A very good template I tend to use: +3 to stat increases, no more than +2 to one stat Two useful features/abilities One ribbon feature Two languages Medium or Small size Small races get an additional ribbon to compensate for the restricted athletics/str. weapon usage and lesser speed
I just realized that you are a genius, fairy is my favorite race and in your template it’s +1 in 3 stats 30 movement Innate spellcasting with ability to use spell slots Language Small Flyspeed that matched move speed to account for small. It blew my mind
In my world, thanks to the players, there are high ogres, high orcs, and high goblins. These are uplifted variations but with their mental debuffs mostly removed. The homeland of these species went from a brutish mine to the art capital of the entire world. The ogres are ugly but regal beings, the orcs are wise fast talkers, and the goblins have taken to the role of experts. They may be short lived, but their minds are sharp.
"This increase last for 1d4 hours... because that's how long an orgy usually lasts for..." Guy seems to be quite informed in the debauchery°eneracy department, a man of culture indeed!
I created a Race of magicaly changed dwarfs (becouse my evil empire in the past was evil) which are slimmer, a bit less hardy but are very resistant to all magic. No matter if its a healing spell or a damadge spell, they half its effect. When the dwarfs found them, the "secret service" tried to eradicate them, to hide that the dwarven highkings let such torture and experiments happen to their people. Now the Jahikai, as they are called now, roam the seas and rivers in little flotillas as merchants, staying far away from the mountains, to not let the dwarven hardliners finish the job...
I don’t think many people know because I had like 3 different DMs who had no idea and when I mentioned it they all fucking had their mind blown besides one who said “fuck off” and made me leave....
stevie ya I found out why, one of my buddies who were in a game with them once and they cheated the entire game with being a sea elf, and he must have got pissed about that though, the game I missed out on ended up being shit and got cheated though by the same guy as before being a god damn kobold, he doesn’t even try doing it the DM just sucks and won’t tell them the setting or anything until the characters are ready and made
When considering a new race, I ask two questions: 1. Why hasn't this race been wiped out by everyone else? 2. Why hasn't this race conquered everyone else? If those two questions can't be answered, the race needs work before being let in.
I'm making an anthropomorphic pig race based on legalistic yankee traders for a homebrew Wild West style campaign. You can find Sea Elf options on page 62 of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
@@kylejacques8577 Middle Finger of Vecna has a homebrew merfolk, but I didn't see an aquatic elf when I checked. I love their work, especially their class options.
I'd say the fundamental question you need to ask yourself is, "Why do I _need_ a homebrewed playable race?" If you don't have a good answer to this question (ie. "This race will embody an important theme in the setting." or, "The nature of the race will explain how a particular setting element came to exist.") then don't bother. A good example might be the Verrik in Monte Cook's "Arcana Unearthed" for 3e. Completely invented race. No basis for it in folklore or fiction. But the Verrik were the inventors/discoverers of two of the playable classes (Witch and Akashic). The setting _needed_ some origin for these unique classes and the Verrik provided it.
@@jacobstaten2366 but tieflings help me to channel and vicariously relive my high school years as a self perceived misunderstood edgelord outcast!!!!! :p seriously though when I started playing (at age 35) I knew little about the mechanics and culture within and outside the game and being given just PHB options what did I create? Tiefling warlock. Give you 3 guesses as to my patron, the first two don’t count.
I designed a race called Stormkin. They're closely related to Storm Giants which are very important in my world. Stormkin get bonuses to Strength and Charisma. They also have the Powerful Build feature and resistance to both thunder and lightning. Now the part I had real trouble with was that I wanted them to have devastating storm based attacks. I ended up settling on giving it the Shocking Grasp cantrip and then at level 3 can cast Thunder Wave and at level 5 can cast Shatter (based of the Legacy feature of the Tiefling). They were designed by the Storm Giants to maintain order in the world. Their appearance is pleasant, especially to children. They look like pale clouds trapped in a glass humanoid body and the clouds darken when they use their spell attacks. One of players is currently playing a Stormkin samurai. It's kinda cool seeing my samurai cast Shatter on a horde of enemies before going in to cut bitches up.
Captain America: "ee-co system". Iron Man: "ay-co system". Civil War In all seriousness though, I would like to see a link to your Home Brewed races, because I am curious as to how you made Merfolk a playable race.
I have a Sorcerer pixie named Peanut and I always make sure to stay in the combat zones and never abuse the fact that I can fly. As a mutual balance I decided to put upon myself without the DM even having to say so. He thanked me for it and appreciates it. I think it helped him settle into the fact that I wanted the race, and now seems comfortable
Love it. Working on a complete homebrew, riffed off The Instrumentality of Man (Cordwainer Smith). Working out how to scale the critter component. A dog based person would receive bonuses to perception (eg: smells, unless a sight hunting dog). On this scale, the greater the canine qualities, the greater the bonus. In balance, the more animal like/less humanlike. And the greater the chance for canine problems (maybe breed based). A basset or blood hound may have a huge smell enhancement, but increasing chance for distraction by a scent. Bloodhound would get a decrease in vision. No cooked bird bones w/o chance of horrible damage and death (raw, no problem). Felines might have a huge genetic predisposition to catnip addiction. Still working things out. Definitely loving the series! BTW, also loving WA. Don't have much loaded yet, recent convert. Now plowing through decades of material, from 40yo paper notes, to more modern bits collected in pdf, Pinterest, Evernote... Time to light up *my* forge! Nearly ruined my laptop spitting out my drink when you talked about height and all--Guy says #SizeMatters!
I have a homebrew race called Telves. Have tiefling, half elf. Works out really well in the social construct side of things be cause they literally fit into no cliques, groups or societal categories. Not only is the internal blood looked at with scepticism but elves are repulsed because of the union that had to take place for it to happen. One of my players had/made an amazing encounter when dealing with the Elven Royal Court, literally took 7 months (9 sessions) to get to a point where he and the Vizier could speak to one another without undertones of condescension or straight out vitriol.
Another excellent video, Guy. And kudos for your knowledge of Bacchasian orgies. I’ve never created homebrew races in any of my rpgs although I did run a Star Trek game using the old Traveller New Era rules. I simply modified the player stats, nothing more than that. Your video is a lot more comprehensive.
I made one it's right here actually It obviously is just a rough draft (maybe even some of you can help) But the core concept is what i really like. Physical description Tsurihito's are somewhat short people with a high resemblance to angler fish, they have sharp teeth, gills and a big glowing ball attached to their head by a biological cord. History Tsurihito's have been in many wars and fights as their race progressed, living in the plane of water has caused them to wage war with other beings such as the water elementals, and trust me they almost won. Society Tsurihito's have a steady relationship with dragon turtles and other tsurihito's, causing them to build villages and clans on the back of dragon turtles or secure bases under the water. Tsurihito traits Ability Score Increase Your intelligence and dexterity both Increase by one Languages You can speak, read, and write in aquan and common. Age a tsurihito's life spawn and aging is almost identical to a elv's but they reach maturity at 22 like humans. Size A tsurihito is normally 4 feet to 5 feet. Your size is medium. Speed Your speed is 25. Illumination The tsurihito sheds a bright light in a 15 foot radius and a dim light in a 35 foot radius Esca (Recharge 8-10) The tsurihito activates the Photobacterium in its esca (glowing ball) causing a incredibley bright flash of light. Every creature in a 10 foot radius must make a DC 13 wisdom saving throw, on a failure the creature is stunned for 3 rounds. Limited Amphibious A tsurihito can breathe both air and water but must be submerged in water at least 1 hour every two days or suffer exhaustion this is cured if they are submerged. Fin's of furry You are evolved to live in the water and move in it freely. You have a swim speed of 30 feet. Follow the current. as a bonus action you can increase your swim speed to 60 feet for 2 rounds but then can't take a action for 1 round. This ability can be used once per long reset.
