D&D 5E 5E Grimlock PC

[Werebat]

My players ran afoul of the troll matriarch in our last session of Gates of Firestorm Peak (which I am running a 5E adaptation of between halves of Out of the Abyss), and half of their characters were captured when the other half retreated (there are a LOT of mutant trolls in those caverns!)

Trolls are not known for keeping prisoners long, but I told the players that I would contrive some way for their characters to survive if they really wanted to keep playing them.

Two opted to make new PCs (both of whom were playing elven twins, a deep stalker ranger and an underdark druid). One of these wants to roll a shadow monk, and the other is thinking of a barbarian.

We were talking and the idea of a grimlock barbarian came up. Sounds pretty cool. But what sort of stats would Grimlock have as a PC race?

+2 Str seems right, as does a bonus of +1 to Dex or Con.

They have Blindsight out to 30', beyond which they are blind.

They also get Keen Hearing/Smell and Stone Camouflage.

They also speak Undercommon.

Is this too much? Too little? Should they get +1 to Dex AND Con?

 

[Duan'duliir]

Just use the NPC traits from DMG pg 282, perhaps reducing the -2 Charisma to a -1

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[Jester David]

I'd replace the advantage of Keen Hearing/Smell with just proficiency with Perception.

The PC version should probably speak Common as well.

They really need something else as well. Some unique little quirk or power.

 

[Werebat]

Instead of replacing Keen Hearing/Smell, how about adding proficiency in Perception, Athletics, and Stealth? Or is that way too much?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

They really need something else as well. Some unique little quirk or power.

Blindsight is already a powerful and fairly unique quirk. There's no standard race that has it.

A Grimlock Eldritch Knight, for example, would be extremely powerful. He just casts Darkness on himself and gets much of the effect of a 9th level Foresight spell on himself for as long as it lasts: advantage on attacks, disadvantage to attackers.

Keen Hearing is also fine.

Werebat's original suggestion seems fine to me, both my powergamer instincts and my DM instincts.

Edit: except I think you'd want to define Keen Smell more fully than the MM does. In addition to the vague "you get advantage on smell checks," try giving the Grimlock a baseline capability that it can use smell checks for. A human might not have much chance of smelling a ten-minute-old scent trail on stone, no matter HOW high his Perception roll is--but maybe a Grimlock would.

 

[Jester David]

Blindsight is already a powerful and fairly unique quirk. There's no standard race that has it.

A Grimlock Eldritch Knight, for example, would be extremely powerful. He just casts Darkness on himself and gets much of the effect of a 9th level Foresight spell on himself for as long as it lasts: advantage on attacks, disadvantage to attackers.

Keen Hearing is also fine.

Werebat's original suggestion seems fine to me, both my powergamer instincts and my DM instincts.

Edit: except I think you'd want to define Keen Smell more fully than the MM does. In addition to the vague "you get advantage on smell checks," try giving the Grimlock a baseline capability that it can use smell checks for. A human might not have much chance of smelling a ten-minute-old scent trail on stone, no matter HOW high his Perception roll is--but maybe a Grimlock would.

It's useful IF you can cast darkness, but not every class can do so. It's strong for eldritch knights and arcane tricksters, but few other characters. And then it can hurt the rest of the party if not done carefully. Balance has to consider the group.
After all, we're talking a grimlock barbarian. They're not using darkness any time soon.

Except they're blind beyond 30 feet, which is a huge disadvantage. Ranged attacks are useless. They should never move directly towards an enemy. And if an enemy attacks and moves they might not notice. The DM will have to be careful to pay attention to this.

Defining key smell is what I would do. It gives them blindsight 10 feet and maybe lets them identify creatures by their unique smell. Tracking via scent would also be handy, adding the advantage to Survival checks to track as well.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's useful IF you can cast darkness, but not every class can do so. It's strong for eldritch knights and arcane tricksters, but few other characters. And then it can hurt the rest of the party if not done carefully. Balance has to consider the group.
After all, we're talking a grimlock barbarian. They're not using darkness any time soon.

Yeah, I was talking about the general case of grimlock PCs. I agree that a grimlock Barbarian doesn't have any unusual synergies unless someone else enables them.

I've had a blind shadow monk in my campaign before. She took the Alert feat to partially cancel out the penalty, and she liked to fight in Darkness for defensive reasons. It was sometimes inconvenient in roleplaying situations, e.g. she couldn't read lips. It worked out okay but I'm not sure the player would play a blind character again without getting something in exchange. (I did​ give her +2 Dex, but I also warned her that she was deliberately playing on Hard Mode.)

 

[Iry]

I thought this was going to be about giant robot dinosaur PCs.
You broke my heart, OP.

 

[Iry]

Sorry, I cannot figure out how to delete attachments or posts.

 

[Jester David]

I'm a little sad it's not that grimlock as well.