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KnightOfLain
2019-09-15, 02:29 AM
I've been on a Star Wars binge lately an I decided to try and adapt a few of my favorite species into playable races for a fantasy setting. While I'm happy with the flavor I am notoriously bad at balancing these things. A note on my design philosophy I am a fan of highly situational ribbon abilities to add flavor to my homebrews, but sometimes I end up making it a bit much. More of these to come.


Bith
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Bith.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Intelligence score by 2 and your Dexterity score by 1.
Calm Demeanor. Your brain has evolved to be highly resistant to strong emotions. You have advantage on any saving throw against being Charmed or Frightened.
Keen Hearing and Smell. You have advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks related to hearing or smell.
Microscopic Sight. You have advantage on any Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check dealing with very small objects or markings.
Musical Adept. You have proficiency with a musical instrument of your choice. Furthermore, whenever you make a Charisma (Performance) check to play a musical instrument you may use your Intelligence modifier instead of Charisma.
Trance.You only require half the sleep of a normal humanoid. During a Long Rest you only need to rest 3 hours instead of 6, and you are aware of your surroundings during that time.



Bothan
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Bothese.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Charisma score by 2 and your Dexterity score by 1.
Claws. You have a natural weapon claw attack that deals 1d6 Slashing damage.
Keen Senses. You have proficiency in Wisdom(Perception).
Spy Master. You gain proficiency in either Charisma (Deception), Wisdom (Insight), Intelligence (Investigation), or Charisma (Persuasion). You then gain expertise in that skill.
Wrendui. Your fur is capable of subtly expressing complex thoughts and emotions in a form of sign language that is understandable to other Bothans.



Nautolan
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Nautila.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Dexterity score by 2 and your Constitution score by 1.
Amphibious You can breathe both air and water, and have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Furthermore you have blindsense to a distance of 30 feet when underwater.
Darkvision. You 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.
Pheromone Sense. You are able to read the surface thoughts and emotions of all creatures within 30 feet of you. Furthermore you have advantage on all Wisdom (Insight) and Wisdom (Animal Handling) skill checks. This ability does not work on Constructs or Undead.



Togruta
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Togruti.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Dexterity score by 2 and your Wisdom score by 1.
Aggresive As a bonus action you may move your speed towards an enemy.
Echolocation. As a bonus action you may focus on the sensory organs in your lekku to allow you to take a snap shot of the surrounding area through echolocation. You learn the location of every creature within 30 feet of you as well as the location of most objects, though very small objects and fine details are mostly undetectable.
Brush Hunter. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Survival) checks in heavy vegetation.
Deadly Reputation. You have advantage on Intimidation checks.
Savage Bite. You have a natural weapon bite attack that deals 1d6 Piercing damage.



Toydarian
Size. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 10 feet. You also have a flying speed of 30 feet. You loose your flying speed if you are wearing armor or carrying anything heavier than a light load.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common, Huttese, and Toydarian.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Intelligence score by 1 and your Wisdom score by 1.
Mental Toughness You have advantage on all saving throws to avoid being Charmed. Furthermore you are immune to spells and effects such as detect thoughts, discern lies, any attempt to discern your alignment, and any form of telepathy unless you allow it.
Shrewd Negotiator You have advantage on all Charisma (Persuasion) checks related to business and haggling.




9/15/19 Changed Bothan's Keen Sense ability from advantage to proficiency.
9/15/19 Added restriction on Constructs and Undead to Nautolan Pheromone Sense.
9/15/19 Changed Togruta Blindsense ability from 30 feet of blindsense to bonus action trggered snap shot ability
based on Paladin's Divine Sense.
9/15/19 Changed Toydarian walking speed to 10 feet.
9/15/19 Changed Toydarian Mental Toughness ability from advantage on all mental saves to advantage against
Charm saving throws and some other mental protections.
9/15/19 Removed the skill proficiency in Persuasion from Shrewd Negotiator.
9/15/10 Changed the Nautolan Nightsense ability to standard 60 foot Darkvision.

