I have had several ideas for characters that would involve a Beast or Plant race, currently the closest thing to this is the Eladrin Race, so I have decided to homebrew my own Awakened Plant and Awakened Beast Races. I have several ideas for each and would like to run them by the community and potentially receive additional proposals. I also have several things I am wondering about. I will represent my ideas and wondering through these questions:
1. Why did Dnd change it’s Large and Tiny Races to Medium and Small? Should this be emulated in the Awakened races?
2. Should there be any traits limiting Dexterity, (similar to the Equine Build feature of Centaurs, due to the general lack of thumbs with most beasts)
3. How should I approach the topic of Natural Weapons? Should it correspond somewhat with size(squirrel vs bear)?
4. Should the Beasts all have a general Experitse or Advantage on Perception? Or a proficiency choice between Nature, Survival, Perception, Stealth, and possibly Acrobatics or Athletics?
5. How should I approach the topic of Language for the Beasts? Should it just be communication with other Beasts of their own Species? Or a permanent feature like Beast Speech that allows communication with ALL Beasts?
6. How should I approach the topic of Language for the Plants? Should there be some natural Spellcasting feature based on levels that allows spells such as Thorn Whip, Speak with Plants, Commune with Nature, Goodberry, etc? Or should spells like that be limited to Plants who seek to deepen their connection to Nature via taking levels in Spellcaster Classes?
7. How should the topic of Armor Class be addressed? Many Plants and Beasts have some form of natural armor, so how should that be reflected here if at all?
8. How should I address resistances and vulnerabilities for the Plant race? Both the stat blocks for Awakened Plants include vulnerability to Fire damage so should this be included? What about piercing resistance?
9. How should I approach the topic of food and sleep? Some Beasts are nocturnal, so should these creatures have some sort of Darkvision or Blindsight(with Deafened limitations) with a sleep schedule penalty? What about the consumption of Raw food for Beasts? Should there be some sort of photosynthesis trait for plant’s where they don’t require food as long as they spend one long or short rest standing on Dirt? Could they eat manure? Are they able to drink non-pure water? Is there a limit to this? Do Awakened plant’s sleep or need to sleep? Is their sleep unique like that of Elves?
10. Many plants in dnd are fungi, theoretically you could cast awaken on a mushroom or similar fungus. My guess is the DM would use the stat block of a myconid for such a creature. How should this be reflected in a fungoid Awakened Plant? Should it be an entirely new race, Awakened Fungus, or would this be dishonest as the fungi of Dnd are also technically Plants and an Awakened Plant race would include such? How would fungoid traits be different from the standard?
3: Probably include an natural weapon attack with a 1d6 damage dice if the creature has one in its stat block like claws or teeth.
4: Include advantage on perception if the creature has it. Otherwise include a bonus proficiency in a skill from the list.
5: Speak with Animals as a bonus spell. Can cast it without a spell slot equal to your proficiency bonus or an appropriate level spell slot if you have it.
6: Speak with Plants as a bonus spell. Can cast it without a spell slot equal to your proficiency bonus or an appropriate level spell slot if you have it.
7: If the plant or beast has natural armor then include a +1 to AC if not wearing armor.
8: Include any resistances and vulnerabilities the creature has.
9: Include special sense’s like Darkvision and Blindsight the creature has. Raw food is ok for beasts. As for plants they have to spend at least 1 hour rooted in dirt in direct sunlight(if the plant requires sunlight) and watered. If the plant doesn’t require sunlight then just 1 hour rooted in dirt and watered.
This is a nice idea. I get that you want a single 'Awaken Beast' race, as opposed to different races for different animals? Both ways could work, it depends on how much versatility you want to have. You could maybe have the player choose a specific beast at character build and pick up properties from its stat block.
Here are my thoughts:
1. WotC indeed seem to be doing away with races not small or medium, but this doesn't have to limit your homebrew. Also, since MMoM, many races let you choose if the character is small or medium.
2. Equine Build only limits climbing, which is fairly situational anyway. General limitation of dexterity score seems too punishing to me. Remember there are no racial ability score decreases in 5e. You might want to have some penelty to slight of hand.
