Catfolk Race [PEACH]

[Thanatos 51-50]

So, I was talking to a potential player, and they expressed dismay that there were no catgirls/catboys they could play as in the state of 5th edition as it stands. Now, I know that Shifters are likely to be included in a splatbook, but rather than wait for such a thing to occur, I decided to try my hand at homebrewing one.
Then I realized it could potentially cause a small amount of confusion at the table about whether somebody was playing as a homebrew shifter or a by-the-book Shifter if when the race was released in a splatbook, leading me to drop the title completely, and focus on making the new race as "cat-like" as possible, while still retaining the anthropomorphic animal flavour.

Now, this is all very much still a work in progress, and I completely appreciate feedback. I want to balance this with the base available races in the game so that the other players don't feel there was favouritisim inherit in this race's design, and potentially allow them to take this race as well, if they wanted, but no shoe them into an all-catfolk campaign.
Without further adieu, I present to this work in progress, and humbly ask you to please point out when I'm being absolutely stupid with racial features.

Fluff is also in a very minimal stage at the moment, and will likely remain rather skeletal, to allow maximum adaptability between campaign worlds.
Felimen -- Catfolk

Racial Attributes:
Attributes -- +2 to Dexterity
Cat's Claws -- All Felimen are born with razor-sharp, retractable claws in both their feet and their hands. Felimen children often use these claws in the rough-and-tumble play of youth and thus, Felimen are considered proficient with them. All Felimen may treat their unarmed attack as dealing 1d4 points of slashing damage. A Felimen who would acquire proficiency with unarmed weapons and 1d4 damage in another way (Such as the Tavern Brawler feat), may choose to deal 1d6 Slashing damage instead. These Claws count as Monk Weapons.
Elevated Perch -- Felimen are natural leapers and climbers and instinctively seek out high places. As such, they are automatically considered to have advantage on Athletics or Acrobatics rolls related to vertical leaps, climbing, or reducing falling damage.
Darkvision -- Like domestic cats, Felimen see excellently in the dark, having Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Languages -- Felimen characters speak Common

Subraces:
Miw'Kimet
The Miw'Kimet are a desert-dwelling subrace of Felimen that have adapted to life amongst the shifting sands. Many Miw'Kimet pay homage to a sun deity, and have a reverance for whatever body of water supplied their home village.
Miw'Kimet Receive the Following Bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Constitution and +1 Wisdom
Saving Throws -- Miw'Kimet are automatically considered proficient in CON saving throws. If they receive proficiency from CON saving throws from another source, such as a class feature, they may choose to gain proficiency in any other saving throw, instead. Furthermore, Miw'Kimet have advantage to saving throws to resist the effects of dehydration and extreme heat.
Blessed Waters -- All Miw'Kimet are taught how to create one gallon of pure, clean water, as per the Create Food and Water spell once per long rest.

Niko-Jen
The Niko-Jen are structured, militaristic subrace of Felimen believing in order and typically expressing great martial pride. Felimen of the Niko-Jen subrace receive the following bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Strength and +1 Charisma
Weapon Proficiencies -- Niko-jen have a long and proud martial tradition and train all of their children in the arts of the Longsword and Longbow as part of their schooling, and thus Niko-Jen are considered proficient in these weapons.
Languages -- Niko-Jen have a formalized education system which stresses the importance of knowing one's enemy. Niko-Jen learn an additional language of their choice.
Nine Lives -- Niko-Jen are notoriously hard to kill, leading to the common myth that they have nine lives. They are considered to have advantage on Death Saving Throws.

Draft the Second. Current.

