[Homebrew] Nephilim (Darksiders-based Race) (v0.2) - Looking for feedback

[SaigonTimeMD]

Hello, all. I'm an aspiring-but-inexperienced homebrewer working on creating/adapting a nephilim race based on their appearance/abilities/history in the Darksiders franchise (with eventually designing a Horseman class in the future), and I'm looking for feedback on it. For brevity's sake, I'm skipping the fluff parts and going straight to the mechanical breakdown. If you'd like to read the v0.2 PDF, you can find it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xbcghJ4M_F2CqAqViVUBYRqJ-Fqk-T5G

With that out of the way, here's the stats:

Nephilim Traits

Your nephilim character has a number of traits in common with other nephilim
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Nephilim reach adulthood in their late teens and stop visibly aging between 20-30 years, with the oldest appearing to be in their mid-30s. They do not die of old age.
Alignment. Nephilim carry the legacy of their progenitors in their blood, and as such tend towards lawful alignments, although some (particularly Scions of Strife and Absalom) carry a more individualistic or even chaotic streak. Regardless, they are almost all categorically good, though this good may take many forms; one living in secret among mortals may dedicate themselves to small acts of kindness that leave the day brighter than it began, while their more boisterous brethren may make a living as demon hunters or even freedom fighters in lands ruled by tyranny.
Size. Nephilim are quite tall, ranging from 7-8 feet in height - sometimes taller. Even the ‘weakest’ of them are quite muscular, weighing in between 200 and 400 pounds. Your size is medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Otherworldly Instincts. You know the Detect Evil and Good cantrip. This does not count against your cantrip total.
Child Of Three Worlds. Your creature type is humanoid, celestial, and fiend. You have advantage on saving throws against effects that affect celestial and fiend creature types.
Natural Weaponmaster. You have proficiency with four weapons of your choice.
Unwavering Will. You cannot be frightened, and have advantage on saving throws against being charmed.
Horsemen’s Rage. As a free action at the beginning of your turn, you tap into your nephilim heritage, temporarily taking on the characteristics of your ancestor for one brief, terrible moment. Your weapon gains the reach property and does and additional 1d4 damage (type determined by your Scion on the table) until your next turn; if your weapon already had the reach property, it gains an additional reach of 5 feet this turn. If you are using a ranged weapon, it has an additional 5 feet of range instead. The damage increases to 2d4 at 6th level, 3d4 at 11th level, and 4d4 at 16th level. Additionally, if you do not move or take any other action this turn, you may make an attack on every creature in front of you within range, with a separate attack roll for each. You may not use this ability again until after a long rest.
Scion Table
War: Fire
Death: Necrotic
Fury: Psychic
Strife: Force
Absalom: Poison
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common. You can also understand Celestial and Infernal, and can speak, read, and write your choice of those two.
Subrace. All Nephilim trace their heritage back to either one of the Four Horsemen or to the hidden child of Absalom, resulting in five subraces: scion of War, scion of Death, scion of Fury, Scion of Strife, and scion of Absalom. Choose one of these subraces.

Scion of War
As a descendant of the Horseman War, battle is in your very blood, the clash of steel on shield your meat and drink. Scions of War have tanned, bronze, or otherwise sun-touched skin, with piercing white eyes and matching white hair, and are built with broad shoulders capable of sporting the heaviest arms and armor.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2.
Weapons Enthusiast. Whenever you make a skill check to identify weapon marks or wounds, you are considered proficient in the related skill and add double your Proficiency Bonus to the check, instead of your normal Proficiency Bonus.

Scion of Death
As a, however unlikely, descendant of the Horseman Death, you are nimble and quick as a ghost, sure as death itself. Scions of Death have highly desaturated skin that often has a purple, blue, or green tint to it, with inquisitive orange eyes, and shining black hair. They are the tallest of the scions, and their thin builds, far from looking emaciated, serve only to highlight their bone-taut muscles.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Macabre Affinity. Undead, if conscious of your presence, will not attack you unless you attack them first. Sentient undead can understand you no matter what language you are speaking, and you can understand them as well.

Scion of Fury
As a descendant of the Horseman Fury, you come alive in combat and contest, a living storm of movement and pain in the heat of battle. Scions of Fury tend to look the most ‘human’ of all the Four’s descendants except for their fierce white eyes and wild shocks of purple, magenta, or even flame-orange hair that billow in an unseen wind. Fury’s children are built like dancers, their elegant forms both alluring and intimidating.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength or Dexterity score increases by 2.
Acrobatics Pragmatist. When making a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check or a Dexterity saving throw, if you are currently wielding a weapon with the reach property, add your weapon proficiency bonus in addition to any other modifiers.