Fnissalot
2019-09-15, 07:33 AM
I've been on a Star Wars binge lately an I decided to try and adapt a few of my favorite species into playable races for a fantasy setting. While I'm happy with the flavor I am notoriously bad at balancing these things. A note on my design philosophy I am a fan of highly situational ribbon abilities to add flavor to my homebrews, but sometimes I end up making it a bit much. More of these to come.


Bith
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Bith.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Intelligence score by 2 and your Dexterity score by 1.
Calm Demeanor. Your brain has evolved to be highly resistant to strong emotions. You have advantage on any saving throw against being Charmed or Frightened.
Keen Hearing and Smell. You have advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks related to hearing or smell.
Microscopic Sight. You have advantage on any Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check dealing with very small objects or markings.
Musical Adept. You have proficiency with a musical instrument of your choice. Furthermore, whenever you make a Charisma (Performance) check to play a musical instrument you may use your Intelligence modifier instead of Charisma.
Trance.You only require half the sleep of a normal humanoid. During a Long Rest you only need to rest 3 hours instead of 6, and you are aware of your surroundings during that time.



Bothan
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Bothese.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Charisma score by 2 and your Dexterity score by 1.
Claws. You have a natural weapon claw attack that deals 1d6 Slashing damage.
Keen Senses. You have advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks related to hearing, sight, or smell.
Spy Master. You gain proficiency in either Charisma (Deception), Wisdom (Insight), Intelligence (Investigation), or Charisma (Persuasion). You then gain expertise in that skill.
Wrendui. Your fur is capable of subtly expressing complex thoughts and emotions in a form of sign language that is understandable to other Bothans.



Nautolan
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Nautila.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Dexterity score by 2 and your Constitution score by 1.
Amphibious You can breathe both air and water, and have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Furthermore you have blindsense to a distance of 30 feet when underwater.
Night Vision. You treat dim light as bright light.
Hormone Sense. You are able to read the surface thoughts and emotions of all creatures within 30 feet of you. Furthermore you have advantage on all Wisdom (Insight) and Wisdom (Animal Handling) skill checks.



Togruta
Size. Your size is Medium
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Togruti.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Dexterity score by 2 and your Wisdom score by 1.
Aggresive As a bonus action you may move your speed towards an enemy.
Blindsense. You have Blindsense to a distance of 30 feet.
Brush Hunter. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Survival) checks in heavy vegetation.
Deadly Reputation. You have advantage on Intimidation checks.
Savage Bite. You have a natural weapon bite attack that deals 1d6 Piercing damage.



Toydarian
Size. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. You also have a flying speed of 30 feet. You loose your flying speed if you are wearing armor or carrying anything heavier than a light load.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common, Huttese, and Toydarian.
Ability Score Increase. You increase your Intelligence score by 1 and your Wisdom score by 1.
Mental Toughness You have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws.
Shrewd Negotiator You have proficiency in Charisma (Persuasion) and have advantage on all Charisma (Persuasion) checks related to business and haggling.

Overall there is a bit too much advantage for what races tend to have, most advantages are very situational . Also, races almost never have blindsight.

Biths look ok.

Change the bothan keen senses to perception proficiency rather than advantage and I think they are fine as well.

Nightvision is an unlimited darkvision? I would replace it with 60 or at maybe 120 ft of darkvision, and the nautolan should be ok. If you take 120 ft, maybe change the advantage on insight and animal handling to be limited to when in range or something to limit it slightly?

30ft of blindsense is superstrong as it lets you see invisible things and such. The togruta feels a bit too much with it. Either a) remove it, or b) change it to for a limited time (1min or so) per short rest and b1) make a smaller nerf like change the intimidation to be a proficiency instead of an advantage and make the natural weapon a d4 or in damage,or b2) remove one of the four other features, or c) remove two of the other four features. (The other four features are aggressive, deadly reputation, brush hunter, savage bite)

The toydarians though, they are too much. Flight and advantage on 3 saves are both features that are strong enough to limit out having much more. I would lower the walking speed to 20 ft (it won't matter that much since they can still fly), change the mental toughness to advantage vs charms and that creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it, and have only either half of shrewd negotiator. Due to the flight, it would still be a strong enough choice.


