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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    I know the general rule for safe homebrewery in any edition of D&D tends to be, "take something that exists and gently modify it."

    Beyond that, how do we determine a balanced homebrew race (beyond extensive playtesting)?

    What are the red flags and pitfalls that are easiest to fall into? What at the metrics best used to have some certainty that a homebrewer hasn't made something far more or less powerful than they intended?

    For example, one of the things I was playing around with was creating a greater diversity of Warforged Subraces, based on the idea that they were fabricated rather than born, and thus they get built for a great diversity of tasks, allowing several possible iterations of their existence.

    I get there's a difference between highly situational abilities (like Dwarven Stonecunning) and nearly universal advantages (like an Elf's automatic proficiency with Perception).

    How do you usually judge homebrew races? Even if they are more of guidelines than actual rules?
    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Some play RPG's like chess, some like charades.

    Everyone has their own jam.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    Here's a set of general guidelines to work from.
    My one piece of homebrew: The Shaman. A Druid replacement with more powerlevel control.
    The bargain bin- malfunctioning, missing, and broken magic items.
    Spirit Barbarian: The Barbarian, with heavy elements from the Shaman. Complete up to level 17.
    The Priest: A cleric reword which ran out of steam. Still a fun prestige class suitable for E6.
    The Coward: Not every hero can fight.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    That's a really handy resource. I notice it's still under construction, particularly around Eberron races. Has the project stalled out or is it still getting updated?

    Warforged are part of the sticky balancing issues because they are a rather unique race option. I realize that may make their options slightly more difficult to set definite balance criteria around.

    So far, the races I've made seem to be underpowered (around 16 to 20 points on the integer scale), which is probably the better problem to have because it's more fun to add power to a race than to have to take some away.

    I notice a lot of the points depend greatly on how common they come up (like having resistance to a rare damage type as opposed to resistance to a common damage type). It's nice that the guide points out how (generally) common or rare each damage type is compared to others. Is there a similar metric for Skills? I know that to some extent, that depends a lot on what the DM has prepared in the campaign, but even then, some skills must be more generally applicable to core D&D play than others? I'd imagine having Proficiency in Perception is generally more useful than Proficiency in Arcana.
    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Some play RPG's like chess, some like charades.

    Everyone has their own jam.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Nifft's Avatar

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    If you're the DM, then you are the guide to commonness of damage types and skill checks.

    Seriously, just make notes to yourself about what you intend to be common or rare, and then have a criteria for what "common" and "rare" mean.

    I bet there are guides to modules which list out frequencies of these things, but if you're running a homebrew campaign then you are the ultimate authority and also the ultimate groundskeeper.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    The guidelines I linked have all skill costing equal, but subset vs. rare subset is a 1 point difference out of 25- I wouldn't sweat the difference.
    To some extent, people will take actions that play to their baseline proficiencies- a player with Stealth will roll Stealth more often than someone without, and people with Persuasion will do more persuadey things than someone without. I wouldn't bother comparing Arcana with Athletics, since they're useful in such different circumstances.
    My one piece of homebrew: The Shaman. A Druid replacement with more powerlevel control.
    The bargain bin- malfunctioning, missing, and broken magic items.
    Spirit Barbarian: The Barbarian, with heavy elements from the Shaman. Complete up to level 17.
    The Priest: A cleric reword which ran out of steam. Still a fun prestige class suitable for E6.
    The Coward: Not every hero can fight.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Greywander's Avatar

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    aimlessPolymath already linked Detect Balance. The one I've used is the guide by James Musicus, which predates Detect Balance. The Musicus guide is simpler and, in my opinion, easier to learn if you're just starting out (except for flight scoring). Detect Balance is more detailed, and I think it was partly motivated by Musicus's guide being too simple. For example, Musicus rates a skill, language, and tool as all being worth the same value, which clearly they are not.

    I've found these guides to be handy guidelines, but certainly don't take them as gospel. I like to aim for a score of about 6 or 6.5 (Musicus) or 25 (Detect Balance), but sometimes you end up with something much higher or lower. You just have to trust your gut sometimes. It gets especially tricky when you're homebrewing your own traits and have to guess a score for them. One more thing I'll say is that it's better to err on having fewer traits, so even if the score is in the sweet spot, if you have too many traits you might still want to trim it down a bit.

