Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

[Dork_Forge]

Astral Elf (racial cantrip ability)
Protector Aasimar (racial transformation/flying ability)
Celestial Warlock (class fire/radiant damage boost ability)

Ah it was the Aasimar I was missing! I forgot those were named per subrace, thanks

[Dark.Revenant]

I'm ALWAYS on the team of 'Let the players do it', 'boost the players level of power', etc because the DM can do a billion different things to compensate, to offset whatever players might do.

Even I think that is pretty garbage, and it should not make it into print.

When combined with all those other racial traits? Yeah, that's probably too strong. But let's not go overboard: it's not like TWF is an optimal fighting style, especially if you're trying to be a spellcaster. On the whole, Thri-kreen is a bit too strong (especially the telepathy) but those traits don't have a *ton* of synergy.

I've made a four-armed race before, and even with four fully-functioning arms (yes, even PAM + GWM + shield is valid), the race is essentially just +2 AC and disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws. 2 AC is a lot, but I feel a race can be balanced around those extra limbs.

Yeah the Thri-Keen secondary arms is just sort of open to abuse. Though the worst I thought of was using TWF to have a heavy weapon in your main hands, and another non heavy in your primary.

TWF only works with light one-handed weapons (remove the light restriction, but not the one-handed restriction, for Dual Wielder users). On top of that, you can't use the secondary arms to help wield versatile or two-handed weapons, since those aren't light.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Cats
Cats love to play with bugs and dragons love to play with elves

It's actually a headcanon of mine that cats ARE dragons, shape shifted to better torment and rule over men, while getting cute points.

And I'm not just talking about D&D.

[Cicciograna]

Is it cats that are dragons...or dragons that are cats?

[Saelethil]

Ar that point, let them reroll a 1 on any damage roll, just to add in explosions too. Its barely even that good of a feature to start with.

Seems pretty reasonable. My only concern would be with AOEs but a single reroll isn't going to change that much.

...I'd drop autognomes and plasmoids down to 25 foot speed because it just makes more sense. Both are a bit strong but not offensively so, unlike the the Thri-Kreen.

I would rather they drop the Plasmoid down to 15 or 20 and give them some kind of damage reduction ability, "Once per round, when you take non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, you can reduce the damage by an amount equal to your PB." or "Any time you take non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, you can reduce the damage by 1. This increases to 2 at 5th level." Those were just off the cuff ideas that I am certain are unbalanced but a team of game designers should be able to come up with something that would make a lot more sense than an Ooze having a 30' speed.

[Dork_Forge]

Yes, sorry, I think I had a brain fart there.

To just point out another problem with this disjointed design methodology:

Autognomes are built in their creator's image. Their creators are Rock Gnomes.

Rock Gnomes and Humans are distinctly separated by 2 feet and many pounds, yet their creations and meant to be bigger?

I know that they point to the tables, where you can choose the Gnome entry, but you shouldn't have to consult a random table in a different book to know how big your character is.

And yes, this is literally because they turned those aspects of a character into copy and paste boiler plate text. Bah.

[EggKookoo]

There have been Small races with 30' speed since Volos was released in 2016 (Goblin/Kobold).

My (slight) disapproval was based on the assumption that they'd retrofit older races to 30'. I'm torn. I like the flavor of smaller races having slower movement, but it's also a hassle. So maybe I'll just learn to stop worrying and love 30 feet.

Edit: Not sure if this has been brought up, but why introduce the Fey type but not make elves Fey?

[RogueJK]

Edit: Not sure if this has been brought up, but why introduce the Fey type but not make elves Fey?

Elves are descended from Fey, back in their ancient pre-Elf ancestry, but as a race are not Fey.

Eladrin, on the other hand, ought to have the Fey subtype for their race. They represent the descendants of the shared proto-elven ancestor that continued to live in the Feywild and remained Fey. (I mean, c'mon... Eladrin are even classified as Fey in their statblocks from MToF. So an Eladrin NPC is Fey, but an Eladrin PC is not?)