3. Generally speaking, playable races with natural weapons used to have 1d4+Str, which was upgraded to 1d6+Str in MMoM. If you want something generic, I'd probably go with that (with damage type being either bludgeoning or piercing, depending on the particular natural weapon). If you want something more costumizable, either take the damage die from an existing start block, or indeed have it scale with size: tiny gets 1+Str (min 1), small 1d4+Str, medium 1d6+Str. For large, if you want to allow it, it could either be 1d8 or 2d4, as you see fit.
4. If you're using an existing stat block, take the senses and skills from it (e.g. bat gets blindsight, black bear gets proficiency in perception and keen smell). If you want a generic race, you could do something similar to the costum lineage: the player gets to choose either darkvision 60 feet or proficiency with a skill (which might be a specific skill, any skill or one from a closed list).
5. In my opinion, an awaken beast should be able to speak with other animals of its kind. I would also through in speak with animals (once per day or with any spell slots you have)
6. I think it's fine to give the plant racial spellcasting. Most other races with similar properties get a cantrip at level 1, a first-level spell at level 3, and a second level spell at level 5. I'd go with Thorn whip, speak with plants and and spike growth, with Con as spellcasting ability. You don't have to follow this pattern, but take it as a reference for the power level.
7. Again, I f you are using existing beast stat block, take the natural armor from there. If you don't want it to work like that, you could possibly let the player choose between natural armor of 11+Dex and some other benefit (possibly a skill proficiency). For the plant, I'd go with natural armor of 12+Dex (note that this is different than a bonus to AC, as it doesn't stack with unarmored defense, mage armor, etc.)
8. I wouldn't include damage vulnerability, certainly not for a damage type as common as fire.
9. For beasts, I wouldn't include any special mechanic for food and sleep. This sounds more like a RP thing to me. For the plant, it's kinda up to you. I'd say they don't need to eat as long as they have access to sunlight and nutrition from the ground. The plant should require some sort of inactivity time, even if it's not proper sleep. There needs to be something they do to qualify for long rest. A flavorful option could be that they require six hours of being rooted and inactive (say they can root or unroot as an action), but conscious.
10. You could have Awaken Fungi as a variant of the Awakened Plant race, or you could leave it just as flavor. I wouldn't care for the difference too much, despite being biologically wrong.
Some points you might also want to consider:
- Creature type: most playable races are humanoids, but there are some exceptions, so having a race who's type is plant or beast is reasonable. This would have some mechanical implications (e.g. they can't be targeted by the hold/dominate/charm person spells, but can be targeted by speak with animals/plants)
- Hands. Far beyond limiting dexterity, a character without human-like hands couldn't wield weapons, and possibly also couldn't perform spell somatic component. This would have many implications you'd need to be careful about.
While I get you want these to feel very realistic and you want the mechanics to support the flavor, you have to realize that when these conflict with the ability of a player to just pick up the race and play a game with it, 5e tends to side with what's easier and more accessible.
This is why kenkus and aarakocra have hands. This is why we don't have a race that doesn't speak common right out of the box. This is why every race distills down to three or four major traits that define them.
Now you're totally free to design an Awakened Animal race that has custom rules for its natural weapon, movement speeds, size range, magic speech, food requirements, rest requirements, ability to handle certain objects, etc. Designing these things makes for a fun pastime, even when around page 2 you're going to realize that Awakened Bear and Awakened Squirrel are just going to have to be a completely different race and before you know it you have 10 of them. Just keep in mind that something being fun to design doesn't automatically equate to it being fun to play, especially by someone else.
But if you want it to feel like 5e, you make something like Owlin or Tabaxi and let your players play them as more bestial than the average player. It's just going to be a much smoother game with fewer "hold on I have to read my character sheet" moments and fewer unexpected rule interactions - like for example, a Tiny creature with a reach of 0 can park itself in an enemy square and now that enemy can't move at all without drawing an OA. Or how a Large creature will have to squeeze through a majority of the adventure into the kobold's lair.
