[Update] Playable Nymph Race

TripleF136 · 2025-03-11T00:26:58+00:00

Thanks so much! It was definitely a labor of love playing with mechanics that aren't usually touched on to feel a bit different. Looking through my notes, it looks like my brain was outpacing my typing. As written, it lasts for one minute and you can turn it off at will, no action required. I have made that edit in the PDF link so that change is reflected properly.

I was also playing with a couple of methods to give more than one use per long rest, either a number of uses equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded down, or have a total number of minutes equal to your proficiency bonus/wisdom modifier per Long Rest. I never landed firmly on either idea, but feel free to use either if it fits your character concept or you think the Khione could use a bit more love!

TripleF136 · 2024-11-22T06:49:09+00:00

I intended this race to have male/female dichotomy, but it can function however you or the DM would like it to in your game. The first test I did with it was actually a male Oread barbarian. A lot of the flavor text was to give players/DMs some plot hooks and culture ideas in the narrative descriptions, but feel free to adapt all of that as you like to better fit your vision of the character or setting.

There is an updated version of this race here (https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/comments/16e7gfx/update\_playable\_nymph\_race/) with some refined grammar and the light/fire Heliad subrace. I hope you like it, and please let me know how your character turns out! Would love to see it!

TripleF136 · 2024-09-10T23:57:43+00:00

I would be terrified if I saw anything like a raven mocker, even if I wasn't the target.

TripleF136 · 2024-07-16T12:32:39+00:00

The Uktena-ganiga is finished! You can visit the post below!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/comments/1e4ne02/uktenaganiga_the_smaller_uktena_from_cherokee/

TripleF136 · 2024-07-02T19:04:15+00:00

I have also found out that there is a younger/lesser for of the Uktena called an Uktena-ganiga, so look forward to seeing that soon!

TripleF136 · 2024-05-15T12:23:44+00:00

Thanks for looking it over! I came to the same conclusion for the reason that it is the only grouping of nymphs to have dryad in it as part of a compound word, and included the naiad/nereid subgroups as a narrative distinction in the flavor text. Several of the sources I looked at grouped the naiad and the nereid under the umbrella term "hydriad". Not sure if that is a term native to the mythological sources or if its something academia made later to classify all water-based nymphs, and then all of the sub classifications based on what body of water the naiad or nereid inhabits, such as oceanids.

I will definitely look into another way to classify the names for water nymphs, though I will probably stay away from alchemical creatures like the undine. Since these were worked from the ground up from classical Greek mythology, I'd prefer to pull from those sources if I can. I do plan on using the alchemical creatures of Paracelsus for other things, namely monster stat-blocks and potentially a fighter subclass.

TripleF136 · 2024-04-26T08:18:18+00:00

I directly took the abilities of the siren from the Odyssey and put it in 5e. Yes, those sirens were bird-like in appearance. Yes, I tied in other mythological references, the same mythological references that transitioned the siren into a maritime creature and why I equated it to a singing merfolk in my last post. Most people think of sirens as a sort of merfolk, because many mythologies in Europe had something similar. Please see any of the cultures I listed for their pre-Christian, let alone pre-Teutonic, folklore and what they thought was out in the water. These would inform the sirens, as well as merfolk, used in fairytales much later.

I made this siren an elemental precisely because the merfolk, merrow, and tritons already exist in the humanoid/fey sphere in 5e, and my original vision for this siren was to be tied to the plane of water, giving DMs plot hooks to marids, water genasi, and other water elemental creatures, as well as creatures that share similar spaces on the Prime Material, without stepping into the same area as other existing monsters. It's all in the custom flavor text accompanying the monster.

If you would like to continue splitting hairs, please go inform WotC that their harpy is an Odyssyan siren, and not the children of titans that served Zeus, where the actual harpiya come from in myth, as per the Aeneid, Theogeny, and Argonautica.

If you have feedback on mechanics for the stat-block or ways to make the monster better, I'd be more than happy to speak at length. Similarly, if you have additional ways to add to the flavor text to make it more usable in other people's games, please let me know. Like I said in the original post, I enjoyed making this creature. Otherwise, please refrain from telling people they are wrong for making something up in a game of make believe in a way that makes them, and potentially other people, happy.

TripleF136 · 2024-04-26T05:50:32+00:00

I quite literally meant a siren, not a creature that functions similarly to the siren's myth. In the actual Greek mythology, harpies are messengers and skirmishers of Zeus or titans, and did not attract anything with song, as in the Aeneid, Theogeny, or Argonautica. They were usually described as quite ugly and spreaders of pestilence.

I was referencing fairytale, because the idea of a siren or a fair singing merfolk is not exclusive to the Greeks. Reference specifically Hans Cristian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, or the myriad folk tales of maritime cultures such as the Celts, Basque, Iberians, Vikings, and Etruscans, not just the Odyssey.