Scion of Strife
As a descendant of the Horseman Strife, you are fast on your feet and faster on the draw, always ready to cash in action whatever check your mouth writes. Scions of Strife possess jet-black, drow-like skin, expressive yellow eyes, and hair that collects in sleek, spike-like shapes. Strife’s descendants are lithe and long-legged, perfectly built for walking the earth - or running from trouble.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Fast On The Trigger. When you use a Charisma skill on a sentient creature, if you succeed, then you have advantage on your next Charisma skill check on the same person. If you fail, you have advantage on the first attack roll you make against that same creature.

Scion of Absalom
As a descendant of the nephilim’s greatest hero, you are forever marked by the bitterness of the Horsemen’s betrayal, the rage of your forefather’s last moments roiling within even as it gives you strength. The spawn of Absalom’s cursed bloodline have blueish-green skin, menacing yellow eyes, and bone-grey hair; in addition, blackish shapes seem to swirl just beneath their skin like a roiling ocean, adding to their already unsettling appearance. Like Absalom once was, his descendants are hulking and muscular, as tall as they are broad.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2.
Corrupted Heart. Instead of damaging you, poison damage heals you for half of the damage it would have done. You may also absorb poison from a poisoned creature by touching them, neutralizing the poison and regaining hit points equal to 1d4 + your spellcasting ability modifier.

My three biggest concerns are:


Is it over(or under)powered, and if so, how can I adjust it?
Am I using the correct phraseology/language for a D&D supplement, and if not, how can I correct/rephrase it?
Is it interesting to play compared to other homebrew races, and if not, how can I make it more unique or flavorful to play?


This is version 0.2, edited after I received some feedback on the Homebrew Reddit forums; if you're interested, v0.1 can be viewed here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pj4Cpdf0SnMV24MSZdh9AIPthmuAgdd_/view).
Thanks in advance!

[JNAProductions]

It’s quite overpowered. At work, so can’t give full critique, but it needs toning down.

[KittenMagician]

i agree with JNAproductions. this race seems really over powered. i have several things to say.

1) Detect evil and good is not a cantrip, it is a first level spell

2) Natural weapon master is almost the weapon master feat as printed in the PHB

3) being immune to frightened status and advantage against charm is crazy good. elves or half-elves have immunity magical sleep effects (far fewer than fear effects) and adv against charm.

4) Horsemans rage seems over powered flat out

5) 3 languages is also a bit much especially if 2 of them are exotic laguages (even if you can only understand one of the exotic langs)

6) with 5 subraces you would think 1 or 2 of them would be caster oriented (wis, int, or cha as their ABI)

7) fury, strife, and absalom are significantly stronger than war or death.

8) having 3 different creature types would be a little bit of a downside as some spells would hit you when they wouldnt hit most players but you mitigate it by giving yourself adv against spells that affect you due to being fiend and celestial.

Now i will go over each of my points and how i think you could fix them

1) it should have a once per long rest or maybe once per short rest attached to it.

2) just remove this or make it 1 or 2 weapons (the rest of the race seems powerful enough without this)

3) adv against fear and charm effects

4) make it a bonus action and remove the no action so attack everyone in front of you part (facing is not much of a thing in 5e except in rare cases so determining in front of you is difficult at best)

5) make it common and your choice of infernal or celestial (all in on one to the exclusion of the other)

6) i havent played all the way through all the darksider games but i have them and have gotten a decent distance into the first 2 but i think you should make at least one of your sub races caster oriented (probably absalom and/or strife)

