PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next [Balance pass] Bullywug race & Way of the Frog subclass- feedback wanted!



Magicspook
2020-12-29, 05:33 AM
Hello everyone,

I'd like to have your opinion on two quick homebrews I wrote down for a player who wants to play a bullywug monk. My main design principles were:
>Make it a fun and relatively straightforward character to play
>No difficult synergies to track (this is her second serious character)
>cover the theme of froggy monkness without leaving gaps of 'I should be able to do that'
She's relatively new, so don't worry about obscure multiclassing exploits. Nor am I too worried about the 'bragging rights' ability being too powerful, I hand out advantage as a reward for good roleplaying all the time and this is meant as roleplay incentive for her (again, shes relatively new and shy).

Without further ado, let's share the homebrew!
The race:

Bullywug traits
As a bullywug, you have the following traits.

Ability Score Increase.
You increase three ability scores with 1, or a single ability score with 2 and another with 1.

Age.
Bullywugs live lives of a similar length to most humans.

Alignment.
Bullywugs are nothing if not opportunistic, and do not care in particular for order or freedom. They tend towards neutrality on the lawful-chaotic axis.

Size & Speed.
You are on the shorter end of medium, standing just over 4 feet tall. With feet adapted better for water than land, you have a walking speed of 25ft. and a swimming speed of 40ft.

Amphibious.
Your thin and soft skin is adapted to take up oxygen from the water. You can breathe both on land and underwater.

Languages.
You can speak, read and write Common and Bullywug. The Bullywug tongue is a croaking language that can carry for long distances (up to 300ft.) and can be used to communicate simple concepts with frogs and toads.

Jumping legs.
Adapted for taking long leaps, you can jump over unusually long distances. Your long jump is up to 20ft. and your high jump is up to 10ft., with or without a running start.

Bragging rights.
Your position in Bullywug society is not necessarily based on your actual exploits, but rather on the tall tales you spin of them. You have advantage on all charisma checks incorporating a tale of your exploits, proviced you use at least one item as a 'trophy' from your tale.

The subclass:

Tongue strike
When you take this subclass at 3rd level, your tongue becomes an additional limb with which to strike. Whenever use your flurry of blwos ability, you gain the following benefits:
>your reach increases by 10 feet for the attacks granted by flurry of blows
>whenever you hit an object or creature with the attacks from your flurry of blows, they must succeed on a strength saving throw or be moved up to 10 feet towards you. If a creature moves into a space adjacent to you, you can immediately grapple them without costing an additional action (the normal restrictions for grappling apply).

Whirlwind Jump
Starting at 6rd level, you are capable of jumping amazing distances and perform great feats of acrobatics. Instead of spending a ki point to dash or disengage as a bonus action, you can spend a ki point to benefit from both effects.

Furthermore, you can expend 2 ki points as an action to turn into a whirlwind of movement while you jump. You move up to 30ft. in a straight line in any direction, provided you do not enter a hostile creature's space or pass through a solid object. While you move in this way, you can make one unarmed attack against each hostile creature that comes within 5ft. of you. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity while moving in this way.

slippery skin
When you reach 11th level, your skin becomes slick and slimey. You can squeeze through spaces one size smaller than you normally can. In addition, you have advantage on desxterity (acrobatcs) and strength (athletics) checks to escape a grapple, and checks attempting to grapple you have disadvantage. If a creature automatically grapples you when it hits you with one of its attacks, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on that attack.

toxic slime
At 17th level, you learn how to secrete a debilitating slime from your skin. When you hit a craeture with your unarmed attack, you can spend 4 ki points to leave a smudge of this slime on your opponent. You can also leave a smudge of toxin as a reaction when you are grappled by a hostile creature.

When poisoned, a creature must succeed on a constitution saving throw at the start of each of their turns or become poisoned until the start of their next turn and take 6d4 poison damage. This effect lasts until they succeed on this saving throw three times.



Let me know what you think! Is it balanced? Are there parts that are not-done in 5e balance? Are parts badly worded? Any feedback is welcome!

Damon_Tor
2020-12-29, 12:45 PM
It's surprisingly good for a race-specific subclass. In particular, the 6th level abilities are excellent, and both simplify the subclass (by combining two abilities into one to reduce decision paralysis) and seem like a blast to play.

I feel like the game elements which interact with grappling run contrary to your stated goals however. A monk is a MAD class anyway, so she's not going to have the strength to make grappling viable. And you're setting up very messy, roll heavy turns for her: four attacks, up to two strength saves from her opponents, then up to two pairs of contested strength checks to grapple. That's a very busy turn.

