Imma put this out there now. I know the tabaxi exist. This thread is looking at something more... Puss In Boots. An actual cat. But one which can talk.
The concept is very much tongue-in-cheek Puss In Boots type stuff and I've borrowed heavily from the tabaxi race. I'm not fussed about the race being underpowered, this is more to see whether this is unbalanced the other way. They're a tiny race, so I've tried to address this in the rules. I'd be interested to see your different approaches.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age. Cats typically live up to twenty years - although your character may disregard this in favour of a human equivalent lifespan.
Alignment. Cats tend toward chaotic alignments, as they let impulse and fancy guide their decisions. Largely self-interested, they rarely have good or evil alignments.
Size. Cats are significantly smaller then humans. Your size is Tiny. Due to this, the damage dice of weapons you wield are reduced by one step (d8 into d6 for example) due to the fact that they need to be smaller for ease of use. Light weapons ignore this requirement and you cannot wield heavy weapons.. You may have difficulty getting armour that fits you - discuss this with your Dungeon Master. You also have disadvantage on Str checks.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30ft.
Darkvision. You have a cat's keen senses, especially in the dark. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Cat's Claws. Because of your claws, you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unamred strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1 + your Dexterity modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. For the purposes of abilities such as Sneak Attack, which pertain to weapon attacks, your claws are simple finesse weapons.
Cat's Talent. You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
Feline Grace. You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks made to avoid falling prone.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Speak with Cats. Through body language and gestures, you may communicate with cats, though they are limited by their intelligence. Not all cats are as smart as you are!
This looks just fine to me. I don't think it's unbalanced but I'll give you a few things I might have done a bit differently and you can take it or leave it.
I would not decrease STR. Besides the fact that WotC has moved away from that design, it also lowers your jump distance. Cats are proportionally strong and good jumpers. My alternative would be that due to their tiny size, they have disadvantage on Strength checks.
I have met some very unwise cats, I'd probably do a secondary CHA bonus instead (which is also very in line with Puss-in-Boots), but that might be too similar to Tabaxi for you.
For my tiny race, I let them use heavy weapons but they are reduced by two steps (2d6=1d12>1d10>1d8>1d6>1d4 so a greatsword would be 1d8), for the inevitable kitty barbarian. All other weapons but light are reduced by one step. Makes rapier a little less of the most obvious choice.
For the real cat purists, I might reword Speak with Cats to encompass body language rather than gestures since a lot of cat communication is in how they hold themselves rather than discrete movements.
For my tiny race, I let them use heavy weapons but they are reduced by two steps (2d6=1d12>1d10>1d8>1d6>1d4 so a greatsword would be 1d8),
Not quite, no. At least not according to WotC at any rate. They don’t determine equivalents by the maximum poss result of a roll, but instead by the average result. I’m not just arbitrarily picking Midsphere either, it’s referenced in the DM’s Workshop section of the DMG:
You can use different damage dice than the ones in the table, provided that the average result is about the same. Doing so can add a little variety to the spell. For example, you could change a cantrip’s damage from 1d10 (average 5.5) to 2d4 (average 5), reducing the maximum damage and making an average result more likely.
(For ease of reference I took the liberty of highlighting the ones that WotC considers equivalent based on their average results.)
So by applying WotC’s dice roll relativity to your “two steps back” idea (which I think is brilliant btw), you can see that the Greatsword’s 2d6 is actually part of a set of equivalents dice “2d6 ≈ 3d4” which would move as a pair and land smack dab on the “2d4 ≈ 1d10” entry. That means a Greatsword would step down to 2d4 while the Greataxe would step down from 1d12 to 1d8. As you can see that more obviously maintains the current balance between those two weapons. (As a result it also more accurately maintains the balance between Fighters and Barbarians based on their archetypes and other mechanics.)