7) war's ability is very lackluster compared to the others (i would say, except in rare circumstances, it's useless) you need to come up with something comparable to the other sub races
Death's ability is cool and flavorful but also very circumstantial (the dm may force his/her way around this or never put undead against you which would make this useless)
fury's ability in the context of 5e isnt worded well. proficency bonus is it. there isnt a separate bonus for weapons and saving throws and ability checks (etc). there is just one proficiency bonus. i
understand what you are trying to say about it but then you are forcing the player to use a reach weapon (pole arms or whips) to gain a very powerful benefit of prof bonus to dex saves (fireball is
a very common spell). i would make it say that you have proficiency in the acrobatics skill.
strife's ability essentially says "as long as you make a good first impression and your persuasion and/or deception skill(s) are high enough, you can talk anyone into anything." which is very strong for
rp. i would put some sort of limit on how many times this can occur cause the way it is worded it can go on forever. also on the second part there is no time limit between failing and your attack
which means if you fail a charisma check of some kind against a creature, the next time you attack it you have advantage even if you dont attack it for a day or a week, or 100 years. that means
you could go to every potential enemy and make charisma checks until you fail just to have that floating advantage to attack (crazy good for rogues.) again add time limits
Absalom's ability is way more powerful than all the rest. not only are immune to poison damage (one of the most common damage types) but it heals you. oh did i forget to mention you can heal
yourself by removing the poisoned condition from a creature (no action required in the way you wrote it). to make it more fair and balanced just give resistance to poison damage (and if necessary
adv against poison status)

8) either have a downside to the race or dont just dont toe the line or straddle the fence or whatever other analogy you want to use.


i hope this is helpful to some extent (sorry if i come across as rude or commanding that is not my intention)

[SaigonTimeMD]

i agree with JNAproductions. this race seems really over powered. i have several things to say.

1) Detect evil and good is not a cantrip, it is a first level spell

2) Natural weapon master is almost the weapon master feat as printed in the PHB

3) being immune to frightened status and advantage against charm is crazy good. elves or half-elves have immunity magical sleep effects (far fewer than fear effects) and adv against charm.

4) Horsemans rage seems over powered flat out

5) 3 languages is also a bit much especially if 2 of them are exotic laguages (even if you can only understand one of the exotic langs)

6) with 5 subraces you would think 1 or 2 of them would be caster oriented (wis, int, or cha as their ABI)

7) fury, strife, and absalom are significantly stronger than war or death.

8) having 3 different creature types would be a little bit of a downside as some spells would hit you when they wouldnt hit most players but you mitigate it by giving yourself adv against spells that affect you due to being fiend and celestial.

Now i will go over each of my points and how i think you could fix them

1) it should have a once per long rest or maybe once per short rest attached to it.

2) just remove this or make it 1 or 2 weapons (the rest of the race seems powerful enough without this)

3) adv against fear and charm effects

4) make it a bonus action and remove the no action so attack everyone in front of you part (facing is not much of a thing in 5e except in rare cases so determining in front of you is difficult at best)

5) make it common and your choice of infernal or celestial (all in on one to the exclusion of the other)

6) i havent played all the way through all the darksider games but i have them and have gotten a decent distance into the first 2 but i think you should make at least one of your sub races caster oriented (probably absalom and/or strife)

7) war's ability is very lackluster compared to the others (i would say, except in rare circumstances, it's useless) you need to come up with something comparable to the other sub races
Death's ability is cool and flavorful but also very circumstantial (the dm may force his/her way around this or never put undead against you which would make this useless)
fury's ability in the context of 5e isnt worded well. proficency bonus is it. there isnt a separate bonus for weapons and saving throws and ability checks (etc). there is just one proficiency bonus. i
understand what you are trying to say about it but then you are forcing the player to use a reach weapon (pole arms or whips) to gain a very powerful benefit of prof bonus to dex saves (fireball is
a very common spell). i would make it say that you have proficiency in the acrobatics skill.
strife's ability essentially says "as long as you make a good first impression and your persuasion and/or deception skill(s) are high enough, you can talk anyone into anything." which is very strong for
rp. i would put some sort of limit on how many times this can occur cause the way it is worded it can go on forever. also on the second part there is no time limit between failing and your attack
which means if you fail a charisma check of some kind against a creature, the next time you attack it you have advantage even if you dont attack it for a day or a week, or 100 years. that means
you could go to every potential enemy and make charisma checks until you fail just to have that floating advantage to attack (crazy good for rogues.) again add time limits
Absalom's ability is way more powerful than all the rest. not only are immune to poison damage (one of the most common damage types) but it heals you. oh did i forget to mention you can heal
yourself by removing the poisoned condition from a creature (no action required in the way you wrote it). to make it more fair and balanced just give resistance to poison damage (and if necessary
adv against poison status)

8) either have a downside to the race or dont just dont toe the line or straddle the fence or whatever other analogy you want to use.


i hope this is helpful to some extent (sorry if i come across as rude or commanding that is not my intention)

No, this is great! The more specific feedback, the better! I'm heading out the door right now, but I'll give more in-depth response later today!

