So my DM has a ton of books that we can access for his campaign. One race is otterfolk. I created a character from that but can find nothing about it on DDB. Does anyone know why that is? Or why it shows them as a small creature but they have 30' of movement when it should be 25'? What about the missing swim speed?
My DM and I have agreed about the 25' walking/30' swim speeds but it's confusing that the race shows up with almost nothing on it.
So my DM has a ton of books that we can access for his campaign. One race is otterfolk. I created a character from that but can find nothing about it on DDB. Does anyone know why that is? Or why it shows them as a small creature but they have 30' of movement when it should be 25'? What about the missing swim speed?
My DM and I have agreed about the 25' walking/30' swim speeds but it's confusing that the race shows up with almost nothing on it.
The new way WOTC is handling races means that all Small races have a walking speed of 30, so that doesn't sound abnormal, particularly since otters are notoriously fast mammal.
Otterfolk are not an official race anyway - your DM must be sharing some homebrew. I just Googled it and found at least 3 distinct instances of people on the internet homebrewing Otterfolk, proving it's a popular concept, but also establishing that I have no way of telling you which homebrew your DM is using. I searched on dndbeyond specifically and found 6 kinds of "Otterfolk", 2 of "Otter folk", and 1 "otter folk" when limiting the search to Small creatures. I also found 2 Otterfolk races under other names. Here's a link to the results (I searched for "otter" to include all of them; ignore the ones named "Otter", I assume, and bear in mind both Lutra and Nutria are listed as Otterfolk). https://www.dndbeyond.com/homebrew/races?filter-name=otter&filter-size=3&filter-author=&filter-author-previous=&filter-author-symbol=&filter-rating=-14 Ask your DM which one they intend for use in their campaign.
As a follow-up, I realized I discussed the "new way" races are handled, but I don't know if anyone in your group has access to MPMM. I googled otters, confirmed that otters can swim faster than out of shape humans can run, and threw together my own homebrew to show you the MPMM style, with annotations.
Ability Scores: all races are now your choice +2/+1 across 2 unique ability scores or +1/+1/+1 across 3.
Size: Some races are Medium, some Small, and some let you choose. Small is the clear choice for an otter-based race.
Languages: all races are now Common + 1 language you and your DM agree is appropriate.
However, some races, such as the Sea Elf and Triton, still have enhanced linguistics - they're just not listed under languages. The Triton one is better than the Sea Elf one, due to working on Elementals (which is bizarre - ordinarily you'd just give the race Aquan, but again, racial languages are out now) and Monstrosities. I'll modify the Triton one to give Otterfolk their own unique instance.
Masterful Squeaking: You can communicate simple ideas to any Beast, Fey, or Monstrosity that has a swimming speed. It can understand your words, though you have no special ability to understand it in return (instead of replacing Aquan, this version replaces Sylvan).
Speed: Non-walking speeds are not set to numbers any more, probably because so many other rules in the game (e.g. Gloom Stalkers) are written to modify walking speed or "speed"; pegging non-walk speeds to your walk speed fixes this. All races in MPMM are speed 30 regardless of size except for some particularly fast races at 35 and 40. So, new approach: Speed: 30 ft., swim equal to your walking speed.
Hold Breath. You can hold your breath for up to 15 minutes at a time. (This is cribbed from Lizardfolk; included here to emphasize that while real-world otters essentially have a 2.5x multiplier on their lung capacity, races that are good at holding their breath list a constant time for it, independent of their Constitution).
Resistances and such: Most playable races avoid listing any racial downsides whatsoever, but MPMM Centaurs retain their racial penalty to climbing. I'll offer multiple examples here of ways you could handle an otter's coat, which is so good otters never even get wet:
Modeled as cold weather clothing but better: You automatically succeed on saving throws against extreme cold, including frigid water. You have disadvantage on saving throws against extreme heat .
Modeled as damage resistances: You have resistance to cold damage and acid damage (MPMM Aasimar are an example of a playable race with 2 racial damage resistances).
Senses: Here you're in unexplored territory. Otters don't have darkvision and their only remarkable sensory ability is their whiskers, which would give them aquatic tremorsense, but we don't have any playable races with that sense. Using the Monster Manual as a base, you could give Otterfolk Tremorsense (60 feet) that only works while underwater.
So my DM has a ton of books that we can access for his campaign. One race is otterfolk. I created a character from that but can find nothing about it on DDB. Does anyone know why that is? Or why it shows them as a small creature but they have 30' of movement when it should be 25'? What about the missing swim speed?
My DM and I have agreed about the 25' walking/30' swim speeds but it's confusing that the race shows up with almost nothing on it.
As a follow-up, I realized I discussed the "new way" races are handled, but I don't know if anyone in your group has access to MPMM. I googled otters, confirmed that otters can swim faster than out of shape humans can run, and threw together my own homebrew to show you the MPMM style, with annotations.
Why would "otter folk" have a resistance to acid damage?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.