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Sitri
2015-12-26, 11:25 PM
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The Ravenous

The Thremico’atians, more commonly referred to as The Ravenous, are often seen as a dangerous and bestial group who is best avoided. This is due in small part to their gypsy lifestyle and in large part to their diet. The Ravenous feed exclusively on raw meat and are notorious for cannibalism. When well fed, The Ravenous can pass for gaunt humans, but the longer they go without eating, the more they take on a sickly form that would indicate a terminal disease or death in normal humans. Sirens were born from necromantic experiments to reanimate and emulate normal humans, but over time a sub-sect devolved into what are known as Devourers. They tend to stay in small clans that attack travelers or lure unsuspecting victims into isolated areas where they can gang up and feed on them. In times of dire need, they are known to even eat themselves; typically picking off all but a few Sirens or the weaker Devourers first.

Ability Score Increase. The Ravenous have a very high metabolism, and as such tend to move very quickly. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. With the exception of the many Ravenous that starve, the lifespan of The Ravenous is similar to that of humans.

Alignment. Their constant need to consume flesh to survive tends to push The Ravenous towards evil alignments.

Size. You are a medium sized creature.

Movement. Your movement speed is 35’ while not wearing heavy armor. If wearing heavy armor, your movement speed is reduced to 30’.

Tooth and Nail. You can make unarmed attacks with your hands at 1d6 plus STR or DEX modifier. Your mouth can open to about three times the size of that of a human, this allows you to make a bite attack at 1d6 plus STR modifier up to once per round. You are proficient with these attacks. You are not granted extra attacks by this feature.

Born of Death. Either due to your ancestors dark origins or extreme diet, you have a great tolerance to most ailments that plague other living creatures. You are immune to both disease and poison.

Human Likeness. Your physical similarities often lead to people mistaking you for human. While not suffering a penalty from Eternal Hunger, you appear Human.

Eternal Hunger. To stay well nourished you must continually feed on raw meat. You need to consume three pounds of raw meat every day or you begin to feel your body start to weaken. Each day without feeding, you must make a DC 10 Constitution Save or you gain one level of deterioration. Each level of deterioration causes you to lose one Recovery Hit Die and others can recognize your true race with a DC 13 Perception (WIS) check. If you would lose a Recovery Hit Die you do not have, instead gain a level of exhaustion and the DC to detect your race reduces to 10. It takes The Ravenous about 2 minutes to consume three pounds of raw flesh from a creature that is unconscious or dead less than a day. After a day, the meat is generally too spoiled to provide the full nourishment they need. Only feeding can reduce the penalties from Eternal Hunger, and each three pounds of meat consumed reduces deterioration by one level.

Languages. You speak common.

Devourer subrace

Ability Score Increase. Devourers are the brute force of their groups. Your Strength score increases by 1.

Toxic Enzymes. Your mouth secretes fluids that help in dissolving your meals in your mouth. Your bite attack deals an additional 1d4 necrotic damage. Creatures without exposed flesh are immune to this damage.

Frenzied Feeding. While suffering from the effects of Eternal Hunger, you can channel your cravings into a drive to feed. You gain advantage on melee attack rolls and your bite attack scores a critical hit on 19 or 20. If you are suffering from exhaustion due to Eternal Hunger, ignore the first 3 levels and increase the critical range of your bite to 17. Treat every round that you use this ability as if you went a day without feeding. You may end this ability at the end of any one of your turns, but you may not activate it again until you feed and finish a long rest.

Siren subrace

Ability Score Increase. Sirens have an unnatural charm to lure meals to more desirable locations. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Call to the Grave. If you and another person engage in one on one conversation for at least one minute, you gain advantage on CHA based skill checks for that person during the conversion.

Faces of Death. You can take on many of the physical characteristics of any humanoid you eat. This is a polymorph effect that can mimic all superficial physical features except height, gender, and excessive weight of the individual you consume. You do not gain any special abilities from this change. You change back to your natural form as a standard action or if you become exhausted. Since you take the form of another humanoid, ignore Human Likeness and other creatures cannot determine your true race while this ability is active.

Consume Thoughts. You can eat the undamaged brain of a humanoid that has been dead no longer than a day. When you do, the DM will provide you with a simple thought the creature considered important shortly before death. You may ask a simple question that must contain some detail from previous thought. You receive an answer the best the creature could have provided in a sentence or less; it comes to you as a new thought. Repeat this process one more time using a detail from the second thought. You may use this ability once per day if you haven’t suffered from Eternal Hunger within the last 24 hours. If you do not share a language with the creature, your responses come in the form of simple images rather than sentences.

Steampunkette
2015-12-27, 12:51 AM
Neat concept, but the starving method is badly broken. Maybe take away recovery hit dice, instead.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 01:59 AM
Neat concept, but the starving method is badly broken. Maybe take away recovery hit dice, instead.

Thank you for the input.

I am most certainly open to suggestion, but I would like to keep a potentially lethal mechanic in place under really bad circumstances with it. Slower healing doesn't have the primal need that would really drive this race.

While I have this race more in mind for NPCs in a future game, I wouldn't be opposed to PCs using it. One of the themes I like to push in my games is blurring the lines of good and evil. Clearly eating people is bad, but if I can create a circumstance to make a cannibal sympathetic, I think it makes for interesting play.

Do you have any other ideas about how to keep that theme and make it less "broken?" I am guessing you mean the penalty is too harsh?

Steampunkette
2015-12-27, 07:20 AM
Definitely too harsh.

For NPCS it's fine.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 01:19 PM
Definitely too harsh.

For NPCS it's fine.

The intent is a single good feeding could get a weakened creature back to full. "Each pound of meat consumed reduces the penalties of Eternal Hunger by one step." So if a creature eats 3 pounds of flesh, they erase (except with some abilities also requiring rest) 3 CON check failures. Additionally, I would expect a PC using this race trying to exist in a town to buy livestock regularly.

Does that change anything in your perception of it? Or is just the potential for loss of CON in general your opposition? It was the best way I thought of to simulate the starving without using the exhaustion system, which looks a lot harsher than this.

Steampunkette
2015-12-27, 04:24 PM
A Rabbit usually yields about a pound of flesh in the wild. So a single survival check should solve this problem no matter how far from civilization the character is, technically.

Just don't share the meat with the party, give them the berries. :D

That said, if I were to use this race, specifically for players, I'd make it into the recovery dice. Yes it doesn't seem as dire, but it has some startling ramifications for long term play. Either eat or waste away. And it makes getting trapped in a jail cell or an area without access to fresh meat (such as a dungeon) particularly devastating in a manner that feels more like a wasting disease and less like a full on death spiral.

Especially in long dungeons, this puts the Ravenous at a disadvantage, since the party healer will need to expend more and more healing spells to keep them in fighting trim through a long dungeon run... unless they feed on their fallen foes.

Though with the HD in use I'd drop the save and make it an automatic occurrence. You don't eat you just flat lose HD.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 05:15 PM
What about when no recovery dice are left? Would losing con at that point still be over the top? It would be worse at lower levels but better at higher levels. What about if the save scaling were tweaked instead?

Steampunkette
2015-12-27, 06:02 PM
I feel like Con is just too steep of a penalty, is all.

They get decent stats for fighting types and charisma casters. A Natural Attack. And a 5 foot per round movement increase.

And they have to face Constitution damage for that?

Aaracockra get a better deal as flying creatures, which many people think of as "Too Powerful". They get their stats, a natural attack, and a flight speed that is faster than 35ft/round without any kind of constitution drain penalty.

Honestly, even with the HD drain I feel like they might need more. Like immunity to ingested diseases and poisons at least, to offset the penalty they get compared to other races and make even rotten meat a viable option for consumption.

sajro
2015-12-27, 06:16 PM
I am inclined to say that constitution damage is too much aswell, especially if they don't get something really powerful in return, which they really don't get at the moment.

Some kind of immunity to diseases and poisons, on ingestion is really needed to make sure your gm doesn't screew you over because you eat a squirrel.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 07:10 PM
That is a really good call on the poison/disease.

What about removing or extending the duration that they can keep the meat?

Autoflying races are my only real concern at character creation. I ran a lot of pathfinder games and only struck down two options I can recall and that was for flavor reasons (One I gave a more powerful alternative to make up for removal of an option.) I like to work with the mechanical concepts my players want as much as possible. However the Birdmen and Flying Tieflings are the only restriction I am considering at character creation, they just seem so different compared to what else is happening in 5e. At a minimum, I don't really want to use them as a point of comparison for what races should have.

sajro
2015-12-27, 07:45 PM
Hmmm, if you want to keep the Con damage. Then I guess changing it to be first draining Recovery Dies, and then -2 con on failed save per 3 days might make it safe enough.
Yet you still run the risk of a dickish GM, but then agin you always run that risk.

If you do that however I think that Frenzied feeding should be changed to +2 str/dex for 1 minute per long rest, be counts as going without fresh meat for a full day?

Sitri
2015-12-27, 08:09 PM
I am not dead set on minus CON, but I do want the condition to be potentially deadly. Not because I plan to kill players, but because I want to be able to paint these people as both horrible villains and decent people depending on the individual.

If we go minus recovery dice first, I would like to find a simple, streamlined, intuitive way to pull it all together and explain this mechanic to players. Would recovery dice first and then exhaustion levels feel appropriate? Maybe use Death Save rules instead of CON save rules with no scaling?

