Hello! I've come up with some playable animal races, and I'd like some honest critique of them. Too weak? Too strong? Not well balanced to the core races (or the races in Elemental Evil)? What would you do to improve their balance?
Please Evaluate and Critique Honestly (PEACH)
Squirrel Folk
Age. Squirrel Folk reach adulthood around the age of 3 and live to about 50.
Alignment. Squirrel Folk tend to be more chaotic in nature, and more good than not.
Speed. Squirrel Folk have a base walking speed of 20 ft and a climbing speed of 25 ft.
Keen Senses. Squirrel Folk have proficiency in Perception.
Ratatosk, Flying Squirrel Folk
Ability score increase: +1 Charisma
Size: Ratatosk stand 4 ft tall, plus or minus half a foot. Your size is Small.
Glide. Ratatosk have limited flying abilities due to the furry membrane between their arms and legs. They have a glide speed of 40 ft, and can glide from nearly any height (minimum 10 ft) dropping 10 ft per 40 ft of flight. They cannot hover or increase their height, and they can only turn 90 degrees per 5 ft of movement.
Talons. Ratatosk have clawed hands and feet, which they can use as a proficient weapon dealing 1d4 slashing damage.
Languages. Ratatosk can read, speak, and write Common, Ratatosk, and Sylvan.
Optional Feat
Ratatosk War Training
Ratatosk War Training provides three tactics for a Ratatosk to use in and out of battle: taunt, swoop, and quick turn.
Taunt. Ratatosks learn to taunt their opponents to drive them to mistake. They can cast Vicious Mockery at will, using charisma as their ability score.
Swoop. You can dive bomb opponents, dealing extra damage. You must dive at least 10 ft, and your weapon dice damage is doubled.
Quick Turn. By tucking in your arms and legs (sacrificing 5 ft of height), you can make 180 degree turns when gliding.
Kercpa, Tiny Squirrel People
Ability Score Increase. +2 Intelligence.
Size. Kercpa stand no more than 2 ft tall. Your size is Tiny.
Agile. You have proficiency in Acrobatics.
Fleet of Foot. You have a land speed of 30 ft.
Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by rainfall, foliage, falling snow, mist, or other natural phenomenon.
Languages. Common, Elven, Sylvan.
Variant Rules for Tiny Weapons
Reduce the weapon damage by one die category to make it a tiny weapon.
d4 becomes d3
d6 becomes d4
d8 becomes d6
d10 becomes d8
d12 becomes d10
Variant Rules for Tiny Creatures Wielding Normal Weapons
Tiny creatures do not benefit from the Light property.
Versatile weapons must be held with two hands.
Two-handed weapons can be wielded at disadvantage.
Cannot use Heavy weapons.
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Mythuinn, Tiny Bear Folk
Age. Mythuinn reach adulthood within a few months and do not live longer than a decade or two.
Alignment. Mythuinn tend towards good, and have no favorable attitude towards law or chaos.
Size. Mythuinn stand around 1 ft tall. Your size is Tiny.
Speed. Mythuinn have a base walking speed of 25 ft.
Languages. You can read, speak, and write Common and Mythuinn.
Arctic Dwellers. You have advantage on saving throws against cold, and you have damage resistance against cold.
Mythuinn Magic. Mythuinn can cast the cantrip Minor Illusion. They they reach 3rd level, they can cast Invisibility, and when they reach 7th level, they can cast Dimension Door (both on themselves only), once per long rest. Charisma is the casting ability.
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Maelephant
Age. Maelephants age similar to humans. They reach adulthood around age 15 and can live to just over 100 years.
Alignment. Maelephants have a lawful bent, but generally care not for good and evil.
Size. Maelephants stand up to 9 ft tall and can weigh over 400 pounds. Your size is Large.
Speed. Maelephants have a land speed of 25 ft.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Maelephant.
Trunk. A Maelephant’s trunk is its most important appendage. The trunk can hold items (it cannot wield weapons, but it can be used to grapple), it get let loose a trumpeting blast, and it can be used in battle. The trunk deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage if used as a weapon.
Poisonous Breath. You can use your action to exhale poisonous gas in a 15 ft cone. When you use your Poisonous Breath, each creature in the area of the exhalation must make a saving throw against poison. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. A creature takes 2d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 3d6 at 6th level, 4d6 at 11th level, and 5d6 at 16th level.
After you use your poisonous breath, you can’t use it again until you complete a short or long rest.
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Ratel, the Badger Folk
Age. Ratel reach adulthood around the age of 10 and can live to over 100 years.
Alignment. Most Ratel tend to be loners or travel in very small groups. As such, they tend to be more chaotic than not.
Size. Ratel stand no higher than 6 ft tall and weigh around 200 lbs. Your size is medium.
Speed. Ratel are quick footed. They have a base land speed of 35 ft.
Darkvision. You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Digger. Ratel are natural borrowers and can dig out one square foot of earth per round.
Fearless. Ratel are notoriously fearless in the face of opposition. You have advantage on saves against fear effects.
Ferocious Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.
