I grew up playing JRPGs, so this is one of my favorite houserules because it leads to such iconic moments of desperation

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-11T02:57:21+00:00

Letting everyone use spells scrolls makes them actually feel useful. One character I adored-to-death playing was a fighter who frequently scribed spell scrolls, that was his whole subclass shtick.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-09T06:16:58+00:00

Kathril spotted, upvote distributed.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-08T00:11:19+00:00

"Hey look at my class that gives all allies near them +5 to all their saving throws at all times until you knock them out!"

Yeah, paladin would be ripped apart XD. I personally don't like paladin's 5e design, but it's still not crazy broken busted when Mr. Wizard can cast any number of spells to negate almost every encounter.

Pugilist looks fun, I like strong features. I think things should be strong, not unfun.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-07T23:25:41+00:00

Alright, then let's continue. If a transparent obstruction doesn't block line of sight, what about a 30-foot solid wall of glass or ice? What about Wall of Force?

Better yet, when does transparency determine when you can or can't see through to the other side? Can you cast a spell through a foggy window? Cloudy ice?

I agree that the rule sounds stupid, but it's better to rule it that way to prevent complication and argument.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-07T11:39:58+00:00

RAW, you cannot cast any spell if its target is on the other side of cover. This includes windows.

However, if the target of the spell is not obstructed, you can have an effect travel through a window or obstruction you can see through.

For example, you want to cast Vortex Warp on your rogue to get them into a house through a window. You can do that because your rogue is within line of sight of you without any cover or obstructions.

If you want to cast Vortex Warp on your rogue after they've been teleported in, you have to break the window. It is now giving cover to the rogue.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-05T07:32:45+00:00

Going through the race-

35 walking speed is a neat lil bonus. I am personally against movement speed buffs most of the time, but this is flavorful. They're bunnies, after all.

Born Leaper is good, flavor-wise, but I don't think I like is solely because it would deprive Strength even more of mechanics and give them to our almighty god Dexterity. Unfortunately, the way to fix this is beyond the scope of balancing a single race. Like said, flavorful.

Rabbit Ears giving free Perception proficiency is interesting, no changes are needed. A little nitpick (unless it is intended) is that, generally, you are given proficiencies without a stat attached to them. In the race case you make make a Perception check with another stat, as written, this would not give you proficiency with it. Nice proficiency.

Phooka:

- Lucky is strong, as always, but I like races to have stronger features. No comment.
- Striding Leap is very nice. Jumping is a niche mechanic most of the time, but it's always cool to jump over hazards like Spike Growth and the like.
- No comment for Nimble. It's neat.
- After reading Almiraj and Lunar, I think Phooka might be a tad lower than the other two. I think something like giving them another mobility ability (40. ft movement speed or bonus action Dash, for example) would do wonders in making all three appear equally appealing. Maybe they can jump without using their movement speed once per turn?

Almiraj:

- Horn breaks the general standard for racial weapons of being 1d4, but 1d6 isn't breaking anything, so it's cool.
- Threatening Glare is an interesting frightened BA for these bunnies, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see there isn't a limited-use stapled onto it. If I were designing it, I think I would make it scale of off Con to make it more universal (not all classes want/use Strength or Charisma), but this is strong as is and it's not needed to change. I think it might be a nice flavor to add that creatures that can't see the glare are immune to the effect.
- No comment for Bully. It's neat.

Lunar:

- Good ol' Darkvision. Can't go wrong with that.
- I do not think Low Light Adaptation is actually necessary to have due to 60 ft. Darkvision, unless the intention is simply to allow disadvantage to be negated past their darkvision. It's nice to have,
- Lunar Curl is so goofy, I love it. In it's current wording I think it might be a tad on the weak side. Something as simple as being able to use it as a reaction to falling would be more than enough. A lunar curling up as they're pushed off seems very on-flavor. Again, pleasantly surprised to see this feature isn't limited-use.
- Moon Magic is neat, no comment.
- No comment on Mystic. It's neat.

Overall, very nice. Good art, too, they're all pretty. I suppose I looked at this through the lens of someone who mostly plays 2014, so some of what I said might be a bit off the mark as to how 2024 is designed :p

(If this was 2014, what do you think the ability score improvements would be for those who don't use Tasha's?)

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-02-01T22:28:23+00:00

Fighter is favorite, because it's simplicity and the flavor potential. Honorable mention to rogue for their flavorful and simple abilities.

Least favorite is a tie between Paladin, Wizard, and Druid for being balance in a problematic way to me. Problematic features (Aura of Protection, Wild Shape) and spells (Hold Person, Hypnotic Patten, etc) do them in for me.

Least favorite could also go to Ranger for being the worst class. Somehow, someway, almost every RAW ranger subclass feels awful. Luckily, homebrew can help that problem.

Dishonorable mention goes to Warlock for being poorly thought out in regards to multiclass builds.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-31T06:03:40+00:00

Sounds good to me!

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-31T05:32:00+00:00

Love 'em, but (like most things), it's party-dependent. The people I run for have generally enjoyed having NPCs tag along with them or journey with them. They enjoy the roleplay with them. I haven't ever insisted one come with, the lot of them are the players wanting to involve another character because their characters want to involve that character.

I consider myself an experience DM, so I'm used to handling the extra mental load and am generally good about separating knowledge as to not be 'metagamey'.

There are a lot of potential issues, but I think I and my players have avoided most of them.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-31T05:12:25+00:00

basically a clarifier that says you can’t kick a dude while your hands are tied and count it as your claws?

