PDA

View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Conversion of a 5e Homebrew Race Found on Another Site



47948201
2020-06-03, 05:22 AM
I found a 5e "Anime Girl" race on dandwiki.com. Realistically most "anime girls" are just humans with plenty of class levels, but for the sake of general memery with some friends, I wanted to try converting the first listed subrace to 3.5e.

The Preface

I have come to understand that if you look up the race and read the name of the subrace I'm trying to convert, it's a word that may raise some flags. It is not--and was never--my intention to sexualize anyone with the content of this question, nor the plans behind it. My friend group uses that term entirely wholesomely, unlike what (from a quick Google search) appears to be the case for the world at large. Because I use it and hear it used in a non-sexual context, I had forgotten that it even had such a disgusting connotation.

If I had specced more into Wisdom then maybe I would've looked more into the word and confirmed its inappropriateness for general use, but it didn't even cross my mind--however, now I know. I apologize for using it in the previous version of this post, and for any feathers I may have ruffled by doing so. For the rest of the question, I'll instead refer to the 5e subrace--and, by extension, 3.5e version of the race--as "Short Anime Girl".

I can't link to the wiki, but it's not difficult to find.

The Goal

Despite how it may seem not-so-serious, I'd still like for the race to be reasonably well-balanced and completely usable as an actual race--preferably closer to the high-tier options like dwarves and humans, but without being too powerful to be considered LA+0. If it falls a little short, that's fine, but if it's like kobolds or half-orcs which receive very little benefit compared to their drawbacks (especially relative to other races), then it could probably stand to be buffed.

Ideally, I want to keep the race as close to the source as possible, so as to just make a "3.5e version" of the 5e race rather than inventing anything too new. The original has seen numerous revisions, so I took the page's entire history as valid inspiration, but I tried not to add or alter anything unless it was based on something that the 5e version of the race has actually mentioned at some point.

The Changes

The 5e version currently gives +1 to Charisma from the base race, and +1 to three other ability scores of the player's choice from the subrace. Previous versions of the subrace only gave Charisma bonuses of varying sizes. Early versions of the race came with a Strength penalty but very large bonuses to other scores. Most versions of the subrace also imposed disadvantage on Strength rolls. All this in mind, I gave the race +2 Charisma, -2 Strength. The DMG says this is a highly-unfavorable set of modifiers, but the general consensus among players seems to be that such weighting is incorrect. The 5e race seems like one of its major benefits is having above-average total ability score bonuses, but aside from stuff like Lesser Planetouched, I think every 3.5e LA+0 race has net-zero ability score modifiers, so that's the convention I followed.

The subrace has a size of Small, which I kept. Some versions have a walk speed of 25 feet, while others do not modify the race's 30-foot speed. Specific beats general, and small/slow races in 3.5e tend to have a land speed of 20 feet, so I went with that. Most versions of the subrace have a carrying capacity increased to that of a Large creature, though. This seems like quite a huge jump, considering (or perhaps to counter) the reduced Strength, so I made the target carrying limit that of a Medium creature. 3.5e's Powerful Build seems to do everything but increase carry limits, so I instead translated this carrying boost into allowing weapons and lifting/carrying limits as if the race were Medium.

Almost every version of the 5e race has had proficiency in Charisma (Persuasion) checks. Most versions of the subrace also gained proficiency in Charisma (Deception) checks as well as advantage on "Charisma and Persuasion checks", despite having disadvantage on Charisma (Intimidation) checks. The current version replaces all these advantage/disadvantage traits with a limited-uses-per-day advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks. All in all, I took the idea of advantage on "Charisma...checks" and went with a +2 racial bonus on Charisma-based skills that involve interaction with intelligent creatures, with the exception of Intimidation, which gets a -2 racial penalty. I don't know of any other races with racial skill penalties, but +2 to skills is quite common.

