So, basically the title says it all. Need feedback, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. So I can make it playable. I know the advantage saving throws are probably OP and unnecessary. I would like to have throw in mask of the wild since I think it naturally fits in. So I was thinking about moving weapon and armor proficiencies into a new class that I was also homebrewing called Trickster. Let me know about any ideas you guys got... thanks in advance.
[Wukong] “[Sun Wukong then defies Hell's attempt to collect his soul. Instead of reincarnating, he wipes his name out of the Book of Life and Death along with the names of all monkeys known to him. The Dragon Kings and the Kings of Hell report him to the Jade Emperor. Sun is taken to heaven to be executed for his crimes, but fire, lightning, and edged weapons have no effect on his invincible body. Laozi then suggests that they put him inside of the deity’s mystical eight trigrams furnace to reduce the demon into ashes. They check the furnace forty-nine days later expecting to see his charred remains; however, Monkey jumps out unscathed, and not only that, the intense flames refined his pupils the color of gold, giving them the power to see for hundreds of miles and to recognize the dark auras of demons in disguise. He overturns the furnace and begins to cause havoc in heaven with his iron cudgel. The monkey’s anger cannot be contained.]"
—[Wu Cheng'en], [Journey to the West]
The Wukong are monkey/humanoids who are magical from blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God. They are as wild as the different places where they live such as the barrens to high in the mountain ranges. Because of this, there is rarely any other race they do not come in contact with. They emulate their god constantly practicing drilling with each other using polearms, acrobatics, and their trickery.
Monkeylike and Humanlike The Wukong are slender monkey/humanoids with brown or grey fur and have a pink face, which is bereft of fur as well. Their tail is of medium length and averages between 32.1 and 36.0 inches. Adult males measure about 60 inches on average and weigh about 160 lbs. Females are smaller, averaging 55 inches in height and 150 in weight.
From Realm to Realm The magical Wukong may be found arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous regions up to 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in elevation. They walk on two feet, all fours, are natural climbers, and are regular swimmers. Babies as young as a few days old can swim, and adults are known to swim over a half mile between islands. The Wukong are noted for their tendency to move from rural to urban areas, coming to rely on handouts or refuse from humans. They adapt well to human presence, and form larger troops in human-dominated landscapes than in forests. Their troops number anywhere from 10 to 100.
Children of the Monkey God The Wukong are magical creatures as they blessed by their monkey god. Highly reverent to Sun Wukong, they constantly pray to their god and act out his adventures with each other and in the world. When in another race’s community, they perform acrobatics, trick, or steal. They don’t do this, because they need money (they are wild and have no need for it), but in order to live their lives as closely to Sun Wukong.
Wild and Fearless
The Wukong being very energetic and having little patience, are born adventurers. Especially because of their short lifespan, they are constantly on the move, looking to experience the world around them. The Wukong, since they are magical and acrobatic, love attention, meeting other races, and sometimes, tricking, and stealing from them. They are always willing to join adventurer’s party, hardly questioning the difficulty or the purpose.
Friendly, but Misunderstood The Wukong argue much amongst themselves, but many have a forgiving nature since this is the the way of the Wukong. There is never a problem, it’s just another day, except that once in a while in their family tree, a fruit bears very bad seeds.
Dwarves. “Dwarves always seem angry, but we know it’s not because of something we have done, although stealing from them does make them so. But many times, they use our services, and we get them something they need and if you do this enough times, even a Dwarf’s stone heart will let them smile and make a long friendship.”
Elves. “Many Wood Elves live with us. They protect the forests and we help them. We trade with them and they seem very forgiving when one of our troop did something wrong. They are very kind to our race.”
Halflings. “Halflings are great folk! They have so much food, that we don’t even have to beg or steal from them! But if anyone were to interfere with them, out troop will deal with them happily.”
Humans. “Some hate us, some like us. Sometimes it’s our fault, but other times they hate us, because they hate anything they do not know. We see how they treat other races, and they hate them too, for no reason! But then, out of nowhere, they’ll treat us again with great kindness. Sometimes I think we are the ones most closely related to them, because of our chaotic nature.”
Wukong Names A Wukong addresses people with his surname first, and then his first name. Many times they choose Wukong as their last name, because they are proud direct descendants of Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.
Male Names: Zhang Wei, Wang Wei, Li Wei,Liu Wei, Li Qiang, Wang lei, Li Jun, Wang Yong, Zhang Yong, Li Jie, Zhang Lei, Wang Qiang, Wang Jun, Zhang Jie, Zhang Tao, Wang Tao, Li Ming, Wang Chao, Li Yong, Liu Jie, Zhang Jun, Zhang Qiang, Wang Ping, Wang Gang, Wang Jie
Female Names: Wang Fang, Wang Xiu Ying, Li Xiu Ying, Li Na, Zhang Xiu Ying, Zhang Min, Li Jing, Zhang Li, Wang Jing, Wang Li, Zhang Jing, Li Min, Wang Min, Liu Yang, Wang Yan, Li Juan, Zhang Yan, Li Yan, Wang Juan, Wang Xiu Lan, Li Xia, Liu Min, Li Li, Li Gui Ying, Liu Fang.
Wukong Traits Your Wukong character has a variety of natural and magical abilities, the result of many magical blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and Charisma by 1.
Age. The Wukong reach physical maturity at 12 years old and live up to approximately 50 years old.
Alignment. The Wukong love freedom, are adventurous, and carefree. So much so, much of their behavior is impulsive. Some act on their gut feeling, doing what they believe is right, not caring what others think of them. Others just go with the moment instead of considering outcomes. But very few are wild and are violent falling to their desires
Size. The Wukong range from 4 to 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Simius. Wukong interact with each other using a variety of facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, and gestures. They can read and write at mostly a basic level.
Prehensile tail. A Wukong can pick up, hold up to 18 lbs., and can hang from it’s tale.
Inborn Movement. Being both arboreal and terrestrial, bipedal and quadrupedal, and traveling between arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous, they can climb, crawl, and swim with no penalties.
Wild Life. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Monkey God lesser resistance to magic. You have advantage on saving throws against fire and water based magic attacks. All magic damage is reduced by half.
Reduced Falling Damage. Check is done with advantage due to also being able to use their tail to grab and stop falling. Reduce damage you take by half your check result (round down). If damage is reduced to 0, then he lands standing.
Wukong Armor Training. You have proficiency with hide, breastplate, chain mail, and chain shirt armor.
Wukong Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the glaive, halberd, pike, longbow, and long sword. Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.
Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.
The text with the Wukongs' opinion on dwarves, elves, and humans is usually not included in uncommon races.
For Inborn Movement I suggest a climbing and swimming speed of 30 feet and that's it.
Natural Strength should be renamed and athletics is already a strength check.
Reduced Falling Damage deserves a new name. Perhaps something like Simian Agility. If you want to embrace the acrobatic nature of monkeys, I suggest removing Wild Life and giving proficiency in acrobatics here.
Monkey God, Wukong Armor Training, and Wukong Weapon Training all come out of left field for me. There's no explanation of the armor and weapon proficiency in the text. The first part of Monkey God is not inherit to the structure of 5th edition spells and the second part is possibly the most powerful feature in all of D&D; as it would stack with resistance.
Instead of this, going back to their innate magic, I would give them an innate spellcasting trait. I suggest Charisma as the spellcasting ability and choosing spells from the Bard or Druid spell lists.
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
The reason why I chose a climbing and swimming feet of 35, is because that is what wood elves have and they are the closest in design. Also I don't see how a monkey humanoid can only go 30ft whereas a wood elf can go 35. Also, since I modeled this race after Sun Wukong, who is highly magical and who is a Rhesus macaque humanoid, swimming should not be a problem, especially since what I wrote about their swimming is scientific fact.
I kinda explained it a little, but I guess I should go deeper into it, but the reason why their weapon training is so is because, again, they are modeled after Sun Wukong who uses a cudgel so they use weapons similar to him and also they use weapons that are more eastern martial arts. Also, since many of them are polearms, the share the same traits which makes choosing one over another not much of a difference and really just for flavor. The same goes with the armor, especially since they fight and steal and the armor that I chose fits those two categories and of course, chain mail is what Sun Wukong wore.
As far as spellcasting goes, I was going to create a class called trickster which would fit them very well. The fight, they steal, and they use arcane trickster which closely emulates the Monkey God himself which is what they are shooting for.
I've really only made a homebrew race that's a complete knock-off of Dragonborn, but for input...! Their alignment description is kind of in "word salad" territory for me, grammatically. Maybe something more like, "The Wukong are rarely malevolent with their treachery, though prone to impulsive and slightly chaotic behavior. Their naturally forgiving nature combines with this to make them mostly neutral; individuals who err more towards greed and thrive on this chaos are rare."
I will say, thematically, I think I would be of the opinion that nixing the swimming speed to go with just land speed/climbing speed like the Tabaxi would be more straight-forward and not complicate the race. Technically, all humans are capable of climbing, swimming and walking but if we were meant to always climb, we'd still have tails for balancing; if we were meant to still be swimming, we would have evolved more like whales or pinnipeds.
I would also look into maybe doing a simpler sub-class for them that maybe gives a Treachery Domain / Arcane Trickster style of fighting as a Monk Monastic Tradition. Making custom stuff for D&D is a lot of fun, obviously, but don't push yourself to reinvent the wheel.
The class you've described is an arcane trickster.
On a more central note, I'm not seeing the wukong as just the children of Sun Wukong but also as monkey people. So while a cleric of the monkey god may have proficiency in heavy armor, it doesn't make sense why a monk wukong would have heavy armor proficiency just because they may worship a god that wears heavy armor.
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
So, basically the title says it all. Need feedback, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. So I can make it playable. I know the advantage saving throws are probably OP and unnecessary. I would like to have throw in mask of the wild since I think it naturally fits in. So I was thinking about moving weapon and armor proficiencies into a new class that I was also homebrewing called Trickster. Let me know about any ideas you guys got... thanks in advance.
[Wukong] “[Sun Wukong then defies Hell's attempt to collect his soul. Instead of reincarnating, he wipes his name out of the Book of Life and Death along with the names of all monkeys known to him. The Dragon Kings and the Kings of Hell report him to the Jade Emperor. Sun is taken to heaven to be executed for his crimes, but fire, lightning, and edged weapons have no effect on his invincible body. Laozi then suggests that they put him inside of the deity’s mystical eight trigrams furnace to reduce the demon into ashes. They check the furnace forty-nine days later expecting to see his charred remains; however, Monkey jumps out unscathed, and not only that, the intense flames refined his pupils the color of gold, giving them the power to see for hundreds of miles and to recognize the dark auras of demons in disguise. He overturns the furnace and begins to cause havoc in heaven with his iron cudgel. The monkey’s anger cannot be contained.]"
—[Wu Cheng'en], [Journey to the West]
The Wukong are monkey/humanoids who are magical from blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God. They are as wild as the different places where they live such as the barrens to high in the mountain ranges. Because of this, there is rarely any other race they do not come in contact with. They emulate their god constantly practicing drilling with each other using polearms, acrobatics, and their trickery.
Monkeylike and Humanlike The Wukong are slender monkey/humanoids with brown or grey fur and have a pink face, which is bereft of fur as well. Their tail is of medium length and averages between 32.1 and 36.0 inches. Adult males measure about 60 inches on average and weigh about 160 lbs. Females are smaller, averaging 55 inches in height and 150 in weight.
From Realm to Realm The magical Wukong may be found arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous regions up to 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in elevation. They walk on two feet, all fours, are natural climbers, and are regular swimmers. Babies as young as a few days old can swim, and adults are known to swim over a half mile between islands. The Wukong are noted for their tendency to move from rural to urban areas, coming to rely on handouts or refuse from humans. They adapt well to human presence, and form larger troops in human-dominated landscapes than in forests. Their troops number anywhere from 10 to 100.
Children of the Monkey God The Wukong are magical creatures as they blessed by their monkey god. Highly reverent to Sun Wukong, they constantly pray to their god and act out his adventures with each other and in the world. When in another race’s community, they perform acrobatics, trick, or steal. They don’t do this, because they need money (they are wild and have no need for it), but in order to live their lives as closely to Sun Wukong.
Wild and Fearless
The Wukong being very energetic and having little patience, are born adventurers. Especially because of their short lifespan, they are constantly on the move, looking to experience the world around them. The Wukong, since they are magical and acrobatic, love attention, meeting other races, and sometimes, tricking, and stealing from them. They are always willing to join adventurer’s party, hardly questioning the difficulty or the purpose.
Friendly, but Misunderstood The Wukong argue much amongst themselves, but many have a forgiving nature since this is the the way of the Wukong. There is never a problem, it’s just another day, except that once in a while in their family tree, a fruit bears very bad seeds.
Dwarves. “Dwarves always seem angry, but we know it’s not because of something we have done, although stealing from them does make them so. But many times, they use our services, and we get them something they need and if you do this enough times, even a Dwarf’s stone heart will let them smile and make a long friendship.”
Elves. “Many Wood Elves live with us. They protect the forests and we help them. We trade with them and they seem very forgiving when one of our troop did something wrong. They are very kind to our race.”
Halflings. “Halflings are great folk! They have so much food, that we don’t even have to beg or steal from them! But if anyone were to interfere with them, out troop will deal with them happily.”
Humans. “Some hate us, some like us. Sometimes it’s our fault, but other times they hate us, because they hate anything they do not know. We see how they treat other races, and they hate them too, for no reason! But then, out of nowhere, they’ll treat us again with great kindness. Sometimes I think we are the ones most closely related to them, because of our chaotic nature.”
Wukong Names A Wukong addresses people with his surname first, and then his first name. Many times they choose Wukong as their last name, because they are proud direct descendants of Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.
Male Names: Zhang Wei, Wang Wei, Li Wei,Liu Wei, Li Qiang, Wang lei, Li Jun, Wang Yong, Zhang Yong, Li Jie, Zhang Lei, Wang Qiang, Wang Jun, Zhang Jie, Zhang Tao, Wang Tao, Li Ming, Wang Chao, Li Yong, Liu Jie, Zhang Jun, Zhang Qiang, Wang Ping, Wang Gang, Wang Jie
Female Names: Wang Fang, Wang Xiu Ying, Li Xiu Ying, Li Na, Zhang Xiu Ying, Zhang Min, Li Jing, Zhang Li, Wang Jing, Wang Li, Zhang Jing, Li Min, Wang Min, Liu Yang, Wang Yan, Li Juan, Zhang Yan, Li Yan, Wang Juan, Wang Xiu Lan, Li Xia, Liu Min, Li Li, Li Gui Ying, Liu Fang.
Surnames: Wukong, Liang/Leung, Luo, Kuang, Chan/Chen, Liang, Lu, Zhang/Chong, Zheng, Lin, Xǔ, Xie, Wang, Xú, Zhu, Wang, Yang, Mao, Shen, Hu, Tan, He, Deng, Wu, Yang, Chen, Gao, Wan, Xue, Bao, Ma, Kong, Dong, Guo, Pan, Yu.
Wukong Traits Your Wukong character has a variety of natural and magical abilities, the result of many magical blessings by Sun Wukong, the Monkey God.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and Charisma by 1.
Age. The Wukong reach physical maturity at 12 years old and live up to approximately 50 years old.
Alignment. The Wukong love freedom, are adventurous, and carefree. So much so, much of their behavior is impulsive. Some act on their gut feeling, doing what they believe is right, not caring what others think of them. Others just go with the moment instead of considering outcomes. But very few are wild and are violent falling to their desires
Size. The Wukong range from 4 to 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Simius. Wukong interact with each other using a variety of facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, and gestures. They can read and write at mostly a basic level.
Prehensile tail. A Wukong can pick up, hold up to 18 lbs., and can hang from it’s tale.
Inborn Movement. Being both arboreal and terrestrial, bipedal and quadrupedal, and traveling between arid, open areas, grasslands, woodlands, and in mountainous, they can climb, crawl, and swim with no penalties.
Wild Life. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Monkey God lesser resistance to magic. You have advantage on saving throws against fire and water based magic attacks. All magic damage is reduced by half.
Reduced Falling Damage. Check is done with advantage due to also being able to use their tail to grab and stop falling. Reduce damage you take by half your check result (round down). If damage is reduced to 0, then he lands standing.
Wukong Armor Training. You have proficiency with hide, breastplate, chain mail, and chain shirt armor.
Wukong Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the glaive, halberd, pike, longbow, and long sword. Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.
Natural Strength. All strength and athletics checks are done with dexterity instead.
The text with the Wukongs' opinion on dwarves, elves, and humans is usually not included in uncommon races.
For Inborn Movement I suggest a climbing and swimming speed of 30 feet and that's it.
Natural Strength should be renamed and athletics is already a strength check.
Reduced Falling Damage deserves a new name. Perhaps something like Simian Agility. If you want to embrace the acrobatic nature of monkeys, I suggest removing Wild Life and giving proficiency in acrobatics here.
Monkey God, Wukong Armor Training, and Wukong Weapon Training all come out of left field for me. There's no explanation of the armor and weapon proficiency in the text. The first part of Monkey God is not inherit to the structure of 5th edition spells and the second part is possibly the most powerful feature in all of D&D; as it would stack with resistance.
Instead of this, going back to their innate magic, I would give them an innate spellcasting trait. I suggest Charisma as the spellcasting ability and choosing spells from the Bard or Druid spell lists.
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
The reason why I chose a climbing and swimming feet of 35, is because that is what wood elves have and they are the closest in design. Also I don't see how a monkey humanoid can only go 30ft whereas a wood elf can go 35. Also, since I modeled this race after Sun Wukong, who is highly magical and who is a Rhesus macaque humanoid, swimming should not be a problem, especially since what I wrote about their swimming is scientific fact.
I kinda explained it a little, but I guess I should go deeper into it, but the reason why their weapon training is so is because, again, they are modeled after Sun Wukong who uses a cudgel so they use weapons similar to him and also they use weapons that are more eastern martial arts. Also, since many of them are polearms, the share the same traits which makes choosing one over another not much of a difference and really just for flavor. The same goes with the armor, especially since they fight and steal and the armor that I chose fits those two categories and of course, chain mail is what Sun Wukong wore.
As far as spellcasting goes, I was going to create a class called trickster which would fit them very well. The fight, they steal, and they use arcane trickster which closely emulates the Monkey God himself which is what they are shooting for.
Thanks for the help!
I've really only made a homebrew race that's a complete knock-off of Dragonborn, but for input...! Their alignment description is kind of in "word salad" territory for me, grammatically. Maybe something more like, "The Wukong are rarely malevolent with their treachery, though prone to impulsive and slightly chaotic behavior. Their naturally forgiving nature combines with this to make them mostly neutral; individuals who err more towards greed and thrive on this chaos are rare."
I don't know if it's been talked about here, but maybe consider checking with something like this: http://zappyman2.wixsite.com/musicushomebrew/homebrew-races
I will say, thematically, I think I would be of the opinion that nixing the swimming speed to go with just land speed/climbing speed like the Tabaxi would be more straight-forward and not complicate the race. Technically, all humans are capable of climbing, swimming and walking but if we were meant to always climb, we'd still have tails for balancing; if we were meant to still be swimming, we would have evolved more like whales or pinnipeds.
I would also look into maybe doing a simpler sub-class for them that maybe gives a Treachery Domain / Arcane Trickster style of fighting as a Monk Monastic Tradition. Making custom stuff for D&D is a lot of fun, obviously, but don't push yourself to reinvent the wheel.
The class you've described is an arcane trickster.
On a more central note, I'm not seeing the wukong as just the children of Sun Wukong but also as monkey people. So while a cleric of the monkey god may have proficiency in heavy armor, it doesn't make sense why a monk wukong would have heavy armor proficiency just because they may worship a god that wears heavy armor.
Tooltips | Snippet Code | How to Homebrew on D&D Beyond | Subclass Guide | Feature Roadmap
Astromancer's Homebrew Assembly
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
The chain mail was a mistake of editing, sorry and thank you!