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Wryte
2016-06-17, 10:58 PM
Hey, so I'm a relatively new tabletop player with the bulk of my experience in 5ed, and I'm looking for some feedback on my homebrew playable monster races. I've tried to stay faithful to the monster manual entries for each.

Note that several of these races include flight as a racial ability, which may at first appear unbalanced. However, I've also included a set of homebrew rules for winged flight at the end of the post that should help bring flight back into line with other racial abilities. I'd also welcome feedback on those rules.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 50 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action. You may deal an additional 2d6 damage with this attack if you moved at least 30 feet in a straight line toward your target.
Hooves: You are proficient at making unarmed attacks with your hooves, dealing 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak Common and Sylvan.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Large.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without material components:
At will: Druidcraft
3/day each: Entangle, Goodberry
1/day each: Barkskin (requires 3rd level), Pass Without Trace (requires 3rd level), Shillelagh
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Fey Charm: You may target one humanoid or beast within 30 feet that can see you. The target must succeed a Wisdom saving throw against your Charisma DC or become magically charmed. A charmed target regards you as a trusted friend, and will respond as favorably as possible to your requests and actions for up to 24 hours. Each time you or an ally takes a harmful action toward the target they may make another saving throw. After using this ability you must complete a long rest before using it again.
Speak With Beasts and Plants: You can communicate with beasts and plants as if you shared a language.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Invisibility: Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself up to 3 times per day.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip and one additional cantrip of your choice from either the Bard or Druid spell list using only your pixie dust as a spell component. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Magic Resistance: Choose a type of magical damage or effect such as Fire or Charm. You have advantage on all saving throws against spells and other magical effects of this type. At 8th level you may choose an additional type of magical damage or effect.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and shortbows.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2. Your base race’s highest ability score increases by 1, unless your base race is human, in which case an ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age: As your base race.
Alignment: As your base race.
Size: As your base race.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet. Your flight is magical, and does not obey the rules of winged flight. Your flying speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Type: You are undead.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeality: You cannot interact with any physical object heavier than 5 lbs. You may pass through physical objects and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: A creature within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Charisma saving throw against your Charisma DC or be possessed. While possessed, the creature is incapacitated, but not deprived of awareness. While possessing a creature you gain control of their body and substitute their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and speed scores for your own, but not any of their proficiencies, class abilities, or knowledge. You cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or abilities except ones that turn undead. You retain your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but lose all other resistances and immunities from your Ethereal feature, substituting your target’s resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities for yours.
Possession lasts until the body reaches 0 hit points, you dismiss your possession as a bonus action, or you are forced out by an effect like the turn good and evil spell. If you are driven out by the body reaching 0 hit points, you are stunned until the end of your next turn with no saving throw. Creatures are immune to being possessed by you for 24 hours after succeeding on their saving throw or being freed from your possession. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine.
Undying Proficiency: You are proficient in the same skills, tools, weapons, and armor as your base race.
Languages: As your base race’s.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects with your possession ability. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after you are driven out or leave. While possessing an object you retain your flight speed and ability scores, and your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but substitute all the object’s other immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities for you own. You may Use Device on the object as a bonus action. After possessing an object you may use your Possession again after a short rest.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw against your Charisma DC or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your horrifying visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Horde Tactics: You may add 1d4 to attack rolls against a target for each friendly character within 5 feet of them.
Nimble Escape: You may Disengage or Hide as a bonus action.
Rat and Wolf Affinity: You are considered proficient in the Animal Handling skill when interacting with rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak Common and Elvish, but cannot read or write.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Luring Song: Once per long rest you may sing a magical song, causing up to five humanoid or giant creatures of your choice within 300 feet who can hear you to make a Wisdom save or be charmed until the song’s end. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action to maintain the song on following turns, or else it ends. Charmed targets are incapacitated, and if more than 5 feet from you, must take a Dash action on their turn to move toward you by the most direct route. Approaching dangerous terrain like lava or a pit, or taking damage from a source other than you grants another chance at the saving throw. Affected targets may also attempt to save at the end of each of their turns. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again for 24 hours. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this song.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as an unarmed attack dealing 1d6 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the grapple ends.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common, Undercommon, and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 120 feet.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Large.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Regeneration: At the start of your turn you regain hit points equal to your character level if you have at least 1 hit point remaining. If you take Radiant damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of your next turn.
Shadow Magic: You can cast the Sleep spell once per day. At 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your casting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: Common, Giant


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Draining Kiss: You may kiss an incapacitated or willing creature who must then succeed a Constitution saving throw against your Charisma DC. On a failed save the target takes 1d10 +Charisma psychic damage and their hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount, or half as much damage on a successful save. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again. The damage and hit point reduction of this ability increase by 1d10 at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You know the Charm Person spell and can cast it up to three times, restoring all uses after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Your size category is Large.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make attacks with disadvantage unless you can see its target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: At the start of your turn you regain hit points equal to your character level if you have at least 1 hit point remaining. If you take Fire or Acid damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of your next turn. You may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their recent remains you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: Common, Draconic
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
At will: Poison Spray
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Rerem115
2016-06-18, 02:09 AM
It's quite an interesting list of options; I'm half tempted to try and persuade my DM to let me playtest these myself. One problem I do have, though, is that many of these races are almost an extra subclass level of power.

Centaur: I know it's strength based, but I'd still be wary with handing out 2d4 unarmed strikes; for a primarily low-level campaign, I could totally see a STR monk dishing out twice as much damage as usual. It would fall off past 10th level, but, the potential for shenanigans exists.

Dryad: Whoa. Couple of things here. First off, be careful about giving the option to play a Large character. There are all sorts of implications that need to be considered; eating and drinking requirements, armor expenses, weapon expenses AND damages, the fact that you can threaten a 9 tile square, etc. Secondly, Wisdom AND Charisma? While this makes more options for what kind of caster you want, you are shoehorned into playing a caster, and you essentially only get a +2, as the other stat is redundant. Third. what is your Charisma DC? You mention that a few times. Fourth, the spells. Or rather, the number of spells. This class gets 6 1st level spell slots; more than most, if not all, classes at 1st level! With three castings of Goodberry a day, the party can heal up to 24 HP per day, and never need food. Now, maybe, this would be okay if this was all the class got, but between Darkvision, Charm Person, woodland Misty Step every round (!), and talking to plants and animals, this race has an overloaded kit. To balance this out, I'd suggest one spell of first tier/short or long rest, one spell of the second tier per long rest, give them +1 Dex or Con instead of Wisdom, make tree stride once per short or long rest (I can't decide), and scrap or nerf the Fey Charm; as written it's stronger than anything bar Dominate spells or Geass.

Fairy: Actually, no complaints here, but maybe tone down invisibility to once per short rest?

Ghost: *Blinks in astonishment, finding myriad ways to break this in half.* Wizard ghost possesses a stone giant. Possessing party members. Anybody possessing a weapon. How do you hurt a sword or an axe? Your rogue is now a rapier with a 40' fly speed, have fun balancing around that! This race would be hilarious and totally fun to use, however, it would be totally broken. I can't even think of how to balance this, and despite the potential lols, I'd either scrap this or banish it to a one-off.

Goblin: Pretty good, except for Horde Tactics. Oh god, Horde Tactics. The expected party size is 4. A common party size is 5 or six. Without stepping beyond fairly common occurrences, you could have 5d4 added to your to-hit bonus; you'd have no real reason to miss anything. I'd limit this to 1d4, period. Even then, I still don't like racial to-hit bonuses; maybe make it extra damage once per round?

Harpy: It's mostly a refluffed aarakocra, with all the issues that race entails. Siren in particular looks like it could be broken, but I really have no idea. Proceed with caution.

Mindflayer: Same as the Dryad, double casting stats are redundant. To prevent MonkFlayer hijinks, I'd limit the tentacles to 1d4 damage. *rereads rules regarding tentacle grapple* Wait, stunned until the grapple ends?! Nononono, if you're going to have a stun, make it one round MAX. With this, you play a MonkFlayer and just instakill bosses by holding them down so your party can punch them until they die. Lastly, 120' seems a little long range for telepathy; maybe 30 or 50 feet?

Oni: Same as the Dryad, be careful handing out large races to PCs. Otherwise, most of the race is pretty well balanced, except for Regeneration. Character level healing per round is simply insane, especially in an edition where the only equivalent is the capstone of an archetype, and that caps at 10 per round, doesn't work above half health, and you need to max a secondary stat! As written, this race would be functionally immortal. If you really want to keep the regeneration theme, maybe give them the ability to regrow lost limbs instead? It would keep the flavor intact without absolutely wrecking game balance. As a minor issue, Sleep is a really powerful spell to hand out at first level; maybe find a different spell.

Succubus: Eh, seems fine. Maybe tone down Charm Person to once per long rest?

Troll: Same as Dryad and Oni; be careful handing out large races to PCs. Like the Oni, get rid of regen per round, but keep regrowing/reattaching limbs. I really like the execution of this race, and if the regen was toned down and it was medium sized, I'd have no qualms about using it.

Yuan-Ti: No complaints here.

As an overview, even the ridiculously op races are fairly well balanced once the one or two things that make them op are properly tuned. I look forward to seeing future iterations of these concepts. :smallbiggrin:

*Edit* I derped a bit for the Flayer; since you're already one race, you can't be a VarHuman. I think I was still thinking about the Ghost base :P

Wryte
2016-06-18, 03:36 AM
It's quite an interesting list of options; I'm half tempted to try and persuade my DM to let me playtest these myself. One problem I do have, though, is that many of these races are almost an extra subclass level of power.

Thanks for the reply!


Centaur: I know it's strength based, but I'd still be wary with handing out 2d4 unarmed strikes; for a primarily low-level campaign, I could totally see a STR monk dishing out twice as much damage as usual. It would fall off past 10th level, but, the potential for shenanigans exists.

I actually toned the Hooves down from the Monster Manual entry, which gave them 2d6. I didn't think of the monk interaction, though. Would reclassifying them a natural weapon fix that?


Dryad: Whoa. Couple of things here. First off, be careful about giving the option to play a Large character. There are all sorts of implications that need to be considered; eating and drinking requirements, armor expenses, weapon expenses AND damages, the fact that you can threaten a 9x9 square, etc. Secondly, Wisdom AND Charisma? While this makes more options for what kind of caster you want, you are shoehorned into playing a caster, and you essentially only get a +2, as the other stat is redundant. Third. what is your Charisma DC? You mention that a few times. Fourth, the spells. Or rather, the number of spells. This class gets 6 1st level spell slots; more than most, if not all, classes at 1st level! With three castings of Goodberry a day, the party can heal up to 24 HP per day, and never need food. Now, maybe, this would be okay if this was all the class got, but between Darkvision, Charm Person, woodland Misty Step every round (!), and talking to plants and animals, this race has an overloaded kit. To balance this out, I'd suggest one spell of first tier/short or long rest, one spell of the second tier per long rest, give them +1 Dex or Con instead of Wisdom, make tree stride once per short or long rest (I can't decide), and scrap or nerf the Fey Charm; as written it's stronger than anything bar Dominate spells or Geass.

