The Ship's dog
2017-07-24, 05:52 AM
Hello there!
As a DM of a rather unique (shall we say) group of people that frequently have rather funky character concepts, I've come up with a step by step method to building homebrew races D&D 5e.
Seeing as this is an area that is a bit iffy on how you should go about it, I thought that I would share this process with all of you to make it easier.
There are a few guidelines that I always take into consideration when doing this sort of thing. This is to try and keep the end product balanced in comparison with all other official PC races.
1. If you dont want to go through the process of making a race, always look to see if you can re-skin an existing one. There's no shame in it and, if you do it well, your players won't notice a thing.
2. Try to gauge, from the very start, if it is even possible to make something into a balanced player race. For example, I would quite happily (and will do later on in this guide) make a Dryad player race. I would not, however, even touch trying to make even an adolescent Dragon into a player race, it is just way too much.
3. When giving abilities to the race, always use as many abilities from existing official player races as possible. When I say 'official player races' (here-on referred to using the acronym OPR), I mean officially published non-UA races that have been playtested already, this means that they stay balanced easily and without too much change most of the time.
4. As I said before, don't be afraid to re-skin abilities if they don't quite fit for what you had in mind. It makes the whole thing a lot easier.
5. Use your own judgement. This one is a bit difficult because it depends on the DM, but a good way is to find an OPR with similar abilities and size your race up compared with them.
6. Remember, these are guidelines, you don't have to follow them, it just makes it a bit easier.
Ok, onto the steps. For this example, we will be using the Dryad.
1. Look at special senses and size and obvious thing like creature type, do they have Darkvision? Do they have Blindsight? Small? Large? Aberration? Humanoid?
The Dryad has Darkvision, so we add Darkvision out to 60ft. Size Medium, Fey type.
2. Look at their traits and abilities (I hardly ever look at the actions as they are quite often too hard to implement in a balanced way). For the Dryad, they have Innate Spellcasting, Tree Stride, Speak with Beasts and Plants, and Magical Resistance.
3. Decide if there are too many or they are too strong.
Innate Spellcasting is easily balanced so that's in.
Tree Stride is a cool and fun ability that I'd love to see on a PC.
Speak with Beasts and Plants is basically a buffed version of the one that Forest Gnomes get, still might want to tweak it a bit though so that a spellcaster doesn't feel cheated too much.
Magical Resistance... This one is tricky. Even though the Yuan-Ti Pureblood from VGTM has this, it is still waaaaay too good in its base form, as many people have said, but there are ways of balancing it.
Overall it is a bit too much to stick onto a single race IMO, so possibly some subraces may have to be implemented. Possibly not though
4. Look for things that are the same on other OPRs.
There are plenty of OPRs with Innate Spellcasting (see step 5. For tweaking existing traits), so that's easy.
There are none with Tree Stride, but I'm using my judgement to say that it is at least on par with Flying OPRs, if not worse. I still would lower the range or make it a short rest ability though.
Speak with Beasts and Plants will need a bit of tweaking, but it's quite similar to the aforesaid Forest Gnome ability.
Magical Resistance isextremely strong (as has already been said), but it is similar to the Gnomish Cunning ability.
5. Tweak if needed!
I'll get to Innate Spellcasting later.
Tree Stride will need to be made a 1/long rest ability. I say this because I want to keep the awesome mobility of the ability, but not make it so that the PC can just play piggy-in-the-middle with the enemy. Lowering the speed would lose some of the awesome mobility without really changing the aforesaid 'piggy problem' much.
Speak with Beasts and Plants will need to be changed to be kept on-par with the Gnome version. So basically just a re-skin except with plants thrown in.
Magical Resistance can be a changed Gnomish Cunning. Now when messing around with saving throws, you need to be careful, you may accidentally buff an ability more than you meant to. For this reason, I am just re-skinning the Gnomish Cunning ability.
All OPRs with Innate Spellcasting have a Cantrip at level 1, a level 1 spell at level 3, and a level 2 spell at level 5.
