PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next High Harpy Race (PEACH)



Pyon
2016-02-26, 03:01 PM
A while ago, I made a game world that required a ton of new classes for my players, and for NPCs I made. I ended up scrapping most of it, and never getting to fully play the campaign because of lack of time. Today I was looking through my stuff, and found this race, something I had promised I'd post. So better late than never?

The lore behind these, is that they are a different species from the typical Harpy. They naturally live very high up in snowy mountains, and are prone to violence. I wanted them to feel completely unique other than being just another class. I am afraid, however, that I might force too many things on a player by making an "armless" race... Thoughts?

High Harpy
Ability Score Improvement: Your Dexterity increases by 2
Age: Harpies live for about 60 years. They reach adulthood by the age of 15.
Alignment: Harpies lean towards the Chaotic Evil side, with a tendency to be predatory and loners.
Size: They are a bit shorter than humans, but their large wings make them broader. They are on average the weight of a human child because of how light their bodies are.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Language: You speak Common.
Flight: You have large wings instead of arms, and no hands. You must use your talons to perform actions you normally would use hands for. However, you have a flight speed of 35 feet.
Talons: You are unable to wield shields or conventional weapons. However, your talons are natural weapons that you are proficient with. They are treated as having the finesse quality. They deal 1d10 damage.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-02-26, 03:19 PM
Those 1d10 finesse talons (which need a damage type, by the way. Slashing, probably) look pretty scary. It's unprecedented as a racial feature and severely restricts the number of viable builds you can get from this race. Also, between the talons and the wings, it's kind of... all the eggs in two baskets. I think the whole thing would work better if you scaled back the talons and added in some kind of harpy song/screech - that's the race's emblematic feature, after all. Maybe base it on the dragonborn's breath weapon, but causing debuffs rather than damage?

Pyon
2016-02-26, 03:24 PM
Those 1d10 finesse talons (which need a damage type, by the way. Slashing, probably) look pretty scary. It's unprecedented as a racial feature and severely restricts the number of viable builds you can get from this race. Also, between the talons and the wings, it's kind of... all the eggs in two baskets. I think the whole thing would work better if you scaled back the talons and added in some kind of harpy song/screech - that's the race's emblematic feature, after all. Maybe base it on the dragonborn's breath weapon, but causing debuffs rather than damage?

That's the first complaint I thought people would have, I should have scaled it back right away. Would 1d8 be acceptable?

This race removes a lot of feats (all of the ranged attack ones, great weapon master, shield master, etc) but I didn't want to remove class choice. I also wanted it to be a powerful anything. So my immediate thought was "This would make a really good wizard." By giving them powerful Finesse, they also become really good rogues. And if I didn't mess up my reading, they can also be Barbarians and Monks no problem (although now that I think about it, I should word it in a way that it doesn't affect monk's unarmed strike balance...)


What would be an acceptable debuff? Charm seems to be the most flavorful but it's really weak for frontliner classes and really strong for the squishy ones.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-02-26, 03:31 PM
What would be an acceptable debuff? Charm seems to be the most flavorful but it's really weak for frontliner classes and really strong for the squishy ones.

Since it'd probably be AoE, I'd avoid the charmed condition. Maybe frightened? If it's once/day and a small area (15' cone?), that might work.