The mechanics of size categories are something I'm still getting familiar with, so this is really valuable feedback. I'll probably limit dryads to Medium and below, then, because I still like the idea of playing a dryad bound to, like, a potted fern or something. XD Ability score increases for these races are pretty much all taken from looking at the monsters' book stats; their highest attribute score became the +2, and their second highest the +1. I'm wary of changing that, especially in the case of races like the mind flayers who have no scores on the other side of the physical/mental coin that stand out even close to their scores on the first side. It's the good ol' "which matters more; consistence with the canon, or giving players options" dichotomy. I tend to err on the side of canon, but will definitely be giving these cases another round of thought.

As for spells, yeah, that list is definitely going to have to be pared down in either diversity, spells per day, or both. Maybe make it 3 Entangle and/or Goodberries per day total instead of 3 of each, and likewise for the 1/day spells? Fey Charm... the Succubus had a similar Charm ability that I replaced with the Charm Person spell. I considered doing that here but didn't because the dryad's version allowed use on beasts, which Charm Person doesn't. I'll probably go ahead and switch this ability out for 1/day Charm Person with a special note that it can also be used on beasts if I don't cut it altogether. I was wary of how many abilities I gave to some of these races, but figured I'd rather share too many ideas at first and pare some off than start with too few and have to add more in later posts. Still, with the innate spell list nerfs, the Charm Person (and Animals) spell might not be overkill.


Fairy: Actually, no complaints here, but maybe tone down invisibility to once per short rest?

Another case of nerfing the monster version and still not going far enough. :P Once per short rest is probably more reasonable, and I could always give them those additional uses per rest at higher levels as the spell becomes less powerful.


Ghost: *Blinks in astonishment, finding myriad ways to break this in half.* Wizard ghost possesses a stone giant. Possessing party members. Anybody possessing a weapon. How do you hurt a sword or an axe? Your rogue is now a rapier with a 40' fly speed, have fun balancing around that! This race would be hilarious and totally fun to use, however, it would be totally broken. I can't even think of how to balance this, and despite the potential lols, I'd either scrap this or banish it to a one-off.

This one spun out of an idea to play an Eldritch Knight who was a ghost possessing a suit of animated armor. :P I was probably too focused on balancing its resistances and immunities with being unhealable to have overlooked how potent Possession is as worded in the monster version, even after adding the stun upon the victim hitting 0 HP. I want to keep it since it's a core part of the creature, but I'll definitely have to take another pass at it.


Goblin: Pretty good, except for Horde Tactics. Oh god, Horde Tactics. The expected party size is 4. A common party size is 5 or six. Without stepping beyond fairly common occurrences, you could have 5d4 added to your to-hit bonus; you'd have no real reason to miss anything. I'd limit this to 1d4, period. Even then, I still don't like racial to-hit bonuses; maybe make it extra damage once per round?

This is where my newness to the game is really showing through. Yeah, that would get quickly overpowered. It'll be limited to 1d4 if it stays. Horde Tactics is one of the few traits I made up wholecloth instead of adapting from the monster's entry in the manual, just because they have so few canon traits. I just don't really know what I'd replace it with.


Harpy: It's mostly a refluffed aarakocra, with all the issues that race entails. Siren in particular looks like it could be broken, but I really have no idea. Proceed with caution.

I buffed Luring Song from the monster version by making it only target hostile creatures instead of all creatures in the area because I felt that not being able to exclude party members would make it unusable. Maybe I'm wrong about that? I didn't think it was too overpowered, given that it's basically an inverted Turn effect; it makes the enemy run toward a party member instead of away from them, but upon further reflection, I see that's quite a bit more powerful than a Turn effect as it groups the enemy up for easy nuking rather than scattering them to have to be picked off one by one, and has a much broader range of creature types. Hmm. That one'll be going back to the drawing board.


Mindflayer: Same as the Dryad, double casting stats are redundant. To prevent MonkFlayer hijinks, I'd limit the tentacles to 1d4 damage. *rereads rules regarding tentacle grapple* Wait, stunned until the grapple ends?! Nononono, if you're going to have a stun, make it one round MAX. With this, you play a MonkFlayer, or VarHuman with Grappler, and just instakill bosses by holding them down so your party can punch them until they die. Lastly, 120' seems a little long range for telepathy; maybe 30 or 50 feet?

Yeah, I didn't like the double mental stats, either, but that's just how the book stats are. I guess I could replace the Wis with Con? Honestly, Mind Flayer was the last one of these I wrote, and I'd used up most of my imagination by this point. :P I nerfed pretty much everything about them already; the tentacles were a 2d10+4 with a guaranteed grapple and no limit on the stuns, for example, so it already felt like I was stripping them down extremely. I'll limit the stun to one round and reclassify the tentacles as a natural weapon like the centaurs' hooves, if that fixes the monk problem. Telepathy range will be reduced, and I may cut a language from their repertoire; three languages on top of telepathy and mind reading seems excessive.


Oni: Same as the Dryad, be careful handing out large races to PCs. Otherwise, most of the race is pretty well balanced, except for Regeneration. Character level healing per round is simply insane, especially in an edition where the only equivalent is the capstone of an archetype, and that caps at 10 per round, doesn't work above half health, and you need to max a secondary stat! As written, this race would be functionally immortal. If you really want to keep the regeneration theme, maybe give them the ability to regrow lost limbs instead? It would keep the flavor intact without absolutely wrecking game balance. As a minor issue, Sleep is a really powerful spell to hand out at first level; maybe find a different spell.

The Large issue is more of an... well, issue here, since Oni are giants by classification. It would seem kind of weird to have a Medium giant, but maybe I'm letting the category name influence me too much. Is there a typical height range for each category? If Medium can go tall enough, I could probably see Oni as Medium.

I'm not married to regeneration for Oni, it's just there because it was in the monster entry. I may cut it and look at some of their other listed traits again. As for sleep, is it really that strong? It is a first level spell, after all. (*coughhasyettoplayacastercoughcough*)


Succubus: Eh, seems fine. Maybe tone down Charm Person to once per long rest?

Fair enough. Probably give some of those extra uses back at higher levels, though.


Troll: Same as Dryad and Oni; be careful handing out large races to PCs. Like the Oni, get rid of regen per round, but keep regrowing/reattaching limbs. I really like the execution of this race, and if the regen was toned down and it was medium sized, I'd have no qualms about using it.

Here I'm more hesitant to drop the HP regeneration, since that's kind of the defining trait of trolls in D&D, but I can see how it could be too strong even after nerfing it from 10hp per round. Would 1/2 character level (rounded down) per turn and only when below 1/2 health be feasible, or is even that too powerful?


Yuan-Ti: No complaints here.

Cool. Yuan-ti and pixies were the two races that started this entire homebrewing project off, so I'm happy to hear that they're among the closest to balanced.


As an overview, even the ridiculously op races are fairly well balanced once the one or two things that make them op are properly tuned. I look forward to seeing future iterations of these concepts. :smallbiggrin:

Thanks so much for your feedback! It was extremely helpful!

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-18, 04:22 AM
I've only had a quick glance at a few of these, but it looks like most of them are significantly overpowered. Seems like Rerem115 has picked up on that though, so maybe I'll come back after you've made some changes.

It's an ambitious project! I look forward to seeing where this goes.

Belac93
2016-06-18, 09:16 AM
Let me see if I can think something up for ghosts...

Get rid of the Ethereal damage resistance, it is overpowered for most characters, and useless for a barbarian. Remove the proficiencies as your living race, except for languages. Otherwise everyone will be playing half-elves, for +3 charisma, 3 languages and 2 skill proficiencies along with all your other abilities.

Alter the ability scores. I would suggest giving +1 charisma, and then +1 to another ability score dependent on your base race. This is powerful enough already, it doesn't need full ability scores.

With possession, make it so that you can only possess medium or small humanoids. That should get rid of the possessing a giant problem. Also, say that you are not immune to damage while in the body, but just resistant to it while the body takes the rest. And the creature, if they want to, can make a saving throw in the first 24 hours to drive you out, again after a week, and then 1 more time after a month. If none of those are successful, then the possession can be permanent.

Wryte
2016-06-18, 01:59 PM
Thanks for the feedback! Here's version 1.1. I've made changes to everything but Ghosts (who are going to require a total rework) Yuan-ti, and the winged flight rules. Most innate spellcasting got majorly toned down, unarmed attacks other than the harpy's talons were changed to natural weapon attacks, all Large creatures were downgraded to Medium, and several special abilities were reworked into standard spells or variations thereon, among other adjustments.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 50 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action. You may deal an additional 1d6 damage with this attack if you moved at least 20 feet in a straight line toward your target.
Hooves: Your hooves are a natural weapon with which you are proficient, dealing 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Changed Hooves from an unarmed attack into a natural weapon. Reduced Charge bonus damage to 1d6 from 2d6 and movement requirement to 20 feet in a straight line.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you can cast the Entangle spell once per day with this trait, and when you reach 5th level you can cast the Pass Without Trace spell once per day with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Speak With Beasts and Plants: You can communicate with beasts and plants as if you shared a language.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Changed +1 Wisdom to +1 Dexterity for the sake of more diverse player options. Removed the Fey Charm trait. Reduced Tree Stride to once per short rest. Restructured Arboreal Magic in line with Tieflings' and Drows' innate spellcasting abilities.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Invisibility: Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself once per long rest. At 6th level you regain use of this trait after a short or long rest.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip and one additional cantrip of your choice from either the Bard or Druid spell list using only your pixie dust as a spell component. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Magic Resistance: Choose a type of magical damage or effect such as Fire or Charm. You have advantage on all saving throws against spells and other magical effects of this type. At 8th level you may choose an additional type of magical damage or effect.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and shortbows.

Changes: Reduced Invisibility to once per long rest, down to a short rest at 6th level.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2. Your base race’s highest ability score increases by 1, unless your base race is human, in which case an ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age: As your base race.
Alignment: As your base race.
Size: As your base race.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet. Your flight is magical, and does not obey the rules of winged flight. Your flying speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Type: You are undead.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeality: You cannot interact with any physical object heavier than 5 lbs. You may pass through physical objects and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: A creature within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Charisma saving throw against your Charisma DC or be possessed. While possessed, the creature is incapacitated, but not deprived of awareness. While possessing a creature you gain control of their body and substitute their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and speed scores for your own, but not any of their proficiencies, class abilities, or knowledge. You cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or abilities except ones that turn undead. You retain your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but lose all other resistances and immunities from your Ethereal feature, substituting your target’s resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities for yours.
Possession lasts until the body reaches 0 hit points, you dismiss your possession as a bonus action, or you are forced out by an effect like the turn good and evil spell. If you are driven out by the body reaching 0 hit points, you are stunned until the end of your next turn with no saving throw. Creatures are immune to being possessed by you for 24 hours after succeeding on their saving throw or being freed from your possession. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine.
Undying Proficiency: You are proficient in the same skills, tools, weapons, and armor as your base race.
Languages: As your base race’s.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects with your possession ability. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after you are driven out or leave. While possessing an object you retain your flight speed and ability scores, and your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but substitute all the object’s other immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities for you own. You may Use Device on the object as a bonus action. After possessing an object you may use your Possession again after a short rest.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw against your Charisma DC or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your horrifying visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.

Changes: Changes TBD. This one's going to require a comprehensive rework rather than mere tweaks.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Horde Tactics: You may add +1 to attack rolls against a target if a friendly character is within 5 feet of them.
Nimble Escape: You may Disengage or Hide as a bonus action.
Rat and Wolf Affinity: You are considered proficient in the Animal Handling skill when interacting with rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.

Changes: Reduced Horde tactics to a +1 to hit when a friendly character is within 5 feet of the target. Open to alternate suggestions for a replacement trait.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak Common and Elvish, but cannot read or write.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Siren Song: Starting at 3rd level you can weave a magical song, suggesting a simple course of action that those who hear you are magically compelled to follow. Choose up to 3 creatures within 30 feet who can hear you to roll a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target creature becomes charmed as if under the effects of the Suggestion spell. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action on following turns to continue the song, or its effects end. If the target loses the ability to hear or understand you, or moves further than 30 feet from you, the song's effect ends on them. A creature who succeeds on their saving throw or who is freed from your song is immune to it for 24 fours. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. Your DM may ask you to actually sing.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.

Changes: Reworked Luring Song into a variation on the Suggestion spell with additional targets and more stringent requirements on maintaining the effect.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Languages: You can understand, read, and write Common and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 60 feet.

Changes: Reclassified Tentacles as a natural weapon and reduced damage to 1d4. Reduced stun duration to the end of the target's next turn. Removed Undercommon language proficiency and reduced telepathy range from 120 to 60 feet. For the time being I am choosing to stick with Wisdom as the lesser ability score increase rather than switching to a physical stat.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Oni stand close to 8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Shadow Magic: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Sleep spell once per day. Starting at 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: Common, Giant

Changes: Reduced size to Medium. Removed Regeneration trait. Added the Friends cantrip and reworked innate spellcasting to be in line with Teiflings and Drow.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Draining Kiss: You may kiss an incapacitated or willing creature who must then succeed a Constitution saving throw against your Charisma DC. On a failed save the target takes 1d10 +Charisma psychic damage and their hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount, or half as much damage on a successful save. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again. The damage and hit point reduction of this ability increase by 1d10 at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Charm Person spell once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. You can change your sex independently of your form as a bonus action.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.

Changes: Reduced Charm Person to once per day starting at 3rd level and replaced additional uses with advantage on Persuasion checks for seduction. Added the ability to change sex as a bonus action to the Shapechanger trait.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Trolls are around 8 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make attacks with disadvantage unless you can see its target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: At the start of your turn you regain hit points equal to half your character level (rounded down, minimum 1, maximum 10) if you are below half health and have at least 1 hit point remaining. If you take Fire or Acid damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of your next turn. You may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their remains less than 6 hours old you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.

Changes: Reduced size to Medium. Changed Regeneration to 1/2 your character level rounded down (minimum 1, maximum 10) when below 1/2 health. Specified time range on "recent" remains to 6 hours for the YAWYE trait.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: Common, Draconic
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
At will: Poison Spray
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.

Changes: Unchanged.


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Changes: Unchanged.

Final Hyena
2016-06-18, 02:44 PM
There's a reason the DMG advises against a healing cantrip. Which is how I feel about regeneration. This likely needs a limitation, bonus action (maybe reaction) and lasts for a minute, once per long rest.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-18, 03:47 PM
...:smallfurious:

I just spent an hour typing out responses to this, and then my hand slipped and deleted it all. :smallsigh:

I only got as far as the harpy, but the main take-aways so far were:

The centaur still looks too strong. I'd at least cut the hooves to 1d6, maybe do something about Charge as well.
Dryads come out okay numbers-wise, but three always-on spells makes me uncomfortable. I'd consider dropping the speak with animals and plants bit - treat the MM dryad as if it has a few levels of druid and some of its abilities come from that rather than just being innate to the race.
It's hard to rate your tiny races (including dryad) because I don't know if you're applying any additional bonuses or penalties for them.
Fairies actually look okay to my eye. The magic resistance is kind of complicated; you could change that to the PHB gnome version and then give them a -1 strength penalty or something. That would come out about the same.
I'd drop Horde Tactics from the goblin. I can't be the only person giving that +1 some serious side-eye. Besides, Nimble Escape is enough power for anyone to be going on with.

I'll come back and re-do the full review tomorrow, probably.

Final Hyena
2016-06-18, 04:05 PM
I just spent an hour typing out responses to this, and then my hand slipped and deleted it all. :smallsigh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvvimYZScN0&ab_channel=ArsalanMansoor


I'd drop Horde Tactics from the goblin. I can't be the only person giving that +1 some serious side-eye. Besides, Nimble Escape is enough power for anyone to be going on with.
I don't object to the trait in and of itself, but the race might have too much altogether, if that is the thing that gets cut. Why not.

One thing I dislike is that Rat and Wolf Affinity is wasted if you get proficiency with animal handling.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-18, 04:15 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvvimYZScN0&ab_channel=ArsalanMansoor

If only. I had the response in a separate window so I could ALT+TAB between reading the OP and typing a reply (it's quicker than scrolling up and down repeatedly, which is worthwhile when you're going to dedicate hours to a single post), then I accidentally closed the window. Boom. No recovering from that. Next time I'll write the reply in notepad.


I don't object to the trait in and of itself, but the race might have too much altogether, if that is the thing that gets cut. Why not.

One thing I dislike is that Rat and Wolf Affinity is wasted if you get proficiency with animal handling.

Yeah, I basically feel the same. Nimble Escape strikes me as more goblin-y than Pack Tactics (that's a kobold thing, isn't it?) and it's an epic ability to have in a race, so I advocate cutting the +1 and keeping Nimble Escape.

The rat/wolf thing could be re-worked fairly easily.

Wryte
2016-06-18, 05:01 PM
...:smallfurious:

I just spent an hour typing out responses to this, and then my hand slipped and deleted it all. :smallsigh:

Ugh. As post loss goes, that ranks #3, right under composing a long post and then hitting submit to get an error message at #2, and composing a long, detailed post in response to a complicated topic only to find out the thread was locked or deleted while you typing at #1. #4, of course, is hitting Submit to find that someone else said the same thing much more eloquently in the meantime.

Side note, #2 is why I've gotten into the habit of Ctrl-A/Ctrl-C'ing my long posts before I hit submit on any forum.


I only got as far as the harpy, but the main take-aways so far were:

The centaur still looks too strong. I'd at least cut the hooves to 1d6, maybe do something about Charge as well.
Dryads come out okay numbers-wise, but three always-on spells makes me uncomfortable. I'd consider dropping the speak with animals and plants bit - treat the MM dryad as if it has a few levels of druid and some of its abilities come from that rather than just being innate to the race.
It's hard to rate your tiny races (including dryad) because I don't know if you're applying any additional bonuses or penalties for them.
Fairies actually look okay to my eye. The magic resistance is kind of complicated; you could change that to the PHB gnome version and then give them a -1 strength penalty or something. That would come out about the same.
I'd drop Horde Tactics from the goblin. I can't be the only person giving that +1 some serious side-eye. Besides, Nimble Escape is enough power for anyone to be going on with.

I'll come back and re-do the full review tomorrow, probably.

As always, feedback greatly appreciated.

- Charge as it is here is a combination of the Goring Rush trait given to minotaurs in the Waterborne UA and a nerfed version of the Charge trait as described in the MM. I'd originally added the copy of the minotaur version because the 30ft straight line requirement of Charge made it unusable in certain situations (namely indoors, caves, etc), but had wanted to keep the base Charge intact somehow. It's probably too problematic to balance for a player race rather than a monster race the DM can just be certain to use in its ideal environment, though. I'll probably cut the trait down to just the modified Goring Rush: being able to make an attack as a bonus action after Dashing.
- Hmm. I'm more inclined to cut Darkvision than Speak, as that seems less central to the racial identity. Would that be satisfactory, or is it not as powerful as Speak?
- The only changes I'm making to the core rules are the Winged Flight Rules I detailed at the end of the post. I should probably also mention that I'm not creating these races to use as a DM, but as a player, so I'm not looking to rewrite game rules beyond the extra flight requirements I'd be placing on myself via the Winged Flight Rules. I'm just trying to fine tune these as much as I can before I ask for DM approval.
- I'd originally thought about copying the gnome version, but the two races are similar enough already that I didn't want to literally copy one of their traits. That said, I was kind of iffy on the version of magic resistance that I gave them. Definitely something to give further consideration. I'd thought about strength penalties, but looking at other homebrew 5ed races around the web it seemed that stat penalties were generally something 5ed player races try to avoid.
- Like I said, Horde Tactics isn't something I'm married to. It's one I made up because goblins' MM entry is pretty barren. If you guys think their other traits are strong enough to leave that one on the cutting room floor, I'll bow to your greater experience. Though speaking of Nimble Escape, although it's the only actual racial trait the MM gives them, it does bug me a bit that it's totally redundant with a low level rogue ability, especially given that rogue is probably one of the more appealing classes for a goblin otherwise. My only idea was to let it stack to allow them to disengage or hide as a free action, but that'd obviously be grossly overpowered. I'm open to other suggestions.


One thing I dislike is that Rat and Wolf Affinity is wasted if you get proficiency with animal handling.

Good call. I'll probably bump that up to full proficiency in animal handling.


There's a reason the DMG advises against a healing cantrip. Which is how I feel about regeneration. This likely needs a limitation, bonus action (maybe reaction) and lasts for a minute, once per long rest.

Making it an action of some kind is probably what's going to be necessary. I really wanted to keep it a passive effect to reinforce the flavor of trolls just being hard as hell to put down rather than intelligent enough to heal themselves, but that's probably just not going to be possible to balance. It'll probably become a 1/day reactive heal over time after taking massive damage.

Wryte
2016-06-19, 02:08 PM
Version 1.1.1


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 40 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Hooves: You rear up and strike with both your forehooves, using your attack and bonus attack actions to deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier and gaining advantage on a check to shove your target. Your hooves are a natural weapon with which you are proficient.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Reduced movement speed to 40 feet. Removed the damage bonus from Charge. Reworded Hooves to require both an attack and bonus attack action to use, but gains shoving advantage.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you can cast the Entangle spell once per day with this trait, and when you reach 5th level you can cast the Pass Without Trace spell once per day with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Speak With Plants: You can communicate with plants as if you shared a language.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Removed Darkvision trait and removed beasts from the Speak with Beasts and Plants trait; the dryad can now only speak with plants.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Naturally Stealthy: You can attempt to hide even when obscured only by a creature at least one size larger than you.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Fey Resistance: You have advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip and one additional cantrip of your choice from either the Bard or Druid spell list using only your pixie dust as a spell component. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and shortbows.

