Mind Flayer playable race for 5e balancing

[Juicy Kisses]

I decided to start fleshing out some more playable monstrous races and the first one on my list is the good ol’ mind flayer. However, as I delve into many of these monsters, I am noticing a challenge with balancing them as a playable race. Please, give me your critiques on the product so far!

Mind Flayer
Ability Score Increase. Your intelligence score increases by 2, and your wisdom score increases by 1.

Age. While mind flayers are fully grown by the time they have completed ceremorphosis, they are considered infantile until they complete a period of instruction that generally lasts 20 years, and they can live to about 135 years old.

Alignment.

Size. Your size is medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Aberration. Your type is aberration, instead of humanoid.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Telepathy. You can speak telepathically with any creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The creature understands you only if you share a language.

Tentacles. The four tentacles which protrude from your face are a natural weapon, which can be used to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it, you deal psychic damage equal to 1d4 + your intelligence modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. You may use your intelligence modifier for attack rolls using this natural weapon.

Extract Brain. You can extract the brain of a humanoid creature that has died within 1 minute as an action. When you devour a humanoid’s brain, you may learn some of its memories or recent thoughts. You gain one of the target’s skill, tool, weapon, armor, or language proficiencies of your choice for 1 hour. If you reduce a humanoid creature to 0 hit points using a tentacle attack, you may use this ability as a bonus action as part of the attack. If a creature has already had its brain extracted by you or another mind flayer, or if the brain has been otherwise destroyed, you cannot use this ability on them. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short rest.

Psionics. You know the mage hand cantrip, and the spectral hand is invisible when you cast the spell using this trait. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the comprehend languages spell once per day. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the detect thoughts spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Languages. You can speak, read and write in common, undercommon and deep speech.

[SunderedWorldDM]

Mind Flayer
Oh, I've always wanted to write something like this up, and now you've done it for me! Thank you so much.


Aberration. Your type is aberration, instead of humanoid.
Good job, this is a nice detail.


Tentacles. The four tentacles which protrude from your face are a natural weapon, which can be used to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it, you deal psychic damage equal to 1d4 + your intelligence modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. You may use your intelligence modifier for attack rolls using this natural weapon.Nitpick about this feature: attack rolls based on intelligence aren't really a thing in 5e outside of spells and class abilities, and I personally think that dexterity would be a better fit- being able to do math problems fast isn't going to help you grab somebody with a tentacle. The psychic damage, though, can stay, that makes a lot of sense to me.


Extract Brain. You can extract the brain of a humanoid creature that has died within 1 minute or as part of a killing blow made with your tentacles. When you devour a humanoid’s brain, you may learn some of its memories or recent thoughts. You gain one of the target’s skill, tool, weapon, armor, or language proficiencies of your choice for the next 1 hour. If you extract another brain using this ability while already benefiting from its effect, you lose the proficiency gained by the first brain and gain a proficiency from the new one.[QUOTE]
Might want to specify what "killing blow" means: 0 HP? Unconsciousness? Does this happen the instant you reduce an enemy to 0 HP or do you have to use an action/bonus action? What if another mind flayer has already extracted the brain within the last minute- can you still gain a benefit? What if the head was crushed by some other means (i.e. the killing blow was a sledgehammer straight to the head, or the creature's brains were extracted as part of a mummification process)? Clean up the wording to account for these sorts of extenuating circumstances and this feature will be a lot more solid!

[QUOTE]Psionics. You know the mage hand cantrip, and the spectral hand is invisible when you cast the spell using this trait. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the spell what spell? once per day. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the detect thoughts spell once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Languages. You can speak, read and write in common, undercommon and deep speech.
It seems you're missing something! See above.

Great start! A few wording clear-ups and tweaks and I would allow this at my table. Best of luck!

[Segev]

Fluff-wise, are you saying that tadpoles live for 9 years before they're implanted? Or are you suggesting it takes 9 years to take over?

This is pretty playable, but quite the downgrade from the standard monster. Has to be, of course; the standard monster is high CR.

[Juicy Kisses]

Oh, I've always wanted to write something like this up, and now you've done it for me! Thank you so much.

I’ve been contemplating over throwing something together for months on this but quarantine finally gave me the mix of time and boredom I needed to actually put something down. I appreciate your input!


Nitpick about this feature: attack rolls based on intelligence aren't really a thing in 5e outside of spells and class abilities, and I personally think that dexterity would be a better fit- being able to do math problems fast isn't going to help you grab somebody with a tentacle. The psychic damage, though, can stay, that makes a lot of sense to me.

When I was looking at the stat block for the mind flayer, I noticed that their stats use intelligence for the attack and damage on their tentacles and I wanted to stick to that idea. I made sense of it by the thought that since it deals only psychic damage, it is more of a mental assault than a physical one, so it wouldn’t make sense to have it based on strength or dexterity. Plus I didn’t want to split the attack and damage to be based off of different ability scores, because there isn’t a precedent for that in any published material I’ve seen and it would make them more MAD.


Might want to specify what "killing blow" means: 0 HP? Unconsciousness? Does this happen the instant you reduce an enemy to 0 HP or do you have to use an action/bonus action? What if another mind flayer has already extracted the brain within the last minute- can you still gain a benefit? What if the head was crushed by some other means (i.e. the killing blow was a sledgehammer straight to the head, or the creature's brains were extracted as part of a mummification process)? Clean up the wording to account for these sorts of extenuating circumstances and this feature will be a lot more solid!