[JNAProductions]

Kitten Magician had good feedback. I'll give my own now.

+1 Con-Fine. Good stat for everyone, but fine.

Speed 30'-Fine.

Otherworldly Instincts-Assuming you mean the 1st level spell castable at-will... Too good. Make it something more akin to a Paladin's Divine Sense.

Child Of Three Worlds-Does it bar you from being affected by Hold Person and similar? Needs more information.

Natural Weaponmaster-Eh, whatever. Not a big deal.

Unwavering Will-WAY too good. Frightened is a common and potent condition. Sleep is technically more potent, in most situations, but also highly niche.

Horsemen's Rage-As a race defining trait, it's fine. As one of many, it's not.

War-Way too weak, relative to the rest.

Death-Seems reasonable.

Fury-Too good.

Strife-Too good. Also, since talking is a free action, there's really nothing stopping you from building a crap Charisma character, failing checks all the time and getting tons of advantage.

Absalom-WAY TOO GOOD. Take the Poison Spray cantrip or be in a party with anyone who has that, and you have unlimited healing.

[SaigonTimeMD]

Kitten Magician had good feedback. I'll give my own now.

+1 Con-Fine. Good stat for everyone, but fine.

Speed 30'-Fine.

Otherworldly Instincts-Assuming you mean the 1st level spell castable at-will... Too good. Make it something more akin to a Paladin's Divine Sense.

Child Of Three Worlds-Does it bar you from being affected by Hold Person and similar? Needs more information.

Natural Weaponmaster-Eh, whatever. Not a big deal.

Unwavering Will-WAY too good. Frightened is a common and potent condition. Sleep is technically more potent, in most situations, but also highly niche.

Horsemen's Rage-As a race defining trait, it's fine. As one of many, it's not.

War-Way too weak, relative to the rest.

Death-Seems reasonable.

Fury-Too good.

Strife-Too good. Also, since talking is a free action, there's really nothing stopping you from building a crap Charisma character, failing checks all the time and getting tons of advantage.

Absalom-WAY TOO GOOD. Take the Poison Spray cantrip or be in a party with anyone who has that, and you have unlimited healing.

Thanks for the specifics, too!

- Divine Sense was my first inspiration, but I haven't been able to come up with something that works on the 'sniff out good and evil by instinct' level without it feeling like I'm just giving the Paladin ability to everybody, which (A) isn't fair, and (B) makes it redundant if they roll a Paladin, so I went with being able to use Detect Evil and Good as a cantrip. Maybe I could just add it as a free spell w/slot?
- Spells that affect humanoids like Hold Person should still work as usual on nephilim. I'll add in a clarifying sentence along the lines of that.
- I think I'm going to drop Natural Weaponmaster down to 2-3 weapons instead
- I've been on the fence about Unwavering Will anyway, and I think I might just put it in the back pocket for use with the Horseman class I want to create in the future. Maybe I'll nerf it to 'Advantage against being charmed and frightened.'
- For War, would including identifying weapon origins and quality/craftsmanship in addition to weapon marks/wounds bring it more in line with the strength of others?
- Might tweak Death based off of Kitten Magician's feedback, I'll get to that in a direct response to him.
- Fury is the only Horseman who uses her weapon to traverse the game world, so I wanted that to be a defining feature, but I'm not sure how to tone it down. I was hoping requiring a reach weapon would be niche enough, but it needs something else.
- Strife I've struggled with the most because he's the most 'social' of the Horsemen, so I wanted to do something that would take social actions and give combat bonuses, but I'm not sure how to fix the 'faill a bunch for attack advantage' bonus without turning it into a once-per-rest, which doesn't fit to me since there's nothing magical or special about it. I gotta sit on this one some more.
- What about making the healing only kick in when it's poison damage from hostile sources? Is there a precedent for that? Also, I meant to include the 'as an action' for absorbing the poison from another creature. Alternatively, I could just make it a flat immunity to poison, and then leave in the being able to absorb poison for healing as an action - maybe with a once-per-short-rest caveat?

[SaigonTimeMD]

i agree with JNAproductions. this race seems really over powered. i have several things to say.

1) Detect evil and good is not a cantrip, it is a first level spell

2) Natural weapon master is almost the weapon master feat as printed in the PHB

3) being immune to frightened status and advantage against charm is crazy good. elves or half-elves have immunity magical sleep effects (far fewer than fear effects) and adv against charm.

