Motivation: I really wanna play as a Lizardfolk, both for their biological (playing as a beast race)and cultural (rp) components.
Lizardfolk are a primitive race, so magic seems out of place for me. I want to maximise the beastial, animalistic, reptilian lizard nature of the race. Because of that, I am aiming for a martial build. I know druids are the first pick for druid, usually, but morphing into different animals takes away from the idea of doing stuff as a lizardfolk.
Problems:
While very flavorful in design (I love it), the OG LF race doesn't seem to be very...strong, racial-wise.
In addition Martial classes in general are more on the undererforming side.
Lizardfolk has a lot of overlap in their racials with classes they should be otherwise naturally synergetic with
Opportunity: the new 2024 rules, with some very light homebrewing to smooth the edges
Goal: create a synergetic race/class build that fits together like a glove and supports the lizard feel.
Homebrew ideas: (feedback appreciated)
I see Bite as an Unarmed Strike (no natural weapon shenanigans) for logic, immersion and balance reasons.
As such, it should benefit from Unarmed Strike synergies, but not weapon synergies (like smite). I don't know if 2024 adressed natural weapon categorisation.
Hungry Jaws is too weak. Not only does it require a bonus action to use (monk's use those a lot), the LF base version has only one use of hungry jaws, and the heal is capped at 1-5 (con modifier).
My homebrew: Make the heal include the amount rolled as damage (example: MA dice of 1d8 (5 rolled)+2con mod = 7 healed), and keep it at 1/rest, kept as a bonus action, but allow Martial Arts/Flurry of Blow unarmed strikes to be used for it, instead of requiring its own BA
Natural Armor: Does not stack with Unarmored Defense, of course. We're just out of luck here. Maybe a +1 to AC for not using it while wearing (due to UD) no armor?
Bite/Tail swipes: Since they are forceful blows done by our body without a weapon, we should be able to dual wield and still use Unarmed Strikes/Grapple/Shove
Uncanny Artisan: since we can make javelins and darts, spears and daggers should be craftable too (utilised by build). Since the build idea features throwing weapons, remaking those lost in the fight from the enemies' corpses sounds very pleasing. It could also feature adornments, such as bone necklaces, facial masks (esp if we do mercy monk) or take musical instruments as monk and make drums and xylophones and such from our enemies' skins and bones
Race: Lizardfolk
Natural armor Unarmored AC 13+dex mod
Bite Unarmed Strike piercing 1d6+str
Tail swimspeed
ASI +2con/+1wis
Hungry Jaws 1x/rest con modifier heal on BA unarmed strike
Cunning artisan Javelin, Shield, Darts, Blowgun Needles, Club from monster corpses
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Bite can use dex =>we can dump strenght, fixing MAD
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Bite can use MA dice => fixes Bite's non-existant scaling
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Grapple/Shove uses Dex, finally good grappling as monk
Unarmed strikes with bite and tail keep hands free, for dual wielding
Flurry of Blows: Flurry of piercing Bites
Unarmored movement grants us 2x 10ft movement, which increases our LF swimspeed as well
Uncanny Metabolism fits in well with our LF hungry jaws self healing capabilities, and gloomstalkers bonus to initiative means we are likely to get to refresh HP and KI points before anyone can attack us
Deflect attacks against piercing attacks will allow us to utilize our Piercer feat even outside of our turn. 2 MA dice+dex mod with triple crit dice sounds nasty as a reaction
Unsure about the Subclass: Shadow's dark vison (Crocodile/Gecko eyes) would fit thematically, but so would be mercy's poison attacks (gila monster/komodo dragon/snake). Elements could be reflavored into dragon (fire damage and flying) I suppose.
Stunning Strike...I dont know...if we land an Unarmed Strike and grapple/shove through Grappler feat, wont we have advantage anyway? Can we force a second roll on our attack if our target resists our grapple attempt?
Empowered Strikes...I guess against physical resistances? That'd mean though, against those our piercer feat would become useless...would we still need magical weapons to keep using it?
