D&D 5E Pixies

[Will Doyle]

In a couple of weeks, I'm running my "Glitterdust" adventure from Dungeon 211 at the Dragonmeet con in London. The adventure is designed for a party of pixie adventurers. I'd like to convert it for 5th Edition, so I'm going to make a bunch of pregens. How would you build a pixie race? It's for a one-shot, so in some areas I'm not so bothered about longterm balance.

A few things I'm thinking:

racial bonuses to charisma and dex.
Flight as in 4e, ie you need to end your turn at low altitude.
Invisibility on a short rest, but flying leaves a visible trail of pixie dust even when invisible.
Really low strength - I've never quite agreed with pixies being anywhere near strong - so they must rely on finesse weapons in melee.
Can talk to animals

From 4th, I'd take out the pixie dust power and shrink item power (as it's a one-shot). Anyone tried making a pixie race before? Any other ideas?

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

You could take the mechanics for small PC races and extrapolate them to tiny size.
- Small races have a lower base land speed so a tiny race would have an even lower base land speed. 20 feet makes sense since medium typically have 30 and the small have 25.
- Small races wield heavy weapons with disadvantage. You could rule that any weapon without finesse would be wielded with disadvantage for tiny.
- Another equipment based trait might rule that a pixie cannot fly while wearing heavy armor.

A lot of the magically inclined races also have a bonus cantrip. Friends, minor illusion or prestidigitation are the first that spring to mind. If you want to go further with the magic you could give access to spells as you level similar to the drow. The spells pixies cast in their monster manual entry would be my starting point for choices.

 

[MagicSN]

In our local group one player plays a pixie. The following are our houserule racials:

On Butterfly's Wings: You can fly (if not carrying more than normal load) with a speed of 30 feet per round, with a maximum height of 100 feet. After 10 minutes of flight you need to land.
Pixie Nimbleness: You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
Naturally Stealthy: You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is one size larger than you.
Tiny Adventurer: You have 1 hitpoint/lvl less than other adventurers (at least 1 hitpoint).
Wee Warrior: Reach of 1 (like 'Small'). Disadvantage on Checks to break/open objects. Wielding a weapon your size -> Rules for Small Creatures.
+1 Dex
+2 Cha
Darkvision
Extra Languages: Sylvan

MagicSN

 

[Joe Liker]

Since it's a one-off, why not just go with the Monster Manual stat block? You can allow some small variation in attributes, but for the most part what's written there does not seem over- or underpowered to me.

I might restrict the innate spells to those that could normally be cast at the character's level; other than that, I don't see any reason to sweat a homebrew version.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Speaking of pixies ... anyone got a link to some pixie miniatures?

 

[Joe Liker]

Speaking of pixies ... anyone got a link to some pixie miniatures?

In all my years, I've never seen a good one. I think maybe they are so tiny no one wants to bother.

A friend of mine uses tiny butterfly-wing shaped hair clips.

 

[Will Doyle]

Since it's a one-off, why not just go with the Monster Manual stat block? You can allow some small variation in attributes, but for the most part what's written there does not seem over- or underpowered to me..

Good idea, I may actually do something like that. Apply a few very simple class-like features to give some variety, add a few extra HP and mix up some of the spells, and get rid of improved invisibility at will (cause it will make the adventure boring to play)...

 

[Will Doyle]

In all my years, I've never seen a good one. I think maybe they are so tiny no one wants to bother.

Yeah, I've never found one that works. We ended up using stirge and bat familiars :/

 

[aramis erak]

Add wings to some 15mm elves. Or steal a few eldar or Elven figs from your Epic Scale warhammer buddies (7mm)...
and add wings.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Speaking of pixies ... anyone got a link to some pixie miniatures?

Reaper has some that might be to your liking.
https://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder#search/pixie
https://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder#search/fairy

Unearthed Arcana had some spryte figures that were neat because they were on scale.
http://www.fantization.com/sprytesx2figsapr06.aspx