The Dryad's Cantrip is obvious: Druidcraft
The level 1 and 2 spells are interesting, this is where I think that subraces should be employed unfortunately.
The first subrace is more focused on being sneaky and attacking the enemies of the forest, so its 1st level spell will be Entangle and its 2nd level spell will be Pass Without Trace.
The second subrace will be about healing and protecting who are injured, so its spells are Goodberry and Barkskin (only itself though to keep this from getting out of hand).
The Dryad uses Charisma, so this race will as well.
6. Add things if needed. Usually I try to avoid this, but with the Dryad, Tree Stride is needed to be added.
7. Determine ability scores. This part is usually easy, for the Dryad, +2 to Charisma and +1 to Wisdom.
And that's the end! Please give constructive criticism.
Size: Medium
Type: Fey
Ability score increases: +2 to Charisma and +1 to Wisdom
Speed: 30ft
Traits:
Tree Stride: Tree Stride: Once on your turn, you can use 10 ft. of your Movement to step magically into one living tree within your reach and emerge from a second living tree within 60 ft. of the first tree, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 ft. of the second tree. Both trees must be large or bigger. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.
Speak with Beasts and Plants: You can speak with rats, small birds, foxes, and other small woodland creatures (as well as small plants) as if you shared a language with them.
Subraces:
Grovetenders, these Dryads are more focused on helping those injured and tending to the sick or protecting themselves from harm when they shield others.
Innate Spellcasting:
At level 1 you know the Druidcraft Cantrip and can cast it at will.
At level 3 you know the Goodberry spell, at level 5 you know the Barkskin spell (targeting only yourself), both of these spells you can cast once per Long Rest.
Umbral Walkers. These Dryads are skilled at spying and subterfuge to lead threats away from the forests, or simply immobilising them and letting the beasts deal with the intruders.
Innate Spellcasting:
At level 1 you know the Druidcraft Cantrip and can cast it at will.
At level 3 you know the Entangle spell, at level 5 you know the Pass Without Trace spell, both of these spells you can cast once per Long Rest.
As a DM of a rather unique (shall we say) group of people that frequently have rather funky character concepts, I've come up with a step by step method to building homebrew races D&D 5e.
Seeing as this is an area that is a bit iffy on how you should go about it, I thought that I would share this process with all of you to make it easier.
There are a few guidelines that I always take into consideration when doing this sort of thing. This is to try and keep the end product balanced in comparison with all other official PC races.
1. If you dont want to go through the process of making a race, always look to see if you can re-skin an existing one. There's no shame in it and, if you do it well, your players won't notice a thing.
2. Try to gauge, from the very start, if it is even possible to make something into a balanced player race. For example, I would quite happily (and will do later on in this guide) make a Dryad player race. I would not, however, even touch trying to make even an adolescent Dragon into a player race, it is just way too much.
3. When giving abilities to the race, always use as many abilities from existing official player races as possible. When I say 'official player races' (here-on referred to using the acronym OPR), I mean officially published non-UA races that have been playtested already, this means that they stay balanced easily and without too much change most of the time.
4. As I said before, don't be afraid to re-skin abilities if they don't quite fit for what you had in mind. It makes the whole thing a lot easier.
5. Use your own judgement. This one is a bit difficult because it depends on the DM, but a good way is to find an OPR with similar abilities and size your race up compared with them.
6. Remember, these are guidelines, you don't have to follow them, it just makes it a bit easier.
Ok, onto the steps. For this example, we will be using the Dryad.
1. Look at special senses and size and obvious thing like creature type, do they have Darkvision? Do they have Blindsight? Small? Large? Aberration? Humanoid?
The Dryad has Darkvision, so we add Darkvision out to 60ft. Size Medium, Fey type.
2. Look at their traits and abilities (I hardly ever look at the actions as they are quite often too hard to implement in a balanced way). For the Dryad, they have Innate Spellcasting, Tree Stride, Speak with Beasts and Plants, and Magical Resistance.