I have had several ideas for characters that would involve a Beast or Plant race, currently the closest thing to this is the Eladrin Race, so I have decided to homebrew my own Awakened Plant and Awakened Beast Races. I have several ideas for each and would like to run them by the community and potentially receive additional proposals. I also have several things I am wondering about. I will represent my ideas and wondering through these questions:
1. Why did Dnd change it’s Large and Tiny Races to Medium and Small? Should this be emulated in the Awakened races?
2. Should there be any traits limiting Dexterity, (similar to the Equine Build feature of Centaurs, due to the general lack of thumbs with most beasts)
3. How should I approach the topic of Natural Weapons? Should it correspond somewhat with size(squirrel vs bear)?
4. Should the Beasts all have a general Experitse or Advantage on Perception? Or a proficiency choice between Nature, Survival, Perception, Stealth, and possibly Acrobatics or Athletics?
5. How should I approach the topic of Language for the Beasts? Should it just be communication with other Beasts of their own Species? Or a permanent feature like Beast Speech that allows communication with ALL Beasts?
6. How should I approach the topic of Language for the Plants? Should there be some natural Spellcasting feature based on levels that allows spells such as Thorn Whip, Speak with Plants, Commune with Nature, Goodberry, etc? Or should spells like that be limited to Plants who seek to deepen their connection to Nature via taking levels in Spellcaster Classes?
7. How should the topic of Armor Class be addressed? Many Plants and Beasts have some form of natural armor, so how should that be reflected here if at all?
8. How should I address resistances and vulnerabilities for the Plant race? Both the stat blocks for Awakened Plants include vulnerability to Fire damage so should this be included? What about piercing resistance?
9. How should I approach the topic of food and sleep? Some Beasts are nocturnal, so should these creatures have some sort of Darkvision or Blindsight(with Deafened limitations) with a sleep schedule penalty? What about the consumption of Raw food for Beasts? Should there be some sort of photosynthesis trait for plant’s where they don’t require food as long as they spend one long or short rest standing on Dirt? Could they eat manure? Are they able to drink non-pure water? Is there a limit to this? Do Awakened plant’s sleep or need to sleep? Is their sleep unique like that of Elves?
10. Many plants in dnd are fungi, theoretically you could cast awaken on a mushroom or similar fungus. My guess is the DM would use the stat block of a myconid for such a creature. How should this be reflected in a fungoid Awakened Plant? Should it be an entirely new race, Awakened Fungus, or would this be dishonest as the fungi of Dnd are also technically Plants and an Awakened Plant race would include such? How would fungoid traits be different from the standard?
1: I believe for simplicity.
2: Seems reasonable to include such things.
3: Probably include an natural weapon attack with a 1d6 damage dice if the creature has one in its stat block like claws or teeth.
4: Include advantage on perception if the creature has it. Otherwise include a bonus proficiency in a skill from the list.
5: Speak with Animals as a bonus spell. Can cast it without a spell slot equal to your proficiency bonus or an appropriate level spell slot if you have it.
6: Speak with Plants as a bonus spell. Can cast it without a spell slot equal to your proficiency bonus or an appropriate level spell slot if you have it.
7: If the plant or beast has natural armor then include a +1 to AC if not wearing armor.
8: Include any resistances and vulnerabilities the creature has.
9: Include special sense’s like Darkvision and Blindsight the creature has. Raw food is ok for beasts. As for plants they have to spend at least 1 hour rooted in dirt in direct sunlight(if the plant requires sunlight) and watered. If the plant doesn’t require sunlight then just 1 hour rooted in dirt and watered.
This is a nice idea. I get that you want a single 'Awaken Beast' race, as opposed to different races for different animals? Both ways could work, it depends on how much versatility you want to have. You could maybe have the player choose a specific beast at character build and pick up properties from its stat block.
Here are my thoughts:
1. WotC indeed seem to be doing away with races not small or medium, but this doesn't have to limit your homebrew. Also, since MMoM, many races let you choose if the character is small or medium.
2. Equine Build only limits climbing, which is fairly situational anyway. General limitation of dexterity score seems too punishing to me. Remember there are no racial ability score decreases in 5e. You might want to have some penelty to slight of hand.
3. Generally speaking, playable races with natural weapons used to have 1d4+Str, which was upgraded to 1d6+Str in MMoM. If you want something generic, I'd probably go with that (with damage type being either bludgeoning or piercing, depending on the particular natural weapon). If you want something more costumizable, either take the damage die from an existing start block, or indeed have it scale with size: tiny gets 1+Str (min 1), small 1d4+Str, medium 1d6+Str. For large, if you want to allow it, it could either be 1d8 or 2d4, as you see fit.
4. If you're using an existing stat block, take the senses and skills from it (e.g. bat gets blindsight, black bear gets proficiency in perception and keen smell). If you want a generic race, you could do something similar to the costum lineage: the player gets to choose either darkvision 60 feet or proficiency with a skill (which might be a specific skill, any skill or one from a closed list).
5. In my opinion, an awaken beast should be able to speak with other animals of its kind. I would also through in speak with animals (once per day or with any spell slots you have)
6. I think it's fine to give the plant racial spellcasting. Most other races with similar properties get a cantrip at level 1, a first-level spell at level 3, and a second level spell at level 5. I'd go with Thorn whip, speak with plants and and spike growth, with Con as spellcasting ability. You don't have to follow this pattern, but take it as a reference for the power level.
7. Again, I f you are using existing beast stat block, take the natural armor from there. If you don't want it to work like that, you could possibly let the player choose between natural armor of 11+Dex and some other benefit (possibly a skill proficiency). For the plant, I'd go with natural armor of 12+Dex (note that this is different than a bonus to AC, as it doesn't stack with unarmored defense, mage armor, etc.)
8. I wouldn't include damage vulnerability, certainly not for a damage type as common as fire.
9. For beasts, I wouldn't include any special mechanic for food and sleep. This sounds more like a RP thing to me. For the plant, it's kinda up to you. I'd say they don't need to eat as long as they have access to sunlight and nutrition from the ground. The plant should require some sort of inactivity time, even if it's not proper sleep. There needs to be something they do to qualify for long rest. A flavorful option could be that they require six hours of being rooted and inactive (say they can root or unroot as an action), but conscious.
10. You could have Awaken Fungi as a variant of the Awakened Plant race, or you could leave it just as flavor. I wouldn't care for the difference too much, despite being biologically wrong.
Some points you might also want to consider:
- Creature type: most playable races are humanoids, but there are some exceptions, so having a race who's type is plant or beast is reasonable. This would have some mechanical implications (e.g. they can't be targeted by the hold/dominate/charm person spells, but can be targeted by speak with animals/plants)
- Hands. Far beyond limiting dexterity, a character without human-like hands couldn't wield weapons, and possibly also couldn't perform spell somatic component. This would have many implications you'd need to be careful about.
While I get you want these to feel very realistic and you want the mechanics to support the flavor, you have to realize that when these conflict with the ability of a player to just pick up the race and play a game with it, 5e tends to side with what's easier and more accessible.
This is why kenkus and aarakocra have hands. This is why we don't have a race that doesn't speak common right out of the box. This is why every race distills down to three or four major traits that define them.
Now you're totally free to design an Awakened Animal race that has custom rules for its natural weapon, movement speeds, size range, magic speech, food requirements, rest requirements, ability to handle certain objects, etc. Designing these things makes for a fun pastime, even when around page 2 you're going to realize that Awakened Bear and Awakened Squirrel are just going to have to be a completely different race and before you know it you have 10 of them. Just keep in mind that something being fun to design doesn't automatically equate to it being fun to play, especially by someone else.
But if you want it to feel like 5e, you make something like Owlin or Tabaxi and let your players play them as more bestial than the average player. It's just going to be a much smoother game with fewer "hold on I have to read my character sheet" moments and fewer unexpected rule interactions - like for example, a Tiny creature with a reach of 0 can park itself in an enemy square and now that enemy can't move at all without drawing an OA. Or how a Large creature will have to squeeze through a majority of the adventure into the kobold's lair.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm