I’ve been making monsters for 5e here and there, trying my hand at some homebrew design work, so I decided to try and make a new race for the game.
I felt like going outside the box in my thinking so I went with one of the less popular races, the Loxo. The Loxo became a race through Spelljammer… it’s basically a nomadic bipedal elephant with a split trunk. They favor druid and ranger classes. Here’s the thing I learned about race design in 5e… It’s a little different from previous editions, there aren’t a WHOLE lot of moving parts. Races get a few things and that’s it.
In 3e’s The Shining South supplement for Forgotten Realms, (where I’m basing this guy from) the Loxo had quite a few things it could do. It could rage like a barbarian when it saw other Loxo getting attacked, it also had a trample attack it could use to run over enemies, and finally a trunk attack. Thing is that in 5e, races don’t really get all these things. The dwarf for example, get some skill proficiencies, advantage on saving throws, weapon training… there’s no offensive attacks or anything of the sort.
So what did I do to the Loxo? Instead of a damage causing trample attack, I made it so that he can walk on occupied spaces when there is a creature a smaller size than it and have it NOT be difficult terrain… Instead of a rage like a barbarian, I gave it Advantage on the first attack against an enemy attacking a Loxo (or a companion). And I did give it proficiency with natural weapon so he could use his trunk as a 1d8 bludgeoning damage weapon.
These are things that I ~think~ manage to keep the flavor of the Loxo’s abilities, without adding too many things outside the scope of 5e design. I also made him a +2 WIS creature, since that was missing from the player’s handbook and I thought it would be an interesting thing since they tend to favor druids.
Here’s what I came up with for my first attempt… let me know what you think.
www. Newbie DM .com 
Vincent Noiseux
April 26, 2015
Cool new race. I feel 2 things need to be changed/adjusted:
1. Why would a nomadic race worship agriculture? Probably better to worship Foraging?
2. I think the wording for the Rage ability needs to say “per round, per turn, per encounter”
jwbjerk
April 28, 2015
I’ve never played a Loxo, but i’ve always been fond of the concept.
Looking over your Loxo, however, it doesn’t seem very strong. Usually 5e races have at least one really significant mechanical feature, the Lightfoot halfling’s Luck, the Gnome’s magic resistance, Dragonborn’s Fire, etc. I don’t see any big features. But i’m going off of the assumption that “Rage” works once per encounter– it it works more it is much better, if less much worse.
Trample:
The effect is useful, but only in very specific situations. You might not even have any gnomes or halflings in your party, and if you move through a line of enemy goblins, they will get AoO agaisnt you, so may seldom be worth the cost. I can’t say this really captures the feel of “trampling”.
Rage:
Strictly interpreted, you only get the benefit if the one that attacks your ally hasn’t been attacked by you yet. That may not be your intention, but this limits you from using it right off teh bat.
Advantage is nice, it translates to about a +3 on one attack. It doesn’t seem gamechanging.
Trunk Attack:
I admit to knowing little about monks, maybe this would be super-awesome for a monk, but it doesn’t seem that way.
Finally, there’s really nothing here to evoke the idea that you are a 500lb giant, which admittedly is hard to do without making it overpowered.
Of course, take all this with a grain of salt, i’m not the most experienced player, though i’ve spent time trying to understand racial balance and designing some of my own.
dungeonhacking
May 7, 2015
I know this was posted before it went live, but the Unearthed Arcana version of the minotaur has a good model for the trunk and trample attacks. This definitely seems weaker than other races, by comparison. I love the design of your documents. I’d been posting my race conversions straight to my blog, and they look nearly as pretty as the docs you linked.