I have been working on creating a homebrew race for a while now, and thought I had it pretty figured out, however after discussing it with a few friends, colleagues, and a couple of other DM's, I have come to understand that my idea for the race may actually be OP Broken.
Let me know your thoughts, and ideas on how I can reign it back in a bit, and still live up to the idea of the race that I have in mind. It is not a published Homebrew. I will post the details here.
Name - Asoteran Subraces - 4, Fire, and Earth Khiar, and Wind and Water Khiar'n
Males of the race wield some level of earth or fire magic, while women wield Wind and Water. Unless the player chooses to pursue a magic class such as Sorcerer, wizard, etc, they will be limited to a handful of elemental spells as class features. (Mold Earth, Stone Shape, Control Fire, Control Water, etc.)
The description I have is quite long. Here it goes.
Asoteran’s are a solitary race with a fey heritage that appears between human, elf, and fairy. Their lifespan can reach up to 400 years. They do not eat meat of any kind, and live primarily on fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Almost always in limited flight, their fairy like wings beat so fast that few have ever actually seen them. As their wings beat, the sound they emit is liken to the wind through the leaves of trees in the forest. When their wings are seen, they can vary from very plain to extremely colorful depending on their mood. (True flight is limited to a max of 5ft height off the ground. The wings beat just enough to lift them off the ground so they seem to barely hover above it, and most even seem to walk instead of float.
Asoterans generally have very light colored hair that is fine as silk and carries a faint iridescent glow under starlight. Due to this, they are often sought out and captured by slavers who seek to cut their hair and sell it to wealthy merchants, and nobles to be used as embroidery for expensive, fine clothing. The hair can fetch as much as 1 GP per foot for a single strand. As they are very proud of their hair, they will never willing cut, or part with even a single strand. This pride results in their hair growing to extraordinary lengths, and some even wrapping their hair around their bodies similar to a tunic.
Their eyes are mostly shades of blue, grey and hazel with the occasional appearance of green. They have chiseled features liken to the elf, but their ears curve back toward the back of their head instead of pointing out, or up. Their element is not fully known until they are around 10-15 years of age at a point in life similar to puberty, which they refer to as "Khiar'kai". During this stage, they grow a very fine lock of hair from the tip of their ears. This hair is always the same color depending on the element they will be able to wield. Fire-Red, Water-Silver, Wind-Blonde, Earth-Light brown. Between the ages of 15 and 20, they are able to wield their elemental magic with a proficiency that would fill young mages with envy.
They have a love of thrown weapons such as daggers, shurikens, darts and other similar weapons which can be hidden on the body. This love has evolved into a game among them where when they meet, they try to find all of the hidden weapons, without touching the other person. This gives them advantage on perception rolls to spot hidden weapons on people or creatures they are meeting. They themselves will often conceal many such weapons within locks of their hair, hidden from view.
They live in the most remote forest regions to separate themselves from the hustle and bustle of most other races, as they prefer the peace and quiet of the forest they live in. In order to compliment their innate elemental abilities, they prefer to live in, or near forest regions where the 4 elements, earth, wind, water, and fire can all be found. As such, they can often be found living near natural hot springs.
Asoterans can be found on full moon nights, in secluded forest meadows, harmonizing their magicks with each other in order to find potential mates. This ritualistic dance of elemental magic is rarely seen, but always written to be one of the most beautiful sights ever witnessed.
They are all capable of magic, focusing on one element. For men, they are able to wield either Earth element magics, or Fire Element magics. Women of the race are capable of wind magics and water magics. These 4 elements can be wielded in harmony with each other.
Due to their culture of harmonizing magic, their race is capable of using their magic to harmonize with elemental spells cast by other magic user to influence their spells in a variety of ways. This can range from diverting the spell slightly to give the target advantage on a saving throw, to influencing the amount of damage the spell will deal. (Add or subtract additional damage die, deal max, or minimum damage, cancel crit, etc.
(It is this last paragraph, in combination with the fact that they have limited flight [5ft height, but speed is normal 30 ft movement.] which people tell me makes this OP and Broken.)