Changes: Rolled Invisibility into the pixie's subraces's Pixie Magic trait, replacing it with the Naturally Stealthy trait ala Lightfoot Halflings for the base race. Changed pixies' Magic Resistance to Fey Resistance with the same effects as elves's Fey Ancestry trait.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2. Your base race’s highest ability score increases by 1, unless your base race is human, in which case an ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age: As your base race.
Alignment: As your base race.
Size: As your base race.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet. Your flight is magical, and does not obey the rules of winged flight. Your flying speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Type: You are undead.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeality: You cannot interact with any physical object heavier than 5 lbs. You may pass through physical objects and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: A creature within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Charisma saving throw against your Charisma DC or be possessed. While possessed, the creature is incapacitated, but not deprived of awareness. While possessing a creature you gain control of their body and substitute their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and speed scores for your own, but not any of their proficiencies, class abilities, or knowledge. You cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or abilities except ones that turn undead. You retain your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but lose all other resistances and immunities from your Ethereal feature, substituting your target’s resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities for yours.
Possession lasts until the body reaches 0 hit points, you dismiss your possession as a bonus action, or you are forced out by an effect like the turn good and evil spell. If you are driven out by the body reaching 0 hit points, you are stunned until the end of your next turn with no saving throw. Creatures are immune to being possessed by you for 24 hours after succeeding on their saving throw or being freed from your possession. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine.
Undying Proficiency: You are proficient in the same skills, tools, weapons, and armor as your base race.
Languages: As your base race’s.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects with your possession ability. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after you are driven out or leave. While possessing an object you retain your flight speed and ability scores, and your immunity to being charmed or frightened, but substitute all the object’s other immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities for you own. You may Use Device on the object as a bonus action. After possessing an object you may use your Possession again after a short rest.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw against your Charisma DC or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your horrifying visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.

Changes: Changes TBD. This one's going to require a comprehensive rework rather than mere tweaks.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nimble Escape: You may Disengage or Hide as a bonus action.
Beast Affinity: You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill and may double your proficiency bonus when handling rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.

Changes: Removed Horde Tactics. Rat and Wolf Affinity changed to Beast Affinity; now grants full proficiency with the Animal Handling skill and double proficiency bonus to handling rats and wolves.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak Common and Elvish, but cannot read or write.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Siren Song: Starting at 3rd level you can weave a magical song, suggesting a simple course of action that those who hear you are magically compelled to follow. Choose up to 3 creatures within 30 feet who can hear you to roll a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target creature becomes charmed as if under the effects of the Suggestion spell. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action on following turns to continue the song, or its effects end. If the target loses the ability to hear or understand you, or moves further than 30 feet from you, the song's effect ends on them. A creature who succeeds on their saving throw or who is freed from your song is immune to it for 24 fours. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. Your DM may ask you to actually sing.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Languages: You can understand, read, and write Common and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 60 feet.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Oni stand close to 8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Shadow Magic: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Sleep spell once per day. Starting at 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: Common, Giant

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Draining Kiss: You may kiss an incapacitated or willing creature who must then succeed a Constitution saving throw against your Charisma DC. On a failed save the target takes 1d10 +Charisma psychic damage and their hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount, or half as much damage on a successful save. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again. The damage and hit point reduction of this ability increase by 1d10 at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Charm Person spell once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. You can change your sex independently of your form as a bonus action.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Trolls are around 8 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make attacks with disadvantage unless you can see its target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: After taking damage equal to at least 1/2 of your hit points in one round you may use your reaction to regenerate. For the next four rounds you recover hit point equal to half your level rounded down, minimum 1. You cannot use this trait if any of the inciting damage was of the Fire or Acid type, and taking Fire or Acid damage ends the healing effect. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. You may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their remains less than 6 hours old you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.

Changes: Changed Regeneration from a passive effect to a 1/day reaction to losing half your maximum hit points in one round. The healing effect lasts for four rounds or until the troll takes acid or fire damage.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: Common, Draconic
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
At will: Poison Spray
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.

Changes: Unchanged.


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Changes: Unchanged.

Final Hyena
2016-06-19, 03:10 PM
Speak With Plants: You can communicate with plants as if you shared a language.
The grass can speak!!! At least when you speak with animals they have some sort of intelligence, man lay off the grass.
Joking aside would intelligent plants make more sense? Maybe even give a bonus to persuasion on plant type creatures?


Possession: Snip
This should be an action and the creature should have a save at the end of every turn.


Beast Affinity: You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill and may double your proficiency bonus when handling rats or wolves.
What about if you have animal handling expertise?


Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Balance wise it's fine I just thought having the stun ability being refreshed by eating a fresh brain would be a possible alternative.

Oni looks a bit like the succubus, with less goodies, maybe give them an extra +1 or give the succubus a flaw, maybe if they don't "kiss" someone to death they take a penalty.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-19, 03:54 PM
What about if you have animal handling expertise?

You should go home and re-think your life. :smalltongue:

Final Hyena
2016-06-19, 04:35 PM
You should go home and re-think your life. :smalltongue:
Your Jedi mind tricks have no affect on me.

Amnoriath
2016-06-19, 08:42 PM
Have you thought about making little mini-classes with them or possibly incorporate them into sub-classes? I know it would be more difficult the problem is though you are by definition trying to fit CR 1++ creatures into a simple race choice of what amounts to only part of roughly a CR 1/2 encounter. It simply doesn't seem to do these monsters justice without other support.

Wryte
2016-06-21, 02:02 AM
Version 1.2.0 is now up, with the revised Ghost "race." Most other races received minor changes if any, although I want to ask about the damage currently associated with the Bite bonus poison damage and Constrict abilities on Yuan-ti. Are they too high? Is the Abomination subrace too pigeonholed into strength classes by having both of them?

As always, you guys' critiques are immensely appreciated!


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 40 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Hooves: You rear up and strike with both your forehooves, using your attack and bonus attack actions to deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier and gaining advantage on a check to shove your target. Your hooves are a natural weapon with which you are proficient.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Added the ability to read and write.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you can cast the Entangle spell once per day with this trait, and when you reach 5th level you can cast the Pass Without Trace spell once per day with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Leaftongue: You can speak to one plant within 5 feet of you at a time, imbuing it with limited intelligence and the ability to communicate simple ideas through small words and sentences.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Changed Speak with Plants into Leaftongue, a plant-based variation of gnomes' Speak With Small Beasts.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Naturally Stealthy: You can attempt to hide even when obscured only by a creature at least one size larger than you.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Fey Resistance: You have advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip and one additional cantrip of your choice from either the Bard or Druid spell list using only your pixie dust as a spell component. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and shortbows.

Changes: Unchanged


Life Before Death: Ghosts are not a race unto themselves, but a condition afflicting creatures who died with unfinished business. To create a ghost, first create a character of any playable race.

As a ghost, you retain the following traits from your base race:
- Ability score increases
- Creature type
- Hit points
- Languages
- Size

All other traits of your base race are replaced by:

Alignment: Death is a traumatic experience, and often pushes a creature's alignment to an extreme it never approached in life. Ghosts are rarely neutral.
Type: You gain the Undead creature type.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet with a maximum altitude of 20 feet. You may cross areas where you altitude would become temporarily greater, such as flying over a chasm, as long as you end your turn within your maximum altitude; otherwise you slowly fall until you reach 20 feet above ground. Your flight is magical and its speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeal: You cannot interact with any physical object heavier than 5 lbs. You may pass through physical obstacles and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: As an action, choose a creature within 5 feet of you to make a Charisma saving throw (DC is 10 + your Charisma modifier) or be possessed by you. While you are possessing a creature your body vanishes and you gain complete control of their movements and actions during your turns, and substitute their strength and dexterity scores for your own. You cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or magical effects except ones that turn undead, but substitute their resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities for yours other than your immunity to being charmed or frightened. You take half of any damage dealt to the creature you are possessing, but do not benefit from any healing done to them.
The possessed creature is incapacitated while possessed, but remains aware of what is going on. At the start of each of the creature's turns they may repeat their saving throw, expelling you from their body on a successful save. After succeeding in their saving throw, a creature cannot be the target of your Possession trait again for 24 hours. Creatures who are not of your base creature type have advantage on their saving throws, and Possession counts as a Charm effect when determining resistances and immunities. Your possession lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier +1, or until the creature makes its save, drops to 0 hit points, or you are banished by a spell or magical effect that turns undead. You must complete a long rest before attempting to possess another creature.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine, but recover hit points as normal during long and short rests.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects of medium or smaller size with your Possession trait. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after the effect ends, and you may use your Possession trait again after 1d4 rounds. While possessed, objects have statistics as shown in the table below:



Object Type
Size
HP
AC
Damage
Type


Light Armor
As base item
25
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Medium Armor
As base item
40
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Heavy Armor
As base item
50
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Shield
Small
25
18
1d8+2
Bludgeoning


Simple Weapon
Tiny
20
18
As base item+4
As base item


Martial Weapon
Small
25
16
As base item+2
As base item


Heavy Weapon
Medium
30
13
As base item+1
As base item


Miscellaneous
Tiny
20
18
1d4+4
Bludgeoning



Small
25
16
1d8+2
Bludgeoning



Medium
30
13
2d6+1
Bludgeoning




An object possessed by you is a construct. Its speed is 30 feet. If the object lacks legs or other appendages it can use for locomotion, it instead has a flying speed of 30 feet according to the same rules as yours. While possessing an object you have blindsight with a radius of 30 feet, beyond which you are blind. When an object drops to 0 hit points, you are expelled from the object. Objects damaged while you are possessing them can be repaired by the Mending cantrip or similar effects, but you are not healed by them. While possessing a suit of armor you can wield weapons and use equipment as if you had a physical body. While possessing an object with an on-use ability, you may Use Device on your possessed object as a bonus action.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw (DC 10+ your Charisma modifier) or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your horrifying visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Withering Touch: You can cast the Chill Touch cantrip as a touch attack. Charisma is your casting ability for this spell.

Changes: Major overhaul of entire "race," including much stricter rules governing Possession.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nimble Escape: The first opportunity attack you provoke on each turn has disadvantage against you.
Beast Affinity: You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill and have advantage when handling rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.

