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View Full Version : Speculation Need help balance checking a homebrew race D and d 5e



colombianbambam
2018-04-14, 05:34 PM
So, basically the title says it all. Need feedback, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. So I can make it playable. I know the advantage saving throws are probably OP and unnecessary. I would like to have throw in mask of the wild since I think it naturally fits in. So I was thinking about moving weapon and armor proficiencies into a new class that I was also homebrewing called Trickster. Let me know about any ideas you guys got... thanks in advance.

[Wukong] “[Sun Wukong then defies Hell's attempt to collect his soul. Instead of reincarnating, he wipes his name out of the Book of Life and Death along with the names of all monkeys known to him. The Dragon Kings and the Kings of Hell report him to the Jade Emperor. Sun is taken to heaven to be executed for his crimes, but fire, lightning, and edged weapons have no effect on his invincible body. Laozi then suggests that they put him inside of the deity’s mystical eight trigrams furnace to reduce the demon into ashes. They check the furnace forty-nine days later expecting to see his charred remains; however, Monkey jumps out unscathed, and not only that, the intense flames refined his pupils the color of gold, giving them the power to see for hundreds of miles and to recognize the dark auras of demons in disguise. He overturns the furnace and begins to cause havoc in heaven with his iron cudgel. The monkey’s anger cannot be contained.]"

—[Wu Cheng'en], [Journey to the West]

The Wukong are monkey/humanoids who are magical from blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God. They are as wild as the different places where they live such as the barrens to high in the mountain ranges. Because of this, there is rarely any other race they do not come in contact with. They emulate their god constantly practicing drilling with each other using polearms, acrobatics, and their trickery.

Monkeylike and Humanlike The Wukong are slender monkey/humanoids with brown or grey fur and have a pink face, which is bereft of fur as well. Their tail is of medium length and averages between 32.1 and 36.0 inches. Adult males measure about 60 inches on average and weigh about 160 lbs. Females are smaller, averaging 55 inches in height and 150 in weight.

From Realm to Realm The magical Wukong may be found arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous regions up to 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in elevation. They walk on two feet, all fours, are natural climbers, and are regular swimmers. Babies as young as a few days old can swim, and adults are known to swim over a half mile between islands. The Wukong are noted for their tendency to move from rural to urban areas, coming to rely on handouts or refuse from humans. They adapt well to human presence, and form larger troops in human-dominated landscapes than in forests. Their troops number anywhere from 10 to 100.

Children of the Monkey God The Wukong are magical creatures as they blessed by their monkey god. Highly reverent to Sun Wukong, they constantly pray to their god and act out his adventures with each other and in the world. When in another race’s community, they perform acrobatics, trick, or steal. They don’t do this, because they need money (they are wild and have no need for it), but in order to live their lives as closely to Sun Wukong.

Wild and Fearless

The Wukong being very energetic and having little patience, are born adventurers. Especially because of their short lifespan, they are constantly on the move, looking to experience the world around them. The Wukong, since they are magical and acrobatic, love attention, meeting other races, and sometimes, tricking, and stealing from them. They are always willing to join adventurer’s party, hardly questioning the difficulty or the purpose.

Friendly, but Misunderstood The Wukong argue much amongst themselves, but many have a forgiving nature since this is the the way of the Wukong. There is never a problem, it’s just another day, except that once in a while in their family tree, a fruit bears very bad seeds.

Dwarves. “Dwarves always seem angry, but we know it’s not because of something we have done, although stealing from them does make them so. But many times, they use our services, and we get them something they need and if you do this enough times, even a Dwarf’s stone heart will let them smile and make a long friendship.”

Elves. “Many Wood Elves live with us. They protect the forests and we help them. We trade with them and they seem very forgiving when one of our troop did something wrong. They are very kind to our race.”

Halflings. “Halflings are great folk! They have so much food, that we don’t even have to beg or steal from them! But if anyone were to interfere with them, out troop will deal with them happily.”

Humans. “Some hate us, some like us. Sometimes it’s our fault, but other times they hate us, because they hate anything they do not know. We see how they treat other races, and they hate them too, for no reason! But then, out of nowhere, they’ll treat us again with great kindness. Sometimes I think we are the ones most closely related to them, because of our chaotic nature.”

Wukong Names A Wukong addresses people with his surname first, and then his first name. Many times they choose Wukong as their last name, because they are proud direct descendants of Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.