Goat hooves are very stable... have you seen mountain goats on the steepest of precipices of steep cliffs? I’d consider a +1 to DEX actually! For me maybe a ‘mountain climbing racial ability’ but that’s more for a ‘goat’ or ‘sheep’ person over a fey based satyr. I encourage people to research animals similar to the race you are basing it on. Whether it s a true anthro or not. If you are basing a clan living violent predatory race look into; hyena, lion, wild dogs or wolves! Research similar flying animals if making a flying race, consider the correct wings type for the kind of flight they have. I’d give musical instrument; pan pipes as a racial thing for satyr. I also don’t think they represent evil more wild abandon and parties and lustiness. Which is not Evil to me! Even though I personally don’t like most parties. Love D&D parties! I’ve made over 100 races myself and often do some random roles when making new worlds for what races are available. I often mostly decide available (Or at least most common) races early In the world building process as it an highly inform the rest of worldbuilding! Often include a few races that are immigrants from another world/dimension and at least a couple ancient societies and cultures with runes/treasures of entirely extinct races as well! Great video and tips overall thanks!
I was thinking much the same, but goats/sheep are 4 legged critters. Maybe a monster manual or compendium (based on the system of course) has some stats for actual goats etc for a bit of comparison. Do exactly that kind of research. See note I made above.
I created a Pixie race for 5e, took a year and a half to perfectly balance. They are very tough to balance cause they have some very powerful stuff that you really can't leave out. If you see a purple winged Pixie on the front page on a famous homebrew site that wasn't used today, that would be it (not going to link or directly advertise)
I'm really enjoying this series on making your own campaign setting. It's inspired me so much that I'm back DMing for the first time in 2 years. Thankyou!
Race idea: (very basic) Magikyn This race originated from powerful ghosts possessing the corpses of simple monsters and objects. However, due to being near a rift, it was a true second life for them. The creatures interbred, creating a highly varied race where almost no individual looks like another, though they all share certain traits, like four digits on each limb. Due to their origin, magikyn were viewed as less than the other races. One day, a magikyn-human hybrid was born to a human noble/royal. The noble/royal’s father had the hybrids mother executed. Years later, the hybrid retaliated and killed their grandfather, starting a war which the magikyn lost due to numbers. The magikyn delved into a sub chamber near the underdark, distancing themselves from the surface dwellers, and only occasionally interacting with the races of the underdark, such as the drow. However, some magikyn venture to surface to see the surface, and hope to reforge peace between them and the surface dwellers. Magikyn: as you can guess, they have a natural knack for magic, particularly soul-based magic. They use constitution for spell casting, and typically have a high constitution. However, any surprise attack/ambush encounter will have them roll a d6. The number rolled will be subtracted from their constitution. They have a natural 1 point debuff to dex, as they have 8 fingers. Their charisma stats also tend to be lower, as their appearances can be unsettling. Abilities and perks: immunity to poison and disease Every two days they can heal all magic-based damage dealt to a target Character level is added as flat base damage after any damage rolls. They have their own language, a mix of human and drow/elvish.
I've been toying with the idea of a race of beetle people. Sure, they'll have flight, but it will probably match or even be slower than their walking speed.
You could give them "just" long jumps and make them fast. -Harpys can ignore difficult Terrain, by making long jumps and using their wings - They take falldamadge as if the have fallen only half the distance Alternativly they can realy fly, if they dont wear armour or heavy stuff. Other solutions depend on the System you wanna play in.
If you sort through the comments, I linked a google doc with "values" for balance. I follow it, generally speaking. Honestly, the way to deal with flight is to make encounters adapted to flying players rather than worrying about how strong flight is. Have a flying PC and they're going to fight some kobolds? Either make the cave walls low in certain places so it's not always an advantage or toss in some winged kobolds. They're hunting down an evil organization? Throw a wizard who knows Fly into the encounter and have him use it on the archers or use Hold Person. I'm of the opinion that fun trumps balance; as long as everyone is having fun there's no need to worry about pc's being too strong. If it's really an issue then just talk to the player about it and maybe try to convince them to use their flight for creative problem solving if the other players feel they're basically dominating combat or the reverse if the reverse is true, throw encounters in and out of combat where flight isn't advantageous but a requirement to pass the encounter or win the fight so that the other players can focus on tasks that don't involve flying and have their time in the spotlight. Again, there's ways to incorporate a flying PC into your campaign design rather than quash their fun. If a player is trying to use fly speed to genuinely ruin the game for everyone, then they really shouldn't be allowed to stay at the table; have a talk with them about why they're going out of their way to do this and if they're still a jerk about it just tell them not to bother showing up next week.
Perhaps taking a look a bird based races cast along side humans and find a "happy medium" between the two--depending on how avian the birdfolk are, of course.
Options: Limited Flight. You can only fly up to X feet at a time without stopping to land. Once you've flown this far without landing, you fall. Tiring Flight. You can only fly up to X feet in total before you fall. This is refreshed when you finish a short or long rest. Gliding. You can't fly any higher than your starting position, you can't stop in midair, and you must fly down 5 feet for every 20 feet you fly horizontally. Awkward flight. While you're flying, attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity saving throws. Winged Arms. While flying, you can't use your hands to attack with weapons, wield shields, or perform spell components.
Race builds are a hoot, and can be trickier than they seem. I love all the delightful lore-bits, and especially value the most basic question of Why Even Make a Race. Good stuff, and too often overlooked. That said, while I claim no mastery over race builds in this or any edition of D&D (or any other game, for that matter), this build leaves a bit to be desired. I've no doubt some of these points are nitpicky (it's my gift, but also my CURSE!), but I feel strongly enough about them that I'm posting them. Take that as you will. This write-up includes an ability score increase pertaining to a particular race and gender that lasts for 1d4 hours. Wow. Unpacking that leaves us with all of the following: * Does this increase apply only to ability checks, or also to attack rolls, saving throws, spell save DC, spell attack, etc? With the ability used as stated, the satyr is literally a better Charisma-spellcaster, better at influencing, and better at resisting a particular race and gender; and I'm not certain that's the design intent. * Is Elf a "particular" enough race, or need it be Eladrin Elf? If Elf suffices, does this also apply to half-elves? * D&D does little to define "gender," so this is left to the DM and players. * 1d4 hours is as broad a swing of time as to vary between a full short rest, and a long rest for elves (as of current Sage Advice, anyway). Thus, all together, for up to 4 HOURS, the satyr is literally a better Charisma-spellcaster, better at influencing, and better at resisting a particular race and gender...but it might only be 1 hour, or it could be 2 or 3. That's a lot of swing. * Additionally, a flat-out ability score increase is perhaps the most powerful thing to introduce into the game (even is it's race/gender/time limited) in terms of placing it in the hands of a 1st level PC. This sounds more like a reasonably powerful spell than a racial feature. Second, immunity to the effects of alcohol seems like it should be very straightforward, but also needs some clarification. If a poison is introduced into an alcoholic beverage (and one could certainly argue that alcohol is already a poison), does this immunity apply? Arguments can go both ways. While it's rules-lawyery AF, I guarantee you that SOMEone would try to argue that a Molotov cocktail is only sustained by the alcohol content, and that the resulting fire damage should not apply, given the stated "immunity." What if the effect of the alcohol is a sense of euphoria, or some statistical benefit? They are immune to positive AND negative features? It warrants some thought. I appreciate the intent of the video, and acknowledge that this is fine enough as a first/rough draft. But I must also acknowledge that it seems to disregard such important factors as "ideal" class for a race, and myriad other interactions with rules as to leave players and DMs with an incomplete toolkit.
I made a variety of races. But one race I made was a race that had a wild shape like ability. But you could still die while in this form. Which, you turn into a wolf. Like, a CR 1/4 wolf. But keep all your stats and abilities, can't spellcast, and you use your hp pool. If you drop to 0 HP while in this form. You fall unconscious and have 0 HP. Since you use your own stats but gain the features of the wolf form. It was the most complicated race I've ever made. Since others before it was made as a subrace.
I have a weird obsession with trying to use the same language that the official books do when creating my own features and rules (probably to make the reading consistent for my players), and seeing Guy just completely throw that out the window with how he words his rules blew my mind.
