Volo's Guide to Monsters introduced the Kenku into 5e as a playable race. Pretty much the same Kenku from Fiend Folio, but overall following the 3.5e and on alterations.

But the 5e version adds some rather odd traits and a totally new background to the Kenku that may, or may not make them a challenge, or nuisance, to play.

First off is the big one. The 5e kenku cannot talk normally. They can ONLY talk by mimicing and repeating things they have heard before. Like the Aliens from Greatest American Hero or the Abrams version of Bumblebee. Mixed in with sound effects.
Who thought this was a good idea for a PC race?

The second one is not as much a problem depending on the player. Kenku also cannot come up with new ideas. They can only repeat what they have seen before or follow instructions. They cannot improvise. This is not so much a hurdle for players that aren't idea people themselves. But it can be tricky for others.

On the positive side Kenku are surprisingly loyal and make excellent team players. I feel like they are perfect for the new Sidekick rules from Essentials.

So for those rare few who have actually either played or DMed for a player with a Kenku character. Or are considering them. How did/would you handle them? What did/would you change?

Personally, before she passed away I was prepping to allow Kat to play one as she was very keen on birds and had a fair knowledge of various species. First off I would remand the Kenku back to their older iterations being able to talk normally and just being able to mimic things perfectly. As for that "no creativity/cant improvise" part. I'd either tone it down or just remove the "cant improvise/alter orders." part. Mainly because since while they can not make new or personalized things. They are really really good at duplicating things and learning crafts.

And I'll close with this totally amazing Kenku costume.
[video=youtube;wGFUMKie1K8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGFUMKie1K8[/youtube]

Quote from: Omega;1106392First off is the big one. The 5e kenku cannot talk normally. They can ONLY talk by mimicing and repeating things they have heard before. Like the Aliens from Greatest American Hero or the Abrams version of Bumblebee. Mixed in with sound effects.
Who thought this was a good idea for a PC race?

The second one is not as much a problem depending on the player. Kenku also cannot come up with new ideas. They can only repeat what they have seen before or follow instructions. They cannot improvise. This is not so much a hurdle for players that aren't idea people themselves. But it can be tricky for others.

These are bizarre as hell! I don't own any 5e stuff but, while it might not be appropriate for many players, at least it's really interesting!

EDIT: Kickass costume and great video, seriously! Looks like the Seattle venue, if so I'm sad I missed it!

I DM'd for a Kenku character; by convention, the Kenku had heard and mimicked (in different voices) pretty much any phrase in common that might come up urgently in dangerous circumstances (things covered by free action to speak during combat or exploration, say; "there's a trap", "I'll fight the one on the left", "that's a spellcaster!", "I need healing", "I'm OK", etc). For scouting, the Kenku could draw out maps (the player was the usual mapper anyway) but nobody expected descriptions of unusual features that only the Kenku had seen. The player might have had enough interest in maintaining a list of what the Kenku could say if anyone had wanted it, but didn't suggest it. (Is there any indication of how many/how recent phrases the Kenku could produce? I can imagine the other player characters teaching the Kenku useful phrases during short rests.)

I don't even recall the "no original ideas" thing, as I did not look up the Kenku as monster or character; for me something like that is on the player to decide when it occurs. Perhaps with this in mind I would now ask a Kenku player to justify an idea from class or background. Or maybe not; it's the sort of restriction that I find annoying and I might declare any PC Kenku to be a madly creative genius among Kenku who ends up matching any other of the player's characters in ideas.

But negotiation was mostly beyond the Kenku character - I could not and cannot imagine that playing sound bites of varying people would make for a convincing presentation, except perhaps intimidation.

In Volo's it states they have no creativity at all. They can not come up with new ideas or innovate.

They are though wonderful little living copy machines and recording devices.
Problem is the entry just has to fuck with even that so adds a little line about how the Kenku obsession with flight makes them poor workers as they get bored or somesuch.

Effectively the avian equivalent of kender. But not annoying. Really. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

Theres some potential here with just one curse aspect. But THREE?

The lack of creativity could be easily worked with and around. The lack of being able to talk normally can be worked around or handwaved as "my character comes up with some phrases and sounds to communicate theres a trap here." or "my character allways talks like that..." and move on.

Maybe the lack of creativity would be good in a certain situation. I've DM'd a hardcover or module for players who were previously or currently DM'ing the same material for another group. In that situation studious uncreativity would be better (at a con, I got roped into playing a module that I was scheduled to run because I had no players and there would have been too few players for the other table without me, so I let the actual players make all the big decisions).

Siloing knowledge is an important skill for GMs, since you have to decide what an NPC does with limited information compared to you as the GM. That's a taxing thing to do over time, though, and it doesn't seem like it would be an enjoyable playing experience over many sessions.

I was actually going to play a kenku for a 5e campaign right when Volo's came out, and puzzled through a bunch of this myself. I'll see how much I can remember about what I came up with -- the campaign never got off the ground, so I never actually played the character, but I did all the setup work so it was ready to go. When I'm back at home I'll try to find my notes and character sheet, if I haven't tossed them yet.

For the communication and creativity piece, my PC was going to be a vassal/servant in debt to one of the other PCs. If I remember right (don't have my books), kenku tend to stick to the flock? So there was a bit of the Chewbacca going on here with a debt owed from a life being saved, except more of a servant relationship than a buddy relationship. This was to motivate why the kenku was not in Kenkuville in the first place, as well as facilitating communications.

That primed another PC to have a syntax for interacting with the kenku: "OK, bird brain: there is a trap or there is not a trap", which would hopefully help the rest of the party figure out kenku interactions. But even if not, that still could be fun -- I looked forward to having to work out answers within tough constraints, and to being a bit of a puzzle to figure out in order to talk to. It's such an interesting challenge as a player to only be able to repeat dialog back, I was really looking forward to that.

From discussions with the GM, my PC was likely to be a bit of a GM's catspaw, since the memory / lack of creativity / lack of speech thing meant that my PC could observe important details/information but not act on them without the players figuring out how to tease it out.

I also tend to be a diligent notetaker, so the memory/details thing suited me fine, and tending to be out of the discussion in party actions meant I could really focus on it.

This was very tentative at the time, but depending on how the kenku things were going, there was also some possibility of a holy redemption quest to regain the power of speech either after this campaign or the next one, since IIRC kenku lost speech by pissing off a god.

So yeah. Kenku are an odd PC race, but I think could be interesting spice to the party -- with the right party, of course, and probably not all kenku. I don't think they'd work well in public games or with a party that doesn't know each other well, but for a friendly, cooperative party, it could be really fun to add one in.

Edit: parting thought: I'm a big believer in "restrictions breed creativity", so I love taking a swing at problems like playing a kenku.

Great ideas there.

I am more than fine with restrictions. But when they start piling on and even somewhat contradict themselves it starts to feel a little off kilter for the average player.
For the, ironically enough, creative player stuff like this can be a blast.

I could totally see a costumer friend of mine named Telephone just going wild with such a concept. Her character speaks only in weird squeaks and chirps.

Telephone and Tumbleweed at a con in Texas. Other versions of the suit had mechanical trills and bell sounds as well, hence the creatures name I believe.

[video=youtube;uSunx8fxw48]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSunx8fxw48[/youtube]