Another feature which has been universal among versions of the 5e race is awkward fall. In most versions this has been an action which damages the user and knocks her prone, while forcing the target to make an (untyped) saving throw or also take damage and fall prone. The most recent version clears up the appropriately-awkward wording, but attaches the feature to an optional part of the Attack action. I'm not aware of anything in 3.5e that causes you to take damage based on your own Strength modifier (which all versions of the 5e feature have done, despite the fact that that's a lot of damage in a system where falling 10 feet deals just 1d6), but there is the bull rush special attack. So I just made an alternative to bull rushing, which knocks the user prone and--if successful--knocks the target prone, as well.

Almost all versions of the 5e race have had a trait which wanted slight reflavoring for the subrace. When the character is dealt bludgeoning damage, the attack "bounces off" and deals damage to the attacker. It's unclear whether this is meant to negate the attack, but that would be extremely powerful. Instead, I simply gave the race DR 2/piercing or slashing (where 2 is based on the 1d4 recoil damage of the original)

Lastly, many versions of the 5e subrace have had a trait which has some implications that aren't relevant to the 3.5e short anime girl race--and, if read literally, is far too powerful for any LA+0 racial trait, anyway. The name of the trait has to do with the idea of other creatures breaking rules in a not-okay way, but I figured it might work if I flipped it entirely, so that the trait instead allows the short anime girl herself to "break some rules" in a way that makes sense for the race:

3.5e (unlike 5e, AFAIK) generally requires characters to be adults (which, as with the 5e anime girl race at large, happens at the same age as for humans). However, there are lots of examples of characters--never mind just short girls--in anime becoming adventurers (even in "difficult" professions like wizard or monk) at any age, so it made sense to allow class levels regardless of age. It's also particularly common for anime characters (short girls included) to live for hundreds or thousands of years. The current version of the 5e race imposes the same lifespan as humans, but earlier versions of the race said they "will live for however long they will", which isn't very clear but seems to imply that they can either will themselves to live, or are able to live until killed. Considering either reading of this phrase, getting rid of the maximum age made sense--in which case, it seemed too powerful to allow mental scores to accrue bonuses without penalties (but immortal characters in media seem none the weaker for their age, so physical age penalties didn't make sense either), so I removed age-related ability score changes entirely, à la the Endless trait from Dragon Magazine. D&D Wiki has another race with many similarities to short anime girls (but which is pretty overpowered and wouldn't lend itself to being converted to a LA+0 3.5e race) that has a trait which also gives an indefinite lifespan, so I took the new name from that, discarding any of the actual effects/flavor of the 5e subrace's trait.

As for the last bits that all 3.5e races require: Common and "Senpai"(Japanese) are Automatic Languages, just like the 5e race. In 5e, Senpai can be traded out depending on the character's appearance, but I don't know of any 3.5e races that allow such language options. The race has any normal Bonus Languages to match the 5e version's freely-chosen extra language. Also, any class can be a Favored Class, since 5e doesn't have multiclass penalties.

The Result

Short anime girl Traits
• +2 Charisma, -2 Strength.
• Small: As a Small creature, a short anime girl gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks. However, short anime girls can use weapons designed for creatures one size larger without penalty, and their lifting and carrying limits are treated as if they were one size larger.
• Short anime girl base land speed is 20 feet.
• +2 racial bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, and Perform checks.
• -2 racial penalty on Intimidate checks.
• Awkward Fall: When a short anime girl performs a bull rush, she can choose to turn the action into an awkward fall, gaining a +4 bonus on the Strength check. If the awkward fall attempt is successful, the defender moves back a maximum of 5 feet and falls prone. Regardless of the result, the short anime girl then falls prone.
• Protective Softness: short anime girls have damage reduction 2/piercing or slashing.
• Limited Immortality: Short anime girls can take class levels at any age. They receive no bonuses or penalties due to age, and won't die of old age.
• Automatic Languages: Common and Senpai. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic).
• Favored Class: Any. When determining whether a multiclass short anime girl takes an experience point penalty, her highest-level class does not count.

The... Problems?

Most of these features seem relatively minor to me, but many of them are things which don't really have much precedent that I'm aware of when it comes to LA+0 races.

