Grung
by Prince Phantom
For the three of you on the back row who wanted to play a frog man, or if you’re just a big fan of the old school Battletoads, the Grung is the race for you. You may have to ask permission to play this first though, as this race comes from an Extra Life charity event, however it is still an official, WOTC published race, so it should be legal at pretty much all tables. While this race is strong, it’s certainly not overpowered, so I don’t think DMs have anything to be worried about. Let’s go over the features, because there’s some really cool and unique stuff here.
Grung Features
Arboreal Alertness: Perception is the best skill in the game, so I’m happy to pick it up here.
Speed: 25ft walking, 25ft climbing: Having a 25ft walking speed is definitely a disadvantage, but I believe that the climbing speed makes up the difference. Climbing up to a high place provides a big advantage in combat, putting us out of range of melee attacks.
Amphibious: Breathing water is pretty easy to do thanks to Water Breathing being a ritual spell available to many classes at level 5, but this is still nice to have.
Poison Immunity: Currently, this is the only non-legacy race to offer any type of damage immunity unconditionally. The Chromatic Dragonborn can grant immunity to one of a few types of damage for one minute each day as an action, but that’s nothing compared to this. Poison is by far the most common damage type besides the physical ones to face in most campaigns, as tons of monsters deal poison damage alongside their usual attacks. This will feel like a Barbarian’s rage in some fights, with you taking half the damage everyone else is taking. This feature is reason enough to consider the Grung a strong race.
Poisonous Skin: The fact that this is always on is kinda funny, because it means sealing a deal with a handshake is sorta off the table, but outside of that small downside this is a house of a feature. This is free damage, no strings attached, plus an amazing defense against natural weapons, unarmed strikes, shoves and grapples. Yes, the DC for this is only 12, and Constitution is the worst saving throw to target a monster with on average, and yes, many creatures are immune to poison and the poisoned condition, but the fact of the matter is that we get to force this save so often that it will happen occasionally, and that’s really all I can ask for. You can make a case that this falls off at higher levels, but I don’t even think it falls very far. Monk Grungs can force a save against poisoning with each of their four attacks each round, giving that class a much needed avenue of control. Other classes can focus on the extra 2d4 damage on each attack if the enemy fails the save. Even if you only get to apply this once per round, that’s still more damage than just about any other racial option can provide on a consistent basis. The fact that this doesn’t have any action cost is insane, and I would recommend you take full advantage of it.
Standing Leap: This is actually a substantial boost to our jump distances, and also helpfully simplifies the jumping rules to something I can actually remember. That alone makes me appreciate this, and using it to get to places that are safe from monster attacks is the cherry on top. Just keep in mind that while we can jump 15ft into the air, you’ll still take a d6 falling damage and fall prone if you fall 10ft or more, so just be careful of that.
Water Dependency: You knew there had to be a catch right? Thankfully, this isn’t nearly as punishing as something like the Locathah, as we only need to immerse ourselves in water for 1 hour per day, and the penalty for failing to do so is one level of exhaustion which can later be removed only by dipping in water. Finding your solution to this is a game in of it self, and since we can be as short as 2 1/2ft tall, it’s not hard to get enough water to immerse ourselves in. Create or Destroy Water can create 10 gallons of water, and a quick bit of math shows that that’s about 1.5 cubic feet of water, which with your body displacing it inside the container of your choice, should be sufficient to submerge yourself in. That’s also not too tall of an order for a strength based character to carry around, even if your table follows the carrying capacity rules, as it’s just 83.4 pounds, and a character with a modest strength of 16 can carry 240 pounds. So yeah, this is definitely a drawback, but it’s one that I think can be worked around pretty easily and doesn’t really hold the race back in any major way.
The Grung is a strong choice for a Monk or any weapon using character, but especially ranged attackers as they will be using almost exclusively weapons that deal piercing damage and can benefit from our poison, and can take advantage of our jump and climbing skills to get to safe positions to attack from. This race is a perfect marriage of defensive and offensive features, though its reliance on poison keeps it reigned in, as DMs have plenty of poison immune monsters to pick from. To those DMs, yes, use those poison immune monsters, use them often in fact, but let your Grung player cut loose every once in awhile and show how cool their race is. To the Grung players, just make sure you’ve got a way to immerse yourself in water once a day and this race will serve you extremely well at basically all tiers of play.
Final Rating: 4/5
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