Dragonlance Races

[P. G. Macer]

So with the release of Shadow of the Dragon Queen, I’ve been on a bit of a Dragonlance lore binge and brewed up some more obscure races* that are primarily found in on Krynn, with the Irda and Thanoi added two days ago in light of the D&D Beyond Monstrous Compendium #2 release.

I have a few questions/comments/concerns about each of the five races currently in this link (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Csq-gOpxcvSa).


Unlike some other worlds, the goblinoids of Krynn have been known to interbreed with humans. Contrary to Krynn’s frequently angst-ridden half-elves and half-ogres, half-goblins are often confident, full of self-esteem to the point of being mistaken for arrogant.

Half-Goblin Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age. Half-goblins mature at the same rate as humans, and generally live to be about 80 years old.

Alignment. Half-goblins are frequently of neutral alignments, owing to their human heritage, though heroes and villains are also found among them.

Size. Half-goblins descended from goblin stock are generally around 3-4 feet in height, while those of hobgoblin and bugbear ancestry are taller. Your Size is Small or Medium (choose when you select this race).

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet.

Darkvision. You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. In that range, you can see in dim light as if in bright light, and darkness as in dim light.

Goblin Skills. You are proficient in the Deception and Stealth skills.

Hybrid Bravado. You have advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the charmed or frightened condition on yourself.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.
For the half-goblin, I’m worried that it is underpowered and/or bland, but I’m struggling to figure out a way to buff it while staying faithful to my source material.


Created by Takhisis when Krynn first came to be, most Irda fell into corruption to become ogres, but a few resisted the influence of evil and maintained their original forms in hiding. Irda have skin ranging across various bluish shades from sea green to indigo, and have a singular small horn protruding from their foreheads.

Irda Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.

Age. Irda reach maturity at around 20 years of age, and can live to be around 700 years old.

Size. Irda stand between 6 and 7 feet tall. Your Size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet.

Giant. Your creature type is giant, rather than humanoid.

Darkvision. You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. In that range, you can see in dim light as if in bright light, and darkness as in dim light.

Veil Walk. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet turn and invisible until the start of your next turn or until you attack, make a damage roll, or force someone to make a saving throw.

Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Augment Physicality. Starting at 5th level, you gain the ability to supernaturally grow. As a bonus action, you change your size to Large, provided you’re in a big enough space. This transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During that duration, you have advantage on Strength and Dexterity saving throws, and your Speed increases by 10 feet.
Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and your choice of Giant or Sylvan.

In terms of power, the Irda has my worries coming from the opposite direction, though I was assured by a DoMT member a few hours ago that I could probably safely buff it to be more faithful to the monster statblocks, so I did so.


Claiming descent from a Kargonesti elf and the god Habbaduk, the Phaethons look like ruddy half-elves until they manifest their wings of fire, a sacred act they do not perform trivially.

Phaethon Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1, and your Wisdom score increases by 2.

Age. Phaetons age similarly to half-elves, reaching physical maturity around the age of 20 and living to around 180 years.

Alignment. Phaethons are almost invariably of chaotic alignments.

Size. Phaethons are similar in height and build to half-elves. Your Size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet.

Darkvision. You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. In that range, you can see in dim light as if in bright light, and darkness as in dim light.

Elf Heritage. You have advantage on saving throws to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You qualify as an elf for the purpose of the Elven Accuracy feat.

Fire Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.

Power over Flames. You know the control flames cantrip. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Fiery Wings. Starting at 3rd level, you can use your bonus action to unleash fiery energy from within yourself, causing your eyes to blaze and two flaming, incorporeal wings to sprout from your back.

Your wings last for 1 minute or until you dismiss them as a bonus action. During this time, you have a flying speed of 30 feet, and once on each of your turns, you can deal extra fire damage to one target when you deal damage to it with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your proficiency bonus.

Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and Ignan.
The Phaethon I’m fairly confident about, given that it’s in many ways a reskin of the MotM Aasimar with only the Radiant Soul option available.



