homebrew

Eiry
2016-01-25, 08:27 PM
They look too weak.

Lower HD is bad but not the worst. Giving -1str and not -3 makes it more balanced. One tiny thing more could make it

Nice homebrew

The thing is that faeries are not meant to be physically powerful. A faery should not be able to pass the same level of str checks that even the puniest of elves could pass, even if you scaled the elf down to the faery's size.
From my experience with playtesting, -3 str and a lower HD is a worthy penalty for the sheer power (and immunity to melee) that flight grants you.
I might remove the height limit, though.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-01-26, 02:22 AM
I don't see a need for a height limit, as long as you specify that you can't fly in high winds. 30 feet flight is nowhere near as game-breaking as 50 or even 40, because it doesn't let you outpace people. Anyone using the Levitate or Fly spells or flying items can keep up easily, as can almost all flying monsters.

ThatKreacher
2016-02-01, 04:55 AM
Their skin, like humans, is a pale peach

nice casual racism.