DND 5e homebrew races

[Savoc]

I have three homebrew races for 5e dnd. The first one Elagen are elves with animal traits (antlers,tail,fox ears, etc) . This is more of a subrace, because it has the same traits, mostly, because it has (immediately) perception and nature (the skills). Its also have advanced hearing, smell and sight, and proficency with elven weapon along with quarterstaffs greatclubs, clubs, and sickles, their languages are common, elvish, and sylvan, and their bonus is +1 int +2 dex. (They are kinda like faunus from RWBY, if you ever watched that show).

the second is the dark ones (daragorath) who have the light cantrip, they also have darkvision, and their walking speed is thirty feet, and they have disadvantage in the light, as well as drow elf weapon training. the daragoraths look like solid shadows, but there hair and eyes are silver their languages are common and tarkonath, walking speed 30 ft, +2 to int +1 dex .

The final one are the Azerniath (creatures of light) are the elves ancestors and are inherently good. they are entirely creamish white, (tiny bit yellow tint), except for their hair which is jetblack with streaks of color depending on alignment (red for neutral, blue for chaotic, gold for lawful, evil for darker shade, good for a lighter shade, and neutral for just plain that color). they can cast detect evil as a cantrip, they have proficiency with elven weapons (being elves ancestors), the languages are common, celestial, and tarkonath. Their walking speed is 30 feet +2 strength, +1 wis.


Thank you for reading
-Sav/Vas

[Lalliman]

Formatting, man! Split your info up in a sensible way so we can more easily read it.

Anyways, Elagen looks totally fine.

The Daragorath and Azerniath are weird. They get advantage when in their favoured level of illumination and disadvantage when in their unfavoured level of illumination. It seems like those cover the same ground, and having both is redundant.

Giving out disadvantage that easily is generally a bad idea anyways. The Azerniath, for example, will probably spend most of their time in well-lit places, thus having basically permanent advantage. Not only is this very powerful, but it undermines parts of the system. There's little reason to use Reckless Attack, Faerie Fire, Shove, etc. when you have advantage on all attacks anyways.

So I would avoid the advantage part. Just give the Daragorath Superior Darkvision and Sunlight Sensitivity, and don't give the Azerniath any special senses, thus making them dependent on the light.

Of course, this makes them both weaker, so they'll need new features to make up for it. I like to use this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViqLSEN67mmd2Lo_OJ-H5YX0fccsfI97kFaqx7V1Dmw/pub) for balancing races. It has lots of suggestions for features, along with point values to determine how powerful they are.

My suggestion would be to give them both some innate spellcasting like the Drow, one light-themed and one dark-themed. That seems appropriate.

Lastly, why in the world do the Dark Ones have the Light cantrip?

[Wryte]

I have three homebrew races for 5e dnd. The first one Elagen are elves with animal traits (antlers,tail,fox ears, etc) . This is more of a subrace, because it has the same traits, mostly, because it has (immediately) perception and nature (the skills). Its also have advanced hearing, smell and sight, and proficency with elven weapon along with quarterstaffs greatclubs, clubs, and sickles, their languages are common, elvish, and sylvan, and their bonus is +1 int +2 dex. (They are kinda like faunus from RWBY, if you ever watched that show). the second is the dark ones (daragorath) who have the light cantrip, along with advantage on attacks and perception rolls in the dark, they also have darkvision, and their walking speed is thirty feet, and they have disadvantage in the light, as well as drow elf weapon training. the daragoraths look like solid shadows, but there hair and eyes are silver their languages are common and tarkonath, walking speed 30 ft, +2 to int +1 dex .
The final one are the Azerniath (creatures of light) are the elves ancestors and are inherently good. they are entirely creamish white, (tiny bit yellow tint), except for their hair which is jetblack with streaks of color depending on alignment (red for neutral, blue for chaotic, gold for lawful, evil for darker shade, good for a lighter shade, and neutral for just plain that color). they can cast detect evil as a cantrip, they have proficiency with elven weapons (being elves ancestors), the languages are common, celestial, and tarkonath. Their walking speed is 30 feet, has advantage on attacks while in bright light, disadvantage in darkness, +2 strength, +1 wis.


Thank you for reading
-Sav/Vas
may your swords be sharp and swift death come to your enemies :) - a friend

*BLEEP* - a different friend

Alright, let's see if I can make this a bit easier to parse, first off.

Elf (Just for quick reference)
ASI: +2 Dex
Size: Medium
Speed: 30ft.
Darkvision: 60ft.
Keen Senses: Proficiency in Perception.
Fey Ancestry: Advantage to save vs charm, cannot be put to sleep.
Trance: Doesn't require sleep.
Languages: Common and Elvish.

Elven Subrace: Elagen
ASI: +1 Int
Skill Proficiency: Nature
Weapon Proficiency: Longswords, shortswords, shortbow, longbow, quarterstaff, greatclub, club, sickles
Languages: Sylvan
Improved Keen Senses (?): Advantage on Perception checks relying on hearing, smell, or sight.

Daragorath
ASI: +2 Int, +1 Dex
Speed: 30ft.
Darkvision: 60ft.
Night Vision/Light Sensitivity: Advantage on Perception checks and attack rolls in the dark, disadvantage in the light.
Innate Spellcasting: Knows the Light cantrip.
Weapon Proficiency: Rapiers, shortswords, hand crossbows.
Languages: Common and Tarkonath

Azerniath
ASI: +2 Str, +1 Wis
Speed: 30ft.
Innate Spellcasting: Detect Evil and Good at will.
Light Vision: Advantage on attack rolls in bright light, disadvantage in the dark.
Weapon Proficiency: Longsword, shortsword, shortbow, longbow.
Languages: Common, celestial, tarkonath

Okay, so thoughts.

Elagen: I'm not sure if the reference to their improved senses was meant to be a mechanical improvement on the normal elven Keen Senses trait, or just reaffirming that they share that quality as an elven subrace. Other than that, they get an additional language, an additional skill, and expanded weapon proficiencies. When compared with other elf subraces, this makes them somewhat redundant with High Elves, who get the same ASI as them, and also get an additional language with more flexibility due to being able to choose any language. The extra weapon proficiencies are also kind of underwhelming, given that they're all simple weapons that are also on the druid weapon list, meaning that the only classes that don't already have access to them are wizards and sorcerers (and even they already have quarterstaffs). So unless you did mean to imply a mechanical improvement on Keen Senses, then compared to a high elf, you're really only trading a free cantrip for a skill proficiency. That's not necessarily a problem, but it does weaken their distinction outside of the fluff.

Daragorath: These confuse me a bit. Are they supposed to be another elven subrace, since you're giving them a drow racial trait, they have as few traits of their own as a subrace, and both the other races you're presenting here are related to elves, or are they something totally different? The advantage/disadvantage depending on light conditions is going to make these guys swing hard back and forth between strong and weak; I'd suggest cutting the disadvantage, and taking the advantage off of attack rolls. Advantage on attack rolls is a major advantage, and always having it in the dark makes it much too easy to achieve. Also, if these guys are all about being in the dark, and are weak in the light, why in the world would they want the Light cantrip?

Azerniath: Again, these seem like they should be an elven subrace, but why would elves' ancestors have a +2 in Strength when that's not a trait that elves have ever been associated with, and in fact are often disassociated with? Again, advantage/disadvantage based on lighting conditions is going to make these guys swing wildly between strong and worthless, and having advantage on attack rolls in very easy to create circumstances is way too powerful. Also, why don't they speak elvish, if they're elves' ancestors?

[Savoc]

thanks for the feedback, i just took out the dis/advantage thing, and tried to format it better, sorry if its kinda wierd, I dont have a lot of time to do these things

Thanks
Sav