So... Hi. My (user-)name is KSG-Kasuga, but y'all can just call me Kas or KSG. Apologies in advance for my casualness/ignorance/lack of knowledge/understanding if anyone reading this gets annoyed.
I'm a bit of a newcomer to DnD and this is my first time posting on this forum. I've been playing for a couple months now and figured I might dabble in a little homebrew to experiment with a couple things. One of those things is, as the title says, is whether it's possible to make a 5e Marilith as a player character that isn't of any type of evil alignment - without breaking the game - and how would it go.
I'm someone with a bit of imagination and once I got into reading the source materials for 5e I got curious about a couple things, like a few of the more humanoid monsters in the Monster Manuel like mariliths, dryads, driders, erinyes, onis etc. Granted, I know for a fact that some of them are outright impossible, if not from a game-balance standpoint then from a storytelling one, (e.g. in terms of personality at least, driders in DnD are no better than other monsters due to their bloodlust/dependence) but I'm just a curious guy with, tbh, too much free time on his hands and wants to experiment with what's already been established over the years. So LET ME COOK, DANG IT!
Anyway, why I chose mariliths in particular is because if lamia characters can be created/homebrewed, and if tieflings with a marilith bloodline are possible, what's stopping me from choosing a "proper" non-evil marilith? Well, I though things through whilst writing this post and a couple problems propped up. Firstly, and most obviously, their 6 arms and their proficiency with them. As someone who loves to duel wield weapons, I know how much damage having a weapon in each hand can deal. Multiplying that by 3, I can just imagine the DM I regularly play with ripping his ponytail off out of frustration, not to mention the fact that they can do this with longswords. And that's before we start discussing magic, because iirc mariliths can use 2 of their 6 hands to cast magic whilst still fighting with the other 4. I'm aware that this all basically gets put under Multiattack with both it's longswords and it's tail that it can use to grapple it's opponents, but it just seems a little too powerful for a player-created character. I could probably get away with a simple Duel-Wielding
Secondly is once again magic. Setting aside what I mentioned earlier with, what I'm going to nickname, hextuple-wielding weapons with all 6 arms, they can also teleport and gate. While I've yet to actually see Gate in use, and I'm aware that for player characters the ability usually can only be used once or twice once every long rest, being able to move such distances with ease like that seems too convenient whether it's from point A to B within 120 ft. or to another Plane.
Thirdly is the fact that a standard marilith has a natural armor class of 18. While it's not the highest armor class out there compared to other monsters, it's still right up there with most young dragons and even a couple adult ones as well. Having seen how important armor class is (read as: having been incapacitated many, many times, in a row, due to a lack thereof) this is yet another thing that sticks out as something that needs rebalancing if I were to go through with this whole thing.
And lastly, is just the fact that mariliths, and Tanar'ri as a whole, are almost always evil. While I did say almost all, and I know that it isn't that big a deal compared to all the other things I listed, I'm someone that prefers to not play an evil character if I can help it. According to what I've read, it's very rare for any type of Tanar'ri to turn away from evil, and those that did eventually "relapse" and go back to what they did best. And even fewer actually stay good for the rest of their lives. I'm aware that I might've basically answered my own question, but if I'm making a background for a character that's basically born for the sole purpose of being chaotic evil, how do I do it in a way that allows me to at least remove the "evil" bit without creating a Mary Sue-like character.
Anyway, these paragraphs are all just food for thought to feed my curiosity with the massive story- telling potential that DnD specializes with. I know that this is probably a tall order at best and impossible at worst, but I really want to try and make it happen, even if I have to jump through more than a few hoops to do so. So If anyone's patient enough to read and listen to my plea for help, please don't hesitate to reply and let me know what you think.
Do you want to make a character who's actually a marilith, i.e. a very powerful fiend? They're CR 16, meaning they would be a difficult foe for a full team of high level characters. In a high level campaign, maybe it could work, but you wouldn't get any class levels since you're already so powerful. The marilith's multi-attack for seven attacks in a round could get frustrating for other players having to wait through that many rolls.