3. Decide if there are too many or they are too strong.
Innate Spellcasting is easily balanced so that's in.
Tree Stride is a cool and fun ability that I'd love to see on a PC.
Speak with Beasts and Plants is basically a buffed version of the one that Forest Gnomes get, still might want to tweak it a bit though so that a spellcaster doesn't feel cheated too much.
Magical Resistance... This one is tricky. Even though the Yuan-Ti Pureblood from VGTM has this, it is still waaaaay too good in its base form, as many people have said, but there are ways of balancing it.
Overall it is a bit too much to stick onto a single race IMO, so possibly some subraces may have to be implemented. Possibly not though
4. Look for things that are the same on other OPRs.
There are plenty of OPRs with Innate Spellcasting (see step 5. For tweaking existing traits), so that's easy.
There are none with Tree Stride, but I'm using my judgement to say that it is at least on par with Flying OPRs, if not worse. I still would lower the range or make it a short rest ability though.
Speak with Beasts and Plants will need a bit of tweaking, but it's quite similar to the aforesaid Forest Gnome ability.
Magical Resistance isextremely strong (as has already been said), but it is similar to the Gnomish Cunning ability.
5. Tweak if needed!
I'll get to Innate Spellcasting later.
Tree Stride will need to be made a 1/long rest ability. I say this because I want to keep the awesome mobility of the ability, but not make it so that the PC can just play piggy-in-the-middle with the enemy. Lowering the speed would lose some of the awesome mobility without really changing the aforesaid 'piggy problem' much.
Speak with Beasts and Plants will need to be changed to be kept on-par with the Gnome version. So basically just a re-skin except with plants thrown in.
Magical Resistance can be a changed Gnomish Cunning. Now when messing around with saving throws, you need to be careful, you may accidentally buff an ability more than you meant to. For this reason, I am just re-skinning the Gnomish Cunning ability.
All OPRs with Innate Spellcasting have a Cantrip at level 1, a level 1 spell at level 3, and a level 2 spell at level 5.
The Dryad's Cantrip is obvious: Druidcraft
The level 1 and 2 spells are interesting, this is where I think that subraces should be employed unfortunately.
The first subrace is more focused on being sneaky and attacking the enemies of the forest, so its 1st level spell will be Entangle and its 2nd level spell will be Pass Without Trace.
The second subrace will be about healing and protecting who are injured, so its spells are Goodberry and Barkskin (only itself though to keep this from getting out of hand).
The Dryad uses Charisma, so this race will as well.
6. Add things if needed. Usually I try to avoid this, but with the Dryad, Tree Stride is needed to be added.
7. Determine ability scores. This part is usually easy, for the Dryad, +2 to Charisma and +1 to Wisdom.
And that's the end! Please give constructive criticism.
Size: Medium
Type: Fey
Ability score increases: +2 to Charisma and +1 to Wisdom
Speed: 30ft
Traits:
Tree Stride: Tree Stride: Once on your turn, you can use 10 ft. of your Movement to step magically into one living tree within your reach and emerge from a second living tree within 60 ft. of the first tree, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 ft. of the second tree. Both trees must be large or bigger. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.
Speak with Beasts and Plants: You can speak with rats, small birds, foxes, and other small woodland creatures (as well as small plants) as if you shared a language with them.
Subraces:
Grovetenders, these Dryads are more focused on helping those injured and tending to the sick or protecting themselves from harm when they shield others.
Innate Spellcasting:
At level 1 you know the Druidcraft Cantrip and can cast it at will.
At level 3 you know the Goodberry spell, at level 5 you know the Barkskin spell (targeting only yourself), both of these spells you can cast once per Long Rest.
Umbral Walkers. These Dryads are skilled at spying and subterfuge to lead threats away from the forests, or simply immobilising them and letting the beasts deal with the intruders.
Innate Spellcasting:
At level 1 you know the Druidcraft Cantrip and can cast it at will.
At level 3 you know the Entangle spell, at level 5 you know the Pass Without Trace spell, both of these spells you can cast once per Long Rest.