Changes: Changed double proficiency with wolves and rats to advantage. Changed Nimble Escape to cause disadvantage to the first opportunity attack provoked per round. It didn't sit right that the original iteration of the trait was an objectively worse version of the 2nd level rogue Cunning Action trait, making what should otherwise be an attractive class option less so.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak Common and Elvish, but cannot read or write.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Siren Song: Starting at 3rd level you can weave a magical song, suggesting a simple course of action that those who hear you are magically compelled to follow. Choose up to 3 creatures within 30 feet who can hear you to roll a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target creature becomes charmed as if under the effects of the Suggestion spell. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action on following turns to continue the song, or its effects end. If the target loses the ability to hear or understand you, or moves further than 30 feet from you, the song's effect ends on them. A creature who succeeds on their saving throw or who is freed from your song is immune to it for 24 fours. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. Your DM may ask you to actually sing.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Languages: You can understand, read, and write Common and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 60 feet.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Oni stand close to 8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Kanabo: You are proficient with greatclubs, and deal 1d10 bludgeoning damage with them in your oni form.
Shadow Magic: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Sleep spell once per day. Starting at 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: Common, Giant

Changes: Added the Kanabo trait, granting proficiency with greatclubs and a slight damage increase in oni form.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Draining Kiss: You may kiss an incapacitated or willing creature who must then succeed a Constitution saving throw against your Charisma DC. On a failed save the target takes 1d8 +Charisma psychic damage and their hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount, or half as much damage on a successful save. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again. The damage and hit point reduction of this ability increase by 1d8 at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Charm Person spell once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. You can change your sex independently of your form as a bonus action.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.

Changes: Reduced Draining Kiss damage and hit point drain from 1d10 to 1d8.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Trolls are around 8 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make attacks with disadvantage unless you can see its target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: After taking damage equal to at least 1/2 of your hit points in one round you may use your reaction to regenerate. For the next four rounds you recover hit point equal to half your level rounded down, minimum 1. You cannot use this trait if any of the inciting damage was of the Fire or Acid type, and taking Fire or Acid damage ends the healing effect. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. You may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their remains less than 6 hours old you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: Common, Draconic
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
At will: Poison Spray
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.

Changes: Unchanged.


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Changes: Unchanged.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-21, 07:01 AM
Life Before Death: Ghosts are not a race unto themselves, but a condition afflicting creatures who died with unfinished business. To create a ghost, first create a character of any playable race.

As a ghost, you retain the following traits from your base race:
- Ability score increases
- Creature type
- Hit points
- Languages
- Size

All other traits of your base race are replaced by:

Alignment: Death is a traumatic experience, and often pushes a creature's alignment to an extreme it never approached in life. Ghosts are rarely neutral.
Type: You gain the Undead creature type.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet with a maximum altitude of 20 feet. You may cross areas where you altitude would become temporarily greater, such as flying over a chasm, as long as you end your turn within your maximum altitude; otherwise you slowly fall until you reach 20 feet above ground. Your flight is magical and its speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeal: You cannot interact with any physical object heavier than 5 lbs. You may pass through physical obstacles and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: As an action, choose a creature within 5 feet of you to make a Charisma saving throw (DC is 10 + your Charisma modifier) or be possessed by you. While you are possessing a creature your body vanishes and you gain complete control of their movements and actions during your turns, and substitute their strength and dexterity scores for your own. You cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or magical effects except ones that turn undead, but substitute their resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities for yours other than your immunity to being charmed or frightened. You take half of any damage dealt to the creature you are possessing, but do not benefit from any healing done to them.
The possessed creature is incapacitated while possessed, but remains aware of what is going on. At the start of each of the creature's turns they may repeat their saving throw, expelling you from their body on a successful save. After succeeding in their saving throw, a creature cannot be the target of your Possession trait again for 24 hours. Creatures who are not of your base creature type have advantage on their saving throws, and Possession counts as a Charm effect when determining resistances and immunities. Your possession lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier +1, or until the creature makes its save, drops to 0 hit points, or you are banished by a spell or magical effect that turns undead. You must complete a long rest before attempting to possess another creature.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine, but recover hit points as normal during long and short rests.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects of medium or smaller size with your Possession trait. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after the effect ends, and you may use your Possession trait again after 1d4 rounds. While possessed, objects have statistics as shown in the table below:



Object Type
Size
HP
AC
Damage
Type


Light Armor
As base item
25
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Medium Armor
As base item
40
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Heavy Armor
As base item
50
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Shield
Small
25
18
1d8+2
Bludgeoning


Simple Weapon
Tiny
20
18
As base item+4
As base item


Martial Weapon
Small
25
16
As base item+2
As base item


Heavy Weapon
Medium
30
13
As base item+1
As base item


Miscellaneous
Tiny
20
18
1d4+4
Bludgeoning



Small
25
16
1d8+2
Bludgeoning



Medium
30
13
2d6+1
Bludgeoning




An object possessed by you is a construct. Its speed is 30 feet. If the object lacks legs or other appendages it can use for locomotion, it instead has a flying speed of 30 feet according to the same rules as yours. While possessing an object you have blindsight with a radius of 30 feet, beyond which you are blind. When an object drops to 0 hit points, you are expelled from the object. Objects damaged while you are possessing them can be repaired by the Mending cantrip or similar effects, but you are not healed by them. While possessing a suit of armor you can wield weapons and use equipment as if you had a physical body. While possessing an object with an on-use ability, you may Use Device on your possessed object as a bonus action.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw (DC 10+ your Charisma modifier) or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your horrifying visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Withering Touch: You can cast the Chill Touch cantrip as a touch attack. Charisma is your casting ability for this spell.

Changes: Major overhaul of entire "race," including much stricter rules governing Possession.

Just going to look at the new ghost today, since I haven't done that yet.

Sweet Björk this is complicated! Being unable to lift (or even interact with) more than 5lbs is a big limitation - you can't carry gear, or wear armour, or even hold the door open for people... but then, flight and resistance to normal weapons are really sweet benefits. Immunity to healing magic hurts, but not needing to breathe can come in really handy. So it's like, there's a lot of extremes here. I feel like playing a ghost would probably overwhelm your class, at least for the first few levels, which isn't necessarily a good thing game-wise (though it probably is realistic).

I like the possession mechanics, but I have no idea how balanced they are. I'd like to playtest them - I'm even playing a character right now who would make a great ghost after she dies! Some minor thoughts: might it make sense for a willing target to be able to choose to fail the save? Could be useful to possess an ally occasionally. Why not go with 8+ChaMod+prof for the DC? Surely a more experienced ghost would be able to possess people more easily.

What do you think about limiting the number of times Possession can be used? I ask because this is a huge, encounter-ending power that could end up stealing the limelight from other players if the ghost uses it all the time. Maybe once per short rest? I guess the problem with that is that, if the target saves, the ability does nothing. Maybe one successful use per short rest?

What happens if you possess a greatclub? :smalltongue:

Final Hyena
2016-06-21, 08:58 AM
Object Possession
Perhaps make it an unattended object?

My concern is that you can use object possession and then possession and then back to object possession, essentially doubling your health for an encounter. However at late game object possession is kind of bad compared to how good it as at low levels.

Would it be easier to have your damage, hp, ac and max size based purely on your level?

Wryte
2016-06-21, 10:36 AM
Sweet Björk this is complicated! Being unable to lift (or even interact with) more than 5lbs is a big limitation - you can't carry gear, or wear armour, or even hold the door open for people... but then, flight and resistance to normal weapons are really sweet benefits. Immunity to healing magic hurts, but not needing to breathe can come in really handy. So it's like, there's a lot of extremes here. I feel like playing a ghost would probably overwhelm your class, at least for the first few levels, which isn't necessarily a good thing game-wise (though it probably is realistic).

I think in this case that's a risk I'm willing to take. Undeath is a pretty big friggin' deal, so it feels right that it might overshadow other aspects of your character for a the first few levels as the character -and you- adjusts to their new existence and the very different nature of your relationship with the rest of the world.


I like the possession mechanics, but I have no idea how balanced they are. I'd like to playtest them - I'm even playing a character right now who would make a great ghost after she dies! Some minor thoughts: might it make sense for a willing target to be able to choose to fail the save? Could be useful to possess an ally occasionally. Why not go with 8+ChaMod+prof for the DC? Surely a more experienced ghost would be able to possess people more easily.

What do you think about limiting the number of times Possession can be used? I ask because this is a huge, encounter-ending power that could end up stealing the limelight from other players if the ghost uses it all the time. Maybe once per short rest? I guess the problem with that is that, if the target saves, the ability does nothing. Maybe one successful use per short rest?

The proficiency thing is a good idea, as is the willing creature. I'll add that in the next iteration.

Possession is already limited to one use per day on creatures; only the poltergeist's object possession is unlimited, since most objects are going to be much easier to kill than a creature would be. That said, it could still probably stand to have a limited number of uses per day, too. Maybe I could give ghosts a resource like ki points to fuel their possession; 3 possession points per day, use 1 to possess an object, 1 on a failed attempt to possess a creature, 2 on a successful attempt. Possession points are recovered by resting and you gain additional possession points at higher levels.


What happens if you possess a greatclub? :smalltongue:

You become a floating greatclub with 20 hit points and 18 AC that deals 1d8+4 bludgeoning damage. You have a 30 foot flying speed and a 20 foot maximum altitude. You take half of any damage dealt to the greatclub, and while the greatclub can have its hit points restored by the Mending cantrip, yours are not.


Object Possession
Perhaps make it an unattended object?

Good catch. Next iteration will disallow possessing any equipment currently being worn or wielded by another creature.


My concern is that you can use object possession and then possession and then back to object possession, essentially doubling your health for an encounter. However at late game object possession is kind of bad compared to how good it as at low levels.

The trick to object health is that while you can move from object to object as they're destroyed, you're still taking damage yourself each time an object you're possessing gets hit. It doesn't matter if the object(s) you're possessing have 30 HP or 300; you have 15 hit points, and you take damage equal to half of any damage dealt to the creature or object of your possession. You'll die when the 30 hit point object is destroyed, or when the 300 hit point creature still has 270 hit points left.


Would it be easier to have your damage, hp, ac and max size based purely on your level?

Maybe? The question that arose before was how to determine the stats for an object you were possessing, so I turned to the stats laid out in the Animate Objects spell as a starting point. However, you're right that the static nature of item stats does become a balancing issue as a character's level increases. Maybe I'll work out some way for the ghost's proficiency bonus to be factored into the possessed item's stats.

Final Hyena
2016-06-21, 10:47 AM
The trick to object health is that while you can move from object to object as they're destroyed, you're still taking damage yourself each time an object you're possessing gets hit. It doesn't matter if the object(s) you're possessing have 30 HP or 300; you have 15 hit points, and you take damage equal to half of any damage dealt to the creature or object of your possession. You'll die when the 30 hit point object is destroyed, or when the 300 hit point creature still has 270 hit points left.
That was my point, at level 1 an extra 30 hp is insane at level 20 having 30hp before death is useless.

Can you use your own features or the creatures feature during a possession e.g. spells, extra attacks, natural attack damage die and multi attack?

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-21, 10:55 AM
Possession is already limited to one use per day on creatures; only the poltergeist's object possession is unlimited, since most objects are going to be much easier to kill than a creature would be. That said, it could still probably stand to have a limited number of uses per day, too. Maybe I could give ghosts a resource like ki points to fuel their possession; 3 possession points per day, use 1 to possess an object, 1 on a failed attempt to possess a creature, 2 on a successful attempt. Possession points are recovered by resting and you gain additional possession points at higher levels.

