I generally like the point system you are using for this series, but I think one tiny flaw is that by scoring the abilities individually, you don't consider if those abilities have synergy with each other. For example, the Lizardfolk has some abilities that are almost mutually exclusive to each other: - Natural Armor is a good feature for increasing AC of characters with either light or no armor proficiencies, but Bite/Hungry Jaws use STR which those characters likely dumped. - Bite/Hungry Jaws both use STR, so those abilities are best on STR-based characters who almost certainly have access to armor with AC better than what Natural armor can provide. So you likely only benefit from one or the other, but likely not both.
@@AnaseSkyriderthat’s a bit of nothing thanks to Tasha’s custom origin which allows you to reallocate stat bonus so any int racial feature can benefit from a +2 int since it can be moved about.
Yeah, I made a similar comment on specifically Lizardfolk in the last video, though probably made my comment too late for anyone to see it. So far Lizardfolk has been the only one that really stood out as "you almost can't benefit from all these features on the same character" though. Can't think of another race for which that has been the case. (I've had a few other disagreements, but most of my other disagreements have just been of the form "I think you should assign more points for feature X").
Agreed. Another example of abilities that don't really synergise well are the Giffs firearm proficiency and hippo build. The only way to really use both is by playing an Astrel Self monk, who can use their wisdom in place of their strength when their arms are out.
Agreed that Lizardfolk is the most egregious. Aarakocra is similar in that they get a STR based natural weapon but can't wear medium or heavy armor. Not to mention you probably don't want to make many melee attacks if you can fly. On the flip side, I think some races should get a bonus for having abilities that work well together or towards the same goal. - Changeling: Shapechanger and two free 'face' skills work together to make them really good social infiltrators - Goliath: All of the Goliath's abilities benefit a beefy fighter/barbarian type
On tiefling variants: There are two different sets of tielfling variants. The ones in SCAG that you covered in this video, and a lot more in Mordenkainen's tome of foes. All of those just change ability scores and the spells. Probably not worth mentioning unless you want to be really thorough - since they're in a legacy book but haven't technically been revised
Warforged Sentry’s Rest should have gotten some points. Just because they don’t need to sleep does not mean they don’t need a long rest to get spells/abilities back. Making the long rest be able to be taken while aware of your surroundings and able to pull guard for everyone all night is a huge bonus in play.
He already awarded 6 points for the feature that "you don't need to sleep" due to assuming the implication that is spelled out below in Sentry's Rest. In total, that's already more than the 3 points the Autognome got for its Sentry's Rest feature. If you find the clarification necessary, add 3 points for Sentry's Rest but deduct 3 points from Constructed Resilience 🤷
@@ProfessorThinker-zv5vt A non-issue? You've clearly not played in a game with a DM that likes stabbing players in their sleep. Having a permanent guard on a long rest is comforting. It's not worth a lot, but it should be more than 0.
I'm not saying it should get more points, but the Loxodon's Natural Armor seems very interesting for casters. Generally, casters will need to invest in Dex, Con and their spellcasting ability. This makes them able to focus on Con and their spellcasting ability, allows them to invest more points in other abilities and become one of the tankiest casters of the game. I can see a Loxodon Druid with a Sage background, invest in Int instead of Dex and end up with an AC of 19. But I agree that it should be 13 + Con.
I think it was undervalued in this video. Playing a loxodon wizard, where all I needed to really focus on was my INT and CON was amazing. Using the trunk to hold a focus still allows two hands free, so Resilient CON becomes even more attractive than War Caster. Everything just synergizes very well to allow you to focus on ASIs.
I rolled for stats one time and found myself having to dump dex at 8, but I had a high Str and Con, so I made a Loxodon Rune Knight. The natural armor gives me as good AC as I can get with all but Plate armor, but I can’t afford that yet so that’s just fine!
Casters do still somewhat want dexterity to be able to go early in initiative to get their control spells off before the enemy, but I suppose the alert feat helps with that.
@WilliamTythas mind that "your trunk can't wield weapons or shields". The trunk is mainly great for grappling which a mage doesn't take advantage of, thus, it wouldn't be worth 25 points in the cases where Natural Armor might be more valuable than 7 points. At best, the Loxodon would still be worth close to 62 points for a mage but definitely not more.
One thing that I think gets kind of overlooked when it comes to the plasmoid’s Shape Self feature is just how much value you can get out of a 10 foot pseudopod. Unlike the Hadozee, who need to use a bonus action every time they want to use dexterous feet, the Shape Self pseudopod lasts until you use another Bonus Action to get rid of it. That means that in some ways, you can kind of treat it like a third limb. The only things it cannot do is be used to make attacks, activate magic items, or carry more than 10 pounds; otherwise, I would consider it of being capable of everything a normal limb can do. This could allow you to extend the range of your touch spells to 10 feet since you would be able to “touch” creatures with the pseudopod. You could hold a shield with it, netting you a higher AC without requiring you to wield it in one of your hands. I have seen official WotC artwork of plasmoids doing just that, so I don’t think it’s out of the question. Furthermore, I think the Action part of the Shape Self provides some added utility in the sense that you can remove all of your clothing and armor as an Action; the feature says that “while you have a humanoid shape” you can wear clothing and armor made for a humanoid of your size, but if you then reverted back to a blob you would no longer be capable of wearing it. This not only makes it very easy to escape things like a heat metal spell cast on your armor or cursed magic items that don’t let you remove them, but also makes it easier to use your amorphous trait since you can ditch your armor at pretty much any time. Honestly, while some of these interpretations might not be as reasonable as others, I do think you underrated the Shape Self feature by a few points, maybe 1-3, as I think it is an objectively better feature than Dexterous Feet, which you gave the same point value.
There's a difference between holding a shield and wielding a shield, and what discourse I've found about the subject seems to conclude that holding a shield with your pseudopod doesn't grant you the shield's AC bonus.
@@Taliesin_ Many GMs would stop it for balance reasons, but that is home-brew. RAW you can use it for wielding a shield, as long as the shield weighs less than 10 pounds. The object interaction limitations only apply to the turn the pseudopod was created, and outside of those limitations the text only says that the pseudopod cannot be used for weapon attacks, activating magic items, and lifting more than 10 pounds.
@@MonochromaticPrism If you want to take it to the full extent of RAW, a shield is carried "in one hand", no? A pseudopod is not a hand. And if the guys over on /3d6 are saying you can't wield a shield with the pseudopod, you're gonna be hard-pressed to find people anywhere who say you can.
Pretty sure cursed items will remain attached to you even if you stop having appropriate bits for them to attach to. However cutting the bits off should definitely free you of the cursed item. The mechanics of cursed item binding does need a bit of consideration, like can you pull a cursed belt out of your belt loops but not off your body? If you stop having a head does that cursed helm stick to whatever was your head? are cursed swords okay with you putting them in a scabbard or do they remain stuck to your hand?
I did not hear it mentioned in your list of miscellaneous races that still remain, but there are about a dozen dragonmarked subraces in Eberron as well. I play a Mark of Passage Human so I am curious how that scores.
I keep dreaming of a Mark of Hospitality Warlock. Short-rest Goodberry seems like fun. :D The spell-cast parts are pretty comparable to PHB ones, give or take, depending on the spells, should be fairly easy to guess at. The common d4 to a skill and a tool was worth 8 on Vedalken, but you can't choose which skill or tool, so 5 points on average, maybe higher or lower for less useful skills. But the value of Spells of the Mark is perhaps harder. Getting new spells onto a list can be really potent, or totally useless, depending on class. I don't think I'd rank things too high, since you still have to learn the spells normally. * I'd wager the Halflings are all probably B-tier, since they keep Lucky and get some nice perks, halfway between Stout and Lightfoot Halflings. * Mark of Passage gains +5 move speed and Misty Step, which is great (around Wild Elf, high B?), but most of the Human, Half-Orc, and Half-Elf variants are probably high D- or low C-Tier, since they lose a lot of features in the bargain, and roughly comparable to Tiefling. * Gnomes are probably a bit better than Forest Gnome, but perhaps still D-Tier, since they keep the low move speed. * The full Elves are probably low B-Tier, a bit worse than Pallid Elf, since they get some reasonable spellcasting on the existing Elf shell. * Dwarf probably C-Tier with the Hill Dwarf.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah it’s hard to judge the power levels of the dragonmarks given all the variables, especially with all the potential combos in combining the race and class spell lists. Stuff like Mark of Sentinel giving Counterspell and Bigbys hand to non arcane spell casters.
