Hello fellow DMs! Today, my friend and player discovered that her tiefling character, Sorin, had a mother who was a changeling disguising herself as a tiefling. Sorin's father was an actual tiefling, which means she is a changeling/tiefling hybrid. Sorin has been living as a tiefling her whole life, but now the player wants to incorporate some changeling buffs into her character, though nothing drastic.
Since Sorin isn't a full changeling and her d&d beyond character sheet has her listed as a tiefling with all the tiefling buffs, I definitely wasn't going to give her complete changeling powers. Though, I wanted to do something similar and reward my player for being the incredibly dedicated roleplayer that she is (she is coming to our first session after months in full cosplay!).
The first thought I came up with was having the ability to change their appearance once every short rest, of course being able to revert back to her "default" appearance whenever she wants. Another thought I had was being able to cast Disguise Self without consuming a spell slot twice a short rest.
Which one is better? Any other ideas for something like this? I want to keep this game balanced, but I enjoy rewarding my players for being super in character and coming up with kickass backstories for me to play with.
First, I would say that is a bit harsh to make it balanced. Tieflings and Changelings are already on edge of balance and each have damn great traits that overshadow a ton of other races.
I think its nice to reward your player, but make sure you aren't giving too much. Evaluate how it would impact the other PC importance on the campaing, couse the tiefling beyond beying great with its CHA bonus, and its 3 free spells from infernal legacy, now it will become a mastermind of infiltration.
For those ideas you came up with, I would say you to forget the Disguise Self, becouse its an ilusion spell and don't fit well with the racial trait from changelings (that actually change its body form) and if you rework the spell to looks like a body-change, it wouldn't be different than the other option. So, I would say that the first idea is better. However, I think its too much to be avaliable once per short rest.
What I would give to that character is just a bust of +1 in CHA, as an balanced iheritance from its mother, or think in some trait from from tiefling to be replaced. What I can suggest you to make is to rework the Shapechanging trait from changelings to make it imperfect and limited. Maybe the char keep this trait inherit from its mom, but as its tiefling features overcome it can't change as perfectly as an actual changeling. So, in that way, it can change some features, but not hide completely its appearance (like it can make its skin and eyes looks like an random human, but its horns stills up) OR it can change entirelly but it can't make perfect copies from others appearance, looking like some sort of lost twin but with reconizeble differences. That is what I would do to make it a flair trait that can enrich the lore and the roleplay of the character, but also wouldn't be too powerfull mechanically (it would must be creative to use this trait to disguise it self as some NPC).
I wouldn't say you must to avoid giving it a trully usefull trait, but make sure it's not more than it already has. If you keep the idea of changing appearence as normal, giving it the possibility of using it for important social matters, don't give it for once per short rest.
Most of the other races would have just one trait that have specific uses and for a once per long rest, so giving that tiefling that trait would put it with 3 usefull spells per long rest plus 1 usefull trait per short rest. Thinking that makes me suggest you that not-so-perfect trait, so it can be nice for the player but it wouldn't make it shine brightier than the rest of the party. Maybe, if its not at high level yet, change darkness from its infernal legacy, for exemple, with that ability to changeshape.
The quickest and easiest way that I can think of to keep your player's tiefling hybrid balanced would be to merely swap out the Infernal Legacy spells for something more fitting to this particular genetic pairing. My personal suggestion would be to swap out some of the spells as follows:
Thaumaturgy. Keep the cantrip as is, since the spell allows the character to alter the appearance of their eyes as well as make their voice booming loud. Other special effects can be helpful as well, but these two items can assist with the alternate appearance’s aspects.
Hellish Rebuke. Change this spell out for disguise self, which can be used once per day. Admittedly, this innate spell is illusionary versus an actual physical change, but it still provides the tiefling hybrid a chance to appear differently. Plus, the lower planes promote deception, so having some illusionary power in your blood would make sense.
Darkness. Change this spell out for alter self, which can be used once per day. This innate spell actually allows the tiefling to physically alter their body in ways, which is similar (but limited) to what a full-blooded changeling can do. No longer just hiding behind an illusion, the tiefling can now physically change (albeit temporarily) into a different form. Alternately, they can also grow claws or adapt to an aquatic environment, but their fiendish versatility allows them to go beyond what a changeling might be able to do.
Just changing spells for other spells of the same spell level, so shouldn’t unbalance things too much. However, if swapping spells to create a “different type” of tiefling isn’t enough of a reward/extra for your player, my other thought was to tack on a bonus feat as well…
In particular, I would give them the Actor feat as a free extra. This gives them another +1 to Charisma as well as advantage on checks to pass themselves off as other people (meshes well with the new disguise self and alter self abilities. The other bonus of mimicking speech and sounds also could tie into the changeling influence to their tiefling’s unique heritage.