4) Horsemans rage seems over powered flat out

5) 3 languages is also a bit much especially if 2 of them are exotic laguages (even if you can only understand one of the exotic langs)

6) with 5 subraces you would think 1 or 2 of them would be caster oriented (wis, int, or cha as their ABI)

7) fury, strife, and absalom are significantly stronger than war or death.

8) having 3 different creature types would be a little bit of a downside as some spells would hit you when they wouldnt hit most players but you mitigate it by giving yourself adv against spells that affect you due to being fiend and celestial.

Now i will go over each of my points and how i think you could fix them

1) it should have a once per long rest or maybe once per short rest attached to it.

2) just remove this or make it 1 or 2 weapons (the rest of the race seems powerful enough without this)

3) adv against fear and charm effects

4) make it a bonus action and remove the no action so attack everyone in front of you part (facing is not much of a thing in 5e except in rare cases so determining in front of you is difficult at best)

5) make it common and your choice of infernal or celestial (all in on one to the exclusion of the other)

6) i havent played all the way through all the darksider games but i have them and have gotten a decent distance into the first 2 but i think you should make at least one of your sub races caster oriented (probably absalom and/or strife)

7) war's ability is very lackluster compared to the others (i would say, except in rare circumstances, it's useless) you need to come up with something comparable to the other sub races
Death's ability is cool and flavorful but also very circumstantial (the dm may force his/her way around this or never put undead against you which would make this useless)
fury's ability in the context of 5e isnt worded well. proficency bonus is it. there isnt a separate bonus for weapons and saving throws and ability checks (etc). there is just one proficiency bonus. i
understand what you are trying to say about it but then you are forcing the player to use a reach weapon (pole arms or whips) to gain a very powerful benefit of prof bonus to dex saves (fireball is
a very common spell). i would make it say that you have proficiency in the acrobatics skill.
strife's ability essentially says "as long as you make a good first impression and your persuasion and/or deception skill(s) are high enough, you can talk anyone into anything." which is very strong for
rp. i would put some sort of limit on how many times this can occur cause the way it is worded it can go on forever. also on the second part there is no time limit between failing and your attack
which means if you fail a charisma check of some kind against a creature, the next time you attack it you have advantage even if you dont attack it for a day or a week, or 100 years. that means
you could go to every potential enemy and make charisma checks until you fail just to have that floating advantage to attack (crazy good for rogues.) again add time limits
Absalom's ability is way more powerful than all the rest. not only are immune to poison damage (one of the most common damage types) but it heals you. oh did i forget to mention you can heal
yourself by removing the poisoned condition from a creature (no action required in the way you wrote it). to make it more fair and balanced just give resistance to poison damage (and if necessary
adv against poison status)

8) either have a downside to the race or dont just dont toe the line or straddle the fence or whatever other analogy you want to use.


i hope this is helpful to some extent (sorry if i come across as rude or commanding that is not my intention)

Alright, I'm back, so I can address the feedback fully; again, thank you for the specifics!

1 - Still working on an alternative that's also not a completely rip-off of paladins' Divine Sense. I'm...gonna have to get back to y'all on that one.

2 - Nerfing it down to 3 since there's plenty of ways to get weapon proficiencies in this game.

3 - Consider it done; like I said with JNAProductions, I think I'm gonna put the 'full' version of this one in the Horseman class I'm working on.

4 - Do you mean to change the ability so it's basically just a bit more oomph on a single attack instead of going to town on everyone within range? Because I'd rather keep it as a 'going to town on everyone within range' and add a bigger trade-off (maybe make it so that your turn ends immediately after the attacks end so there's no chance to dodge, move, etc.)

5 - I'm pretty attached to the languages feature, oddly enough. Communicating with both angels and devils feels to me like it should be intrinsic in their 'DNA' since they're descended from both. Is it really that big of an advantage to be able to understand a third language even though you can't read, write, or speak it?

6 - I just played through all three a couple of weeks ago, and really the only Horseman who shows any sort of magical ability at all is Death; War is all about martial fighting, Fury has some elemental powers but they always manifest as wield-able weapons, and Strife, from what I've seen in the game and the Darksiders: Genesis footage, is pretty much just shooty-shooty. Absalom also has some casting ability (he uses Corruption powers in the final boss fight of Darksiders 2), so maybe those two could have a pick of Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Strength, or Dexterity? Well, Absalom wouldn't be able to pick Dexterity, but still. They'd only be able to pick one stat, though.