@@thebitterfig9903 I actually played a Mark of Hospitality Warlock recently! More than Goodberry, the thing that made it potent was Aid. Two 5th level Aid spells for the price of a short rest meant that our party always had +20 health, including my familiar. And we also had a Bard with Inspiring Leader, granting Temp HP every short rest as well. I had absolutely 0 problems convincing that party to short rest, because it gave us an *incredible* HP buffer. (And having a familiar that's invisible, resists all damage, and has +35 health makes for a really tanky pet. Especially if they're also immune to fire and poison.)
I think the Loxodon's natural armor is being undersold here. Sure, it's 1 AC lower than the Lizardfolk equivalent, but at least in the earlier levels, this version makes the character's resilience more SAD.
You're right. On the other hand, it has no synergi with the Trunk which is best used for grappling. A grappler should have better armor options than Natural Armor.
Sentry’s rest should get points. It specifies that not only do you not need to sleep, but that you don’t have the regular vulnerabilities of a long, AND that a long rest only takes you 6 hours instead of 8. I know there aren’t many cases where resting for two less hours comes in handy, but it’s still worth at least a point or two.
"A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours." I do agree that they should get at least 1 point since they can are basically the party's watchman during long rests, at least how my group rules it, but only sleeping 6 hours is actually standard
@@caelandemaziere7939 I was thinking more a situation like the party is attacked by bandits 7 hours into their rest. The rest of the party hasn’t finished their long rest and is still low on health and resources, but the war forged has already finished their 6 hour rest and is back at full strength.
you could argue that 'not needing to sleep' does not technically mean you can take a long rest without sleeping. (depending on the race it might even make sense) nvm, someone cited the long rest and it actually doesn't matter in that regard
@@KnuttyEntertainment Of course it all changes based on your DM, but do note that the warforged feature doesn"t say they take a long rest in 6 hours instead of 8, it specifically only states that the sleeping is exchanged by sentry's rest. So RAW a warforged long rest is as long as other races' long rest
It's been a while, but I seem to recall that half drow were pretty nice. With some drow abilities, but no sunlight vulnerability. EDIT: I guess that might come up with lineages?
I wasn’t subscribed and my anxiety over missing videos caused my cat to get anxiety which caused my dog anxiety . Lets just say after replacing all of my furniture I finally clicked subscribe and peace was restored. And it was actually quite easy really. Thanks Treantmonk!
I absolutely love the Vedalken racial abilities, but the rating you gave them is fair. There just aren't as many abilities as some other races have. Used to play a Vedalken wizard with the racial skill used to boost my Arcana - I was an absolute Arcana know-it-all.
I love the flavour of the dispassion ability. I made a character who's hugely charismatic, by way of lack of emotion. Effortlessly alluring to many but with no real feelings one way or another about much in life himself. Just kinda breezes along with a medium mood about anything at all, lol. Looks always fabulous and knows instinctively what to say in any situation, without even trying. Kind in a very pragmatic way only.
I would personally rate Vedalken's saving throw ability a bit higher than Treantmonk did. Pretty sure it's the best saving throw feature on any race, so if saving throws are a high priority for your build, Vedalken tends to enter into the conversation as a racial option. Like...that feature's probably on the level of Halfling Lucky? So like...50 points? That would push them into B-tier. Or if it's worth 55 points they'd be low A. It's definitely not a free feat or free flight (so nowhere close to 100 points), but it is a very noteworthy feature.
Considering that intellect fortress is a 3rd level spell and you have it up 24/7 I'd say it's pretty good. Dragons frightful presence is not magical. With prof in wisdom you can blow right throught it. Can't think of other classic affects but there are a few stuff out there where mental saves are needed against non magical effects. slap this on my high AC build and you have alot of basis covered!
While I don't agree with all of the values you've assigned these features, I very much appreciate how you're consistent with how the values are awarded from one option to the next. To whatever extent is possible, it removed the "rank of cool" issue. Thanks again for all the time and effort you invest in these.
A universal +1 to AC (Warforged trait) is a MUCH stronger feature than resistance to poison dmg & adv on poison saves. You can go entire campaigns without ever encountering poison, but your AC is going to be relevant every single session.
Great series. I do think that some value needs to be added for access to racial feats. Some are not very good, but access to elven accuracy certainly increases the power of the elf and is often a reason to choose them.
@RogerWilco Tasha's "Customizing Your Origin" is optional as well. Regardless, Treantmonk assumes you can switch around your racial Ability Score Increase (e.g. 24:46)
I was going to make a joke that the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide only contains one race, one class, two Cantrips, and a bunch of stuff no one remembers and then I remembered that you forgot the Half Elf Variant. The only Half Elf Variant worth noting is the Drow which lets you play a Drow without that pesky sunlight sensitivity.
29:40 actually sentry’s rest is not redundant, since it specifics that you need to spend 6 hours in an inert state during a long rest. This means that any feature that removes the need for you to sleep doesn’t actually effect warforged because they would still require the 6 hours of inactivity, unless it’s something like the aspect of the moon invocation which gives an additional option to gain a long rest rather than just removing the need for sleep. I can’t think of any interaction off the top of my head but I’m fairly certain there’s some subclass feature or magic item that interacts with this. This doesn’t effect the rating, I was just pointing out why it’s there.
Having watched the previous videos as well, I'm surprised that "all skills are equal". Shouldn't skills like Perception or Stealth rate higher than something like Animal Handling?
You can always get Perception or Stealth from background so it doesn't matter that skill you get from racial option - it would always be additional skill you don't need to pick from background/class.
@@notsochosenone5669 I'd argue against this if it weren't for custom backgrounds but custom backgrounds yeah they kinda make it all redundant. It's fun to pick a background as-is, but so easy to adjust it if you just need a particular thing for a particular build or flavour.
You forgot one very important feature for the Minotaur! It automatically succeeds against the Maze spell! That's got to be worth like...50 points, right?
Maze specifically says it doesn't work against minotaurs and I doubt anyone that capable with magic would not know that, and even against a gm trying to make you feel better it's still not much.
I'd really enjoy seeing this point value system of yours used to rank classes and subclasses. I understand it could be a big project but it would be interesting to see how they would line up against your previous tier lists
So because i use Treantmonk Class variants and these rankings...I'm going to run the these Top five races ( S Tier ) with your Top Subclasse ( Excluding S Tier). I see lots of Flying shenanigans in my future ;). Love these Lists Chris!! thanks for your work!
Thank you for continuing to offer coverage on what will be the last edition of D&D that I & my group will be playing. Luckily, 5e has a lot of mileage still in it with a little bit of Homebrew work. I, nor anyone a personally know, will be paying for or transitioning to D&D6.0Next or wetf its called
What I've learned from a design perspective, is that races which have their own "package" of abilities attached to the parent race, receive nearly twice as many features added to the child sub-race. This means that even races with deep and flexible design choices, like the Simic Hybrid, can seem shallow in terms of potential unless their natural abilities are just more powerful than the capabilities of traditional parent races, like the bugbear.
20:49 unless your GM is very fussy I would call this more than a ribbon future. Having advantage on a perception check gives you plus five to your passive perception. And I would definitely say that scent is part of your passive perception. And if you want to argue the point, remember that the reason most animals have the keen sense feature is exactly so they can get that bonus, making it harder for players to ambush them. (Guard dogs, etc)
Thri-Kreen can also grapple, push, and hold down a person with their main arns then attack with their slightly smallee arms. They just have the limitation of using light weapons. Their extra arms definitely was under valued especially since they can do the things the loxidons trunk can't do.
Warforged's sentry's rest is like a bad trance. Resting and sleeping are different. So it's not technically redundant per rules, but it is redundant per points.
I feel like thrikreen should be higher. My players abused the hell out of the arms and telepathy. If it knows a language, you can talk to it. So now your players are trying to debate with hellhounds.
Thanks Treantmonk. I almost forgot to turn on notifications. I don't even wanna imagine the disasters I might've experienced. Ever since I subscribed to this channel, I haven't died once, and it's a priviledge I wouldn't wanna miss. Time to see what else awaits me.
I agree. Burning Hands is not a great spell to begin with, but as a cone it might be useful to martials from levels 3-4, but as a martial, it's easy to use a reaction on Hellish Rebuke. In fact, it'd be a lot of fun on a martial with Sentinel. If the feature let you use spell slots to cast it, it'd be A-tier for Paladins and Rangers.
A lot of these I haven't ever considered before just due to campaign setting details, thank you for the overview! The only one I'm very familiar with is the vedalken, and I will say this - I think Vedalken Dispassion is worth 50, maybe more than that. It's like a permanent Intellect Fortress spell, minus the psychic resistance, and it for sure at least matches up with the bonus action teleport from the new eladrin, shadar-kai, and astral elves. Then again, I seem to DM and play in worlds that are heavier on spellcasting enemies, so that could make a difference.
17:18 our boy Chris apparently got so flabbergasted by looking at scribe spell, a week ago, that he put the pallid elf, at 67 points, ahead of the thri kreen, at 68 points. Anyways I got right my prediction on feral tiefling being better than what they were positioned in the intro to the series.
29:58 this is an extremely minor detail that doesn’t effect the rating at all, but there is another very small downside to integrated protection, you can’t don armor you aren’t proficient in. Normally you almost never want to don armor you aren’t proficient in because there are many negatives, but you do actually still benefit from the armor even if you aren’t proficient. The downsides are disadvantage on ability checks, saving throws, attack rolls involving str or dex, and the inability to cast spells. This basically means that almost no class would want to use armor they aren’t proficient in because they either want to cast spells or attack with a weapon using str or dex, however astral monks can attack with wis (their astral arms still work if you wear armor) so if you really wanted to you could wear plate armor and a shield and not suffer disadvantage on your attack rolls. Now you wouldn’t have access to martial arts but you could still stunning strike, which honestly is probably move valuable than the pitiful damage you would’ve been doing with martial arts. Now this is an extremely minor and niche thing that probably isn’t worth it since you’d still have disadvantage in saving throws, but I just find this interaction neat.
Secondary arms is honestly like, a 100 point feature in my opinion? You basically just get +2 AC with no downside, that or you can dual wield with greatswords.. it's rather crazy.
I do think the Loxodon’s natural armor is underrated, since it like the Tortle allows you to dump Dex without sacrificing a ton of AC. So if you don’t want to use Heavy armor and you want to dump Dex, AND you want to pump your Con for concentration checks, lots of HP, Echo Knight or Rune Knight features, or for your Aberrant Dragonmark feat, it’s pretty good. I use it for my Rune Knight grappler (named Holdilox), and I’ve maxed out Con and taken Aberrant Dragonmark for Grease and Create Bonfire, and it’s admittedly worse than if I just wore plate armor but still fun. I think it’s great for mages especially, as fully dumping Dex allows you to be really beefy, and the other defenses are great too.
The Giff should only get 53 as Firearms Mastery and Hippo Build are mutually exclusive at a point where either is effectively redundant if you dumb Str or Dex respectively. Since you're unable to build an optimised Giff that takes advantage of both features, they shouldn't be added together but just be awarded 25 overall as Hippo Build is the better of the two. Arguably, Dex-based builds could reach 53 points as well if they get 5 points for the baked-in Powerful Build (relevant if you track carrying capacity) and 2 for advantage on Str checks/saves as you might pass once in a while despite having dumbed Str (especially if you get proficiency with Str saves from being a Fighter, Monk, or Ranger).
Great series, so glad it’s continuing. Quick question or two on plasmoid. Should the creature type of Ooze have any weight in you ranking? Maybe a small bit on pros or cons added, or is it too small a factor to include (since they are not humanoid, some spells might nor affect them, right).
Really enjoying this tier list. Would like to see after you finish the 5e tier. A tier using the same point system to the OneD&Dbl UA races. So we can compare with the corrent races.
Flashback to the preview video where we poked fun at someones ranking for putting tiefling and feral tiefling on opposite sides of the chart.... but in reverse.
I would love to see a vid based on your recent playtest experience when you got a chance to play with the stuff from playtest 5. Plus, Minus, final thoughts. Just curious on how you are finding the new stuff in actual play.
For the warforged sentry's rest feature I think you might've missed that it shortens the long rest's duration by 2 hours, a minor benefit in the grand scheme of things but probably worth more than a zero in the grand scheme of things.
Also, I think the fact that they still get to use their senses should count for maybe 1 point since it can help the Warforged notice an ambush while the party is sleeping.
While I agree the Loxodon's natural armor is weaker, I feel it deserves some more points. Casters and especially druids can benefit greatly from it, needing to invest fewer stats to get passable AC. Compare this to the tortle, who got 40 points for it's natural armor, can also get up to 19 AC with a shield, and is also able to dump Dexterity. While the Loxodon would take longer to reach it's AC cap, I feel the need of only two Ability scores for casters helps put the Loxodon's natural armor above a simple 'Ribbon feature' as defined by this rating system. What do you think?
Treantmonk, you have really stepped up your confidence, and you do it well and are entertaining. You also worked on speaking fast, also done well. :D One thing that this process misses is synergies: Some abilities are worth more because they work well with other abilities on the same race. But I forgive you for this. An additional skill proficiency worth 5? That's really not a lot! I would give it 10 for a specific skill and +5 multiple choice.
@@carlcramer9269 probably due to getting a lot of skills from class and background already... which in background can always be any two you want, thanks to custom backgrounds. So unless you need the spell lists from a Strixhaven or Ravnica background, you pretty much always already begin with at least the two most important skills your character wants, and most likely to have more than two. Given all that, extra skills are equivalent to adding on your least needed skills. So I think that's why the score is low.
I think Sentry's Rest should definitely have a point cost, because many GMs would probably rule that while you don't need to sleep, that only means you don't need to roll for sleep deprivation when not taking long rests, while you still need to sleep to get the benefits of a long rest. Though with the interpretation it would be fine to lower the point value of constructed resiliance by the same amount that Sentry's Rest is worth.
Great stuff. Since you mentioned in another comment you’d be making a footnote for Dragonmarks, do you think you’d be able to make another one for Tiefling lineages from MToF? Would mostly be ranking spell bundles compared to standard Tiefling.
Lets add more Loxodon comments ;) I think the advantage clause is better (not by much), but it seems like more then just a ribbon. Yes investigation won't get advantage all that often, but perception will get it often - at least in my experience - about seeing if somebody is approaching, at least in the wilderness smell can always apply. Yes in cities it probably won't work, but in dungeons and (as said) wilderness should be applicable most of the time. And survival checks are very commonly: searching for food, following tracks and in both those cases one could argue smell is useful :) So long story short: I think this will be advantage on a LOT of survival and perception checks. EDIT: something I forgot when I wrote this - the usefullness is very DM dependant on how generous they are with the help action. I personally really dislike to give out advantage on every single perception and survival check, because they are out of combat and somebody always shouts "I help!", except if they have a really good description how they help. So advantage on those checks is not guaranteed at my table.
I love how you're applying a points based system to everything. It's a fantastic resourcing for santity checking homebrew races. As a thought experiment, for where you're charging 10 pts for advantage vs charm what would you say flat out immunity to would work out as? 2? 3? times the cost? Also, while wotc have removed negative ASI's from both the old kobold and orc via errata or through updates, would you say that a -1 to an ASI could work out as a -20 as the oppsite to a +1, or would it be devalaued due to being able to build around the negative. What's interesting is your whole approach and this system could also be applied to monster building and towards a better CR calculator. Also can't wait to see where Dhampir Owlin ends up ;)
To argue that Keen Smell should be worth sliiiiiiightly more: it actually came up when dealing with an invisible foe who was actively hiding from our group. No way to be seen, and they weren't moving... but the DM had to admit there was no way they were hiding their smell at all and my Luxodon was able to point them out when we knew what we were dealing with. Came in clutch when he was about to gank one of us. So like, maybe 8 points instead of 5 points? Its not a complete ribbon feature, just very niche.
Combined with some somewhat generous rulings on wildshape grappling, I had a player make a tremendous grappler out of a moon druid loxodon. He could basically shut down one enemy per combat. ANY enemy.
Out of curiosity what particular features or spells or things were you considering when valuing the Winged Tiefling's lack of boosting walking speed at 26:53? From what I can tell a lot of stuff that increases speed is increasing the character's overall speed not just their walking speed. Monk's Unarmored Movement boost overall speed, Longstrider boosts overall speed, Haste boost overall speed, the Mobile feat boosts overall speed, Ashardalon's Stride boosts overall speed... Kinetic Jaunt however only works on walking speed.
I really like the Luxodon's Natural Armor as it allows you to make dexterity a dump stat without hurting your build too much. This of course only has role play value and is a bad choice if you are trying to make an optimized character.
I would rate the Giffs Firearm Mastery higher. This is getting most of the Gunner Feat and one Sharpshooter bullet point. If I was making a build centered around using Firearms this offers Astral Spark mainly vs Custom Lineage allowing for +3 and Darkvision or one Skill. Making a Giff the supreme choice for a Pistol or Musket wielding character!
For levels 1-3, Giff could almost be as good a gunfighter as Custom Lineage due to Firearms Mastery providing a cut of either feat. However, firearms are very expensive so you're more likely to use a crossbow at early levels. Moreover, the Firearms Mastery trait soon becomes redundant as it should still be your top priority to pick up both the Sharpshooter (for the -5, +10 tradeoff) and Gunner feat (so "being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage"). Unfortunately, I would pick Custom Lineage over Giff any day. With a +1 to Dex from Gunner, you can start with 18 Dex which means that every attack would deal more damage and be more likely to hit. That's arguably better than a Giff with 17 Dex being able to add 2 damage twice a day. While Astral Spark scales, a Custom Lineage can have both feats at 4th level and cap Dex at 8th level.
@@SortKaffe I see the 5 feet doesn't impose disadvantage as not a big deal. Also +3 to vs +2 and +1 is superior early sure. I would still pick Giff, because I cannot take Astral Spark as a feat. At later levels it becomes better imho.
I forgot to add, if firearms are not available or setting conform, then there is little reason to not pick up a Hand Crossbow and reflavour it, as it does superior damage through XBE. Firearms are only interesting for characters with specific bonus action uses mechanically.
Treantmonk, are you really pretending like producing over a half a thousand videos isn't impressive? No sarcasm, you're one of two RUclipsrs I have "ALL Notifications" set to ON for.
I tend to think floating proficensies (that you can change every long rest) should be worth a little more, as should static perception proficiency as I've seen so many builds pick a background just to double up on a skill choice with their class specifically to get perception because it is the only skill that you are objectively worse for not taking.
Wish wotc ran traits through a calculator like this and used that info to balance races. Not saying everything needs to be equal but some don't seem like they are trying. Then u can use that math to make custom races and hybrids.
If you create a point system for magic items then a cost curve based on points (100 points item costs more than twice as much as a 50 point item), people world watch that video over and over again and then modify it for their table. And magic item prices will make infinitely more sense everywhere.
I'd be curious to see where the One D&D/5.5e races (with their free level 1 feats given every character gets at least one) would measure up. I would suspect they'd be at least A tier, with the Human being S.
while a creature doesn't need to sleep they still need rest, or suffer exhaustion. a warforged's sentry's rest let's them rest but still be on watch. where as a merely sleepless creature wouldn't be (long) resting. it's a silly distinction, but that's the purpose of it.
Pardon me if I missed it in previous videos, but does Treantmonk have a doc that lists all his point values to traits reviewed? Would be interesting to see the rankings of the traits independent of the races.
I am tempted to say that it is criminal that you don't have 100k subs, but that would be over exaggeration and we wouldn't want to see that on this channel.
I don't think sentry's rest is redundant. Warforged don't need to sleep biologically through constructed resilliance but that just means they don't get fatigued from not sleeping. What sentry's rest lets you do is lets you maintain a watch while taking a long rest to recover your resources.
Finally! Someone else who recognizes that Feral Tiefling is S-Tier. 😏
I thought we all agreed that free Flight is S-tier?
How can this comment be 1 month old when the video is 22 hour old?
Was video "hidden", only available for patreons, for about a month?
I would make a Manbat token for them, just for clarity's sake
@@SigurdBraathen that is correct.
@@SigurdBraathen Mine says 3 days ago and the comment 1 month ago, so correct.
There’s been a noticeable increase in your sarcasm lately.
And as the kids say, I’m totally here for it.
I agree, but the 'kids' that used to say that, probably have kids themselves now.
@@petergriffin9554 I dunno, life's really expensive. Who can afford children any more lol
That started with the OGL
Scrolled down to say this. I agree!
No as the kids would say you are rizzed up
I generally like the point system you are using for this series, but I think one tiny flaw is that by scoring the abilities individually, you don't consider if those abilities have synergy with each other.
For example, the Lizardfolk has some abilities that are almost mutually exclusive to each other:
- Natural Armor is a good feature for increasing AC of characters with either light or no armor proficiencies, but Bite/Hungry Jaws use STR which those characters likely dumped.
- Bite/Hungry Jaws both use STR, so those abilities are best on STR-based characters who almost certainly have access to armor with AC better than what Natural armor can provide.
So you likely only benefit from one or the other, but likely not both.
Completely agree. A great INT cantrip is awesome, unless it's on a race that gives you no bonuses to INT and has a bunch of STR features.
@@AnaseSkyriderthat’s a bit of nothing thanks to Tasha’s custom origin which allows you to reallocate stat bonus so any int racial feature can benefit from a +2 int since it can be moved about.
Yeah, I made a similar comment on specifically Lizardfolk in the last video, though probably made my comment too late for anyone to see it.
So far Lizardfolk has been the only one that really stood out as "you almost can't benefit from all these features on the same character" though. Can't think of another race for which that has been the case.
(I've had a few other disagreements, but most of my other disagreements have just been of the form "I think you should assign more points for feature X").
Agreed.
Another example of abilities that don't really synergise well are the Giffs firearm proficiency and hippo build.
The only way to really use both is by playing an Astrel Self monk, who can use their wisdom in place of their strength when their arms are out.
Agreed that Lizardfolk is the most egregious. Aarakocra is similar in that they get a STR based natural weapon but can't wear medium or heavy armor. Not to mention you probably don't want to make many melee attacks if you can fly.
On the flip side, I think some races should get a bonus for having abilities that work well together or towards the same goal.
- Changeling: Shapechanger and two free 'face' skills work together to make them really good social infiltrators
- Goliath: All of the Goliath's abilities benefit a beefy fighter/barbarian type
On tiefling variants: There are two different sets of tielfling variants. The ones in SCAG that you covered in this video, and a lot more in Mordenkainen's tome of foes. All of those just change ability scores and the spells. Probably not worth mentioning unless you want to be really thorough - since they're in a legacy book but haven't technically been revised
Feral used to be even better when ability scores couldn't be swapped. So good.
I think the Mordenkainen Tieflings are worth covering. Some get vastly better spells than other or standard Tieflings for example.
I'd still play a Zariel Tiefling Paladin (no Tasha's ability score change needed)
I've played a Levistus tiefling monk and a sorcerer. The extra spells and ability score placement(pre Tasha's) were dope
Warforged Sentry’s Rest should have gotten some points. Just because they don’t need to sleep does not mean they don’t need a long rest to get spells/abilities back.
Making the long rest be able to be taken while aware of your surroundings and able to pull guard for everyone all night is a huge bonus in play.
I would say the designers at least deserve a couple points for clarifying whether or not the warforged can see and hear normally
He already awarded 6 points for the feature that "you don't need to sleep" due to assuming the implication that is spelled out below in Sentry's Rest. In total, that's already more than the 3 points the Autognome got for its Sentry's Rest feature.
If you find the clarification necessary, add 3 points for Sentry's Rest but deduct 3 points from Constructed Resilience 🤷
Nah. This is a minor bonus at best. You are praising something that is solving a non-issue. Those liking your comment must be very bad.
@@ProfessorThinker-zv5vt A non-issue? You've clearly not played in a game with a DM that likes stabbing players in their sleep. Having a permanent guard on a long rest is comforting. It's not worth a lot, but it should be more than 0.
@@RollInish So a non-issue. A GM does never stab his players. That would be a ticket to jail. Your mind has been twisted with devious thoughts.
I'm not saying it should get more points, but the Loxodon's Natural Armor seems very interesting for casters. Generally, casters will need to invest in Dex, Con and their spellcasting ability. This makes them able to focus on Con and their spellcasting ability, allows them to invest more points in other abilities and become one of the tankiest casters of the game. I can see a Loxodon Druid with a Sage background, invest in Int instead of Dex and end up with an AC of 19. But I agree that it should be 13 + Con.
I think it was undervalued in this video. Playing a loxodon wizard, where all I needed to really focus on was my INT and CON was amazing. Using the trunk to hold a focus still allows two hands free, so Resilient CON becomes even more attractive than War Caster. Everything just synergizes very well to allow you to focus on ASIs.
I thought the trunk was a bigger deal too ... get two-Handed weapons and a shield
I rolled for stats one time and found myself having to dump dex at 8, but I had a high Str and Con, so I made a Loxodon Rune Knight. The natural armor gives me as good AC as I can get with all but Plate armor, but I can’t afford that yet so that’s just fine!
Casters do still somewhat want dexterity to be able to go early in initiative to get their control spells off before the enemy, but I suppose the alert feat helps with that.
@WilliamTythas mind that "your trunk can't wield weapons or shields".
The trunk is mainly great for grappling which a mage doesn't take advantage of, thus, it wouldn't be worth 25 points in the cases where Natural Armor might be more valuable than 7 points. At best, the Loxodon would still be worth close to 62 points for a mage but definitely not more.
And after your consideration, I understood why Loxodon's favored weapon (in canon) is a maul.
One thing that I think gets kind of overlooked when it comes to the plasmoid’s Shape Self feature is just how much value you can get out of a 10 foot pseudopod. Unlike the Hadozee, who need to use a bonus action every time they want to use dexterous feet, the Shape Self pseudopod lasts until you use another Bonus Action to get rid of it. That means that in some ways, you can kind of treat it like a third limb. The only things it cannot do is be used to make attacks, activate magic items, or carry more than 10 pounds; otherwise, I would consider it of being capable of everything a normal limb can do. This could allow you to extend the range of your touch spells to 10 feet since you would be able to “touch” creatures with the pseudopod. You could hold a shield with it, netting you a higher AC without requiring you to wield it in one of your hands. I have seen official WotC artwork of plasmoids doing just that, so I don’t think it’s out of the question. Furthermore, I think the Action part of the Shape Self provides some added utility in the sense that you can remove all of your clothing and armor as an Action; the feature says that “while you have a humanoid shape” you can wear clothing and armor made for a humanoid of your size, but if you then reverted back to a blob you would no longer be capable of wearing it. This not only makes it very easy to escape things like a heat metal spell cast on your armor or cursed magic items that don’t let you remove them, but also makes it easier to use your amorphous trait since you can ditch your armor at pretty much any time. Honestly, while some of these interpretations might not be as reasonable as others, I do think you underrated the Shape Self feature by a few points, maybe 1-3, as I think it is an objectively better feature than Dexterous Feet, which you gave the same point value.
That seems reasonable.
There's a difference between holding a shield and wielding a shield, and what discourse I've found about the subject seems to conclude that holding a shield with your pseudopod doesn't grant you the shield's AC bonus.
@@Taliesin_ Many GMs would stop it for balance reasons, but that is home-brew. RAW you can use it for wielding a shield, as long as the shield weighs less than 10 pounds. The object interaction limitations only apply to the turn the pseudopod was created, and outside of those limitations the text only says that the pseudopod cannot be used for weapon attacks, activating magic items, and lifting more than 10 pounds.
@@MonochromaticPrism If you want to take it to the full extent of RAW, a shield is carried "in one hand", no? A pseudopod is not a hand. And if the guys over on /3d6 are saying you can't wield a shield with the pseudopod, you're gonna be hard-pressed to find people anywhere who say you can.
Pretty sure cursed items will remain attached to you even if you stop having appropriate bits for them to attach to.
However cutting the bits off should definitely free you of the cursed item.
The mechanics of cursed item binding does need a bit of consideration, like can you pull a cursed belt out of your belt loops but not off your body?
If you stop having a head does that cursed helm stick to whatever was your head? are cursed swords okay with you putting them in a scabbard or do they remain stuck to your hand?
I did not hear it mentioned in your list of miscellaneous races that still remain, but there are about a dozen dragonmarked subraces in Eberron as well. I play a Mark of Passage Human so I am curious how that scores.
It's really, really hard to determine point values for dragonmarks. I will probably address them as a footnote in my next video unfortunately.
I was going to say this as well. I know my mark of making human has been a house because of those extra features
I keep dreaming of a Mark of Hospitality Warlock. Short-rest Goodberry seems like fun. :D
The spell-cast parts are pretty comparable to PHB ones, give or take, depending on the spells, should be fairly easy to guess at. The common d4 to a skill and a tool was worth 8 on Vedalken, but you can't choose which skill or tool, so 5 points on average, maybe higher or lower for less useful skills. But the value of Spells of the Mark is perhaps harder. Getting new spells onto a list can be really potent, or totally useless, depending on class. I don't think I'd rank things too high, since you still have to learn the spells normally.
* I'd wager the Halflings are all probably B-tier, since they keep Lucky and get some nice perks, halfway between Stout and Lightfoot Halflings.
* Mark of Passage gains +5 move speed and Misty Step, which is great (around Wild Elf, high B?), but most of the Human, Half-Orc, and Half-Elf variants are probably high D- or low C-Tier, since they lose a lot of features in the bargain, and roughly comparable to Tiefling.
* Gnomes are probably a bit better than Forest Gnome, but perhaps still D-Tier, since they keep the low move speed.
* The full Elves are probably low B-Tier, a bit worse than Pallid Elf, since they get some reasonable spellcasting on the existing Elf shell.
* Dwarf probably C-Tier with the Hill Dwarf.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah it’s hard to judge the power levels of the dragonmarks given all the variables, especially with all the potential combos in combining the race and class spell lists. Stuff like Mark of Sentinel giving Counterspell and Bigbys hand to non arcane spell casters.
@@thebitterfig9903 I actually played a Mark of Hospitality Warlock recently! More than Goodberry, the thing that made it potent was Aid. Two 5th level Aid spells for the price of a short rest meant that our party always had +20 health, including my familiar. And we also had a Bard with Inspiring Leader, granting Temp HP every short rest as well. I had absolutely 0 problems convincing that party to short rest, because it gave us an *incredible* HP buffer. (And having a familiar that's invisible, resists all damage, and has +35 health makes for a really tanky pet. Especially if they're also immune to fire and poison.)
I think the Loxodon's natural armor is being undersold here. Sure, it's 1 AC lower than the Lizardfolk equivalent, but at least in the earlier levels, this version makes the character's resilience more SAD.
You're right. On the other hand, it has no synergi with the Trunk which is best used for grappling. A grappler should have better armor options than Natural Armor.
You have the best ask for subscribers by anyone on RUclips. I actually look forward to it.
Sentry’s rest should get points. It specifies that not only do you not need to sleep, but that you don’t have the regular vulnerabilities of a long, AND that a long rest only takes you 6 hours instead of 8. I know there aren’t many cases where resting for two less hours comes in handy, but it’s still worth at least a point or two.
"A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours."
I do agree that they should get at least 1 point since they can are basically the party's watchman during long rests, at least how my group rules it, but only sleeping 6 hours is actually standard
@@caelandemaziere7939 I was thinking more a situation like the party is attacked by bandits 7 hours into their rest. The rest of the party hasn’t finished their long rest and is still low on health and resources, but the war forged has already finished their 6 hour rest and is back at full strength.
you could argue that 'not needing to sleep' does not technically mean you can take a long rest without sleeping.
(depending on the race it might even make sense)
nvm, someone cited the long rest and it actually doesn't matter in that regard
@@KnuttyEntertainment Of course it all changes based on your DM, but do note that the warforged feature doesn"t say they take a long rest in 6 hours instead of 8, it specifically only states that the sleeping is exchanged by sentry's rest. So RAW a warforged long rest is as long as other races' long rest
Also, I didn't hear it called out when you were discussing SCAG races or the wrap up, but you haven't covered the half-elf variants.
This feels like a sizable omission.
Oh indeed, I forgot about those.
It's been a while, but I seem to recall that half drow were pretty nice. With some drow abilities, but no sunlight vulnerability.
EDIT: I guess that might come up with lineages?
I wasn’t subscribed and my anxiety over missing videos caused my cat to get anxiety which caused my dog anxiety . Lets just say after replacing all of my furniture I finally clicked subscribe and peace was restored. And it was actually quite easy really. Thanks Treantmonk!
I absolutely love the Vedalken racial abilities, but the rating you gave them is fair. There just aren't as many abilities as some other races have. Used to play a Vedalken wizard with the racial skill used to boost my Arcana - I was an absolute Arcana know-it-all.
I love the flavour of the dispassion ability. I made a character who's hugely charismatic, by way of lack of emotion. Effortlessly alluring to many but with no real feelings one way or another about much in life himself. Just kinda breezes along with a medium mood about anything at all, lol. Looks always fabulous and knows instinctively what to say in any situation, without even trying. Kind in a very pragmatic way only.
I straight up didn’t know this race existed. D&D having its own Vulcan race is pretty rad
I would personally rate Vedalken's saving throw ability a bit higher than Treantmonk did. Pretty sure it's the best saving throw feature on any race, so if saving throws are a high priority for your build, Vedalken tends to enter into the conversation as a racial option.
Like...that feature's probably on the level of Halfling Lucky? So like...50 points? That would push them into B-tier. Or if it's worth 55 points they'd be low A.
It's definitely not a free feat or free flight (so nowhere close to 100 points), but it is a very noteworthy feature.
Considering that intellect fortress is a 3rd level spell and you have it up 24/7 I'd say it's pretty good. Dragons frightful presence is not magical. With prof in wisdom you can blow right throught it. Can't think of other classic affects but there are a few stuff out there where mental saves are needed against non magical effects.
slap this on my high AC build and you have alot of basis covered!
I’m sure you’ve gotten this a lot lately, but your obligatory “sub plox” bits have been a breath of fresh RUclips air. Never stop!
While I don't agree with all of the values you've assigned these features, I very much appreciate how you're consistent with how the values are awarded from one option to the next.
To whatever extent is possible, it removed the "rank of cool" issue.
Thanks again for all the time and effort you invest in these.
A universal +1 to AC (Warforged trait) is a MUCH stronger feature than resistance to poison dmg & adv on poison saves. You can go entire campaigns without ever encountering poison, but your AC is going to be relevant every single session.
Since subscribing to this channel I have NEVER once dropped a bottle of hot sauce. That's a 100% success rate. 10/10, highly recommend.
Great series. I do think that some value needs to be added for access to racial feats. Some are not very good, but access to elven accuracy certainly increases the power of the elf and is often a reason to choose them.
Hmmm, that could add another dimension, but as feats are optional, I'm not sure how he could rank this.
@RogerWilco Tasha's "Customizing Your Origin" is optional as well. Regardless, Treantmonk assumes you can switch around your racial Ability Score Increase (e.g. 24:46)
That is a good point, but might merit it's own tier list. It could be applied as bonus points to combine the lists, though.
Hadozee: "besides Glide, there was *no other controversy at all* that people paid attention to."
Brilliant 💫
I was going to make a joke that the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide only contains one race, one class, two Cantrips, and a bunch of stuff no one remembers and then I remembered that you forgot the Half Elf Variant. The only Half Elf Variant worth noting is the Drow which lets you play a Drow without that pesky sunlight sensitivity.
No, given the way he values movement, the half wood elf should be the most powerful.
Nice! I called Feral Tieflings being amazing all the way back at the start of this series!
29:40 actually sentry’s rest is not redundant, since it specifics that you need to spend 6 hours in an inert state during a long rest. This means that any feature that removes the need for you to sleep doesn’t actually effect warforged because they would still require the 6 hours of inactivity, unless it’s something like the aspect of the moon invocation which gives an additional option to gain a long rest rather than just removing the need for sleep. I can’t think of any interaction off the top of my head but I’m fairly certain there’s some subclass feature or magic item that interacts with this. This doesn’t effect the rating, I was just pointing out why it’s there.
Having watched the previous videos as well, I'm surprised that "all skills are equal". Shouldn't skills like Perception or Stealth rate higher than something like Animal Handling?
You can always get Perception or Stealth from background so it doesn't matter that skill you get from racial option - it would always be additional skill you don't need to pick from background/class.
@@notsochosenone5669 I'd argue against this if it weren't for custom backgrounds but custom backgrounds yeah they kinda make it all redundant. It's fun to pick a background as-is, but so easy to adjust it if you just need a particular thing for a particular build or flavour.
Absolutely love the energy in these last few videos of yours!
You forgot one very important feature for the Minotaur! It automatically succeeds against the Maze spell! That's got to be worth like...50 points, right?
Maze specifically says it doesn't work against minotaurs and I doubt anyone that capable with magic would not know that, and even against a gm trying to make you feel better it's still not much.
Dude, the way you explain stuff and make jokes are everything! I freaking love your videos!
A goblin cut me off in traffic last week. I went home and subscribed to Treantmonk, and since then no goblins have cut me off.
I'd really enjoy seeing this point value system of yours used to rank classes and subclasses. I understand it could be a big project but it would be interesting to see how they would line up against your previous tier lists
Wanted to take a minute to appreciate how much your video editing has improved. There's a lot of really good animation moments in this video.
Love the PSA at the beginning Chris. Hope you have a good day.
Funniest intro I have seen
For real?
So because i use Treantmonk Class variants and these rankings...I'm going to run the these Top five races ( S Tier ) with your Top Subclasse ( Excluding S Tier). I see lots of Flying shenanigans in my future ;). Love these Lists Chris!! thanks for your work!
Thank you for continuing to offer coverage on what will be the last edition of D&D that I & my group will be playing. Luckily, 5e has a lot of mileage still in it with a little bit of Homebrew work. I, nor anyone a personally know, will be paying for or transitioning to D&D6.0Next or wetf its called
What I've learned from a design perspective, is that races which have their own "package" of abilities attached to the parent race, receive nearly twice as many features added to the child sub-race. This means that even races with deep and flexible design choices, like the Simic Hybrid, can seem shallow in terms of potential unless their natural abilities are just more powerful than the capabilities of traditional parent races, like the bugbear.
Happy to see the continuation of this series, it's been a while
20:49 unless your GM is very fussy I would call this more than a ribbon future. Having advantage on a perception check gives you plus five to your passive perception.
And I would definitely say that scent is part of your passive perception.
And if you want to argue the point, remember that the reason most animals have the keen sense feature is exactly so they can get that bonus, making it harder for players to ambush them. (Guard dogs, etc)
You forgot half elf variants from SCAG. Or at least if you think they all get the same rating as the base half elf, then you should add that.
Thri-Kreen can also grapple, push, and hold down a person with their main arns then attack with their slightly smallee arms. They just have the limitation of using light weapons. Their extra arms definitely was under valued especially since they can do the things the loxidons trunk can't do.
Warforged's sentry's rest is like a bad trance. Resting and sleeping are different. So it's not technically redundant per rules, but it is redundant per points.
I feel like thrikreen should be higher. My players abused the hell out of the arms and telepathy. If it knows a language, you can talk to it. So now your players are trying to debate with hellhounds.
It sounds like great fun, might well pick it the next time I get to start a game.
Yeah, if telepathy bypasses the language limitations, then it is more useful.
Thanks Treantmonk. I almost forgot to turn on notifications. I don't even wanna imagine the disasters I might've experienced.
Ever since I subscribed to this channel, I haven't died once, and it's a priviledge I wouldn't wanna miss. Time to see what else awaits me.
I think Hellish Rebuke is better than burning hands, at least a bit. Mostly because it's a reaction.
I agree. Burning Hands is not a great spell to begin with, but as a cone it might be useful to martials from levels 3-4, but as a martial, it's easy to use a reaction on Hellish Rebuke. In fact, it'd be a lot of fun on a martial with Sentinel. If the feature let you use spell slots to cast it, it'd be A-tier for Paladins and Rangers.
A lot of these I haven't ever considered before just due to campaign setting details, thank you for the overview!
The only one I'm very familiar with is the vedalken, and I will say this - I think Vedalken Dispassion is worth 50, maybe more than that. It's like a permanent Intellect Fortress spell, minus the psychic resistance, and it for sure at least matches up with the bonus action teleport from the new eladrin, shadar-kai, and astral elves. Then again, I seem to DM and play in worlds that are heavier on spellcasting enemies, so that could make a difference.
I've been waiting ! You've changed my mind on many species and made me reconsider how I judge them.
funniest intro in a while, maybe the funniest you've ever done 😂😂😂
17:18 our boy Chris apparently got so flabbergasted by looking at scribe spell, a week ago, that he put the pallid elf, at 67 points, ahead of the thri kreen, at 68 points.
Anyways I got right my prediction on feral tiefling being better than what they were positioned in the intro to the series.
29:58 this is an extremely minor detail that doesn’t effect the rating at all, but there is another very small downside to integrated protection, you can’t don armor you aren’t proficient in. Normally you almost never want to don armor you aren’t proficient in because there are many negatives, but you do actually still benefit from the armor even if you aren’t proficient. The downsides are disadvantage on ability checks, saving throws, attack rolls involving str or dex, and the inability to cast spells. This basically means that almost no class would want to use armor they aren’t proficient in because they either want to cast spells or attack with a weapon using str or dex, however astral monks can attack with wis (their astral arms still work if you wear armor) so if you really wanted to you could wear plate armor and a shield and not suffer disadvantage on your attack rolls. Now you wouldn’t have access to martial arts but you could still stunning strike, which honestly is probably move valuable than the pitiful damage you would’ve been doing with martial arts. Now this is an extremely minor and niche thing that probably isn’t worth it since you’d still have disadvantage in saving throws, but I just find this interaction neat.
I've played a plasmoid and did NOT expect it to do so well. I just thought it was funny and gimmicky when I used trypophobia to cast the fear spell.
What does that have to do with a plasmoid?
Secondary arms is honestly like, a 100 point feature in my opinion? You basically just get +2 AC with no downside, that or you can dual wield with greatswords.. it's rather crazy.
Read the restrictions on the arms, it doesn't let you do as much as you think.
I do think the Loxodon’s natural armor is underrated, since it like the Tortle allows you to dump Dex without sacrificing a ton of AC. So if you don’t want to use Heavy armor and you want to dump Dex, AND you want to pump your Con for concentration checks, lots of HP, Echo Knight or Rune Knight features, or for your Aberrant Dragonmark feat, it’s pretty good. I use it for my Rune Knight grappler (named Holdilox), and I’ve maxed out Con and taken Aberrant Dragonmark for Grease and Create Bonfire, and it’s admittedly worse than if I just wore plate armor but still fun. I think it’s great for mages especially, as fully dumping Dex allows you to be really beefy, and the other defenses are great too.
The Giff should only get 53 as Firearms Mastery and Hippo Build are mutually exclusive at a point where either is effectively redundant if you dumb Str or Dex respectively. Since you're unable to build an optimised Giff that takes advantage of both features, they shouldn't be added together but just be awarded 25 overall as Hippo Build is the better of the two.
Arguably, Dex-based builds could reach 53 points as well if they get 5 points for the baked-in Powerful Build (relevant if you track carrying capacity) and 2 for advantage on Str checks/saves as you might pass once in a while despite having dumbed Str (especially if you get proficiency with Str saves from being a Fighter, Monk, or Ranger).
I love points. Gives a feeling of accomplishment
Great series, so glad it’s continuing. Quick question or two on plasmoid. Should the creature type of Ooze have any weight in you ranking? Maybe a small bit on pros or cons added, or is it too small a factor to include (since they are not humanoid, some spells might nor affect them, right).
He mentions that apart from undead and constructs, their are benefits and weaknesses to all creature types that make them roughly equivalent.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
Really enjoying this tier list.
Would like to see after you finish the 5e tier. A tier using the same point system to the OneD&Dbl UA races.
So we can compare with the corrent races.
Flashback to the preview video where we poked fun at someones ranking for putting tiefling and feral tiefling on opposite sides of the chart.... but in reverse.
I’m loving this new sassy treantmonk, go off king
That franks reference made me want to be able to subscribe again even though I’m already subscribed.
Man, I was waiting for this!
nice review! and thank you for bringing back the public safety announcements, adds 50 points to every video
I'm subscribed and my bottle of Frank's is still intact. I think the theory has merit. Stay safe folks!
I would love to see a vid based on your recent playtest experience when you got a chance to play with the stuff from playtest 5. Plus, Minus, final thoughts. Just curious on how you are finding the new stuff in actual play.
perception (and probably perception alone) is so good that it should be worth as much as a "pick 'em" skill prof
For the warforged sentry's rest feature I think you might've missed that it shortens the long rest's duration by 2 hours, a minor benefit in the grand scheme of things but probably worth more than a zero in the grand scheme of things.
Also, I think the fact that they still get to use their senses should count for maybe 1 point since it can help the Warforged notice an ambush while the party is sleeping.
@@Chris_the_Nerd 1 point for being immune to sleep is a little low too
I'm enjoying the increase in sass
While I agree the Loxodon's natural armor is weaker, I feel it deserves some more points. Casters and especially druids can benefit greatly from it, needing to invest fewer stats to get passable AC.
Compare this to the tortle, who got 40 points for it's natural armor, can also get up to 19 AC with a shield, and is also able to dump Dexterity. While the Loxodon would take longer to reach it's AC cap, I feel the need of only two Ability scores for casters helps put the Loxodon's natural armor above a simple 'Ribbon feature' as defined by this rating system. What do you think?
Treantmonk, you have really stepped up your confidence, and you do it well and are entertaining. You also worked on speaking fast, also done well. :D
One thing that this process misses is synergies: Some abilities are worth more because they work well with other abilities on the same race. But I forgive you for this.
An additional skill proficiency worth 5? That's really not a lot! I would give it 10 for a specific skill and +5 multiple choice.
Skill proficiency worth 5? That's really not a lot!
@@carlcramer9269 probably due to getting a lot of skills from class and background already... which in background can always be any two you want, thanks to custom backgrounds. So unless you need the spell lists from a Strixhaven or Ravnica background, you pretty much always already begin with at least the two most important skills your character wants, and most likely to have more than two.
Given all that, extra skills are equivalent to adding on your least needed skills. So I think that's why the score is low.
I think Sentry's Rest should definitely have a point cost, because many GMs would probably rule that while you don't need to sleep, that only means you don't need to roll for sleep deprivation when not taking long rests, while you still need to sleep to get the benefits of a long rest. Though with the interpretation it would be fine to lower the point value of constructed resiliance by the same amount that Sentry's Rest is worth.
Great stuff. Since you mentioned in another comment you’d be making a footnote for Dragonmarks, do you think you’d be able to make another one for Tiefling lineages from MToF? Would mostly be ranking spell bundles compared to standard Tiefling.
Love the motivational speech to subscribe. Easily "A-tier".
“A goblin cut me off in traffic and i’m feeling vindictive” me on my way to work every morning
So excited for the final video!!!
Astral elf probably should’ve gotten more since it can get a new skill and weapon/tool proficiency every long rest
Lets add more Loxodon comments ;) I think the advantage clause is better (not by much), but it seems like more then just a ribbon. Yes investigation won't get advantage all that often, but perception will get it often - at least in my experience - about seeing if somebody is approaching, at least in the wilderness smell can always apply. Yes in cities it probably won't work, but in dungeons and (as said) wilderness should be applicable most of the time.
And survival checks are very commonly: searching for food, following tracks and in both those cases one could argue smell is useful :)
So long story short: I think this will be advantage on a LOT of survival and perception checks.
EDIT: something I forgot when I wrote this - the usefullness is very DM dependant on how generous they are with the help action. I personally really dislike to give out advantage on every single perception and survival check, because they are out of combat and somebody always shouts "I help!", except if they have a really good description how they help. So advantage on those checks is not guaranteed at my table.
I love how you're applying a points based system to everything. It's a fantastic resourcing for santity checking homebrew races.
As a thought experiment, for where you're charging 10 pts for advantage vs charm what would you say flat out immunity to would work out as? 2? 3? times the cost?
Also, while wotc have removed negative ASI's from both the old kobold and orc via errata or through updates, would you say that a -1 to an ASI could work out as a -20 as the oppsite to a +1, or would it be devalaued due to being able to build around the negative.
What's interesting is your whole approach and this system could also be applied to monster building and towards a better CR calculator.
Also can't wait to see where Dhampir Owlin ends up ;)
To argue that Keen Smell should be worth sliiiiiiightly more: it actually came up when dealing with an invisible foe who was actively hiding from our group. No way to be seen, and they weren't moving... but the DM had to admit there was no way they were hiding their smell at all and my Luxodon was able to point them out when we knew what we were dealing with. Came in clutch when he was about to gank one of us.
So like, maybe 8 points instead of 5 points? Its not a complete ribbon feature, just very niche.
Combined with some somewhat generous rulings on wildshape grappling, I had a player make a tremendous grappler out of a moon druid loxodon. He could basically shut down one enemy per combat. ANY enemy.
Cool ratings... fun to watch. I use Legacy instead of Multiverse variants, so it doesn't help me in the slightest, but it fun to watch.
I have sooooo much hot sauce. Thanks for looking out for me!
Let's goooo, I've been waiting on this so long
"The writers of this book must have had some serious deadlines".
😆🤣
Out of curiosity what particular features or spells or things were you considering when valuing the Winged Tiefling's lack of boosting walking speed at 26:53? From what I can tell a lot of stuff that increases speed is increasing the character's overall speed not just their walking speed. Monk's Unarmored Movement boost overall speed, Longstrider boosts overall speed, Haste boost overall speed, the Mobile feat boosts overall speed, Ashardalon's Stride boosts overall speed... Kinetic Jaunt however only works on walking speed.
Excellent remark!
I also would be interested in knowing other possible effects that only work on the walking speed, I hope people chime in.
Oath of Glory Paladin's Aura of Alacrity only works on walking speed
@@johnwood7532 Good one, as does the Scout Rogue's Superior Mobility feature and Ranger's Roving.
I really like the Luxodon's Natural Armor as it allows you to make dexterity a dump stat without hurting your build too much. This of course only has role play value and is a bad choice if you are trying to make an optimized character.
I would rate the Giffs Firearm Mastery higher. This is getting most of the Gunner Feat and one Sharpshooter bullet point. If I was making a build centered around using Firearms this offers Astral Spark mainly vs Custom Lineage allowing for +3 and Darkvision or one Skill. Making a Giff the supreme choice for a Pistol or Musket wielding character!
For levels 1-3, Giff could almost be as good a gunfighter as Custom Lineage due to Firearms Mastery providing a cut of either feat. However, firearms are very expensive so you're more likely to use a crossbow at early levels. Moreover, the Firearms Mastery trait soon becomes redundant as it should still be your top priority to pick up both the Sharpshooter (for the -5, +10 tradeoff) and Gunner feat (so "being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage").
Unfortunately, I would pick Custom Lineage over Giff any day. With a +1 to Dex from Gunner, you can start with 18 Dex which means that every attack would deal more damage and be more likely to hit. That's arguably better than a Giff with 17 Dex being able to add 2 damage twice a day. While Astral Spark scales, a Custom Lineage can have both feats at 4th level and cap Dex at 8th level.
@@SortKaffe I see the 5 feet doesn't impose disadvantage as not a big deal. Also +3 to vs +2 and +1 is superior early sure. I would still pick Giff, because I cannot take Astral Spark as a feat. At later levels it becomes better imho.
I forgot to add, if firearms are not available or setting conform, then there is little reason to not pick up a Hand Crossbow and reflavour it, as it does superior damage through XBE. Firearms are only interesting for characters with specific bonus action uses mechanically.
Treantmonk, are you really pretending like producing over a half a thousand videos isn't impressive? No sarcasm, you're one of two RUclipsrs I have "ALL Notifications" set to ON for.
Mind link is in my opinion the strongest racial telepathy because it can give anyone the ability to telepathically speak back to you.
I love your new speech style!!!
Thanks Chris
Hoping to watch the next video!
I tend to think floating proficensies (that you can change every long rest) should be worth a little more, as should static perception proficiency as I've seen so many builds pick a background just to double up on a skill choice with their class specifically to get perception because it is the only skill that you are objectively worse for not taking.
Wish wotc ran traits through a calculator like this and used that info to balance races. Not saying everything needs to be equal but some don't seem like they are trying.
Then u can use that math to make custom races and hybrids.
If you create a point system for magic items then a cost curve based on points (100 points item costs more than twice as much as a 50 point item), people world watch that video over and over again and then modify it for their table. And magic item prices will make infinitely more sense everywhere.
Welcome to Treantmonk where the points DO matter
Hadozee "you determine the direction of the glide"
BRUHHH these dudes can glide vertically as long as they fall first??!
i would like to see one last video after the next one covering the legacy races. i really want to see how you evaluate the old kobold
I'd be curious to see where the One D&D/5.5e races (with their free level 1 feats given every character gets at least one) would measure up. I would suspect they'd be at least A tier, with the Human being S.
while a creature doesn't need to sleep they still need rest, or suffer exhaustion. a warforged's sentry's rest let's them rest but still be on watch. where as a merely sleepless creature wouldn't be (long) resting. it's a silly distinction, but that's the purpose of it.
Pardon me if I missed it in previous videos, but does Treantmonk have a doc that lists all his point values to traits reviewed? Would be interesting to see the rankings of the traits independent of the races.
Yeah that would be really helpful when trying to homebrew races or racial combinations
I am tempted to say that it is criminal that you don't have 100k subs, but that would be over exaggeration and we wouldn't want to see that on this channel.
I don't think sentry's rest is redundant. Warforged don't need to sleep biologically through constructed resilliance but that just means they don't get fatigued from not sleeping. What sentry's rest lets you do is lets you maintain a watch while taking a long rest to recover your resources.