Edit: I am looking forward to seeing more of these! I got a sudden urge to play some star wars games now or make a race as well =)

Gamorrean
Size. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Gamorrese.
Ability Score Improvement. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Savage Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.
Disgust for Technology. You have disadvantage on skill checks when interacting with technology. Additionally, when you hit a construct or a machine, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the damage of the weapon.
Bad Hygiene. You have advantage on saving throws against diseases and on Charisma (intimidation) checks when they can smell your odors.
Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the greatclub, handaxe, battleaxe, and halberd.
Stereotypical Stupidity. Other races expect you to be intellectually inferior due to your physiological inability to speak common properly. Non-gamorreans have disadvantage on Wisdom (insight) checks against you.

KnightOfLain
2019-09-15, 12:47 PM
Overall there is a bit too much advantage for what races tend to have, most advantages are very situational . Also, races almost never have blindsight.

I like to lean towards advantage over proficiency when it reflects an advantage due to biology as opposed to training but that is where a lot of the balance issues come in. And welcome to the Star Wars universe, where some of my favorite races like the Twi'Lek I'm still digging for enough features to make them interesting, and others have the strangest, most absurdly broken abilities but that are so tied to their lore you can't do away with them and still make a faithful representation (looking at you space vampires.) I think there are a few races that I'll probably end up admitting defeat on and just tag them as use at your own risk.


Biths look ok.

Excellent, they were the ones I was most proud of. Always been one of my favorite races.


Change the bothan keen senses to perception proficiency rather than advantage and I think they are fine as well.

Good point, I was working off the "keen senses" feature that a lot of animals have but it got a bit ridiculous here since all of their senses are supposed to be excelent.


Nightvision is an unlimited darkvision? I would replace it with 60 or at maybe 120 ft of darkvision, and the nautolan should be ok. If you take 120 ft, maybe change the advantage on insight and animal handling to be limited to when in range or something to limit it slightly?

Well it's not quite unlimited darkvision because they still can't actually see in real darkness, I was thinking it would actually be a bit weaker than normal darkvision. I always felt the radius restriction on darkvision felt to artificial so I wanted to try something different, may just end up making standard 60 foot darkvision. I don't think limiting the skill advantages will rely do anything, when are you ever going to make one of those checks from more than a few feet away? Also now that I look at it I forgot to add in the clause about it not working on Constructs and Undead, because they don't give off pheromones.


30ft of blindsense is superstrong as it lets you see invisible things and such. The togruta feels a bit too much with it. Either a) remove it, or b) change it to for a limited time (1min or so) per short rest and b1) make a smaller nerf like change the intimidation to be a proficiency instead of an advantage and make the natural weapon a d4 or in damage,or b2) remove one of the four other features, or c) remove two of the other four features. (The other four features are aggressive, deadly reputation, brush hunter, savage bite)

Yea I agree. In lore they have a kind of passive echolocation, so that's what I was trying to replicate, but it is a bit over powered as is. I'm thinking about changing it to as a bonus action you get to see the location of every creature within 30 feet as a snap shot, kind of like the Paladin's Divine Sense ability. May need to brainstorm some more.


The toydarians though, they are too much. Flight and advantage on 3 saves are both features that are strong enough to limit out having much more. I would lower the walking speed to 20 ft (it won't matter that much since they can still fly), change the mental toughness to advantage vs charms and that creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it, and have only either half of shrewd negotiator. Due to the flight, it would still be a strong enough choice.

Whoops, they were supposed to have a walking speed of 10 feet to start with, forgot to add that. That probably does work better, I was kind of working off the Gnome ability but flying makes everything harder. I'm also going to drop the skill proficiency and keep the rest.



Edit: I am looking forward to seeing more of these! I got a sudden urge to play some star wars games now or make a race as well =)
Gamorrean
Size. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can read, write and speak Common and Gamorrese.
Ability Score Improvement. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Savage Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.
Disgust for Technology. You have disadvantage on skill checks when interacting with technology. Additionally, when you hit a construct or a machine, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the damage of the weapon.
Bad Hygiene. You have advantage on saving throws against diseases and on Charisma (intimidation) checks when they can smell your odors.
Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the greatclub, handaxe, battleaxe, and halberd.
Stereotypical Stupidity. Other races expect you to be intellectually inferior due to your physiological inability to speak common properly. Non-gamorreans have disadvantage on Wisdom (insight) checks against you.


Actually quite similar to one I'm working on, I'll make sure to add it in my next post to compare.

Fnissalot
2019-09-15, 03:24 PM
I like to lean towards advantage over proficiency when it reflects an advantage due to biology as opposed to training but that is where a lot of the balance issues come in. And welcome to the Star Wars universe, where some of my favorite races like the Twi'Lek I'm still digging for enough features to make them interesting, and others have the strangest, most absurdly broken abilities but that are so tied to their lore you can't do away with them and still make a faithful representation (looking at you space vampires.) I think there are a few races that I'll probably end up admitting defeat on and just tag them as use at your own risk.

Well it's not quite unlimited darkvision because they still can't actually see in real darkness, I was thinking it would actually be a bit weaker than normal darkvision. I always felt the radius restriction on darkvision felt to artificial so I wanted to try something different, may just end up making standard 60 foot darkvision. I don't think limiting the skill advantages will rely do anything, when are you ever going to make one of those checks from more than a few feet away? Also now that I look at it I forgot to add in the clause about it not working on Constructs and Undead, because they don't give off pheromones.

Yea I agree. In lore they have a kind of passive echolocation, so that's what I was trying to replicate, but it is a bit over powered as is. I'm thinking about changing it to as a bonus action you get to see the location of every creature within 30 feet as a snap shot, kind of like the Paladin's Divine Sense ability. May need to brainstorm some more.

Actually quite similar to one I'm working on, I'll make sure to add it in my next post to compare.

Nice changes! The toydarians looks good that way! It is probably one of the few flying races I have seen that feel fair.

Ah, I missed that it was like the old low-light vision and not like darkvision. Then I would keep it but add a range limit on it just to keep it more consistent with the remaining game even if the range feels rather artificial. Personally, I think the infinite range is a lot better than the darkness to low-light on in many scenarios due to its benefits to ranged combat and stealth.

The bonus action is a lot more interesting option for the togruta as it suddenly becomes a risk vs reward of using it. Nice done!

I look forward to see your take on the Gamorrean!

KnightOfLain
2019-09-15, 03:54 PM
Ah, I missed that it was like the old low-light vision and not like darkvision. Then I would keep it but add a range limit on it just to keep it more consistent with the remaining game even if the range feels rather artificial. Personally, I think the infinite range is a lot better than the darkness to low-light on in many scenarios due to its benefits to ranged combat and stealth.


You know I think you are right about the low-light vision, at least on a dexterity build like this. I think I'll just change it to regular darkvision and save the concept for something that can't take advantage of the dexterity synergy as well.


The bonus action is a lot more interesting option for the togruta as it suddenly becomes a risk vs reward of using it. Nice done!

It does work nicely, especially since I realized when I was making the change that since Aggresive also takes a bonus action it inherently forces you to balance those two options within the race itself on top of whatever other bonus actions you have available.


I look forward to see your take on the Gamorrean!

Stay tuned!

Amnoriath
2019-09-17, 10:57 AM
Not only is a Togruta really strong they don't have sharp teeth, large mouths, or even naturally gifted hunters. Ashoka Tano is a Togruta, if anything you are thinking of a male Twi'lek

KnightOfLain
2019-09-17, 10:16 PM
Not only is a Togruta really strong they don't have sharp teeth, large mouths, or even naturally gifted hunters. Ashoka Tano is a Togruta, if anything you are thinking of a male Twi'lek

This is from their Legends article on Wookipedia, "As predators, Togruta had sharp canine teeth, which they used to painlessly kill thimiars, their primary prey, causing the creatures' post-mortem death spasms. " I don't know where you're getting your information from, but it is very much established in canon that the Togrutas are well known hunters. Their society is even heavily based around the hunting tribe.

I should mention it goes on to mention that many species mistakenly think that they are venomous, and this combined with their montrals (headdress thing), which are meant to make them look big and thus intimidating, are what lead to the advantage on Intimidation in their race design. Just a fun piece of lore. I should probably go back and add my explanations for all of the racial features.