My players (whose characters are currently 3rd level) will level up soon. I addition to their normal level up stuff I want to implement the improved species' abilities from 2024 (the rest will stay 2014 for now), which means:
Dwarf (Bard): better Darkvision (120 instead of 60 feet), Stonecunning with Tremorsense, 30 feet movement instead of 25
Gnome (Rogue): choice of spellcasting ability for Minor Illusion spell, additional Speak with Animals spell (or maybe my player will switch to rock Gnome, now that creating stuff doesn't cost gold anymore)... I will not increase movement speed for small creatures, though
Tiefling (Wizard): additional Fiendish Legacy Cantrip, choice of spellcasting ability for Fiendish Legacy Spells and being able to recast those with spell slots.
But what do I give our Tabaxi (Paladin)? I'll also grant them Darkvision of 120 instead of 60 feet, because cat. Additionally, I was thinking to either/or(/and?)
- increase their movement speed by 5 feet so it'll be 35 and doubled for Feline Agility
- grant them 15 feet of Blindsight, because again, cat... and maybe even double the radius whenever Darkvision kicks in?
What do you think? Is the latter too strong? Any different ideas? Tabaxi strong enough already?
Tabaxi’s pretty strong as it is. The 120 ft Darkvision you propose is probably sufficient. Blindsight I think would be too strong.
My personal wish for the Tabaxi is to be able to use Dexterity for their claw attacks, but I’m not sure if essentially giving them a Monk class feature might be a little too strong.
Interesting, what would you base this on? (Meaning it in a truly curious way, since I've been DMing less than two years and this is my only long term campaign.)
Interesting, what would you base this on? (Meaning it in a truly curious way, since I've been DMing less than two years and this is my only long term campaign.)
Mostly on the basis of their movement bonuses. However, I confess I haven’t had chance to see how they balance against 2024 revised species yet.
Interesting, what would you base this on? (Meaning it in a truly curious way, since I've been DMing less than two years and this is my only long term campaign.)
An innate climb speed can be very useful for overcoming environmental challenges, or getting to a safe location to snipe enemies in combat. The movement speed bonus is also very handy in a lot of situations from avoiding traps to getting behind enemy lines to take out important threats.
I'd personally only update them so: the innate climb speed is equal to their walking speed (1 less thing to remember) and the new Darkvision distance.
Blindsight is incredibly powerful and should never be a species feature. If you want to give them something else consider a new feature based on "cat's always land on their feet" and maybe let them cast Featherfall of themselves at will.
Interesting, what would you base this on? (Meaning it in a truly curious way, since I've been DMing less than two years and this is my only long term campaign.)
An innate climb speed can be very useful for overcoming environmental challenges, or getting to a safe location to snipe enemies in combat. The movement speed bonus is also very handy in a lot of situations from avoiding traps to getting behind enemy lines to take out important threats.
I'd personally only update them so: the innate climb speed is equal to their walking speed (1 less thing to remember) and the new Darkvision distance.
Blindsight is incredibly powerful and should never be a species feature. If you want to give them something else consider a new feature based on "cat's always land on their feet" and maybe let them cast Featherfall of themselves at will.
Uh, I like that last one!
Thanks for the feedback, I'll reconsider the Blindsight. It never came up in our games so far, but neither did Tremorsense, which sounded kinda similar. But probably less powerful.
I don’t know the tabaxi really needs anything. It from MotM, where the other species are from the 14 PHB. The tabaxi is much more recent and already incorporates the 24 design philosophy.
But, really, a dark vision boost is practically a ribbon ability, so I don’t think it would be game-breaking or anything if you did it.
I'm a player and a DM and I was looking for a thread like this before talking to my DM about rebalancing Tabaxi for the 2024 rules. I think it is overpowered compared to the PHB races as is. It was already of course, but the design of species seems to be different placing fewer benefits in species and more in background. It's easy to understand how this happened. People like their pet cats and they wanted to give a DND species all the special abilities they saw in their pets.
in 2024 only two races elves and humans get a starting skill proficiency. Tabaxi have two strong ones Perception and Stealth two of the most rolled skills in the game. All the other species special movements except for a 35 foot speed from Goliaths and Wood elves have limited uses. Tabaxi flat out get a climb speed. Likewise something like Feline Agility should be tied to the proficiency bonus maybe recharging only on a long rest or a 1 use recharge with a short rest. Even with a recharge, climb and Feline Agility are at least as powerful as a breath weapon or a couple of spells. No PHB species has natural weapons so the claws should probably go. Making them STR based was already awkward for most builds, but giving them the finesse feature would have been OP especially with rouges. Better to just save the design points and use it for the second skill proficiency. Lots of species still have 60' darkvision that can probably stay and what's a cat folk without darkvision anyway.
It's not like every species in the 2024 rules is perfectly balanced or anything. But it's like the rule of thumb when making homebrew. If this is something every player would want. Then it is overpowered. Will be interesting how WOTC goes with this as more sourcebooks are published. Power creep may not be good for game design, but customers often feel they should get some "bang for their buck" when buying expansions.
I'm a player and a DM and I was looking for a thread like this before talking to my DM about rebalancing Tabaxi for the 2024 rules. I think it is overpowered compared to the PHB races as is. It was already of course, but the design of species seems to be different placing fewer benefits in species and more in background. It's easy to understand how this happened. People like their pet cats and they wanted to give a DND species all the special abilities they saw in their pets.
in 2024 only two races elves and humans get a starting skill proficiency. Tabaxi have two strong ones Perception and Stealth two of the most rolled skills in the game. All the other species special movements except for a 35 foot speed from Goliaths and Wood elves have limited uses. Tabaxi flat out get a climb speed. Likewise something like Feline Agility should be tied to the proficiency bonus maybe recharging only on a long rest or a 1 use recharge with a short rest. Even with a recharge, climb and Feline Agility are at least as powerful as a breath weapon or a couple of spells. No PHB species has natural weapons so the claws should probably go. Making them STR based was already awkward for most builds, but giving them the finesse feature would have been OP especially with rouges. Better to just save the design points and use it for the second skill proficiency. Lots of species still have 60' darkvision that can probably stay and what's a cat folk without darkvision anyway.
It's not like every species in the 2024 rules is perfectly balanced or anything. But it's like the rule of thumb when making homebrew. If this is something every player would want. Then it is overpowered. Will be interesting how WOTC goes with this as more sourcebooks are published. Power creep may not be good for game design, but customers often feel they should get some "bang for their buck" when buying expansions.
I'm pretty sure they considered the MotM species to be part of the run-up to the revised books.
In any event, I'd say play them as is. Balance among species is not important, and almost all players pick species for concept reasons, not power ones, now that stat boosts aren't species-forced.
Actually I personally would give two subraces of wild and domestic (wild for more physical traits and domestic for more magical traits). They would still have the burst of speed, but make it = to there proficiency bonus instead of standing still to regain (both would have this and added bonus to stealth when activated. could = level), regains after a long rest. Claws d6 (d4 for domestic) unarmed strikes with climbing, but lowed to 10 feet (speed burst can double it which is both of them). Misty Step for the domestic (would = prof bonus. if it is too strong then prestidigitation cantrip or some illusionary spell). Sense of smell advantage to perception towards any sent, but must be 2 hours or less old for wild.
That is how I imagine how they would do it. Because working with the same old copy and paste would be boring.
I'm a player and a DM and I was looking for a thread like this before talking to my DM about rebalancing Tabaxi for the 2024 rules. I think it is overpowered compared to the PHB races as is. It was already of course, but the design of species seems to be different placing fewer benefits in species and more in background. It's easy to understand how this happened. People like their pet cats and they wanted to give a DND species all the special abilities they saw in their pets.
in 2024 only two races elves and humans get a starting skill proficiency. Tabaxi have two strong ones Perception and Stealth two of the most rolled skills in the game. All the other species special movements except for a 35 foot speed from Goliaths and Wood elves have limited uses. Tabaxi flat out get a climb speed. Likewise something like Feline Agility should be tied to the proficiency bonus maybe recharging only on a long rest or a 1 use recharge with a short rest. Even with a recharge, climb and Feline Agility are at least as powerful as a breath weapon or a couple of spells. No PHB species has natural weapons so the claws should probably go. Making them STR based was already awkward for most builds, but giving them the finesse feature would have been OP especially with rouges. Better to just save the design points and use it for the second skill proficiency. Lots of species still have 60' darkvision that can probably stay and what's a cat folk without darkvision anyway.
It's not like every species in the 2024 rules is perfectly balanced or anything. But it's like the rule of thumb when making homebrew. If this is something every player would want. Then it is overpowered. Will be interesting how WOTC goes with this as more sourcebooks are published. Power creep may not be good for game design, but customers often feel they should get some "bang for their buck" when buying expansions.
I really don't think Feline Agility is overpowered. I have a Tabaxi in my game, and all it does is let the character get in melee range faster.
This probably falls under the rubbish advice category, but seriously - don't mix 5e and 5.5e. They really don't go well together. The only real exception is that the adventures are relatively easy to port from one edition to another. The character mechanics really suck though. The upside is that it really doesn't matter. With 5.5e it goes even heavier on the player power fantasy than 5e does and as such balance is a thing to be laughed at. The assumption in both editions is that player characters will, more often than not, be successful.
Don't try and find balance, don't try and find a way that it's all going to be fair. My advice these days is to do what is fun. If you worry you're giving one player too much then talk to the table. Ask what they think. Heck, if they love the 5.5e rules then just give everyone at the table to ability to rebuild their characters in the new ruleset.
Go with what you think is fun and engaging. Balance is a fool's errand in D&D - seriously.
Hi there!
My players (whose characters are currently 3rd level) will level up soon. I addition to their normal level up stuff I want to implement the improved species' abilities from 2024 (the rest will stay 2014 for now), which means:
Dwarf (Bard): better Darkvision (120 instead of 60 feet), Stonecunning with Tremorsense, 30 feet movement instead of 25
Gnome (Rogue): choice of spellcasting ability for Minor Illusion spell, additional Speak with Animals spell (or maybe my player will switch to rock Gnome, now that creating stuff doesn't cost gold anymore)... I will not increase movement speed for small creatures, though
Tiefling (Wizard): additional Fiendish Legacy Cantrip, choice of spellcasting ability for Fiendish Legacy Spells and being able to recast those with spell slots.
But what do I give our Tabaxi (Paladin)? I'll also grant them Darkvision of 120 instead of 60 feet, because cat. Additionally, I was thinking to either/or(/and?)
- increase their movement speed by 5 feet so it'll be 35 and doubled for Feline Agility
- grant them 15 feet of Blindsight, because again, cat... and maybe even double the radius whenever Darkvision kicks in?
What do you think? Is the latter too strong? Any different ideas? Tabaxi strong enough already?
Any ideas will be appreciated, thanks! :)
Tabaxi’s pretty strong as it is. The 120 ft Darkvision you propose is probably sufficient. Blindsight I think would be too strong.
My personal wish for the Tabaxi is to be able to use Dexterity for their claw attacks, but I’m not sure if essentially giving them a Monk class feature might be a little too strong.
Interesting, what would you base this on? (Meaning it in a truly curious way, since I've been DMing less than two years and this is my only long term campaign.)
Mostly on the basis of their movement bonuses. However, I confess I haven’t had chance to see how they balance against 2024 revised species yet.
An innate climb speed can be very useful for overcoming environmental challenges, or getting to a safe location to snipe enemies in combat. The movement speed bonus is also very handy in a lot of situations from avoiding traps to getting behind enemy lines to take out important threats.
I'd personally only update them so: the innate climb speed is equal to their walking speed (1 less thing to remember) and the new Darkvision distance.
Blindsight is incredibly powerful and should never be a species feature. If you want to give them something else consider a new feature based on "cat's always land on their feet" and maybe let them cast Featherfall of themselves at will.
Uh, I like that last one!
Thanks for the feedback, I'll reconsider the Blindsight. It never came up in our games so far, but neither did Tremorsense, which sounded kinda similar. But probably less powerful.
I don’t know the tabaxi really needs anything. It from MotM, where the other species are from the 14 PHB. The tabaxi is much more recent and already incorporates the 24 design philosophy.
But, really, a dark vision boost is practically a ribbon ability, so I don’t think it would be game-breaking or anything if you did it.
I'm a player and a DM and I was looking for a thread like this before talking to my DM about rebalancing Tabaxi for the 2024 rules. I think it is overpowered compared to the PHB races as is. It was already of course, but the design of species seems to be different placing fewer benefits in species and more in background. It's easy to understand how this happened. People like their pet cats and they wanted to give a DND species all the special abilities they saw in their pets.
in 2024 only two races elves and humans get a starting skill proficiency. Tabaxi have two strong ones Perception and Stealth two of the most rolled skills in the game. All the other species special movements except for a 35 foot speed from Goliaths and Wood elves have limited uses. Tabaxi flat out get a climb speed. Likewise something like Feline Agility should be tied to the proficiency bonus maybe recharging only on a long rest or a 1 use recharge with a short rest. Even with a recharge, climb and Feline Agility are at least as powerful as a breath weapon or a couple of spells. No PHB species has natural weapons so the claws should probably go. Making them STR based was already awkward for most builds, but giving them the finesse feature would have been OP especially with rouges. Better to just save the design points and use it for the second skill proficiency. Lots of species still have 60' darkvision that can probably stay and what's a cat folk without darkvision anyway.
It's not like every species in the 2024 rules is perfectly balanced or anything. But it's like the rule of thumb when making homebrew. If this is something every player would want. Then it is overpowered. Will be interesting how WOTC goes with this as more sourcebooks are published. Power creep may not be good for game design, but customers often feel they should get some "bang for their buck" when buying expansions.
I'm pretty sure they considered the MotM species to be part of the run-up to the revised books.
In any event, I'd say play them as is. Balance among species is not important, and almost all players pick species for concept reasons, not power ones, now that stat boosts aren't species-forced.
Actually I personally would give two subraces of wild and domestic (wild for more physical traits and domestic for more magical traits). They would still have the burst of speed, but make it = to there proficiency bonus instead of standing still to regain (both would have this and added bonus to stealth when activated. could = level), regains after a long rest. Claws d6 (d4 for domestic) unarmed strikes with climbing, but lowed to 10 feet (speed burst can double it which is both of them). Misty Step for the domestic (would = prof bonus. if it is too strong then prestidigitation cantrip or some illusionary spell). Sense of smell advantage to perception towards any sent, but must be 2 hours or less old for wild.
That is how I imagine how they would do it. Because working with the same old copy and paste would be boring.
I really don't think Feline Agility is overpowered. I have a Tabaxi in my game, and all it does is let the character get in melee range faster.
This probably falls under the rubbish advice category, but seriously - don't mix 5e and 5.5e. They really don't go well together. The only real exception is that the adventures are relatively easy to port from one edition to another. The character mechanics really suck though. The upside is that it really doesn't matter. With 5.5e it goes even heavier on the player power fantasy than 5e does and as such balance is a thing to be laughed at. The assumption in both editions is that player characters will, more often than not, be successful.
Don't try and find balance, don't try and find a way that it's all going to be fair. My advice these days is to do what is fun. If you worry you're giving one player too much then talk to the table. Ask what they think. Heck, if they love the 5.5e rules then just give everyone at the table to ability to rebuild their characters in the new ruleset.
Go with what you think is fun and engaging. Balance is a fool's errand in D&D - seriously.
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