Thought to be descended from warped and mutated ogres, the Thanoi can best be described as anthropomorphic walruses known for their brutality.

Thanoi Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age. Thanoi come of age in their late teens and live for less than a century.

Alignment. Thanoi are traditionally of evil alignment, but the adventurers among them come in all stripes.

Size. Thanoi usually exceed 8 feet in height and 250 pounds in weight. Your Size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet and a base swimming speed of 30 feet.

Monstrosity. Your creature type is monstrosity rather than humanoid.

Hold Breath. You can hold your breath for up to 10 + your Constittuion modifer minutes.

Pack Tactics. You have advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of your allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.

Tusks. Your tusks are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you can deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Polar Resistance. You have resistance to cold damage.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Aquan.

The Thanoi is my biggest concern, as I was pretty faithful in adapting the monster statblock, my main concession to balance being downgrading the monster’s cold immunity to resistance. I left in the Pack Tactics, though, which Detect Balance 2022 said was fine, but those calculators can miss details that push brews over the edge.



Anthropomorphic polar bears native to far southern Ansalon, ursoi are most commonly found in Krynn’s polar regions.

Ursoi Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age. Ursoi come of age in their late teens and live for less than a century.

Alignment. Ursoi have strong senses of honor and altruism, tending towards law and good.

Size. Ursoi usually exceed 8 feet in height and 250 pounds in weight. Your Size is Medium.

Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet, and a base swimming speed of 30 feet.

Darkvision. You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. In that range, you can see in dim light as if in bright light, and darkness as in dim light.

Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Apex Predator. You gain proficiency in one of the following skills: Athletics, Perception, or Survival.

Claws. Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you can deal slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Natural Armor. Your furry hide and thick fat protect you against attacks. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Constitution modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.

Polar Resistance. You have resistance to cold damage.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Ursoi.

Finally, the Ursoi is rather pigeonholed into martial roles, but I feel it does its niche well enough to balance things out.

*I know One D&D is going to change the term to Species, but for the time being I’m using the current term.

[Loek]

Hi, firstly, besides the race/species thing. Another thing that has been true of a lot of books recently is letting go of 3 other things you've included in your state block:

Alignment
Stat boosts (leaving them up to the player to decide)
Languages (currently usually common + one other for the player/DM to decide)


Not a big issue, as you can just apply the rules from... Tasha's?... and overwrite those anyhow.

Now for the races:
Half-Goblin, which I've compared to the Tabaxi:

Both have 2 usefull skill proficiencies
Both have 60ft darkvision

Tabaxi have the claws (mostly fluff, but occasionally useful), climbing speed and the every other turn speed boost.
Goblins have the fey advantage on saves against charmed + advantage vs frightend. (The frightend boost is good, but not all the tabaxi stuff good)

Tabaxi aren't super themselves, so since your half-goblins lose to them, that's not good.

Consider adding one of the weaker features of the Goblin (disengage and/or hide on bonus action), Bugbear (2d6 extra damage if the opponent hasn't taken a turn yet) or Hobgoblin (bonus action to help prof mod amount per long rest, probably without the bonus effects though). Maybe even make this a "select one of these 3 to reflect your heritage" thing.


Irda, which I've compared to the Shadar-Kai:

Both have 60ft darkvision
Both have 30ft bonus action teleport with extra effect

Note that the current Shadar-kai no longer has once per rest, it now has prof mod amount per long rest. I'd recommend doing the same for the Irda. Also, have the teleport from level 1, but add the rider effect (invisibility) from level 3 on.

Shadar-kai have resistance to charmed condition, resistance to necrotic, a skill profficiency and trance (mostly RP, but the 2 floating tool/weapon skills can be quite useful)
Irda have Giant type and the grow ability from level 5 onwards.

