Swappable common magic item as a racial trait?

[Greywander]

I'm tinkering with my undead race once again, and was looking to do something with the skeleton subrace. Despite the fact that they were kind of the "first" subrace, I'm not really happy with the traits I've given them. They just seem like generic skeleton traits with no real identity of their own. But I think I might have found something I can work with to give them a unique flair.

So, one skeleton looks pretty much the same as another, so I already have it as part of my lore that they wear colorful clothing and paint marking on themselves, something akin to Calaveras. This gives them a uniquely identifiable appearance, a "face" of sorts. Until recently, these markings were pure fluff, but then I remembered that magical tattoos are a thing, and these markings are kind of like tattoos, right? But the magic tattoos vary wildly in power, and I don't think that would be suitable as a racial trait, so instead I decided that the markings give the same benefit as a common magic item of your choice, and don't use up an attunement slot (if applicable).

I could make the markings permanent, and that's something I might consider, but at the moment it doesn't really make sense to me that they couldn't clean them off and paint on new ones. This allows them to get a new "face", but also to change the magic item benefit they get. Right now, it costs 1 gp in cleaning agents and 1 hour to remove markings, and 10 gp in magical dyes and an 8 hour ritual to apply new ones (this means it takes a total of 11 gp and 9 hours to swap markings). This makes them semipermanent just because changing them takes so long (on the other hand, you don't need to sleep, so you could do it while everyone else is doing a long rest). If I wanted to make swapping markings more accessible, I might reduce the removal time to 10 minutes and let you apply new markings over a short rest (in which case, I might let you remove the old markings as part of the same short rest). Part of the reason to allow removal of the markings without replacing them is so that you can make yourself look like a normal skeleton if you want to without needing something like Disguise Self.

Alternatively, I could make the markings permanent, but also allow them to "dismiss" the markings. This would let them look like a normal skeleton, but they'd lose the benefits of the markings until they "summon" them again. Would probably be an action to both remove and recall the markings. Lore-wise, a ritual might exist that can change your markings (probably the same ritual that gave you them in the first place), but that wouldn't be a "player option", and it would be up to the DM to allow it.

Anyway, I'm curious what people think, especially with waiving attunement. Since it's just common magic items, there shouldn't be anything you could get that would be too strong, and there would be a lot of flavorful options to choose from. Should swapping be allowed, or should it be permanent? What are some common magic items you'd be interested in taking as a racial trait? How should this work for magic items like, say, the Cloak of Billowing, where the magic affects the item itself?

[nickl_2000]

So, personally I would rather see these paints cause a custom affect rather than just be a common magical item. The issue is that there are a bunch of common magical items that just don't make sense. How would paint replicate cast off armor or an enduring spellbook? How would paint on your body make a weapon magical? It just doesn't make sense in my mind personally.

So, what is the solution? Well, I would create a table of 20 things that they can create with the paints and they can choose from the list. I don't see any issue making it a possible short rest change, since nothing is going to be powerful enough to make a significant difference in combat.


The other choice is to make the paint permanent and have it be the subclasses of the skeleton. Based on the paints applied to the skeleton they are a different subclass.

[Greywander]

Hmm, I think you're probably right. I was hoping I could slap an easy fix on, but it would be better if I actually took the effort to make up a list of traits you can choose. Or, I could go for the classic "you get one cantrip/skill/etc. of your choice". I could trawl the magic item list for ideas, but a lot of magic items don't make sense as a racial trait because, like you said, the magical effect is related to the item itself, instead of conferring some benefit to the holder of the item. It would probably work better as "you start with a magic item", but that might be a waste of a racial trait since common magic items aren't really that expensive.

I'll put some more thought into this. For lore purposes, it might make sense to give them access to a 1st level cleric spell or a cleric cantrip, but I'll see if I can cook up something more interesting.

[nickl_2000]

Out of curiosity, how are you overcoming the fact that undead can't be healed with normal healing spells for a PC?

[Greywander]

They have a trait that makes them auto-stabilize at 0 HP, and even decapitation can't kill them (though only a few of them can reattach their heads, so...). There are a few specific ways that they can be killed, including some readily accessible ones, such as fire or acid, massive damage, or radiant damage. This won't save you from a TPK, but it means that if someone goes down you don't have to worry about stabilizing them. At the same time, there are enough ways that you could end up in real danger of dying even without the enemy knowing how to kill you that you can still have some tense moments where you have to drag someone out of a fire or get the monster to vomit them up, or be very careful not to fall off an edge (especially for the skeletons, who are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage).

It helps that healing isn't very efficient in 5e, and damage mitigation often works much better. If you must heal, a Celestial warlock is probably the best option. Healing potions also work, IIRC. A Life cleric with Goodberry can also heal undead somewhat effectively.

I did play around with a kind of self-heal ability, likely fueled by hit dice, but eventually decided to embrace that hard-to-heal nature of undead. I was playing a game called Dungeons 2 at the time that has an undead faction that are similarly hard to heal, but their units always come back to life after a certain amount of time after being killed. So I just kind of borrowed that idea. You're still unconscious at 0 HP, but as long as your side wins the fight it's not that big of a deal. If its a TPK, you may or may not all survive (depending on what they do with the bodies), and even if you do you're probably going to be missing equipment or locked up or something else.