I'm trying to homebrew a playable Familiar race, with emphasis on shapeshifting, minor magical abilities, and high mobility/teleportation. The idea is an ageless entity similar to a demon with loyalty to a very specific patron, and powers based around stealth and crowd control/support player and less so being a frontlining DPS. Thoughts? I was using the tiefling stats as a base but I need some creative ideas.
Hmmm ok I have a interesting thought on how they were created. Say every time a player died and they had a familiar without realizing it they actually where sending those familiars to be lost in the ethereal plane for the vast majority unless say it was a family passed down familiar then it'll likely stay. But slowly as familiars began to gather and kind of form some semblance of order, and as that happened they also began to fuse with one another to gain strength,feel as if they'd never be alone again, and to crowd control as well because there was a lot of them. But as they formed and fused together all the magic that brought them together made a new conscious and more material body for you know keeping the species alive. As time went on most still told and they became known as the salgadones(taken from salgado meaning beastly family) and came to the material planes for the most part they looked human.
But almost all of them had some telltale sign of what familiars ended up creating them (ok my idea is basically the mom and dad while being intimate give up a fraction of their familiar in a way to the child so if both of them had a cat familiar in them then the child will likely have a cat ear or tail to give away they have that in them) sometimes it's easy like just cat ears, more obvious things like wings which is a difficult area,(here is the familiar list i found/used) other times it's a tentacle or reptilian feature, it can even be as weird as just an aura(mostly a sign of imp or sprite familiars). But even after so many decades passed the salgadones never really liked interacting much with other races and prefer to stay to themselves, they aren't like the dragonborn or lizardfolk necessarily but when random humans start spreading rumors about chimera like humanoids in island areas and you attract unwanted attention you have to fake a smile and act civil with potential trade opportunities.
Over all most rather hide out when random people come around while others who rather cause mischief use their stealth to sneak behind/into crowds and do crowd control. They also have to do a concentration(not sure which state would be needed for this) roll to shift into one of their familiar forms(max amount a player could have should be 3 and maybe for npc's like 4 if they're like that one level 20 npc the party meets) you do a constitution roll equal to yours whatever number you got is the amount of hours you can stay in that form when time is up you'll be 2 levels exhausted. With all that magic in their body they do lack just the pure makings of soldiers but make excellent mage's, and rouges because of their aforementioned skills...
I like it a lot!! The mechanical ideas are really good like the types of rolls you'd use to transform, etc. The lore also makes a lot of sense and is really interesting!
I originally had shapeshifting as a racial feature similar to the changeling race, but maybe they have an enhanced/monstrous form that they can roll for, maybe a more powerful version of their animal/magic form that they can use in combat. Idk
I like it a lot!! The mechanical ideas are really good like the types of rolls you'd use to transform, etc. The lore also makes a lot of sense and is really interesting!
I originally had shapeshifting as a racial feature similar to the changeling race, but maybe they have an enhanced/monstrous form that they can roll for, maybe a more powerful version of their animal/magic form that they can use in combat. Idk
maybe it depends on the persons familiar like those with falcon or cat familiar you're better at beer hand fighting(falcons punch prey weird but kinda funny). Also i have the basics of their states; basically strength altogether would maybe be ok for the most part nothing like beefy as hell but still decently strong like a bit above a humans, Intelligence wouldn't be too high at all, wisdom that'd be high cause they go off of animal instincts to tell what people are thinking of doing, dexterity should also be a higher done stat because they're more stealthy and agile compared to most, constitution should be decent due to them technically being more than one creature, and charisma they'll be low in because like intelligence they're new to this world and it's inhabitance so they don't understand and are afraid.
I'm trying to homebrew a playable Familiar race, with emphasis on shapeshifting, minor magical abilities, and high mobility/teleportation. The idea is an ageless entity similar to a demon with loyalty to a very specific patron, and powers based around stealth and crowd control/support player and less so being a frontlining DPS. Thoughts? I was using the tiefling stats as a base but I need some creative ideas.
Another idea for it kinda like genes but this'd be there racial trait. Your parents have say three familiar liniages running through(common amount would be that, 2 are rare seen as lucky ones, and those who only have one are actually looked down on because they'd more than likely have to commit incest to get this luck) them but you get this special thing for each familiar animal it'll have say to slight buffs but the catch is you only can choose two buffs so you can either max out one familiar branch[example cat say have either slight charisma buff, or you chose the claw one giving you advantage in climbing.] or do multiple an idea could be say snake familiars slight speed buff (because they fast danger noodles) and the octopus(yes it surprisingly is a familiar) camo feature as an assassin build. And if you want to make it interesting like i did when i cooked this idea up even if you max out just one branch of your familiar build your character has little hints to what other familiars are in them. This is mainly cosmetic and because the cat is a good base say you do that maxed out but have bird and crocodile in you[side tangent an idea is some familiers breed specify for bonuses and to protect everybody. Like say the harbor around the islands they landed in they have just a ton of aquatic based familiars there to protect everybody and even sky patrolling bird ones.] say they still have a croc tail and small bird wings but they're both nubby and useless.
the base species spreadsheet of the race stats in my eyes is something like:
good:wisdom(animal instincts), dexterity(living on island of course helps with animal agility),
good-ish[better than normal but not really buffed too much]:constitution(they're a sturdy bunch going through so much)
normal:strength
bad:intelligence(they learned little in former lives and being trapped in a plane then onto an island doesn't help)
worst:charisma(yea they don't trust most outsides at all hell even if some familiars were from a different island the first instinct for many of them would be hiss at the new comer and run if you know you can't win)
And yes putting charisma as the worst is a little messy with them being good magic candidats and half the casting class's use that stat but it makes sense lore wise.
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I'm trying to homebrew a playable Familiar race, with emphasis on shapeshifting, minor magical abilities, and high mobility/teleportation. The idea is an ageless entity similar to a demon with loyalty to a very specific patron, and powers based around stealth and crowd control/support player and less so being a frontlining DPS. Thoughts? I was using the tiefling stats as a base but I need some creative ideas.
Hmmm ok I have a interesting thought on how they were created. Say every time a player died and they had a familiar without realizing it they actually where sending those familiars to be lost in the ethereal plane for the vast majority unless say it was a family passed down familiar then it'll likely stay. But slowly as familiars began to gather and kind of form some semblance of order, and as that happened they also began to fuse with one another to gain strength,feel as if they'd never be alone again, and to crowd control as well because there was a lot of them. But as they formed and fused together all the magic that brought them together made a new conscious and more material body for you know keeping the species alive. As time went on most still told and they became known as the salgadones(taken from salgado meaning beastly family) and came to the material planes for the most part they looked human.
But almost all of them had some telltale sign of what familiars ended up creating them (ok my idea is basically the mom and dad while being intimate give up a fraction of their familiar in a way to the child so if both of them had a cat familiar in them then the child will likely have a cat ear or tail to give away they have that in them) sometimes it's easy like just cat ears, more obvious things like wings which is a difficult area,(here is the familiar list i found/used) other times it's a tentacle or reptilian feature, it can even be as weird as just an aura(mostly a sign of imp or sprite familiars). But even after so many decades passed the salgadones never really liked interacting much with other races and prefer to stay to themselves, they aren't like the dragonborn or lizardfolk necessarily but when random humans start spreading rumors about chimera like humanoids in island areas and you attract unwanted attention you have to fake a smile and act civil with potential trade opportunities.
Over all most rather hide out when random people come around while others who rather cause mischief use their stealth to sneak behind/into crowds and do crowd control. They also have to do a concentration(not sure which state would be needed for this) roll to shift into one of their familiar forms(max amount a player could have should be 3 and maybe for npc's like 4 if they're like that one level 20 npc the party meets) you do a constitution roll equal to yours whatever number you got is the amount of hours you can stay in that form when time is up you'll be 2 levels exhausted. With all that magic in their body they do lack just the pure makings of soldiers but make excellent mage's, and rouges because of their aforementioned skills...
So is it good does it sound ok??
I like it a lot!! The mechanical ideas are really good like the types of rolls you'd use to transform, etc. The lore also makes a lot of sense and is really interesting!
I originally had shapeshifting as a racial feature similar to the changeling race, but maybe they have an enhanced/monstrous form that they can roll for, maybe a more powerful version of their animal/magic form that they can use in combat. Idk
maybe it depends on the persons familiar like those with falcon or cat familiar you're better at beer hand fighting(falcons punch prey weird but kinda funny). Also i have the basics of their states; basically strength altogether would maybe be ok for the most part nothing like beefy as hell but still decently strong like a bit above a humans, Intelligence wouldn't be too high at all, wisdom that'd be high cause they go off of animal instincts to tell what people are thinking of doing, dexterity should also be a higher done stat because they're more stealthy and agile compared to most, constitution should be decent due to them technically being more than one creature, and charisma they'll be low in because like intelligence they're new to this world and it's inhabitance so they don't understand and are afraid.
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Another idea for it kinda like genes but this'd be there racial trait. Your parents have say three familiar liniages running through(common amount would be that, 2 are rare seen as lucky ones, and those who only have one are actually looked down on because they'd more than likely have to commit incest to get this luck) them but you get this special thing for each familiar animal it'll have say to slight buffs but the catch is you only can choose two buffs so you can either max out one familiar branch[example cat say have either slight charisma buff, or you chose the claw one giving you advantage in climbing.] or do multiple an idea could be say snake familiars slight speed buff (because they fast danger noodles) and the octopus(yes it surprisingly is a familiar) camo feature as an assassin build. And if you want to make it interesting like i did when i cooked this idea up even if you max out just one branch of your familiar build your character has little hints to what other familiars are in them. This is mainly cosmetic and because the cat is a good base say you do that maxed out but have bird and crocodile in you[side tangent an idea is some familiers breed specify for bonuses and to protect everybody. Like say the harbor around the islands they landed in they have just a ton of aquatic based familiars there to protect everybody and even sky patrolling bird ones.] say they still have a croc tail and small bird wings but they're both nubby and useless.
the base species spreadsheet of the race stats in my eyes is something like:
good:wisdom(animal instincts), dexterity(living on island of course helps with animal agility),
good-ish[better than normal but not really buffed too much]:constitution(they're a sturdy bunch going through so much)
normal:strength
bad:intelligence(they learned little in former lives and being trapped in a plane then onto an island doesn't help)
worst:charisma(yea they don't trust most outsides at all hell even if some familiars were from a different island the first instinct for many of them would be hiss at the new comer and run if you know you can't win)
And yes putting charisma as the worst is a little messy with them being good magic candidats and half the casting class's use that stat but it makes sense lore wise.