Kenku Troubles

[ad_hoc]

What do you think of the Kenku in Volo's? I am a bit confused by their design and they seem a tad weak.

In the MM they have 10/16/10/11/10/10 for stats. I was expecting the +2 Dex but the +1 Wis feels out of place. I was expecting Int or Cha. They have 11 Int in the MM and now the forgery ability and have Mimicry, an ability which relies on Charisma.

They lost Ambusher which makes sense, as it was too good. They also lost deception expertise which hurts their mimicry ability which is left unchanged. They gain forgery which makes sense.

Does the Wisdom bonus make sense to anyone else?

Do they still feel like the masters of mimicry without Charisma or expertise deception bonuses?

[MrFahrenheit]

What do you think of the Kenku in Volo's? I am a bit confused by their design and they seem a tad weak.

In the MM they have 10/16/10/11/10/10 for stats. I was expecting the +2 Dex but the +1 Wis feels out of place. I was expecting Int or Cha. They have 11 Int in the MM and now the forgery ability and have Mimicry, an ability which relies on Charisma.

They lost Ambusher which makes sense, as it was too good. They also lost deception expertise which hurts their mimicry ability which is left unchanged. They gain forgery which makes sense.

Does the Wisdom bonus make sense to anyone else?

Do they still feel like the masters of mimicry without Charisma or expertise deception bonuses?

I don't have Volo's yet (T minus five days though), so take this with a grain of salt:

The lack of charisma and deception expertise makes sense to me, given how I'd rule the following situations...

Kenku player is out of sight of bad guy who's buddy he is mimicking: advantage on deception.

Kenku player is right in front of bad guy and trying to deceive him: using bad guy ally's voice? That's silly. Disadvantage. Using a different voice? Regular roll.

Deception expertise could've only applied to the former situation, so it can be replaced with advantage to even things out. Expertise with disadvantage is still way to the player's favor, especially as levels go up and the static bonus grows.

[MrFahrenheit]

That being said, kenkus are supposed to be streetwise, iirc. So the wis bump makes sense. Not getting a cha bump further makes sense when you consider that people would be aware of mimicry.

[CursedRhubarb]

They look like a lot of fun to play but they could be a hard race to master. The +1 Wis makes sense since part of their schtick is that they can't come up with new ideas or creative solutions. They are masters of mimicry and after seeing, reading, or hearing about tactics, plans, or the like they can implement those same plans identically, but can not adjust on the fly.

The inability to be able to adjust plans or create their own make sense to me for no Cha or Int bonus. They can mimic a person, but can only use words that person has used, so it could be a bit rough if their ruse gets questioned.

They could be rough to play but man they look fun. Who needs to steal the keys to get into a place. If one is in the party with smithing tool proficiency, distract the guard so they can get a look at their keyring then later they can make their own set :D.

They need a companion that's the brains of the operation to help them with changing things up on the fly.

[Mith]

Kenku and Aarakocha duo?

[ad_hoc]

They look like a lot of fun to play but they could be a hard race to master. The +1 Wis makes sense since part of their schtick is that they can't come up with new ideas or creative solutions. They are masters of mimicry and after seeing, reading, or hearing about tactics, plans, or the like they can implement those same plans identically, but can not adjust on the fly.

I don't understand how not doing something relates to wisdom. Kenku adventurers are even described as being 'daring'. The base MM Kenku have a 10 Wisdom, but adventurers who are more daring than those have higher Wisdom which doesn't make sense.

They aren't actually masters of mimicry. It says that they can "perfectly mimic any sound they hear" but then later it says a Wisdom check opposed by their Charisma check can reveal it to be fake. How can it be revealed to be fake if it is perfect? A character with a high Charisma, esp. if they have the Actor feat is much better at mimicry than a Kenku.



The inability to be able to adjust plans or create their own make sense to me for no Cha or Int bonus. They can mimic a person, but can only use words that person has used, so it could be a bit rough if their ruse gets questioned.

They are described as having a "talent for learning and memorizing details" which is what intelligence is. Their leaders are not the wisest, they are the ones with the "widest store of knowledge."



They could be rough to play but man they look fun. Who needs to steal the keys to get into a place. If one is in the party with smithing tool proficiency, distract the guard so they can get a look at their keyring then later they can make their own set :D.

How do you remember what the key looked like without intelligence?

[cobaltstarfire]

A lot of people tend to associated memory with wisdom, a common example used is the absent minded professor as being high Int low Wis.


Though if their mimicry ability only relates to things they have heard, they couldn't duplicate the key by sight anyway.

[ad_hoc]

A lot of people tend to associated memory with wisdom, a common example used is the absent minded professor as being high Int low Wis.


In 5e Intelligence is your ability to remember things. That is why all the knowledge skills are Intelligence.

Wisdom is your intuition. So it is your ability to apply or adapt what you have learned to the situation. It would make sense for Kenku to be bad at that because they can't improvise.



Though if their mimicry ability only relates to things they have heard, they couldn't duplicate the key by sight anyway.

They have a forgery ability which relies on Intelligence.

[eastmabl]

Kenku and Aarakocha duo?

Don't you know that the bird is the...

[RickAllison]

Don't you know that the bird is the...

Dang it, now my players are going to meet a birdy bard band...

Actually, Kenku seem like the perfect people to illustrate the difference between Performance and instrument proficiency.

[Twigwit]

Kenku are weak because the race is built around having a more limited, audio-only version of the Minor Illusion cantrip. Expert Forgery is also a joke. There aren't any in depth rules for crafting to begin with, let alone crafting forgeries. So when you need to roll the dice for rules that are essentially non-existent, you get Advantage on the roll. Fantastic.

[RickAllison]

Kenku are weak because the race is built around having a more limited, audio-only version of the Minor Illusion cantrip. Expert Forgery is also a joke. There aren't any in depth rules for crafting to begin with, let alone crafting forgeries. So when you need to roll the dice for rules that are essentially non-existent, you get Advantage on the roll. Fantastic.

To be fair, having both that ability and Minor Illusion would be fantastic. It is definitely more of a race for a city-based campaign rather than a dungeon crawl.