7.a - I'm gonna buff War's ability (see my response to JNA Productions).
7.b - I'm alright with Death's ability being somewhat niche, because when it DOES get used it'll be very useful; death isn't for everyone.
7.c - For Fury's feat, I feel like giving her proficiency in Acrobatics is flat compared to the other Scion's abilities; what I'd like to do, mechanically, is make her even better at Acrobatics (or really any skill used for world traversal and/or getting out of harm's way) as long as she's using a reach weapon, since that's how she works in Darksiders 3. As you can see, I'm struggling with that. Maybe let her add double proficiency if she's using a reach weapon?
7.d - Strife is definitely the one I'm struggling with the most - partially because I don't know his character as well as the other three - but I wanted some mechanic that could see a social success/failure lead to an additional consequence. I definitely don't want players to fish for social failures to get combat bonuses, but I'm also not in love with the idea of putting a daily/per-rest limit on the ability since there's nothing inherently magical about it. Maybe I could have the initial charisma check ONLY affect creatures that aren't in combat, so it's only useful for getting a shot off at the start of the fight and doesn't affect anyone else?
7.e - I'm gonna remove Absalom's flat healing from any poison source and change his poison absorption so it takes a full action. Unless the players are complete munchkins, I can't imagine they're going to intentionally poison themselves just so the Absalom player can heal off of them. Maybe I'll put in a caveat of being unable to absorb poison from the same creature until after a short rest, just in case they decide to carry around a bag of rats to poison so the Absalom player can have a ready-made healing opportunity.

[khadgar567]

I think even on caster this guy is bit to good to not take especially on good old warlock as you will be toughest sob in your camping as initiate detect good and evil is means you are always knowing who to kill and who to spare plus having angel and fiend blood on you means you are on the dead or recruit list on every major player in the setting just look nephalem of diablo as even weakest nephalem is skilled enough to have legend of their own and most of them regularly invade deepest layers of hell to have a picnic.

[SaigonTimeMD]

Alright, v0.3 is out! The updated PDF can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1o8n-3EPEvJkmTQA42OcOCWuP3bUZeIT_

For those who don't want to click through, here's the updated text, with the altered text in italics for ease of picking out the changes.

Nephilim Traits

Your nephilim character has a number of traits in common with other nephilim
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Nephilim reach adulthood in their late teens and stop visibly aging between 20-30 years, with the oldest appearing to be in their mid-30s. They do not die of old age.
Alignment. Nephilim carry the legacy of their progenitors in their blood, and as such tend towards lawful alignments, although some (particularly Scions of Strife and Absalom) carry a more individualistic or even chaotic streak. Regardless, they are almost all categorically good, though this good may take many forms; one living in secret among mortals may dedicate themselves to small acts of kindness that leave the day brighter than it began, while their more boisterous brethren may make a living as demon hunters or even freedom fighters in lands ruled by tyranny.
Size. Nephilim are quite tall, ranging from 7-8 feet in height - sometimes taller. Even the ‘weakest’ of them are quite muscular, weighing in between 200 and 400 pounds. Your size is medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Otherworldly Instincts. As a bonus action, you know the type of any visible celestial or fiend within 30 feet of you, though not their identity; you also know the location of any celestial or fiend within 10 feet of you, including any hidden by magical means.
Child Of Three Worlds. Your creature type is humanoid, celestial, and fiend. You have advantage on saving throws against effects that affect celestial and fiend creature types. Effects that affect humanoids still affect you as normally.
Natural Weaponmaster. You have proficiency with three weapons of your choice.
Horsemen’s Rage. As a free action at the beginning of your turn, you tap into your nephilim heritage, temporarily taking on the characteristics of your ancestor for one brief, terrible moment. Your weapon gains the reach property and does and additional 1d4 damage (type determined by your Scion on the table) until your next turn; if your weapon already had the reach property, it gains an additional reach of 5 feet this turn. If you are using a ranged weapon, it has an additional 5 feet of range instead. The damage increases to 2d4 at 6th level, 3d4 at 11th level, and 4d4 at 16th level. Additionally, if you do not move or take any other action this turn, you may make an attack on every creature in front of you within range, with a separate attack roll for each. You may not use this ability again until after a long rest.
Scion Table
War: Fire
Death: Necrotic
Fury: Psychic
Strife: Force
Absalom: Poison
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common. You can also understand Celestial and Infernal, and can speak, read, and write your choice of those two.
Subrace. All Nephilim trace their heritage back to either one of the Four Horsemen or to the hidden child of Absalom, resulting in five subraces: scion of War, scion of Death, scion of Fury, Scion of Strife, and scion of Absalom. Choose one of these subraces.

