![]() Perhaps Aarakocra would be better served being occasional allies or quest-givers for your PCs, although the fact that by-the-book they only speak Auran (how many of your PCs pick that language up?) Perhaps they only made muster because so they can be a PC race. Jazz up the Aarakocra by making them one part of a band of diverse humanoids (I love the rival adventuring party shtick, and rolling up the wierdos and nutters that serve as foils to the PCs) or pairing them with something meatier: they skirmish whilst the big monster punches the PCs in the throat. In play, I'd simply spawn any Aarakocra with an Elemental in tow if they got wind* of the PC's arrival. The ability to summon an air elemental is interesting, but all five summoners need to maintain concentration for three consecutive turns to achieve this (does the summoning fail if they are interrupted by a Ranger PC's arrow up the jacksie?). I'd make flight an interesting weakness as well though - a spell like Hold Person should see them falling from the sky! A lot of good low-level control effects ( Entangle, for example), wouldn't reach them. The Aarakocra can be flying around, dive-bombing the PCs, and staying out of melee range throughout: either swooping in with their talons or throwing a javelin. You can walk up to an Orc, stick a sword in it, and it'll die. If they're an established race on the Prime Material, they'll probably be quite well established everywhere - flight is a pretty considerable advantage other other sapient creatures and opens up area for habitation that few others can reach.įlight makes them interesting combatants and increases the tactics needed to defeat them. However, as the Aarakocra are Neutral Good, and spend most of their time hanging about in the Elemental Plane of Air, it seem unlikely that your low-level party will ever bump into one without them having some alternative existence in your setting. With a 1/4 CR and humanoid bent, the Aarakocra is the lowest rung on the alternative Goblin-Orc-Hobgoblin ladder. I do love that it is perched on the stat-block, though. The spear is also one of those silly fantasy spears that with a bizarre shape that would be less functional that a normal spear. ![]() The art is a bloke with some wings glued on - whereas I think the art should evoke more of an alien, avian, feel. This image doesn't feel kinetic, or birdlike, or evoke the speed and maneuverability that its combat tactics bear out. I feel there's a real lack of movement, though. The Aarakocra is strident, standoff-ish, which I like - very much a Neutral good creature working out your intents. It doesn't have a brand - which opens it up to any tinkering you want to do with it. ![]() It does have a good mouth-feel though - the word 'Aarakocra' has an innate birdiness that is hard to deny.īut it's cool! The Aarakocra, despite being a staple of the game for many editions, isn't immediately recognisable. It's not a name with the immediate resonance of an Orc. One of those names sufficiently bereft of English inspiration that I have a kind of selective dyslexia about, and will called Aarakcockra or Arkarockra without ever holding the name properly in the brain. Firstly, it took me about three tries to get that spelling correctly, and it's one of those strange names where pronunciation for your players will be all over the place.
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