# Forum > Gaming > Homebrew Design >  Anthropomorphic forest critters: a race builder

## Quixotic1

I'm working on adapting a 3rd edition campaign setting to 5e.
The playable species were as described above; mice, sparrows, hedgehogs, toads, quails and such. Anything in the diminutive to tiny size range that wasn't a carnivore (minus insectivores and the Luke. Basically, just don't be something that wants to eat the other players). Inspired largely by Red Wall.

I've got a race builder for another setting converted to 5e, so I figured I'd take that, make some adjustments, additions and omissions and let people pick out whatever makes sense to represent the type of animal they want to be.

I'm curious to see if anyone has any recommendations as far as options to include.
Most of the options were workshopped on the forums a while ago, but I'm sure there's still some feedback to be offered.

At any rate, here it is:

Alert (1/3pts): you are quick to react. For 1pt, you gain proficiency in Initiative rolls. For 3pts, you gain proficiency and advantage in Initiative rolls.

Amphibious (2pts): you can breathe water as well as air.

Cantrip (2pts): you were blessed by a witch upon your first birthday or have some enchanted blood in your family line. You can cast one cantrip at will, using your Int, Wis or Cha as your spellcasting ability score.

Chitterchat (1pt)*: choose a category, such as insects, plants, stone or shadows. You can communicate in a rudimentary fashion with individuals or objects within that category.

Climber (1/2pts)*: you can clamber up trees or walls with ease. You have a climb speed of 30 paces/increase your climb speed by 5 paces.

Damage resistance/vulnerability (5/-2pts)**: you are especially hardy against poison or are unusually sensitive to sound. You gain resistance or vulnerability to the damage type of your choice.

Darkvision (1/2pts): you can see in the dark up to a distance of 60 paces/120 paces.

Fast/Slow (-2/2pts)*: you are especially fast or slow. For each time you purchase this trait, decrease or increase your speed by 10 paces.

Glide (2pts): you may not possess true flight, but you can sail through the air. You have a fly speed of 30 paces. You cannot gain altitude and must end your turn closer to the ground than you where at the start of your turn.

Hold Breath (1pt): you are accustomed to a life in the water. You can hold your breath for one minute per point of Constitution.

Light-footed (2pts): you are quick and light on your feet, able to wriggle through the most cramped of quarters. You can ignore the effects of non-magical terrain.

Lucky (3pts): you are naturally lucky. Any time you roll a natural 1 on a d20, you may re-roll the die. You must accept the next result.

Mimicry (1pt): a trick learned by some birds and a few rarer individuals, you can mimic sounds you have heard, including voices. A creature that hears the sounds you make can tell they are imitations with a successful Wisdom (Insight) check opposed by your Charisma (Deception) check.

Natural Armor (3/4pts): you have a thick hide, scales or a shell. You have AC14+Dex /AC17 when you are not wearing armor.	

Nimble (2pts): you are remarkably spry and agile. You can move through the occupied spaces of creatures larger than you.

Quills (3pts): you are covered in sharp spines. Your unarmed attacks deal +1 piercing damage. When you are struck with natural attacks, unarmed strikes and non-reach weapons, your attacker takes 1 piercing damage.

Relentless (2pts): you are truly indomitable. When you are reduced to 0hp but are not killed outright, you can instead choose to remain at 1hp. You must complete a long rest before you use this trait again.

Resistant (3pts): you gain proficiency in a saving throw of your choice.

Savage (2pts): you can deliver especially devastating attacks. When you land a critical hit, roll your weapon's damage dice an additional time and add them to the total.

Sensitivity (-2pt): choose a broad category such as sunlight or loud noises. You have disadvantage on attacks and perception rolls when you or the target of your attack or perception are exposed to this category.

Skilled (1/2pts)*: you gain proficiency with an instrument or tool/a skill of your choice (2pts).

Speciality (1/2pts): you gain advantage on a skill or saving throw of your choice in specific situations, such as Nature (forests), Stealth (crowds), Constitution (disease), Wisdom (fear)/in a broad situation, such as Intimidate (evil) or Charisma (magic).

Spring step (2pts): you are capable of tremendous bursts of speed. You may take the dash action as a bonus action. If you move a total of three times your base speed in a single turn, you may move up to your base speed a fourth time. 

Stealthy (2pts): you can attempt to hide when obscured by a creature at least one size category larger than you.

Swim (1pt)*: you have a swim speed of 30 paces.
For each additional time you purchase this trait, increase your swim speed by 5ft.

Tough (3pts): you are hardy, possess a minor form of regeneration or are otherwise tough as nails. You have +1hp/level.

Training (1/2/4pts)*: you are proficient with three types of weapons/medium armor or shields/ heavy armor (4pts).

Tunneler (3pts): you can dig through the earth at a great pace. You may burrow under the ground at a rate of 10 paces a minute, though this may be affected by unusually difficult terrain, such as especially dry, packed earth, rocky ground, or a heavy root systems. By reducing your tunneling rate in half, you may shore up your tunnels so that other denizens may use them as well.

Wings (5pts): you gain a fly speed of 30 paces.

*you may purchase this trait more than once.
**you may purchase this trait twice: once for a resistance and once for a vulnerability

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## KorvinStarmast

> I'm working on adapting a 3rd edition campaign setting to 5e.
> The playable species were as described above; mice, sparrows, hedgehogs, toads, quails and such. Anything in the diminutive to tiny size range that wasn't a carnivore (minus insectivores and the Luke. Basically, just don't be something that wants to eat the other players). Inspired largely by Red Wall.


 Why not wait for the PoS known as ardling and use them? 
Just out of curiosity: what is the point budget for a creature? 



> *Spoiler: the costs*
> Show
> 
> At any rate, here it is:
> 
> Alert (1/3pts): you are quick to react. For 1pt, you gain proficiency in Initiative rolls. For 3pts, you gain proficiency and advantage in Initiative rolls.
> 
> Amphibious (2pts): you can breathe water as well as air.
> 
> ...

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## Quixotic1

> Why not wait for the PoS known as ardling and use them?


 I'm not familiar with these terms; sorry, I don't buy or read much into many of the supplements these days. I've found most of the material published beyond the core rules seems to be useful as inspiration, but not much else. I'm usually after a very specific feel or tone in my games, so it's easier to make what I want, how I want it.
Is there a reason you think I should use these ardlings instead? I took a look, but they seem to be wide of the mark.



> Just out of curiosity: what is the point budget for a creature?


 In my previous builder, everyone got 10pts. It was enough to make an interesting character that felt around the same power level as the core races without going crazy.
For this one, I'm thinking something close that. Maybe 12-15pts, depending. I expect the appeal of playing as a character that can fly will be tempting enough that there will be at least one birdie in each party, but I don't want it to be the only thing they can do. And I'd also like to offer some options for them as far as flight goes; different speeds and degrees of maneuverability, etc.

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## KorvinStarmast

> I'm not familiar with these terms; sorry, I don't buy or read much into many of the supplements these days.


  It is a reference to something in a UA/Playtest, something the Devs are trying to ram into One D&D, which is due out in 2024.  (It was meant as a joke, sorry). 



> In my previous builder, everyone got 10pts.  It was enough to make an interesting character that felt around the same power level as the core races without going crazy.
> For this one, I'm thinking something close that. Maybe 12-15pts, depending.


 Given that every thing else has suffered from bloat since 2014, may as well up the point value.  :Small Cool:

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## Quixotic1

Oh, I see.

I'm not worried about keeping up with current power levels or anything. Almost all of the monsters, NPCs, magic items and stuff come from me rather than the books.

The last time I ran a game in this setting, I tried to keep in mind the fact that there would be at least a few flying PCs and a pretty good amount of flying stuff in general, so I tried to make sure that all of the non-flying PCs had plenty of options to choose from and that flying was often difficult, dangerous or restricted in some way. 
Movement speed was a lot less important in 3rd and Pathfinder, so I wasn't overly concerned about whether someone's fly speed was 30, 60 or 90. But 5e is a little different in that regard, so I'll probably want to have flight on a tighter leash than before.

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## da newt

Is everything else 'normal' (classes, equipment, ASI/feats, etc)?

How do you do ability scores (no racial bonuses, point buy, etc)?

Do all races have 'hands' to wield weapons / cast spells?  




Interesting.  W/ 15 pts to play with from the above menu, you could come up with some very capable creatures (+ prof & ADV on initiative, 120' dark vision, AC 14 + Dex, BA dash, fly speed - and all this before you get any class features or feats ...)

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## Quixotic1

> Is everything else 'normal' (classes, equipment, ASI/feats, etc)?


Yes. This is just the race builder. 
These abilities and their costs were taken from various spreadsheets across the internet that attempted to assign value to the various racial traits of the 5e races.




> How do you do ability scores (no racial bonuses, point buy, etc)?


I will most likely be doing a mkre flexible point-buy that allows scoresthat range from 3 to 20.




> Do all races have 'hands' to wield weapons / cast spells?


Oh yes, sorry. Everyone's got two "hands". Birds use their wings...but this doesn't interfere with their ability to fly. Sort of a half-explained, cartoony deal.