What would be some ways to keep the Harmonization idea alive, but reign in the race a bit to keep them from becoming a problem?
I could remove flight, but their class features of a couple of spells, and magic harmonization can still present an issue, according to some.
All ideas are welcome.
Public Mod Note
(Davyd):
Moved to homebrew and house rules
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You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
If they can only fly at a normal walking speed and no more than 5 ft. off the ground I would not call that OP. Even a Kobold with a Shortsword could still hit them in Melee so it shouldn’t be a problem IMO.
You haven’t really described the harmonization in mechanical terms, so I cannot comment on that at this time.
(It is this last paragraph, in combination with the fact that they have limited flight [5ft height, but speed is normal 30 ft movement.] which people tell me makes this OP and Broken.)
I don't think 30 foot flight that's limited to five feet of height is broken as such, though it might introduce more mechanical issues than you need. For example, if you're limited to five feet of height, and try to cross a 30 foot deep chasm, is the five feet relative to the bottom (i.e- you fall)? If you "fall" as part of your flight, does this make you immune to fall damage?
The only flying race in D&D I think are the Aarakocra, but I believe they're banned from Adventurers League; most likely because it can be a logistical nightmare for DM's planning sessions that any combination of races and classes could come along to, and because full flight can be very abusable in the hands of a certain kind of player. It doesn't sound like you necessarily need your feature to be flight as such though, just anything that can represent having wings.
If the flight you want would be that limited then it might make sense to just go for more of a custom "hover" mechanic; e.g- you ignore difficult terrain with obstructions no taller than five feet in height, and if you fall you treat the height as 20 feet less? This gets you some useful benefits while still being vulnerable to a big fall, and without the added complexity of having full flight then limiting it.
What would be some ways to keep the Harmonization idea alive, but reign in the race a bit to keep them from becoming a problem?
I like the idea of the Harmonisation, and honestly I'd suggest focusing on that over giving the race too many innate spells. Maybe give each sub-race one cantrip, and then give the harmonisation ability two or three options you can do as a reaction to manipulate spells as they are resolved? Being able to do that could still be a unique benefit for a caster, and if at least one effect could boost your own spell in a minor way (+1 to hit or +1 to DC? As a reaction it shouldn't be OP as you're blocking off other reactions you could take in enemy turns).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Okay so how many people are likely to play as this race in your campaign? Because tbh is it worth having the gendered element feature if it’s going to get used once or twice?
Most of it reads like a variant Genasi. But my questions/ideas would be
elemental spells - how often can they cast them? Most Races that get a spell get a single spell they can cast once between long rests with some getting additional spells at higher levels.
flight - wouldn’t call it that because it’s not, it’s walking with flavour, You are just mechanically opening yourself up to people doing it across water etc.
what ASI do they get?
drop the hair gimmick, so the average human head has about 100,000 hairs. By your own flavour they grow thier hair really long, so if you compare this to the Sikh tradition of nut cutting from birth they would probably end up with about 5ft of hair. You now have a player with 500k worth of gold on their head that they can’t sell because you have said that they shouldn’t. What stops the player going “well my character is fine with it, cha ching”
Advantage roles on perception checks to spot hidden weapons - barely feels like a trait it’s so specific making it almost non existantly useful. I have two current games on the go I am DMing with a total combining play time in the hundreds of hours, no one has ever asked to check for concealed weapons. There may have been more had they had this skill but maybe by like 2.
Harmonisation - yeah I can see how that’s OP as written, as above how many times can they do this because that Max spell damage thing is ridiculous. And that’s only one part of it. As well as what a bardic inspiration magic damage dice, counterspell saving throw advantage, cancel crit, minimise damage it’s just too much.
like minimal damage on spells cast at them? Yeah 100% the ability to make a level 8 tsunami deal 6 damage (3 if you make the saving throw) while whistling “Born This Way” is overpowered.
i would stop trying to make it everything and limit it to one thing e.g. - they can + or - a d6 to the damage of a spell of their elemental heritage, they can do this as many times per long rest as their constitution modifier.
The idea of an elemental fairy-like race is awesome. Are you proposing it as a DM (for your players to play), or as a player (for your DM to manage)? I think we all assume you are a DM.
Consider a play test: Rather than plunge immediately into a campaign, you might try this race out on one or two one shot type adventures. This might give you and your players a better idea of what needs modification, or if you want to negotiate additional bonuses (like some sort of elemental heritage) for other playable races to even things out.
From a player's perspective: First off, I would see 500k gold worth of hair as a major liability and go for a pixie cut, even if I burned it after. I would likely see any NPC wearing hair from my people as a villain. I would also chafe a bit at the gender restrictions. I would likely ask to play, say, an anomalous earth magic female character who didn't fit in, and thus chose a life of adventure. That said, I would find the fairy-like race appealing, and would likely try playing it (if a tad bit rebelliously).
Thanks for the ideas offered. This has been tremendously useful for fleshing out the rough draft for this race.
There is still a lot to do to make it work, but as it was mentioned, the hair value thing could be seriously abused. Especially if the character comes from a position of slavery where they have gotten used to having their hair cut regularly, then they would cut it frequently when it was long enough a profit could be turned. So, I will modify this a bit. Remove the value of the hair after it is cut from the source.
The harmonization is something that I will be keeping, however the effects that could be offered will be edited some. Min/max spell damage could be an issue for the race. Perhaps running effects that are based on level. So at set level checkpoints, they pick up another effect they could add. I would like to limit it to a certain number of uses per short/long rest +1 per 3 levels. (At level 20, 10 total uses per day, and they can expend a number of uses for how many damage dice to reduce incoming element spell damage by. (they roll than many of the damage dice themselves, and remove that amount from the total damage)
I still want to run it as gender specific elements, but it could be that under rare occasions a child is born who is capable of wielding an element off gender element. Perhaps under certain celestial conditions where the elemental planes align with the moons of the world and shift the elemental energies to a small amount, which only happens every ???? number of years, and a child born or conceived during this time could be endowed with a different element.
Advantage to spot hidden weapons, you are right, this is something that may never get used, or certainly rarely. Probably could remove this entirely, and give advantage or proficiency on sleight of hand checks to hide something on themselves.
I have revamped the flight idea some. Instead of flight, it is basically just walking with flavor. There is no vertical flight capability. Their wings create a hover sense which will allow them to move across water, for one round, before beginning to sink down as water is displaced slightly, around them. It can be used to double normal jump distance and height. It also can reduce damage from falls, similar to the monk skill (slow fall), but at a range of 20 feet. So if falling from 30 feet, they still take 1d6 damage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
The thing is races in 5e aren’t really defined by gender so it doesn’t make sense to add, but you clearly really want it. I think the chosen one arc out for people that don’t want it is a really overblown way of handling a limitation you are forcing on a race to begin with. It is honestly the most unnecessary part of the race. If you want their to be differences between m&f then you should make them cosmetic rather than mechanical - however as I asked earlier - how many people do you expect to play this race?
@Sardonicmonkey, at the moment, it has not seen any play testing as I am still fleshing out mechanics, racial traits, etc. As such I think the question could be asked of any race. I cannot say how many people I expect to play it as there are millions of players out there, and thousands of those would likely be interested in trying new things. I have already had discussions with a lot of people who are interested in this race when it is finished.
I hope to eventually see it as a regular playable DnD race, but that is likely a pipe dream.
As for the gender limitations, I am including that as flare for this race. As much as it is the norm that women are, on average, shorter than men, have long hair (on average), etc. There are simply a large number of gender specific traits that ever creature and even some plants have. I am thinking to utilize such gender differences towards the elements they wield. As mentioned though, there is a possibility that I will include an option which will allow for any gender to use any element, but this would also require an extra twist to their backstory that they may not know about. Such as a cosmic event, a rare burst of a lay line releasing magical energies which imbue a different element in the child than is normally carried, etc. So, I am not limiting the gender rule to 100% gotta stick to these parameters, but that a unique event causes them to be different among their own people. Such as is an Albino born to a chinese family. Still chinese, but with white hair, and pink eyes.
