New & Alternate Player Races (Patreon)

Hey everyone, excited to share a number of new and updated player races for 5e that I’ve developed over the past few years - now all in one convenient compendium! Some of them are new player races that I think should probably have had an official version by now, and others are my own takes on some existing player races.

As always, I’m open to any constructive feedback and criticisms you may have. Each of these races has been carefully balanced using the wonderful detect balance sheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1vq1kz6PRAbw5LHy6amH-bNb4OuB8DBXL1RsZROt03Sc/htmlview

PLAYER RACES

Entlings. It is no secret that I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkiens works, and therefore of plant people (ie: Ents). The Entling is my take on a “plantfolk” race for 5e. It is loosely based on the Warforged found in the Ebberon book, but with some more druidic flavor. If I were to play a race in here as a PC it would 100% be an Entling!

Half-Dwarves. A polished version of the first homebrew player race I designed, the Half-Dwarf is a popular option for past editions (particularly with the Dark Sun setting) that I’ve brought up to speed with 5e. I particularly enjoy the idea of them having Expertise with a set of artisan’s tools - not mechanically powerful but I think it’d be a ton of fun to role-play!

Magen. Inspired by the create magen spell in Rime of the Frostmaiden (and one of my own players needing to be resurrected by a group of questionable wizards) the Magen is a race of arcane beings. They are fairly powerful, but they have a glaring weakness against abjuration magic (particularly detect magic and anti-magic zones)! I’d love to hear your thoughts on these guys.

Alternate Fairies. I don’t think it’s a secret that people were not very satisfied with the Fairy player face published in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, so this is my take on it. I “went for it” and made them Tiny sized and included some rules around that. Ultimately, your DM is going to need to make a few rulings on what you can and can’t do (I recommend covering that in session 0).

Alternate Humans. This is another one of my original homebrews that I’ve updated to be included here. My goal was to make humans the most flexible player race without resorting to feats (don’t worry I left a Feat option in there). Since developing this originally, I’ve come around to Feats, so I don’t dislike the Variant Human as much as I once did, but I already did the work so I thought I’d include the Alternate Human here.

Alternate Lizardfolk This is a personal project of mine since my homebrew West Marches game includes so many lizardfolk. I recognize that I like this player race more than most people, but I also recognize that most people should appreciate lizards more.

GOT AN IDEA?

I’m always looking for inspiration, so if you have an idea for a new Player Race or an existing Player Race that could use an Alternate version, let me know!

My next project related to 5e Player Races is going to be a “create your own Tiefling” and “create your own Dwarven Clan (subrace)” guide!