I'm going to be making my first homebrew race soon, and I want to know if there's a guide I should stick to for balance, just so I know how to keep my character fair for everyone else while still having some fun.
Home brew is inherently unbalancing due to factors that appear on paper balanced but are not upon test/play.
The most balanced is to use an existing tested and approved species, rename it, make it look different . Of course the cynic can say why bother?
This also goes to what/why you want a homebrewed species. You can also take an existing one give it a different back ground and with minor change or 2 give them that ability you want them to have. But this can be unbalanced.
I'm going to be making my first homebrew race soon, and I want to know if there's a guide I should stick to for balance, just so I know how to keep my character fair for everyone else while still having some fun.
The balance for homebrew is ultimately in the DM's control; you shouldn't be trying to put anything together without giving them final say. They're the ones that know what the game's going to be like.
There's no guide as such, but you can look at the species in the new PHB for guidance. In particular, it should be helpful for those with inherent spellcasting.
First, I’ll note there are custom species rules in Tasha’s.
But, besides that, I’d go a step further than jl8e and say you shouldn’t be homebrewing for your own character at all. Homebrewing is for the DM to do if they want to introduce something new into the world. Players might homebrew for their own fun, but shouldn’t expect a DM to allow a custom species, that’s a part of world building which is the DM’s purview.
Instead, I’d suggest talking with your DM about what you’re looking for. Could be they’re open to it and I’m just being a party-pooper, could be you can get there by just reskinning an existing species, something like that. I guess I’m saying more, talk to them, don’t just show up with something homebrew and expect others to accept it.
This depends LARGELY on what you are trying to make. My advice is take a normal race as a template and then modify it to fit your needs. for every power you give it try to add a weakness to balance.
When making your race, don’t take the word weakness literally. They should not have stuff like vulnerabilities, negative ability bonuses and the like, as that can lead to an extremely swingy or messed up character balance.
Try to look at the official races and make sure you don’t surpass them with the complexity of your features, simplicity is key.
First of all, I'll echo others in saying that, while the player can provide suggestions, creating and balancing homebrew is in the end the job of the DM. That said: balance will always be approximate, and existing species are not perfectly balanced, but in general if your choice of species makes a big difference to how you play a character, it's probably too strong.
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I'm going to be making my first homebrew race soon, and I want to know if there's a guide I should stick to for balance, just so I know how to keep my character fair for everyone else while still having some fun.
Home brew is inherently unbalancing due to factors that appear on paper balanced but are not upon test/play.
The most balanced is to use an existing tested and approved species, rename it, make it look different . Of course the cynic can say why bother?
This also goes to what/why you want a homebrewed species. You can also take an existing one give it a different back ground and with minor change or 2 give them that ability you want them to have. But this can be unbalanced.
The balance for homebrew is ultimately in the DM's control; you shouldn't be trying to put anything together without giving them final say. They're the ones that know what the game's going to be like.
There's no guide as such, but you can look at the species in the new PHB for guidance. In particular, it should be helpful for those with inherent spellcasting.
First, I’ll note there are custom species rules in Tasha’s.
But, besides that, I’d go a step further than jl8e and say you shouldn’t be homebrewing for your own character at all. Homebrewing is for the DM to do if they want to introduce something new into the world. Players might homebrew for their own fun, but shouldn’t expect a DM to allow a custom species, that’s a part of world building which is the DM’s purview.
Instead, I’d suggest talking with your DM about what you’re looking for. Could be they’re open to it and I’m just being a party-pooper, could be you can get there by just reskinning an existing species, something like that. I guess I’m saying more, talk to them, don’t just show up with something homebrew and expect others to accept it.
This depends LARGELY on what you are trying to make. My advice is take a normal race as a template and then modify it to fit your needs. for every power you give it try to add a weakness to balance.
When making your race, don’t take the word weakness literally. They should not have stuff like vulnerabilities, negative ability bonuses and the like, as that can lead to an extremely swingy or messed up character balance.
Try to look at the official races and make sure you don’t surpass them with the complexity of your features, simplicity is key.
First of all, I'll echo others in saying that, while the player can provide suggestions, creating and balancing homebrew is in the end the job of the DM. That said: balance will always be approximate, and existing species are not perfectly balanced, but in general if your choice of species makes a big difference to how you play a character, it's probably too strong.