Though I have seen more people saying that this should not be included as a gender separator. So I may rethink it a bit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
Honestly the more you explain it the more “nope” it feels. Like even the elements you have picked as male and female elements feel’s a little sexist. Look I can tell you have worked on this for a while and are invested in it, but gendering the elements unless a character is super duper ultra special is the kind of thing that people can get turned off by really quickly.
I understand where you are coming from. I don't entirely disagree. I think what I will do first it to create a general "All included" rough draft for a play test, and after getting a better idea of how it flows, perhaps tweaking it for what is smooth and playable.
After I flesh it out and make it public, I may ask a number of DM's to playtest it and get back to me on points they notice need to be improved on.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
I'm inclined to agree with sardonicmonkey on gendering of races; you don't want players to feel they have to play a race in a specific way, this is essentially why the upcoming Tasha's is going to do away with fixed racial ability score improvements entirely (so you can have a burly elf, or an acrobatic dragonborn if you want to).
If you're keen on including it as lore, I'd put it as more of an aside in a blockquote (quote marks button), but try to focus it on tradition, i.e- females of the race traditionally choose (or are expected to follow) one path over another, but ultimately leave it up to the player to decide if they're going to play a traditionalist or a rebel with a female in a "male" path, or a male in "female" one, and what the consequences (if any) might be for that decision. Likewise with any physical differences, if you include it at all, try to keep it to "females typically have longer hair" or such.
Basically the principle is; don't tell a player what to do outside of the mechanical rules section, just give them some flavour and lore as a springboard.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I think you can come up with more interesting things when they aren’t mechanical - go into the flavor on a cosmetic level that separates the gender. Maybe the males develop peacock feather like birthmarks when they reach adolescence on their neck and forearms. Maybe males typical have a single hue hair but females hair turns into multicoloured hues with the seasons.
ultimately you will find its much easier and more creative to make them cosmetic changes over mechanical - he man rock and fire, she woman wind and pond!!
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Hi,
I have been working on creating a homebrew race for a while now, and thought I had it pretty figured out, however after discussing it with a few friends, colleagues, and a couple of other DM's, I have come to understand that my idea for the race may actually be OP Broken.
Let me know your thoughts, and ideas on how I can reign it back in a bit, and still live up to the idea of the race that I have in mind. It is not a published Homebrew. I will post the details here.
Name - Asoteran
Subraces - 4, Fire, and Earth Khiar, and Wind and Water Khiar'n
Males of the race wield some level of earth or fire magic, while women wield Wind and Water.
Unless the player chooses to pursue a magic class such as Sorcerer, wizard, etc, they will be limited to a handful of elemental spells as class features. (Mold Earth, Stone Shape, Control Fire, Control Water, etc.)
The description I have is quite long. Here it goes.
Asoteran’s are a solitary race with a fey heritage that appears between human, elf, and fairy. Their lifespan can reach up to 400 years. They do not eat meat of any kind, and live primarily on fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Almost always in limited flight, their fairy like wings beat so fast that few have ever actually seen them. As their wings beat, the sound they emit is liken to the wind through the leaves of trees in the forest. When their wings are seen, they can vary from very plain to extremely colorful depending on their mood. (True flight is limited to a max of 5ft height off the ground. The wings beat just enough to lift them off the ground so they seem to barely hover above it, and most even seem to walk instead of float.
Asoterans generally have very light colored hair that is fine as silk and carries a faint iridescent glow under starlight. Due to this, they are often sought out and captured by slavers who seek to cut their hair and sell it to wealthy merchants, and nobles to be used as embroidery for expensive, fine clothing. The hair can fetch as much as 1 GP per foot for a single strand. As they are very proud of their hair, they will never willing cut, or part with even a single strand. This pride results in their hair growing to extraordinary lengths, and some even wrapping their hair around their bodies similar to a tunic.
Their eyes are mostly shades of blue, grey and hazel with the occasional appearance of green. They have chiseled features liken to the elf, but their ears curve back toward the back of their head instead of pointing out, or up. Their element is not fully known until they are around 10-15 years of age at a point in life similar to puberty, which they refer to as "Khiar'kai". During this stage, they grow a very fine lock of hair from the tip of their ears. This hair is always the same color depending on the element they will be able to wield. Fire-Red, Water-Silver, Wind-Blonde, Earth-Light brown. Between the ages of 15 and 20, they are able to wield their elemental magic with a proficiency that would fill young mages with envy.
They have a love of thrown weapons such as daggers, shurikens, darts and other similar weapons which can be hidden on the body. This love has evolved into a game among them where when they meet, they try to find all of the hidden weapons, without touching the other person. This gives them advantage on perception rolls to spot hidden weapons on people or creatures they are meeting. They themselves will often conceal many such weapons within locks of their hair, hidden from view.
They live in the most remote forest regions to separate themselves from the hustle and bustle of most other races, as they prefer the peace and quiet of the forest they live in. In order to compliment their innate elemental abilities, they prefer to live in, or near forest regions where the 4 elements, earth, wind, water, and fire can all be found. As such, they can often be found living near natural hot springs.
Asoterans can be found on full moon nights, in secluded forest meadows, harmonizing their magicks with each other in order to find potential mates. This ritualistic dance of elemental magic is rarely seen, but always written to be one of the most beautiful sights ever witnessed.
They are all capable of magic, focusing on one element. For men, they are able to wield either Earth element magics, or Fire Element magics. Women of the race are capable of wind magics and water magics. These 4 elements can be wielded in harmony with each other.
Due to their culture of harmonizing magic, their race is capable of using their magic to harmonize with elemental spells cast by other magic user to influence their spells in a variety of ways. This can range from diverting the spell slightly to give the target advantage on a saving throw, to influencing the amount of damage the spell will deal. (Add or subtract additional damage die, deal max, or minimum damage, cancel crit, etc.
(It is this last paragraph, in combination with the fact that they have limited flight [5ft height, but speed is normal 30 ft movement.] which people tell me makes this OP and Broken.)
What would be some ways to keep the Harmonization idea alive, but reign in the race a bit to keep them from becoming a problem?
I could remove flight, but their class features of a couple of spells, and magic harmonization can still present an issue, according to some.
All ideas are welcome.
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
If they can only fly at a normal walking speed and no more than 5 ft. off the ground I would not call that OP. Even a Kobold with a Shortsword could still hit them in Melee so it shouldn’t be a problem IMO.
You haven’t really described the harmonization in mechanical terms, so I cannot comment on that at this time.
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I don't think 30 foot flight that's limited to five feet of height is broken as such, though it might introduce more mechanical issues than you need. For example, if you're limited to five feet of height, and try to cross a 30 foot deep chasm, is the five feet relative to the bottom (i.e- you fall)? If you "fall" as part of your flight, does this make you immune to fall damage?
The only flying race in D&D I think are the Aarakocra, but I believe they're banned from Adventurers League; most likely because it can be a logistical nightmare for DM's planning sessions that any combination of races and classes could come along to, and because full flight can be very abusable in the hands of a certain kind of player. It doesn't sound like you necessarily need your feature to be flight as such though, just anything that can represent having wings.
If the flight you want would be that limited then it might make sense to just go for more of a custom "hover" mechanic; e.g- you ignore difficult terrain with obstructions no taller than five feet in height, and if you fall you treat the height as 20 feet less? This gets you some useful benefits while still being vulnerable to a big fall, and without the added complexity of having full flight then limiting it.
I like the idea of the Harmonisation, and honestly I'd suggest focusing on that over giving the race too many innate spells. Maybe give each sub-race one cantrip, and then give the harmonisation ability two or three options you can do as a reaction to manipulate spells as they are resolved? Being able to do that could still be a unique benefit for a caster, and if at least one effect could boost your own spell in a minor way (+1 to hit or +1 to DC? As a reaction it shouldn't be OP as you're blocking off other reactions you could take in enemy turns).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Okay so how many people are likely to play as this race in your campaign? Because tbh is it worth having the gendered element feature if it’s going to get used once or twice?
Most of it reads like a variant Genasi. But my questions/ideas would be
elemental spells - how often can they cast them? Most Races that get a spell get a single spell they can cast once between long rests with some getting additional spells at higher levels.
flight - wouldn’t call it that because it’s not, it’s walking with flavour, You are just mechanically opening yourself up to people doing it across water etc.
what ASI do they get?
drop the hair gimmick, so the average human head has about 100,000 hairs. By your own flavour they grow thier hair really long, so if you compare this to the Sikh tradition of nut cutting from birth they would probably end up with about 5ft of hair. You now have a player with 500k worth of gold on their head that they can’t sell because you have said that they shouldn’t. What stops the player going “well my character is fine with it, cha ching”
Advantage roles on perception checks to spot hidden weapons - barely feels like a trait it’s so specific making it almost non existantly useful. I have two current games on the go I am DMing with a total combining play time in the hundreds of hours, no one has ever asked to check for concealed weapons. There may have been more had they had this skill but maybe by like 2.
Harmonisation - yeah I can see how that’s OP as written, as above how many times can they do this because that Max spell damage thing is ridiculous. And that’s only one part of it. As well as what a bardic inspiration magic damage dice, counterspell saving throw advantage, cancel crit, minimise damage it’s just too much.
like minimal damage on spells cast at them? Yeah 100% the ability to make a level 8 tsunami deal 6 damage (3 if you make the saving throw) while whistling “Born This Way” is overpowered.
i would stop trying to make it everything and limit it to one thing e.g. - they can + or - a d6 to the damage of a spell of their elemental heritage, they can do this as many times per long rest as their constitution modifier.
The idea of an elemental fairy-like race is awesome. Are you proposing it as a DM (for your players to play), or as a player (for your DM to manage)? I think we all assume you are a DM.
Consider a play test: Rather than plunge immediately into a campaign, you might try this race out on one or two one shot type adventures. This might give you and your players a better idea of what needs modification, or if you want to negotiate additional bonuses (like some sort of elemental heritage) for other playable races to even things out.
From a player's perspective: First off, I would see 500k gold worth of hair as a major liability and go for a pixie cut, even if I burned it after. I would likely see any NPC wearing hair from my people as a villain. I would also chafe a bit at the gender restrictions. I would likely ask to play, say, an anomalous earth magic female character who didn't fit in, and thus chose a life of adventure. That said, I would find the fairy-like race appealing, and would likely try playing it (if a tad bit rebelliously).
Good luck!
Thanks for the ideas offered. This has been tremendously useful for fleshing out the rough draft for this race.
There is still a lot to do to make it work, but as it was mentioned, the hair value thing could be seriously abused. Especially if the character comes from a position of slavery where they have gotten used to having their hair cut regularly, then they would cut it frequently when it was long enough a profit could be turned. So, I will modify this a bit. Remove the value of the hair after it is cut from the source.
The harmonization is something that I will be keeping, however the effects that could be offered will be edited some. Min/max spell damage could be an issue for the race. Perhaps running effects that are based on level. So at set level checkpoints, they pick up another effect they could add. I would like to limit it to a certain number of uses per short/long rest +1 per 3 levels. (At level 20, 10 total uses per day, and they can expend a number of uses for how many damage dice to reduce incoming element spell damage by. (they roll than many of the damage dice themselves, and remove that amount from the total damage)
I still want to run it as gender specific elements, but it could be that under rare occasions a child is born who is capable of wielding an element off gender element. Perhaps under certain celestial conditions where the elemental planes align with the moons of the world and shift the elemental energies to a small amount, which only happens every ???? number of years, and a child born or conceived during this time could be endowed with a different element.
Advantage to spot hidden weapons, you are right, this is something that may never get used, or certainly rarely. Probably could remove this entirely, and give advantage or proficiency on sleight of hand checks to hide something on themselves.
I have revamped the flight idea some. Instead of flight, it is basically just walking with flavor. There is no vertical flight capability. Their wings create a hover sense which will allow them to move across water, for one round, before beginning to sink down as water is displaced slightly, around them. It can be used to double normal jump distance and height. It also can reduce damage from falls, similar to the monk skill (slow fall), but at a range of 20 feet. So if falling from 30 feet, they still take 1d6 damage.
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
The thing is races in 5e aren’t really defined by gender so it doesn’t make sense to add, but you clearly really want it. I think the chosen one arc out for people that don’t want it is a really overblown way of handling a limitation you are forcing on a race to begin with. It is honestly the most unnecessary part of the race. If you want their to be differences between m&f then you should make them cosmetic rather than mechanical - however as I asked earlier - how many people do you expect to play this race?
@Sardonicmonkey, at the moment, it has not seen any play testing as I am still fleshing out mechanics, racial traits, etc. As such I think the question could be asked of any race. I cannot say how many people I expect to play it as there are millions of players out there, and thousands of those would likely be interested in trying new things. I have already had discussions with a lot of people who are interested in this race when it is finished.
I hope to eventually see it as a regular playable DnD race, but that is likely a pipe dream.
As for the gender limitations, I am including that as flare for this race. As much as it is the norm that women are, on average, shorter than men, have long hair (on average), etc. There are simply a large number of gender specific traits that ever creature and even some plants have. I am thinking to utilize such gender differences towards the elements they wield. As mentioned though, there is a possibility that I will include an option which will allow for any gender to use any element, but this would also require an extra twist to their backstory that they may not know about. Such as a cosmic event, a rare burst of a lay line releasing magical energies which imbue a different element in the child than is normally carried, etc. So, I am not limiting the gender rule to 100% gotta stick to these parameters, but that a unique event causes them to be different among their own people. Such as is an Albino born to a chinese family. Still chinese, but with white hair, and pink eyes.
Though I have seen more people saying that this should not be included as a gender separator. So I may rethink it a bit.
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
Honestly the more you explain it the more “nope” it feels. Like even the elements you have picked as male and female elements feel’s a little sexist. Look I can tell you have worked on this for a while and are invested in it, but gendering the elements unless a character is super duper ultra special is the kind of thing that people can get turned off by really quickly.
@Sardonicmonkey
I understand where you are coming from. I don't entirely disagree. I think what I will do first it to create a general "All included" rough draft for a play test, and after getting a better idea of how it flows, perhaps tweaking it for what is smooth and playable.
After I flesh it out and make it public, I may ask a number of DM's to playtest it and get back to me on points they notice need to be improved on.
You can lead a dwarf to water, but you can't make him get in the boat.
I'm inclined to agree with sardonicmonkey on gendering of races; you don't want players to feel they have to play a race in a specific way, this is essentially why the upcoming Tasha's is going to do away with fixed racial ability score improvements entirely (so you can have a burly elf, or an acrobatic dragonborn if you want to).
If you're keen on including it as lore, I'd put it as more of an aside in a blockquote (quote marks button), but try to focus it on tradition, i.e- females of the race traditionally choose (or are expected to follow) one path over another, but ultimately leave it up to the player to decide if they're going to play a traditionalist or a rebel with a female in a "male" path, or a male in "female" one, and what the consequences (if any) might be for that decision. Likewise with any physical differences, if you include it at all, try to keep it to "females typically have longer hair" or such.
Basically the principle is; don't tell a player what to do outside of the mechanical rules section, just give them some flavour and lore as a springboard.
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I think you can come up with more interesting things when they aren’t mechanical - go into the flavor on a cosmetic level that separates the gender. Maybe the males develop peacock feather like birthmarks when they reach adolescence on their neck and forearms. Maybe males typical have a single hue hair but females hair turns into multicoloured hues with the seasons.
ultimately you will find its much easier and more creative to make them cosmetic changes over mechanical - he man rock and fire, she woman wind and pond!!