[Luccan]

Edit: Not sure if this has been brought up, but why introduce the Fey type but not make elves Fey?

D&D elves aren't Fey and never really have been. Eladrin are about the closest we've gotten

[GooeyChewie]

The fact that the tagline for Giff describes them as creatures of impressive size and they get stuck with the new copy-paste size nonsense that all other races do highlights the problem with this change.

Quoted for truth!

Damage Dealer rewards you for rolling more dice (making rolling a 1 more likely) but does not play particularly well with Great Weapon Fighting since using GWF stops you from doing additional rerolls. Sneak Attack fits the bill. And Hippo Build is probably more valuable for covering low Strength than it is for a high-Strength character who doesn't need the boost as much. I was excited for Giff because I wanted to play somebody of literally hippopotamic proportions, but mechanically I think they're best at being Rogues.

[Ralanr]

It's actually a headcanon of mine that cats ARE dragons, shape shifted to better torment and rule over men, while getting cute points.

And I'm not just talking about D&D.

So I'm allergic to dragons? Dang.

D&D elves aren't Fey and never really have been. Eladrin are about the closest we've gotten

I've always seen elves as the fey version of monkey's evolving. But the fact that they aren't fey can make it all confusing.

[EggKookoo]

D&D elves aren't Fey and never really have been. Eladrin are about the closest we've gotten

They've never literally been Fey because up until now PC races were all Humanoid. Elves are definitely Fey-ish creatures in 5e, given their Fey Ancestry feature.

Warforged are in a similar boat. They're kind of constructs and even have features related to that, but they're Humanoid because all PC races are Humanoid.

But now they're allowing Construct and Fey PC race Types. I hope that means Elves become Fey (this UA notwithstanding) and Warforged become Constructs.

[stoutstien]

They've never literally been Fey because up until now PC races were all Humanoid. Elves are definitely Fey-ish creatures in 5e, given their Fey Ancestry feature.

Warforged are in a similar boat. They're kind of constructs and even have features related to that, but they're Humanoid because all PC races are Humanoid.

But now they're allowing Construct and Fey PC race Types. I hope that means Elves become Fey (this UA notwithstanding) and Warforged become Constructs.

I'm all for moving towards more options for type for player characters. They just need to make sure they address it in the rest of the game mechanics. I know they want to stay away from negative modifiers and features but small ones are very good for this. The mechagnome limit on which spells or features can actually heal them is a good example of this. Would you play a race that had charm and fear immunity if that also meant spells like bless don't work on you? It would actually make for some interesting choices.

[strangebloke]

Well if there's one thing the plasmoid proves, its that WotC's desire to turn our adventurers into 5x5x5 adventuring cubes is clearer than ever.

[Ralanr]

Well if there's one thing the plasmoid proves, its that WotC's desire to turn our adventurers into 5x5x5 adventuring cubes is clearer than ever.

Forum Meta.

[EggKookoo]

I'm all for moving towards more options for type for player characters. They just need to make sure they address it in the rest of the game mechanics. I know they want to stay away from negative modifiers and features but small ones are very good for this. The mechagnome limit on which spells or features can actually heal them is a good example of this. Would you play a race that had charm and fear immunity if that also meant spells like bless don't work on you? It would actually make for some interesting choices.

Don't adamantine weapons auto-crit on constructs?

[RogueJK]

Don't adamantine weapons auto-crit on constructs?

They auto-crit on objects, not Constructs.

[stoutstien]

Don't adamantine weapons auto-crit on constructs?

Only if they are also objects.
*Ninjaed**

[EggKookoo]

Ok, right, thanks. I thought Constructs had some special vulnerability somewhere...

[Brookshw]

Elves, the cockroaches of the multiverse.

I thought that was dragons (and meteor monsters if this is Spelljammer)

[GooeyChewie]

Ok, right, thanks. I thought Constructs had some special vulnerability somewhere...

