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mcumoric
2021-01-13, 03:07 PM
Elemental Aarakocra
You see, all aarakocra aren't just native to the plane of air, some other elemental creatures have created aarakocra variants in their own home plane, which vary greatly depending on the plane.

Phoekra
The plane of fire’s spin on Aarakocra.
These aarakocra are wreathed in red flames with eyes of burning charcoal. Their feathers give off a red glow.
Something to note is the flames their body gives off are somewhat warm, but not nearly as hot as regular flame.

Ability score increase. Your wisdom increases by 2, your intelligence increases by 1.
Age. Phoekra are extremely long lived, reaching adulthood by age 100, and living for 1000 years before dying. When many Phoekra die their body is set alight in flame, when they do this, a young Phoekra is born from it’s ashes leading to the myth that Phoekra are immortal.
Alignment. Phoekra are wise creatures said to have the wisdom of several lifetimes. Most Phoekra seek peace rather than violence, making them lawful good.
Size. Phoekra are 5 feet in height on average, no different then their airy counterparts. Your size is medium.
Speed. You have a walking speed of 25 feet. You also have a flying speed of 30 feet. You may not use this speed while wearing medium or heavy armor.
Fire resistance. You are resistant to fire damage.
Glow. You emmit dim light from your body in a 5 foot radius around yourself.
Languages. You can speak, read and write in common and ignan.


Duckra (Water Aarakocra)
The plane of water’s spin on Aarakocra.
They take their appearance heavily from ducks.

Ability score increase. Your charisma increases by 2, and your dexterity increases by 1.
Age. Duckra live a tad longer then aarakocra, maturing at 5 and dying of old age at 50 years of age usually.
Alignment. Duckra are laid back creatures who seem to not have much of a care in the world. They are often True neutral.
Size. Duckra stand a tad shorter than Aarakocra standing between 4 and 5 feet. Your size is still medium however.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. You have a swimming speed of 30 feet.
Wings. You have a flying speed of 30 feet. You cannot fly while wearing medium or heavy armor.
Hold breath. You can hold your breath up to 15 minutes at a time.
Languages. You can speak, read and write common and aquan.

Emukra (Earth Aarakocra)
The plane of earth’s spin on Aarakocra.
The main focus of Emukra is that instead of taking features from a bird that can fly, they take features from a ground bird, known as the emu.

Ability score increase. Your dexterity increases by 2, and your constitution increases by 1.
Age. Emukra live much longer then their airy counterparts, maturing at 10 years of age and living not much longer than 80 years.
Alignment. Emukra are neutral creatures, but stick with their family, being closely aligned with lawfulness.
Size. Emukra stand a bit taller than aarakocra, standing at 6 feet to 7 feet tall.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 50 feet.
Talons. You have a natural weapon in the form of talons on your feet. They count as unarmed strikes and deal 1d4 slashing damage instead of the normal amount.
Evasion. Once per short or long rest, you can take the dodge action as a bonus action.
Languages. You can speak, read and write common and terran.

(More to come for some other planes)

JNAProductions
2021-01-13, 03:15 PM
Fire is UP.
Water is probably fine.
Earth is OP.

mcumoric
2021-01-13, 03:53 PM
Earth is OP.

Damn really?

I mean 50 feet of movement isn't that ridiculous.
Base Aarakocra's have a 50 feet flight speed, which is basically twice as powerful of 50 feet of walking speed on account of the ridiculous versatility ranged aerial battles against grounded melee attackers.

I mean, I could limit the base walking speed a bit by making the base walking speed be 30 while wearing medium or heavy armor.

Daaaaabs
2021-01-17, 06:54 PM
Phoekra
The plane of fire’s spin on Aarakocra.
These aarakocra are wreathed in red flames with eyes of burning charcoal. Their feathers give off a red glow.
Something to note is the flames their body gives off are somewhat warm, but not nearly as hot as regular flame.

Ability score increase. Your wisdom increases by 2, your intelligence increases by 1.
Age. Phoekra are extremely long lived, reaching adulthood by age 100, and living for 1000 years before dying. When many Phoekra die their body is set alight in flame, when they do this, a young Phoekra is born from it’s ashes leading to the myth that Phoekra are immortal.
Alignment. Phoekra are wise creatures said to have the wisdom of several lifetimes. Most Phoekra seek peace rather than violence, making them lawful good.
Size. Phoekra are 5 feet in height on average, no different then their airy counterparts. Your size is medium.
Speed. You have a walking speed of 25 feet. You also have a flying speed of 30 feet. You may not use this speed while wearing medium or heavy armor.
Fire resistance. You are resistant to fire damage.
Glow. You emmit dim light from your body in a 5 foot radius around yourself.
Languages. You can speak, read and write in common and ignan.