Additionally, Flurry of Blows depends on taking the attack action, which means she'll probably have to be in 5 feet of her opponent anyway, negating the benefit of the reach. I would suggest simply giving them a tongue as a 1d4 natural weapon with reach and leaving it at that. That way she can make her whole attack chain at reach if she wants. Cut the grappling. Maybe for froggy flavor add that if you kill a tiny creature with a tongue attack you can immediately swallow it to regain some HP or something.

Poison damage as a capstone feature is underwhelming because so much of what you fight at that level of play is immune to it. A change of damage type to necrotic would solve the problem.

Magicspook
2020-12-29, 02:10 PM
First of all thank you for reading!




I feel like the game elements which interact with grappling run contrary to your stated goals however. A monk is a MAD class anyway, so she's not going to have the strength to make grappling viable. And you're setting up very messy, roll heavy turns for her: four attacks, up to two strength saves from her opponents, then up to two pairs of contested strength checks to grapple. That's a very busy turn.

My intent was to have the grapple automatically to reduce the amount of rolls. I know that's normally reserved for monsters, but I thought it'd be fine and not too unbalanced. However, something I did not consider was the STR requirement for grappling- I confused it with escaping grapple, which can use both STR and DEX. I need to think on this...



Additionally, Flurry of Blows depends on taking the attack action, which means she'll probably have to be in 5 feet of her opponent anyway, negating the benefit of the reach. I would suggest simply giving them a tongue as a 1d4 natural weapon with reach and leaving it at that. That way she can make her whole attack chain at reach if she wants. Cut the grappling. Maybe for froggy flavor add that if you kill a tiny creature with a tongue attack you can immediately swallow it to regain some HP or something.

Yes, I should have allowed the tongue attack on the main attack action as well. The reach thing will be a little wonky otherwise. Thanks for pointing that out, that's exactly the kind of feedback I wanted.



Poison damage as a capstone feature is underwhelming because so much of what you fight at that level of play is immune to it. A change of damage type to necrotic would solve the problem.

Done. Do you think the ki cost is balanced? I have no real experience with homebrewing at that level.

Damon_Tor
2020-12-29, 06:53 PM
I don't think grappling is really something you want to include in a build for newer players at all, not on a monk subclass anyway (their low HP and skirmishing playstyle makes grappling suboptimal for them even if you patch the str issue). Try to think of other fun effects for a Frog's tongue. Maybe "Once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack from your Flurry of Blows using your tongue, you can attempt to disarm that creature. The creature must pass a strength save (DC= 8+your proficiency modifier+your dexterity modifier) or you can grab one item they're holding in their hand with your tongue". Simple enough, just one added save, and you don't have to worry about the monk making the usually poor tactical decision to grapple somebody. And disarms are always fun.

The ki cost on the poison seems fine, high if anything. Compare to the Quivering Palm, which spends 3 ki for an instant death effect.

Magicspook
2020-12-30, 03:39 PM
I don't think grappling is really something you want to include in a build for newer players at all, not on a monk subclass anyway (their low HP and skirmishing playstyle makes grappling suboptimal for them even if you patch the str issue). Try to think of other fun effects for a Frog's tongue. Maybe "Once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack from your Flurry of Blows using your tongue, you can attempt to disarm that creature. The creature must pass a strength save (DC= 8+your proficiency modifier+your dexterity modifier) or you can grab one item they're holding in their hand with your tongue". Simple enough, just one added save, and you don't have to worry about the monk making the usually poor tactical decision to grapple somebody. And disarms are always fun.

The ki cost on the poison seems fine, high if anything. Compare to the Quivering Palm, which spends 3 ki for an instant death effect.

Thanks! A disarm would be awesome!

Duff
2020-12-30, 05:54 PM
I don't think grappling is really something you want to include in a build for newer players at all, not on a monk subclass anyway (their low HP and skirmishing playstyle makes grappling suboptimal for them even if you patch the str issue). Try to think of other fun effects for a Frog's tongue. Maybe "Once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack from your Flurry of Blows using your tongue, you can attempt to disarm that creature. The creature must pass a strength save (DC= 8+your proficiency modifier+your dexterity modifier) or you can grab one item they're holding in their hand with your tongue". Simple enough, just one added save, and you don't have to worry about the monk making the usually poor tactical decision to grapple somebody. And disarms are always fun.



If you leave the grapple in, maybe you need to advise your player it's really only good for use against smaller, weaker opponents.
Or you could make the rules back that by saying the power only works against creatures of small size or less