As such, I can't decide if the race is super weak (the ability score modifiers are supposedly quite poor and no number of years will further increase Charisma, awkward fall is largely inconsequential--especially for a Small race, which also has to deal with reduced speed, and the race doesn't have too many useful features going for it) or super strong (Small size but with Medium weapons/carrying gives powerful bonuses at little cost, the wide range of skill bonuses are very useful in urban adventures, inflicting prone every turn is too dominant or synergizes too well with some particular Feat, damage reduction increases survivability too much or is out-of-line with anything any other race receives, or there's some unforeseen consequence to being able to adventure at any age).

So, as boring a phrase as I'm sure this may sound here... "Is this race balanced?"

Maat Mons
2020-06-03, 11:07 PM
I didn't read the earlier version but... was this "offensive term" litterally just a common Spanish girl's name?

Kobolds that take the Dragonwrought feat at 1st level take no ability score penalties for aging, but continue to gain bonuses. So you wouldn't be breaking anything that hasn't already been broken. Really, the entire idea of ability score modifiers for age was a bad idea. And Timeless Body may already break it, depending on the starting level of a game.

I don't think it makes sense to make a race or subrace based on age. I'd just make a +0 LA template akin to Young from Pathfinder.

Intimidate already gives Small creatures a -4 penalty in 3.5. So if you just gave the race a +2 to Cha-based checks across the board, the net result would be a -2 penalty. As opposed to the net -6 they have now.

Ordinarily, I'd be all for giving a child a Strength penalty. But this is anime we're talking about. Strength has no correlation to size or amount of muscle. A tiny waif beating a hulking bodybuilder at armwrestling is pretty standard.

47948201
2020-06-04, 07:52 AM
I don't know many people with Spanish names, but... Maybe? It wasn't in the context of a person's name, though. I don't think there's anything inherently offensive about a sequence of four lowercase letters, but people pointed out that some of the things I said about it (related to one of the 5e subrace's traits and the way I worded the 3.5e not-really-a-version-of-it) had some pretty sketchy implications for many people. If that's not you, then that's great! It wasn't me when I made the post, either. But apart from making the post a tiny bit harder to read, I didn't think there was really a compelling reason not to just go ahead and change the wording a bit. Anyway, that aside...

As for age-related ability score modifiers, huh. I knew monks got bonuses with no penalties, but that was a high-level class feature (and didn't prevent death by old age), so it didn't seem appropriate for a racial trait. Dragonwrought doesn't give immortality, either--I don't know how much this is all worth to a race, since the only other example I can think of (elan) takes bonuses and penalties but has no maximum age. In the context of basically any character that would benefit from more than just some extra skill points and Will save bonuses (elans want Intelligence for psionics, short anime girls probably want charisma for spellcasting), though, I guess it seems pretty equivalent?

Honestly the template idea is a good one, since like I said, most anime girls are just super-strong (or super-charismatic, or super-smart, etc.) humans. There's a lot less information on templates that I can find, though--the ones that I do see, being LA+0, tend to come with either some hefty drawbacks or small drawbacks with small benefits, to make the template "net-zero" (aka, make it not a no-brainer to just always take the template to make a character better). Unless I gutted pretty much every trait that makes humans human (and did the same for the "elf anime girls" and any other race that makes sense as a base...though access to racial PrCs would be rad), I don't know how I'd fit all these traits into an LA+0 template...?

Oh, shoot, I didn't know that about Intimidate! I guess as long as that doesn't throw things off too much (I...don't imagine it would?) I'll go ahead and take the suggestion of turning the -2 to a +2.

Ordinarily, I'd be all for not giving an anime-inspired race/template/whatever a Strength penalty, too. (In fact, the pseudo-powerful-build seems to counter it, a tiny bit, and probably had the same reasoning behind it for the 5e subrace) But like I said, net-zero ability score modifiers seem pretty much universal among LA+0 races. I'm not familiar (or confident) enough to come up with an alternative way to balance out having a regular-sized ability score bonus, and lots of versions of the 5e race/subrace have had some sort of penalty or disadvantage to Strength, so it seemed to make the most sense to just roll with that.

