Hey guys, I'm trying to find a Brownie-like race to use for a Frost Giant vs Brownie one-shot campaign I am building. you know, the little people who live in cupboards and trees. I have DM'd for a little under a year, and am a little miffed on what race to use in place of brownies? since I cannot find any throughout the lore. (Hey, if they are a thing, please let me know!) I'm wanting them to be obviously tiny, something that seems like it is a joke... Tiny brownies vs Huge Frost Giants... I do not want flying creatures.. so I've really avoided the fairy genre. I guess if there is a non-flying, non-magical fey, that could work... let me know your ideas please! Here are some characteristics they will have in my story:
Chaotic neutral or evil creatures.. I'm leaning more towards evil...
Tiny in size
Very nimble and agile
Strong-ish... proportion of about 1:1.5 in body weight to strength
Hardy against the outside cold weather, could potentially be in danger is a warmer climate..
Hardy to blunt, or melee damage... weapons and magic could really pose a threat..
Will not have any type of magical abilities
They have a massive population. probably around 100,000 or so.. but the map will be quite large, so it will not seem so overwhelming.. maybe 150 or so in any one area.. there will live in tribe like cultures...
Live within the forest, in these small, cocoon-like pods made out of pine needles and dirt, and ….other things.... (look up green ants from Australia and the pods they live in; and how they are made... for a reference..)
Naturally uses the shadows to move and fight, have a hard time staying hidden in well-lit rooms, especially rooms carved out of ice. (I'll have the light play within the ice in some places, almost like prisms or mirrors) So they will be forced to utilize their size advantages to really overcome the huge frost giants in some situations.
The giants will consider them a valid and real threat, mostly because they come out of nowhere and there are a whole lot of them....
Thought about them being inventively inclined, but would rather there be a large variety of different skills... and even have massively useless ones.. create a real image of hard work and many years of building to get to where they are now.. and a drive to over throw the frost giants and take what they have... almost like cultural vultures...
Terrain will be frozen Mountain forests.. windy, Icey, darkish.... Pine trees and evergreens.. was thinking of also throwing in Sequoia red woods... still planning there..
I am really hoping to find a race that can help me fill in some of the gaps that I've missed with building this story line. I am definitely not opposed to changing something if it fits better. If you guys could please help or have any new ideas, i'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
Are you looking for stats for a monster or a playable race? If you want a monster, you can try using this to start. It looks like a 3rd edition stat block, but you can easily transfer it to 5e.
I would consider marrying the pixie or sprite from the Monster Manual with the boggle from Volo's. Drop the flying speed of the pixies give them the boggle teleport thing. Consider giving them vicious mockery as an innate ability cause of a brownies legendary tauntings.
If this is planned for a player race I might recommend ability score improvements of Dex +2 Char +1 or vice versa. Making the boggle TP and vicious mockery once a day ability, locking one til 3rd level.
I would consider marrying the pixie or sprite from the Monster Manual with the boggle from Volo's. Drop the flying speed of the pixies give them the boggle teleport thing. Consider giving them vicious mockery as an innate ability cause of a brownies legendary tauntings.
If this is planned for a player race I might recommend ability score improvements of Dex +2 Char +1 or vice versa. Making the boggle TP and vicious mockery once a day ability, locking one til 3rd level.
You could also maybe pull the dim light teleport ability from the Way of the Shadow Monks if you want to give them a teleport ability, but to balance that out you might need to forgo many other abilities which I doubt you want. Free resistance at level one is also a little too good, so you could maybe just spread out the abilities. You could also give it the naturally stealthy ability of the halflings.
I shy away from giving races class abilities to reduce the chance of redundancies. Though if this isn't going to be a player race the shadow monk ability would be the go to. They've done it with the Shadar Kai in Mordekainen's. Think there's a devil or demon somewhere the ability too.
There's a couple of races with resistances at creation like tieflings, aasimar, yuanti, so it might not be too unbalanced but remember they have niche damage resistances like poison and radiant. Save for the tiefling who gets fire resistance but everybody and their hell hound has fire resistance. According to the link posted in the Fireball Spell Spotlight cold is actually more commonly resisted than fire so I'd slap it in there guilt free.
I'm glad you got such great feedback from these folks. I was gonna offer my thoughts but it looks like it's been covered. I just wanted to say I love the idea! Brownies vs. Frost Giants, talk about David vs. Golaith... hahaha..
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Hey guys, I'm trying to find a Brownie-like race to use for a Frost Giant vs Brownie one-shot campaign I am building. you know, the little people who live in cupboards and trees. I have DM'd for a little under a year, and am a little miffed on what race to use in place of brownies? since I cannot find any throughout the lore. (Hey, if they are a thing, please let me know!) I'm wanting them to be obviously tiny, something that seems like it is a joke... Tiny brownies vs Huge Frost Giants... I do not want flying creatures.. so I've really avoided the fairy genre. I guess if there is a non-flying, non-magical fey, that could work... let me know your ideas please! Here are some characteristics they will have in my story:
Chaotic neutral or evil creatures.. I'm leaning more towards evil...
Tiny in size
Very nimble and agile
Strong-ish... proportion of about 1:1.5 in body weight to strength
Hardy against the outside cold weather, could potentially be in danger is a warmer climate..
Hardy to blunt, or melee damage... weapons and magic could really pose a threat..
Will not have any type of magical abilities
They have a massive population. probably around 100,000 or so.. but the map will be quite large, so it will not seem so overwhelming.. maybe 150 or so in any one area.. there will live in tribe like cultures...
Live within the forest, in these small, cocoon-like pods made out of pine needles and dirt, and ….other things.... (look up green ants from Australia and the pods they live in; and how they are made... for a reference..)
Naturally uses the shadows to move and fight, have a hard time staying hidden in well-lit rooms, especially rooms carved out of ice. (I'll have the light play within the ice in some places, almost like prisms or mirrors) So they will be forced to utilize their size advantages to really overcome the huge frost giants in some situations.
The giants will consider them a valid and real threat, mostly because they come out of nowhere and there are a whole lot of them....
Thought about them being inventively inclined, but would rather there be a large variety of different skills... and even have massively useless ones.. create a real image of hard work and many years of building to get to where they are now.. and a drive to over throw the frost giants and take what they have... almost like cultural vultures...
Terrain will be frozen Mountain forests.. windy, Icey, darkish.... Pine trees and evergreens.. was thinking of also throwing in Sequoia red woods... still planning there..
I am really hoping to find a race that can help me fill in some of the gaps that I've missed with building this story line. I am definitely not opposed to changing something if it fits better. If you guys could please help or have any new ideas, i'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
Are you looking for stats for a monster or a playable race? If you want a monster, you can try using this to start. It looks like a 3rd edition stat block, but you can easily transfer it to 5e.
I would consider marrying the pixie or sprite from the Monster Manual with the boggle from Volo's. Drop the flying speed of the pixies give them the boggle teleport thing. Consider giving them vicious mockery as an innate ability cause of a brownies legendary tauntings.
If this is planned for a player race I might recommend ability score improvements of Dex +2 Char +1 or vice versa. Making the boggle TP and vicious mockery once a day ability, locking one til 3rd level.
I shy away from giving races class abilities to reduce the chance of redundancies. Though if this isn't going to be a player race the shadow monk ability would be the go to. They've done it with the Shadar Kai in Mordekainen's. Think there's a devil or demon somewhere the ability too.
There's a couple of races with resistances at creation like tieflings, aasimar, yuanti, so it might not be too unbalanced but remember they have niche damage resistances like poison and radiant. Save for the tiefling who gets fire resistance but everybody and their hell hound has fire resistance. According to the link posted in the Fireball Spell Spotlight cold is actually more commonly resisted than fire so I'd slap it in there guilt free.
koalafolk!
Thanks so much! I'm looking into all of this stuff now. I will let you know what I end up with!
I'm glad you got such great feedback from these folks. I was gonna offer my thoughts but it looks like it's been covered. I just wanted to say I love the idea! Brownies vs. Frost Giants, talk about David vs. Golaith... hahaha..