Toying with the idea of trying to make a Half Dragonborn half Tiefling character. Any recommendations on how such a character race should be built?
Starting out thinking:
Abilities: +1 Str, +1 Cha, +1 Int --- Draconic Ancestery, normal Resist, but all Damage types 5 by 15, except for fire retains the 5 by 30 and you always have Fire resist --- Lesser Darkvision of 30ft --- Free Firebolt Cantrip and 1 Free Cantrip of choice --- Highly Flexable Reptilian Tail capable of picking up objects at 1/4th the weight your arms can carry, as well as use objects such as tools, wepaons, shields and can be used to cast magic, but does not add an additional attack on turn unless it comes from your class.--- No Infernal Legacy, just the wings with 30ft flight speed --- Languages Speak, Read, Write, Common, Infernal and Draconic.
I have put considerable work on this type of hybrid. The hard part is scaling it down so that it's playable and not too overpowered.
Based on how long it took me to publish my new gith subraces and the yuan-ti impures, I should have some dragonborn hybrids in a couple (few) weeks.
Rather than give all the abilities to one race, it's more manageable to split it up among several subraces.
In addition to the evil chromatic-tiefling hybrid, I'm working on a good metallic-Aasimar hybrid, a mixed neutral hybrid and a dragonborn-kobold hybrid.
The fear of making it overpowered was half the reason I slashed the breath weapon and nerfed the STR and Cha stats, as well as halfed the Darkvision. Also felt like a full on Infernal legacy would have been too much as well, so I cut that out and gave a boost to the dragonborns fire resist, while thinking it might be ok to allow it the Firebolt cantrip and maybe another one of choice.
Since the Tiefling did have int bonus and they both had 3 attribute stat bonuses, I figured it was ok to leave the +1 to int.
I think I remember one of those races having a tail, and in being amused by HeroForge's ability to equip an item on the tail, I fooled around with the idea here. Didn't want the ability to hold an extra thing to be OP so I made sure to add a note, that the tail item can have an item and used to attack, even with magic, but doesn't add an extra attack/action by itself and you would still need a class bonus for any additional action. So the tail only allows you an extra equipment point, that free's you up to have an extra item, but without a class feature, don't expect to be using a sword in 1 hand and a hand crossbow in the other, without a class feature that specifically adds a second attack or extra action. Thought it OP without that limitation.
If I remember right, one of the later books allowed Tieflings and Aasimar to have a flight ability, if you sacrificed another ability that the race came with. Since I nerfed the infernal legacy out of my first idea of a Dragonborn Tiefling hybrid, I figure, it might be ok to allow it to have permanent wings, but a weaker form of it, where it's flight speed is the same as its walk speed.
A lot of the times, it seemed like cutting the racial trait from the source race in half seemed good enough, simply because they where a hybrid from 2 different races. One didn't have Darkvision, the other did, 50% of full darkvision was 30ft sight. Half distance for draconic attack breath was 15ft strait line... but trying to figure out how to half the cone attack seemed weird, so decided all would be strait line breath attacks. Also seemed like the whole Tiefling Legacy would also get deluded as well, so instead of retaining its legacy free spells, give the daconic fire possible bonuses a boost instead and grant a free firebolt cantrip and 1 other cantrip of choice to make up for all that will be lost, from losing the entire legacy. That last part also played into the wings and partly into the tail.
Dragonborn have no tails or wings. That always felt off for me, I mean DRAGONS have tails, scales, claws, wings, breath weapon & more. The cannon playable race always felt stiff to me, more human than dragon.
Tieflings have tails, as do 5e kobolds & lizard men, as well as the 2e saurian. So if you want to do a kung-fu tailslap instead of boot-to-the-head for your unarmed strike you're stuck with those races (or a hybrid including them) for your martial arts unarmed strike.
Wings present a problem. The UA dragonborn race feat didn't pass muster, & character flight at low level can totally Bork a scenario. I'm working on the idea of making the wings effect level scalable, (but I haven't completely grasped how to do it in homebrew yet.) I'm thinking wing assisted leaps & gliding at lower levels that matures to (stat dependent) full (short duration) flight around level 14 to make it comparable to flight with most class features. I'm also considering only giving wings to the good hybrids based on the Aasimar-only the good "protector" ones can fly. Wing buffet- I don't know what to do with this.
SCAG has the tiefling variant- system basically allows you to swap out different packages for the race spell casting feature. The rest of the tief variant is cosmetic. MToF has an expanded selection. I'm looking at this for my drac-tief. I think hellish resistance fits this hybrid. Chromatic dragons are creatures of Tiamat whom dwells in the nine hells, as do the progenitors of all Tieflings- so hellish resistance trumps natural for these evil ones. I'm thinking normal drac associated resist for neutral & necro resist for the good. The drac-kobold hybrid I'm thinking of more like a dwarf-dragonborn-4'6" to 5' 4" with attitude, tail &wings.