Attributes -- +2 to Dexterity
Cat's Claws -- All Felimen are born with razor-sharp, retractable claws in both their feet and their hands. Felimen children often use these claws in the rough-and-tumble play of youth and thus, Felimen are considered proficient with them. All Felimen may treat their unarmed attack as dealing 1d4 points of slashing damage. A Felimen who would acquire proficiency with unarmed weapons and 1d4 damage in another way (Such as the Tavern Brawler feat), may choose to deal 1d6 Slashing damage instead. These Claws count as Monk Weapons.
Elevated Perch -- Felimen are natural leapers and climbers and instinctively seek out high places. As such, they are automatically considered to have advantage on Athletics or Acrobatics rolls related to vertical leaps, climbing, or reducing falling damage.
Nine Lives -- Felimen are notoriously hard to kill, leading to the common myth that they have nine lives. They are considered to have advantage on Death Saving Throws.
Darkvision -- Like domestic cats, Felimen see excellently in the dark, having Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Languages -- Felimen characters speak Common


The Miw'Kimet are a desert-dwelling subrace of Felimen that have adapted to life amongst the shifting sands. Many Miw'Kimet pay homage to a sun deity, and have a reverance for whatever body of water supplied their home village.
Miw'Kimet Receive the Following Bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Wisdom
Saving Throws -- Being acclimated to the rigors of desert living, Miw'Kimet have advantage for saving throws concerning dehydration, starvation or to resist the effects of extreme heat.
Blessed Waters -- All Miw'Kimet are taught how to create one gallon of pure, clean water, as per the Create Food and Water spell once per long rest.


The Niko-Jen are structured, militaristic subrace of Felimen believing in order and typically expressing great martial pride. Felimen of the Niko-Jen subrace receive the following bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Intelligence
Weapon Proficiencies -- Niko-jen have a long and proud martial tradition and train all of their children in the arts of the Longsword and Longbow as part of their schooling, and thus Niko-Jen are considered proficient in these weapons.
Languages -- Niko-Jen have a formalized education system which stresses the importance of knowing one's enemy. Niko-Jen learn an additional language of their choice.


The Calhàtl are a jungle-dwelling subspecies of Felimen with a colourful, but structured and brutal culture. Many religious rites of the Calhàtl involve the ritual sacrifice of prisoners of war. Calhàtl are the reasons that many Felimen are given a wide berth in more "civilized" areas of the world.
Attributes -- +1 Charisma
Jungle Stalker -- Calhàtl have an instinctual mastery of the jungle, and have advantage to all stealth checks in areas of dense foliage.
Hardened Hearts -- The brutal tenets of Calhàtl culture have rendered them immune to the negative effects of fear, and thus they cannot ever become Frightened.

[Solaris]

Keep 'em away from physics.
I hear it ends badly for the catgirls.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Keep 'em away from physics.
I hear it ends badly for the catgirls.

I'll be sure to specifically exclude them from being able to take the "Physicist" class, should anybody homebrew one.

[Ralanr]

So they get a bonus to three skills, one is allowed to have any saving throw proficiency they want if they pick a class with con proficiency, and the other has advantage on death saving throws?

This feels a bit powerful...too powerful. The only race that has a bonus to up to three scores is Half-elves and personally I don't think that is a good excuse to make more that have that. I'm not sure how to rate the saving throw proficiency because I am unsure if it's possible to gain more proficient saving throws (Outside of feats of course). I will say the Death saving throw advantage is way too powerful, since nothing (as far as I know) is meant to be added to those.

Course you can take everything I say with a grain of salt since I'm not a developer.

[Thanatos 51-50]

So they get a bonus to three skills, one is allowed to have any saving throw proficiency they want if they pick a class with con proficiency, and the other has advantage on death saving throws?

This feels a bit powerful...too powerful. The only race that has a bonus to up to three scores is Half-elves and personally I don't think that is a good excuse to make more that have that. I'm not sure how to rate the saving throw proficiency because I am unsure if it's possible to gain more proficient saving throws (Outside of feats of course). I will say the Death saving throw advantage is way too powerful, since nothing (as far as I know) is meant to be added to those.

Course you can take everything I say with a grain of salt since I'm not a developer.

