Simic Hybrid
by Prince Phantom
Created by the horrifying biotech of the Simic Combine on the plane of Ravnica, Hybrids are a normal race who have elected to be enhanced by the guild. These enhancements make for a very unique race (and definitely a shorter life expectancy). We get a feature from a list at level 1, and then get to pick again from a new list at level 5, making this a very customizable race. Let’s go over our options.
Simic Hybrid Features
Darkvision: All Simic Hybrids have this, because everyone gets darkvision.
Animal Enhancements: This is the rest of the races features, split into level 1 and level 5 options. We’ll go over each of them individually so you can make the best selection for your character.
1st level options:
Nimble Climber: Getting a climb speed is genuinely quite good, and often feels like a fair version of flying. Ranged characters especially appreciate this as it lets them get out of range of melee enemies if the map allows it. However, many races provide this alongside a number of other features, making this seem a bit lacking on this race.
Underwater Adaptation: Breathing water and getting a swim speed is pretty good, but if you need these for your campaign there are better races that provide this.
Manta Glide: Where the other two options at this level are provided by other races, this is almost wholly unique. Only the newly introduced Hadozee can replicate this, and it’s a pretty cool feature. This basically makes us immune to falling damage unless we are falling from extreme heights. You can also cover quite a distance with this, but there’s some tech here that I have to mention. You can (and this is all RAW) jump one foot into the air, then glide 2ft as you fall. You can repeat this process 30 times as jumping doesn’t cost any actions and is only limited by our movement speed. Since we have a movement speed of 30ft, we can jump one foot into the air 30 times, gliding 2ft every time, increasing our effective movement speed to 60ft. This makes the Simic Hybrid the fastest race in the game by a mile, and is a technique commonly known as Wavedashing in the optimization community. Now you’re probably thinking to yourself that this is all completely ridiculous, and does not make any logical sense, and you would be totally correct. I assume most DMs would not allow this and most players wouldn’t even try it, but it does work RAW so I feel obligated to mention it. Even without this tech, I still think this is the best option of the three.
Level 5 options:
Acid Spit: This is a cantrip with limited uses. Do not select this ever.
Carapace: +1 AC is nice, but if you’re looking for that then the Warforged provides this along with a ton of other benefits and features.
Grappling Appendages: This is a really complex feature, but it’s good enough to be worth diving deep into. We get two extra arms essentially, but they are limited in their uses. As the name implies, we can grapple with them, but doing so costs an entire action rather than an attack like normal. However, based on the wording of this it seems like this grapple always works, though I’m not 100% on that. However, if that is how it works then that makes the cost of a whole action a lot easier to swallow. Either way, we can also attempt a grapple as a bonus action after attacking with the appendages, which are a d6 weapon instead of the typical unarmed strike. That’s all great for grapple builds, but what else can these do? Well they definitely can’t hold a weapon or other “specialized equipment” (whatever that means), but we don’t get any other specifics besides that. Anything else these can do is up to you and your DM. If these can hold a shield, magic items (it only specifically excludes magic weapons), alchemical items, or any number of other things, this suddenly becomes way more powerful. Talk with your DM about this, because I honestly have no idea what is allowed by RAW here.
Dang, there was a lot to go over with this one. If it were me, I’d definitely go with Manta Glide and Grappling Appendages, which also happen to be the two most controversial options available. You’ll definitely want to talk to your DM a lot before picking this race, as a lot of its power is pretty ambiguous. I’ll rate it assuming that no shenanigans are allowed, which leaves it as a pretty good race that a lot of builds would like, especially grapple builds.
Final Rating: 4/5
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