Again, just some additional ideas that I had after reading your post. Not sure where your player’s character is currently at and how switching things around might affect them, but I’ve been running a couple Planescape campaigns, where we’ve done some spell swapping for tiefling characters and it tends to work well with gaining flavor without unbalancing things too much.
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Hello fellow DMs! Today, my friend and player discovered that her tiefling character, Sorin, had a mother who was a changeling disguising herself as a tiefling. Sorin's father was an actual tiefling, which means she is a changeling/tiefling hybrid. Sorin has been living as a tiefling her whole life, but now the player wants to incorporate some changeling buffs into her character, though nothing drastic.
Since Sorin isn't a full changeling and her d&d beyond character sheet has her listed as a tiefling with all the tiefling buffs, I definitely wasn't going to give her complete changeling powers. Though, I wanted to do something similar and reward my player for being the incredibly dedicated roleplayer that she is (she is coming to our first session after months in full cosplay!).
The first thought I came up with was having the ability to change their appearance once every short rest, of course being able to revert back to her "default" appearance whenever she wants. Another thought I had was being able to cast Disguise Self without consuming a spell slot twice a short rest.
Which one is better? Any other ideas for something like this? I want to keep this game balanced, but I enjoy rewarding my players for being super in character and coming up with kickass backstories for me to play with.
First, I would say that is a bit harsh to make it balanced. Tieflings and Changelings are already on edge of balance and each have damn great traits that overshadow a ton of other races.
I think its nice to reward your player, but make sure you aren't giving too much. Evaluate how it would impact the other PC importance on the campaing, couse the tiefling beyond beying great with its CHA bonus, and its 3 free spells from infernal legacy, now it will become a mastermind of infiltration.
For those ideas you came up with, I would say you to forget the Disguise Self, becouse its an ilusion spell and don't fit well with the racial trait from changelings (that actually change its body form) and if you rework the spell to looks like a body-change, it wouldn't be different than the other option. So, I would say that the first idea is better. However, I think its too much to be avaliable once per short rest.
What I would give to that character is just a bust of +1 in CHA, as an balanced iheritance from its mother, or think in some trait from from tiefling to be replaced. What I can suggest you to make is to rework the Shapechanging trait from changelings to make it imperfect and limited. Maybe the char keep this trait inherit from its mom, but as its tiefling features overcome it can't change as perfectly as an actual changeling. So, in that way, it can change some features, but not hide completely its appearance (like it can make its skin and eyes looks like an random human, but its horns stills up) OR it can change entirelly but it can't make perfect copies from others appearance, looking like some sort of lost twin but with reconizeble differences. That is what I would do to make it a flair trait that can enrich the lore and the roleplay of the character, but also wouldn't be too powerfull mechanically (it would must be creative to use this trait to disguise it self as some NPC).
I wouldn't say you must to avoid giving it a trully usefull trait, but make sure it's not more than it already has. If you keep the idea of changing appearence as normal, giving it the possibility of using it for important social matters, don't give it for once per short rest.
Most of the other races would have just one trait that have specific uses and for a once per long rest, so giving that tiefling that trait would put it with 3 usefull spells per long rest plus 1 usefull trait per short rest. Thinking that makes me suggest you that not-so-perfect trait, so it can be nice for the player but it wouldn't make it shine brightier than the rest of the party. Maybe, if its not at high level yet, change darkness from its infernal legacy, for exemple, with that ability to changeshape.
The quickest and easiest way that I can think of to keep your player's tiefling hybrid balanced would be to merely swap out the Infernal Legacy spells for something more fitting to this particular genetic pairing. My personal suggestion would be to swap out some of the spells as follows:
Just changing spells for other spells of the same spell level, so shouldn’t unbalance things too much. However, if swapping spells to create a “different type” of tiefling isn’t enough of a reward/extra for your player, my other thought was to tack on a bonus feat as well…
In particular, I would give them the Actor feat as a free extra. This gives them another +1 to Charisma as well as advantage on checks to pass themselves off as other people (meshes well with the new disguise self and alter self abilities. The other bonus of mimicking speech and sounds also could tie into the changeling influence to their tiefling’s unique heritage.
Again, just some additional ideas that I had after reading your post. Not sure where your player’s character is currently at and how switching things around might affect them, but I’ve been running a couple Planescape campaigns, where we’ve done some spell swapping for tiefling characters and it tends to work well with gaining flavor without unbalancing things too much.