Ah. Good. You might have said it before and I missed it. "Half-Elf" Probably because there are only two races that get 4 score points to play with and the other is Mountain Dwarf. Another added bonus. Do they get the speak with animals thing too? I bet that would be handy. Are they also of noble birth, a dog kept by noble family? That would explain where the money came from to get a custom made magic item. What else to they get? Maybe the ability to consider their Bite a "simple" weapon so they fight with proficiency and can use dex? Or do they get the full scale Bite of a Dhampir? Is there even more? Can they grow wings?
1) Let's say for a moment that to "make things fair" everyone gets access to an ability they would not otherwise have access to. In this case a subclass ability (the first ability of that sub class) for the class they are play, but not the sub class they are playing. So you end up with stuff like the arcane trickster rouge who has assassination. The College of Valor bard who also has Cutting words. The fighter with both improved critical and superiority dice. etc... Some of the subclass have first abilities that are really really strong, others not so much. The only way to be "fair" is to allow everyone the ability to do this, even if only one player bothered giving a reason their character had their bonus skills.
2) I think i'm more worried about the walk away. Like it's hard to get and hold a group together in the best of times. But i'm also probably working my self up by imagining the worst possible situation. Like player accidently meta games (why can Bill's Druid, who is a Circle of the Land use this ability from a Circle of the Shepard? An ability they have been using for months without issue, but i never registered because i didn't know the druid subclasses off hand), which when combined with outside stress turns a microscopic issue into a campaign breaker.
3) This is kind of a hard point. Because how do you explain why one person has 20% more starting gold then the rest of the party without revealing they have the noble background? Or explain why this "half elf" has a unique ability to talk to and understand animals, without revealing it's because they were transmuted from an animal? Like sure if everyone is playing openly, it's probably not as much of an issue. But if a player or the whole group is playing it close to the chest.... Plus i really want to trust my DM, but i'm going to be insanely curious what "minor liberties" means for a character. Like an acid resistant (instead of fire resistant) Tiefling could be minor liberties, but then so could a small sized warforged (the actual PC) piloting a medium warforged, which is piloting a large warforged.
1) I don't see the problem here. "Because things have to be fair because we don't want players feeling cheated" is perfectly fine as a reason, if players not feeling cheated is your concern. It doesn't matter that the others haven't given a reason for this additional ability. If it does bother you, tell them to come up with one.
2) It's hard to keep a group together if the players feel the DM is not doing a proper job. Which is what you might get if you go off-book for no good reason and they find out about it. I feel like you're running in circles here, where one decision about a perceived problem causes another potential issue and what you come up with to fix that one is bad for that previous thing. At some point you're going to have to weigh your options, accept that things might not work out perfectly but try to make the best of it anyway. Perfect is the enemy of good. Perfect very likely won't happen and if by miracle it does, it'll certainly be because of things outside your control lining up in the best way possible. Try to make good decisions and trust that things will work out for the best, and that if they don't you'll handle it. You can do this, if you just let yourself.
3) Don't explain it. It doesn't need explaining, until it comes up in the game - and then it'll be up to the player to explain the rationale. Which will be fine, if everyone's aware some minor colouring outside the lines was allowed, as long as the DM was on board with the specifics. And if you're insanely curious, I'd say that's a good thing. Keeps you invested in seeing the campaign through and in having your PC interact with the others. Roleplay, have the characters become the kind of friends that trust each other and know things about each other. That's good for a campaign.
i understand that's sarcasm. But honestly the half elf race was picked at random, seemed like a cool idea to have a character who choose to appear as what they assume a mix of their parents (druid elf and human wizard) would look like. They could be any race, but probably one with a close connection to nature (as they are going to be a druid) would be best. That said, maybe playing a unique take on what is already one of the "stronger" races is not the best choice. At least if reducing group strife is the goal.
As for the super special backstory item. Perhaps it's a bit too extra. But i figure if you are going to have an item that can cast 9th level magic, having the spell do no damage and not require super expensive material components is probably the most "fair" way to put such an item into the game.
1) the current downside is that they hey have 10 INT. Like when stats were rolled, they got to roll for everything else, but their INT was hard locked at 10. The other possible version is that they use a modified Mastiff stat block (with 10 INT) even though they are a humanoid.
3) I feel like they don't need to understand the animal on the same level you understand someone talking to you with words, but being able to understand the body language and subtle tells of animals, seems like something you would maintain even if transformed. In the same vain, i like to imagine that if my ally polymorphs themselves into a T-Rex, they maintain the intelligence to not attack me and could roughly signal to follow them.
I'm familiar with this kind of feeling. I've been through a similar situation, and believe me when I say it can feel frustrating. However, I kept quiet and tolerated it because in the end my friends at the table having fun was rewarding enough for me. It's not like they were breaking the game either, so things they got in terms of making DM fiat mechanics work in their favor wasn't so bad. In this case, your friend having a druid subclass feature is pretty minor given it's not that game breaking.
Personally, I'd ask your DM if he can work something out by giving your character a special piece of equipment, an extra feat, a boon, something to make you feel like you're being equally treated in terms of favors. Ultimately, home campaigns are about everyone having fun, not about adhering strictly to rules. In that setting, books and rules are purely optional for the DM. Talk things out with them like an adult, see what he's got to say on the matter, ask him if hes got plans for your character to receive something. If not, ask for it.
A limit of 10 gives no penalty. That's not a limitation of any kind for a Druid since they are Wisdom casters. Unless of course you are planning to cast Wizard spells. I can find no masstiff statblock of any kind with a 10 int. Not even homebrew versions I found online. The Shadow Mastiff exists in D&D officially, but then have an Int of 5 You want to play a Druid of the Circle of the Moon for the Combat Wildshape, but you want the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods. You can get slightly neutered specific class abilities with a feat, but that won't do for you. The only reason I can imagine for that is that you want to take a Feat, and you don't want to waste it on that. You want the equivalent of a custom new feat and a normal feat at the same time. Are you expect this at first level? Is this a Variant Hafl-Elf?
So to sum it all up, what you want this character to be is a part mastiff, part Elf, part Human Druid of the Circle of the Moon with the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods who can cast Wizard spells with a Feat under 4th level who gets an allowance of gold each month from their parents. Anything else?
I think a common item MIGHT be the easiest to make work. But i'm just imagining that people are going to ask for items that give +X otherwise. And i just can't imagine how the rough equivalent of part of the Furbolg passive / a utility level 1 spell being useable without burning spell slots, is equal to a +1 (or more) bonus to a stat or a +1 weapon/armor.
(sudo edit) apparently the item (ring of animal influence) with an effect like this is considered rare.... it does a few other things as well, but still.... figured this would be a much more common thing to come across.
awaken would raise the int stat block to 10, it would be creepy as heck if a dog naturally had the INT of a standard (or slightly above standard) humanoid.
i actually want to play a Circle of the Land (forest probably) druid. As for the feat, i could not find one that gave the ability i'm looking for (otherwise i'd just use that since it requires less balancing around homebrew). I'd like to start the game with the ability, but i could also see how it makes more sense to have it be AT LEAST gated behind reaching the level you get a subclass as a druid.
As for the half elf thing, i figured the character would probably want to look like it's "parents". And for the life of me, i can't imagine an elf Archmage who would decide "you know what sounds like a great idea? Turning my partner's pet dog/wolf (who they treat like a humanoid baby) into a real MF'ing humanoid baby.". But i can 100% see a human doing something like that.
I am curious as to where you are pulling the idea that the character was ever designed to be Circle of the Moon, cast wizard spells, or have a monthly allowance?
as a total aside, even with Awaken’s massive boost to INT, and the +4 total points from being a half elf. If you start with the mastiff stat block, the character ends up with stats roughly on par with standard array. And that’s not even accounting for a normal PC’s racial buffs
If you are worried other people will be jealous of the extra abilities, I would just tell the table, "Hey, if you have some minor homebrew ability you'd like to include in your character concept, I'm open to hear about it. It's subject to my approval." You don't have to reveal that someone already asked for that. You don't have to reveal what ability they got.
A limit of 10 gives no penalty. That's not a limitation of any kind for a Druid since they are Wisdom casters. Unless of course you are planning to cast Wizard spells. I can find no masstiff statblock of any kind with a 10 int. Not even homebrew versions I found online. The Shadow Mastiff exists in D&D officially, but then have an Int of 5 You want to play a Druid of the Circle of the Moon for the Combat Wildshape, but you want the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods. You can get slightly neutered specific class abilities with a feat, but that won't do for you. The only reason I can imagine for that is that you want to take a Feat, and you don't want to waste it on that. You want the equivalent of a custom new feat and a normal feat at the same time. Are you expect this at first level? Is this a Variant Hafl-Elf?
So to sum it all up, what you want this character to be is a part mastiff, part Elf, part Human Druid of the Circle of the Moon with the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods who can cast Wizard spells with a Feat under 4th level who gets an allowance of gold each month from their parents. Anything else?
10 int can be a pain for druids in that they are expected to know about nature and their own faiths, but knowing things is int based not wis based.
I hate dumping Int even with a character that's not based around arcane casting. Those four knowledges and Investigation are pretty clutch, and save or suck casters love targeting Int saves. Low stats have to go somewhere though.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
as a total aside, even with Awaken’s massive boost to INT, and the +4 total points from being a half elf. If you start with the mastiff stat block, the character ends up with stats roughly on par with standard array. And that’s not even accounting for a normal PC’s racial buffs
Not only are you asking for things that are a significant stretch of rules and work for a DM , you want the "benefits" of being an awakened dog, and the extra points you get for being half-elven? You seem to want to do something without the consequences that would have.
I am curious as to where you are pulling the idea that the character was ever designed to be Circle of the Moon, cast wizard spells, or have a monthly allowance?
Because you are complaining about other players options which are comparatively reasonable in comparison to whatever it is you are attempting to do.
Getting an allowance from mommy and daddy because you are a blue-blooded dandy or wanting a tweak in a class feature is not the same as crafting layers of shenanigans to make your thing work. The DM is willing to give an inch to the other players, but to me it seems like you want to take a mile. If you came to me with this Idea I'd tell you no, but I could present you options for other Ideas( Look at my profile pic) that'd I'd work with you on. If your DM doesn't want to do that, then stop beating a dead hors.
You are correct, there is no Feat that gives you the ability you are looking for. I think it's easier to make a homebrew feat than a homebrew magic item, but a magic item gets around having to use up a feat so you can have both. I can't see a reason why a magic item would be preferred, since you said it wouldn't work for anyone else.
I wasn't sure which Circle you wanted to start with. All I remembered was that you wanted something from some other Circle to to add on to the ones you already got from yours. Moon seemed most logical, since it would enhance your mastiff form.
The mother is a Human, the father is an Elf. You end up as a Half-Elf. That's ok. If they want to make you a real baby instead of a mastiff that they love like a baby, why make an item that lets them turn back into a mastiff. Custom magic items are expensive.
There were two examples that you considered on par with the mastiff transformation. They were very minor in comparison. One was the allowance thing. The other was the Speech of the Woods, and so I could only assume you wanted both of these. They made a lot of sense given the backstory you were hinting at.
You didn't mention someone using Awaken Animal on you, you just said that mastiffs had an int of 10. There is no official mastiff in D&D 5th edition, only the Shadow Mastiff, and those can't be the target of the Awaken spell. They have a 5 int, and the spell only works on things with at least a 1 and no more than a 3 int.
What normal PC racial buffs are you talking about? You already said you were using the 4 points of scores from the Half-Elf race. Are you expecting 6 more from your mother the Normal Human? That's not how races work.
The Wizard spell thing, I admit, I probably made up myself when I was exaggerating and talking about things like adding Dhanpir abilities on top of everything else.
But honestly the half elf race was picked at random, seemed like a cool idea to have a character who choose to appear as what they assume a mix of their parents (druid elf and human wizard) would look like.
If your character is merely appearing to be one race or another via magic, there is no reason to create the character as though they were actually a member of that race. "I'll roll this up as a half-elf and get all the benefits of that race even though I am not actually a half-elf" would never fly at my table.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
There are times when I hate using the search function they have for things under the Game Rules menu. Spells and Monsters give me a pain. You have to have the correct spelling of a spell or a monster. Web-search engines are much more forgiving. If you search for "mastif" you'll get a list of links, and a thing at the top that says "You idiot, did you mean 'mastiff'?" The same thing happens with the "Search Everything" over all the menus. Get the spelling wrong, and you get nothing useful. Sure enough, there's a Mastiff. I'm sure I left off the second "f" when I looked. I'd expect that I got the Shadow Mastiff from searching on the word "Shadow" because I remembered the name of that thing.
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Ah. Good. You might have said it before and I missed it. "Half-Elf" Probably because there are only two races that get 4 score points to play with and the other is Mountain Dwarf. Another added bonus. Do they get the speak with animals thing too? I bet that would be handy. Are they also of noble birth, a dog kept by noble family? That would explain where the money came from to get a custom made magic item. What else to they get? Maybe the ability to consider their Bite a "simple" weapon so they fight with proficiency and can use dex? Or do they get the full scale Bite of a Dhampir? Is there even more? Can they grow wings?
<Insert clever signature here>
1) I don't see the problem here. "Because things have to be fair because we don't want players feeling cheated" is perfectly fine as a reason, if players not feeling cheated is your concern. It doesn't matter that the others haven't given a reason for this additional ability. If it does bother you, tell them to come up with one.
2) It's hard to keep a group together if the players feel the DM is not doing a proper job. Which is what you might get if you go off-book for no good reason and they find out about it. I feel like you're running in circles here, where one decision about a perceived problem causes another potential issue and what you come up with to fix that one is bad for that previous thing. At some point you're going to have to weigh your options, accept that things might not work out perfectly but try to make the best of it anyway. Perfect is the enemy of good. Perfect very likely won't happen and if by miracle it does, it'll certainly be because of things outside your control lining up in the best way possible. Try to make good decisions and trust that things will work out for the best, and that if they don't you'll handle it. You can do this, if you just let yourself.
3) Don't explain it. It doesn't need explaining, until it comes up in the game - and then it'll be up to the player to explain the rationale. Which will be fine, if everyone's aware some minor colouring outside the lines was allowed, as long as the DM was on board with the specifics. And if you're insanely curious, I'd say that's a good thing. Keeps you invested in seeing the campaign through and in having your PC interact with the others. Roleplay, have the characters become the kind of friends that trust each other and know things about each other. That's good for a campaign.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
i understand that's sarcasm. But honestly the half elf race was picked at random, seemed like a cool idea to have a character who choose to appear as what they assume a mix of their parents (druid elf and human wizard) would look like. They could be any race, but probably one with a close connection to nature (as they are going to be a druid) would be best. That said, maybe playing a unique take on what is already one of the "stronger" races is not the best choice. At least if reducing group strife is the goal.
As for the super special backstory item. Perhaps it's a bit too extra. But i figure if you are going to have an item that can cast 9th level magic, having the spell do no damage and not require super expensive material components is probably the most "fair" way to put such an item into the game.
1) the current downside is that they hey have 10 INT. Like when stats were rolled, they got to roll for everything else, but their INT was hard locked at 10. The other possible version is that they use a modified Mastiff stat block (with 10 INT) even though they are a humanoid.
3) I feel like they don't need to understand the animal on the same level you understand someone talking to you with words, but being able to understand the body language and subtle tells of animals, seems like something you would maintain even if transformed. In the same vain, i like to imagine that if my ally polymorphs themselves into a T-Rex, they maintain the intelligence to not attack me and could roughly signal to follow them.
I'm familiar with this kind of feeling. I've been through a similar situation, and believe me when I say it can feel frustrating. However, I kept quiet and tolerated it because in the end my friends at the table having fun was rewarding enough for me. It's not like they were breaking the game either, so things they got in terms of making DM fiat mechanics work in their favor wasn't so bad. In this case, your friend having a druid subclass feature is pretty minor given it's not that game breaking.
Personally, I'd ask your DM if he can work something out by giving your character a special piece of equipment, an extra feat, a boon, something to make you feel like you're being equally treated in terms of favors. Ultimately, home campaigns are about everyone having fun, not about adhering strictly to rules. In that setting, books and rules are purely optional for the DM. Talk things out with them like an adult, see what he's got to say on the matter, ask him if hes got plans for your character to receive something. If not, ask for it.
A limit of 10 gives no penalty. That's not a limitation of any kind for a Druid since they are Wisdom casters. Unless of course you are planning to cast Wizard spells. I can find no masstiff statblock of any kind with a 10 int. Not even homebrew versions I found online. The Shadow Mastiff exists in D&D officially, but then have an Int of 5 You want to play a Druid of the Circle of the Moon for the Combat Wildshape, but you want the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods. You can get slightly neutered specific class abilities with a feat, but that won't do for you. The only reason I can imagine for that is that you want to take a Feat, and you don't want to waste it on that. You want the equivalent of a custom new feat and a normal feat at the same time. Are you expect this at first level? Is this a Variant Hafl-Elf?
So to sum it all up, what you want this character to be is a part mastiff, part Elf, part Human Druid of the Circle of the Moon with the Circle of the Shepherd Speech of the Woods who can cast Wizard spells with a Feat under 4th level who gets an allowance of gold each month from their parents. Anything else?
<Insert clever signature here>
I think a common item MIGHT be the easiest to make work. But i'm just imagining that people are going to ask for items that give +X otherwise. And i just can't imagine how the rough equivalent of part of the Furbolg passive / a utility level 1 spell being useable without burning spell slots, is equal to a +1 (or more) bonus to a stat or a +1 weapon/armor.
(sudo edit) apparently the item (ring of animal influence) with an effect like this is considered rare.... it does a few other things as well, but still.... figured this would be a much more common thing to come across.
awaken would raise the int stat block to 10, it would be creepy as heck if a dog naturally had the INT of a standard (or slightly above standard) humanoid.
i actually want to play a Circle of the Land (forest probably) druid. As for the feat, i could not find one that gave the ability i'm looking for (otherwise i'd just use that since it requires less balancing around homebrew). I'd like to start the game with the ability, but i could also see how it makes more sense to have it be AT LEAST gated behind reaching the level you get a subclass as a druid.
As for the half elf thing, i figured the character would probably want to look like it's "parents". And for the life of me, i can't imagine an elf Archmage who would decide "you know what sounds like a great idea? Turning my partner's pet dog/wolf (who they treat like a humanoid baby) into a real MF'ing humanoid baby.". But i can 100% see a human doing something like that.
I am curious as to where you are pulling the idea that the character was ever designed to be Circle of the Moon, cast wizard spells, or have a monthly allowance?
as a total aside, even with Awaken’s massive boost to INT, and the +4 total points from being a half elf. If you start with the mastiff stat block, the character ends up with stats roughly on par with standard array. And that’s not even accounting for a normal PC’s racial buffs
If you are worried other people will be jealous of the extra abilities, I would just tell the table, "Hey, if you have some minor homebrew ability you'd like to include in your character concept, I'm open to hear about it. It's subject to my approval." You don't have to reveal that someone already asked for that. You don't have to reveal what ability they got.
I hate dumping Int even with a character that's not based around arcane casting. Those four knowledges and Investigation are pretty clutch, and save or suck casters love targeting Int saves. Low stats have to go somewhere though.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Not only are you asking for things that are a significant stretch of rules and work for a DM , you want the "benefits" of being an awakened dog, and the extra points you get for being half-elven? You seem to want to do something without the consequences that would have.
Because you are complaining about other players options which are comparatively reasonable in comparison to whatever it is you are attempting to do.
Getting an allowance from mommy and daddy because you are a blue-blooded dandy or wanting a tweak in a class feature is not the same as crafting layers of shenanigans to make your thing work. The DM is willing to give an inch to the other players, but to me it seems like you want to take a mile. If you came to me with this Idea I'd tell you no, but I could present you options for other Ideas( Look at my profile pic) that'd I'd work with you on. If your DM doesn't want to do that, then stop beating a dead hors.
You are correct, there is no Feat that gives you the ability you are looking for. I think it's easier to make a homebrew feat than a homebrew magic item, but a magic item gets around having to use up a feat so you can have both. I can't see a reason why a magic item would be preferred, since you said it wouldn't work for anyone else.
I wasn't sure which Circle you wanted to start with. All I remembered was that you wanted something from some other Circle to to add on to the ones you already got from yours. Moon seemed most logical, since it would enhance your mastiff form.
The mother is a Human, the father is an Elf. You end up as a Half-Elf. That's ok. If they want to make you a real baby instead of a mastiff that they love like a baby, why make an item that lets them turn back into a mastiff. Custom magic items are expensive.
There were two examples that you considered on par with the mastiff transformation. They were very minor in comparison. One was the allowance thing. The other was the Speech of the Woods, and so I could only assume you wanted both of these. They made a lot of sense given the backstory you were hinting at.
You didn't mention someone using Awaken Animal on you, you just said that mastiffs had an int of 10. There is no official mastiff in D&D 5th edition, only the Shadow Mastiff, and those can't be the target of the Awaken spell. They have a 5 int, and the spell only works on things with at least a 1 and no more than a 3 int.
What normal PC racial buffs are you talking about? You already said you were using the 4 points of scores from the Half-Elf race. Are you expecting 6 more from your mother the Normal Human? That's not how races work.
The Wizard spell thing, I admit, I probably made up myself when I was exaggerating and talking about things like adding Dhanpir abilities on top of everything else.
<Insert clever signature here>
If your character is merely appearing to be one race or another via magic, there is no reason to create the character as though they were actually a member of that race. "I'll roll this up as a half-elf and get all the benefits of that race even though I am not actually a half-elf" would never fly at my table.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
There are times when I hate using the search function they have for things under the Game Rules menu. Spells and Monsters give me a pain. You have to have the correct spelling of a spell or a monster. Web-search engines are much more forgiving. If you search for "mastif" you'll get a list of links, and a thing at the top that says "You idiot, did you mean 'mastiff'?" The same thing happens with the "Search Everything" over all the menus. Get the spelling wrong, and you get nothing useful. Sure enough, there's a Mastiff. I'm sure I left off the second "f" when I looked. I'd expect that I got the Shadow Mastiff from searching on the word "Shadow" because I remembered the name of that thing.
<Insert clever signature here>