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Zomnivore
February 17th, 2019, 18:23
Hello, I've got about a year of D&D under my belt and I'm mulling over being a DM and I want to run for my family.

My brother's significant other wants to play as a dinosaur, and I don't know what I could use as resources to help facilitate that.

I know eventually it comes down to winging it and I'm ok with that, I just want a nudge in the right direction.

I've seen some stat blocks for a few dinosaurs but if there's a monster book with just a ton of dinos I would love to know about it.

If you took the time to read this thanks, and if you took the time to help, thank you more so.

LordNova2
February 17th, 2019, 19:58
Here is a dinosaur-based races (3rd party, may need balance adjustments):
- https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Raptoran_(5e_Race)
- https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Simiosaurus_(5e_Race)
(https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Simiosaurus_(5e_Race))

There is some dinosaurs in the MM pg 79 and 80, so there are a couple of stat-blocks in there to study.
There is also an expansion PDF from the DM's Guild for the Tomb of Annihilation setting called Beasts of the Jungle Rot (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/220567/Beasts-of-the-Jungle-Rot) that has a dozen dinosaur stat-blocks in it. *(also comes with the Fantasy Grounds module!)*

GavinRuneblade
February 23rd, 2019, 19:37
I like to reflavor existing things rather than start all over from scratch and get the playbalance messed up. Instead of making a new race there are many existing ones that work pretty good.

To play as a dinosaur PC the tortle works for any race based on a shelled herbivore like an ankylosaurus, could tweak the physical description for triceratops easily. Lizard Man works great for anything carnivorous. a Pteranodon could use the aarakocra. If you want something weird like a pachycephalosaur then I'd go with the lizard man but replace the bite's piercing damage with blunt and rename the attack headbutt. For a really big guy, say Brachiosaur then goliath but replace one of his abilities with the lizardman's tail or something like that. The other lizardy/dragony races like Yuanti (perfect for a 1970's Land of the Lost dino-person/sleestak from ancient fallen civilization with super high-tech now in ruins), kobold (great for a little velociraptor based PC if they want to go real world raptors not the way too big ones from Jurassic park) could work too. If they want to be a mad-wizard's experiment turning a person into a dinosaur then simic hybrid from Ravnica is perfect.

For the game, and including extra dino-type stuff to make that player feel a bit less out of place (unless that is their goal):
Mystara has a sentient allosaurus named Ka as a deity (https://pandius.com/ka.html) if you want to use that for your dino-pc. All of his followers are either wacko druids or actual animals or living in a pocket world where he preserves the ancient things, so there's no need to actually add anything to your setting to make him work, the PC is likely to be the only follower he ever meets. Bahamut has filled the role for several other PCs I've DM'd that wanted to go the dino route. The old Isle of Dread (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17083/X1-The-Isle-of-Dread-Basic) adventure is about people who get stranded on an island full of dinosaurs and need to survive, and someone make a 5e conversion guide (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/201038/Classic-Modules-Today-X1-The-Isle-of-Dread-5e). That might work as a way to get the dino-pc introduced to your group.

The Planeshift Ixaian (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/255064/Plane-Shift-Ixalan?term=ixalan) setting is completely based around dinosaurs and it is free. It gets bonus points for using the modern understanding of dinosaurs having feathers so totally badass.

Tomb of Annihilation (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=WOTC5ETOA) is set in Chuult and full of dinosaurs. The Eberron setting (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=WOTC5EWGTE) has many dinosaurs even halfling's who breed and raise them out on the Talenta plains. Many of the drakes in the monster manual and other books can just be described as dino-like and they work awesome as familiars animal companions, pets, mounts, etc. Finally, do a search on just the word "dinosaur" over on DMsguild and there's quite a few free and pay-what-you-like products you might want to use, also consider anything set in chuult or built for the tomb of annihilation. There's a lot of options.

Zomnivore
February 23rd, 2019, 22:32
Thanks so much for the help yal!