Maat Mons
2020-06-04, 05:14 PM
Okay, so you weren't getting crap for saying "Lolita," the common nickname for girls named Lola or Delores, and a common legal name in its own right too. I'm okay with the derived term being treated as dirty. The derived term isn't anyone's name.

To give you an idea of why I would have been offended if Lolita itself were being treated as a dirty word, let me provide you with a this quote from an anonymous internet person on the subject.

This is my name. Ever since I was in school, every teacher I met would always harangue me about it by saying "You'd better not be like Haze." Or "Just like the book". Almost every time we had a sub, they'd say what I had previously written or worse... Then other students would pick on me because of it. I wonder if there's anyone else out there with my name? I sincerely hope that nobody out there gets harassed because of it.

Nifft
2020-06-04, 05:37 PM
1 - Seems like it ought to be a template, since Gnomes and Elves probably also enjoy anime.

2 - You probably want variants like Cat Girl and such. Again, a template would help.

3 - The line about age and "legality" is a bit creepy.

4 - The line about language makes this look like a joke race, which is fine if that's your intent.

5 - Giving +2 Cha at LA +0 is strong for Bard and Sorcerer, which are casters, and therefore the race is not weak. The bonus to most of the useful Cha skills has good Cha synergy.

47948201
2020-06-04, 07:47 PM
SHOOT, thanks for catching the trait with the name related to legality! That was one of the major things I meant to address when editing the post, but I guess I missed a spot (originally I posted this on another site, but I didn't want to redo the formatting so I did a find/replace and added/changed a few of the paragraphs that I remembered changing. In retrospect, I should've used a program to actually compare the text. For what little it's worth, the name of the trait was based on a trait that the 5e subrace had, but I've fixed the first post so it has the updated name now)

But yeah, it was the derived term, not the full origin word.

ANYWAY

1/2- Template still sounds good to me! Any suggestions on how to actually cram this much stuff into a LA+0 template, though, or...?

3-yeah whoops my bad see above

4-The original 5e race is pretty much a joke race, but I like taking stuff like that seriously and making it actually reasonable. The fluff would theoretically point out that "Senpai" is the same as Japanese, but I figured that leaving the language name as Senpai would make it less setting-dependent, as is typical for 3.5e races (AFAIK?)

5-I see I see, yeah mental score bonuses seem fairly uncommon so I wasn't sure how to weight that, but it's definitely true that the race favors face-casters.

Maat Mons
2020-06-04, 09:16 PM
Personally, I wouldn't convert the whole race into a template. I'd make an Anime Girl race that's Medium size and has no youthful connotations. And I'd also make a Child Prodigy template that can be applied to any race, including Anime Girl. Child Prodigy would reduce size by one step, give the ability to ignore the starting age tables, and maybe have some penalties to balance that stuff out. Then put everything that's not on the template onto the Anime girl race.

Nifft
2020-06-04, 10:04 PM
IIRC there's a Pathfinder template for young characters -- either "Child" or "Young" maybe? -- and some people say it's viable, though I haven't looked at it for any of my games.

47948201
2020-06-04, 11:06 PM
Yeah, starting off with a regular Anime Girl as a base sounds like a good idea. There were some traits that seemed nicer to fold in together, but I think that would make sense, anyway.

I've seen the Young Characters Pathfinder option, but from what I can tell, it's... Super weak--they get -2 to three ability scores and access to only NPC classes (which has the potential to absolutely cripple a lot of characters in 3.5e, where they need to be Rebuilt rather than Retrained--and, in theory, the template wouldn't be lost upon aging up, so that wouldn't be applicable anyway) The only benefit is +2 to Dexterity, which... Yeah.

With that said... If I took some version of that as a base (as has been pointed out, anime characters tend not to necessarily lack strength, but we need to pull from somewhere, so if we go with the same -2 Str/Con/Wis and +2 Dex), then I would assume that it would be a lot easier to give that the majority of the benefits I currently have listed for the Short Anime Girl race. For example...