Ah, sorry, I must have missed that line. I double-checked it as well, because I didn't really believe you'd write an ability like that without a usage limit. The object possession... I don't know. Maybe?


You become a floating greatclub with 20 hit points and 18 AC that deals 1d8+4 bludgeoning damage. You have a 30 foot flying speed and a 20 foot maximum altitude. You take half of any damage dealt to the greatclub, and while the greatclub can have its hit points restored by the Mending cantrip, yours are not.

So you are treating greatclubs as 'tiny' items. Seems a little weird.

Wryte
2016-06-21, 07:17 PM
That was my point, at level 1 an extra 30 hp is insane at level 20 having 30hp before death is useless.

There is no "extra" HP. The hit points of a creature or object you are possessing do not add to yours; they only measure how much damage the subject of your possession can take before being killed/destroyed.

Let's say I'm playing a level 3 poltergeist fighter with 28 hit points and she possesses a light weapon with 20 hit points.

- Round 1 the weapon she's possessing takes 6 damage. My ghost character takes damage equal to half the amount dealt to the creature or object she's possessing, so she takes 3 damage. The weapon is now at 14 hit points and my ghost is at 25.
- Round 2 the weapon takes another 7 damage. My ghost takes 3.5, rounded down to 3. The weapon is at 7 hit points and my ghost is at 22.
- Round 3 the weapon takes 10 damage from a crit, breaking it (actually, come to think of it, I didn't think of whether damage that reduces a ghost's possessed target to 0 hit points pass the full amount on to the ghost or only the amount the possessed target had remaining... we'll say the full amount for the moment). The ghost takes 5 damage from the attack, and is ejected from the weapon. The weapon is destroyed and my ghost is at 17 hit points.
- Round 4 my ghost possesses a suit of medium armor with 40 hit points. The armor takes another crit, this time worth 15 damage which passes 7.5 damage rounded down to 7 onto my ghost. The armor is down to 25 hit points and has a 6-inch gash in it, and my ghost is down to 10 hit points.
- Round 5 a friendly cleric casts Mending on the armor, repairing the gash in it. We'll say the armor is repaired for 8 hit points, bringing it up to 33. My ghost remains at 10. The armor then takes another 8 damage, 4 to my ghost, bringing us down to 25 and 6 respectively.
- Round six the DM's dice continue to be on fire, and another crit deals 12 damage to the armor, passing 6 along to my ghost. The armor is now at 13 hit points, while my ghost is now at 0 and will be proceeding to death saves on her next turn.

Before you ask, no, I haven't specified yet how much healing Mending and similar effects do to these items. I'll have to work that out yet, assuming I don't end up cutting it.


Can you use your own features or the creatures feature during a possession e.g. spells, extra attacks, natural attack damage die and multi attack?

A ghost will have access to any physical traits a possessed creature or item has, like natural weapons, any equipment they are wearing or carrying, their resistances, etc. They do not have access to any of their knowledge, memories, skills, proficiencies, class abilities, or active race abilities. For example, a ghost possessing a cyclops would gain the Poor Depth Perception trait, but not its Multiattack trait; and a ghost possessing a centaur would be able to use its hooves to attack, but would not have a proficiency bonus with them. The ghost keeps all their class abilities while possessing a creature or object, but does not have access to any of its own racial traits other than their immunity to being charmed or frightened and the ability to dismiss their possession.


So you are treating greatclubs as 'tiny' items. Seems a little weird.

True. I was more concerned with getting an outline for determining possessed item stats in this iteration than in getting each individual item right. I'll expand on the list a bit more, hopefully without having to go so far as to rewrite the entire weapon list with individual possession stats attached to each individual weapon. Neither a player nor a DM would appreciate having to keep track of that much variation, I expect.

Final Hyena
2016-06-21, 08:12 PM
From a previous statement I took it to mean that being ejected from a weapon kills you, but now that seems to not be the case.

The trick to object health is that while you can move from object to object as they're destroyed, you're still taking damage yourself each time an object you're possessing gets hit. It doesn't matter if the object(s) you're possessing have 30 HP or 300; you have 15 hit points, and you take damage equal to half of any damage dealt to the creature or object of your possession. You'll die when the 30 hit point object is destroyed, or when the 300 hit point creature still has 270 hit points left.My mistake.
Never the less having double HP at level 1 is a bit nuts.


Before you ask, no, I haven't specified yet how much healing Mending and similar effects do to these items. I'll have to work that out yet, assuming I don't end up cutting it.
For mending I would suggest d4.


A ghost will have access to any physical traits a possessed creature or item has, like natural weapons, any equipment they are wearing or carrying, their resistances, etc. They do not have access to any of their knowledge, memories, skills, proficiencies, class abilities, or active race abilities. For example, a ghost possessing a cyclops would gain the Poor Depth Perception trait, but not its Multiattack trait
Is the multiattack of say a bear due to skill or a physical trait?

Wryte
2016-06-21, 09:53 PM
Never the less having double HP at level 1 is a bit nuts.

But they don't have double HP. They don't have any increased HP. The HP of whatever a ghost is possessing doesn't add to its HP total, it's entirely separate. You don't have to destroy what the ghost is possessing before you can hurt them; they take damage equal to half of any damage taken by the creature or object they are possessing.

Wait. Wait. Okay, I think I get what you mean now. You don't mean literally double HP, you mean effectively double the HP by virtue of only taking half damage while possessing something.

That's a deliberate balancing factor to ghosts being unhealable by magic. If anything, I'm worried I may need to give them magic damage resistance in addition to their weapon damage resistance outside of their possession ability.


Is the multiattack of say a bear due to skill or a physical trait?

Since extra attacks for PCs are class features and not racial traits, I'm inclined toward skill.

Ninja_Prawn
2016-06-22, 12:23 AM
- Round 5 a friendly cleric casts Mending on the armor

For mending I would suggest d4.

You guys realise that Mending takes 10 rounds to cast, right?

Wryte
2016-06-22, 12:55 AM
Um

I

I was testing you.

Congratulations. You passed.

...

*cough*

Final Hyena
2016-06-22, 09:15 AM
Since extra attacks for PCs are class features and not racial traits, I'm inclined toward skill.
Multiattack is not the same as extra attack. The main difference being that they don't stack.


You guys realise that Mending takes 10 rounds to cast, right?
I think d4 fits the description;

This spell repairs a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is no longer than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage.
Specifying how much you can "heal" an item given that items are being given a specified hp keeps it clear.

Wryte
2016-06-24, 03:02 PM
v1.2.1. Tweaks to ghosts' possession ability.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 40 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Hooves: You rear up and strike with both your forehooves, using your attack and bonus attack actions to deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier and gaining advantage on a check to shove your target. Your hooves are a natural weapon with which you are proficient.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Unchanged


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you can cast the Entangle spell once per day with this trait, and when you reach 5th level you can cast the Pass Without Trace spell once per day with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Leaftongue: You can speak to one plant within 5 feet of you at a time, imbuing it with limited intelligence and the ability to communicate simple ideas through small words and sentences.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Naturally Stealthy: You can attempt to hide even when obscured only by a creature at least one size larger than you.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Fey Resistance: You have advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip and one additional cantrip of your choice from either the Bard or Druid spell list using only your pixie dust as a spell component. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and shortbows.

Changes: Unchanged


Life Before Death: Ghosts are not a race unto themselves, but a condition afflicting creatures who died with unfinished business. To create a ghost, first create a character of any playable race.

As a ghost, you retain the following traits from your base race:
- Ability score increases
- Creature type
- Hit points
- Languages
- Size

All other traits of your base race are replaced by:

Alignment: Death is a traumatic experience, and often pushes a creature's alignment to an extreme it never approached in life. Ghosts are rarely neutral.
Type: You gain the Undead creature type.
Speed: You have no base walking speed.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 40 feet with a maximum altitude of 20 feet. You may cross areas where you altitude would become temporarily greater, such as flying over a chasm, as long as you end your turn within your maximum altitude; otherwise you slowly fall until you reach 20 feet above ground. Your flight is magical and its speed cannot be increased except by the Haste spell.
Ethereal: You have resistance to all non-magical weapon attacks, and are immune to all harmful conditions.
Incorporeal: Your carrying capacity if halved. You may pass through physical obstacles and creatures as though they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 Force damage if you end your turn inside of a creature or object.
Possession: Once a day, choose a creature within 5 feet of you to make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC (Charisma) or be possessed by you. A willing creature may choose to fail this save. Creatures who are not of your base creature type have advantage on their saving throws, and Possession counts as a Charm effect when determining resistances and immunities. If the creature succeeds on this saving throw they have immunity to being possessed by you for 24 hours, but you may attempt to possess another creature after a recharge roll of 5-6 at the beginning of your turn.
While possessing a creature your body vanishes and you cannot be targeted by any attacks, spells, or magical effects except ones that turn undead. You take damage equal to half of any damage dealt to the target of your possession, but do not benefit from healing done to the target of your possession. Your movement speed, Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores, and resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities except for your immunity to being frightened or charmed are replaced by your target's, and you gain access to any equipment or natural weapons they have. You do not have access to the creature's proficiencies, skills, class abilities, knowledge, or memories, or your ghost traits except for your immunity to be frightened or charmed and the ability.
The possessed creature is incapacitated while possessed, but remains aware of what is going on. At the start of each of the creature's turns they may repeat their saving throw, expelling you from their body on a successful save. After succeeding in their saving throw, a creature is immune to being possessed by you again for 24 hours. Your possession lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier +1, or until the creature makes its save, drops to 0 hit points, you are banished by a spell or magical effect that turns undead, or you choose to end your possession as a bonus action. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again after possessing a creature for any length of time.
Undead Nature: You do not need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You cannot be healed by magic or medicine, but recover hit points as normal during long and short rests.
Subraces: Ghosts come in two varieties: poltergeists and phantoms. Choose one of these subtypes.