Acrobatic Movement: poor man's spider climb+water walk completes the picture with LF's swimspeed and water breath
Ranger: 3 (sub Gloomstalker)
2x weapon mastery (2x dagger/longbow or spear/dagger?)
expertise for a LF/monk skill (acrobatics for grappling)
a fighting style (2weapon fighting or throwing)
hunter's mark
+1d8/frighten per wis modifier/long rest on first attack of round
10ft movement bonus and +wis mod on initiative, great synergy with LF swimspeed and monk mobility, as well as Uncanny Metabolism
other:
Having piercing damage on both of our weapons would be preferable, because we'll be able to apply it to all our melee weapons, our bites and our ranged attacks
Nick/Slow: If we choose dual daggers for melee, we have a mastery slot free for a ranged weapon, such as a longbow. Going this route, choosing archery might be a better choice for our fighting style than 2WF, since that would only apply to our nick offhand dagger attacks damage 3-5 extra damage through dex...seems lackluster. However, ranged weapon attacks do not apply MA dice, so throwing weapons are the way to go, I'd say. Bow should be last option for high range/lack of ammo.
Sap/Nick: If we choose spear/dagger as our masteries, we could apply attack disadvantage rolls against our enemies with the spears' weapon mastery (sap). Since monks aren't the tankiest class, this would be a good improvement to our survivability (plus spears are as LF as it gets). With double attack and nick, plus 3 Unarmed Strikes from flurry of blows, 1/6-2/5 of our attacks would be able to inflict disadvantage against us, improving our defense while grappling (for times when we cant run away with the victim to a safe location, for liquidation).
Problem with spears is; they aren't light, which could hinder nick usage.
Throwing weapons can now baseline be drawn in the turn they are used for the attack though, so we could work around the limitation of nick if we threw our mh spear and redrew a dagger for 2 attack.
Feats:
Grappler: +1 dex, can grapple on our bite or tail dmg, get advantage on following attacks, full movement. All the while our target has 0 speed and disadvantage on attacks against anyone but us.
bite and drag into water for underwater fighting, across body of water or up a tree/wall (fall damage)<3
Piercer; +1dex, Piercing weapons, bites, ranged weapons. Lots of attacks as monk. Lots of opportunities to reroll dice.
Reroll pay-out will increase will increase with bigger MA dice.
Plus we get another dice roll on crits. With advantage through grappling, we will have those much more often as well.
Race:
Unarmed strikes with bite and tail keep hands free, allows for dual wielding monk weapons
Our bite being piercing damage synergises with our piercer feat and allows all our attacks (besides tail) to benefit.
Our bites and tail attacks can be used for grappling/shoving without dropping weapons
Swimspeed patches the only hole in monk mobility (besides dragonascendent/elemental flying)
Hold breath...useful when dragging prey into water...or poison clouds
Uncanny Artisan...outside of the suggested homebrew of including daggers and javelins, I can't see much use.
Attack Round Example: lvl 13+ (10+monk, 3ranger), weapons spear(sap)/dagger(nick), throwing weapon fighting style, With a dex mod of +3, and a MA dice of 1d8, we could...
- 1 Attack: throw the spear for 1d8piercing+3 +2 twfs+1d6 force hm+1d8 dread ambusher (chance to frighten)
- 2 -4 Attack: Bonus action Flurry of Blows: 3* (1d8 piercing+3+1d6hm (if same target)
- 5 Attack: extra attack with back-up dagger in mh (free draw for throwing weapons) for 1d8+3+1d6 hunter's mark (if same target)
- 6 Attack: Offhand Dagger(Nick) Weapon Mastery: 1d8 piercing+3+hunter's mark (if same target)
minimum damage 8+3x5+5+5 =>33 damage
maximum (noncrit) damage 27+3x17+17+17 =>112damage
maximum crit damage 57+3x39+39+39 =>252damage
Additionally, we could add falling damage, if we drag our grappled enemy up a wall or tree and drop him with a free action. With 50ft walking speed (+10ft if 1 turn)we could add another 1d6/10ft, 5d6-6d6 if standing next to a tree when grappling
Additionally, we could add 2 levels of druid for circle of spores Symbiotic Entity feature: Your melee weapon attacks deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to any target they hit.
Our spear's throw and our Unarmed Strikes benefit from these as well, as far as I am aware.
So we could gain another 6d6 necrotic damage from this, 12d6 with all crit.
We can get advantage on attacks from:
stunning strike
grappling
shoving prone, dropping form height
We can inflict disadvantage on attacks:
dragging underwater
grappling (against allies)
sap (spear)
frightened (dreadambusher(+ ability checks))
Other tactical shenanigans:
dragging allies around
deflecting incoming (preferably piercing) attacks during reaction for even more damage
going anywhere except airborne
having good ranged damage against flying enemies through throwing weapon style and MA dice working on those ranged attacks (plus hunters mark)
dragging enemies underwater or into trees for a snack
running across water like a basilisk
running up walls like an anole
End thoughts?
Homebrews reasonable?
Monk subclass suggestions?
Character design sound?
Does this setup succeed in getting as much as possible out of the Lizardfolk race?
Sounds okay, but I think Crawford intended on people just playing the 10 species mentioned in the 2024 revamped rules. I mean the PHB does offer conversion, but you wouldn't carry over any special abilities. You would basically just look like a Lizardfolk, but your abilities would originate like the current species.
Sounds okay, but I think Crawford intended on people just playing the 10 species mentioned in the 2024 revamped rules. I mean the PHB does offer conversion, but you wouldn't carry over any special abilities. You would basically just look like a Lizardfolk, but your abilities would originate like the current species.
They've said many times that you can use other species. They have conversion rules. (Which are "you don't get species and background stat bumps", because everything else works just fine.)
one of my players is going with a barbarian grappler. it's been working extremely well. he locks down threats and uses his bite to get damage in. shadow monk grappler would also work well. pop out of shadows and grab people. plus you can use ki points to cast darkness, pass without trace, and silence and you get minor illusion as a cantrip which is an extremely useful spell.https://omegle****/
Sounds okay, but I think Crawford intended on people just playing the 10 species mentioned in the 2024 revamped rules. I mean the PHB does offer conversion, but you wouldn't carry over any special abilities. You would basically just look like a Lizardfolk, but your abilities would originate like the current species.
They've said many times that you can use other species. They have conversion rules. (Which are "you don't get species and background stat bumps", because everything else works just fine.)
Thanks for the replies! So basically using the old LF means I keep the racials, but instead of the 2con/1wis I get my ASIs from the new background?
I think I saw it mentioned at one point that you can choose any combination of starting ASIs between 1x/1x/1x or 2x/1x, but the latest search has only revealed 1x/1x/1x increases. If it comes down to these 16 backgrounds, Guide would be a shoe-in (dex/wis/con). The magic initiate (druid) sounds nifty
in terms of cantrips, I guess would have to go to guidance as it's just so good (maybe reflavor it into helpful lizard-wisdom (in short lizdom) whenever someone attempts something), as for the other cantrip:
Poison Spray could be reflavored to spitting poison (Spitting Cobra), 1d12 poison 10f, not that practical though
Primal Savagery...acid dmg on claw swipes or or bites sounds cool and flavorful, but impractical
Shape Water...move a 5ft cube of water with us to drag opponents into, grapple them to keep them in there with hold breath and keeping them at disadvantage and unable to cast spells? Is this possible? We can only move it 5ft once, right?
Thornwhip could be reflavored as a high range tail attack, to drag enemies into obstacles/ throwing range range hmm since it's piercing, would piercer feat apply?
in terms of 1st circle spells,
Charm Person could be flavored into Kaa the Snake hynotising her prey "Trust meeee"
Entangle seems better than snare, though not as theme-friendly
Faerie Fire seems nice. 10 Rounds of advantage against a group of enemies, no need for grappling, plus it buffs allies. The concentration aspect calls to caution though
Jump seems insaaane. With Step of the Wind's doubled jump distance and all. Except, it's still based on strenght, right? If we go with 8 starting strenght, even with a 6x modificator...
Longstrider fits well into our mobility scheme 10/20(dash) ft speed bonus on running, swimming, wall/tree running for 1h
Snare has both survival flavor and infight application, but entangle seems stronger
Speak with Animals has some flavor, but very situational, I guess
Wild Cunning is ultimate survival flavor
Skill proficiencies would be stealth and survival, allowing us to go for 2 of the other 3 proficiencies gaind by LF race, Handle Animal, Nature or Perception.
Thoughts?
@ Aedcce: Yeah, warrior of shadow sounds very nice, probably going with that, even if just for the dark vision :D
@ Wysperra: Yeah, the natural armor homebrew idea was mainly to give a small compensation for not getting to use it due to unarmored defense, something like a flat 1ac, 5ft movement or something along the line. But I guess making it a 100% LF/monk fit is pushing it.
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Motivation: I really wanna play as a Lizardfolk, both for their biological (playing as a beast race)and cultural (rp) components.
Lizardfolk are a primitive race, so magic seems out of place for me. I want to maximise the beastial, animalistic, reptilian lizard nature of the race. Because of that, I am aiming for a martial build. I know druids are the first pick for druid, usually, but morphing into different animals takes away from the idea of doing stuff as a lizardfolk.
Problems:
While very flavorful in design (I love it), the OG LF race doesn't seem to be very...strong, racial-wise.
In addition Martial classes in general are more on the undererforming side.
Lizardfolk has a lot of overlap in their racials with classes they should be otherwise naturally synergetic with
Opportunity: the new 2024 rules, with some very light homebrewing to smooth the edges
Goal: create a synergetic race/class build that fits together like a glove and supports the lizard feel.
Homebrew ideas: (feedback appreciated)
I see Bite as an Unarmed Strike (no natural weapon shenanigans) for logic, immersion and balance reasons.
As such, it should benefit from Unarmed Strike synergies, but not weapon synergies (like smite). I don't know if 2024 adressed natural weapon categorisation.
Hungry Jaws is too weak. Not only does it require a bonus action to use (monk's use those a lot), the LF base version has only one use of hungry jaws, and the heal is capped at 1-5 (con modifier).
My homebrew: Make the heal include the amount rolled as damage (example: MA dice of 1d8 (5 rolled)+2con mod = 7 healed), and keep it at 1/rest, kept as a bonus action, but allow Martial Arts/Flurry of Blow unarmed strikes to be used for it, instead of requiring its own BA
Natural Armor: Does not stack with Unarmored Defense, of course. We're just out of luck here. Maybe a +1 to AC for not using it while wearing (due to UD) no armor?
Bite/Tail swipes: Since they are forceful blows done by our body without a weapon, we should be able to dual wield and still use Unarmed Strikes/Grapple/Shove
Uncanny Artisan: since we can make javelins and darts, spears and daggers should be craftable too (utilised by build). Since the build idea features throwing weapons, remaking those lost in the fight from the enemies' corpses sounds very pleasing. It could also feature adornments, such as bone necklaces, facial masks (esp if we do mercy monk) or take musical instruments as monk and make drums and xylophones and such from our enemies' skins and bones
Race: Lizardfolk
Natural armor Unarmored AC 13+dex mod
Bite Unarmed Strike piercing 1d6+str
Tail swimspeed
ASI +2con/+1wis
Hungry Jaws 1x/rest con modifier heal on BA unarmed strike
Cunning artisan Javelin, Shield, Darts, Blowgun Needles, Club from monster corpses
Hold Breath 15m
Skill Proficiency 2/5 handle animal, surv, stealth, perc, nature
Built concept/synergies:
Class:
Monk: 10+ (sub...Shadow maybe?)
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Bite can use dex =>we can dump strenght, fixing MAD
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Bite can use MA dice => fixes Bite's non-existant scaling
Martial Arts/Dexterous Attacks: Grapple/Shove uses Dex, finally good grappling as monk
Unarmed strikes with bite and tail keep hands free, for dual wielding
Flurry of Blows: Flurry of piercing Bites
Unarmored movement grants us 2x 10ft movement, which increases our LF swimspeed as well
Uncanny Metabolism fits in well with our LF hungry jaws self healing capabilities, and gloomstalkers bonus to initiative means we are likely to get to refresh HP and KI points before anyone can attack us
Deflect attacks against piercing attacks will allow us to utilize our Piercer feat even outside of our turn. 2 MA dice+dex mod with triple crit dice sounds nasty as a reaction
Unsure about the Subclass: Shadow's dark vison (Crocodile/Gecko eyes) would fit thematically, but so would be mercy's poison attacks (gila monster/komodo dragon/snake). Elements could be reflavored into dragon (fire damage and flying) I suppose.
Stunning Strike...I dont know...if we land an Unarmed Strike and grapple/shove through Grappler feat, wont we have advantage anyway? Can we force a second roll on our attack if our target resists our grapple attempt?
Empowered Strikes...I guess against physical resistances? That'd mean though, against those our piercer feat would become useless...would we still need magical weapons to keep using it?
Acrobatic Movement: poor man's spider climb+water walk completes the picture with LF's swimspeed and water breath
Ranger: 3 (sub Gloomstalker)
2x weapon mastery (2x dagger/longbow or spear/dagger?)
expertise for a LF/monk skill (acrobatics for grappling)
a fighting style (2weapon fighting or throwing)
hunter's mark
+1d8/frighten per wis modifier/long rest on first attack of round
10ft movement bonus and +wis mod on initiative, great synergy with LF swimspeed and monk mobility, as well as Uncanny Metabolism
other:
Having piercing damage on both of our weapons would be preferable, because we'll be able to apply it to all our melee weapons, our bites and our ranged attacks
Nick/Slow: If we choose dual daggers for melee, we have a mastery slot free for a ranged weapon, such as a longbow. Going this route, choosing archery might be a better choice for our fighting style than 2WF, since that would only apply to our nick offhand dagger attacks damage 3-5 extra damage through dex...seems lackluster. However, ranged weapon attacks do not apply MA dice, so throwing weapons are the way to go, I'd say. Bow should be last option for high range/lack of ammo.
Sap/Nick: If we choose spear/dagger as our masteries, we could apply attack disadvantage rolls against our enemies with the spears' weapon mastery (sap). Since monks aren't the tankiest class, this would be a good improvement to our survivability (plus spears are as LF as it gets). With double attack and nick, plus 3 Unarmed Strikes from flurry of blows, 1/6-2/5 of our attacks would be able to inflict disadvantage against us, improving our defense while grappling (for times when we cant run away with the victim to a safe location, for liquidation).
Problem with spears is; they aren't light, which could hinder nick usage.
Throwing weapons can now baseline be drawn in the turn they are used for the attack though, so we could work around the limitation of nick if we threw our mh spear and redrew a dagger for 2 attack.
Feats:
Grappler: +1 dex, can grapple on our bite or tail dmg, get advantage on following attacks, full movement. All the while our target has 0 speed and disadvantage on attacks against anyone but us.
bite and drag into water for underwater fighting, across body of water or up a tree/wall (fall damage)<3
Piercer; +1dex, Piercing weapons, bites, ranged weapons. Lots of attacks as monk. Lots of opportunities to reroll dice.
Reroll pay-out will increase will increase with bigger MA dice.
Plus we get another dice roll on crits. With advantage through grappling, we will have those much more often as well.
Race:
Unarmed strikes with bite and tail keep hands free, allows for dual wielding monk weapons
Our bite being piercing damage synergises with our piercer feat and allows all our attacks (besides tail) to benefit.
Our bites and tail attacks can be used for grappling/shoving without dropping weapons
Swimspeed patches the only hole in monk mobility (besides dragonascendent/elemental flying)
Hold breath...useful when dragging prey into water...or poison clouds
Uncanny Artisan...outside of the suggested homebrew of including daggers and javelins, I can't see much use.
