Kenku
by Prince Phantom
The lore of the Kenku used to be both really cool and supremely restrictive, meaning it worked really well as a piece of world building, but much less so as a playable race. To summarize, in the old lore Kenku could only speak by imitating the voices and words that they have heard, and weren’t allowed to have any original thought of their own. This made playing the race nigh-impossible, as following those restrictions as a free-thinking human just goes against our very nature. Thankfully, this restriction has been lifted, but in the process we did lose a lot of flavor. However, since we can actually play this race in more than a one shot now, let’s see how the mechanics shake out.
Kenku Features
Expert Duplication: This pairs great with a forgery kit and could have a lot of uses in a very roleplay heavy, political intrigue style of campaign. Outside of that scenario, you’ll have to get a bit creative. I do appreciate abilities that promote creativity though.
Kenku Recall: This ability firmly sets the Kenku in the “skill monkey” archetype, and it’s pretty decent at fulfilling that role. We get two skills of our choice and advantage on any skill we have proficiency in a few times per day. Getting advantage on skill checks is already pretty easy thanks to the help action, but this really helps with skill checks made during combat. I know a Kenku grappler isn’t the place your mind typically goes to with this race, but this feature would meaningfully empower that concept.
Mimicry: What used to be mandatory is now optional. The fact that this is checked based on our Charisma is a bit difficult for a lot of builds to work with, but combining this with something like Disguise Self would really make for some interesting utility and roleplay.
As far as skill monkey races go, you could do worse than this, but you could also do better. Outside of that (and even then, outside of very heavy roleplay tables, like, Critical Role levels of roleplay to combat ratio), I don’t see a place for the Kenku on most builds. At least this race no longer actively discourages you from playing it anymore.
Final Rating: 2/5
Kenku (Legacy)
You cannot form original thoughts or speak without using Mimicry.
Final Rating: -1/5
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