Race: Raptoran

[Tintenseher]

I'm including raptorans in an upcoming campaign, and I wanted to lay the stats out so the players could be one if they wanted. I've mostly just step-by-step adapted them straight from 3.5's Races of the Wild.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity increases by 2. Raptorans are quick of wing and quicker of arm.

Age. A raptoran reaches adulthood at the age of 20 and generally reaches about 130.

Alignment. Raptorans tend towards the chaos of the winds, and highly value individualism. They also usually favor good over evil, never seeking to own or control more than they need.

Size. Raptorans are usually thinner and slightly taller than humans. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. You also gain a flying speed at higher levels (see below).

Darkvision. You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 ft as if it were bright light, and dark light as if it were dim. You cannot discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Unerring Direction. A raptoran always knows which way is north, even when underground or otherwise unable to see the sky. This ability does not function outside the Material Plane.

Winged Movement. Add 10 ft to the distance of any jump you make. In addition, whenever you make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump, you may add twice your proficiency bonus, whether or not you are proficient in Athletics.

Gliding. You can glide 20 ft for every 5 ft you descend. Moving 20 ft in this manner consumes your movement that turn. If you fall but can still move, you do not take falling damage. If you are knocked prone, reduced to 0 speed, or otherwise deprived of the ability to move while flying or falling, you take half falling damage, as your wings naturally unfurl and stiffen to slow your descent.

Limited Flight. At 5 Hit Dice, you are able to fly at a speed of 40 ft. Ascending costs twice as much movement as moving horizontally or descending. If you are no more than 10 feet above the ground, you can safely land as a bonus action. You can safely fly for a number of rounds equal to your proficiency bonus. You may push yourself to fly for twice as long, but afterwards gain a level of exhaustion. In addition, you can fly for a maximum of 10 minutes per day, refreshed after a long rest. Gliding does not count against either limit. You may use the Dash action while flying, but only in a straight horizontal or downward line.

True Flight. At 10 Hit Dice, you are able to freely fly at a speed of 40 ft. It is as easy for you as walking or running. Ascending costs twice as much movement as moving horizontally or descending. If you are no more than 10 feet above the ground, you can safely land as a bonus action.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Tuilvilanuue. Tuilvilanuue is a flowing language that evolved from the same root as Elvish, and thus uses the same script.

Names. Raptorans have a childhood name given by their parents, a nickname given by the flock, an adult name chosen for themselves, and a family name. Their names are usually very similar to elves'. (Nicknames: Bravewing, Littlefeather, Neverlight, Sunhopper, Twigleaf.)

Stormtalon raptorans make their homes on rocky coasts and hilly grasslands. They are an open people, staying in much closer contact with nearby societies and races than their cousins.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution increases by 1. Stormtalons are strong fliers, able to stay aloft for long periods of time and breathe easily at high altitudes.

Raptoran Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longbow, shortbow, javelin, and spear.

Lightning Rider. Your gliding speed increases to 25 ft per 5 ft descent (as well as your glide speed per turn), and your flying speed to 45 ft.

Cloudwing raptorans dwell in forests and mountain ranges. They are an insular people, but not against interacting with other groups - just not particularly inclined to do so.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom increases by 1. Cloudwings spend much of their time contemplating nature and meditating.

Raptoran Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longbow, shortbow, quarterstaff, and shortsword.

Mountain Dodger. Your base walking speed increases to 35 ft.

The subraces are what I'm least happy with. They don't have much separating them, but I'm not really sure what to give them.

[Leuku]

Firstly: Raptorans are bird-people, correct? Then why Constitution? Birds have hollow bones so they need less lift to bring them off the ground. That makes them easier to crunch and break. I would imagine bird-folk be high Dex, and rarely if never bonus Con.

Winged Movement: Not sure why Athletics; Flight is more of an Acrobatics thing.


Gliding. You can glide 20 ft for every 5 ft you descend. If you fall but can still move, you do not take falling damage. If you are knocked prone, reduced to 0 speed, or otherwise deprived of the ability to move while flying or falling, you take a maximum of 1d6 falling damage, no matter the height, as your wings naturally unfurl and stiffen.

Way too strong. 20 feet horizontal for every 5 vertical? You cover a hundred feet for just 25 feet of falling. No way, Jose. 10 feet horizontal per, max. Heck, even 5 feet glide per 5 feet fall is good, because no other race gets that much anyways.

And birds fall out of the sky and smack the ground full force all the time. You're telling me you could fall 100 feet and still suffer at max 6 damage? Even if you were incapacitated? Uh uh. How about instead: So long as you are not incapacitated, you take half damage from any fall.


Limited Flight. At 5 Hit Dice, you are able to fly at a speed of 40 ft. You can safely fly for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier. You may push yourself to fly for twice as long, but afterwards gain a level of exhaustion. In addition, you can fly for a maximum of 10 minutes per day, refreshed after a long rest. Gliding does not count against either limit. You may use the Dash action while flying, but only in a straight line.

Too, too strong, same goes for True Flight. How about: At 5 hit die, when you take the Dash action, you can fly in a straight line rather than run until the end of your turn. Your fly speed equals your movement for the Dash. If you aren't on solid ground at the end of your turn, you fall, during which you can still glide.

True Flight. At 10 Hit Dice, you can ascend and move in any direction rather than a straight line when you take the Dash action to fly.

Change lighting rider appropriately.

[Tintenseher]

Firstly: Raptorans are bird-people, correct? Then why Constitution? Birds have hollow bones so they need less lift to bring them off the ground. That makes them easier to crunch and break. I would imagine bird-folk be high Dex, and rarely if never bonus Con.

They were originally Dex, but I thought they could use a Constitution boost to accentuate their 5th-level flight capabilities. Will consider this.


Winged Movement: Not sure why Athletics; Flight is more of an Acrobatics thing.

3.5e raptorans got a bonus to Jump checks (+10 to the check). Jump was folded into Athletics, thus they are proficient in Athletics.


Way too strong. 20 feet horizontal for every 5 vertical? You cover a hundred feet for just 25 feet of falling. No way, Jose. 10 feet horizontal per, max. Heck, even 5 feet glide per 5 feet fall is good, because no other race gets that much anyways.

No other race got it in 3.5e, either, but it was still the default for a level 1 raptoran. I know much of the balance was changed, but the fact remains that you need to get up 25 feet to fly 100 feet. Where can you do that, especially in a dungeon? You'd need to find scaffolding or do really well climbing a wall. This seems like a "mildly strong" ability at best.


And birds fall out of the sky and smack the ground full force all the time. You're telling me you could fall 100 feet and still suffer at max 6 damage? Even if you were incapacitated? Uh uh. How about instead: So long as you are not incapacitated, you take half damage from any fall.

I did originally have it as a plain resistance to falling damage, but again, this was basically copied from the 3.5e raptoran. This is not balance, but rather, biology (such as it is): "If a raptoran becomes unconscious or helpless while in midair, her wings naturally unfurl and powerful ligaments stiffen the wings. The raptoran descends in a tight corkscrew and takes only 1d6 points of falling damage, no matter what the actual distance of the fall." Races of the Wild, page 68.


Too, too strong, same goes for True Flight. How about: At 5 hit die, when you take the Dash action, you can fly in a straight line rather than run until the end of your turn. Your fly speed equals your movement for the Dash. If you aren't on solid ground at the end of your turn, you fall, during which you can still glide.

I don't understand. This gives them absolutely nothing, unless it puts them in the air, which apparently it doesn't, because...


True Flight. At 10 Hit Dice, you can ascend and move in any direction rather than a straight line when you take the Dash action to fly.

Why is true flight too strong? Fly is a 3rd-level spell, which means any party with a wizard in it has had flight for four levels by the time the raptoran gets it all the time, on just themselves. Seems perfectly fine to me.

[Leuku]

Since this is a 5e Homebrew, this homebrew race needs to be constructed with respect to 5e comparisons and limitations. It is useless to say what 3.5e had, because this is not 3.5e. It's perfectly fine to reference what 3.5e had so as to get an idea for the foundation of a 5e Raptoran, but the Raptoran needs to be balanced against 5e races, not 3.5e.


3.5e raptorans got a bonus to Jump checks (+10 to the check). Jump was folded into Athletics, thus they are proficient in Athletics.

Then it sounds like the 5e Raptoran should get double their proficiency bonus in Athletic checks to jump whether or not they have proficiency in Athletics, rather than automatic proficiency in Athletics.


I know much of the balance was changed, but the fact remains that you need to get up 25 feet to fly 100 feet. Where can you do that, especially in a dungeon? You'd need to find scaffolding or do really well climbing a wall. This seems like a "mildly strong" ability at best.

You can be in a town and take the stairs. You could be on a bridge over a deep ravine. You could be in the branches of a tree. You can use a ladder. The problem I see with this is that with some very slight preparation, you could cover the distance in a battle that should have been much, much more difficult, like say a pair of archers who have taken advantage of a narrow, long bridge. The bridge is 100 feet long, and it would take any character not using high level magic two rounds to dash across. But the Raptoran with a 25 foot ladder propped up by his allies can clear that distance in one turn without spending an action. And since he's falling, he doesn't even consume movement, neither!

If you want to glide such incredible distances, it should consume your action.


I did originally have it as a plain resistance to falling damage, but again, this was basically copied from the 3.5e raptoran. This is not balance, but rather, biology (such as it is): "If a raptoran becomes unconscious or helpless while in midair, her wings naturally unfurl and powerful ligaments stiffen the wings. The raptoran descends in a tight corkscrew and takes only 1d6 points of falling damage, no matter what the actual distance of the fall." Races of the Wild, page 68.

I would favor balance over biology, unless the biology were more flavorful than mechanical.


How about: At 5 hit die, when you take the Dash action, you can fly in a straight line rather than run until the end of your turn. Your fly speed equals your movement for the Dash. If you aren't on solid ground at the end of your turn, you fall, during which you can still glide.

The above is absolutely useful. You can fly across chasms that you couldn't even hope to jump over. You can fly straight over a cliff, dramatically increasing the distance you cover when you start to glide. You can ignore difficult terrain!


Why is true flight too strong? Fly is a 3rd-level spell, which means any party with a wizard in it has had flight for four levels by the time the raptoran gets it all the time, on just themselves. Seems perfectly fine to me.

Fly lasts for 10 minutes and requires concentration. It requires a wizard to consume a slot. One arrow to that wizard and that's a Concentration save; Flying ally could drop 60 feet because of one bad save for concentration.

And you're giving this feature permanently to a race, having it consume and cost nothing? No action economy? Originally intending that when you get shot out of the sky, the most damage you'd ever take is 1d6?

Under your glide rules, at 10th level your Raptoran could fly 40 feet straight up in the air, then proceed to glide horizontally for 160 feet all on one turn. With nothing but one's movement spent. Take the Dash action and you can fly an additional 40 feet in to the air, then glide for a whopping 320 feet. If you're a Fighter, then you could action surge and dash again, flying vertically a total of 120 feet up in to the air, giving you a glide of 480 feet.

I would not consider that "mildly strong". I would call that OP.

[Tintenseher]

Oops. You're right on everything about actions. However, nothing I've seen in the PHB or MM that has a listed flight speed specifically notes using your action (even Fly just says you "gain a flying speed").

Thus I assume that using your flight speed is your movement, by implication if not statement. Obviously none of this would be random free flight. Doing any of this in combat would rightly consume your movement, but I haven't seen a precedent for specifically noting such.

