I have a problem with these two races, and I will first show my changes, then my reasoning. I want to know if they are reasonable changes and if they would make the races more balanced/fun. Feel free to disagree and add suggestions.
Locathah
Leviathan Will
After ages of slavery, you have an indomitable will not to be controlled anymore. You can't be charmed, frightened, paralyzed orpetrified.
Reasoning:
For a race to be balanced, its ups must compensate for its dows. All of its abilities are fine, and Leviathan Will (its saving grace) is good. However, Limited Anphibiousness is not bad; it is horribly awful. That is why I replaced advantages with a guarantee that it will work, making it very good and that plus the other abilities balance it out with Amphibiusness.
You have proficiency in the Perception skill. *removed ability*
Amphibious
You can breathe air and water. *removed ability*
Poisonous Skin
Whoever makes direct contact with your skin or piercing weapons poisoned by you have to pass a constitution check 8+proficiency+modifier of your choice or suffer from the Poisoned condition.
Reasoning: Grung is a class with a lot of plusses and almost no minus. And where is the logic of a frog 1) having a perception check and 2) breathing underwater? The ability score improvement is already very good, Poisonous Skin is low-key broken at lower levels, but he keeps getting more and more plusses for no reason. That is why I removed these two abilities and reworked his poison so it works consistently at higher levels while being balanced at lower levels.
Personally, I'd say just get rid of Limited Amphibiousness to balance the Locathah. This isn't 2nd Edition where it was considered "balanced" to have a race that had a bunch of immunities and also have some sort of crippling weakness. In 5th Edition the trend is to make all races powerful and not give them weaknesses.
As far as Grung go, frogs tend to have extremely acute eyesight and they're amphibians so yes, they can breath air and water. Literally that's what amphibian means. With that out of the way, I think you're seriously over-valuing Poisonous Skin. Constitution Saves tend to be good among monsters, and poison and the poisoned condition is the single most common immunity in the Monster Manual. It's really not all that strong of a power.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's important to remember that both these races are non-core content made for charity media. Neither was designed for general use. Grung were designed for a one-shot as part of the Stream of Annihilation (Chris Lindsey literally designed them on the back of a napkin) and were released as extra life content after he received a lot of requests over social media for them. Locathah were designed for the Locathah rising adventure and that adventure alone.
Neither was designed or balanced for general play.
It's worth noting that while Gung can breath under water they have no swim speed which gives them several disadvantages fighting in water.
They move at half speed
They're limited in the weapons they can use in the water without disadvantage
Basically they have a kind of limited amphibiousness similar to the locath its just the opposite direction they're better on land than water and the locath are better in water than land. The grung also have a water dependency trait. The real mismatch between the two is that the locath have a much harsher water dependency so if you were to change anything you'd balance the to be similar ether that's by making the grung one more punishing like saying they need to be in water every 4 hours or gain exhaustion or making the locath one less punishing by maybe changing it to exhaustion instead of suffocating.
I'd only balance them against each other if you intend to run a campaign where players are only these races though. With their weaknesses both of them really suffer compared to other races so you could get rid of them entirely.
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I have a problem with these two races, and I will first show my changes, then my reasoning. I want to know if they are reasonable changes and if they would make the races more balanced/fun. Feel free to disagree and add suggestions.
Locathah
Leviathan Will
After ages of slavery, you have an indomitable will not to be controlled anymore. You can't be charmed, frightened, paralyzed or petrified.
Reasoning:
For a race to be balanced, its ups must compensate for its dows. All of its abilities are fine, and Leviathan Will (its saving grace) is good. However, Limited Anphibiousness is not bad; it is horribly awful. That is why I replaced advantages with a guarantee that it will work, making it very good and that plus the other abilities balance it out with Amphibiusness.
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Grung
Arboreal Alertness
You have proficiency in the Perception skill. *removed ability*
Amphibious
You can breathe air and water. *removed ability*
Poisonous Skin
Whoever makes direct contact with your skin or piercing weapons poisoned by you have to pass a constitution check 8+proficiency+modifier of your choice or suffer from the Poisoned condition.
Reasoning: Grung is a class with a lot of plusses and almost no minus. And where is the logic of a frog 1) having a perception check and 2) breathing underwater? The ability score improvement is already very good, Poisonous Skin is low-key broken at lower levels, but he keeps getting more and more plusses for no reason. That is why I removed these two abilities and reworked his poison so it works consistently at higher levels while being balanced at lower levels.
What do you think?
Personally, I'd say just get rid of Limited Amphibiousness to balance the Locathah. This isn't 2nd Edition where it was considered "balanced" to have a race that had a bunch of immunities and also have some sort of crippling weakness. In 5th Edition the trend is to make all races powerful and not give them weaknesses.
As far as Grung go, frogs tend to have extremely acute eyesight and they're amphibians so yes, they can breath air and water. Literally that's what amphibian means. With that out of the way, I think you're seriously over-valuing Poisonous Skin. Constitution Saves tend to be good among monsters, and poison and the poisoned condition is the single most common immunity in the Monster Manual. It's really not all that strong of a power.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's important to remember that both these races are non-core content made for charity media. Neither was designed for general use. Grung were designed for a one-shot as part of the Stream of Annihilation (Chris Lindsey literally designed them on the back of a napkin) and were released as extra life content after he received a lot of requests over social media for them. Locathah were designed for the Locathah rising adventure and that adventure alone.
Neither was designed or balanced for general play.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It's worth noting that while Gung can breath under water they have no swim speed which gives them several disadvantages fighting in water.
Basically they have a kind of limited amphibiousness similar to the locath its just the opposite direction they're better on land than water and the locath are better in water than land. The grung also have a water dependency trait. The real mismatch between the two is that the locath have a much harsher water dependency so if you were to change anything you'd balance the to be similar ether that's by making the grung one more punishing like saying they need to be in water every 4 hours or gain exhaustion or making the locath one less punishing by maybe changing it to exhaustion instead of suffocating.
I'd only balance them against each other if you intend to run a campaign where players are only these races though. With their weaknesses both of them really suffer compared to other races so you could get rid of them entirely.