Male Names: Zhang Wei, Wang Wei, Li Wei,Liu Wei, Li Qiang, Wang lei, Li Jun, Wang Yong, Zhang Yong, Li Jie, Zhang Lei, Wang Qiang, Wang Jun, Zhang Jie, Zhang Tao, Wang Tao, Li Ming, Wang Chao, Li Yong, Liu Jie, Zhang Jun, Zhang Qiang, Wang Ping, Wang Gang, Wang Jie

Female Names: Wang Fang, Wang Xiu Ying, Li Xiu Ying, Li Na, Zhang Xiu Ying, Zhang Min, Li Jing, Zhang Li, Wang Jing, Wang Li, Zhang Jing, Li Min, Wang Min, Liu Yang, Wang Yan, Li Juan, Zhang Yan, Li Yan, Wang Juan, Wang Xiu Lan, Li Xia, Liu Min, Li Li, Li Gui Ying, Liu Fang.

Surnames: Wukong, Liang/Leung, Luo, Kuang, Chan/Chen, Liang, Lu, Zhang/Chong, Zheng, Lin, Xǔ, Xie, Wang, Xú, Zhu, Wang, Yang, Mao, Shen, Hu, Tan, He, Deng, Wu, Yang, Chen, Gao, Wan, Xue, Bao, Ma, Kong, Dong, Guo, Pan, Yu.

Wukong Traits Your Wukong character has a variety of natural and magical abilities, the result of many magical blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and Charisma by 1.

Age. The Wukong reach physical maturity at 12 years old and live up to approximately 50 years old.

Alignment. The Wukong love freedom, are adventurous, and carefree. So much so, much of their behavior is impulsive. Some act on their gut feeling, doing what they believe is right, not caring what others think of them. Others just go with the moment instead of considering outcomes. But very few are wild and are violent falling to their desires

Size. The Wukong range from 4 to 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Simius. Wukong interact with each other using a variety of facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, and gestures. They can read and write at mostly a basic level.

Prehensile tail. A Wukong can pick up, hold up to 18 lbs., and can hang from it’s tale.

Inborn Movement. Being both arboreal and terrestrial, bipedal and quadrupedal, and traveling between arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous, they can climb, crawl, and swim with no penalties.

Wild Life. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Monkey God lesser resistance to magic. You have advantage on saving throws against fire and water based magic attacks. All magic damage is reduced by half.

Reduced Falling Damage. Check is done with advantage due to also being able to use their tail to grab and stop falling. Reduce damage you take by half your check result (round down). If damage is reduced to 0, then he lands standing.

Wukong Armor Training. You have proficiency with hide, breastplate, chain mail, and chain shirt armor.

Wukong Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the glaive, halberd, pike, longbow, and long sword. Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.

Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.

Xihirli
2018-04-14, 05:38 PM
This belongs in the homebrew thread. Also, if you could conveniently separate the fluff from the mechanics that would help.

As a quick glance “all magic is reduced by half” is just... no. Not allowed. Not anywhere near balanced.

ShadowSandbag
2018-04-14, 06:36 PM
Yeah, I'm on my phone so can't do a full analysis, but looking at it right now it's incredibly overpowered. Free swim and climb speed, a higher than average regular speed, advantage on all spell checks and resistance to magic damage, using dex for all of the important strength checks.... just one off those things would be boardrrline overpowered but all of them together is just ridiculous.

LudicSavant
2018-04-14, 06:52 PM
It's got all-around potent abilities, then throws the resistance to magic damage anvil on top of it.

A Fat Dragon
2018-04-14, 07:09 PM
I’d say remove magic resistance, and switch the environmental versatility to a climb speed of 20.

And, only give them proficiency in Glaive, Spear, Bo-Staff, and Halberd. No other armor or weapon proficiencies.

And, remove the final trait, and grant another skill/tool proficiency, or something like Advantage on saving throws against (Poisoned, Frightened, Charmed, Grappled, Or Restrained) conditions.

Ganymede
2018-04-14, 07:13 PM
Yeah, this race is ridiculous.

It gains a speed boost, a climb speed, a swim speed, it can crawl without penalty to avoid missile attacks, it gets proficiency in lots of good weapons and armor, it benefits even more from dumping strength, it halves all magic damage, gets advantage on some spell checks, gains something similar to a monk's slow fall, a skill proficiency, and an ability hold things in its tail (which could be horrendous if it can be used to hold a shield).


You should really consider taking another class in the PHB and tweaking its abilities to get what you want. Start with a Wood Elf, then change the parts necessary to make it more simian.

sophontteks
2018-04-14, 07:34 PM
Its stacking waay too much. Cut it in half, at least. Just 1-2 of these abilities could render it into the top tier.

The abilities it recieves seem to be more for mechanical benefit then for roleplaying or flavor. They look very tailor made to give the greatest mechanical advantages possible within the meta.

Xihirli
2018-04-14, 07:42 PM
Honestly I’d take Tabaxi, swap the CHA bonus for WIS, swap the Unarmed Strike for running long jump being based on DEX, swap the stealth/perception proficiency for acrobatics/sleight of hand, and maybe drop the darkvision as the running long jump change was pretty good.

Xihirli
2018-04-14, 07:56 PM
End up with this:

Wukong
Ability Score Increase
Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age
Equivalent to Humans
Alignment
Wukong tend toward chaotic alignments, as they let impulse and fancy guide their decisions. They are rarely evil, with most of them driven by curiosity and adventure rather than greed or other dark impulses.
Size
Insert your description.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Wild and Fearless
Your reflexes and agility allow you to move with a burst of speed. When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the turn. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you move 0 feet on one of your turns.
Monkey’s Paw
You have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, you may use your Dexterity Score, rather than your Strength Score, when calculating the length or height of your jump.
Friendly, but Misunderstood
You have proficiency in the Acrobatics and Sleight of Hand skills.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.

strangebloke
2018-04-15, 01:04 AM
Xihril's version is a lot better.

The original was literally the best parts of Triton, wood elf, and gnome.

Asmotherion
2018-04-15, 01:46 AM
If you really want to give them a Racial Protection against Magic, give them Counterspell 1/long rest, once they hit level 5, and balance it out around removing several other of their abilities.

Giving them something like Limited Magic Imutiny puts them on the same tier as the Rakshasa, a CR 13 monster... from level 1. Then, the more class levels you add, the more power they get.

This could be a very good NPC monster/possible boss fight. You've made the Lore and have an extensive understanding of what you want it to do. Make him a re-apearing antagonist, who beats down the PCs but refrains from killing, and you have a concept.

Greywander
2018-04-15, 03:22 AM
First of all, I'd recommend reading this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/edit) for race creation. I've done a bit of homebrew and found it immensely helpful for keeping myself grounded in a realistic powerlevel.

Second of all, please, please try to use some formatting to make things more readable. Something like this:

Size. The Wukong range from 4 to 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

I won't go over every point, but there were a few things I wanted to cover.


Prehensile tail. A Wukong can pick up, hold up to 18 lbs., and can hang from it’s tale.
This is very difficult to rate, and seems open to abuse. I would, first of all, state in clear terms that the tail can't be used to wield a weapon or shield, and decide if it can produce somatic components for spells or not. Second, instead of specifying a particular weight that you can lift with the tail, just say that you can lift up to your Strength score in pounds (or something similar).

I'd say it's worth 0.5 points if it can't produce somatic components, and 1 point if it can.


Monkey God lesser resistance to magic. You have advantage on saving throws against fire and water based magic attacks. All magic damage is reduced by half.
This is way OP and should probably be toned down to just fire resistance (worth 0.5 points). Maybe a once per day counterspell like someone else suggested.


Reduced Falling Damage. Check is done with advantage due to also being able to use their tail to grab and stop falling. Reduce damage you take by half your check result (round down). If damage is reduced to 0, then he lands standing.
According to the fluff, you reduce your damage by grabbing something on the way down to stop your fall. The problem is that doing so already reduces or eliminates your fall damage. This shouldn't help you if you don't have anything to grab on to.

Mechanically, I don't see a problem with it, but from the fluff I'd think having advantage on ability checks to keep from falling or grab something while falling would suit it better.


Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.
Athletics checks are already Strength checks. You've just turned the only Strength skill into a Dexterity skill, giving even less of a reason for players to invest in Strength.

I would either (a) give Athletics proficiency for free, or (b) increase carry weight (e.g. you count as being one size category larger for the purpose of carry weight).

LudicSavant
2018-04-15, 04:10 AM
My biggest problem with this race is, beyond any balance issues, that it has a prehensile tail which can support the creature's own weight, but can only hold 18 pound items, irrespective of strength score. That doesn't make any kind of sense.

Greywander
2018-04-15, 05:01 AM
Well, you could probably hang from something by one hand, but I'm guessing you couldn't bench your own weight with one hand. When you're hanging, it's actually your bones that are holding you up more than your muscles.

That said, the weight might need to be adjusted. It should probably just be treated like an extra hand, albeit one that can't attack with a weapon or equip a shield (although it could probably hold them). Perhaps it should be barred from other actions, such as using tools (when would that ever come up, though?).