    If you use both guides together, then 1 Musicus point = 4 Detect Balance points. Scoring a race using both guides can really highlight just how different they are, even though they're working off of the same baseline. For example, one subrace I made scored -10 on Detect Balance, but +2 on Musicus. As I think Detect Balance sometimes overcompensates for perceived problems in Musicus, I think it works best to find the middle ground between the two scores, which in this case would be -2 (Detect Balance) or -0.5 (Musicus). In that case, I was aiming for subraces to mostly be score neutral, so success?

    If you want specifically warforged subraces, I'd look at the older version of the warforged that was originally published in WGtE. You might want to substitute the integrated armor from the final version of the warforged, but otherwise it was set up to have subraces. Basically, ditch Specialized Design and downgrade the ASI to CON +1 and it should match the base race from WGtE. The subraces would then get another ASI (either +2 or +1/+1) and a couple minor features. The final version of the warforged is basically a dumbed down envoy.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    Is WGtE not the official stats for warforged? You say its older. Have they published UA on ebberron after WGtE?

    Any tips on homebrewing new traits? I note in my work so far that in one new trait I borrowed the "use X score in place of Y for Z skill checks." Since then, I've noticed this hasn't been widely used in published races. Is it 5e taboo?
    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Some play RPG's like chess, some like charades.

    Everyone has their own jam.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    I’ve experimented a lot with this.

    I discourage the use of any “points” type system intended to balance the race. Chasing balance was how halflings and Dragonborn ended up as they are. Clearly small size was believed to be a big drawback so they get perhaps the best racial ability (reroll 1s) but in play small breaks down to “no heavy weapons.” Their subrace Features are similarly spectacular. Bonus hp, half the lurker feat, or telepathy.

    Meanwhile Dragonborn are weak tea because they get that “incredible” breath and resistance. A resistance that may never come up (acid) or be mostly irrelevant (not a tank), and breath weapon you will almost never use past level 3.

    Instead, get a strong concept for a race, if players like it, let them play it. If it’s clear the race is stronger than other races, adjust with better items for the other players, boon feats for them, or craft encounters that make no use of the homebrew racial benefits.

    And if you’ve somehow created a monster, just tone it down. Have the player lose a couple points of prime stat after an injury or just tell them you need to correct. An observable but noncrippling nerf should keep all sides of the table happy.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Greywander's Avatar

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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    Is WGtE not the official stats for warforged? You say its older. Have they published UA on ebberron after WGtE?
    The Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron was originally published with a version of the warforged that had three different subraces. This is also the version of warforged that didn't wear armor, and instead added their proficiency bonus to their AC, using different AC calculations depending on which armor proficiencies they had. When Rising from the Last War came out, it had a new version of the warforged that did wear armor, albeit integrated into their body, and got a +1 to AC instead. If you assume armor +3, then the AC comes out to the same. Anyway, the new version didn't have any subraces, and instead made the warforged a dumbed down version of the envoy subrace from WGtE. They then went back and "updated" WGtE to contain the new warforged.

    I'm not sure where you'd find the old warforged from WGtE by legal means. I still have a downloaded version of the PDF with the old warforged, so I could share an except with the warforged traits if that isn't against the forum rules (not sure were the line is; obviously we can't copy an entire book into the forum, while a single spell description is usually okay, so I'm not sure where an entire race with subraces lies).

    Here's the short version: base warforged has their ASI reduced to +1 to CON and loses Specialized Design (compared to the Last War version). Here's the three subraces:
    • Envoy gets +1 to two ability scores of your choice, learns one skill, tool, and language, and can pick one tool they're proficient with to become their integrated tool, giving you expertise with that tool.
    • Juggernaut gets +2 to STR, deals 1d4 damage with unarmed strikes, and gets Powerful Build.
    • Skirmisher gets +2 to DEX, +5 walk speed, and can travel stealthily at a normal pace while alone.

    You can see why envoys were the most popular, and why the final version looks like an envoy.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Looking for advice on homebrewing races

    Quote Originally Posted by Greywander View Post
    I'm not sure where you'd find the old warforged from WGtE by legal means.
    I've been using the UA article that popped up on a google search. If they haven't taken it off their site, I assume they intend it free to use, even if it was playtest material. Seems not very different from what later got published.
    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Some play RPG's like chess, some like charades.

    Everyone has their own jam.

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