I'd boost Glow a little bit to 15 or 20 feet, similar to a torch. It's a bit more of a benefit for the player and adds more flavour for the race in general. I also agree this race needs a bit of a boost; the only real ability it has is Fire Resistance. Compare this to Fire Genasi, which get 60 feet of darkvision, Produce Flame, and Burning Hands - not to say you have to put them on the same level, but without other characteristics, it's pretty weak on it's own.

Are these subraces, or actual races in their own right? I could see this working as a subrace with an additional minor feature, but as a standalone, it needs a bit more juice, IMO.


Duckra (Water Aarakocra)
The plane of water’s spin on Aarakocra.
They take their appearance heavily from ducks.

Ability score increase. Your charisma increases by 2, and your dexterity increases by 1.
Age. Duckra live a tad longer then aarakocra, maturing at 5 and dying of old age at 50 years of age usually.
Alignment. Duckra are laid back creatures who seem to not have much of a care in the world. They are often True neutral.
Size. Duckra stand a tad shorter than Aarakocra standing between 4 and 5 feet. Your size is still medium however.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. You have a swimming speed of 30 feet.
Wings. You have a flying speed of 30 feet. You cannot fly while wearing medium or heavy armor.
Hold breath. You can hold your breath up to 15 minutes at a time.
Languages. You can speak, read and write common and aquan.

I like the swimming speed here, and the ASIs are pretty decent. But, again, I don't see how this compensates for the lack of abilities given if they're not subraces. Why not simply make them Amphibious? - Water Genasi get this and Acid damage resistance, as well as a few additional spells. I'm not sure being able to fly in light armor is going to be a significant advantage compared to this.


Emukra (Earth Aarakocra)
The plane of earth’s spin on Aarakocra.
The main focus of Emukra is that instead of taking features from a bird that can fly, they take features from a ground bird, known as the emu.

Ability score increase. Your dexterity increases by 2, and your constitution increases by 1.
Age. Emukra live much longer then their airy counterparts, maturing at 10 years of age and living not much longer than 80 years.
Alignment. Emukra are neutral creatures, but stick with their family, being closely aligned with lawfulness.
Size. Emukra stand a bit taller than aarakocra, standing at 6 feet to 7 feet tall.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 50 feet.
Talons. You have a natural weapon in the form of talons on your feet. They count as unarmed strikes and deal 1d4 slashing damage instead of the normal amount.
Evasion. Once per short or long rest, you can take the dodge action as a bonus action.
Languages. You can speak, read and write common and terran.

This one is more balanced - there's a couple of cool combat abilities which help balance it out compared to it's opposites. I really like Talons; you could throw this in with the others, but it'd take up a space otherwise usable for an elemental-specific feature. Again, having a bit more of a boost could help here, though less so than the other races in direct comparison.

A lot of this depends on what you want for these races. Would you prefer them to be subraces? In that case, you could probably get away with one or two minor alterations and a movement change/ASI. That's personally what I would reccomend, given what I've seen here so far.

Keep up the good work! :)

sandmote
2021-01-22, 01:46 AM
If you count flight as very powerful (Detect Balance uses a bonus equal to +4 in ASIs) these are all in the general range for PC races, which is actually better balanced than the air version of the race with their 50' flight speed. When weighing flight heavily, I'd actually consider the earth version of the race the weakest, if by a small margin.

If you don't weigh flight very much (and the writers of the published aarakocra certainly fall in this category), then the fire and water races are a bit low on features. I would either give the duckra either some "float on the surface while sleeping" feature or water breathing, to explain how they typically rest. Maybe the Phoekra could get some sort of bonus related to their lifespans or culture, like weapon training or a skill?

Glow as currently written seems to work more as a penalty rather than a bonus. The fact it's so little light and you can't turn it off mean you'll still need other lights to see by but will yourself be unable to use darkness to hide in. I can't tell if that's intentional, but suspect it was just intended as minor fluff.

Putting the written races aside for a moment, I don't see why "humanoids living on the elemental plane" have any reason to resemble each other between the planes. I'd expect there to be much more variety to reflect the extreme differences in conditions between them. Tritons and Firenewts certainly fill the same thematic roles, although I'm AFB at the moment and don't recall if the firenewts canonically originate from the plane of fire.

mcumoric
2022-02-04, 04:30 PM
Probably should have mentioned this before, but these Aarakocra variant race, are more related to Aarakocra, but aren't actually Aarakocra.

Exactly like how Deep gnomes, Duergar, and all the elves were re-worked into their own races in the new book.