Poltergeist

Object Possession: You can target inanimate objects of medium or smaller size not being worn or carried by another creature with your Possession trait. Inanimate objects have no saving throw against possession or immunity to being possessed again after the effect ends. You regain use of your Possession trait after a recharge roll of 5-6 after possessing an object. You retain your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores while possessing an object in addition to the statistics you would retain when possessing a creature. While possessed, objects have statistics as shown in the table below, and add your proficiency and ability modifiers to attack and damage rolls the same as making a standard weapon attack:



Object Type
Size
HP
AC
Damage
Type


Light Armor
As base item
25
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Medium Armor
As base item
40
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Heavy Armor
As base item
50
As base item
As unarmed attack
Bludgeoning


Shield
Small
25
18
1d8
Bludgeoning


Light Weapon
Tiny
20
16+Dex
As base item
As base item


Normal Weapon
Small
25
14+Dex
As base item
As base item


Heavy or Two-Handed Weapon
Medium
30
11+Dex
As base item
As base item


Miscellaneous
Tiny
20
16+Dex
1d4 (Finesse)
Bludgeoning



Small
25
14+Dex
1d8
Bludgeoning



Medium
30
11+Dex
2d6
Bludgeoning




An object possessed by you is a construct. Its speed is 30 feet. If the object lacks legs or other appendages it can use for locomotion, it instead has a flying speed of 30 feet according to the same rules as yours. While possessing an object you have blindsight with a radius of 30 feet, beyond which you are blind. Weapons with the Versatile property are considered Normal weapons in the above table, but have the AC of a Two-Handed weapon after making an attack with its higher damage dice until the start of your next turn, or until making another attack with its lower damage dice. When an object drops to 0 hit points, you are expelled from the object. Objects damaged while you are possessing them can be repaired by the Mending cantrip or similar effects, but you are not healed by them. While possessing a suit of armor you can wield weapons and use equipment as if you had a physical body. While possessing an object with an on-use ability, you may Use Device on your possessed object as a bonus action.

Phantom

Horrifying Visage: All hostile non-undead creatures within 60 feet who can see you must succeed a Wisdom saving throw (DC 10+ your Charisma modifier) or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target is paralyzed with fear. This saving throw may be repeated at the end of each of the creature’s turns, ending the condition on a success. Upon succeeding their saving throw the creature is immune to your Horrifying Visage for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Withering Touch: You can cast the Chill Touch cantrip as a touch attack. Charisma is your casting ability for this spell.

Changes: Clarifications to possession rules. Added proficiency bonus to possession save DC. Allowed for Possession to recharge if the target makes its first saving throw, and to recharge after possessing objects as a poltergeist. Changed weapon classifications for possessed objects based on Light, Normal, and Heavy/Two-Handed properties rather than Simple/Martial/Heavy classification, with a special rule for Versatile weapons. Removed static +damage from possessed objects; they now use the ghost's ability modifier like normal weapon attacks.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nimble Escape: The first opportunity attack you provoke on each turn has disadvantage against you.
Beast Affinity: You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill and have advantage when handling rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak Common and Elvish, but cannot read or write.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Siren Song: Starting at 3rd level you can weave a magical song, suggesting a simple course of action that those who hear you are magically compelled to follow. Choose up to 3 creatures within 30 feet who can hear you to roll a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target creature becomes charmed as if under the effects of the Suggestion spell. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action on following turns to continue the song, or its effects end. If the target loses the ability to hear or understand you, or moves further than 30 feet from you, the song's effect ends on them. A creature who succeeds on their saving throw or who is freed from your song is immune to it for 24 fours. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. Your DM may ask you to actually sing.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Languages: You can understand, read, and write Common and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 60 feet.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Oni stand close to 8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Kanabo: You are proficient with greatclubs, and deal 1d10 bludgeoning damage with them in your oni form.
Shadow Magic: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Sleep spell once per day. Starting at 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: Common, Giant

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Draining Kiss: You may kiss an incapacitated or willing creature who must then succeed a Constitution saving throw against your Charisma DC. On a failed save the target takes 1d8 +Charisma psychic damage and their hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount, or half as much damage on a successful save. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again. The damage and hit point reduction of this ability increase by 1d8 at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Charm Person spell once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. You can change your sex independently of your form as a bonus action.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Trolls are around 8 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make attacks with disadvantage unless you can see its target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: After taking damage equal to at least 1/2 of your hit points in one round you may use your reaction to regenerate. For the next four rounds you recover hit point equal to half your level rounded down, minimum 1. You cannot use this trait if any of the inciting damage was of the Fire or Acid type, and taking Fire or Acid damage ends the healing effect. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. You may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their remains less than 6 hours old you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: Common, Draconic
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may add 2d6 poison damage to a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Make a melee weapon attack to grapple a creature within 10 feet (escape DC 10+Strength). Deals 2d6 + Strength bludgeoning damage, and restrains the target until the grapple ends. You must use an attack action to maintain the grapple on following turns, and are immobile and cannot constrict another target until the grapple ends.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: Your spellcasting ability is Charisma. You can innately cast the following spells without any material components:
At will: Poison Spray
3/day: Animal Friendship (snakes only)
1/day: Suggestion (requires 3rd level)
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.

Changes: Unchanged.


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Changes: Unchanged.

Wryte
2016-07-06, 02:45 AM
v1.3. Ghosts overhauled as a template instead of a race.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Centaur tend toward good or neutrality.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 40 feet.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Type: You are a monstrosity.
Charge: When you use the Dash action during your turn, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action.
Hooves: You rear up and strike with both your forehooves, using your attack and bonus attack actions to deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage plus your Strength modifier and gaining advantage on a check to shove your target. Your hooves are a natural weapon with which you are proficient.
Nomad: You are proficient in the Survival skill.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Unchanged


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Dryads are aloof to most concerns beyond their trees and the lands that surround them. Dryads tend toward neutrality.
Size: Dryads vary in size depending on the size of the tree they are bound to. You may choose your size category from Tiny to Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed varies with your size. Starting at 20 feet, add 5 feet of movement for each size category above Tiny.
Type: You are a fey.
Arboreal Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you can cast the Entangle spell once per day with this trait, and when you reach 5th level you can cast the Pass Without Trace spell once per day with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Leaftongue: You can speak to one plant within 5 feet of you at a time, imbuing it with limited intelligence and the ability to communicate simple ideas through small words and sentences.
Tree Bond: Your soul is bound to a tree somewhere in the land. You always know where you are in relation to your tree, and its current condition. Any damage done to your tree is also done to you with no chance to save, and if your tree is destroyed, you descend into madness.
Tree Stride: Once per round you may use 10 feet of movement to step into a tree and emerge from another within 60 feet. Both trees must be at least one size category above you. You must complete a short or long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age:
Alignment: Fairies tend toward Good alignments.
Size: Fairies average under one foot in height. Your size is Tiny. Your carrying capacity is half that of a Medium creature with the same Strength. Your wingspan is 2.5 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 10 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 30 feet. Your wings require 5 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fey.
Naturally Stealthy: You can attempt to hide even when obscured only by a creature at least one size larger than you.
Shrink: Once a day you can shrink or un-shrink an inanimate object such as a set of armor or a weapon to the right size for your use, retaining the same stats and properties as its full-sized version. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.
Subrace: Fairies come in two varieties: pixies and sprites. Choose one of these subraces.

Pixie
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Fey Resistance: You have advantage on saving throws against being Charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Pixie Magic: You know the Druidcraft cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Faerie Fire spell once, and starting at 5th level you can cast the Invisibility spell on yourself once. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your casting ability for theses spells.

Sprite
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Heart Sight: You know the current emotional state of a creature just by touching them. The creature must succeed on a DC10 Charisma saving throw, or you also know their alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail this check.
Poison Brewer: You have proficiency with Poisoner’s Kits, and know how to brew Sprite Poison. A target hit by a slashing or piercing weapon coated in Sprite Poison much succeed a DC10 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned for 1 minute. If the saving throw is 5 or lower, the target also falls unconscious for the same duration, or until they take damage or another creature uses an action to wake them.
Sprite Weapon Training: You have proficiency with longswords, shortswords, and longbows, shortbows.

Changes: Sprite Weapon Training now also grants proficiency with longbows.


A beast, giant, humanoid, or monstrosity can become a ghost. When a creature becomes a ghost it retains all its statistics except as listed below.

Age: The ghost ceases to age.
Alignment: Death is a traumatic experience that often strips away positive feelings and amplifies the negative. Ghosts are rarely Good.
Speed: The ghost does not have a walking speed. Instead, they have a base flight speed equal to their original base walking speed. Ghosts cannot fly above 10 feet off the ground, although they can cross gaps exceeding that distance as long as they have enough movement. If a ghost ends its turn more than 10 feet above the ground, they slowly fall until they are 10 feet above the ground again. The ghost may pass through solid creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, and takes 1d10 force damage if it ends its turn inside a creature or object.
Type: The ghost gains the Undead creature type. The ghost no longer requires air, food or water, or sleep, and cannot be healed by magic or medicine. The ghost is immune to all status conditions except those inflicted by spells or magical effects which specify that they work on the undead in their descriptions.
Etherealness: As an action the ghost may shift from the material plane to the ethereal plane or vice versa. The ghost can see and be seen for 60 feet on whichever plane it is not currently occupying, but cannot affect anything on the other plane, and takes half damage from any source on the plane it is not currently occupying. As a bonus action, the ghost can temporarily shift from the material plane to the ethereal plane or vice versa, returning to the plane it started its turn on at the end of its turn.
Haunt: A ghost is bound to the world of the living by its attachment to a particular person or place. When applying the ghost template to a creature, designate a creature or place with some significance to the ghost, such as a close friend or the site of their death, to which the ghost is bound. The ghost takes psychic damage equal to five times its character level for each hour that it is more than a quarter mile away from the creature it is bound to, or more than 10 miles from the place it is bound to. If the creature the ghost is haunting dies, the ghost must continue to haunt the creature's remains until they can perform a 2 hour ritual to designate another creature to haunt.
Ghostly Powers: The ghost has one of the following features of your choice:
Horrifying Visage: The ghost can cast the Fear spell once without requiring any material components. It regains this feature after a short rest. Charisma is its casting ability for this spell.
Possession: Starting at 6th level the ghost can assume control of a creature who fails a Wisdom saving throw. The ghost's body disappears while it is possessing a creature and cannot be targeted by spells or attacks except those that turn undead, and uses the creature's statistics in place of its own except for Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and alignment. The creature retains full awareness of what is happening, and the ghost does not gain access to its proficiencies, class features, or memories. Possession lasts for a number of rounds equal to half the ghost's character level, rounded down, or until the possessed creature reaches 0 hit points, the ghost is turned by magic, or the creature succeeds a Wisdom saving throw at the end of its turn, at which time the ghost reappears in a space within 5 feet of the possessed creature. The ghost may end its possession at any time as a free action. Charisma is the ghost's casting ability for the target's Wisdom saving throw, and the ghost must finish a long rest before using this feature again. Possession is a charm effect.
Withering Touch: The ghost cast the Chill Touch cantrip as a melee spell attack at will. Charisma is its casting ability for this spell.

Variant: Poltergeist
A rather than a person or a place, a poltergeist's soul is bound to an object which anchors them to the material plane. Instead of the Etherealness and Haunt features, the poltergeist has the Haunt Object feature. With this feature, the poltergeist may perform a 2 hour ritual to designate an inanimate object instead of a person or place as their anchor to the material plane, allowing them to animate the object by possessing it indefinitely and at will. If the poltergeist's anchor is destroyed, they have 24 hours to anchor themselves to another object, or they pass on to the afterlife. Objects other than weapons and armor possessed by the poltergeist have AC and damage dice as described by size category in the Animate Objects spell, and otherwise use the poltergeist's statistics. Weapons possessed by the poltergeist use their own damage dice. Armor possessed by the poltergeist substitutes a walking speed according to the size of the armor for the poltergeist's flying speed, and otherwise functions as if being worn by the poltergeist. The poltergeist loses its proficiency bonus when possessing weapons or armor it is not proficient with.