Anime Girl (Race)
+2 Charisma (...and that's it? The template takes care of the Strength penalty, but...)
Awkward Fall
DR 2/piercing or slashing
+2 bonus on diplomacy
no penalties for aging and no maximum age (bonuses still accrue)
Medium size, same language/favored classes/etc


Pint-Sized Adventurer (Template)
-2 Strength, Constitution, Wisdom
+2 Dexterity
-1 size, but allowing +1 size weapons/carrying limits (ie, Medium becomes Small, but still uses Medium weapons/encumbrance rules)
+2 bonus on bluff/diplomacy/disguise/gather information/perform (same type as for anime girls so that diplomacy bonuses overlap? Or should they stack because the 5e race gave proficiency while the 5e subrace gave advantage?)
not restricted by starting age table

Maybe something like that?

Or, alternatively, if I follow the 5e versions more closely...

Anime Girl (Race)
+2 Charisma, -2 Strength
Awkward Fall
DR 2/piercing or slashing
+2 bonus on diplomacy
no penalties for aging and no maximum age (bonuses still accrue)
Medium size, same language/favored classes/etc

Pint-Sized Adventurer (Template)
-1 size, but allowing +1 size weapons/carrying limits (ie, Medium becomes Small, but still uses Medium weapons/encumbrance rules) (In 3.5e, the size reduction does the job of basically giving the Dexterity bonus)
+2 bonus on bluff/diplomacy/disguise/gather information/perform (same type as for anime girls so that diplomacy bonuses overlap? Or should they stack because the 5e race gave proficiency while the 5e subrace gave advantage?)
not restricted by starting age table
probably some minor demerit, since everything here seems positive, other than the reduction in move speed?

Maat Mons
2020-06-05, 12:54 AM
In addition to the Young Characters (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/young-characters/) rules, there was a simple Template named Young (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1/). Conveniently, these are vastly different, completely incompatible, and both share exactly the same name.

I personally wouldn't give Anime Girl any ability score adjustments. But if you're going to give a +2 to something, something else should get -2. Many girls in anime are portrayed as ditzy, so a Wis penalty might make sense. Alternately, many girls in anime are portrayed as ludicrously proportioned, so a Dex penalty might make sense.

Pint-Sized Adventurer could probably just be +2 Dex, -2 Str, and not touch the other abilities. I don't think any special ability related to encumbrance is needed. If I recall, all gear crafted for a Small character weighs half as much, but Small creatures have 75% of the carrying capacity of Medium creatures. So that's already a net gain in terms of carrying their own gear. For a Medium character with Str 10, a suit of fullplate is 50% of his max load. For a Small character with Str 8, a suit of fullplate is just a little over 40% of his max load.

You mentioned a speed reduction for Pint-Sized Adventurer, but you didn't mention how much (unless I missed it). It should probably be -10 ft (if speed was 30 ft or more) or -5 ft (if speed was 25 ft or less), to a minimum speed of 5 ft.

47948201
2020-06-05, 01:26 AM
Huh, the Young template is... Not something I knew about! -2 to almost every roll is pretty yikes, but it's at least good to keep in mind.

Considering the Charisma bonus is universal across versions of the 5e race, it'd feel weird not to give it. That said, the Dexterity penalty you suggested makes sense, and would conveniently cancel out with a template's Dexterity bonus anyway. 3.5e races (other than that one human variant from Dragon) don't allow players to choose between different ability score options, right? So I couldn't just say "-2 to either Dexterity or Wisdom".

Small creatures do also get those smaller weapons, and non-worn equipment (torches, tool kits, and 10-foot poles oh my) would still count against that lower carrying value (which also influences lifting, but that was never specified as a benefit for the 5e subrace). That said, I think it's still going to be a net gain for most characters, and I won't deny that it seemed kind of odd to have a strength penalty but also increased effective strength for common uses of the stat?

Indeed, I didn't specify in the template, but I'd kind of assume that 30 becomes 20 (as was effectively the case for the original attempt at the 3.5e race), and 20 becomes 15, since those seem to be the typical speed values.