A lot of healing spells don't work on constructs. But the AutoGnome has a special rule which overrides that for cure wounds, healing word and spare the dying.

[Man_Over_Game]

Where is that in the Core Rules?

There's a rule that says magical effects with the same name don't stack (like from multiple castings of the same spell, or multiple magic items).

And there's a section under Multiclassing that states specific rules for Channel Divinity uses per day and Unarmored Defense in particular not being gained multiple times. (Along with Extra Attack.)

But I'm not seeing a blanket statement that says you can't have two features with the same name, period. (Especially since we're talking about a Racial feature and a Class feature.)


If that were a rule, a character who gets the Spellcasting feature from one class, and then multiclasses into another spellcasting class, wouldn't get the Spellcasting feature from their second class.

DMG p.252, and it's very arbitrary.

It affects Cleric/Paladin and Monk/Barbarian, but apparently not Soulknife Rogue/PsiWarrior Fighter (who get two different dice pools to use with their respective subclass features, despite the features having the same name and overall mechanics).

So who can friggin' say.

Actually, I think I realized something.

In every instance where having two features of the same name results in the player losing something, it's mentioned directly in the multiclass section of the PHB. Anything that isn't explicitly mentioned there ignores the rule on DMG 252.

There isn't a rule about Psionic Energy Dice in the multiclass section, so any class with that feature gets it (which specifies that the dice from that subclass can use the abilities listed in the same subclass).

In the instance where two game features would have the same name, you'd get both unless they'd otherwise duplicate the same effect (like having two different spells of the same name cast on a player), and any other exception (like Channel Divinity or Unarmored Defense) is explicitly mentioned.

It's pretty stupid, but at least it's consistent enough for players to figure it out from there (assuming they knew about the exceptions listed in the MC section).

[Phhase]

Astral elf is kinda crazy with that omni-proficiency. Elves. Again. Yay. Did they really have no other options for an astral race? What about Buomman? Though I doubt anyone remembers those, they were a thing.

I am once again irritated and disappointed that an explicit construct race (this time with partial resistance to healing magic even!) is not immune to poison. Autognomes just feel like the UA Warforged again, but less interesting.

Giff exist I guess.

Hadozee...I really don't know if any of those features are good at all, but I look forward to people returning to monke.

Now plasmoid is interesting. This is the kind of creativity I like. Some neat grappling options, two resistances, and the underrated ability to flow through any plumbing. Good luck keeping this guy out of anywhere that isn't hermetically sealed.

Thri-kreen is ok. Personally, I'm less worried about the arms than everyone else. I've been playing a homebrew Thri-kreen with four arms for a while and it really hasn't been that bad. Then again I'm not a huge optimizer, but whatever, I think more flexibility is a fun and interesting kind of power. I'm less convinced about the chameleon carapace. RAW it's actually permanent with no action upkeep until you move to a different kind of terrain, so pretty decent. Except it doesn't let you hide without cover, so it kind of misses the scratch on the chameleon itch for me. And it kinda seems unfitting for Thri-Kreen too, they really should've gotten Standing Leap instead, like the Grung did, it's a much more iconic ability for them.

The Telepathy is quite good though, very permissive.

All in all, a few good things, but rather disappointing on the whole. And outside of the astral elves, none of these races really feel...extraplanar to me. I know there's a pedigree from previous versions and established lore but...are these the best representatives? I'm probably going to end up making my own extraplanar race package.

[Ralanr]

Astral elf is kinda crazy with that omni-proficiency. Elves. Again. Yay. Did they really have no other options for an astral race? What about Buomman? Though I doubt anyone remembers those, they were a thing.

Shardmind from 4e come to mind. While their lore is stuck in 4e points of light, they'd work incredibly well in SpellJammer for a revamp.