Your currently unnamed race of anthropomorphic cats using a now outdated format that will vanish entirely when they release the updated books and DDB updates everything to the new format. (Not to mention a significant amount of it was verbatim from the Tabaxi.) If you want your homebrew to be a beacon of the future of D&D rather than a reflection of its past, I offer the following suggestions:
[Race Name]
[Description]
Creating Your Character
At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race such as the fairy or the harengon in this section, follow these additional rules during character creation.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.
Languages
Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.
Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race in this chapter tells you what your character’s creature type is.
Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.
Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. Fairies and harengons, however, have a life span of about a century.
Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.
[Race Name] Traits
Creature Type
Your creature type is Beast.
Size
Your size is Tiny.
Speed
Your walking speed is 30*Feet.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Claws
You have claws which give you a climbing speed of 20*feet. In addition, your claws count as a simple melee weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit and have the finesse property.
Through a combination of body language and focalizations you can communicate with any feline beasts, such as cats and lions.
Feline Grace
You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) if ou make to avoid falling prone.
Special Accommodations
Manufactured weapons you wield that are not light deal less damage than those used by larger creatures. Decrease all damage dice of such weapons by one die size (minimum 1 damage). For example, if the die would normally be a d6 it becomes a d4, if it would normally be a d4 it deals 1 damage.
You can also wield weapons with the heavy property if they are appropriately sized. Heweavy weapons you wield loose the reach ssyssthat have a single damage die, it instead decreases by two die sizes (minimum 1 damage).For example, if the die would normally be a d12 it becomes a d8. Heavy weapons with multiple damage dice, such as a greatsword instead only reduce all of these dice by one die size as normal for you. For example, if the weapon would normally deal 2d6 damage, like a greatsword, the damage becomes a 2d4.
After some additional consideration I would personally not include that👆paragraph at all and allow the game’s standard prohibition against Small or smaller creatures from using Heavy weapons. After all,, those heay weapons are would now all be reauduced in damage to the d6 - d8 range right alongside all of the standard weight versatile weapons. Now I think it will likely just end up as additional bookkeeping without adding anything.
Any additional dice added to damage rolls you make with manufactured weapons are unaffected. For example, any damage added by a feature or trait such as Sneak Attack, a spell such as hunter’s mark, or from a magic weapon such as a flame tongue do not decrease in size.
Talk to your DM about the availability and costs regarding armor in your size.
*(I adjusted the walking and climbing speeds each down by 10 feet because a cat uses all of its limbs to run, and all of its claws to climb, but Puss-n-Boots is biped and has his hind claws covered in boots. These speeds mach the Tabaxi who are all Medium creatures and wear no clothing.)
For my tiny race, I let them use heavy weapons but they are reduced by two steps (2d6=1d12>1d10>1d8>1d6>1d4 so a greatsword would be 1d8),
Not quite, no. At least not according to WotC at any rate. They don’t determine equivalents by the maximum poss result of a roll, but instead by the average result. I’m not just arbitrarily picking Midsphere either, it’s referenced in the DM’s Workshop section of the DMG:
You can use different damage dice than the ones in the table, provided that the average result is about the same. Doing so can add a little variety to the spell. For example, you could change a cantrip’s damage from 1d10 (average 5.5) to 2d4 (average 5), reducing the maximum damage and making an average result more likely.
(For ease of reference I took the liberty of highlighting the ones that WotC considers equivalent based on their average results.)
So by applying WotC’s dice roll relativity to your “two steps back” idea (which I think is brilliant btw), you can see that the Greatsword’s 2d6 is actually part of a set of equivalents dice “2d6 ≈ 3d4” which would move as a pair and land smack dab on the “2d4 ≈ 1d10” entry. That means a Greatsword would step down to 2d4 while the Greataxe would step down from 1d12 to 1d8. As you can see that more obviously maintains the current balance between those two weapons. (As a result it also more accurately maintains the balance between Fighters and Barbarians based on their archetypes and other mechanics.)
Eugh. My Pathfinder brain has come back to bite me. ;-)
Including examples should cover this though. It's not for publishing, and my player will know what I mean.