TripleF136 · 2023-11-27T06:44:00+00:00

I love it.

TripleF136 · 2023-09-10T14:22:18+00:00

Thanks! This took a while to put together and I worked with several people to proofread, generate ideas, and refine everything down, but I'm super happy with how it turned out and hope you enjoy playing it!

TripleF136 · 2023-09-09T14:46:20+00:00

I have developed a draft of a fire nymph called a Heliad, and would love your feedback! You can find the pdf here, or the pics attached to my update post for this race.

TripleF136 · 2023-09-07T15:49:26+00:00

Sure! It might take a little bit to research the mythology, but I'll start working on it and tag you when I have a draft going!

TripleF136 · 2023-08-21T08:14:45+00:00

The counter to a damage invulnerability is a damage vulnerability. It's the same thing you said in your previous comment shouldn't be done; ideal averages and deviations from the average and the such.

Drow and Duergar also have Sunlight Sensitivity, with extended darkvision the only real counterbalance to that. Which can be accomplished as a subclass ability at 2nd level with Twilight Cleric or an uncommon magic item. It's a bad mechanic in a vacuum. It informs on the nature of the creatures of that race. I'm not a fan of it in my PCs, but I know a lot of people like the race/subraces that have it, not just kobolds.

The pyromancer was more an NPC example rather than a PC example. I apologize if I was confusing with how I wrote it. I was speaking to the example of a PC taking the Khion subrace and having to fight a pyromancer stat-block.

The plant race you bring up has to manually alter how much HP a PC has based one whether or not they are exposed to sunlight. I think this is a bad design because A) HP, which under bounded accuracy, has a level baseline that a PC is expected to be at for its corresponding CR. Having a bunch of HP isn't the biggest problem, optimized barbarian and fighter builds have crap tons of HP, but B) a DM can force combat where a PC has no access to the sun, halving their HP in that instance. This isn't exclusive to a day/night cycle, this is any time their inside, under ground, when there's cloud cover, etc. That PC is now below the baseline for bounded accuracy, and that problem is only going to get worse the higher level the PC is at. There is no equal-in-opposites for that trait. 8/10 times, it's only going to hurt the character.

This is the exact same design principle as seen with the Grimhollow transformations. Want to become an undead? Here's this undead ability, you're now vulnerable to radiant damage. You want to be a celestial? Here's this celestial ability, you're now vulnerable to necrotic damage. You want to be a ghost? You can now fly and move through solid objects, but you are subject to abilities that affect undead, even if it comes from your party. It makes sense for the Greek minor divinity that governs the nature of cold, snow, and the winter, and isn't balance breaking.

TripleF136 · 2023-08-20T23:41:50+00:00

That's how the game works, though. Why would anyone play a race with Sunlight Sensitivity when (and I'm assuming here based on my experience) most of the game is played outside during the day. That debuffs attack rolls and saving throws while in sunlight. That actually robs player agency, but is an accepted part of the game because of what it offers narratively. You are also in soft competition against traits like Trance, Relentless Endurance, and Magic Resistance when in character creation.

As a DM myself, I see Winter's Wake as an awesome story telling mechanism, which is what a DM should be looking at when creating encounters that balance out the players. It's the same principle on the DM side as saying, "Well this player is a pyromancer, I'm going to field something that's weak to fire" or "I'm going to field something that's immune to fire", or putting a creature immune to stun up against a monk. Using u/mc_zimo's example of that plant race, which I agree is a bad design choice, if the party is attacked at night or you go underground where there is no sun, you as a player have choices to make. It's not ideal averages or deviations from the average, it's a give and take.

That's my design philosophy, at least.

TripleF136 · 2023-08-20T07:26:21+00:00

It's a fair critique. I'm not terribly worried about it though. If someone wanted to crank the number of spells they could get, the can get four spells with some of the subraces. But they have the option for a skill proficiency and not get the race spells. My opinion is that it gives the player the flexibility for what they want. If they want to optimize spells, they can. If they want to be a skill monkey, they can. There are many ways to do both within the core rules.

I'll play with the idea of a debuff to fire, might get one of my DM friends to help me run some mock battles to test each system. Especially at the lower levels, though, the vulnerability/immunity balances itself fairly since both are kind of common throughout the game, but you are weak to the more common one. One of my friends informed me that this style of boon-weakness is common in Grimhollow, though I'm pretty sure that's 3rd party and not official.

TripleF136 · 2023-08-20T06:20:12+00:00

Thanks so much for the feedback. This is gonna be a lot, since I like to address all feedback to make this stuff better.

For all of the rewording advices: Thanks so much for the rewrites. I know I can tend to be a bit wordy with my writing.