Scion of War
As a descendant of the Horseman War, battle is in your very blood, the clash of steel on shield your meat and drink. Scions of War have tanned, bronze, or otherwise sun-touched skin, with piercing white eyes and matching white hair, and are built with broad shoulders capable of sporting the heaviest arms and armor.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength or Dexterity score increases by 2.
Weapons Enthusiast. Whenever you make a skill check to identify a weapon, its construction, quality, or history, or marks or wounds left by a weapon, you are considered proficient in the related skill and add double your Proficiency Bonus to the check, instead of your normal Proficiency Bonus.

Scion of Death
As a, however unlikely, descendant of the Horseman Death, you are nimble and quick as a ghost, sure as death itself. Scions of Death have highly desaturated skin that often has a purple, blue, or green tint to it, with inquisitive orange eyes, and shining black hair. They are the tallest of the scions, and their thin builds, far from looking emaciated, serve only to highlight their bone-taut muscles.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score increases by 2.
Macabre Affinity. Undead, if conscious of your presence, will not attack you unless you attack them first. Sentient undead can understand you no matter what language you are speaking, and you can understand them as well.

Scion of Fury
As a descendant of the Horseman Fury, you come alive in combat and contest, a living storm of movement and pain in the heat of battle. Scions of Fury tend to look the most ‘human’ of all the Four’s descendants except for their fierce white eyes and wild shocks of purple, magenta, or even flame-orange hair that billow in an unseen wind. Fury’s children are built like dancers, their elegant forms both alluring and intimidating.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength or Dexterity score increases by 2.
Acrobatics Pragmatist. As long as you are currently wielding a weapon with the reach property, you are considered proficient in Acrobatics. If you are already proficient in Acrobatics, add double your Proficiency Bonus to any Acrobatics check instead of your normal Proficiency Bonus.

Scion of Strife
As a descendant of the Horseman Strife, you are fast on your feet and faster on the draw, always ready to cash in action whatever check your mouth writes. Scions of Strife possess jet-black, drow-like skin, expressive yellow eyes, and hair that collects in sleek, spike-like shapes. Strife’s descendants are lithe and long-legged, perfectly built for walking the earth - or running from trouble.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity or Charisma score increases by 2.
Fast On The Trigger. When you use a Charisma skill on a sentient creature not in combat, if you succeed, then you have advantage on your next Charisma skill check on the same person. If you fail, you have advantage on the first attack roll you make against that same creature. Regardless of success or failure, this ability cannot affect the same creature more than once a day.

Scion of Absalom
As a descendant of the nephilim’s greatest hero, you are forever marked by the bitterness of the Horsemen’s betrayal, the rage of your forefather’s last moments roiling within even as it gives you strength. The spawn of Absalom’s cursed bloodline have blueish-green skin, menacing yellow eyes, and bone-grey hair; in addition, blackish shapes seem to swirl just beneath their skin like a roiling ocean, adding to their already unsettling appearance. Like Absalom once was, his descendants are hulking and muscular, as tall as they are broad.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma, Intelligence, or Strength score increases by 2.
Corrupted Heart. You are immune to poison damage. As an action, you may also absorb poison from a poisoned creature by touching them, neutralizing the poison and regaining hit points equal to 1d4 + your spellcasting ability modifier; use Charisma if you have no default spellcasting ability modifier. You cannot absorb poison from the same creature until after they take a short rest.

For those who don't want to comb through the full text looking for what's different, here's the full changelog:

