Racial traits are a surprisingly small component when it comes to how a character functions mechanically, but each race has a few essential bits, and a wider set of general features. As fifth edition has progressed that cultural influence has been pulled further and further out, but for now think of a race as a character’s physical form first, and with only a touch of culture sprinkled on top. A race represents in a strict biological sense what a character IS, with just a dash of how they were raised and their cultural identity. Now, let’s take a look at the mechanics of races and take them apart, so you can put your own together later. If you're looking to create an advanced race, work towards a goal of 15 "points" rather than 10. Advanced races on the other hand will be strong but shouldn't be game breaking as there's already advanced races in the game such as the yuan ti pureblood.Īs a dungeon master if you're wanting to create monstrous races, simply work towards a goal of 20 "points" rather than 10 "points" when creating your monstrous races. Monstrous races are fun but will be overpowered compared to the base races. If you're looking to create something stronger than an official race, you're looking at monstrous races or advanced races. Now, that may not be what you’re looking for, but all the following advice will be oriented towards helping you create a race balanced with the standard races that anybody could drop into their campaigns without issue. While you could theoretically make any sort of player character, you want to end up with homebrew races that can be played alongside the existing races without causing a power imbalance. Custom Race Goalsįirst, before we get into it properly, we should establish what goals we’re working towards. So why not make your own? Start looking for inspiration because we’re going to run through the design workshop with everything you need to know about making your own custom dungeons and dragons 5e races.
Where are the octopus-people? Why can I not be a dragon race that's actually dragons, or a robot with a chainsaw hand in dungeons & dragons? If you’ve longed for these playable 5e races and more, you’re left making do with a base race or scrounging through fan content and even then, you may not get something well-balanced or even what you’re really looking for. Dwarf, elf, orc, halfling, variant human, bleh, boring.