A weaker version of the character could be a banished/cursed marilith who only retains a fraction of their power and is questing to get it back. Or a mortal polymorphed/cursed into that shape, maybe through a demonic pact. Perhaps a marilith has been sworn to a good cause, or is still evil but in order to defeat the BBEG of your campaign, is willing to work with a good party.
A marilith tiefling kinda creature sounds interesting, both the tiefling and yuan-ti (snake guys) player races could be flavored that way.
One thing you can do is build a character following the existing rules that does what you want mechanically - resistance to fire/poison, multiple attacks per round, ability to teleport, etc. That gives you numbers and mechanics that don't break the game, and once you have that, you ask your DM if you can use this build to represent a marilith. We had a player who wanted to be a human wrangler who was a pro with a whip. Mechanically, she was a bugbear swarmkeeper ranger. The bugbear race gave her reach, and the swarmkeeper subclass gave her the ability to throw or pull things - except we called it a whip, not a swarm of bugs.
So long as your DM is okay with it, you can change the aesthetic of base elements to whatever you want it to be.
A yuan-ti fighter battlemaster with the fey-touched feat might get you started.
Yuan-ti race: gets you darkvision, poison resistance and magic resistance.
Fighter battle master: gets you extra attacks at 5th, 11th and 20th level, and action surge at 2nd level lets you make those attacks again. It also gives you maneuvers including parry, which the marilith has.
Fey-touched feat: gets you one free misty step (teleport) per day, and one 1st level spell of your choice.
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Currently homebrewing the Mistveil Rogue, an elusive infiltrator that can vanish into thin air.
The closest you could get to a Marilith is level 20 Loxodon Eldritch Knight Fighter with a Mantle of Spell Resistance, Armor of Invulnerability, and a Ring of Fire Resistance.
Marilith -> Character's Equivalent Magic Resistance -> Mantle of Spell Resistance Tail -> Loxodon's Trunk Many arms -> Fighter's improved Multiattack + Dual Wielding Feat -> grants 5 attacks with a longsword per turn Parry -> Shield Spell Teleport -> Misty Step or Dimension Door Spell Damage resistances -> Armor of Invulnerability / Ring of Fire Resistance
Alternatively, a level 17+ Wizard could True Polymorph you into a Marilith.
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So... Hi. My (user-)name is KSG-Kasuga, but y'all can just call me Kas or KSG. Apologies in advance for my casualness/ignorance/lack of knowledge/understanding if anyone reading this gets annoyed.
I'm a bit of a newcomer to DnD and this is my first time posting on this forum. I've been playing for a couple months now and figured I might dabble in a little homebrew to experiment with a couple things. One of those things is, as the title says, is whether it's possible to make a 5e Marilith as a player character that isn't of any type of evil alignment - without breaking the game - and how would it go.
I'm someone with a bit of imagination and once I got into reading the source materials for 5e I got curious about a couple things, like a few of the more humanoid monsters in the Monster Manuel like mariliths, dryads, driders, erinyes, onis etc. Granted, I know for a fact that some of them are outright impossible, if not from a game-balance standpoint then from a storytelling one, (e.g. in terms of personality at least, driders in DnD are no better than other monsters due to their bloodlust/dependence) but I'm just a curious guy with, tbh, too much free time on his hands and wants to experiment with what's already been established over the years. So LET ME COOK, DANG IT!
Anyway, why I chose mariliths in particular is because if lamia characters can be created/homebrewed, and if tieflings with a marilith bloodline are possible, what's stopping me from choosing a "proper" non-evil marilith? Well, I though things through whilst writing this post and a couple problems propped up. Firstly, and most obviously, their 6 arms and their proficiency with them. As someone who loves to duel wield weapons, I know how much damage having a weapon in each hand can deal. Multiplying that by 3, I can just imagine the DM I regularly play with ripping his ponytail off out of frustration, not to mention the fact that they can do this with longswords. And that's before we start discussing magic, because iirc mariliths can use 2 of their 6 hands to cast magic whilst still fighting with the other 4. I'm aware that this all basically gets put under Multiattack with both it's longswords and it's tail that it can use to grapple it's opponents, but it just seems a little too powerful for a player-created character. I could probably get away with a simple Duel-Wielding
Secondly is once again magic. Setting aside what I mentioned earlier with, what I'm going to nickname, hextuple-wielding weapons with all 6 arms, they can also teleport and gate. While I've yet to actually see Gate in use, and I'm aware that for player characters the ability usually can only be used once or twice once every long rest, being able to move such distances with ease like that seems too convenient whether it's from point A to B within 120 ft. or to another Plane.
Thirdly is the fact that a standard marilith has a natural armor class of 18. While it's not the highest armor class out there compared to other monsters, it's still right up there with most young dragons and even a couple adult ones as well. Having seen how important armor class is (read as: having been incapacitated many, many times, in a row, due to a lack thereof) this is yet another thing that sticks out as something that needs rebalancing if I were to go through with this whole thing.
And lastly, is just the fact that mariliths, and Tanar'ri as a whole, are almost always evil. While I did say almost all, and I know that it isn't that big a deal compared to all the other things I listed, I'm someone that prefers to not play an evil character if I can help it. According to what I've read, it's very rare for any type of Tanar'ri to turn away from evil, and those that did eventually "relapse" and go back to what they did best. And even fewer actually stay good for the rest of their lives. I'm aware that I might've basically answered my own question, but if I'm making a background for a character that's basically born for the sole purpose of being chaotic evil, how do I do it in a way that allows me to at least remove the "evil" bit without creating a Mary Sue-like character.
Anyway, these paragraphs are all just food for thought to feed my curiosity with the massive story- telling potential that DnD specializes with. I know that this is probably a tall order at best and impossible at worst, but I really want to try and make it happen, even if I have to jump through more than a few hoops to do so. So If anyone's patient enough to read and listen to my plea for help, please don't hesitate to reply and let me know what you think.
Do you want to make a character who's actually a marilith, i.e. a very powerful fiend? They're CR 16, meaning they would be a difficult foe for a full team of high level characters. In a high level campaign, maybe it could work, but you wouldn't get any class levels since you're already so powerful. The marilith's multi-attack for seven attacks in a round could get frustrating for other players having to wait through that many rolls.
A weaker version of the character could be a banished/cursed marilith who only retains a fraction of their power and is questing to get it back. Or a mortal polymorphed/cursed into that shape, maybe through a demonic pact. Perhaps a marilith has been sworn to a good cause, or is still evil but in order to defeat the BBEG of your campaign, is willing to work with a good party.
A marilith tiefling kinda creature sounds interesting, both the tiefling and yuan-ti (snake guys) player races could be flavored that way.
One thing you can do is build a character following the existing rules that does what you want mechanically - resistance to fire/poison, multiple attacks per round, ability to teleport, etc. That gives you numbers and mechanics that don't break the game, and once you have that, you ask your DM if you can use this build to represent a marilith. We had a player who wanted to be a human wrangler who was a pro with a whip. Mechanically, she was a bugbear swarmkeeper ranger. The bugbear race gave her reach, and the swarmkeeper subclass gave her the ability to throw or pull things - except we called it a whip, not a swarm of bugs.
So long as your DM is okay with it, you can change the aesthetic of base elements to whatever you want it to be.
A yuan-ti fighter battlemaster with the fey-touched feat might get you started.
Currently homebrewing the Mistveil Rogue, an elusive infiltrator that can vanish into thin air.
The closest you could get to a Marilith is level 20 Loxodon Eldritch Knight Fighter with a Mantle of Spell Resistance, Armor of Invulnerability, and a Ring of Fire Resistance.
Marilith -> Character's Equivalent
Magic Resistance -> Mantle of Spell Resistance
Tail -> Loxodon's Trunk
Many arms -> Fighter's improved Multiattack + Dual Wielding Feat -> grants 5 attacks with a longsword per turn
Parry -> Shield Spell
Teleport -> Misty Step or Dimension Door Spell
Damage resistances -> Armor of Invulnerability / Ring of Fire Resistance
Alternatively, a level 17+ Wizard could True Polymorph you into a Marilith.