The giant typing is what worries me the most. As it'll make the race immune to earlier control type spells.
But other than that, it's actually somewhat on the weak side (compared to the admittedly awesome Shadar-kai). I'd boost Augment Physicality to once per short rest. (And if it wouldn't over shadow the high elves, I'd be tempted to give them a cantrip to reflect their magical nature... if you do this, it'd need to be more utilitarian cantrip and probably make it a fixed one, not a choice)


Phaethon, I'll admit I don't have a clue about these, but I stopped reading dragonlance quite a bit ago.
But compared to the assimar:

Both have a once per day wing ability (though the assimar gets to pick between 3 of them, the pheathon gets a weaker version of one of those (due to fire being weaker))
Both have darkvision
Both gain a cantrip (light is probably slightly more useful)

Assimar get resistance to Necrotic and Radiant. Pheathon gets resistance to fire. Fire is more common, but resistance to the other two is harder to find
Assimar deals radiant, Pheathon deals fire damage. Fire is far more resisted.
Elf Heritage is probably a bit stronger than healing hands.

Altogether, not terribly bad balance wise, though the damage type feels slightly on the weak side. With Habbakuk's anti undead stance, it'd be fine to use radiant damage I think. But generally not bad.


Thanoi, this one is indeed quite hard.

monstrosity typing is going to make things weird. I'd say make them humanoid instead.
Hold breath, probably simplify this by just making it 15minutes. (same as lizardfolk)
Tusks, more recent natural weapons like these tends to be 1d6, which wouldn't unbalance anything I think.
In the end, it all comes down to Pack Tactics. Which, together with the swim speed, makes or breaks this race.
(Note that most new races use "swimming speed equal to your walking speed")
Pack tactics feels boring. But it's very strong. Any party with more then the Thanoi as frontliners, this means almost permanent advantage.
As a whole, this is probably good ish... but I'd be tempted to remove the pack tactics in favor of some barbarian inspired boost they can activate prof mod per day.
Not sure about this one either.


Ursoi, these feel like aqautic Loxodon.
They share:

Powerful build
Natural armor of 12+CON

Loxodon get: Advantage vs charmed/frightened, Trunk for manipulating things, Keen smell for advantage on certain checks
Ursoi get: Darkvision, Prof in 1 skill, Claws to deal damage with, cold resistance and a swimming speed (note about swimming speed, as mentioned for the Thanoi)

I'd say drop the darkvision, and in a non-aquatic campaign things will be mostly fine. The Ursoi will be beter in combat, the Loxodon will be beter outside.
Consider dropping the skill proficiency for a situational advantage like the Loxodon's get instead.


PS: both the Thanoi and Ursoi should probably weigh more than 250 pounds. 250-350 seems more sensibile.

Anyhow, maybe a bit rambling, but I hope this helps.

[P. G. Macer]

Thank you for your feedback! I feel I should explain a few things before going into more detail. The first is that I am in the camp that’s against the changes to race made post-Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, both because I feel it is lazy design on the game’s writers’ part as well as reasons for which I will not go into in deference to the Forum Rules. The second was that my basis for many of my choices was working off either 3.5 material and trying to adapt it to 5e principles, or trying to balance 5e monster statblocks as 5 races.

I was worried that the Half-Goblin was anemic, so I’m actually rather relieved to have a suggestion on how to fix it!

For the Irda, a lot of its racial power budget is defensive via the Giant typing, but looking at the lore in the D&D Beyond free Dragonlance monster set, I think I can both change Augment Physicality to recharge on a short or long rest as well as giving the minor illusion cantrip.

Fire is really important to Phaethon lore from what I know, but I’ll look into the radiant option. My main concern with that is it being too similar mechanically to the Aasimar if I change the PB damage to radiant; even though Aasimar aren’t normally found in Dragonlance, I still feel it’s something to avoid.