Breath weapon- yeah. fire bolt doesn't work for all the combos. A white dragonborn -levistus tiefling would be an ice queen. Need a create icecream spell for that one.
I thought I remembered one of them having a tail. Seems a little sad that Monsters are the only ones allowed to use Wing Claws, Trunk snouts and tails as extra points to grip items/attack/spell cast from. Part of the reason I found the Heroforge option amusing. So I thought to my self, "It would be nice to actually have a playable character able to do that. Why should NPC monsters be the only ones? And Tieflings have a tail right? Just don't OP it and don't let it give an extra action or attack on its own," I figured.
With the wings, I thought I remembered there being a SCAG or something option that required replacing something like the Infernal Legacy. Since I already had the idea of diluting out the Infernal Legacy and it's fire bonus attributes having to spread to other things within a Dragonborns race, I figured it would be ok to let the wings exist permanently, but as a weaker form. I don't clearly remember the original Fly Speed for permanent Tiefling Wings though, I thought it was 60ft or 90ft, so with that in mind, at the time, I figured cutting it to 30ft would be an alright compromise, while other Tiefling Infernal Attributes where diluted into buffing other traits inherint to Dragonborns.
Since there was also a number of spells that would also be sacrificed in the process, while they all have a fire based theme, seemed alright to allow the Firebolt Cantrip to stay and allow access to only 1 more cantrip of choice to make up for all the other spells lost on top of trying to avoid OP-ness. Even if the Dragonborn half of the Hybrid is a white dragon, the Tiefling half is still rooted in fire, so it's very own blood heritage would have to find a way to stabilize both and allow both to exist. The elemental aspects would be at the edges of their DNA strands any ways, so it should be fine, especially if the opposing elemental aspects are on opposite ends and all the DNA molecules between them act as regulators. After all, you can make a Dragonborn sorcerer that has 2 aspects, one from its race and the other from its class sorcery origins and still make them fire and ice.
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I haven't given up on this yet. Focused on the Kobold-Dragonborn hybrid first, thought it would be easier. Finally decided I've tweaked it enough for publication. Drachlings are now published & approved, but maybe a bit over the top, perhaps I should have removed Darkvision.
Toying with the idea of trying to make a Half Dragonborn half Tiefling character. Any recommendations on how such a character race should be built?
Starting out thinking:
Abilities: +1 Str, +1 Cha, +1 Int --- Draconic Ancestery, normal Resist, but all Damage types 5 by 15, except for fire retains the 5 by 30 and you always have Fire resist --- Lesser Darkvision of 30ft --- Free Firebolt Cantrip and 1 Free Cantrip of choice --- Highly Flexable Reptilian Tail capable of picking up objects at 1/4th the weight your arms can carry, as well as use objects such as tools, wepaons, shields and can be used to cast magic, but does not add an additional attack on turn unless it comes from your class.--- No Infernal Legacy, just the wings with 30ft flight speed --- Languages Speak, Read, Write, Common, Infernal and Draconic.
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I have put considerable work on this type of hybrid. The hard part is scaling it down so that it's playable and not too overpowered.
Based on how long it took me to publish my new gith subraces and the yuan-ti impures, I should have some dragonborn hybrids in a couple (few) weeks.
Rather than give all the abilities to one race, it's more manageable to split it up among several subraces.
In addition to the evil chromatic-tiefling hybrid, I'm working on a good metallic-Aasimar hybrid, a mixed neutral hybrid and a dragonborn-kobold hybrid.
The fear of making it overpowered was half the reason I slashed the breath weapon and nerfed the STR and Cha stats, as well as halfed the Darkvision. Also felt like a full on Infernal legacy would have been too much as well, so I cut that out and gave a boost to the dragonborns fire resist, while thinking it might be ok to allow it the Firebolt cantrip and maybe another one of choice.
Since the Tiefling did have int bonus and they both had 3 attribute stat bonuses, I figured it was ok to leave the +1 to int.
I think I remember one of those races having a tail, and in being amused by HeroForge's ability to equip an item on the tail, I fooled around with the idea here. Didn't want the ability to hold an extra thing to be OP so I made sure to add a note, that the tail item can have an item and used to attack, even with magic, but doesn't add an extra attack/action by itself and you would still need a class bonus for any additional action. So the tail only allows you an extra equipment point, that free's you up to have an extra item, but without a class feature, don't expect to be using a sword in 1 hand and a hand crossbow in the other, without a class feature that specifically adds a second attack or extra action. Thought it OP without that limitation.
If I remember right, one of the later books allowed Tieflings and Aasimar to have a flight ability, if you sacrificed another ability that the race came with. Since I nerfed the infernal legacy out of my first idea of a Dragonborn Tiefling hybrid, I figure, it might be ok to allow it to have permanent wings, but a weaker form of it, where it's flight speed is the same as its walk speed.
A lot of the times, it seemed like cutting the racial trait from the source race in half seemed good enough, simply because they where a hybrid from 2 different races. One didn't have Darkvision, the other did, 50% of full darkvision was 30ft sight. Half distance for draconic attack breath was 15ft strait line... but trying to figure out how to half the cone attack seemed weird, so decided all would be strait line breath attacks. Also seemed like the whole Tiefling Legacy would also get deluded as well, so instead of retaining its legacy free spells, give the daconic fire possible bonuses a boost instead and grant a free firebolt cantrip and 1 other cantrip of choice to make up for all that will be lost, from losing the entire legacy. That last part also played into the wings and partly into the tail.
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Dragonborn have no tails or wings. That always felt off for me, I mean DRAGONS have tails, scales, claws, wings, breath weapon & more. The cannon playable race always felt stiff to me, more human than dragon.
Tieflings have tails, as do 5e kobolds & lizard men, as well as the 2e saurian. So if you want to do a kung-fu tailslap instead of boot-to-the-head for your unarmed strike you're stuck with those races (or a hybrid including them) for your martial arts unarmed strike.
Wings present a problem. The UA dragonborn race feat didn't pass muster, & character flight at low level can totally Bork a scenario. I'm working on the idea of making the wings effect level scalable, (but I haven't completely grasped how to do it in homebrew yet.) I'm thinking wing assisted leaps & gliding at lower levels that matures to (stat dependent) full (short duration) flight around level 14 to make it comparable to flight with most class features. I'm also considering only giving wings to the good hybrids based on the Aasimar-only the good "protector" ones can fly. Wing buffet- I don't know what to do with this.
SCAG has the tiefling variant- system basically allows you to swap out different packages for the race spell casting feature. The rest of the tief variant is cosmetic. MToF has an expanded selection. I'm looking at this for my drac-tief. I think hellish resistance fits this hybrid. Chromatic dragons are creatures of Tiamat whom dwells in the nine hells, as do the progenitors of all Tieflings- so hellish resistance trumps natural for these evil ones. I'm thinking normal drac associated resist for neutral & necro resist for the good. The drac-kobold hybrid I'm thinking of more like a dwarf-dragonborn-4'6" to 5' 4" with attitude, tail &wings.
Breath weapon- yeah. fire bolt doesn't work for all the combos. A white dragonborn -levistus tiefling would be an ice queen. Need a create icecream spell for that one.
I thought I remembered one of them having a tail. Seems a little sad that Monsters are the only ones allowed to use Wing Claws, Trunk snouts and tails as extra points to grip items/attack/spell cast from. Part of the reason I found the Heroforge option amusing. So I thought to my self, "It would be nice to actually have a playable character able to do that. Why should NPC monsters be the only ones? And Tieflings have a tail right? Just don't OP it and don't let it give an extra action or attack on its own," I figured.
With the wings, I thought I remembered there being a SCAG or something option that required replacing something like the Infernal Legacy. Since I already had the idea of diluting out the Infernal Legacy and it's fire bonus attributes having to spread to other things within a Dragonborns race, I figured it would be ok to let the wings exist permanently, but as a weaker form. I don't clearly remember the original Fly Speed for permanent Tiefling Wings though, I thought it was 60ft or 90ft, so with that in mind, at the time, I figured cutting it to 30ft would be an alright compromise, while other Tiefling Infernal Attributes where diluted into buffing other traits inherint to Dragonborns.
Since there was also a number of spells that would also be sacrificed in the process, while they all have a fire based theme, seemed alright to allow the Firebolt Cantrip to stay and allow access to only 1 more cantrip of choice to make up for all the other spells lost on top of trying to avoid OP-ness. Even if the Dragonborn half of the Hybrid is a white dragon, the Tiefling half is still rooted in fire, so it's very own blood heritage would have to find a way to stabilize both and allow both to exist. The elemental aspects would be at the edges of their DNA strands any ways, so it should be fine, especially if the opposing elemental aspects are on opposite ends and all the DNA molecules between them act as regulators. After all, you can make a Dragonborn sorcerer that has 2 aspects, one from its race and the other from its class sorcery origins and still make them fire and ice.
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I haven't given up on this yet. Focused on the Kobold-Dragonborn hybrid first, thought it would be easier. Finally decided I've tweaked it enough for publication. Drachlings are now published & approved, but maybe a bit over the top, perhaps I should have removed Darkvision.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/426436-drachling
Tief- Dragonborn remain on my to-do list, but I have a completely different hybrid I want to write up first.