Homebrew Canine's of the Good Mother 'Dogs' (Dungeons & Doggies) Species Details

Canine Traits:
The diversity of dogs is hard to generalise but dogs begin with the following traits. 

Ability score increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Age. Dogs reach maturity around 18 months and usually live between 10 and 15 years.

Alignment. Dogs tend towards good alignments due to their natural urge to be helpful, but there are exceptions to this.

Size. Dogs vary in height and length enormously. Your size is dependent on your subrace, see below.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Languages. You can ‘speak’ and read Common and two extra languages of your choice. Note: that dogs do not necessarily use speech; whilst they can understand their chosen languages, the specifics of how they communicate are left to the players. Some possibilities include having the full ability of speech, being uncannily effective at conveying meaning through gesture and sounds (“I think she is saying the kids are down the well”) or having another character who can understand and interpret for the dog. Regardless of how the dog expresses itself, it is assumed that it is communicating with its allies with sufficient fluency as to avoid any penalties to rolls. 

Keen Senses. Dogs have advantage on Perception checks based on smell or hearing and disadvantage on Perception checks depending upon colour recognition.

Best Friend. Dogs may cast the Charm Person spell using Charisma as the spell casting ability once per long rest. No spell components are necessary. The DC for this ability is 8 + your
Charisma modifier.

Worse than the Bark. You have a natural bite attack. You are proficient with this attack and it counts as both a weapon attack and an unarmed attack. This attack does 1d4 + your Strength modifier damage. This increases to 1d6 + your Strength modifier at level 5 and 1d8 + your Strength modifier at level 10.

Many Breeds, Many Forms. Dogs have such variety of shapes and breeds that they are highly diverse. Choose one of the following subraces to reflect your chosen breeding and select one Breed Ability from the list below

Big Dog  * Reminder all breeds get a +1 to Charisma*
Big dogs are the strongest, and most physically imposing animals in the canine family. Mastiffs, St Bernards, and Alsatians all fall into this size of breed.
Size. Your size is Medium.
Ability score increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Powerful bite. When you use your bite attack, you roll two dice for damage and choose the higher result. For a critical hit, roll three dice and choose the best two results.

Regular Dog * Reminder all breeds get a +1 to Charisma*
Regular dogs may be the most common sized dogs and tend to be known for energy and hale sturdiness. This includes spaniels, bulldogs, and many crossbreeds.
Size. Your size is Medium.
Ability score increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Boundless Persistence. Once per long rest, when you are reduced to 0 hit points, you may immediately roll a hit dice to heal that many hit points.

Lap Dog * Reminder all breeds get a +1 to Charisma *
Tiny of body but giant of heart, lap dogs are known for nimble movement and fearless attitude. This category includes Chihuahuas, Terriers and Maltese.
Size. Your size is Small.
Ability score increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Slippery. If your attack is a critical hit, you may dodge as a free action after resolving the attack.

Canine's of the Good Mother 'Dogs' (Dungeons & Doggies) Traits

Compact & Diverse, Loyal & True, Walking at Society's Side, WITH A Nose for Adventure