Changes:Total overhaul as a template rather than a race.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Goblins tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Your size category is Small.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 25 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the goblinoid subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nimble Escape: The first opportunity attack you provoke on each turn has disadvantage against you.
Beast Affinity: You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill and have advantage when handling rats or wolves.
Trap Expertise: You can spend 30 minutes to craft a makeshift hunting trap from available materials. This trap breaks three turns after being triggered, or if the victim is freed from it. You may also add double your proficiency bonus to your passive perception for the purpose of detecting traps.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity and Charisma scores increase by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Harpies tend to be Chaotic, Neutral, or Evil, living as solitary hunters concerned with little beyond their next meal and any treasure they may pilfer from their victims.
Size: Harpies average around 5 feet tall. Your size is Medium. Your wingspan is 10 feet.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the harpy subtype.
Flight: Your base flight speed is 40 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish.
Subrace: Harpies are divided into two types depending on their hunting preferences: Sirens and Raptors. Choose one of these subraces.

Siren
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 1.
Siren Song: Starting at 3rd level you can weave a magical song, suggesting a simple course of action that those who hear you are magically compelled to follow. Choose up to 3 creatures within 30 feet who can hear you to roll a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target creature becomes charmed as if under the effects of the Suggestion spell. You must maintain concentration and use a bonus action on following turns to continue the song, or its effects end. If the target loses the ability to hear or understand you, or moves further than 30 feet from you, the song's effect ends on them. A creature who succeeds on their saving throw or who is freed from your song is immune to it for 24 hours. You must complete a long rest before using this trait again. Your DM may ask you to actually sing.
Melodious Tongue: You are proficient in the Persuasion skill.

Raptor
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity increases by 1.
Eagle Eye: You are proficient in Perception, and can see up to a quarter mile away in detail.
Talons: You are proficient in performing unarmed attacks with your talons, dealing 1d4 Slashing damage. You may use either your Strength or Dexterity scores for attacks rolls and damage rolls with your talons.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Due to the grisly nature of their diet, mind flayers are almost always Evil.
Size: Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are an aberration.
Mind Taker: You do not consume normal food or water, but rather subsist on the psychic energy taken from devouring humanoid brains and their thoughts. You can survive on the mere thoughts of humanoids for up to a week, but must consume a humanoid’s actual brain for proper nourishment at least once every seven days or suffer one level of exhaustion until you can eat one.
Psionics: You can cast the Eldritch Blast cantrip as a psionic ability (Recharge 3-6). At 3rd level you can cast Detect Thoughts as a psionic ability (recharge 5-6). Intelligence is your casting ability for these spells.
Tentacles: You are proficient with your tentacles as a natural weapon attack dealing 1d4 psychic damage. If you succeed in your attack roll by 5 or more and the target creature is Medium or smaller, they become grappled. Once per day you may attempt to stun a creature grappled by your tentacles. The target creature must succeed an Intelligence saving throw against your Intelligence DC or be stunned until the end of their next turn. You must complete a long rest before attempting to stun again.
Languages: You can understand, read, and write Common and Deep Speech. You are telepathic up to 60 feet.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Oni tend toward Evil alignments.
Size: Oni stand close to 8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Kanabo: You are proficient with greatclubs, and may replace their normal damage die with a d10 when making an attack you do not have disadvantage on.
Shadow Magic: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Sleep spell once per day. Starting at 5th level you can cast the Darkness spell once per day. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: As a standard action you may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Giant.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age:
Alignment: As fiends, succubi are always evil in alignment. They tend more toward lawful or chaotic depending on whether they were spawned as devils or demons.
Size: Succubi average between 5 and 6 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight: Your base flying speed is 10 feet. Your wings require 15 feet of space while flying.
Type: You are a fiend.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Demonic Flight: Your wings are weak at first, requiring time to reach their full strength. Your base flying speed increases by 10 feet at 6th, 11th, and 16th levels.
Fiendish Charm: You are proficient in the Persuasion ability, and have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce humanoid creatures.
Infernal Bewitchment: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you may cast the Charm Person spell once, and starting at 5th level you may cast the Hold Person spell once. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Shapechanger: You may polymorph yourself into a small or medium humanoid. You lose your flying speed if you are polymorphed into a creature without wings, but otherwise retain the same stats as your base form. Your equipment does not transform. Your new form lasts until you revert to your original form as a free action, or until magical effects on you are suppressed or removed such as by an Antimagic Field or Dispel Magic spell. You must complete a long rest after reverting to your original form before using this ability again.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and either Abyssal if you are a demon or Infernal if you are a devil.

Tiefling Variant: Tiefubus
The blood of a succubus or incubus flows particularly strongly in your veins, manifestation of your infernal heritage slightly differently.
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increase is replaced by a Dexterity score increase of 1.
Your Hellish Resistance trait is replaced by the Fiendish Charm trait: You are proficient in the Persuasion ability, and have advantage on Persuasion checks to seduce humanoid creatures.
Your Infernal Legacy trait is replaced by the Infernal Bewitchment trait: You know the Friends cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you may cast the Charm Person spell once, and starting at 5th level you may cast the Alter Self spell once. You regain all uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Omnibus: You can change your sex over 10 minutes of concentration. Your equipment does not transform. You must complete a long rest before using this ability again.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score is increased by 2 and your Strength score is increased by 1.
Age:
Alignment: Trolls are stupid, solitary, and always hungry. They are almost always Chaotic Evil.
Size: Trolls are around 8 feet tall. Your size category is Medium.
Speed: Your base movement speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a giant.
Keen Smell: You have advantage on Perception (Wisdom) checks involving smell.
Loathsome Limbs: As an action you may use a slashing weapon to remove one of your limbs or your head. A severed body part has an AC of 10, ¼ of your hit points at the time it was severed, and your Regeneration trait. A leg has a movement speed of 5 and you lose half your movement speed for each leg you are missing. An arm has a movement speed of 5 and may make unarmed attacks or attack with any weapon it was holding; your arms have disadvantage on attack rolls if you cannot see their target. Your head has a movement speed of 0 and your Keen Smell trait, and your body is blind unless you can see it. You can regenerate a severed body part over the course of a long rest. If you do so, the severed part withers away.
Regeneration: You have a pool of hit points equal to your character level +5. As an action you may make a Constitution check to recover up to the maximum number of hit points remaining in your pool, where the DC is equal to 10 +the number of hit points you are attempting to recover. You cannot use this trait if you have taken Fire or Acid damage since the end of your last turn. You recover your entire pool of regeneration points after a long rest. Additionally, you may take an action to reattach a severed limb as if it had never been cut off.
You Are What You Eat: When you spend 10 minutes eating another creature or their remains less than 6 hours old you gain 1 point in the creature’s highest attribute score, a trait of your DM’s choice, and superficial aspects of the creature’s appearance for the next 24 hours. You cannot gain traits from another creature until the first set of traits has worn off.
Languages: You can speak Common and Giant.

Variation: Troll Freak: You have eaten so many of a certain type of creature that you have permanently adopted the traits you gained from eating it. You cannot gain new traits from You Are What You Eat.

Changes: Unchanged.


Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: As humans.
Alignment: Yuan-ti tend toward evil alignments.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Type: You are a humanoid of the yuan-ti subtype.
Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Serpent Blood: You are resistant to poison damage, and have advantage to save against being poisoned.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic.
Subrace: Yuan-ti society is divided into three castes according to the extent of an individual’s serpentine transformation: Abominations, Fanged and Tailed Malisons, and Purebloods. Chose one of these subraces.

Abomination
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + your Strength modifier Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may inflict the Poisoned condition on the target of a successful bite attack.
Constrict: Using your tail, you can make grapple attacks against creatures within 10 feet of you. A creature grappled in your tail takes 1d6 + your Strength modifier Bludgeoning damage at the end of your turn.

Fanged Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Bite: Make a melee weapon attack to deal 1d4 + Strength Piercing damage. Once per short rest you may inflict the Poisoned condition on the target of a successful bite attack.
Serpent Magic: Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Animal Friendship on snakes spell up to 3 times, and starting at 5th level you can cast the Suggestion spell once with this trait. You regain all expended uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your casting ability for these spells.

Tailed Malison
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength and Charisma scores each increase by 1.
Constrict: Using your tail, you can make grapple attacks against creatures within 10 feet of you. A creature grappled in your tail takes 1d6 + your Strength modifier Bludgeoning damage at the end of your turn.
Serpent Magic: Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Animal Friendship on snakes spell up to 3 times, and starting at 5th level you can cast the Suggestion spell once with this trait. You regain all expended uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your casting ability for these spells.

Pureblood
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma and Intelligence scores each increase by 1.
Serpent Magic: You know the Poison Spray cantrip. Starting at 3rd level you can cast the Animal Friendship on snakes spell up to 3 times, and starting at 5th level you can cast the Suggestion spell once with this trait. You regain all expended uses of these spells after a long rest. Charisma is your casting ability for these spells.
Uncorrupted: You have advantage on Deception skill checks to pass for human.

Changes: Changed Bite to inflict the Poisoned condition 1/short rest instead of adding poison damage 1/short rest. Reworded Constrict to be more congruent with normal grappling rules and reduced damage to 1d6 from 2d6. Bumped Animal Friendship (snakes) innate casting up to 3rd level and Suggestion up to 5th to be in line with other innate casting racial traits. Question: is the Abomination too pigeonholed into warrior roles with this trait set?


You can remain airborne for a number of rounds equal to your Strength modifier. For each round you remain in the air after that, you must succeed a Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. The DC on this saving throw is 15 for the first round, increasing by 1 for each subsequent round that you remain in the air.

Ascending while flying uses twice the movement.

While flying, you must count your body weight toward your weight load.

You cannot fly in any area with less than 5 feet of clearance for your wingspan. This requirement is halved for Tiny creatures, and doubled for each size category above Medium.

You cannot fly while under any condition that prevents use of your wings, such as paralysis or being restrained. If you are affected by any such condition while flying, you immediately plummet to the ground, taking fall damage.

Your flight speed is not affected by increases or decreases to your walking speed except for the Haste spell.

You cannot fly while wearing armor you are not proficient with or that does not accommodate your wings. You have disadvantage using Heavy weapons while flying.

Strong winds and adverse weather conditions like snow or heavy rain are difficult terrain for flying.

Changes: Unchanged.

Wryte
2016-07-09, 04:16 PM
Oops, posted newest update as an edit instead of a new post.

Slick_
2016-10-10, 08:26 AM
I really like what you did with the Mind Flayer idea, but I think you might want to change the "grapple stun" to one round. I'm probably going to use the template (after I tweak a couple things) and make a badass wizard character with it. Thanks for the awesome post! :smallbiggrin: