Hello! Trying my hand again at a playable myconid race for 5th edition. What do you think? I accept all criticism and verily appreciate the constructive kind!
Myconid Adventurers
Ability Score Increase Your Wisdom score increases by 2.
Age Myconids have a long lifespan, often reaching well over a century. They reach maturity at around 20 years of age and then age slowly.
Alignment Myconids tend to be neutral in alignment, valuing harmony with nature and peaceful coexistence with others.
Size Myconids can range in height from 4 to 6 feet and weigh between 60 to 177 pounds, making them Medium-sized creatures.
Speed Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Darkvision You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colors in darkness, only shades of gray.
Languages Myconids are a non-verbal race, communicating solely through telepathy facilitated by the connection formed via their spores. You can telepathically communicate with other Myconids within 120 feet of you and with other creatures affected by your Rapport Spores.
Rapport Spores A 20-foot radius of spores extends from you. These spores can go around corners and affect only creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or higher that aren't undead, constructs, or elementals. Affected creatures can communicate telepathically with each other and you while they are within 30 feet of each other. The effect lasts for 1 hour.
Animating Spores As an action, you can release spores at the corpse of a medium-sized or smaller beast or humanoid creature within 5 feet of you. The spores infuse the corpse, animating it as a Spore Servant within ten minutes. The Spore Servant becomes undead and falls under your control. The Spore Servant uses the zombie stat block from the Monster Manual. You can animate a number of Spore Servants per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier. Each Spore Servant remains animated for up to 24 hours, until you dismiss it, or until it is destroyed. Once the animation ends, the creature cannot be animated in this way again.
Subraces: Sporewarden and Sporebearer
Sporewarden
Ability Score Increase Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Fungal Resilience Your connection to the spores enhances your resilience. You have an advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage. Additionally, you gain proficiency in the Medicine skill.
Sporebearer
Ability Score Increase Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Sporeborne Charm Your rapport spores possess a more enchanting quality, allowing you to forge simple and lasting connections with other creatures. When using your Rapport Spores, affected creatures remain under their effects for an additional hour. Additionally, the range of telepathic communication between creatures increases to 35 feet.
ASIs seem sensible, darkvision is a no-brainer, below-average speed makes sense.
Specifically being non-verbal and using a special form of telepathy is funky, but gives you a pretty unique angle to work with. Potential for funky interactions, especially if your party consists of non-humanoids.
Being able to summon zombies I'm sure is going to make you popular with the paladins, but ethics issues aside that's 2+ zombies per long rest (as long as you have, like, rats to work with). They don't scale aside from your proficiency bonus, but below level 10 that's at minimum a ton of extra meat shields. Sidenote, do you command them as a bonus action, do they get their own initiative?... Most pet subclasses like Drakewarden will define that. This isn't a subclass, but the same principle applies.
Since they don't scale, they'll vary pretty heavily in effectiveness thoughout the player's career. At level 1 they're almost as durable as the Barbarian, while at level 20 it's a miracle if they sponge more than 1 hit. Maybe making the subraces modify the spore zombies could be something? Might need to take away power in other areas to make up for it though.
As for the subraces themselves, it's understandable that they're pretty basic since the base class has so much going on. Feels like the choice is barely impactful with how much the race is doing, though. Sporebearer seems odd in that, narratively, 1 hour is basically as long as the DM wants it to be unless they're counting things minute by minute. So that benefit barely exists. Meanwhile, the range increase might actually be nice, but with the effect lasting 1 hour it's unlikely you won't be able to get in range when you need to. But also, 35 feet is kind of a weird distance in D&D - it's a bit further than you can walk, but doesn't break most significant benchmarks. And it's also just a nonstandard number for ranges in general. Maybe increase it to 60 feet to make it look nice?
Overall: neat race, a lot of built-in flavor, potential for conflict in several spicy ways. I'd play it.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I found it very insightful.
As to the Zombies, I see your point on the turn order question. My initial intention was to give them their own initiative since these creatures are a 'use later' rather than immediately in a combat situation via the 10 minute animation rule. I know a character with this ability will be strong in low levels but not at all in higher levels. I debated making the zombies last longer, or limiting the amount of zombie 'pets' and increasing the numbers at higher levels but didn't want to complicate or slow down combat. I will think on how to update this power as you suggest with a mention of turn order.
A little insight on the design goals: I have been planning an Underdark campaign for my close friends and one of my best friends googled ideas for characters or something and within ten minutes had not only immediately wanted to play a myconid but apparently had seen the monster stat block and this ability. They were enamoured with the idea of animating dear and beloved dead pets and animals they came across as the flood of hand drawn images which came in within another ten minutes of expressing my desire for such a campaign made it clear to me I had to find a way to balance this ability, so it's the most important thing for this creature based on my table's needs and desires.
On to the Rapport Spores, I very much like your suggestion.
For some reason I keep running into people who think Rapport Spores is OP and I don't believe they are thinking on the limtations of it. Telepathy is amazing, I do understand this, but I don't think they realize a myconid cannot communicate either direction with non myconids past a move action. Being unable to yell down a hall or tunnel is going to severely impact them more often than I believe the telepathy will be helpful. Plus it's a cannon ability for the creatures as they are non-verbal (no mouths) in cannon lore.
Since the Sporebearer is my intentional 'ambassadors' of the species to the Sporewarden's 'defender' I believe your feedback is right to what I'd alter. As to the additional hour, I know exactly what you mean and every table will have their own way of doing it. I'm likely to leave it in for table inteprutation as you pointed out every table can make their own decision on what it means to them. I'm sure some tables using this creature block may even ignore the limitations entirely. Others may go down to the minute with in and out of game time representing said hour(s). Who knows? The 60 feet however, I think is exactly the direction I'm going to go.
Actionably, I think you may be right on the limitation of 1 zombie at a time, I may drop the 24 hour existance rule and allow the creature to be continuous instead of allowing the Myconid to wander around with two at a time, making a 'pet' more something you can hold onto for long term. As for an increase in power at a later level, this is also something that the previous commenter had mentioned. Perhaps a Greater Zombie rather than 2 pets, because maybe this creature is leaning toward a combat slog if I'm not careful and a one pet system per creatures/classes that have pets is the system to stick with.
I appreciate you taking the time to review and respond.
Here is an alternative version of Animating Spores I'm thinking of using. I could use some further feedback if you have any!
Animating Spores As an action, you can release spores at the corpse of a medium-sized or smaller beast or humanoid creature within 5 feet of you. The spores infuse the corpse, animating it as a Spore Servant within ten minutes. The Spore Servant becomes undead and falls under your control. The Spore Servant uses the zombie stat block from the Monster Manual.
Control: You can control only one Spore Servant at a time. If you attempt to animate another Spore Servant, the previous one is automatically dismissed. You can dismiss a Spore Servant as a bonus action. Duration: The Spore Servant remains animated until it is dismissed by you, destroyed, or becomes inert. If it becomes inert, it can be reanimated with a new use of this ability. While inert, the Spore Servant is in a dormant state, and it can't take any actions. It becomes inert after 24 hours of continuous animation, during a long rest, or if it is reduced to 0 hit points. Scaling: The Spore Servant's statistics improve as follows:
7th Level: Hit Points increase to 35 (5d8 + 10). 11th Level: Hit Points increase to 48 (6d8 + 12). 11th Level: The Slam attack becomes more accurate and deals increased damage: Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage.
If it were me I would treat the zombies as more disposable rather than long-term. Maybe make it 1 zombie per short rest, but it lasts for a number of hours equal to your PB or something, and if you make one while you have one the first one dies. Give it a boost in HP if you want to, make it equal to 4× your PB or something if you want. I’ve found that HP doesn’t really matter so much with zombies, its the Undead Fortitude that really makes them survivable. What I would do is boost their Attack and Damage bonuses equal to the character’s PB. That would actually make a difference.
I like this overall, but the Animating Spores is way, way too good for a Racial trait. This is something that every Myconid can do? Turning a dead body into a zombie is the Animate Dead spell... a 3rd level spell with a casting time of 1 minute. And at level 1 a Barbarian could, while raging, create two zombies mid-combat.
It's closer, perhaps, to the Spores Druid's Fungal Infestation feature, which doesn't come online until level 6.
Although one detail of Fungal Infestation is that the Zombie is animated with just 1 hit point, to make up for the fact that it's triggered as a reaction. I think if you made that change, it would help to balance this feature out a bit so it's not so overpowered. Here's what I would say... you need to either drastically tone down the power of the zombie created by Animating Spores, or you have to change it so that Animating Spores doesn't come online until a higher level. I think, no matter what you do, this should just be a once-per-day feature, not something that scales with Proficiency Bonus. Keep in mind that this is a racial feature that will be given to all members of this race regardless of class... if someone really wants to control a bunch of zombies, there are subclasses they can take instead.
I agree the drow Sunlight Sensitivity trait seems a good balance to the 120ft darkvision (but without the adult myconid trait that they die after 1 hour in direct sunlight!).
Languages: how does telepathy interact with spells with verbal components? Are you unable to communicate with party members who may be undead or constructs? Can creatures refuse the spores (could be a Constitution saving throw using the wording from vortex warp)? Possibly the inability to play a verbal spellcaster would help balance the utility of free telepathy. Some suggestions below.
Rapport Spores
As an action, you release a 20-foot-radius sphere of spores from your body. These spores spread around corners and hang in the air for 1 round, after which they disperse harmlessly. The spores are visible as a faint mist, but do not obscure the area. The spores affect creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or higher that aren't undead, constructs, or elementals. Affected creatures can communicate telepathically with each other and you while they are within 30 feet of each other. The effect lasts for 24 hours.
The ability to create an independent creature is powerful, even if the creature isn't very strong - you could use it as a distraction, command it to talk into traps, and so on.
For comparison, this is the Druid of Spores feature:
Fungal Infestation
At 6th level, your spores gain the ability to infest a corpse and animate it. If a beast or a humanoid that is Small or Medium dies within 10 feet of you, you can use your reaction to animate it, causing it to stand up immediately with 1 hit point. The creature uses the Zombie stat block in the Monster Manual. It remains animate for 1 hour, after which time it collapses and dies.
In combat, the zombie's turn comes immediately after yours. It obeys your mental commands, and the only action it can take is the Attack action, making one melee attack.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Since animate dead is a 3rd level spell, I wonder if it would be more balanced if the feature came online at 5th level - comparable to drow, fairy, or fire genasi which get a 2nd or 3rd level spell at 5th level.
Animating Spores
Starting at 5th level, you can cast the animate dead spell once with this trait, without requiring a verbal or material component, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. A creature reanimated using this feature collapses and dies if it leaves your control.
If your player is more interested in a menagerie of small zombie creatures, perhaps a spin on find familiar or conjure animals might work instead.
Great thoughts here. I really appreciate you taking the time to go through it. I'm going to work on a new version of this with all the feedback I've been getting. A lot of great ideas.
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Hello! Trying my hand again at a playable myconid race for 5th edition.
What do you think? I accept all criticism and verily appreciate the constructive kind!
Myconid Adventurers
Ability Score Increase
Your Wisdom score increases by 2.
Age
Myconids have a long lifespan, often reaching well over a century. They reach maturity at around 20 years of age and then age slowly.
Alignment
Myconids tend to be neutral in alignment, valuing harmony with nature and peaceful coexistence with others.
Size
Myconids can range in height from 4 to 6 feet and weigh between 60 to 177 pounds, making them Medium-sized creatures.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colors in darkness, only shades of gray.
Languages
Myconids are a non-verbal race, communicating solely through telepathy facilitated by the connection formed via their spores. You can telepathically communicate with other Myconids within 120 feet of you and with other creatures affected by your Rapport Spores.
Rapport Spores
A 20-foot radius of spores extends from you. These spores can go around corners and affect only creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or higher that aren't undead, constructs, or elementals. Affected creatures can communicate telepathically with each other and you while they are within 30 feet of each other. The effect lasts for 1 hour.
Animating Spores
As an action, you can release spores at the corpse of a medium-sized or smaller beast or humanoid creature within 5 feet of you. The spores infuse the corpse, animating it as a Spore Servant within ten minutes. The Spore Servant becomes undead and falls under your control. The Spore Servant uses the zombie stat block from the Monster Manual. You can animate a number of Spore Servants per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier. Each Spore Servant remains animated for up to 24 hours, until you dismiss it, or until it is destroyed. Once the animation ends, the creature cannot be animated in this way again.
Subraces: Sporewarden and Sporebearer
Sporewarden
Ability Score Increase
Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Fungal Resilience
Your connection to the spores enhances your resilience. You have an advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage. Additionally, you gain proficiency in the Medicine skill.
Sporebearer
Ability Score Increase
Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Sporeborne Charm
Your rapport spores possess a more enchanting quality, allowing you to forge simple and lasting connections with other creatures. When using your Rapport Spores, affected creatures remain under their effects for an additional hour. Additionally, the range of telepathic communication between creatures increases to 35 feet.
Mushroom guys! This looks cute.
ASIs seem sensible, darkvision is a no-brainer, below-average speed makes sense.
Specifically being non-verbal and using a special form of telepathy is funky, but gives you a pretty unique angle to work with. Potential for funky interactions, especially if your party consists of non-humanoids.
Being able to summon zombies I'm sure is going to make you popular with the paladins, but ethics issues aside that's 2+ zombies per long rest (as long as you have, like, rats to work with). They don't scale aside from your proficiency bonus, but below level 10 that's at minimum a ton of extra meat shields. Sidenote, do you command them as a bonus action, do they get their own initiative?... Most pet subclasses like Drakewarden will define that. This isn't a subclass, but the same principle applies.
Since they don't scale, they'll vary pretty heavily in effectiveness thoughout the player's career. At level 1 they're almost as durable as the Barbarian, while at level 20 it's a miracle if they sponge more than 1 hit. Maybe making the subraces modify the spore zombies could be something? Might need to take away power in other areas to make up for it though.
As for the subraces themselves, it's understandable that they're pretty basic since the base class has so much going on. Feels like the choice is barely impactful with how much the race is doing, though. Sporebearer seems odd in that, narratively, 1 hour is basically as long as the DM wants it to be unless they're counting things minute by minute. So that benefit barely exists. Meanwhile, the range increase might actually be nice, but with the effect lasting 1 hour it's unlikely you won't be able to get in range when you need to. But also, 35 feet is kind of a weird distance in D&D - it's a bit further than you can walk, but doesn't break most significant benchmarks. And it's also just a nonstandard number for ranges in general. Maybe increase it to 60 feet to make it look nice?
Overall: neat race, a lot of built-in flavor, potential for conflict in several spicy ways. I'd play it.
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Thank you very much for your feedback. I found it very insightful.
As to the Zombies, I see your point on the turn order question. My initial intention was to give them their own initiative since these creatures are a 'use later' rather than immediately in a combat situation via the 10 minute animation rule. I know a character with this ability will be strong in low levels but not at all in higher levels. I debated making the zombies last longer, or limiting the amount of zombie 'pets' and increasing the numbers at higher levels but didn't want to complicate or slow down combat. I will think on how to update this power as you suggest with a mention of turn order.
A little insight on the design goals: I have been planning an Underdark campaign for my close friends and one of my best friends googled ideas for characters or something and within ten minutes had not only immediately wanted to play a myconid but apparently had seen the monster stat block and this ability. They were enamoured with the idea of animating dear and beloved dead pets and animals they came across as the flood of hand drawn images which came in within another ten minutes of expressing my desire for such a campaign made it clear to me I had to find a way to balance this ability, so it's the most important thing for this creature based on my table's needs and desires.
On to the Rapport Spores, I very much like your suggestion.
For some reason I keep running into people who think Rapport Spores is OP and I don't believe they are thinking on the limtations of it. Telepathy is amazing, I do understand this, but I don't think they realize a myconid cannot communicate either direction with non myconids past a move action. Being unable to yell down a hall or tunnel is going to severely impact them more often than I believe the telepathy will be helpful. Plus it's a cannon ability for the creatures as they are non-verbal (no mouths) in cannon lore.
Since the Sporebearer is my intentional 'ambassadors' of the species to the Sporewarden's 'defender' I believe your feedback is right to what I'd alter. As to the additional hour, I know exactly what you mean and every table will have their own way of doing it. I'm likely to leave it in for table inteprutation as you pointed out every table can make their own decision on what it means to them. I'm sure some tables using this creature block may even ignore the limitations entirely. Others may go down to the minute with in and out of game time representing said hour(s). Who knows? The 60 feet however, I think is exactly the direction I'm going to go.
Thank you again for your time and feedback.
For the more recent species, the ASIs have been standardized to +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to any stats the player chooses.
Age and Alignment are also no longer traits at all.
For the zombies, I would limit it to 1 zombie at a time, and then let it be up to 2 at a time starting at 11th level or something.
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Thank you for your feedback.
Actionably, I think you may be right on the limitation of 1 zombie at a time, I may drop the 24 hour existance rule and allow the creature to be continuous instead of allowing the Myconid to wander around with two at a time, making a 'pet' more something you can hold onto for long term. As for an increase in power at a later level, this is also something that the previous commenter had mentioned. Perhaps a Greater Zombie rather than 2 pets, because maybe this creature is leaning toward a combat slog if I'm not careful and a one pet system per creatures/classes that have pets is the system to stick with.
I appreciate you taking the time to review and respond.
Here is an alternative version of Animating Spores I'm thinking of using. I could use some further feedback if you have any!
Animating Spores
As an action, you can release spores at the corpse of a medium-sized or smaller beast or humanoid creature within 5 feet of you. The spores infuse the corpse, animating it as a Spore Servant within ten minutes. The Spore Servant becomes undead and falls under your control. The Spore Servant uses the zombie stat block from the Monster Manual.
Control: You can control only one Spore Servant at a time. If you attempt to animate another Spore Servant, the previous one is automatically dismissed. You can dismiss a Spore Servant as a bonus action.
Duration: The Spore Servant remains animated until it is dismissed by you, destroyed, or becomes inert. If it becomes inert, it can be reanimated with a new use of this ability. While inert, the Spore Servant is in a dormant state, and it can't take any actions. It becomes inert after 24 hours of continuous animation, during a long rest, or if it is reduced to 0 hit points.
Scaling: The Spore Servant's statistics improve as follows:
7th Level: Hit Points increase to 35 (5d8 + 10).
11th Level: Hit Points increase to 48 (6d8 + 12).
11th Level: The Slam attack becomes more accurate and deals increased damage:
Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage.
If it were me I would treat the zombies as more disposable rather than long-term. Maybe make it 1 zombie per short rest, but it lasts for a number of hours equal to your PB or something, and if you make one while you have one the first one dies. Give it a boost in HP if you want to, make it equal to 4× your PB or something if you want. I’ve found that HP doesn’t really matter so much with zombies, its the Undead Fortitude that really makes them survivable. What I would do is boost their Attack and Damage bonuses equal to the character’s PB. That would actually make a difference.
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I like this overall, but the Animating Spores is way, way too good for a Racial trait. This is something that every Myconid can do? Turning a dead body into a zombie is the Animate Dead spell... a 3rd level spell with a casting time of 1 minute. And at level 1 a Barbarian could, while raging, create two zombies mid-combat.
It's closer, perhaps, to the Spores Druid's Fungal Infestation feature, which doesn't come online until level 6.
Although one detail of Fungal Infestation is that the Zombie is animated with just 1 hit point, to make up for the fact that it's triggered as a reaction. I think if you made that change, it would help to balance this feature out a bit so it's not so overpowered. Here's what I would say... you need to either drastically tone down the power of the zombie created by Animating Spores, or you have to change it so that Animating Spores doesn't come online until a higher level. I think, no matter what you do, this should just be a once-per-day feature, not something that scales with Proficiency Bonus. Keep in mind that this is a racial feature that will be given to all members of this race regardless of class... if someone really wants to control a bunch of zombies, there are subclasses they can take instead.
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You could even add a Sunlight Sensitivity much like that of the drow's to balance it out. Overall though, I think this race is pretty good.
Ooh, myconids are neat!
I agree the drow Sunlight Sensitivity trait seems a good balance to the 120ft darkvision (but without the adult myconid trait that they die after 1 hour in direct sunlight!).
Languages: how does telepathy interact with spells with verbal components? Are you unable to communicate with party members who may be undead or constructs? Can creatures refuse the spores (could be a Constitution saving throw using the wording from vortex warp)? Possibly the inability to play a verbal spellcaster would help balance the utility of free telepathy. Some suggestions below.
The ability to create an independent creature is powerful, even if the creature isn't very strong - you could use it as a distraction, command it to talk into traps, and so on.
For comparison, this is the Druid of Spores feature:
Since animate dead is a 3rd level spell, I wonder if it would be more balanced if the feature came online at 5th level - comparable to drow, fairy, or fire genasi which get a 2nd or 3rd level spell at 5th level.
If your player is more interested in a menagerie of small zombie creatures, perhaps a spin on find familiar or conjure animals might work instead.
Currently homebrewing the Mistveil Rogue, an elusive infiltrator that can vanish into thin air.
Thanks for the idea, seems reasonable.
Great thoughts here.
I really appreciate you taking the time to go through it.
I'm going to work on a new version of this with all the feedback I've been getting. A lot of great ideas.