> Interesting.  W/ 15 pts to play with from the above menu, you could come up with some very capable creatures (+ prof & ADV on initiative, 120' dark vision, AC 14 + Dex, BA dash, fly speed - and all this before you get any class features or feats ...)


Yes, 15pts would be quite a lot.
I believe the standard races are usually in the 8-12pt range, going off of the original breakdowns I took this all from. It won't translate exactly like that with my version, since I've tried to streamline the whole thing quite a bit, but it's not drastically far off.

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## da newt

Anything can be balanced when you (the DM) control everything, but if you are aiming for balanced w/ PHB races then you'd probably want to tone down your point pool and probably nerf a few of your options as well.  For example your Alert is more than the alert feat in ways (+proff & ADV to initiative is a huge boon, but lacks the other bullets) and natural armor (14 + dex) is better than any racial / feat.

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## Quixotic1

> ...if you are aiming for balanced w/ PHB races then you'd probably want to tone down your point pool and probably nerf a few of your options as well.  For example your Alert is more than the alert feat in ways (+proff & ADV to initiative is a huge boon, but lacks the other bullets) and natural armor (14 + dex) is better than any racial / feat.


Based off the information I've seen, a bonus feat is generally worth around 3-4pts. I will not be offering a bonus feat as part of a character's race, but it's a useful benchmark.
The alert feat gives you +5, cant be surprised and other creatures dont gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you. Since advantage is the equivalent of a +5, that means that proficiency in Initiative would roughly equal can't be surprised and other creatures dont gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you. I think that's fairly close, with the feat being generally stronger. And at 3pts, it's about a third of the typical starting allowance.

The natural armor is from the spreadsheets as well, so I assume it's from some race, somewhere. I don't keep up with all the supplements. But I dunno; again, it's a significant investment. And this one is just...some o-k armor. Good for some character options, redundant for most.

Again, almost all of this was workshopped on here pretty thoroughly already. So while I accept that, any time anyone shares anything they made ever, the majority of the feedback is going to be something along the lines of "here's why I think it's OP" or the like, that's really the smallest piece of what I'm looking for, as I mentioned above.

I mean, if we must have the same conversations again, let's get definitive and specific and be done with it. If something is too much or costs too little or whatever, exactly why do you think so and what would you do instead?

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## JNAProductions

14+Dex grants better AC than any mundane armor in the game, if you max Dex.

Light armor caps at 17 (12+Dex)
Medium caps at 17 (Half-Plate+Dex (Max 2)), increasing to 18 with MAM
Heavy caps at 18 (Full Plate)

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## Quixotic1

> 14+Dex grants better AC than any mundane armor...


Thanks for the input. I'll make a note of it.

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## Quixotic1

Most of these were pulled from Detect Balance and similar sources; fairly reputable stuff. I just simplified some of the values and condensed some of the options to make a more streamline process for players who are not into the crunchier aspects of the game.

Below are a few ideas I had to provide more options that fit the specific theme of this setting.

Curl: As a bonus action, you gain partial cover and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. You treat all targets as though they had partial cover and your speed is reduced to 0 paces. You can uncurl as a bonus action.
--for hedgehogs and turtles and such. The resistance feels strong, but I'm not sure how viable the trait would be without it; "everyone's at disadvantage and you can't move" isn't very appealing. I was thinking 3pts?

Prehensile tail: You can use your tail to hold an object you could carry in one hand or to use your object interaction. 
--for mice, opossums or anyone else with a long tail or tail-like appendage. No extra attacks or actions or anything, of course. 2pts?

Sticky tongue: You gain the ability to interact with objects and make a grapple attack with a reach of 10 paces. You may use Str or Dex (Athletics) for this grapple attack.
--frogs, toads and...that's probably it. Similar to the prehensile tail, but different enough to warrant a separate entry. Unless someone can think of a way to combine the two in an elegant and reasonable way. 2pts?

Stink: not sure here. Maybe use the rules for breath weapons, but it doesn't deal damage and...incapacitates a single target for a turn and poisons them for 1d4 rounds, or poisons them for 1 round on a successful Con save?

Quills: I have this one in the initial entry, but it feels...bland. I don't want it to get too clunky or loaded up with extra nonsense, but I feel like it should be a *little* bit better than it currently is? Or at least cooler?

Is there anything else that might make a good addition to the list? Anything small forest animals are known for--in nature documentaries or fables or whatever?

And again, I'm not specifically *not* open to critiques related to mechanical balance, though it is a distant second to my question above. I would just ask that, if you're going to tell me that I've made some kind of error in terms of a trait's potency or cost, that you tell me what the problem is, why it is a problem and what you'd do about it. I've never found feedback like "X is too good" to be very useful on it's own. I'd like to have an actual conversation about it.

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