Your currently unnamed race of anthropomorphic cats using a now outdated format that will vanish entirely when they release the updated books and DDB updates everything to the new format. (Not to mention a significant amount of it was verbatim from the Tabaxi.) If you want your homebrew to be a beacon of the future of D&D rather than a reflection of its past, I offer the following suggestions:
[Race Name]
[Description]
Creating Your Character
At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race such as the fairy or the harengon in this section, follow these additional rules during character creation.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.
Languages
Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.
Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race in this chapter tells you what your character’s creature type is.
Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.
Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. Fairies and harengons, however, have a life span of about a century.
Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.
[Race Name] Traits
Creature Type
Your creature type is Beast.
Size
Your size is Tiny.
Speed
Your walking speed is 30*Feet.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Claws
You have claws which give you a climbing speed of 20*feet. In addition, your claws count as a simple melee weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit and have the finesse property.
Through a combination of body language and focalizations you can communicate with any feline beasts, such as cats and lions.
Feline Grace
You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) if ou make to avoid falling prone.
Special Accommodations
Manufactured weapons you wield that are not light deal less damage than those used by larger creatures. Decrease all damage dice of such weapons by one die size (minimum 1 damage). For example, if the die would normally be a d6 it becomes a d4, if it would normally be a d4 it deals 1 damage.
You can also wield weapons with the heavy property if they are appropriately sized. Heweavy weapons you wield loose the reach ssyssthat have a single damage die, it instead decreases by two die sizes (minimum 1 damage).For example, if the die would normally be a d12 it becomes a d8. Heavy weapons with multiple damage dice, such as a greatsword instead only reduce all of these dice by one die size as normal for you. For example, if the weapon would normally deal 2d6 damage, like a greatsword, the damage becomes a 2d4.
After some additional consideration I would personally not include that👆paragraph at all and allow the game’s standard prohibition against Small or smaller creatures from using Heavy weapons. After all,, those heay weapons are would now all be reauduced in damage to the d6 - d8 range right alongside all of the standard weight versatile weapons. Now I think it will likely just end up as additional bookkeeping without adding anything.
Any additional dice added to damage rolls you make with manufactured weapons are unaffected. For example, any damage added by a feature or trait such as Sneak Attack, a spell such as hunter’s mark, or from a magic weapon such as a flame tongue do not decrease in size.
Talk to your DM about the availability and costs regarding armor in your size.
*(I adjusted the walking and climbing speeds each down by 10 feet because a cat uses all of its limbs to run, and all of its claws to climb, but Puss-n-Boots is biped and has his hind claws covered in boots. These speeds mach the Tabaxi who are all Medium creatures and wear no clothing.)
I'm just creating it for a player who wants to play a cat in our next campaign, nothing beyond that. Interesting experiment though and good point on the running speeds and weapons. I also like Feline Grace. Nice touch there.
(And I confess to have copypasted certain Tabaxi verbatim... I say this without shame. WotC did a good job with the tabaxi.)
Oh, well if you’re not publishing then never mind about verbatim. I mean, who cares, right? And then future proofing doesn’t really matter either. To be honest, I prefer a lot of elements of the traditional race entries better myself, but the new format better. (Notice I never said “old bad, new gudd,” just “old not future proofed.” Don’t get me wrong, I agree with everyone else about alignment, that needed to go. And I like that the life span and height/weight stuff got moved up out of the Traits, but I’m not a fan of how cookie cutter all the races are now. The entry for the new Fairy race for example, it’s is so sanitized of character… how did they manage to make Fairies that boring? (That’s archetypal appropriation, humans aren’t supposed to be the molktoast race. 🤷♂️) Anyway, por el gato en botas, here’s a quick- n’-dirty of how I honestly wish they were gonna make things:
Description and information (RP Stuff)
Age. Cats typically live up to twenty years - although your character may disregard this in favour of a human equivalent lifespan.
Height and Weight. Cats are significantly smaller then humans. Here’s how to determine your height and weight randomly, starting with rolling a size modifier:
Size modifier = 2d4
Height = 16 inches + your size modifier in inches
Weight in pounds = 8 + your size modifier
Traits (Game Stuff)
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1, either your Dexterity or Charisma score increases by 1, and any one Ability ascot of your choice other than Dexterity increases by 1.
Creature Type. Your creature type is Beast.
Size. Your size is Tiny.
Manufactured weapons you wield that are not light deal less damage than those used by larger creatures. Decrease all damage dice of such weapons by one die size (minimum 1 damage). For example, if the die would normally be a d6 it becomes a d4, if it would normally be a d4 it deals 1 damage.
Any additional dice added to damage rolls you make with manufactured weapons are unaffected. For example, any damage added by a feature or trait such as Sneak Attack, a spell such as hunter’s mark, or from a magic weapon such as a flame tongue do not decrease in size.
Talk to your DM about the availability and costs regarding armor in your size.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30ft.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Cat's Claws. You have claws which give you a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws count as a simple melee weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit and have the finesse property.
Cat's Talent. You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
Feline Grace. You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks made to avoid falling prone.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Speak with Cats. Through a combination of body language and vocalizations you can communicate with any feline beasts.
It’s a lot more like your original then the now format, and actually provides some racially specific information about them as a race not “as adventurers” or as “PCs,” And this way the ASIs would give races a lean towards a varietal of classes as opposed to before where races got “aimed” at a class choice, or now where it’s like Ricky Bobby’s kids in the first half of Taladega Nights. They jumped from Papa Bear’s porridge to Baby Bear’s and missed the Goldilocks zone IMP.
Most people don’t put anywhere near the consideration I do into stuff like why Fighters get 2d6 Greatswords and Barbarians get a 1d12 Greataxe. Many see the statistics, but don’t realize those actually represent the Archetypes intentionally. To be honest, most don’t care it seems. 🤷♂️ I pro’ly put too much thought into it though.
Anyway, I’m glad you liked Cat’s Grace! I was struggling to think up anything about intentionally knocking glasses off of tables, but I couldn’t do it without impacting agency.
You've got some really cool ideas. I like the fixed stat increase, two options and then free increase other than Dex. It's really cool middle ground between freely applying ASIs and the fact that halflings will struggle to be as strong as half-orcs on average (just the first example that comes to mind). WotC could take some notes... You've got some great ideas mate!
Imma put this out there now. I know the tabaxi exist. This thread is looking at something more... Puss In Boots. An actual cat. But one which can talk.
The concept is very much tongue-in-cheek Puss In Boots type stuff and I've borrowed heavily from the tabaxi race. I'm not fussed about the race being underpowered, this is more to see whether this is unbalanced the other way. They're a tiny race, so I've tried to address this in the rules. I'd be interested to see your different approaches.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age. Cats typically live up to twenty years - although your character may disregard this in favour of a human equivalent lifespan.
Alignment. Cats tend toward chaotic alignments, as they let impulse and fancy guide their decisions. Largely self-interested, they rarely have good or evil alignments.
Size. Cats are significantly smaller then humans. Your size is Tiny. Due to this, the damage dice of weapons you wield are reduced by one step (d8 into d6 for example) due to the fact that they need to be smaller for ease of use. Light weapons ignore this requirement and you cannot wield heavy weapons.. You may have difficulty getting armour that fits you - discuss this with your Dungeon Master. You also have disadvantage on Str checks.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30ft.
Darkvision. You have a cat's keen senses, especially in the dark. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Cat's Claws. Because of your claws, you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unamred strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1 + your Dexterity modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. For the purposes of abilities such as Sneak Attack, which pertain to weapon attacks, your claws are simple finesse weapons.
Cat's Talent. You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
Feline Grace. You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks made to avoid falling prone.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Speak with Cats. Through body language and gestures, you may communicate with cats, though they are limited by their intelligence. Not all cats are as smart as you are!
Chilling kinda vibe.
This looks just fine to me. I don't think it's unbalanced but I'll give you a few things I might have done a bit differently and you can take it or leave it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thanks scatterbraind, those are all really useful tips, and I think imma make use of all of them!
In particular, the Str tip is welcome.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Not quite, no. At least not according to WotC at any rate. They don’t determine equivalents by the maximum poss result of a roll, but instead by the average result. I’m not just arbitrarily picking Midsphere either, it’s referenced in the DM’s Workshop section of the DMG:
A more accurate and comprehensive flow for dice relativity would be as follows:
So by applying WotC’s dice roll relativity to your “two steps back” idea (which I think is brilliant btw), you can see that the Greatsword’s 2d6 is actually part of a set of equivalents dice “2d6 ≈ 3d4” which would move as a pair and land smack dab on the “2d4 ≈ 1d10” entry. That means a Greatsword would step down to 2d4 while the Greataxe would step down from 1d12 to 1d8. As you can see that more obviously maintains the current balance between those two weapons. (As a result it also more accurately maintains the balance between Fighters and Barbarians based on their archetypes and other mechanics.)
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Your currently unnamed race of anthropomorphic cats using a now outdated format that will vanish entirely when they release the updated books and DDB updates everything to the new format. (Not to mention a significant amount of it was verbatim from the Tabaxi.) If you want your homebrew to be a beacon of the future of D&D rather than a reflection of its past, I offer the following suggestions:
[Race Name]
[Description]
Creating Your Character
At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race such as the fairy or the harengon in this section, follow these additional rules during character creation.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.
Languages
Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.
Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race in this chapter tells you what your character’s creature type is.
Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.
Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. Fairies and harengons, however, have a life span of about a century.
Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.
[Race Name] Traits
Creature Type
Your creature type is Beast.
Size
Your size is Tiny.
Speed
Your walking speed is 30*Feet.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Claws
You have claws which give you a climbing speed of 20*feet. In addition, your claws count as a simple melee weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit and have the finesse property.
Natural Aptitudes
You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth] skills.
Meow
Through a combination of body language and focalizations you can communicate with any feline beasts, such as cats and lions.
Feline Grace
You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) if ou make to avoid falling prone.
Special Accommodations
Manufactured weapons you wield that are not light deal less damage than those used by larger creatures. Decrease all damage dice of such weapons by one die size (minimum 1 damage). For example, if the die would normally be a d6 it becomes a d4, if it would normally be a d4 it deals 1 damage.
You can also wield weapons with the heavy property if they are appropriately sized. Heweavy weapons you wield loose the reach ssyssthat have a single damage die, it instead decreases by two die sizes (minimum 1 damage).For example, if the die would normally be a d12 it becomes a d8. Heavy weapons with multiple damage dice, such as a greatsword instead only reduce all of these dice by one die size as normal for you. For example, if the weapon would normally deal 2d6 damage, like a greatsword, the damage becomes a 2d4.
After some additional consideration I would personally not include that👆paragraph at all and allow the game’s standard prohibition against Small or smaller creatures from using Heavy weapons. After all,, those heay weapons are would now all be reauduced in damage to the d6 - d8 range right alongside all of the standard weight versatile weapons. Now I think it will likely just end up as additional bookkeeping without adding anything.
It actually sortakinda touches on what I wrote about here: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/126199-two-handed-weapons-question?comment=8)
Any additional dice added to damage rolls you make with manufactured weapons are unaffected. For example, any damage added by a feature or trait such as Sneak Attack, a spell such as hunter’s mark, or from a magic weapon such as a flame tongue do not decrease in size.
Talk to your DM about the availability and costs regarding armor in your size.
*(I adjusted the walking and climbing speeds each down by 10 feet because a cat uses all of its limbs to run, and all of its claws to climb, but Puss-n-Boots is biped and has his hind claws covered in boots. These speeds mach the Tabaxi who are all Medium creatures and wear no clothing.)
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Eugh. My Pathfinder brain has come back to bite me. ;-)
Including examples should cover this though. It's not for publishing, and my player will know what I mean.
Chilling kinda vibe.
I'm just creating it for a player who wants to play a cat in our next campaign, nothing beyond that. Interesting experiment though and good point on the running speeds and weapons. I also like Feline Grace. Nice touch there.
(And I confess to have copypasted certain Tabaxi verbatim... I say this without shame. WotC did a good job with the tabaxi.)
Chilling kinda vibe.
Oh, well if you’re not publishing then never mind about verbatim. I mean, who cares, right? And then future proofing doesn’t really matter either. To be honest, I prefer a lot of elements of the traditional race entries better myself, but the new format better. (Notice I never said “old bad, new gudd,” just “old not future proofed.” Don’t get me wrong, I agree with everyone else about alignment, that needed to go. And I like that the life span and height/weight stuff got moved up out of the Traits, but I’m not a fan of how cookie cutter all the races are now. The entry for the new Fairy race for example, it’s is so sanitized of character… how did they manage to make Fairies that boring? (That’s archetypal appropriation, humans aren’t supposed to be the molktoast race. 🤷♂️) Anyway, por el gato en botas, here’s a quick- n’-dirty of how I honestly wish they were gonna make things:
Description and information (RP Stuff)
Age. Cats typically live up to twenty years - although your character may disregard this in favour of a human equivalent lifespan.
Height and Weight. Cats are significantly smaller then humans. Here’s how to determine your height and weight randomly, starting with rolling a size modifier:
Traits (Game Stuff)
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1, either your Dexterity or Charisma score increases by 1, and any one Ability ascot of your choice other than Dexterity increases by 1.
Creature Type. Your creature type is Beast.
Size. Your size is Tiny.
Manufactured weapons you wield that are not light deal less damage than those used by larger creatures. Decrease all damage dice of such weapons by one die size (minimum 1 damage). For example, if the die would normally be a d6 it becomes a d4, if it would normally be a d4 it deals 1 damage.
Any additional dice added to damage rolls you make with manufactured weapons are unaffected. For example, any damage added by a feature or trait such as Sneak Attack, a spell such as hunter’s mark, or from a magic weapon such as a flame tongue do not decrease in size.
Talk to your DM about the availability and costs regarding armor in your size.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30ft.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Cat's Claws. You have claws which give you a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws count as a simple melee weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit and have the finesse property.
Cat's Talent. You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
Feline Grace. You have advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks made to avoid falling prone.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Speak with Cats. Through a combination of body language and vocalizations you can communicate with any feline beasts.
It’s a lot more like your original then the now format, and actually provides some racially specific information about them as a race not “as adventurers” or as “PCs,” And this way the ASIs would give races a lean towards a varietal of classes as opposed to before where races got “aimed” at a class choice, or now where it’s like Ricky Bobby’s kids in the first half of Taladega Nights. They jumped from Papa Bear’s porridge to Baby Bear’s and missed the Goldilocks zone IMP.
Most people don’t put anywhere near the consideration I do into stuff like why Fighters get 2d6 Greatswords and Barbarians get a 1d12 Greataxe. Many see the statistics, but don’t realize those actually represent the Archetypes intentionally. To be honest, most don’t care it seems. 🤷♂️ I pro’ly put too much thought into it though.
Anyway, I’m glad you liked Cat’s Grace! I was struggling to think up anything about intentionally knocking glasses off of tables, but I couldn’t do it without impacting agency.
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Ignoring the danger of getting off-topic...
You've got some really cool ideas. I like the fixed stat increase, two options and then free increase other than Dex. It's really cool middle ground between freely applying ASIs and the fact that halflings will struggle to be as strong as half-orcs on average (just the first example that comes to mind). WotC could take some notes... You've got some great ideas mate!
Chilling kinda vibe.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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I love this! Just found it, i was desperately searching for SOMETHING other than a tabaxi, I’m so glad this page exists!
She/her
I like cats 😸
Thank you for reminding me that this existed!!
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting