Mousefolk-- Harness the Fear

[Second Wind]

I'm looking for a defining ability for mousefolk. Mice are known for being quick and quiet, but Goblins and Tabaxi already fill those roles. What stands out about mice, I think, is fear. Mice are known for being skittish, and mouse heroes are remarkable for overcoming their nature. To reflect that dichotomy of fear and courage, I propose giving mousefolk two connected abilities.

Harness the Fear: When you become Frightened, you can use your Reaction to move up to your speed. This movement is not restricted by the Frightened condition.

Skittish: You may choose to become Frightened of any hostile creature that you can see, either when that creature damages you or at any time during your turn. This effect lasts until the end of your next turn.

Together, they allow mousefolk to scurry into or out of harm's way as a reusable Reaction. Would this be a useful power, or is Frightened too harsh a condition? (How many points would it be worth on Detect Greater Balance?)

Judgments/suggestions/alternatives/insights are welcome. Thanks!

[Yakk]

What if we detangled them, and gave the Mousefolk partial immunity to fear?

Valiant: You do not have disadvantage from being frightened on attacks on a creature you are frightened of. You retain disadvantage on attacks on other targets.

Skittish: As a bonus action, you can choose to become frightened of a hostile creature you can see. If you do so, you may first move up to your speed; this movement is not restricted by the fightened condition. You can also use this ability as a reaction when a creature damages you.

Note that you still have disadvantage on attacking other creatures and on ability checks, and you cannot move closer to the source of your fear (other than the initial burst from Skittish).

[BerzerkerUnit]

I think it would be simpler as follows

Skittish. When a hostile creature moves within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to move up to your speed. You regain the use of this feature after a short or long rest.

As you had it, consider a Sorcerer or other caster, their spell saves ignore fear disadvantage on attacks, so a Sorcerer that stays frightened has better combat movement than a rogue. seems easy to abuse.

[Second Wind]

What if we detangled them, and gave the Mousefolk partial immunity to fear?

Valiant: You do not have disadvantage from being frightened on attacks on a creature you are frightened of. You retain disadvantage on attacks on other targets.

Valiant would partly fix the problem BerzerkerUnit mentioned, wherein the Frightened condition is much more harmful to fighting types than to casters.


I think it would be simpler as follows

Skittish. When a hostile creature moves within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to move up to your speed. You regain the use of this feature after a short or long rest.


I like this. It's a lot simpler, and interrupting the opponent's turn makes it strong enough to warrant restricting to once per rest. (Skirmisher is unlimited, but only triggers at the end of the opponent's turn.)

I'm concerned that "moves within 5 feet of you" is too narrow a trigger, though. It means you can't be skittish against big monsters, because they naturally have reach. Is it reasonable to trigger "when a hostile creature would attack you" instead?

[Breccia]

The issue I have is that Frightened is boty really restrictive, and also fairly rare. It won't come up a ton in encounters and it's pretty risky to do it to yourself.

Gotta say, though, the idea of Hamster the Rogue dashing around the battlefield is amazing.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Valiant would partly fix the problem BerzerkerUnit mentioned, wherein the Frightened condition is much more harmful to fighting types than to casters.



I like this. It's a lot simpler, and interrupting the opponent's turn makes it strong enough to warrant restricting to once per rest. (Skirmisher is unlimited, but only triggers at the end of the opponent's turn.)

I'm concerned that "moves within 5 feet of you" is too narrow a trigger, though. It means you can't be skittish against big monsters, because they naturally have reach. Is it reasonable to trigger "when a hostile creature would attack you" instead?

Skittish. You can use your reaction to move up to your speed when a creature makes a melee attack against you. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You must decide to use this ability before the attack is rolled. You regain the use of this feature after completing a long or short rest.

___
This vastly increases its value by allowing you to force a creep to squander an attack, but it doesn’t allow you to be too choosey since you have to go before the roll.

Honestly, I like the earlier version better. A lot of large creatures don’t have a reach of 10 feet or more anyway and the option to have an ally “startle” you into a better position makes it a deeper mechanic.

As a signature feature of a race that gets very little else, it seems okay to me. Add a line about how the creature can choose to use a ranged attack or attack a different target if you leave its reach and it would be an okay perk of a race that got maybe a diseased bite and burrow speed.

[Second Wind]

This vastly increases its value by allowing you to force a creep to squander an attack, but it doesn’t allow you to be too choosey since you have to go before the roll. [...] Add a line about how the creature can choose to use a ranged attack or attack a different target if you leave its reach

Yeah, I wouldn't want Skittish to be about wasting an opponent's attack. That's much less interesting than repositioning, and too similar to Uncanny Dodge. (Halving a successful hit is pretty similar to cancelling an attack pre-roll.)

That said, if a mousefolk baits a melee monster into charging them and then Skittishes away, and the monster doesn't have enough movement left to keep chasing or find a new target... that's awesome and I'm completely onboard.



the option to have an ally “startle” you into a better position makes it a deeper mechanic.
Oh! I hadn't considered the possibilities of allies startling the mousefolk. That's interesting. Startle your mouse friend to come flank for you or something.

To nail down the exact trigger, here are some possibilities:

When a creature moves within 5ft of you.
When a creature moves within its melee reach of you.
When a hostile creature would attack you. (You move before the attack, and the attacker can subsequently change their choice to attack you.)
After a creature attacks you. (If they multiattack, this would trigger after the first attack on you.)


Maybe the first and the last option, so after a creature moves within 5ft of you or attacks you. That would allow allies to helpfully startle a mousefolk into reposition, and also let a mousefolk dive for cover if things get hairy.


As a signature feature of a race that gets very little else, it seems okay to me.
Goblins are my go-to example of an awesome PC race built around a signature feature and not much else. For mousefolk, I'd like their unique ability to be around 6-10 points on the Detect Greater Balance scale. Certainly nothing stronger than Nimble Escape.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Yeah, I wouldn't want Skittish to be about wasting an opponent's attack. That's much less interesting than repositioning, and too similar to Uncanny Dodge. (Halving a successful hit is pretty similar to cancelling an attack pre-roll.)

That said, if a mousefolk baits a melee monster into charging them and then Skittishes away, and the monster doesn't have enough movement left to keep chasing or find a new target... that's awesome and I'm completely onboard.


Oh! I hadn't considered the possibilities of allies startling the mousefolk. That's interesting. Startle your mouse friend to come flank for you or something.

To nail down the exact trigger, here are some possibilities:

When a creature moves within 5ft of you.
When a creature moves within its melee reach of you.
When a hostile creature would attack you. (You move before the attack, and the attacker can subsequently change their choice to attack you.)
After a creature attacks you. (If they multiattack, this would trigger after the first attack on you.)


Maybe the first and the last option, so after a creature moves within 5ft of you or attacks you. That would allow allies to helpfully startle a mousefolk into reposition, and also let a mousefolk dive for cover if things get hairy.


Goblins are my go-to example of an awesome PC race built around a signature feature and not much else. For mousefolk, I'd like their unique ability to be around 6-10 points on the Detect Greater Balance scale. Certainly nothing
stronger than Nimble Escape.

Ah, my update to the feature didn't focus it on making foes waste attacks, but by allowing you trigger when the foe makes the attack you can move out of their reach so the attack happens to be wasted, it still allowed for movement, and since it's a full move, most creatures that already moved to attack you will come up short if they want to pursue.

That makes a Mouse rogue pretty strong since they could position away from the party, bait a foe to charge them, then skitter toward the party and dash back to the party to assist with other foes the following round. That leaves one or more foes wasting the first 2 rounds of combat running around after the mouse.

As a rule I dislike the scaling system *they* came up with for racial features. If you're going to use it, I'd recommend using it as a guideline rather than a rule. Chasing the holy grail of "Balanced" has always seemed more a way to make things bland. When I design a race, I'm not asking if it's balanced, I'm asking "1. would it be fun? if yes, does that fun take away another player's fun somehow? If no, it's fine."

Good luck!