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Ayotoch, the Armadillo People
Age. Ayotoch reach adulthood around the age of 20 and can live over 200 years.
Alignment. Ayotoch do not have a preference for good and evil, law and chaos.
Size. Medium.
Speed. 30 ft.
Buoyant. Ayotoch can hold their breath for an unusually long time, doubling their effective constitution score for determining how long they can hold their breath (minimum 1 minute). Additionally, they can increase their buoyancy by holding their breath, allowing them to float on water.
Natural Defense. The Atotoch’s natural armor gives them an AC of 13. They cannot benefit from wearing armor of this AC or less. This is treated as if they were not wearing any armor. Additionally, as an action the Atotoch can curl (or uncurl) into a ball, granting themselves resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. While curled up, they cannot attack (but they can move).
Keen Smell. Ayotoch have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks they rely on smell.
Additionally, if you have any requests, I'll make some more! My price is that you give an honest evaluation of anything I make in this thread. :)
Why does the elephant folk have a poisonous breath? Is it based on the Planescape Maelephant monster? It might be more interesting if the they trumpeted in battle, doing sonic damage, or if the mists affected their opponents' minds, causing psychic damage.
Do armadillos have good breath holding abilities? Or are you being cute and making an inflatable beach ball folk?
Might want to make the Ratel able to dig out 1 cubic foot of earth or sand per round. Maybe snow and other materials too.
It's a little weird some of your squirrel-folk can climb faster than they can walk.
Have you looked at the My Little Pony Conversions on the d20/5Ed site?
Why does the elephant folk have a poisonous breath? Is it based on the Planescape Maelephant monster? It might be more interesting if the they trumpeted in battle, doing sonic damage, or if the mists affected their opponents' minds, causing psychic damage.
It's based off the Maelephant from Planescape, and they had that ability. It emulated the dragonborn breath weapon, so it seemed the safest to convert over out of all their abilities, including their spell like abilities, claw attacks, regeneration, etc.
However, changing it to psychic damage or even sonic damage would be interesting.
Do armadillos have good breath holding abilities? Or are you being cute and making an inflatable beach ball folk?
Why yes, they do. :) I didn't know it before making this race, found out when I read up on them.
Might want to make the Ratel able to dig out 1 cubic foot of earth or sand per round. Maybe snow and other materials too.
I thought about adding more, but figured t would be kind of obvious. But you're probably right.
It's a little weird some of your squirrel-folk can climb faster than they can walk.
The Ratatosk were another Planescape conversion, and it's similar in there, too. But I also figured that the slower land speed would help balance out the fly speed. Maybe.
Have you looked at the My Little Pony Conversions on the d20/5Ed site?
I have not. I kind of have an aversion to MLP. These races came up when converting over Dead Gods, and I saw the Ratatosk and figured they'd be a nifty playable race. Then I remembered the Maelephants, and when searching for some other animals to convert over. Found the Mythuinn on a D&D monster listing. The honey badger and armadillo were based off a challenge from a friend.
There is a whole 5th Ed MLP thing. One of the scariest things ever. :-O
Yes. I just wanted to make some 5e races that were unusual. And a lot of people seem to like animal based races, so I thought it would be fun to design a few then throw them on the DM guild when I was done.
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It's probably only because I've recently read Visitor by C. J. Cherryh, but I totally support elephant folk having a sonic attack otherwise identical to the Dragonfolk breath weapon.
On the other hand, Maelephants are a D&D thing, and I'd probably be more gratified by just home brewing a Kyo race. :)
It's probably only because I've recently read Visitor by C. J. Cherryh, but I totally support elephant folk having a sonic attack otherwise identical to the Dragonfolk breath weapon.
On the other hand, Maelephants are a D&D thing, and I'd probably be more gratified by just home brewing a Kyo race. :)
Give me more info on them, and I'll make the Maelephant and your Kyo both subraces.
Give me more info on them, and I'll make the Maelephant and your Kyo both subraces.It's probably only because I've recently read Visitor by C. J. Cherryh, but I totally support elephant folk having a sonic attack otherwise identical to the Dragonfolk breath weapon.
On the other hand, Maelephants are a D&D thing, and I'd probably be more gratified by just home brewing a Kyo race. :)
Thanks, but they're from a novel (well, a series) and my description would probably just miss half the cool stuff about them. I mean, if you want to read the entire Foreigner series and create both Atevi and Kyo, that would be awesome, but I'm not really in a position to assign homework of that magnitude, you know?
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Thanks, but they're from a novel (well, a series) and my description would probably just miss half the cool stuff about them. I mean, if you want to read the entire Foreigner series and create both Atevi and Kyo, that would be awesome, but I'm not really in a position to assign homework of that magnitude, you know?Give me more info on them, and I'll make the Maelephant and your Kyo both subraces.It's probably only because I've recently read Visitor by C. J. Cherryh, but I totally support elephant folk having a sonic attack otherwise identical to the Dragonfolk breath weapon.
On the other hand, Maelephants are a D&D thing, and I'd probably be more gratified by just home brewing a Kyo race. :)
It's only 17 novels. And if you're like me, you can skip #16. :-P