These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not refined byįinal game design and editing. The material here is presented for playtesting and to spark your imagination.
So, as promised, I’ll be making a whole slew of new playable races for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. Wow! Can you believe that on Instagram got more than 1,000 followers yesterday? And that’s all because of you, the D&D community.
Lots of fun RP opportunities in that kind of approach and plenty of control over balance.DM Dave 1 Comment on Oni Playable Race | New Player Option for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Posted in Player Options The DM could have its various powers first activate at times of high stress and then allow the character to master them at level appropriate times. You could do a similar thing with an Oni - perhaps cursed for its evil deeds to be unaware of its own true form. I've got an Elven Fighter in a campaign I'm running now who is gradually getting access to the powers of his family's dormant Moonblade as his heroic deeds restore it. I also like running low-level PCs with unlockable abilities they don't fully understand. spells for half damage)." (2nd Edition Humanoid Handbook) "Ogre magi develop special abilities as they gain hit dice: 1) assume gaseous form once per day (as the potion), fly for 12 turns 2) become invisible at will, charm person once per day 3) cast sleep once per day, regenerate one hit point per round (lost mem- bers must be reattached to regenerate) 4) cause darkness in a 10-foot radius at will 5) polymorph to a human or similar biped creature (4 feet to 12 feet in height), cone of cold once per day (creates a 60-foot cone, 20 feet in diameter at the far end, that inflicts 8d8 points of damage, save vs. Or, in 2nd edition, Oni needed 2X xp to level up, were capped at single-digit numbers of levels, and gained their abilities with each level like so: Doesn't let you play them in low level campaigns, and you'd have to scale cantrips and the like in order to make it work right, but might be one approach. So if, for the sake of argument, you decided that an Oni was something like a 10th level PC, you could play a level 2 Oni Wizard as if it were a level 12 character.
I think some older editions of D&D used to allow monstrous humanoid player-character races as they were written, but counted them as a set number of levels onto which you could ad PC levels.
Or just give some monsters with the at will ability that feature. You could, for instance, rule that monsters with at will casting abilities cast those spells as a bonus action, overriding the spell's original designation. Innate spellcasting still requires an Action right? So, the Oni wants to start out invisible, take some sort of Action to attack or cast a different spell, probably end up taking some damage on the group's turns, then turn invisible again, wait for the group to take turns unable to do much since they can't see the Oni, and finally start the whole process over? (Using its flying ability to stay out of melee reach and REALLY make things difficult to find it.)Īs another poster pointed out above, yes, casting a spell costs an Action (or Bonus Action or Reaction) as designated in the spell's description.Īs the DM, you're allowed to switch things up and change them to 1) keep the players on their toes and 2) give the monsters a healthy fighting chance.
I'm a little unclear on the innate spellcasting and how to play this properly. Monstrous Compendium Volume One: Spelljammer Creatures