I was certainly thinking of half-elves with three ability scores, but figured it would be less powerful without a choice. I see where you're coming from, and was already considering removing the physical score, so they won't exist in Draft Two.
Which will be delayed until I get a skeleton for the third subrace up, because three subraces is better than two, and there needs to be a forest/jungle-cat. Right now it's cribbing off the Wood Elf subrace a little much, though, so I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

Death Saving Throw advantage I actually cribbed from a homebrew on the Warforged I read from the guy who designed the Eberron campaign setting, I figured it would go well with the "Cats have nine lives" thing and the sterotypical hot-headed refusal to die that warrior cultures have. I'll try to figure out a better mechanic.

Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious:
Miw'Kimet are loosely based on a shoddy knowledge of Egyptian
Niko-Jen are similarly Japanese (With the whole "luck cat" thing)
And the third subrace will be (extremely) loosely Aztec. I'm just finding "Jaguar" harder than "housecat". I'm terrible with my Mesoamerican cultures.

[Ceiling009]

I think, that you may have to drop some things or move things around.

The Saving Throws thing needs to be changed so that Miw'Kimet have advantage on Con Saves against hot weather, thirst and starvation. They don't need a proficiency to the saving the throw - advantage gives something like a +3 to +5 to the roll.

I do believe that Nine Lives should be moved to the main race part, cause it thematically works with all cats.

It is a little on the strong side; but I would do a rough comparison to Dwarves and Half-Elfs and see how they rate against each other.

I always like to give a flavorful, but not crippling penalty - something silly like disadvantage on concentration checks or something... to give a bit more leeway for more interesting abilities. But putting in penalties are a weird thing in this edition, like I would say that something like Vulnerability is a no-no penalty, but something like disadvantage on saves against poisoned is alright. So I dunno.

[Gritmonger]

...
I always like to give a flavorful, but not crippling penalty - something silly like disadvantage on concentration checks or something... to give a bit more leeway for more interesting abilities. But putting in penalties are a weird thing in this edition, like I would say that something like Vulnerability is a no-no penalty, but something like disadvantage on saves against poisoned is alright. So I dunno.

What I look to for this are Dark Elves - unlike a lot of the other races, they specifically have a "weakness" in that they have disadvantage on a number of checks and attacks in full sunlight.

I've tried to work out the balance based on a number of things - small gets you a disadvantage from the get-go since you have trouble with large two-handed weapons, built into being small. Being small also means getting a built-in slower land speed (25 versus 30).

[Thanatos 51-50]

Second Draft of the Race is now up in the first post, and also posted here in full, for a nice bookmark.

Felimen
Felimen are a young bipedal race, bearing a close resemblance to domestic cats. Their lithe bodies are covered in a short fur, with little apparent rhyme or reason as to its colour. Black-furred parents have given birth to kits with speckled orange-and-white fur and snow-white coats in the same litter. Felimen are, like domestic cats, typically born in litters of three to five siblings and raised as a unit by their parents. Though fiercely independent hunters they maintain many thriving, active, and constantly-evolving cultures. There are no Felimen kingdoms, as large standing armies are impossible to shackle together through the collective drive for independance, and their loosely-connecting villages are defended almost entirely by miltia and conscripted civilians.
Every Felimen adult is considered a viable warrior, and many Felimen out in the wider world have trouble recognizing the concept of non-combatants.

Ages -- Felimen typically mature by their thirteenth winter, and live approximately as long as humans.
Alignment -- The Felimen's longing for individual freedom is often tempered by care for their small communities and they, as a race, are typically Neutral, but most adventurers are of a decidedly Chaotic bent, having left behind that very same community. Only the Calhàtl, a savage Felimen subrace, have a particular leaning on the spectrum of Good versus Evil, and their disregard for individual lives (except their own) usually lands them on the side of Evil.
Size -- Felimen are Medium-sized
Speed -- Like most other medium-sized creatures, Felimen have a 30' movement rate

Attributes -- +2 to Dexterity
Cat's Claws -- All Felimen are born with razor-sharp, retractable claws in both their feet and their hands. Felimen children often use these claws in the rough-and-tumble play of youth and thus, Felimen are considered proficient with them. All Felimen may treat their unarmed attack as dealing 1d4 points of slashing damage. A Felimen who would acquire proficiency with unarmed weapons and 1d4 damage in another way (Such as the Tavern Brawler feat), may choose to deal 1d6 Slashing damage instead. These Claws count as Monk Weapons.
Elevated Perch -- Felimen are natural leapers and climbers and instinctively seek out high places. As such, they are automatically considered to have advantage on Athletics or Acrobatics rolls related to vertical leaps, climbing, or reducing falling damage.
Nine Lives -- Felimen are notoriously hard to kill, leading to the common myth that they have nine lives. They are considered to have advantage on Death Saving Throws.
Darkvision -- Like domestic cats, Felimen see excellently in the dark, having Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Languages -- Felimen characters speak Common

The Miw'Kimet are a desert-dwelling subrace of Felimen that have adapted to life amongst the shifting sands. Many Miw'Kimet pay homage to a sun deity, and have a reverance for whatever body of water supplied their home village.
Miw'Kimet Receive the Following Bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Wisdom
Saving Throws -- Being acclimated to the rigors of desert living, Miw'Kimet have advantage for saving throws concerning dehydration, starvation or to resist the effects of extreme heat.
Blessed Waters -- All Miw'Kimet are taught how to create one gallon of pure, clean water, as per the Create Food and Water spell once per long rest.


The Niko-Jen are structured, militaristic subrace of Felimen believing in order and typically expressing great martial pride. Felimen of the Niko-Jen subrace receive the following bonuses:
Attributes -- +1 Intelligence
Weapon Proficiencies -- Niko-jen have a long and proud martial tradition and train all of their children in the arts of the Longsword and Longbow as part of their schooling, and thus Niko-Jen are considered proficient in these weapons.
Languages -- Niko-Jen have a formalized education system which stresses the importance of knowing one's enemy. Niko-Jen learn an additional language of their choice.


The Calhàtl are a jungle-dwelling subspecies of Felimen with a colourful, but structured and brutal culture. Many religious rites of the Calhàtl involve the ritual sacrifice of prisoners of war. Calhàtl are the reasons that many Felimen are given a wide berth in more "civilized" areas of the world.
Attributes -- +1 Charisma
Jungle Stalker -- Calhàtl have an instinctual mastery of the jungle, and have advantage to all stealth checks in areas of dense foliage.
Hardened Hearts -- The brutal tenets of Calhàtl culture have rendered them immune to the negative effects of fear, and thus they cannot ever become Frightened.

[Ralanr]

A subrace with straight up fear immunity? Damn, that's crazy powerful. So basically this allows them to give dragons the bird when trying to be hit by their frightful presence ability, hell this means they can laugh at the dragon. I'm not sure that laughing at the giant elemental breathing and flying monster is considered brave.

Also, a bit of a fluff thing with the Niko-Jen, you specify strict military traditions. I can see how a bonus to INT would work within a story with all that strict schooling and what not, but mechanically wizards don't usually come from strict military backgrounds. And those that do tend to not be foot soldiers. Honestly this isn't too much of a big deal on what bonus stats you give a race (just the quantity I guess) so it can be taken or left.
Military catfolk wizards...that actually sounds kinda cool. And they'd probably make good dex based Eldrich Knights.

[Thanatos 51-50]

A subrace with straight up fear immunity? Damn, that's crazy powerful. So basically this allows them to give dragons the bird when trying to be hit by their frightful presence ability, hell this means they can laugh at the dragon. I'm not sure that laughing at the giant elemental breathing and flying monster is considered brave.

Well, Elves and Half-elves can't be put to sleep, which is arguably the more debilitating effect.
And the ability doesn't say they aren't afraid, just that they can act normally while still being afraid. 3.X paladins get that same ability at *second level*, and let me tell you, being immune to fear did not trivialize fights with dragons.


Also, a bit of a fluff thing with the Niko-Jen, you specify strict military traditions. I can see how a bonus to INT would work within a story with all that strict schooling and what not, but mechanically wizards don't usually come from strict military backgrounds. And those that do tend to not be foot soldiers. Honestly this isn't too much of a big deal on what bonus stats you give a race (just the quantity I guess) so it can be taken or left.
Military catfolk wizards...that actually sounds kinda cool. And they'd probably make good dex based Eldrich Knights.

It is from the schooling. As you can see, in the first draft, they got Charisma instead because I was going for the "strength of character" angle and envisioning a Samurai as a Paladin-Knight. When designing the Calhàtl, I thought about Aztecs with their human sacrifices and what type of effect that would have on the population at large. You can only see so much horror before it stops affecting you, after all. Since that fits into the "Strength of character" angle, I shunted Charisma over to the Calhàtl and gave the Niko-Jen Intelligence to reflect their formal schooling.

Nothing mechanically stops a Wizard or Sorcerer from taking the Soldier background. I remember running a Rogue with Soldier in an early part of the playtest (When quarterstaves still had Finesse), and I rolled up a Paladin with the Charlatan background for a friend's game. Besides, it's not like a Player Character -- even one with the Fighter Class -- is a foot soldier, either. Fighters are rare-ish paragons of martial ability, outstripping the common guardsman or soldier by sheer virtue of having class levels.

Also, yes. Eldritch Knight-Archers (They also make good Arcane Tricksters.)

[Ralanr]

I'm pretty sure Paladins don't get fear immunity at level 1(edit: sorry you specified level and I forgot. On a phone so back tracking isn't easy). And last I checked, there were more saves against fear checks than there were sleep causing spells or effects. I'm not sure it's a good design plan to base racial features off powerful class abilities (then again, half-orcs are basically what happens when you turn a class into a race (barbarian)). I'd recommend having advantage on saving throws to be frightened.

[Ceiling009]

@Ralanr: I do agree, but only if not to make a Calhatl Paladin double up on that and have no benefit. But otherwise immunity to certain conditions don't seem that overly powerful, since Sleep is a ridiculously powerful immunity (magical sleep), so I guess sleeping gas would work or asphyxiation.

[Ralanr]

@Ralanr: I do agree, but only if not to make a Calhatl Paladin double up on that and have no benefit. But otherwise immunity to certain conditions don't seem that overly powerful, since Sleep is a ridiculously powerful immunity (magical sleep), so I guess sleeping gas would work or asphyxiation.

How many spells do cause magical sleep anyway?

[Ceiling009]

Well, apart from Sleep - a variety of possible "magical" effects from terrain and other shenanigans that a DM could reasonably do. But sleep levels up with spell slot, so it's not like you need to create a new better sleep spell. I haven't look into the Monster Manual so much, but there may be a few monster abilities that can cause magical sleep.

It's weird when the DM is doing something like that - like maybe there's a zone in a forest that makes you magically sleepy so that the sock gnomes can steal your kidneys, but you know elves are immune. Or maybe not so much to steal your kidneys as to whisk you away from there. It's a super fun bonus for the player though, and a kinda "oh yeah, I forgot" moment for the GM when he just wants the party to do a quick or rather abrupt scene change.

[Thanatos 51-50]

@Ralanr: I do agree, but only if not to make a Calhatl Paladin double up on that and have no benefit. But otherwise immunity to certain conditions don't seem that overly powerful, since Sleep is a ridiculously powerful immunity (magical sleep), so I guess sleeping gas would work or asphyxiation.

Niko-Jen Fighters have their weapon proficiencies as a "dead" trait, as well. The Calhàtl' Paladin's Fear immunity at level 10, however, would still get the ten foot aura, making it not completely useless, and Land Druids still get their immunity to poison and diseases, so it never completely overwrites a Class Ability.

[RukaSyn]

The Calhàtl are a jungle-dwelling subspecies of Felimen with a colourful, but structured and brutal culture. Many religious rites of the Calhàtl involve the ritual sacrifice of prisoners of war. Calhàtl are the reasons that many Felimen are given a wide berth in more "civilized" areas of the world.

how do you pronounce Calhàtl? I was allowed to use this race by my DM and I don't even have a clue on how to pronounce it, could you help me out?