Attack Round Example: lvl 13+ (10+monk, 3ranger), weapons spear(sap)/dagger(nick), throwing weapon fighting style, With a dex mod of +3, and a MA dice of 1d8, we could...
- 1 Attack: throw the spear for 1d8piercing+3 +2 twfs+1d6 force hm+1d8 dread ambusher (chance to frighten)
- 2 -4 Attack: Bonus action Flurry of Blows: 3* (1d8 piercing+3+1d6hm (if same target)
- 5 Attack: extra attack with back-up dagger in mh (free draw for throwing weapons) for 1d8+3+1d6 hunter's mark (if same target)
- 6 Attack: Offhand Dagger(Nick) Weapon Mastery: 1d8 piercing+3+hunter's mark (if same target)
minimum damage 8+3x5+5+5 =>33 damage
maximum (noncrit) damage 27+3x17+17+17 =>112damage
maximum crit damage 57+3x39+39+39 =>252damage
Additionally, we could add falling damage, if we drag our grappled enemy up a wall or tree and drop him with a free action. With 50ft walking speed (+10ft if 1 turn)we could add another 1d6/10ft, 5d6-6d6 if standing next to a tree when grappling
Additionally, we could add 2 levels of druid for circle of spores Symbiotic Entity feature: Your melee weapon attacks deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to any target they hit.
Our spear's throw and our Unarmed Strikes benefit from these as well, as far as I am aware.
So we could gain another 6d6 necrotic damage from this, 12d6 with all crit.
We can get advantage on attacks from:
We can inflict disadvantage on attacks:
Other tactical shenanigans:
End thoughts?
Homebrews reasonable?
Monk subclass suggestions?
Character design sound?
Does this setup succeed in getting as much as possible out of the Lizardfolk race?
Do we enter the Dragon?!
Thanks for reading ;)
Sounds okay, but I think Crawford intended on people just playing the 10 species mentioned in the 2024 revamped rules. I mean the PHB does offer conversion, but you wouldn't carry over any special abilities. You would basically just look like a Lizardfolk, but your abilities would originate like the current species.
They've said many times that you can use other species. They have conversion rules. (Which are "you don't get species and background stat bumps", because everything else works just fine.)
The species is fine the way it is. You are just going to get your stat bonuses from your background.
Racial AC has never stacked with unarmored defense and shouldn't.
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one of my players is going with a barbarian grappler. it's been working extremely well. he locks down threats and uses his bite to get damage in. shadow monk grappler would also work well. pop out of shadows and grab people. plus you can use ki points to cast darkness, pass without trace, and silence and you get minor illusion as a cantrip which is an extremely useful spell. https://omegle****/
I thought that's what I said? 🤷🏿♂️
Thanks for the replies! So basically using the old LF means I keep the racials, but instead of the 2con/1wis I get my ASIs from the new background?
I think I saw it mentioned at one point that you can choose any combination of starting ASIs between 1x/1x/1x or 2x/1x, but the latest search has only revealed 1x/1x/1x increases. If it comes down to these 16 backgrounds, Guide would be a shoe-in (dex/wis/con). The magic initiate (druid) sounds nifty
in terms of cantrips, I guess would have to go to guidance as it's just so good (maybe reflavor it into helpful lizard-wisdom (in short lizdom) whenever someone attempts something), as for the other cantrip:
in terms of 1st circle spells,
Skill proficiencies would be stealth and survival, allowing us to go for 2 of the other 3 proficiencies gaind by LF race, Handle Animal, Nature or Perception.
Thoughts?
@ Aedcce: Yeah, warrior of shadow sounds very nice, probably going with that, even if just for the dark vision :D
@ Wysperra: Yeah, the natural armor homebrew idea was mainly to give a small compensation for not getting to use it due to unarmored defense, something like a flat 1ac, 5ft movement or something along the line. But I guess making it a 100% LF/monk fit is pushing it.