Edit: And perhaps ascending or landing costs an action as well. And I'll reword the Dash segment to note that it can only be done in a horizontal straight line, because you're right, you shouldn't be able to get so high in one turn like that.

[Leuku]

However, nothing I've seen in the PHB or MM that has a listed flight speed specifically notes using your action (even Fly just says you "gain a flying speed").

You are correct. I don't think I was talking strictly about flight speed, though; I think I was specifically talking about Gliding, which mechanically is essentially Falling with Style, and since you don't consume movement nor actions to Fall, you don't consume movement nor actions to Glide, which I see as the problem.

Which means introducing actions as necessary components for gliding would mean you'd have to consciously make an effort to Glide, which makes sense to me. Or you can save on action economy by nerfing the glide distance to 5 feet horizontal per 5 feet fall, and you glide down as far as your movement speed equals, so that you can't use the crazy "I'll leap off a ladder to cover 100 feet in one turn" exploit.

Or you could have them fall at the end of their turn if they don't have a surface to touch, which would be even more effort saving but more crippling to your Raptoran.


And perhaps ascending or landing costs an action as well. And I'll reword the Dash segment to note that it can only be done in a horizontal straight line, because you're right, you shouldn't be able to get so high in one turn like that.

Landing could be a bonus action. It really should not take as much as an action, I feel.

[Tintenseher]

Changed proficiency in Athletics to "In addition, whenever you make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump, you may add twice your proficiency bonus, whether or not you are proficient in Athletics."

Added the line "Moving 20 ft in this manner consumes your movement that turn." to Gliding.

Changed falling damage to be half, instead of 1d6 maximum.

Changed the bit about Dashing to "You may use the Dash action while flying, but only in a straight horizontal or downward line."

Added the lines "Ascending up to 20 ft consumes your movement that turn. If you are no more than 10 feet above the ground, you can safely land as a bonus action." to Limited Flight and True Flight.

Is that everything? I triple-checked against your suggestions (and my own baseline). Other than that, flight speed naturally takes your movement, as implied. All this action definition is getting kind of close to 3.5e's maneuverability rules (which they seem to have done away with)...but I think it's worth it to clarify that they can't fly several hundred feet for free.

Edit: Also fixed Lightning Rider to reflect the Gliding change: "Your gliding speed increases to 25 ft per 5 ft descent (as well as your glide speed per turn)..."

[Leuku]

Sounds good. Real good.

Instead of doing the "ascending 20 feet up consumes your move" thing, you could just do: It takes twice as much movement to ascend then it does to fly horizontally or descend.

That's more in line with 5e mechanics, the whole "It takes twice as much movement to climb..."

The only thing I'm still concerned about is the "Safely flu a number of rounds equal to..." constitution score dependency feature - No other race has a feature that depends on what mod they have, and doing it this way is forcing you to give a boost to con as a race feature, despite it being contrary to the biology of the race.

But I have yet to come up with a way to rectify it. Hmm...

[Tintenseher]

Perfect. Will fix.

Edit: Thanks for your help. :)

[Leuku]

I edited my comment to add a concern I have.

[Tintenseher]

Yes, good point. I've swapped the Dex and Con around, though. Maybe just change it to proficiency bonus rounds? Or Hit Dice rounds?

[Leuku]

Yes, good point. I've swapped the Dex and Con around, though. Maybe just change it to proficiency bonus rounds? Or Hit Dice rounds?

I really like the idea of Proficiency bonus rounds. That's a good way to scale it.

You've got some mechanics chops, you do.

[Tintenseher]

Pshaw. You flatter me. I'm no good at this kind of thing; that's why I post all my homebrew here first so other people can fix it for me, hehe.

[Leuku]

Since your Raptoran is now Dexterity based, it might go well with my homebrew class "The Bowmaster". (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387137-The-Bowmaster-class-with-3-Subclasses)

Rain hell from above!