I am in the process of making a rabbit-humanoid race for my campaign. Just as a signature race of my own, since my friends call me ”Bunny” in our native language :D (Think Viera, but a lot more hairy and a lot less sexy xD)
Came to this video because I had an idea for a wild humanoid race. Not unlike the Norn of Guild Wars 2, but with a bit more of an animalistic feel to them. So far I've just called them "Wild men" Likely a world wide nickname for them. They appear very human at first glance, except they're 7-12 feet tall (2.1-3.6 meters), 7 and 12 being the racial extremes. They have very subtly pointed ears, so short like a human's but with the hint of a point to them. They usually have very brightly colored eyes: Gold, silver, blue, green, reds that reflect in the light at night, giving them night vision. They have pointed canine fangs on the upper and lower rows They have durable skin, and they heal off medium and small wounds quite quickly They're also resistant to most diseases and natural poisons they are exceptionally strong, even for their size Essentially I've come up with a race that's a bunch of half giant human-form werewolves, minus the shapeshifting I want to make like a partial plate mail barbarian character. The idea is to have one hell of a freight train tank
I find that mountain dwarfs tend to throw all my calculations into the gutter that +2 +2 is just so good. Just came to the conclusion to limit it to +2 highest mod, and just give them flavor with the other things.
I think letting players choose what their +2 and +1 stats are for the race they choose would be better than set stats. Individuals are unique anyway and there are a bunch of races that get looked over because their stats don’t mix with the chosen class
My players loved my faun race so much all three of them are playing it. Another guy was gonna join our game and they (playfully, not actually) bullied him into playing a faun so they could continue with their "amigoats" brand.The fauns are basically these very animalistic with the mentality of prey animals who get all their knowledge and culture from where they lived, and the subraces are based on the environments they are suited for. They can be social weirdos but my players seem to have a lot of fun with their odd way of thinking and interacting with new people and cultures.
More like "Classes? We don't need no steenking classes!" But if you insist, I have three main settings... Classes: Setting one: D&D Player's Handbook list isn't a completely terrible fit Setting two: find a help wanted listing from 1873 Setting three: find a help wanted page from 1921, but add wizards
Ok for my racial power thing, I had created a race of bee people. And for the ability they could use their stinger, using it like a poison dagger, though this will do some damage to the bee. But it will regrow after ( 5-7 hours ) Another one that makes this more even, they are suseptable to mind control by a Queen ( queen bee ) And I used both of these I’m combination to make a really fun fight, one of my players was one of these bees, they were fighting against a Hive Queen ( since the hive had posed a massive threat for a near by kingdom they were hired by ) The hive Queen would summon bee after bee creature, eventually ( this was planned by the player ) taking control of their character and making them fight the others with a buff, given by the Queen.
Back in 3.5E there was the darfellan race. A sort of whale people that was almost extinguished by the sahuagin. I don't have a copy of Ghosts of Saltmarsh but it is my understanding they are not included. Very sad because I never got to play one. I may have to work with my DM if I ever have a chance to play the adventure.
@@Jpteryx I guess you mean by the stats, but darfellan is an aquatic race that has nothing to do with the mountains, and goliath has nothing to do with cetaceans.
I created an alternate version of the warforged, since the one presented in wayfinder seemed weird to me. A warforged does not need to sleep and is immune to sleep effects and the exhaustion condition. A warforged is immune to disease and does not need to eat or drink. A warforged is immune to poison. Attacks using electrical damage get advantage on damage rolls when used against warforged, due to their metal bits. Warforged are Vulnerable to fire damage, due to their wooden musculature. All warforged get a +1 to strength. Subraces: The Lightweight model of warforged is built for mobility. They have enhanced reflexes and their joints have increased range of motion compared to other models, giving them a +2 to dexterity. The Heavyweight model is built with an emphasis on survivability and defense. They have increased armor plating compared to other warforged, giving them a +2 to Constitution. The Tactical Model has more resources and systems devoted to cognitive processes than other warforged, granting them a +1 to both Intelligence and Wisdom. A Custom Model Warforged has two ability points which they can allocate as they please, or they can instead forgo these in exchange for some nifty ability or characteristic built into their body, because robot. Perhaps one hand can be launched as a 60ft grappling hook once per short rest that can pull the target to the warforged or the warforged to the target. Or maybe the warforged magically regains 1 hit point every other round. The possibilities are limited only by imagination and gameplay balance.
Warforged and Teiflings are just munchkin bait so you can have your cake and eat it. Adding them would fundamentally change thw world and probably crash any economy.
@@benthomason3307 all bonuses, no draw backs, abilities right off the bat that others would need to be high level in specific classes to even begin collecting? You have, Warforged (a smart l, happy golem) an intelligent, non eating, asexual, nearly always active, never lazy, near instantly healing, non hormonal characters who enjoy work amd can do it rapidly. That's the same kind of economic problem Rome had with cheap slave labor causing unemployment, but multiplied and being more physically dangerous than the vast majority of the population. That's ignoring the technology implications of "If you can make these, you can make trains, plows, construction equipment, etc." It's a murder hobo wet dream. Short of a dragon, if you can use these creatures, you're practically at a disadvantage playing as anything else. It's like playing as Intelligent Hulk and Jean Grey while everyone else is playing as Wall Flower and Hawkeye.
@@jacobstaten2366 how much of the player's handbook have you read? *no* race in 5e has ability score drawbacks. Yes the teifling is one of only a few races to get built-in *freaking spells* , but that's only a handful, and they're of limited utility. ALso, the main drawback of being a teifling is being descended from freaking Asmodeus. Warforged however, do indeed have more benefits than drawbacks. which is why In my homebrew version above (which got a fave from guy himself before I edited something) I gave them fire and electricity vulnerabilities. also, comparing playing a warforged to playing an intelligent HUlk is a bizzare exaggeration, as your character still has the same class and stats of everyone else. you do quite a bit of jumping off the slippery slope here, in fact
@@benthomason3307 blurting out "slippery slope" doesn't cast a spell that invalidates my argument. Yes 5e gives all pluses, which is kind of like a participation trophy for stats. It's no different than if humans were default and anything with less than a human's boost was a subtraction. It's pretending day light's savings time makes the day longer. Guy liking a comment isn't necessarily a ringing endorsement from him. Even then, he's not the authority on it. He's giving his opinion/suggestions in his videos. It's not Gary Gygax validating you. The Asmodeus schtick is mostly a story gimmick which is sort of like saying your cyberpunk character has PTSD. It's a role-playing enhancer pretending to be a gameplay penalty and only effects you as much as the DM remembers to include it as a factor. They start off with spells and flight (the later can be a potentially game breaker) regardless of what class they pick, so they're going to be OP as a magic user *or* be any other class and still a magic user. 5e still has the same problems as 3e in giving magic users a huge edge over others. The benevolent golems ... Warforged- even with your Pokemon esque weaknesses to attempt at balance them out doesn't quite work. That's assuming your enemy has any magic users (short of DM intervention, some situations will not have a single one). The only way for that to mean anything is if all encounters have some element of lightning or whatever. You're still healing near instantly compared to everyone else and could probably clear early level dungeons on your own. It still doesn't have nearly as many limits as a biological creature that needs to rest, sleep, eat, void/evacuate, is vulnerable to temperature, has sexual urges, feels lazy/unmotivated/uncomfortable at times, learns slower, is vulnerable to chemicals and biological agents like poison or spores, get bored of mundane tasks, get tempted, takes hours or even days to heal, etc, etc. That's still not addressing the world building implications or either race. Shadiversity had a video recently on how being able to conjure food or healing effects farming and medicine. How are flying edgelords with magic and never sleeping laborers that aren't motivated by money going to effect things? Like I said before, you can make these then you can make more economically useful creatures and devices. Certain things like food and manufacturing become cheap to meter as water is to Americans today. That's an interesting world, but it's diesel punk, not medeval fantasy. Hulk's too dramatic an analogy for you (even though I'm comparing him to MCU characters that would still probably be concidered superhuman in the real world)? It's like Data from Star Trek living among medeval people. That's the Leader or Doc Ock in the real world. They're ringers.
I wanted to make races reminiscent of WoW races like Tuskar and Tauren. For the Tuskar I referenced the existing Loxodon race in terms of stat boost but then gave the sea trait of the tritons and an immunity to poison that is consumed. Was thinking of giving him a thick fat trait that gives resistance to fire and cold damage, but my party came to the conclusion that it would be too good and that atleast one of those should be removed (fire preferred). Haven't looked into Tauren yet.
Have been dabbling and thinking about playing a Aron (the iron armor pokemon) in DnD. But as a player not as DM. Mostly as a tank/fighter. Somewhat similar to Dwarves.
I homebrewed my own version of dragons were they are 15 feet high, have large tails, speak in welsh accents, have large wings, and are just a better version of dragonborn
It used to be in 1st and 2nd eds of D&D that humans go no changes in skills, and the other races had one stat that was bumped up by one and one stat that was bumped down by one. Sentimentally, I liked that part of the older systems. But I'm neither for or against either method.