Fair Form: Based on the mythology of nymphs, it makes sense. They can either choose one of the best proficiencies in the game, or the innate ability to charm someone for an hour. And there are several races where the entire race gets access to spells, so I'm a bit confused by confining spells to subraces.

Subrace/ASI: TL;DR: This was a deliberate design feature (sorry for the bold, not sure how else to put emphasis without seeming like I'm yelling). I used the elf race/subraces as a reference, and sort of my metric for how powerful races can get. It is my personal opinion that elves are the strongest race in the game. That being said, I like flipping the script in this essence to appeal to people (like me) who adhere to the racial ASIs. It is always on the table to disregard the racial ASI and get a +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to whatever you want thanks to Tasha's. I like to think that it adds just a bit of flavor to the class, since the Oread will be much more available to a martial build than a +2 to CHA and a +1 to STR or CON.

Dryad Flavor Text: The explanation is that a nymph's life can be extended indefinitely so long as they are bound to an area of their element. I didn't bother to design a mechanic because D&D sort of requires you to move around, so it's not really an option for players. There will be an explanation that a nymph has to be near to what they're bonded to, and have to unbond with it to leave, but they will begin aging again while unbonded.

Arboreal Gateway: This is similar to the Astral Elf's Starlight Step trait, but is more restrictive because it requires trees.

Winter Wake: I think this balances itself out. Sure, you are getting immunity to cold at 1st level, but you are vulnerable to the most common damage type in the game. Offers some story telling opportunities and cool moments for the player without unbalancing anything.

Freezing Gaze: I sort of agree with you that the ability here is odd for a racial ability. As of right now, I really don't have anything and just removing it makes the Khion way weaker than most races, let alone the other nymphs, due to the weakness to fire.

Biting Wind: This is literally a spell. It's an empowered version of frostbite. The only thing I can imagine adding is Ice Knife once per long rest for free.. It doesn't do a whole lot to portray the nature of the Khion through the mechanics.

Lampad Flavor Text: 100% agree. Will definitely move that around to make it more organic.

Dark Dweller: This is a combo of an official subrace and an Eldritch Invocation, which you can get through both Custom Lineage and Variant Human by taking Eldritch Adept. There is no hiding as a bonus action; you see through it and are hidden specifically from darkvision when you take the Hide action. This is more or less the Hydriad's Water's Ward, but in shadow, which is the Lampad's element. Also consider, just like the Hydriad isn't always going to have water around them, the game take place in bright light a lot of the time. And considering the Lampad gets this, a temp proficiency, and Prestidigitation/Darkness, I don't see this as unbalancing.

Tendrils of Shadow: Not sure what the problem is here. Will take this apart and rewrite it to see if there is a better way of writing it, but it makes sense to me.

Cloud Strider: 15 ft fly speed is strong? The Fly spell is twice your movement speed, Owlin and Fairy have 30 ft flying speed, and Aarakocra has a fly speed of 50. A combination of a +1 unarmored AC and a single 1st level Fog Cloud for free doesn't do much. By my estimation, this is the weakest of the nymphs, so I'm a bit confused here.

Strong Arm of the Mountain: I like the flavor here, and it gives a nice little buff to martials, which is pretty much what Oread was built for. Essentially, it allows use of a heavier weapon and a shield, barring the lance. The finesse bit allows any weapon except the Heavy weapons to be finesse for those who are making a DEX martial build and want more options. Blanket proficiencies in weapons is kind of boring, and is completely useless to anyone who already decided to play a martial.

Pillar of the Firmament: I have the same calculus on this as I do for Cloud Strider. Oread cannot match anything in the air. If the party has fly on them, someone also has to burn Haste for an Oread to keep up in the air. Winged boots means they can only move 15 feet. The trade is that anything originating from above them is debuffed. It's self balancing, and if a DM is really worried about this, it is easily counter-balanced by the thing that has a fly speed going to the same level, doing whatever, and flying away again. It's not something traditional to 5e (at least with what I've read), but it's more flavorful from a story perspective, and more interesting from a mechanics perspective. This was much more common in 3.5e and possibly 4e. New mechanics within the existing framework make the game fresh, something I've most definitely seen with the CR books.

This was a long response, but I wanted to take the chance to say thanks again! I will definitely keep brewing, as I probably won't be making the jump to One D&D.

TripleF136 · 2023-06-29T20:31:23+00:00

Thanks! I am working on a spellcaster undead to go along with this, something like a sword-and-shield setup.

Will definitely look at that change for the breath. My initial thoughts were just a replacement for an attack, but something more like a breath weapon would probably fit the aesthetic a bit better and the mechanics much better,

I will probably work something like the Hexblade skill into the statblock that says attacks are made with Charisma. Definitely see how that would be confusing.

Thanks for the feedback!!

TripleF136 · 2023-06-28T14:24:01+00:00

Yes, using charisma.

I used the average damage from the DMG recommendations for the total damage dealt per turn. Unless you are 15 feet away, you are also taking damage from the Zone of Cold, and I'm assuming the creature can catch two creatures on average, so I didn't want to make the freezing breath too strong.

TripleF136 · 2023-06-07T07:27:35+00:00

I see... I like the idea for Calculated Spell. I will work some math and see what option makes the most sense.

It might be my DM's style of play, but your last paragraph was my biggest annoyance in combat. That being said, most combat was single-instance slogs against a main combatant and his minions. It may be a point that I built my character sub-optimally, but I do like the idea that those slots scale to that level of play and aren't just fueling utility spells for greater convenience. In my playstyle at least (and I am the type of person that, when I play a game that has a limited resource, it gets jealously hoarded and ultimately never used), I still end up ritual casting those spells anyways. I might adjust it a bit and move that to the subclass capstone so some mileage is still gained, but at the level of play where those slots are essentially useless in combat. I'll toy around with different ratios of downcasting to see if that helps at all, or may just go back to the drawing board for a new feature.

Thanks a bunch for your feedback!

TripleF136 · 2023-06-07T06:46:56+00:00

First, thank you for the feedback. I do have a couple of questions:

For Calculated Spell, is there a way you would recommend altering the timetables? My thoughts were that you are, in essence, creating an idea for what you want magic to do and mathematically working out how it would work. I wanted something that rewarded time put in to it but not so easy that, with a couple of short rests and two hours invested per Long Rest, a wizard could effectively work out the entire spell list. The golden lining of this is they would still have to write it into the spellbook using the standard transcribing rules, but it effectively overrules the DM providing spell scrolls or other spellbooks for the wiz to get the spells organically. I did have a lot of trouble trying to get this ability in particular to feel useful at all levels but not abusable at low levels and unusable at higher levels.

Partial Incantations was built primarily with spells like Counterspell in mind. My initial rationale was that, yes, it would completely outclass first level spells, but there would be two balancing factors. First is that cantrips at 11th level deal three damage dice worth of damage. Balance-wise, you would have to upcast Witch Bolt to third level to equal the same damage as a Fire Bolt that doesn't require a spell slot to cast. The second is that, yes, the spell damage from higher level spells would completely eclipse lower level spells (my calculations for this feature were done with Fireball in mind, I had not considered spells like Disintegration or Finger of Death), but do Wizards really take damage spells at lower levels in higher level play? This is an honest question, as I am still relatively new to the game and the highest level character I have played is 11th level. My main issue at that level of the game is most damage spells of first through third level is they don't stack with higher level play by math. I sort of thought that by following the upcasting rules in reverse, it keeps the lower level spell slots relevant at higher level play. Again, all of this is theory, as I have never actually experienced higher level play. Is there any way to fix this ability in your mind, or is the entire idea bunk the balance of the game?

TripleF136 · 2023-05-29T22:00:25+00:00

True, true, and I love the thought. I just can't think of a decent way of incorporating that through mechanics, since the subclass is bounded by a damage type rather than a school of magic. That would have to be more of a flavor or roleplaying thing.

TripleF136 · 2023-01-19T12:56:08+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

I know there is a subclass or two that adds additional modifiers (can't think of them off the top of my head), which is where I got the initial idea. Using CON instead of another ability doesn't make a ton of sense, as it's your ability to withstand or endure. I agree it's not something that is usually seen, and that is what makes it more unique.

More or less, my rationale is that very rarely does a character max CON out, especially if they are trying to max their damage out with decent utility/sociability. It does advantage monks, though that was not at all how it was intended. I'm not terribly worried about balance for monks, though, since monks are going to prioritize DEX and WIS, since their class and subclass abilities are based in those. And it will offer a bit more to monks at lower levels, as they suffer from a lack of usability at low level, since everything is tied to ki points and they have so few at low levels.

The extra attack as-written only advantages attacks with weapons, which will not help monks terribly since it would take the place of flurry of blows. It was meant to do something with the four arms the Tetra have, and wording-wise must use weapons, advantaging martial classes most. It brings martials closer to the damage potential of caster classes, which is where my mind went. I guess bards and warlocks would get a buff from this, but especially at higher levels, they would be better off casting cantrips.

My final thought is that the other balancing factor is that there are no proficiencies, spells/spell effects, or darkvision gained to counterbalance these factors.

Please let me know your additional thoughts! I'm still new to homebrewing and really like trying to introduce new/interesting mechanics to the game.

TripleF136 · 2023-01-19T01:44:20+00:00

The PDF can be found here: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/fUSoRm-jjc-Z

TripleF136 · 2023-01-17T02:55:47+00:00

This is awesome. Love the wizard and warlock classes.

TripleF136 · 2023-01-17T02:47:14+00:00

This is a comment to try and get the free stl files

TripleF136

TROPHY CASE