New Race for a campaign.

[EDITOR]

I am making up a campaign that is in its own realm of reality, separated from the Dnd world by and extremely powerful wizard through the assistance of a parallel being.
The idea of the campaign is to destroy the realm. As the DM I want to make its near on impossible for a PC to die, however in that unlikely scenario I want that player to play as a race from the parallel realm called the Quarlek.
The PC Quarlek would have the following race traits:

cannot learn magic and use most magic items (determined by the DM)
vulnerable to magic and its effects
has two climate conditions that effect its combat prowess.
has a +3 to either STR or DEX
darkvision 30ft
movement of 40ft and can run nonstop for a day without exhaustion.


The reasoning with the magic side of things is that they are not from the dnd realm/universe but from a different reality where there is no magic.

The climate conditions effect the entire group, if the Quarlek is exposed to heat for more that a minute their metabolism goes up causing them to be able to do more each turn, was gonna keep it at an action surge each turn for one minute (10 turns) however after that they are exhausted and will take two long rests to regain that back. This can also be triggered by the player if need be, going to call it 'Overheat'.
The second condition is cold, the Quarlek will go into hibernation if exposed to cold too long, first they will get exhaustion stages relevent to the time in the cold.

Now I am of two thoughts about these abilities; one its too many and could confuse the player with all of these conditions.
Two its too powerful.

[Lalliman]

Will all the NPCs the players encounter be of this race as well? If yes, the vulnerability to magic will be a huge boost to caster classes. That's something you should take into account.

When a character dies, can't you just fiat some way to draw a new character into this alternate dimension? Seems more player-friendly than forcing them to play one specific race and denying them from using magic for the rest of the campaign.

As for the climate thing... why? Is there a lore reason why they're like this? Do you expect your players to interact with it a certain way? I can't give any input on it until I understand where the idea came from.

That mechanic aside, if we look at JamesMusicus' race creation guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/pub), having a +3 stat bonus, Darkvision and 40 ft movement speed puts the Quarlek at 5.5 points, which is perfectly average. So it would be a perfectly fine race in its own world, where magic isn't an issue. When exposed to magic, it becomes totally sub-par due to its vulnerability, which I assume translates to disadvantage on saves against spells.

So that makes balancing difficult. If they're supposed to be a balanced NPC opponent, they'll need more upgrades to make up for the magic vulnerability. If they're supposed to be a balanced player character, then they're fine, but only as long as they remain in a world where no one except the players have magic.

As an aside, nothing ever has Darkvision 30 ft. It's usually 60, sometimes 120.

[polymphus]

They seem pretty weak, to be honest. Do you see them excelling as any particular class or archetype? That might be one angle to take.

Tell us more about the Quarlek background: what about them makes them as they are?

[Stale Tales]

Do you have a description for what the race would look like? I am interested to know what kind of variety would exist in a race that can have +3 to DEX OR STR. Does the race exist as different size categories?

[EDITOR]

They seem pretty weak, to be honest. Do you see them excelling as any particular class or archetype? That might be one angle to take.

Tell us more about the Quarlek background: what about them makes them as they are?


To sum up their background.

They view themselves as the greatest warriors and train their entire life to excel at combat. this is to protect their empire.
In this campaign they are playing a pivotal role (if the PC's choose it to happen) to shut down the realm.

[EDITOR]

Will all the NPCs the players encounter be of this race as well? If yes, the vulnerability to magic will be a huge boost to caster classes. That's something you should take into account.

When a character dies, can't you just fiat some way to draw a new character into this alternate dimension? Seems more player-friendly than forcing them to play one specific race and denying them from using magic for the rest of the campaign.

As for the climate thing... why? Is there a lore reason why they're like this? Do you expect your players to interact with it a certain way? I can't give any input on it until I understand where the idea came from.

That mechanic aside, if we look at JamesMusicus' race creation guide[/URL], having a +3 stat bonus, Darkvision and 40 ft movement speed puts the Quarlek at 5.5 points, which is perfectly average. So it would be a perfectly fine race in its own world, where magic isn't an issue. When exposed to magic, it becomes totally sub-par due to its vulnerability, which I assume translates to disadvantage on saves against spells.

So that makes balancing difficult. If they're supposed to be a balanced NPC opponent, they'll need more upgrades to make up for the magic vulnerability. If they're supposed to be a balanced player character, then they're fine, but only as long as they remain in a world where no one except the players have magic.

As an aside, nothing ever has Darkvision 30 ft. It's usually 60, sometimes 120.


Had a read of the race creation guide and I see what you are getting at.
so if i make them incapable of magic still but no vulnerabilities to it except for fire and ice, fix up the darkvision to 60ft.

To address the issue with fire and ice, in the realm the campaign is in there is one side frozen and one side in a constant state of lave/fire. the lore background of the Quarlek is that they can cryogenically freeze themselves to serve their empire for when they are needed. In the campaign one method of completion is to travel to both the frozen and lava sides to retrieve an object.

For the NPC variants things are different, if they surround something (two of the Quarlek attacking the same person) I'm going to allow them to use their reaction to attack if they are getting attacked by that individual they are surrounding.
also flanking does not work if there are more than 2 that can see each other.
going to call that 'Mind Link'

[EDITOR]

Do you have a description for what the race would look like? I am interested to know what kind of variety would exist in a race that can have +3 to DEX OR STR. Does the race exist as different size categories?

To sum them up.
Hunched over black lizard men.
but in more detail, Black fine scaled Achillobator's (Velociraptors from Jurassic park) with four digits on their hands. On their feet they have three toes with black claws. They appear 1.7 meters tall when running or moving but if desired they can stand up to about 2 to 2.2 meters.