Design philosphy
The standard 5th edition players handbook races are created and designed for a high fantasy setting, and come with several decades of associated lore about what these races are like, how they behave, and what innate abilities they might have. For Svalskogenhiem, I wanted to retain some elements of the classical fantasy tropes, but also impart my own vision through the design of their stats and abilities to further supplement the world itself. Many of the races are also burdened with fitting into these ongoing archetypes with their racial ability score boost(s) meaning they favour certain classes above others, e.g. the tough wise dwarves become clerics or fighters, and the dexterous clever gnome become rogues. On top of that, notoriously several of the standard 5th edition races are just plain weaker traits-wise than their counterparts.
To alleviate this I have tweaked and balanced both the races and their relevant subraces, and have removed the large +2 ability boost from races in general. Your class now gives you this boost in the ability score most relevant to the class itself (or a choice thereof when necessary). Similarly saving throws have been separated, one now comes from your race (the "strong" save of either Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom) intending to show where your races inherent prowess lies (are they nimble, resilient, or sagacious?), whilst the other save comes from your class.
Updated Trait summary
With the above in mind, here is a summary of the updates to both races and classes. These may be replicated in other articles in this series but are gathered here for convenience.
- Barbarian: +2 Strength and Str save proficiency
- Bard: +2 Charisma and Cha save proficiency
- Blood Hunter: +2 Strength OR +2 Dexterity and Str save proficiency (created by Matthew Mercer, found here)
- Cleric: +2 Wisdom and Cha save proficiency
- Druid: +2 Wisdom and Int save proficiency
- Fighter: +2 Strength OR +2 Dexterity; Str save proficiency
- Paladin: +2 Strength OR +2 Charisma; Cha save proficiency
- Pugilist: +2 Strength OR +2 Consitution; Str save proficiency (this is my replacement for the Monk class, it was created by Benjamin Huffman and can be found here.)
- Ranger: +2 Dexterity OR +2 Wisdom; Str save proficiency
- Rogue: +2 Dexterity OR +2 Intelligence OR +2 Charisma; Int save proficiency
- Sorcerer: +2 Charisma; Cha save proficiency
- Warlock: +2 Charisma; Cha save proficiency
- Wizard: +2 Intelligence; Int save proficiency
- Aelf: Dex save proficiency
- Dverg: Con save proficiency
- Hulder: Dex save proficiency
- Human: Con OR Dex OR Wis save proficiency
- Varl: Wis save proficiency
- Caliban: Con save proficiency
- Changeling: Dex save proficiency
- Fiendbreed: Wis save proficiency
- Plane-marked: Wis save proficiency
- Shade: Dex save proficiency
- Aelf-touched: Dex OR Con save proficiency