I don't plan on going out of my way to withhold flesh from players. If the story goes in a direction that makes it hard for players to get food, I would probably try to toss them a bone unless it is something they have done to themselves or they look more excited than upset by this event.

sajro
2015-12-27, 08:43 PM
Hmmm, yeah a simple system is without a doubt a good idea. Though as you said earlier the Exhaustion/Fatigue rules are maybe even harsher then Con penalty. You could maybe say that max HP is reduced by a set amount when no recovery dies are left, this would in the end kill players, it will also kill low level players quicker than high level. Maybe losing a HD worth of HP at a time?
It wont reduce a player to a cripple in other areas than HP which both Con and Exhaustion does.
Just some thoughts. :)

What do you mean by using Death Save rules?

EDIT:
Maybe word it like:
To stay well nourished you must continually feed on raw meat. You need to consume a pound of raw meat every day or you begin to feel your body start to weaken. Each day without feeding, you must make a DC 10 Constitution Save. On a fail you must roll a HD and reduce your maximum hitpoints by the rolled amount, you can expend a rexocery hit die instead of reducing you maximum htpoints. Additionally when you fail a Perception (WIS) check of 13 determines your true race. Each consecutive day The Ravenous does not feed causes the DC to avoid physical deterioration to increase by 1, each time you fail the DC of the Perception check is lowered by 1 in addition to the health loss. It takes The Ravenous about 1 minute to consume a pound of raw flesh from a creature that is unconscious or dead less than a day. After a day, the meat is generally too spoiled to provide the full nourishment they need. Each pound of meat consumed reduces the penalties of Eternal Hunger by one step.

Steampunkette
2015-12-27, 08:57 PM
HD followed by exhaustion feels good to me. At low level that gives them 7 days. At high end almost a month.

But even going without for a short while can screw them up...

Maybe increase the consumption rate, instead? 5 pounds per day would make foraging, hunting, and scavenging absolutely necessary.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 10:25 PM
OK incorporated some changes from both ideas. There is a sort of steps and phases vibe going on now.

By Death saves I just meant roll a D20 and 10 up succeeds, no modifiers. For now I left it at CON, still considering Death Save.

EDIT: At lower levels, exhaustion would be more forgiving after recovery dice are gone.

ji6
2015-12-27, 10:41 PM
Movement. Your movement speed is 35’ while not wearing heavy armor. If wearing heavy armor, your movement speed is reduced to 30’.

A knight in heavy plate charging at you with movement speed 30' to come bite your head off sounds scary. I would run. F*** that NPC.


Frenzied Feeding. While suffering from the effects of Eternal Hunger, you can channel your cravings into a drive to feed. As a bonus action, you can gain a bonus to Dexterity and Strength equal to your penalty to Constitution when activating this ability. This may increase your ability scores above 20. Treat every round that you use this ability as if you went a day without feeding. You may end this ability at any time, but you may not activate it again until you feed and finish a long rest.

Since you changed Eternal Hunger, this probably should be altered somehow. It really lost its nice balance when hit dice replaced CON mod. Because just changing it to be hit dice lost would be insane.


Skills. You have proficiency in the Deception skill. If you gain proficiency from another source, instead gain expertise.

This feels weird to me as no other race gets expertise :S. I think this might be a little strong.


Faces of Death. You can take on many of the physical characteristics of any humanoid you eat. This is a polymorph effect that can mimic all superficial physical features except height, gender, and excessive weight of the individual you consume. You do not gain any special abilities from this change. You change back to your natural form as a standard action or if you would have a CON score less than 9. Since you take the form of another humanoid, ignore Human Likeness and other creatures cannot determine your true race while this ability is active.

I cannot help myself. If you eat the humanoid, you should be able to mimic the "excessive weight of the individual you consume," at least for some time :P. I mainly say this as a joke, but I swear if you were my DM I would be so sad.

Sitri
2015-12-27, 11:56 PM
A knight in heavy plate charging at you with movement speed 30' to come bite your head off sounds scary. I would run. F*** that NPC.



Since you changed Eternal Hunger, this probably should be altered somehow. It really lost its nice balance when hit dice replaced CON mod. Because just changing it to be hit dice lost would be insane.



This feels weird to me as no other race gets expertise :S. I think this might be a little strong.



I cannot help myself. If you eat the humanoid, you should be able to mimic the "excessive weight of the individual you consume," at least for some time :P. I mainly say this as a joke, but I swear if you were my DM I would be so sad.

Yeah I was rushing at the time and forgot to go back over Frenzied Feeding. I changed it to the attack and damage modifiers going up and reduced the frequency. These modifiers can get higher now, but with no bonus to AC from higher DEX and potentially lower starting life, the character should be dropping quicker too.

I was looking for some way to work the Deception angle built into this class a bit more in this subrace. I changed it to advantage now instead, but am afraid that a Rogue or Bard of this race could sell ice to Eskimos now.

Hah! Maybe a temporary ability to gain the weight would work. If I could just find a way to word it without it getting clunky.

ji6
2015-12-28, 12:15 AM
Yeah I was rushing at the time and forgot to go back over Frenzied Feeding. I changed it to the attack and damage modifiers going up and reduced the frequency. These modifiers can get higher now, but with no bonus to AC from higher DEX and potentially lower starting life, the character should be dropping quicker too.

Seems reasonable to me now.


I was looking for some way to work the Deception angle built into this class a bit more in this subrace. I changed it to advantage now instead, but am afraid that a Rogue or Bard of this race could sell ice to Eskimos now.

Why not try something like you can re-roll one failed deception roll per short/long rest? Seems reasonable that someone can only lie through their teeth so much without someone catching on.


Hah! Maybe a temporary ability to gain the weight would work. If I could just find a way to word it without it getting clunky.

I have no clue. I would probably just get rid of the weight thing in your shoes because it seems too annoying to deal with out of game, but what type of cannibal in their right mind would choose to eat a skinny guy to be more stealthy when they could have ate the fat one. Evolution should benefit them and encourage eating the ones with more fat! :P

sajro
2015-12-28, 01:40 AM
I just realised a problem with feeding frenzy. DnD 5th edition generally have a bounded accuracy and AC, but feeding frenzy breaks the bounded accuracy as it can keep going up and up. So maybe just change it to give advantage on attack rolls against damaged enemies, and then the damage modifier?

Steampunkette
2015-12-28, 01:48 AM
That's a good idea. And then have it apply either a hit of fatigue or take a hit die unless 5 bite attacks were made, representing feeding in frenzy.

rlc
2015-12-28, 03:46 AM
Yeah, feeding frenzy is insane. I actually thought that this thing was insanely overpowered for a player race the whole time I read it, since the deterioration levels seem so much weaker than exhaustion, but the original post was apparently much different, because people were saying the opposite. For a pc, I'd make the natural attacks weaker, especially the one with the extra necrotic damage. For an NPC, this is obviously all fine, though I would still tone down the insanity that is feeding frenzy. Dark Vision and Sunlight Sensitivity also seems thematic for this race, but I can understand not wanting it.

Sitri
2015-12-28, 07:15 AM
Alright scaling on Frenzy changed to a two phase process as well. It is important to reiterate when considering this ability that the bite attack gained by this race can only be used once a round regardless the number of attacks it gets. The new method gives higher probability of hitting and doing more damage without actively ignoring bounded accuracy.

Eternal Hunger went to Exhaustion after there are no more recovery hit dice to lose.

Siren's Deception changed to Call to the Grave.

ji6
2015-12-29, 05:46 PM
Call to the Grave. If you speak with a person one on one for over a minute, treat that person as if you had cast Charm Person on them with Charisma as your casting modifier. No matter the result, the target is unaware you used this ability on it. This ability cannot be used on the same person twice in one day.

Seems interesting, although slightly awkward. I imagine a player grabbing someone to speak alone, speaking super slowly until the minute is up, then suddenly taking advantage of the charm. Although, my main concern is that essentially you are giving them an improved free first level spell to use as often as they like (getting people one-on-one tends to be easy).

Maybe for simplicity just give them the friends cantrip? Or, give them a friends cantrip that duration continues as long as they remain one-on-one. That way they could take someone away as I think the intention is.

Call of the Grave. You know the friends cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it. At the end of the duration, if the target can see no other humanoid creatures other than yourself, the duration extends an additional minute.

Sitri
2015-12-30, 05:04 PM
Seems interesting, although slightly awkward. I imagine a player grabbing someone to speak alone, speaking super slowly until the minute is up, then suddenly taking advantage of the charm. Although, my main concern is that essentially you are giving them an improved free first level spell to use as often as they like (getting people one-on-one tends to be easy).

Maybe for simplicity just give them the friends cantrip? Or, give them a friends cantrip that duration continues as long as they remain one-on-one. That way they could take someone away as I think the intention is.

Call of the Grave. You know the friends cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it. At the end of the duration, if the target can see no other humanoid creatures other than yourself, the duration extends an additional minute.

Changed it to be similar to friends. There is a pretty big drawback in this class, so I don't think making it better than a cantrip in some ways and worse than others is out of line. I don't want this overpowered if a PC were to use it, but I would like for NPCs of this race to reasonably be able to exist in town and lead to a "Everyone is suspect" vibe.

How are people feeling about it now?