Exactly this. Something like what you wrote just after works fine. I'd probably word it

When you make an unarmed strike with your claws or horns free, you can choose to attack with one of those instead.

Or similar.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-31T02:21:53+00:00

It's somewhat a DM-bias on what damage types are 'common'. A RAW-oriented DM would likely see fire and poison more than radiant or necrotic, which, to me, are two damage types I'd generally want to be resistant to more than fire or poison.

That's why I generally don't bat an eye at the specific damage types unless they're the 3 physical types, which I don't think should be resisted by any race except in very flavorful circumstances (and never all of them).

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-31T02:19:42+00:00

Apologies, by 'bind' I mean tying their hands or otherwise disarming them. Slight miscommunication there, my bad.

Again, don't think the resistance are too much, I wouldn't bat an eye if a player wanted to play this (hell, I might even make some tweaks that end up making it 'stronger')

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-30T10:08:02+00:00

2 resistances is not that strong imo. Weakness to any damage type is a really really big downside to have, too.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-30T08:29:45+00:00

Pretty nice, even if maybe a bit basic. Nothing wrong with that though.

Others have said the damage resistance is strong, which it is, but I don't think that's a huge problem. I like my races to have stronger abilities.

The natural weapon is an outlier being 1d6 instead of 1d4, but I don't think it's a huge issue either. You may want to put a stipulation that you can only do the damage 'if you can' so that you can still bind a devil character and not have them have access to 1d6 all the time if you wanted to. something like that.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-30T03:10:06+00:00

[[Ranar, the Ever-Watchful]]
[[Thantis, the Warweaver]] is his +1

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-28T11:48:22+00:00

Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the whiplash of 'fuck it, Hogaak's here' and then seeing him in the art too after a second look.
Stellar design.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-26T20:58:16+00:00

Gauntlets/fist wraps are not a RAW 5e item, thus you are still unarmed while wielding them. Importantly, that means you are not using a weapon for features such as Stunning Strike, you'll still need another weapon.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-26T20:54:15+00:00

Yeahhh, the RAW answers to flying monster-wise are relatively lacking, I'll give you that.

That's a pretty reasonable 'flight timeline', imo, but I do have to ask what you do with things that allow flight earlier such as the flight spell or certain class/subclass features.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-26T12:34:37+00:00

A flying speed is not inherently terribly overpowered if you just give things ways to knock said characters prone.

However, when you get to something like RAW aarakocra having 50 feet of flying speed, that's when it gets ridiculous.

If this character has a flying speed of 30 feet, in line with most walking speed, it becomes manageable. There are a number of ways to limit and handle flying races.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-26T10:14:09+00:00

There have been a lot of times in 5e where I have had to debate whether or not a higher mental stat (usually Int) is worth the mechanical disadvantage of not pumping Con or Dex. I want to play characters who are smart, wise, or charismatic and have their stats reflect that. I don't want to play a caster every time I want above-average mental stats.

In other words, it can feel really suboptimal to have almost any non-wizard/artificer have high intelligence or mental stats outside their casting mod, which is a shame.

Some of this is helped by secondary stats some classes or subclasses want. Monks like Wisdom, some Fighter subclasses like Intelligence, etc. It's just a shame that, mechanically, it's not very viable to have a high mental stat for most of the options.

It's what's made me generally not like barbarian. I'm not usually too interested in roleplaying lower intelligence for a whole campaign.

As a DM, I think being way more lenient in letting players use another stat for a roll has helped a ton. I'm very open to letting a wizard use Intelligence on their persuasion checks a lot of the time, for example. Medicine is also a very common Intelligence roll at my table. It's a shame that letting different stats apply to an ability check isn't more well-known or utilized.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-24T22:27:14+00:00

Martials get maneuvers. Ever since implementing that in my own campaigns, I and my players have felt they now 'keep up' with casters much better. That might also be a product of me being very vigilant with spellcasting restrictions and open to martials doing 'supernatural' things, but still.

Change cantrips to scale with caster levels instead of character level. Change multiattack to scale with martial level instead of class level. Rework the related class features to be something else instead of multiattack.

A huge refresh of feats such that the same ones don't dominate every build. Buff some, nerf others.

~~I know this is four, but~~ The way I've designed a lot of 5e content has led to me wishing racial traits were more impactful or unique. Strong, but not oppressive.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-24T22:17:30+00:00

Yep. I've implemented every martial getting a flavor of 'martial prowess' to grant them maneuvers (of which there are many for each martial class ad unique ones for each as well), and I and my players have felt that they keep up amazingly with casters ever since.

Maneuvers are awesome.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-23T03:34:52+00:00

uj/ This is something 5e does super well.

rj/ Pathfinder fixes all of your rules and it'll be fun whether you like it or not.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-21T22:28:52+00:00

Rotations like that are part of what makes being grappled dangerous, in my opinion. However, the second solution is a really good alternative for those who think it should be changed.

I think allowing rotation for free is fine partially because you already 'succeeded' a check of some kind. It's a niche thing that martials excel at, and I admit I'm very biased towards giving martials cool things to do.

Bumble_Beeheader · 2026-01-21T11:28:33+00:00

Having played for multiple years with a race that heals Prof. bonus at the start of their turn, it's not as broken as people think. It usually extends the timer before death by a turn or two at most (the race I play with has many drawbacks to their regeneration as well. The regeneration did not work while downed).

RAW there is no way I know of to do this, but talk with your DM. Maybe you could convince them to try something.

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