- Otherworldly Instincts: Completely revamped, now functions closer to a Paladin's Divine Sense as originally intended, but in a different form to emphasis the nephilim race's ability to intrinsically recognize angels and devils. Nephilim can pick out any visible celestial or fiend as such within 30 feet, and can 'sniff out' the specific location of any celestials or fiends close to them - including those trying to sneak up on them.
- Child of Three Worlds: Added a sentence clarifying that nephilim are still affected by humanoid-affecting spells as normal.
- Unwavering Will: Removed! The evil is gone from here!
- Horseman's Rage: Kept it as a free action, but changed some other parameters; now it can be used EITHER for a little added oomph on a single attack (or however many attacks the player would make that turn, anyway) while still letting them use bonus actions and move around, OR players can use it to go medieval on every enemy within range, but if they do so, then their turn ends immediately after all of the attacks are resolved. No bonus actions or moving for them.
- Languages: Remained as is for now. The ability to understand a spoken language, but not being able to read, write, or speak it doesn't feel too strong, although I wish I could come up with more concise language for the rule.
- Scion of War: Can now choose between Strength and Dexterity for the ASI. Weapons Enthusiast now gives a bonus when identifying a weapon, its construction, quality, and origin in addition to including identifying marks and wounds left by weapons. This should hopefully make it a little less niche.
- Scion of Death: Can now choose between Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma for ASI since Death is more magically-inclined than the other Horsemen.
- Scion of Fury: Acrobatics Pragmatist completely revamped. I didn't like the flat Acrobatics proficiency idea just by itself, so now it gives a double Proficiency bonus on Acrobatics checks as long as the nephilim is wielding a reach weapon. I realize double Proficiency on Acrobatics is pretty powerful, which is why I put in the reach requirement.
- Scion of Strife: Can now take Charisma or Dexterity for ASI. While the ability mechanically remains the same, there's a few changes that should discourage exploitation. For one, the ability now only works on creatures that are NOT in combat; no more intentionally failing Charisma checks in the heat of battle to get an advantage. Secondly, it now affects the same creature only once every day, which should keep players from constantly engaging the same NPC to constantly maintain advantage.
- Scion of Absalom: Can now take Charisma, Intelligence, or Strength for ASI. Revamped. Replaced the healing via poison damage with a flat immunity to poison. Absorbing poison from a creature now requires an action, and the creature must take a short rest before the player can absorb poison from them again. Also included language that specified Charisma as the spellcasting ability modifier for nephilim playing classes that have no spellcasting ability (i.e., Barbarians).

My aim this time around was to encourage more class variety by having multiple ASI options for each subrace (Death and Absalom are now prime picks for casters, Strife has potential as a ranged combatant or a party face), to balance out the mechanics that were too strong to be ignored, and to remove any easy exploitation of mechanics. Players are gonna do what they're gonna do, but I want to make it as hard as possible for them to get up to shenanigans. The only mechanic I'm not entirely happy with yet is Absalom's poison absorption, because it currently doesn't stop players from carrying around a bag of rats, poisoning them, then absorbing poison from each one as a quick health pick-me-up. Doing so would be pretty tedious anyway, but I'm sure someone out there would attempt it. My only thought would be to put a limitation on how small the creature being cured of the poison can be, but then I thought about 'Well, what if the player wants to absorb from a friendly faerie or something and can't do it because they're too small! That's awful!' So I'm at a wall with that.

[khadgar567]

strife is still powerful but know race feels like balanced enough to be played i am gonna left nitty gritty to jnaproductions and co.
otherworldly instinct looks saner than original yet feels similar niche as old one as you still know who to cut or shoot from the first level. I think you might want to add some new heritages in there

[SaigonTimeMD]

strife is still powerful but know race feels like balanced enough to be played i am gonna left nitty gritty to jnaproductions and co.
otherworldly instinct looks saner than original yet feels similar niche as old one as you still know who to cut or shoot from the first level. I think you might want to add some new heritages in there

What do you mean by new heritages? New subraces? I hadn't planned on adding any beyond what was already in the games.

[khadgar567]

What do you mean by new heritages? New subraces? I hadn't planned on adding any beyond what was already in the games.

more like few homebrew nephilim thats even more on the caster side but my point is all said.

[SaigonTimeMD]

more like few homebrew nephilim thats even more on the caster side but my point is all said.

Ah, I see; I'd thought about making a some more (for Pestilence and Famine, etc.) but I worry that might take me too far out of the 'adaptation' box I've put myself in. That being said, thanks for the feedback! On a semi-related note, do you know if there's any way to tag/mention any particular users on the forum? JNA and Kitten both gave great feedback on my initial post, and I was hoping to get their thoughts on the revised version. Maybe I should message them directly?

[khadgar567]

Ah, I see; I'd thought about making a some more (for Pestilence and Famine, etc.) but I worry that might take me too far out of the 'adaptation' box I've put myself in. That being said, thanks for the feedback! On a semi-related note, do you know if there's any way to tag/mention any particular users on the forum? JNA and Kitten both gave great feedback on my initial post, and I was hoping to get their thoughts on the revised version. Maybe I should message them directly?
well messeging works as the only method i know.