I added a subrace of orc with its own lore specifically to explain why they don't have the -2 INT in-universe. The other type still exists but they're on separate continents.
@@jackielinde7568 if, and only if every race had it would I accept it, singling out two specific 'monstrous' races out of them all though, feels like an effort to discourage breaking the mold with them
@@Sasqmo Hey, I gave a history lesson. I didn't say any implementation were better than the others. Kobolds and Goblinoids were generally not playable in 1st and 2nd, so I can't compare their stat blocks with the ones in Volo's. But, as Guy points out here, you can always create your own variant. ;) BTW, in the world I'm building, I'm going to make Goblinoids, Kobolds, and the other "evil races" closer to real world myths, but have their history being they were created from the elder races by twisting them.
@@jackielinde7568 completely fair, I meant to include that I'd have preferred 1 up 1 down. I just dislike emphasizing a negative instead of reinforcing the positives. And Volo's kobolds have a lot of negative emphasis
I made a race in my world called the Kal Da'arii. They're one of the five prime races in my world. Whenever they die, dragon wyrmlings are born from their bodies, the color depending on how they lived their life. Definitely interesting to write up
to be honest i though this video will be bit more educational. It pretty much talks about comon sense how to betetr make properly balanced character and compare the created race to some existing ones to let player decide who he wanna play instead of choose homebrew race because "is stronger". i more expected some nice tips of how to fit the hom,ebrew character into GM campaign (especially whenyou're player and you suggest your GM to add race you wnat, so you need to Provide him proper informations, but you dont know What exactly info he may need)
I miss githyanky that had spell resistance 5 percent a level and were counted as human and were not hatched from a leather egg . How about that race back ?
Would make good bards. What with their lyre abilities. :P Really should give you a thumbs down for not leading off with a lyre pun. But between the pan pipes etc, and the drunken reveries they should get a bard skill bonus.
I’m beyond stuck on Third Edition still. Does anybody has any idea how to deal with (either implement or not have to use) Level Adjustment? I am seeking to add races to my setting that are powerful in the superhero sense, or at least the fluff reads like that while the stats downplay that more, but the issue, as usual, is balance. Like, this is a setting where there’s Saiyan copycats (DBZ). Ok, let’s remove the capacity to turn into giant were-gorillas under the full moon because screw it, that’s a no-go (although give them something similar to the Shifters from Eberron to give them a “dig deeper into their were-gorilla blood” ability?), but there’s also things like them being crazy tough. So... how much natural armor to give them before it’s too much? I really don’t think I am explaining myself right. Sorry. But I hope I am.
First, I want to play a giant. Second, sci-fi games almost require a new race or three with every new planet. What other games are represented in World Anvil's templates?
Guy, I'm still building my races (and the rest of my world), but here you go: www.worldanvil.com/w/paths-of-the-adventurers-crazyzonie/c/the-sentient-races-category BTW, I would have rather had the RPG templates built into the related world templates instead of separate blocks. I understand they did this so they could support multiple RPG games, BUT, since we're only allowed one RPG game for each world, it's something they could slap together in code.
I'd prefer to have more creatures from African, Asian, Jewish, and even Native American/First Nation creatures than stuff like night mares, oozes, and other sillier non mythology creatures.
lemme just throw that one "well akhsually"; goats are incredibly dextrous motherfuckers, come on. Slipping on wet concrete? PUH-LEASE, a goat will balance its devillish little hooves on a wet sheet of steel billowing in the wind and win. Climb up 90 degrees slopes just for that mineral. Respect the goat! ;)
The tool I use for crafting Playable races is this google doc. Thoughts? docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vq1kz6PRAbw5LHy6amH-bNb4OuB8DBXL1RsZROt03Sc/edit#gid=0
I’m currently making a homebrew faerie dragon dragonborn glamour bard (though I don’t actually have a d&d game to play them in yet). I copied the subrace from the ideas of lots of people on the internet, so I can’t really take credit. They would get the euphoria breath of a faerie dragon, and instead of a damage resistance they get the cantrips dancing lights and minor illusion, and at later levels they get colour spray (at level 3) and major image (at level 5). They are also small instead of medium. I think she would have been born to dragonborn parents, and just have been touched by some sort of fey magic. A bit like a tiefling or aasimar, but fey instead of fiend or celestial. I don’t know that much about dragonborn culture. Does anyone know what draginborn cities are like, and how dragonborn would react to such a child being born? She would look like this picture: www.deviantart.com/angevere/art/Faerie-dragon-664505159 but as a dragonborn, and her wings would be too small to function as wings (I know dragonborn don’t have wings, but it would be a shame to base a race off of faerie dragons and not get their adorable butterfly wings). She would be a prankster, playing harmless tricks on people. She would love pastries, and playing games.
I cam up with Gremlins, Small sized orc minions that make weapons +1 to intellect and +2 to constitution have tinkers tools proficiency, darkvison, and firearm weapon proficiency they Speak common and orcish They aren't enslaved but they do get bullied by orcs a lot. They look like little green guys with nub horns and little droopy ears.
I was literally about to make a homebrew race and then this pops up.
Same XD I've literally just stepped in from my garden having spent the last 2 hours contemplating different castes of Orcs!
A very good template I tend to use:
+3 to stat increases, no more than +2 to one stat
Two useful features/abilities
One ribbon feature
Two languages
Medium or Small size
Small races get an additional ribbon to compensate for the restricted athletics/str. weapon usage and lesser speed
what's a ribbon?
@@rateater1857 a feature that is very rarely useful, mostly for fluff, lore, and rp relevancy.
This is really helpful thank you so much.
How about tiny creatures (ex. Doozers, Borrowers, the Littles, Fairies)?
I just realized that you are a genius, fairy is my favorite race and in your template it’s
+1 in 3 stats
30 movement
Innate spellcasting with ability to use spell slots
Language
Small
Flyspeed that matched move speed to account for small.
It blew my mind
In my world, thanks to the players, there are high ogres, high orcs, and high goblins. These are uplifted variations but with their mental debuffs mostly removed. The homeland of these species went from a brutish mine to the art capital of the entire world. The ogres are ugly but regal beings, the orcs are wise fast talkers, and the goblins have taken to the role of experts. They may be short lived, but their minds are sharp.
*they have achieved : B I G B R A I N*
@@vigilabo3007 You... You are NOT wrong, heh.
@@MegaMawileTheNommer ? but then what are hobgoblins in your world ?
If an elf can be high, so can everyone else
@@vigilabo3007 goblins evolve to thonklins at level 36
"This increase last for 1d4 hours... because that's how long an orgy usually lasts for..." Guy seems to be quite informed in the debauchery°eneracy department, a man of culture indeed!
I love how he said it in just such a way that it genuinely leaves you to wonder xD
That level of tone control must be such an *amazing* asset as a gm
I created a Race of magicaly changed dwarfs (becouse my evil empire in the past was evil) which are slimmer, a bit less hardy but are very resistant to all magic. No matter if its a healing spell or a damadge spell, they half its effect.
When the dwarfs found them, the "secret service" tried to eradicate them, to hide that the dwarven highkings let such torture and experiments happen to their people. Now the Jahikai, as they are called now, roam the seas and rivers in little flotillas as merchants, staying far away from the mountains, to not let the dwarven hardliners finish the job...
I'm from SA myself, and being a DM , I truly look up to you and all of your work. Thank you for all your effort
Aquatic elves are in 5e. They’re called Sea Elves and their stats are in Mordenkainen’s
I don’t think many people know because I had like 3 different DMs who had no idea and when I mentioned it they all fucking had their mind blown besides one who said “fuck off” and made me leave....
@@vigilabo3007 jesus
stevie ya I found out why, one of my buddies who were in a game with them once and they cheated the entire game with being a sea elf, and he must have got pissed about that though, the game I missed out on ended up being shit and got cheated though by the same guy as before being a god damn kobold, he doesn’t even try doing it the DM just sucks and won’t tell them the setting or anything until the characters are ready and made
@@vigilabo3007 that's so unfortunate, I'm sorry
@@vigilabo3007 he sounds like an asshole
When considering a new race, I ask two questions:
1. Why hasn't this race been wiped out by everyone else?
2. Why hasn't this race conquered everyone else?
If those two questions can't be answered, the race needs work before being let in.
Sea elves exist in 5e as a player race on page 62 of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
I'm making an anthropomorphic pig race based on legalistic yankee traders for a homebrew Wild West style campaign.
You can find Sea Elf options on page 62 of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
I believe either Drunk on Homebrew or Middle Finger of Vecna also had an aquatic elf build I found on Pinterest sometime last year.
@@kylejacques8577 Middle Finger of Vecna has a homebrew merfolk, but I didn't see an aquatic elf when I checked. I love their work, especially their class options.
The best satyr acting I’ve ever seen lmao
I'd say the fundamental question you need to ask yourself is, "Why do I _need_ a homebrewed playable race?"
If you don't have a good answer to this question (ie. "This race will embody an important theme in the setting." or, "The nature of the race will explain how a particular setting element came to exist.") then don't bother.
A good example might be the Verrik in Monte Cook's "Arcana Unearthed" for 3e. Completely invented race. No basis for it in folklore or fiction. But the Verrik were the inventors/discoverers of two of the playable classes (Witch and Akashic). The setting _needed_ some origin for these unique classes and the Verrik provided it.
This is why I find Warforged and Teiflings to be pointless ways to have your cake and eat it.
@@jacobstaten2366 but tieflings help me to channel and vicariously relive my high school years as a self perceived misunderstood edgelord outcast!!!!! :p seriously though when I started playing (at age 35) I knew little about the mechanics and culture within and outside the game and being given just PHB options what did I create? Tiefling warlock. Give you 3 guesses as to my patron, the first two don’t count.
Satyrs: +5 bonus to Athletics skill checks made for climbing
-5 on ladders :)
I made a Race called "Moglo" In a nutshell, A monster with brown fur with a mask as big as the body and they have more Charisma then the half ton man
I designed a race called Stormkin. They're closely related to Storm Giants which are very important in my world. Stormkin get bonuses to Strength and Charisma. They also have the Powerful Build feature and resistance to both thunder and lightning. Now the part I had real trouble with was that I wanted them to have devastating storm based attacks. I ended up settling on giving it the Shocking Grasp cantrip and then at level 3 can cast Thunder Wave and at level 5 can cast Shatter (based of the Legacy feature of the Tiefling). They were designed by the Storm Giants to maintain order in the world. Their appearance is pleasant, especially to children. They look like pale clouds trapped in a glass humanoid body and the clouds darken when they use their spell attacks. One of players is currently playing a Stormkin samurai. It's kinda cool seeing my samurai cast Shatter on a horde of enemies before going in to cut bitches up.
Yo that voice at the beginning was lit
Captain America: "ee-co system".
Iron Man: "ay-co system".
Civil War
In all seriousness though, I would like to see a link to your Home Brewed races, because I am curious as to how you made Merfolk a playable race.
Many of the "Plane Shift" D&D setting modules, like Plane Shift Ixalan, also have playable Merfolk races.
Zemo: "Echo system"
This finally means I can be a magic blanket!!! 🥺🥺❤❤ The ultimate healer!
I have a Sorcerer pixie named Peanut and I always make sure to stay in the combat zones and never abuse the fact that I can fly. As a mutual balance I decided to put upon myself without the DM even having to say so. He thanked me for it and appreciates it. I think it helped him settle into the fact that I wanted the race, and now seems comfortable
Love it. Working on a complete homebrew, riffed off The Instrumentality of Man (Cordwainer Smith).
Working out how to scale the critter component. A dog based person would receive bonuses to perception (eg: smells, unless a sight hunting dog). On this scale, the greater the canine qualities, the greater the bonus. In balance, the more animal like/less humanlike. And the greater the chance for canine problems (maybe breed based). A basset or blood hound may have a huge smell enhancement, but increasing chance for distraction by a scent. Bloodhound would get a decrease in vision. No cooked bird bones w/o chance of horrible damage and death (raw, no problem). Felines might have a huge genetic predisposition to catnip addiction.
Still working things out. Definitely loving the series! BTW, also loving WA. Don't have much loaded yet, recent convert. Now plowing through decades of material, from 40yo paper notes, to more modern bits collected in pdf, Pinterest, Evernote...
Time to light up *my* forge!
Nearly ruined my laptop spitting out my drink when you talked about height and all--Guy says #SizeMatters!
"I have activated the module for the roleplaying game of choice..." How do i do that?
I have a homebrew race called Telves. Have tiefling, half elf. Works out really well in the social construct side of things be cause they literally fit into no cliques, groups or societal categories. Not only is the internal blood looked at with scepticism but elves are repulsed because of the union that had to take place for it to happen. One of my players had/made an amazing encounter when dealing with the Elven Royal Court, literally took 7 months (9 sessions) to get to a point where he and the Vizier could speak to one another without undertones of condescension or straight out vitriol.
Another excellent video, Guy. And kudos for your knowledge of Bacchasian orgies.
I’ve never created homebrew races in any of my rpgs although I did run a Star Trek game using the old Traveller New Era rules. I simply modified the player stats, nothing more than that. Your video is a lot more comprehensive.
I made one it's right here actually
It obviously is just a rough draft (maybe even some of you can help)
But the core concept is what i really like.
Physical description
Tsurihito's are somewhat short people with a high resemblance to angler fish, they have sharp teeth, gills and a big glowing ball attached to their head by a biological cord.
History
Tsurihito's have been in many wars and fights as their race progressed, living in the plane of water has caused them to wage war with other beings such as the water elementals, and trust me they almost won.
Society
Tsurihito's have a steady relationship with dragon turtles and other tsurihito's, causing them to build villages and clans on the back of dragon turtles or secure bases under the water.
Tsurihito traits
Ability Score Increase
Your intelligence and dexterity both Increase by one
Languages
You can speak, read, and write in aquan and common.
Age
a tsurihito's life spawn and aging is almost identical to a elv's but they reach maturity at 22 like humans.
Size
A tsurihito is normally 4 feet to 5 feet. Your size is medium.
Speed
Your speed is 25.
Illumination
The tsurihito sheds a bright light in a 15 foot radius and a dim light in a 35 foot radius
Esca (Recharge 8-10)
The tsurihito activates the Photobacterium in its esca (glowing ball) causing a incredibley bright flash of light. Every creature in a 10 foot radius must make a DC 13 wisdom saving throw, on a failure the creature is stunned for 3 rounds.
Limited Amphibious
A tsurihito can breathe both air and water but must be submerged in water at least 1 hour every two days or suffer exhaustion this is cured if they are submerged.
Fin's of furry
You are evolved to live in the water and move in it freely. You have a swim speed of 30 feet.
Follow the current.
as a bonus action you can increase your swim speed to 60 feet for 2 rounds but then can't take a action for 1 round. This ability can be used once per long reset.
Goat hooves are very stable... have you seen mountain goats on the steepest of precipices of steep cliffs? I’d consider a +1 to DEX actually! For me maybe a ‘mountain climbing racial ability’ but that’s more for a ‘goat’ or ‘sheep’ person over a fey based satyr. I encourage people to research animals similar to the race you are basing it on. Whether it s a true anthro or not. If you are basing a clan living violent predatory race look into; hyena, lion, wild dogs or wolves! Research similar flying animals if making a flying race, consider the correct wings type for the kind of flight they have. I’d give musical instrument; pan pipes as a racial thing for satyr. I also don’t think they represent evil more wild abandon and parties and lustiness. Which is not Evil to me! Even though I personally don’t like most parties. Love D&D parties!
I’ve made over 100 races myself and often do some random roles when making new worlds for what races are available. I often mostly decide available (Or at least most common) races early In the world building process as it an highly inform the rest of worldbuilding! Often include a few races that are immigrants from another world/dimension and at least a couple ancient societies and cultures with runes/treasures of entirely extinct races as well!
Great video and tips overall thanks!
I was thinking much the same, but goats/sheep are 4 legged critters. Maybe a monster manual or compendium (based on the system of course) has some stats for actual goats etc for a bit of comparison.
Do exactly that kind of research. See note I made above.
I was thinking +1 Dex, +1 Cha because Satyrs get all the chicks
100 races...
I'm impressed.
Interestingly enough, AJ Pickett has just realeased a Satyr Lore video.
Skeptical Weeb his New Zealand accent is so thick it’s hard to understand it.