I see what you’re saying about the Thanoi, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Monstrosity creature typing on a PC from what I can tell is actually less weird than Giant, which I gave the Irda, and WotC experimented with giving it to centaurs and minotaurs pre-Ravnica alongside humanoid. There is precedent in the Aladdin for the monster and PC versions of a being having different creature types, though so I may go with your suggestion of changing them to humanoids after all.
The tusks are an exact representation of the monster stat block’s tusks, and I worry that changing them to 1d6 may upset the race's admittedly delicate balance. I will change the Hold Breath to 15 minutes, though, and the swimming speed to equal walking speed.
Pack Tactics, I think we can agree, is the thorn in our side for the Thanoi. I’m going to leave it as-is for now and probably replace it if/when I or someone else comes up with a good replacement idea.

The Ursoi I now see do look an awful lot like a better loxodon. I'll probably just ditch the skill entirely, but I’m on the fence about the darkvision, as a bear race lacking it just feels wrong and would invite incredulity from players.

Great point on the weights, as well. Once again, thank you so much, I highly value feedback!

[Loek]

Like I said, Tasha's/lineage type rules are easy enough to copy over this kind of stat block, so no harm in not implementing them (especially if that gives it more lore/vibe for you to work with). I just skip those sections as I tend to find them overly restrictive for Player Characters (they can be good generalizations for their species as a whole).

Anyhow, I've done a bit more thinking/checking and figured I'd share some of the things I found.

First of "Typing": it turns out I'm also very much stuck in 3.5 with this one. In the end there are only a few spells that are affected by this in 5e (The list is the same for both Giants and Monstrosities). I'll post them below and bold the most important ones. You decide if this is really a problem or not:
Ceremony, Charm Person, Calm Emotions, Crown of Madness, Hold Person, Animate Dead, Fast Friends, Dominate Person, Reincarnate, Create Undead, Magic Jar, Soul Cage, Simulacrum

For the Phaethon, you could keep the resistance to fire. And make the attack:

Half fire damage and half radiant damage
Fire damage, with 1 bonus radiant damage

The first option would be like Flame Strike
The second option would always do 1 damage more than a Aasimar, but with most of that being in a more resisted type.
Both options would keep the fire esthetic and both options would have some radiant damage to be extra effective against zombies and such.

Finally, the Thanoi. I missed it originally, but the Kobold race used to have "Pack tactics", so it wouldn't be something completely new. That said, they very much lost any trace of it in their rework. So yeah.
I still think it's a boring race trait (even if it's very strong), and be more likely to go with 1 or 2 activatable abilities. Like the hobgoblins reroll if friends are near and/or the kobolds bonus action to give advantage to self and others. Both having that same "pack hunting together" vibe.

[P. G. Macer]

It seems I rather poorly explained myself. That is on me.

First, there’s nothing stopping people from using the Tasha’s adjustments for these races, but I am opposed to them partially for reasons I cannot go into without breaking the Forum Rules.

Second, the alternate creature typings of Giant and Monstrosity were strategic on my part, taking into account the granting of immunity to those spells you mentioned. That’s why the non-Humanoid typing takes up part of the Irda and Thanoi’s power budgets (incidentally, for the Thanoi at least, the Monstrosity typing in 5e is not unprecedented, given that the Thri-Kreen race in the Spelljammer box set also is a Monstrosity).

Thirdly, I see what you’re saying about the Phaethon, and am seriously considering it, but the currently proposed implementation feels clunky; the half-fire/half-radiant approach will be weird when the PC has an odd proficiency bonus, and the static bonus of +1 is generally avoided in 5e design principles.

Finally, I was deliberately thinking of the Volo’s Guide Kobold when giving the Thanoi Pack Tactics, and my initial concern was that it would be overpowered without a severe drawback like Sunlight Sensitivity to balance it. I’m not a fan of the Multiverse Kobold’s Draconic Cry, as from certain angles it’s actually stronger than Pack Tactics, even if it’s limited use. It’s essentially a stronger version of the Samurai Fighter’s primary subclass feature! I’m also not a fan of the Multiverse Hobgoblin’s help feature, as I feel it steps on the toes of a key feature of the Mastermind Rogue (again, even though it’s limited-use). I’m still going to look into replacement and supplementary features, though.

[P. G. Macer]

UPDATE

I’ve greatly expanded (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Csq-gOpxcvSa) this Homebrew since I last posted! There are four more new races in the document: the Gully Dwarf, the Half-Kender, the Kyrie, and the biggest missing race from the original, the Draconians! These races share a mixture of traits from both the early-5e and contemporary-5e schools of race design.

The Gully Dwarf is probably the biggest offender in its archaism, with its two +2 ASIs and a –1 to Intelligence. They present an interesting design question, in that previous editions’ write-ups for the race had them be deliberately underpowered to represent how pathetic they are in the Dragonlance novels. I’ve somewhat modernized them by not making them profoundly unintelligent (i.e. there’s no mention in my version of most gully dwarves being unable to count past two) and also a viable choice in general. I straight up stole Grovel, Cower, and Beg from the Legacy version of the kobold.

By contrast, the Half-Kender is in most ways the most modern in terms of 5e design among the races I made here. Representing humans’ and kenders’ versatility, it is freeform in ASIs and has no suggested alignment. “Lesser Taunt” is named as such because its range is only half that of the kender race’s Taunt ability in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, though it is of the same potency. The weapon training is largely to give the option of hoopak proficiency to classes who aren’t proficient in all martial weapons by default, most notably rogues. The skill is there to both take up some of the power budget and and to reflect the human side of the heritage.

The Kyrie is most likely the wonkiest race here in terms of balance. I modeled it after a mixture of the 5e Legacy aarakocra and Sovereign Press’s officially licensed 3.5e version of the race. According to my calculations with Detect Balance 2022 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ALHIS3VwyddirgWlRgnsIWkF_6S0-3BMq1JlMSUXyjQ/edit#gid=0), the 20-ft. walking speed is a necessary component for balancing the race and preventing it from being overpowered with its significant flight speed, but I’m open to arguments to buffing it to 25ft. or even possibly 30ft. As the race’s fixed ASIs limit the race’s otherwise immense versatility, I put a notice discouraging DMs from using the Tasha’s ASI-swapping rule with the kyrie.

Last but certainly not least is the draconian, with a whopping ten subraces, five for each of the well-known “base” draconians, and another five for the later “noble” draconians derived from chromatic dragon eggs (Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons confirms the existence of draconians created from gem dragon eggs, but since as far as I know gem dragons don’t exist on Krynn, I have excluded them here). Since the Sivak, Flame, and Lightning draconians have innate flying speeds, like the kyrie I have put a notice discouraging DMs from allowing ASI-swapping Tasha’s-style here. The most interesting design challenge here is that draconians’ most famous ability is their various kinds of Death Throe, which while excellent for a monster doesn’t work well for a player character race, especially in 5e, both because PCs dropping to 0 hit points should hopefully not be a common occurrence, and also a trait that removes the possibility of being revived from the dead barring true resurrection would cause distress among players. My solution to this was to make the Death Throes an optional trait, offering further optional racial buffs in exchange for potentially catastrophic fragility. I still feel the subraces need more balancing against each other, with the Baaz, Bozak, Frost, and Venom subraces being of particular concern to me in that I suspect they are underpowered.

As a bonus, I included two Xanathar’s-style racial feats at the end of the document, one for some draconians and then a Dragonlance-exclusive feat for minotaurs. The former turns the gliding trait of 7/10 of the draconians into true flight, which is obviously very powerful; I might pull a page from One D&D’s book and level gate the feat at a high level. The Krynnish Minotaur feat takes inspiration from a very old Unearthed Arcana article and takes some of the deprecated minotaur of Krynn traits there and offers them: an INT or WIS ASI, Labyrinthine Recall, water vehicle proficiency (with an opportunity for expertise if already proficient), and a buff to the minotaur’s Horns damage.

I know this is a lot, so if you managed to read all of that, thank you! It’s been a long time since I shared 5e homebrew of mine, so I’m a bit out of practice both in brewing and in taking criticism, so some tact/gentleness would be appreciated.