I have attempted to clear up the wording and add actions to the ability. Now it takes an action to use, and specifies that if you bring a humanoid to 0 hit points using the tentacles, you can use extract brain as a bonus action. Oh! And I cleared up if the brain is damaged or has already been extracted as you suggested, that was a really good point!


It seems you're missing something! See above.

Lol I was struggling to find a 1st level spell that fit the theme and I forgot to return to it, thank you for pointing that out. I’ve added comprehend languages there, best one I could think of to fit.


Fluff-wise, are you saying that tadpoles live for 9 years before they're implanted? Or are you suggesting it takes 9 years to take over?

I honestly don’t remember what my thought process was on this, I have modified it to reflect what I could find online about how mind flayers are supposed to age.

Thank you both for the input! You have both been very helpful to making this concept work in a way I can be satisfied with.

[Segev]

This strikes me as a rather powerful race, even with the pulled back stats from the monster manual entry. I can't think of many ways to bring it in line without damaging its feel, though, so my only comment is that superior darkvision is unusual on races without sunlight blindness (or whatever it's called). I'd either give them that, or reduce them to normal darkvision.

[Juicy Kisses]

This strikes me as a rather powerful race, even with the pulled back stats from the monster manual entry. I can't think of many ways to bring it in line without damaging its feel, though, so my only comment is that superior darkvision is unusual on races without sunlight blindness (or whatever it's called). I'd either give them that, or reduce them to normal darkvision.

I considered adding sunlight sensitivity as well but there wasn’t a precedent for it in the stats or concept of the mind flayer. Perhaps you are right about reducing it to 60, doesn’t pull away from the concept at all and fits in line with the reduced abilities in general.

[Segev]

I considered adding sunlight sensitivity as well but there wasn’t a precedent for it in the stats or concept of the mind flayer. Perhaps you are right about reducing it to 60, doesn’t pull away from the concept at all and fits in line with the reduced abilities in general.

That's my thought, too. It's a little ... not quite disappointing, but less than fully satisfying ... to have to pull back on some things to make it fit in as a PCable race, but the mind flayer needs a lot of that to make it not simply overwhelming. I think you've done pretty well with it - you even managed to make extract brain more of a ribbon than an overpowered insta-kill.

But yes, making the darkvision only 60 ft. will help. If only because then it's not stepping on the toes of the rare races that do get superior darkvision.

[Juicy Kisses]

That's my thought, too. It's a little ... not quite disappointing, but less than fully satisfying ... to have to pull back on some things to make it fit in as a PCable race, but the mind flayer needs a lot of that to make it not simply overwhelming. I think you've done pretty well with it - you even managed to make extract brain more of a ribbon than an overpowered insta-kill.

I tried pretty hard to think of a way to make it fitting but not be a damage dealer! I knew that would be way too much XD

[EdwardThereseJr]

Very neat. I especially like the careful consideration given to the Extract Brain power. Not much to be said that hasn't already been discussed, just wanted to give a thumbs up.

[Juicy Kisses]

Very neat. I especially like the careful consideration given to the Extract Brain power. Not much to be said that hasn't already been discussed, just wanted to give a thumbs up.

I appreciate it! I'm very glad to see some people enjoying what I came up with :)

[Lrbearclaw]

A very cool idea for a PC race. As someone who used the forum here as a sounding board to make a new race, I recognize some of the names here.

Mind if I offer a piece of advice? Have someone (not you) play it in a one-shot. Can be a one-on-one game, can be a group game. But have at least 1 person (Maybe a party of them for a one-shot?) so you can see how it feels in practice. Why I say to have a third party play it is simple: Let them try to break the game with it.

If it is balanced well, it will feel like just another PC, if it is off-balance you will be able to see where and how it needs adjustment. And with it being a one-shot, you can always do a sequel using the readjusted Flayer and have them go on another misadventure.

[JNAProductions]

Well, since races are a small part of the overall package in 5E, it's unlikely to break anything even if it IS unbalanced.

A race that has immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage is obviously OP as all hell. And you'll FEEL that.
But a race that has +2 to all stats, Darkvision, and a free skill is ALSO pretty clearly OP. And yet, that race could be played alongside normal races and you wouldn't notice it really overshadowing anything.

Overall, though, to the OP, I think you did a pretty good job. Definitely close enough to good to merit playtesting.

[inuyasha]

I considered adding sunlight sensitivity as well but there wasn’t a precedent for it in the stats or concept of the mind flayer. Perhaps you are right about reducing it to 60, doesn’t pull away from the concept at all and fits in line with the reduced abilities in general.

I know it's not exactly up-to-date, but the Ecology Of The Mind Flayer article from Dragon Magazine #78 by Roger Moore does describe them as having an incredible sensitivity to light. It's written from the perspective of a Githyanki who's hired to help fight some mind flayers, and he describes the light of the sun [or any bright light really] as sending them into "terrible spasm" and really messing with their vision. It's a fascinating article.

Maybe adding an additional flaw that regular Mind Flayers don't have [I.E. sunlight blindness or something- I'm not sure what it's called in this edition, I'm more of a 3.PF player] would make it easier to explain why these Mind Flayers are so much weaker than the dungeon-dwelling-monster kind. Maybe they're a weaker kind of Mind Flayer, shameful to modern ones [much like the Klingon head ridge thing that we eventually find out about- "We don't speak of it with outsiders"] and timewarped to exist in the modern day [as Mind Flayers are absolutely capable of time shenanigans]. Or of course there's the classic experiment idea, perhaps these are some sort of failed ceremorphosis?