[Lavaeolus]

First thoughts: the amoeba race was definitely the one that immediately grabbed my eye, concept-wise. I'm curious if they'll make the final cut. Astral elves, meanwhile, I feel they should probably be an elf subrace? Is it just to get around the pre-Tasha's race rules, or is it just part of the standalone presentation here? Anyway, I admit that as they stand I'm not as interested them compared to the rest; plenty of elf subraces already, after all.

The giff's concept is pretty tied to Spelljammer, and I don't know if this is intended to be more open for more standard D&D campaigns? But the fluff and mechanics right now don't really go beyond them being hippo-people, which I think is a bit of a waste. The giff can be fun: gunpowder-loving platoons-for-hire wandering the galaxy, dressed in gaudy military uniforms. Right now the mechanics kind of go against that, since they're just getting melee buffs.

Don't know how exactly I'd change them. I'd probably want to give them some sort of default proficiency with firearms, much like Artificers. I know blackpowder weapons are a thing some people prefer to keep out of their campaigns, but I'd be willing to give giff a bit more flavour at the cost of making them unsuitable for some campaigns (at least without refluffing).

[SharkForce]

from my perspective, the proper way to abuse thri-kreens is not heavy weapons at all. it is a ranged build. heavy crossbow in a primary and secondary, shield in another primary, hand crossbow (which is a light weapon) in a secondary (with the same secondary that is used to reload the heavy crossbow being used to reload the hand crossbow; letting go of a two-handed weapon with one hand doesn't cost any actions). sharpshooter and crossbow expert are to be used with this, of course.

because after all, who *wasn't* thinking "we should make the most powerful ranged builds even better", right?

[Ralanr]

from my perspective, the proper way to abuse thri-kreens is not heavy weapons at all. it is a ranged build. heavy crossbow in a primary and secondary, shield in another primary, hand crossbow (which is a light weapon) in a secondary (with the same secondary that is used to reload the heavy crossbow being used to reload the hand crossbow; letting go of a two-handed weapon with one hand doesn't cost any actions). sharpshooter and crossbow expert are to be used with this, of course.

because after all, who *wasn't* thinking "we should make the most powerful ranged builds even better", right?

Can you hold a heavy crossbow in one hand?

[Dark.Revenant]

heavy crossbow in a primary and secondary

This doesn't work. You'd be wielding the weapon in both of those hands, and the secondary one can't wield non-light weapons.

[Dork_Forge]

DMG p.252, and it's very arbitrary.

It affects Cleric/Paladin and Monk/Barbarian, but apparently not Soulknife Rogue/PsiWarrior Fighter (who get two different dice pools to use with their respective subclass features, despite the features having the same name and overall mechanics).

So who can friggin' say.

Actually, I think I realized something.

In every instance where having two features of the same name results in the player losing something, it's mentioned directly in the multiclass section of the PHB. Anything that isn't explicitly mentioned there ignores the rule on DMG 252.

There isn't a rule about Psionic Energy Dice in the multiclass section, so any class with that feature gets it (which specifies that the dice from that subclass can use the abilities listed in the same subclass).

In the instance where two game features would have the same name, you'd get both unless they'd otherwise duplicate the same effect (like having two different spells of the same name cast on a player), and any other exception (like Channel Divinity or Unarmored Defense) is explicitly mentioned.

It's pretty stupid, but at least it's consistent enough for players to figure it out from there (assuming they knew about the exceptions listed in the MC section).

What page are you referring to? 252 of my DMG is about chases and options rules for grids and minis.

[GooeyChewie]

This doesn't work. You'd be wielding the weapon in both of those hands, and the secondary one can't wield non-light weapons.

On the one hand, it's good that they can't wield both a heavy crossbow and a hand crossbow at the same time. On the other hand, they can still wield two hand crossbows and a shield while maintaining a free primary hand. On the third hand, I usually don't allow unearthed arcana in my games unless the player has run the concept by me and I've confirmed that it won't be too out of place with everything, so I'll probably just disallow this build and hope the race doesn't see print in a book. On the fourth hand... wait, fourth hand? Oh, no, I think I may be a Thri-keen!