Races as Classes, Remixed. Part 2: Dwarf.
Based on the following post: https://www.tumblr.com/daughter-of-sapph0/818659986304630784?source=share
No lore for this one, partly because I don't have inspiration, partly because I want to knock out this post and part 3 today. They are mole people who eat ore, turning more and more metallic with time. I hope you like the concept.
Dwarf
A-Star-nosed snout, Digger claws, A diet rich in iron
B-Shovelshot, Trench tactics
C-Metallic coat
D-Drill shot
Star-nosed snout
Your eyesight is pretty terrible: you can only see up to 20 feet, and farther than 10 feet it’s mostly blurry silhouettes. Thankfully, mother nature gave you a better alternative: you star-nosed snout, with proboscis extremely sensible to vibrations or air movement. Your snout gives you a movement detection of [template]*20 feet; unless you have line of vision, it’s extremely blurred and you cannot make out specific shapes. Enemies can try to keep still to hide from you, but they need to roll Stealth. Additionally, your snout can taste metal in the air: the higher the quantity and the purity, the longer the taste stays in the air.
Once per day, you may ask the master a question you could possibly learn the answer to with your snout, such as “is there someone waiting to ambush us behind that corner (by detecting movement)” or “was the assassin heavily armored (by tasting the metal in the air”.
Digger claws
You have an unarmed 1d6 natural weapon but using weapons goes against your culture: metal is for eating, not playing with it, and non-metallic weapons can’t hold a candle to your glorious claws! That includes shields, since they are awkward both for digging and claw fighting.
You may spend an action you dig into the soft earth (but not hard surfaces, like rock) and start burrowing. Your burrow speed is equal to your movement speed. If you start a combat by appearing out of the ground and attacking an enemy (you have to declare your first action before your first turn) that enemy always has to check for surprise, unless they specifically knew that you were underground.
While burrowing your snout has a highly precise tremorsense.
A diet rich in iron
You can eat ores and metallic objects as rations. In fact, it’s a core part of your diet: while you can eat rations, unless you eat a “metallic ration” at least once per week you start suffering from malnutrition; an inventory slot of ore or metallic objects counts as a ration. Your diet also infuses your body: you gain [template] DR to physical damage but [template] weakness to electricity.
If you forage you have a [template]-in-6 probability to find ore in swamps and mountains and double that underground.
Shovel shot
You can grab huge amounts of ground and dirt and throw them at the enemy, as a ranged weapon with [template+1]*5 feet of range. It only deals 1d4 damage (it’s still only dirt) but the amount you throw is large enough that it’s extremely disorienting. The first time an enemy is hit by shovel shot in combat it has disadvantage on all rolls on their next turn and flying enemies always have to save or they fall.
Trench tactics
An advanced maneuver in dwarven martial arts, you may try to touch an enemy with one of your proboscis while engaged in melee, getting an accurate snapshot of the current state of their enemy's body. You may try to use Trench tactics whenever you melee attack an enemy or vice versa and it has [template]-in-6 chances of succeeding. You may fail any amount of times, but once you succeed Trench tactics won’t trigger again for the rest of the fight. If you succeed, choose one of the above:
-You predict your opponent will have a gap on their guard: If you manage to hit the enemy with a melee attack on your next turn it deals double the damage.
-You predict your opponent's next move and how to stop it: For your opponents next turn any action they take except moving away from you triggers an attack of opportunity, and if the attack succeeds you disrupt their action.
-You can tell how their exhaustion is affecting their body and how to keep the pressure even while fighting defensively: At the end of the round, choose between healing 1d6 hp or dealing 1d6 damage to the enemy.
None of these have an effect if the enemy isn’t adjacent to you when they trigger.
Metallic coat
You have finally eaten enough ore that it’s starting to physically alter your biology. Your claws now deal 1d8 damage and every morning you may choose one below as long as you ate at least one “metallic ration” yesterday:
-Shovelware: your shovel shot deals 1d6 damage and has an extra 5 feet of range. You may sunder this claws as if they were a shield.
-Sharp scythes: your claws are vorpal. If you deal a critical hit on an enemy with a head you decapitate them (which is usually lethal); enemies with higher HD than you can save to prevent it. Enemies that survive for any reason take extra 1d6 damage from your attack, which isn’t doubled as a crit.
-Impaling spikes: if you reduce an enemy to below 50% health or hit them with a drill shot they have to roll of the Death and Dismemberment table.
Drill shot
You have learned the ultimate attack of your people, that only the most metallic of dwarves can perform. When you drill shot, ignore the enemies AC bonus from armor and deal an additional damage die. You may recharge the drill shot by eating a metallic ration during a long rest.
I'm also not completely satisfied with this class. While the elf had some troubles with identity and leveling, the problem with the dwarf is that it went too off base. The idea of this classes was to mix the original identity of the classic Tolkien races with animals, to make something different but still reminiscent, but this just turned into a completely alien end result.
But it wasn't for naught, because while researching I have discovered that moles are awesome little critters. ¡Mole appreciation! ¡I get it now!
All input is welcome: https://komments.cloud/1f611fa5f8651af8e54664