Hey folks,
I've been looking over a bunch of my old RPG stuff, including my Alternity PHB (which I love so damn much). I thought it would be cool to port over the Sesheyan player race from Alternity to D&D 5e. Here's the most recent draft, please enjoy!
Sesheyan Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Age. Seshayans mature a little faster than humans, reaching adulthood around the age of 15. They age at a pace similar to humans, but their old age often extends to 90 or 100 years, with some elders reaching 110 years.
Alignment. Seshayans have a deep respect for the natural world and live in awe of life and the forces which give rise to it. As such, sesheyans tend to be good, examining new circumstances and dilemmas with a fresh perspective each time that does not lean towards either chaos or law.
Size. Seshayans average about 5 and a half feet tall and weigh about 90 pounds. Your size is medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Flight (Glide). You have a flying speed of 45 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor. A sesheyan's wings are not large or strong enough to allow unfettered flight. A sesheyan is not capable of taking off from the ground, needing a height of at least 15 ft. from which to leap or drop in order to go aloft. Seshayans remain aloft by gliding, and lose 5 ft. of altitude every round unless they expend movement to gain altitude. Expending movement to gain altitude costs 2 feet of movement for every foot of altitude gained. Additionally, while a sesheyan is conscious and able to spread its wings to a span of 15 feet, it does not take falling damage, instead gliding gently to the ground.
Superior Darkvision. Seshayans are hunters of the night and twilight. Their nocturnal activity cycle has helped them develop excellent night-vision in their eight eyes. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
Keen Senses. You have proficiency in in the Perception skill.
Silent Wings. While gliding, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
Other than possibly the advantage on stealth checks, nothing else looks off. Your flying rules are a bit more complicated than they absolutely have to be, but that will help it be a bit less unreasonable than the Arakocra's flight ability.
the rules on flying are fine and the advantage on stealth is situational i would allow it
what is Alternity rpg? i know i could just google it up, but its more fun to ask another human being.
Alternity was a tabletop RPG published by TSR in 1998 or 1999, don't remember which. All of the campaign settings released for it were sci-fi of some kind, and the PHB was presented it primarily as a sci-fi game, though the rules in the PHB could be used for any era (including medieval or stone age). It was a somewhat complex game system, probably leaning towards rules-heavy (though nothing as intense as GURPS) with a core mechanic where rolling low was better, and degrees of success/failure were built into every check. It certainly had its bugs, but it was pretty different from most other games out at the time, and the core mechanic was really great (in my mind).
The core mechanic went like this: you roll a (known as the control die) d20, with target numbers based off of the ability score or skill for which you are rolling. The degree of success you achieve is determined like this: if you roll above the number corresponding to the skill, you fail (usually). An ordinary successs would be from the number corresponding to the skill to the number just above half of it, a good success is from half to the number just above a quarter, and an amazing success is from one quarter of it to a 1. So if you had a score of 12 in something it would look like this:
- Fail - 13 or higher.
- Ordinary - 12 to 7
- Good - 6 to 4
- Amazing - 3 to 1.
Bonuses and penalties came in the form of other die types (knows as the situation die). This definitely made the system a little more swingy, but it was great fun for anyone who likes to throw more dice ata time. A -1 bonus would be -d4 to your d20 roll, a -2 would be -d6, and so forth. Penalties would add dice to your roll, using the same increments.
Everyone had multiple damage tracks for different types of injuries and trauma (stun for fist fights, wound for more serious weapons, mortal for strong weapons, or amazing successes on some smaller weapons, and fatigue damage). Armor worked as damage reduction.
Some fun things that happened with these rules include an expansion for Star Craft, and an iteration of Gamma World.
Anyway, there's too much to describe. Definitely a fun game if you enjoy some crunch and some finicky details in your rule set. If I was ever gonna run a realy gritty medieval style game that was intended to be somewhat simulation like, I would actually use the alternity rules.
I thought the sesheyans would make a fun D&D race, fitting in nicely as a nature-oriented hunter race.