I created a Pixie race for 5e, took a year and a half to perfectly balance. They are very tough to balance cause they have some very powerful stuff that you really can't leave out. If you see a purple winged Pixie on the front page on a famous homebrew site that wasn't used today, that would be it (not going to link or directly advertise)
@@thefool4407 Search dmsguild for Pixies and look for the Purple winged Pixie as a front page for one product.
I'm really enjoying this series on making your own campaign setting. It's inspired me so much that I'm back DMing for the first time in 2 years. Thankyou!
Strangely AJ Pickette just covered Satyr in Monster Ecology Lore as well, such a great coincidence 👍.
Race idea: (very basic)
Magikyn
This race originated from powerful ghosts possessing the corpses of simple monsters and objects. However, due to being near a rift, it was a true second life for them. The creatures interbred, creating a highly varied race where almost no individual looks like another, though they all share certain traits, like four digits on each limb. Due to their origin, magikyn were viewed as less than the other races. One day, a magikyn-human hybrid was born to a human noble/royal. The noble/royal’s father had the hybrids mother executed. Years later, the hybrid retaliated and killed their grandfather, starting a war which the magikyn lost due to numbers. The magikyn delved into a sub chamber near the underdark, distancing themselves from the surface dwellers, and only occasionally interacting with the races of the underdark, such as the drow. However, some magikyn venture to surface to see the surface, and hope to reforge peace between them and the surface dwellers.
Magikyn: as you can guess, they have a natural knack for magic, particularly soul-based magic.
They use constitution for spell casting, and typically have a high constitution. However, any surprise attack/ambush encounter will have them roll a d6. The number rolled will be subtracted from their constitution.
They have a natural 1 point debuff to dex, as they have 8 fingers.
Their charisma stats also tend to be lower, as their appearances can be unsettling.
Abilities and perks:
immunity to poison and disease
Every two days they can heal all magic-based damage dealt to a target
Character level is added as flat base damage after any damage rolls.
They have their own language, a mix of human and drow/elvish.
I've been toying with the idea of a race of beetle people.
Sure, they'll have flight, but it will probably match or even be slower than their walking speed.
how do you get the D&D module
I'd love to make a Harpy race, but I'm not quite sure how to deal with flying.
You could give them "just" long jumps and make them fast.
-Harpys can ignore difficult Terrain, by making long jumps and using their wings
- They take falldamadge as if the have fallen only half the distance
Alternativly they can realy fly, if they dont wear armour or heavy stuff.
Other solutions depend on the System you wanna play in.
If you sort through the comments, I linked a google doc with "values" for balance. I follow it, generally speaking. Honestly, the way to deal with flight is to make encounters adapted to flying players rather than worrying about how strong flight is. Have a flying PC and they're going to fight some kobolds? Either make the cave walls low in certain places so it's not always an advantage or toss in some winged kobolds. They're hunting down an evil organization? Throw a wizard who knows Fly into the encounter and have him use it on the archers or use Hold Person.
I'm of the opinion that fun trumps balance; as long as everyone is having fun there's no need to worry about pc's being too strong. If it's really an issue then just talk to the player about it and maybe try to convince them to use their flight for creative problem solving if the other players feel they're basically dominating combat or the reverse if the reverse is true, throw encounters in and out of combat where flight isn't advantageous but a requirement to pass the encounter or win the fight so that the other players can focus on tasks that don't involve flying and have their time in the spotlight. Again, there's ways to incorporate a flying PC into your campaign design rather than quash their fun. If a player is trying to use fly speed to genuinely ruin the game for everyone, then they really shouldn't be allowed to stay at the table; have a talk with them about why they're going out of their way to do this and if they're still a jerk about it just tell them not to bother showing up next week.
Perhaps taking a look a bird based races cast along side humans and find a "happy medium" between the two--depending on how avian the birdfolk are, of course.
Options:
Limited Flight. You can only fly up to X feet at a time without stopping to land. Once you've flown this far without landing, you fall.
Tiring Flight. You can only fly up to X feet in total before you fall. This is refreshed when you finish a short or long rest.
Gliding. You can't fly any higher than your starting position, you can't stop in midair, and you must fly down 5 feet for every 20 feet you fly horizontally.
Awkward flight. While you're flying, attacks against you have advantage and you have disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
Winged Arms. While flying, you can't use your hands to attack with weapons, wield shields, or perform spell components.
What system? DnD has the Aarakocra as a playable race, and they have flight
Race builds are a hoot, and can be trickier than they seem. I love all the delightful lore-bits, and especially value the most basic question of Why Even Make a Race. Good stuff, and too often overlooked.
That said, while I claim no mastery over race builds in this or any edition of D&D (or any other game, for that matter), this build leaves a bit to be desired. I've no doubt some of these points are nitpicky (it's my gift, but also my CURSE!), but I feel strongly enough about them that I'm posting them. Take that as you will.
This write-up includes an ability score increase pertaining to a particular race and gender that lasts for 1d4 hours. Wow. Unpacking that leaves us with all of the following:
* Does this increase apply only to ability checks, or also to attack rolls, saving throws, spell save DC, spell attack, etc? With the ability used as stated, the satyr is literally a better Charisma-spellcaster, better at influencing, and better at resisting a particular race and gender; and I'm not certain that's the design intent.
* Is Elf a "particular" enough race, or need it be Eladrin Elf? If Elf suffices, does this also apply to half-elves?
* D&D does little to define "gender," so this is left to the DM and players.
* 1d4 hours is as broad a swing of time as to vary between a full short rest, and a long rest for elves (as of current Sage Advice, anyway). Thus, all together, for up to 4 HOURS, the satyr is literally a better Charisma-spellcaster, better at influencing, and better at resisting a particular race and gender...but it might only be 1 hour, or it could be 2 or 3. That's a lot of swing.
* Additionally, a flat-out ability score increase is perhaps the most powerful thing to introduce into the game (even is it's race/gender/time limited) in terms of placing it in the hands of a 1st level PC. This sounds more like a reasonably powerful spell than a racial feature.
Second, immunity to the effects of alcohol seems like it should be very straightforward, but also needs some clarification. If a poison is introduced into an alcoholic beverage (and one could certainly argue that alcohol is already a poison), does this immunity apply? Arguments can go both ways. While it's rules-lawyery AF, I guarantee you that SOMEone would try to argue that a Molotov cocktail is only sustained by the alcohol content, and that the resulting fire damage should not apply, given the stated "immunity." What if the effect of the alcohol is a sense of euphoria, or some statistical benefit? They are immune to positive AND negative features? It warrants some thought.
I appreciate the intent of the video, and acknowledge that this is fine enough as a first/rough draft. But I must also acknowledge that it seems to disregard such important factors as "ideal" class for a race, and myriad other interactions with rules as to leave players and DMs with an incomplete toolkit.
I made a variety of races. But one race I made was a race that had a wild shape like ability. But you could still die while in this form. Which, you turn into a wolf. Like, a CR 1/4 wolf. But keep all your stats and abilities, can't spellcast, and you use your hp pool. If you drop to 0 HP while in this form. You fall unconscious and have 0 HP. Since you use your own stats but gain the features of the wolf form. It was the most complicated race I've ever made. Since others before it was made as a subrace.
I have a weird obsession with trying to use the same language that the official books do when creating my own features and rules (probably to make the reading consistent for my players), and seeing Guy just completely throw that out the window with how he words his rules blew my mind.
I am in the process of making a rabbit-humanoid race for my campaign. Just as a signature race of my own, since my friends call me ”Bunny” in our native language :D
(Think Viera, but a lot more hairy and a lot less sexy xD)
I’ve always found it very simple to Homebrew a race. Still do it to this day for the 3.5 version.
A group of friends and I are going to start a campaign using our homebrewed race soon.
_Slime campaign_
Came to this video because I had an idea for a wild humanoid race.
Not unlike the Norn of Guild Wars 2, but with a bit more of an animalistic feel to them.
So far I've just called them "Wild men" Likely a world wide nickname for them.
They appear very human at first glance, except they're 7-12 feet tall (2.1-3.6 meters), 7 and 12 being the racial extremes.
They have very subtly pointed ears, so short like a human's but with the hint of a point to them.
They usually have very brightly colored eyes: Gold, silver, blue, green, reds that reflect in the light at night, giving them night vision.
They have pointed canine fangs on the upper and lower rows
They have durable skin, and they heal off medium and small wounds quite quickly
They're also resistant to most diseases and natural poisons
they are exceptionally strong, even for their size
Essentially I've come up with a race that's a bunch of half giant human-form werewolves, minus the shapeshifting
I want to make like a partial plate mail barbarian character. The idea is to have one hell of a freight train tank
The first dnd I ever played with : *fuck it, slimes and crabs. You can play them*
Satyrs should have a bonus to playing instruments and dancing.
Since that's like literally what they do all day besides drinking and sex.
Just need to say, really nice intro👍
Goblin YES GOBLIN YESSS
I'm here because I want to turn the floran race from starbound into a dnd race.
Merfolk are in the planeshift books actually. They are compatible with the other races
I miss when your videos weren't all about worldanvil
I find that mountain dwarfs tend to throw all my calculations into the gutter that +2 +2 is just so good. Just came to the conclusion to limit it to +2 highest mod, and just give them flavor with the other things.
I think letting players choose what their +2 and +1 stats are for the race they choose would be better than set stats. Individuals are unique anyway and there are a bunch of races that get looked over because their stats don’t mix with the chosen class
My players loved my faun race so much all three of them are playing it. Another guy was gonna join our game and they (playfully, not actually) bullied him into playing a faun so they could continue with their "amigoats" brand.The fauns are basically these very animalistic with the mentality of prey animals who get all their knowledge and culture from where they lived, and the subraces are based on the environments they are suited for. They can be social weirdos but my players seem to have a lot of fun with their odd way of thinking and interacting with new people and cultures.
Very informative I loved this video I'll watch it again :) and I'll take notes 👌
You are severely underrated!
My setting is easy.
Playable races: human
Done.
More like "Classes? We don't need no steenking classes!"
But if you insist, I have three main settings...
Classes:
Setting one: D&D Player's Handbook list isn't a completely terrible fit
Setting two: find a help wanted listing from 1873
Setting three: find a help wanted page from 1921, but add wizards
Do I need this D&D add on in World Anvil to create my own race, as an Author, or is there another way to do it?
Ok for my racial power thing, I had created a race of bee people. And for the ability they could use their stinger, using it like a poison dagger, though this will do some damage to the bee. But it will regrow after ( 5-7 hours )
Another one that makes this more even, they are suseptable to mind control by a Queen ( queen bee )
And I used both of these I’m combination to make a really fun fight, one of my players was one of these bees, they were fighting against a Hive Queen ( since the hive had posed a massive threat for a near by kingdom they were hired by )
The hive Queen would summon bee after bee creature, eventually ( this was planned by the player ) taking control of their character and making them fight the others with a buff, given by the Queen.
Back in 3.5E there was the darfellan race. A sort of whale people that was almost extinguished by the sahuagin. I don't have a copy of Ghosts of Saltmarsh but it is my understanding they are not included. Very sad because I never got to play one. I may have to work with my DM if I ever have a chance to play the adventure.
If I brought them into 5e, I'd make them a Goliath subrace. They're pretty similar in many ways.
@@Jpteryx I guess you mean by the stats, but darfellan is an aquatic race that has nothing to do with the mountains, and goliath has nothing to do with cetaceans.
Though they're also similar in appearance and culture, I'd say.
@@Jpteryx If it suits your fancy.
I created an alternate version of the warforged, since the one presented in wayfinder seemed weird to me.
A warforged does not need to sleep and is immune to sleep effects and the exhaustion condition.
A warforged is immune to disease and does not need to eat or drink.
A warforged is immune to poison.
Attacks using electrical damage get advantage on damage rolls when used against warforged, due to their metal bits.
Warforged are Vulnerable to fire damage, due to their wooden musculature.
All warforged get a +1 to strength.
Subraces:
The Lightweight model of warforged is built for mobility. They have enhanced reflexes and their joints have increased range of motion compared to other models, giving them a +2 to dexterity.
The Heavyweight model is built with an emphasis on survivability and defense. They have increased armor plating compared to other warforged, giving them a +2 to Constitution.
The Tactical Model has more resources and systems devoted to cognitive processes than other warforged, granting them a +1 to both Intelligence and Wisdom.
A Custom Model Warforged has two ability points which they can allocate as they please, or they can instead forgo these in exchange for some nifty ability or characteristic built into their body, because robot. Perhaps one hand can be launched as a 60ft grappling hook once per short rest that can pull the target to the warforged or the warforged to the target. Or maybe the warforged magically regains 1 hit point every other round. The possibilities are limited only by imagination and gameplay balance.
Warforged and Teiflings are just munchkin bait so you can have your cake and eat it. Adding them would fundamentally change thw world and probably crash any economy.
@@jacobstaten2366 what makes you say that? any of that?
@@benthomason3307 all bonuses, no draw backs, abilities right off the bat that others would need to be high level in specific classes to even begin collecting? You have, Warforged (a smart l, happy golem) an intelligent, non eating, asexual, nearly always active, never lazy, near instantly healing, non hormonal characters who enjoy work amd can do it rapidly. That's the same kind of economic problem Rome had with cheap slave labor causing unemployment, but multiplied and being more physically dangerous than the vast majority of the population. That's ignoring the technology implications of "If you can make these, you can make trains, plows, construction equipment, etc." It's a murder hobo wet dream. Short of a dragon, if you can use these creatures, you're practically at a disadvantage playing as anything else. It's like playing as Intelligent Hulk and Jean Grey while everyone else is playing as Wall Flower and Hawkeye.
@@jacobstaten2366 how much of the player's handbook have you read? *no* race in 5e has ability score drawbacks.
Yes the teifling is one of only a few races to get built-in *freaking spells* , but that's only a handful, and they're of limited utility. ALso, the main drawback of being a teifling is being descended from freaking Asmodeus.
Warforged however, do indeed have more benefits than drawbacks. which is why In my homebrew version above (which got a fave from guy himself before I edited something) I gave them fire and electricity vulnerabilities.
also, comparing playing a warforged to playing an intelligent HUlk is a bizzare exaggeration, as your character still has the same class and stats of everyone else. you do quite a bit of jumping off the slippery slope here, in fact
@@benthomason3307 blurting out "slippery slope" doesn't cast a spell that invalidates my argument. Yes 5e gives all pluses, which is kind of like a participation trophy for stats. It's no different than if humans were default and anything with less than a human's boost was a subtraction. It's pretending day light's savings time makes the day longer.
Guy liking a comment isn't necessarily a ringing endorsement from him. Even then, he's not the authority on it. He's giving his opinion/suggestions in his videos. It's not Gary Gygax validating you.
The Asmodeus schtick is mostly a story gimmick which is sort of like saying your cyberpunk character has PTSD. It's a role-playing enhancer pretending to be a gameplay penalty and only effects you as much as the DM remembers to include it as a factor. They start off with spells and flight (the later can be a potentially game breaker) regardless of what class they pick, so they're going to be OP as a magic user *or* be any other class and still a magic user. 5e still has the same problems as 3e in giving magic users a huge edge over others.
The benevolent golems ... Warforged- even with your Pokemon esque weaknesses to attempt at balance them out doesn't quite work. That's assuming your enemy has any magic users (short of DM intervention, some situations will not have a single one). The only way for that to mean anything is if all encounters have some element of lightning or whatever. You're still healing near instantly compared to everyone else and could probably clear early level dungeons on your own. It still doesn't have nearly as many limits as a biological creature that needs to rest, sleep, eat, void/evacuate, is vulnerable to temperature, has sexual urges, feels lazy/unmotivated/uncomfortable at times, learns slower, is vulnerable to chemicals and biological agents like poison or spores, get bored of mundane tasks, get tempted, takes hours or even days to heal, etc, etc. That's still not addressing the world building implications or either race. Shadiversity had a video recently on how being able to conjure food or healing effects farming and medicine. How are flying edgelords with magic and never sleeping laborers that aren't motivated by money going to effect things? Like I said before, you can make these then you can make more economically useful creatures and devices. Certain things like food and manufacturing become cheap to meter as water is to Americans today. That's an interesting world, but it's diesel punk, not medeval fantasy.
Hulk's too dramatic an analogy for you (even though I'm comparing him to MCU characters that would still probably be concidered superhuman in the real world)? It's like Data from Star Trek living among medeval people. That's the Leader or Doc Ock in the real world. They're ringers.
I wanted to make races reminiscent of WoW races like Tuskar and Tauren. For the Tuskar I referenced the existing Loxodon race in terms of stat boost but then gave the sea trait of the tritons and an immunity to poison that is consumed. Was thinking of giving him a thick fat trait that gives resistance to fire and cold damage, but my party came to the conclusion that it would be too good and that atleast one of those should be removed (fire preferred). Haven't looked into Tauren yet.
always love ur vids 😁
Have been dabbling and thinking about playing a Aron (the iron armor pokemon) in DnD. But as a player not as DM. Mostly as a tank/fighter. Somewhat similar to Dwarves.
I homebrewed my own version of dragons were they are 15 feet high, have large tails, speak in welsh accents, have large wings, and are just a better version of dragonborn
What about his hard head. Should it always be classed as him wearing a helmet?
Is that me or there is goat version of Bain in the beginning?
Would love to see your Sea-Elf build!
Right now the vid title is Hombrewing, not Homebrewing
Whoops! Thanks for spotting that. :)
Johnny 6 I’m gonna be honest I do that accidentally all the time
Hombre-wing sounds funny though
Personal opinion, no negative ability score modifiers, it's my main gripe with kobold and oRC PC stat blocks
It used to be in 1st and 2nd eds of D&D that humans go no changes in skills, and the other races had one stat that was bumped up by one and one stat that was bumped down by one. Sentimentally, I liked that part of the older systems. But I'm neither for or against either method.
I added a subrace of orc with its own lore specifically to explain why they don't have the -2 INT in-universe. The other type still exists but they're on separate continents.
@@jackielinde7568 if, and only if every race had it would I accept it, singling out two specific 'monstrous' races out of them all though, feels like an effort to discourage breaking the mold with them
@@Sasqmo Hey, I gave a history lesson. I didn't say any implementation were better than the others. Kobolds and Goblinoids were generally not playable in 1st and 2nd, so I can't compare their stat blocks with the ones in Volo's. But, as Guy points out here, you can always create your own variant. ;)
BTW, in the world I'm building, I'm going to make Goblinoids, Kobolds, and the other "evil races" closer to real world myths, but have their history being they were created from the elder races by twisting them.
@@jackielinde7568 completely fair, I meant to include that I'd have preferred 1 up 1 down. I just dislike emphasizing a negative instead of reinforcing the positives. And Volo's kobolds have a lot of negative emphasis
it would be nice if you said anything about how to get the plugin you are using.
What if I don't want to create a whole new race but just a hybrid for 1 story?
I love you, LOL.
Shouldn't there be a (-) ability score? I'm thinking the races that have a + score have a + + - score.
I made a race in my world called the Kal Da'arii. They're one of the five prime races in my world. Whenever they die, dragon wyrmlings are born from their bodies, the color depending on how they lived their life. Definitely interesting to write up
I have a race called apothicon elves which are tall six eyes elves with sharp teeth and are quite deadly
You look like a character me and a friend made known as Counter Dude!
to be honest i though this video will be bit more educational. It pretty much talks about comon sense how to betetr make properly balanced character and compare the created race to some existing ones to let player decide who he wanna play instead of choose homebrew race because "is stronger".
i more expected some nice tips of how to fit the hom,ebrew character into GM campaign (especially whenyou're player and you suggest your GM to add race you wnat, so you need to Provide him proper informations, but you dont know What exactly info he may need)
Does the website do subraces? Or do i have to make seperate races?
I miss githyanky that had spell resistance 5 percent a level and were counted as human and were not hatched from a leather egg . How about that race back ?
Help me how do you activate the D&D module
Would make good bards. What with their lyre abilities. :P
Really should give you a thumbs down for not leading off with a lyre pun.
But between the pan pipes etc, and the drunken reveries they should get a bard skill bonus.
how do you add optional spells???
How do I setup my main module role playing game of choice. Because I can't find that option on my laptop.
IDK ether but if you know how to Pleas tell me
I’m beyond stuck on Third Edition still. Does anybody has any idea how to deal with (either implement or not have to use) Level Adjustment? I am seeking to add races to my setting that are powerful in the superhero sense, or at least the fluff reads like that while the stats downplay that more, but the issue, as usual, is balance.
Like, this is a setting where there’s Saiyan copycats (DBZ). Ok, let’s remove the capacity to turn into giant were-gorillas under the full moon because screw it, that’s a no-go (although give them something similar to the Shifters from Eberron to give them a “dig deeper into their were-gorilla blood” ability?), but there’s also things like them being crazy tough. So... how much natural armor to give them before it’s too much?
I really don’t think I am explaining myself right. Sorry. But I hope I am.
Does he talk like this the whole time
0:00
Gharbad is that you?
Goats are agile
satyrs are playable now so are centaurs
I'd probably give them +2 to charisma, +1 to strength, and a +1 to wisdom. I'd also give them resistance to poison with a passive charm spell.
First, I want to play a giant.
Second, sci-fi games almost require a new race or three with every new planet.
What other games are represented in World Anvil's templates?
They have around 37 systems loaded up - some more complete than others.
How to be a Great Game Master I'm impressed. Thank you.
Guy, I'm still building my races (and the rest of my world), but here you go: www.worldanvil.com/w/paths-of-the-adventurers-crazyzonie/c/the-sentient-races-category
BTW, I would have rather had the RPG templates built into the related world templates instead of separate blocks. I understand they did this so they could support multiple RPG games, BUT, since we're only allowed one RPG game for each world, it's something they could slap together in code.
I want to create a inkling/octoling race
Here’s my race
SASQUATCH
Strength +4
Wisdom +3
Constitution +3
Intelligence +1
Charisma -3.5 (not much of a talker)
Aren’t there enough silly races? Do we need more?
I'd prefer to have more creatures from African, Asian, Jewish, and even Native American/First Nation creatures than stuff like night mares, oozes, and other sillier non mythology creatures.
i'm making my half human half halfling race (quarterling) along to this
Why did didn't you just look at the existing stats; (human+halfling)/2= quarterling?
Why didn't you just look at the existing stats? (Human+halfling)/2 = booyah. Halfling skills are 1/2 as effective. Dad was lucky, mom was adventurous.
lemme just throw that one "well akhsually"; goats are incredibly dextrous motherfuckers, come on. Slipping on wet concrete? PUH-LEASE, a goat will balance its devillish little hooves on a wet sheet of steel billowing in the wind and win. Climb up 90 degrees slopes just for that mineral. Respect the goat! ;)
The tool I use for crafting Playable races is this google doc. Thoughts? docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vq1kz6PRAbw5LHy6amH-bNb4OuB8DBXL1RsZROt03Sc/edit#gid=0
Difficult terrain
...
*half goblin*
I made a Wereraccoon
I’m currently making a homebrew faerie dragon dragonborn glamour bard (though I don’t actually have a d&d game to play them in yet). I copied the subrace from the ideas of lots of people on the internet, so I can’t really take credit. They would get the euphoria breath of a faerie dragon, and instead of a damage resistance they get the cantrips dancing lights and minor illusion, and at later levels they get colour spray (at level 3) and major image (at level 5). They are also small instead of medium.
I think she would have been born to dragonborn parents, and just have been touched by some sort of fey magic. A bit like a tiefling or aasimar, but fey instead of fiend or celestial.
I don’t know that much about dragonborn culture. Does anyone know what draginborn cities are like, and how dragonborn would react to such a child being born?
She would look like this picture: www.deviantart.com/angevere/art/Faerie-dragon-664505159
but as a dragonborn, and her wings would be too small to function as wings (I know dragonborn don’t have wings, but it would be a shame to base a race off of faerie dragons and not get their adorable butterfly wings).
She would be a prankster, playing harmless tricks on people. She would love pastries, and playing games.
I’m the 521st person to like
I cam up with Gremlins,
Small sized orc minions that make weapons
+1 to intellect and +2 to constitution
have tinkers tools proficiency, darkvison, and firearm weapon proficiency
they Speak common and orcish
They aren't enslaved but they do get bullied by orcs a lot.
They look like little green guys with nub horns and little droopy ears.
The pain stops at 0:54
I always hated the phrase "home brew" because you aren't brewing anything. Home made would be better.
talking about "racial tendencies" in any other context could be interpreted very poorly lmao