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I made the below D&D 5e race, just wondering if it's balanced compared to the other race options.

Agias

“It was stunning, I was just seconds away from a death by the goblin’s spear, when he saved me, a man without a face, clad in blue with a shield and flaming sword. I owe my life to him.” -Zhong, Elf Warlock

The Agias are spiritual holy guardians without bodies, protecting poor innocent lives from death. They often wear heavy armor and shields. Often surround with a blue aura.

Ability Score Increases: Charisma, Wisdom, and Constitution all increase by one.

History: The first Agias was created when a wizard, monk, priest, and shaman got together to create an arcane and divine warrior to protect the men at war, They succeeded, but not how they wanted to, the warrior had no body, and had become little more than arcane animated armor, until put on the battle field, where it unleashed the true power of the Agias.

Age: Agias are created by magic and divine rituals, they do not age.

Alignment: Almost all are Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral.

Size: You stand about 6 feet tall; your size is medium.

Speed: You hover at a speed of 40 ft.

Senses: You have true sight for 200 feet and are blind beyond that.

Holy Guard: Stand in front of an ally about to be attacked and absorb all of the damage dealt. You have 10 charges with this trait and the number resets when you finish a long or short break.

Life Drain: As an action, your target makes a constitution save, if failed they take 1d10 damage and you gain health points equal to the damage you did.

Godly Aura: All of your melee attacks add 3d6 radiant damage or 3d6 force damage.

Booming Voice: You have access the Healing Word and Power Word Stun Spells. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these.

Languages: You can speak read and write Common and Abyssal and have telepathy at up to 150ft.

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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion You should not edit a homebrew question after it's been asked. You can ask a new, separate question with revisions (and even link back to this one). However, you need to do some extensive rebalancing first - minor changes are not going to help. This one needs to go back to the drawing board. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:43
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    \$\begingroup\$ So you're aware (and not totally discouraged), one of the reasons for downvoting is "does not show any research effort". There are plenty of resources on homebrewing, some on this very site, that can provide guidance. It's clear you've slapped some ideas down without really thinking about how they compare to anything else in the game system. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion You might like to read How to ask a good homebrew review question? on meta, and note that we have a 72 hour limit on iterative questions so please wait a few days before posting a second version. It gives time for more answers to come in, and shows us that you have put some thought into the changes rather than just including the recommendations from the top answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin
    Nov 11, 2019 at 23:02

2 Answers 2

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Very broken.

I like to use this guide to evaluate balance. Your original suggestion scales absurdly high. TJL makes great points in all mechanical aspects.

I'm going to tone down your core abilities and suggest a race that scales a 28, slightly above average. It maintains the flavor of the class, the mix between Divine and Arcane, and provides a neat set of useful abilities, with spend your Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. The Life Drain was simply removed, it had no cost, no limitation, and was poorly written.

Ability Score Increases: Charisma, Wisdom, and Constitution all increase by one.

This sounds ok. Half-Elves and Dwarves both get +4 bonuses. Also the fact that 3 abilities each increase by one is weaker than 1 ability increasing by 2 and a second ability by 1 (due to how modifiers increase on pairs). In the guide, this is a +12 bonus.

Speed: You walk at a speed of 30ft. Once per long rest, on your turn, you can choose to hover for no more than 30ft, expending your regular movement.

Hovering is powerful. It allows you to fly, but you won't fall if knocked prone or if your speed is 0. This is situational, as few enemies actually can inflict these penalties if you're flying at a range, but still powerful. Instead, walk 30ft as usual, Hover as a special rare ability, like the Aasimar's Radiant Soul or the Tabaxi's Feline Agility. Movement is spent from your speed as usual, so if you walk for 15ft, you can only hover for another 15ft. However, even if you Dash, you can hover for at most 30ft. I estimated this at +2 bonus on the guide, with a +18 for a hover ability, and -16 for being a single-turn, once per day, ability.

Senses: You have blindsight within 5ft of you.

Truesight is also very powerful. For players, permanent 60ft True Sight is a lvl20 boon, while 120ft True Sight for 1h is a 6th level spell. I suggest Blindsight within 5ft, which I estimated at +3.

Godly Aura: Once per long rest, you can use an action to make an unarmed strike. If it hits, the target takes an additional 1d6 Radiant or Force damage (you choose the type whenever you use this feature). This damage grows to 2d6 at level 5, 3d6 at level 11, and 4d6 at level 15.

Adding damage to all attacks would make any class with multiple attacks (Fighters, Warlocks, etc) break your game. Re-written, this is similar to the Dragonborn's Breath Weapon, except it's single target and melee. The damage is not going to be better than regular attacks, unless your target is vulnerable to Radiant or Force, so it is a niche ability. I estimated this a +3 in the guide, half as good as a Dragonborn's attack.

Booming Voice: When you reach level 3, you can cast Healing Word without expending a spell slot, once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this.

A small and handy bonus action. In the guide, it's a +2 bonus. Power Word: Stun, a level 8 spell, would be extremely powerful for any racial ability.

Holy Guard: After you reach level 5, once per long rest, when a creature within 5ft of you takes damage, you can use your reaction to magically reduce that damage by 1d12 + your CON modifier. You take the damage you have reduced. This feature doesn't transfer any other effects that might accompany the damage, and this damage can't be reduced in any way.

You need limits and costs on the Holy Guard ability. This is now similar to the Redemption Paladin's "Aura of the Guardian", with a smaller range. Again, it requires being in melee range of an ally, has a long cooldown, and merely transfers damage, does not reduce it. I estimated this at +3 bonus.

Languages: You can speak read and write Common and Celestial. You can speak telepathically to any creature within 5ft of you. The creature understands you only if the two of you share a language. You can speak telepathically in this way to one creature at a time.

Two fixed languages are fine, with a +0 bonus. I've suggested Celestial instead of Abyssal, since Abyssal is the language of Demons. 120ft telepathy would be too large a range. This mimics the limitations of the Ghostwise Halflings, with a much smaller range. Due to a smaller range, I estimated this at +3 bonus.

This makes a total of 28 points, slightly above average. Feel free to play around with the values. Also note that many of the points are my estimation of utility. Follow other races' guidelines to measure for yourself the value of a feature.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ also, I kind of want them to have telepathy, even if its only like 10ft, really just for the hell of it. \$\endgroup\$
    – user60170
    Nov 11, 2019 at 22:38
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion I doubt that can ever be balanced. Telepathy is a very strong ability. Maybe you can substitute it for the Message cantrip, once per short rest? But Pure telepathy, even with limited range, is too strong, imo. \$\endgroup\$
    – BlueMoon93
    Nov 11, 2019 at 22:41
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    \$\begingroup\$ Ghostwise halfling have telepathy at 30ft, so its not impossible to balance \$\endgroup\$
    – user60170
    Nov 11, 2019 at 22:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ FYI, this is received downvotes because it doesn't actually attempt to answer the question. Homebrew-review questions shouldn't be for "homebrew this for me" type answers. If you adding some assessment of the class as presented other than "TJL makes great points in all mechanical aspects." it would significantly improve this answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin
    Nov 12, 2019 at 5:03
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion If you're quoting something that uses an "(Su)" tag, you're not looking at a 5E resource. "(Su)" indicated a supernatural ability in 3.5E. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 12, 2019 at 13:06
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Way Overpowered

I've deliberately not covered aspects that are irrelevant to a mechanical evaluation.

Ability Score Increases: Charisma, Wisdom, and Constitution all increase by one.

Okay - Three static +1s is uncommon, but not unheard of (Triton is an example).

Age: Agias are created by magic and divine rituals, they do not age.

Excessive - No other player character race is effectively immortal. Warforged do not appear to age, but in their setting they're effectively a very recent species (on the order of decades) - nobody yet knows what happens after they've been kicking around for a while.

Speed: You hover at a speed of 40 ft.

Excessive - No other race has a speed of 40' flying combined with hover. Hover is very powerful when it comes to conditions like prone and other things that affect movement - it prevents the character from immediately falling. Aaracokra are 50', but they cannot hover and suffer a reduced ground speed and armor limitations.

Senses: You have true sight for 200 feet and are blind beyond that.

Excessive - No other race has true sight to start (because it's very powerful), and the distance is much higher than even a drow's darkvision (120'). The blindness is functionally irrelevant, because most encounters won't take place beyond the already long range.

Holy Guard: Stand in front of an ally about to be attacked and absorb all of the damage dealt. You have 10 charges with this trait and the number resets when you finish a long or short break.

Excessive and poorly worded. Do they have to be there before the attack? Is it a reaction? Also, no racial ability has that many uses; they're usually based on a stat, if they're even more than one.

Life Drain: As an action, your target makes a constitution save, if failed they take 1d10 damage and you gain health points equal to the damage you did.

Excessive - No race has anything remotely like this.

Godly Aura: All of your melee attacks add 3d6 radiant damage or 3d6 force damage.

Excessive - No race has anything even remotely this powerful.

Booming Voice: You have access the Healing Word and Power Word Stun Spells. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these.

Excessive and poorly worded. Power Word Stun is an 8th level spell - no race grants a spell that powerful as a racial ability. Even if it were reasonable, how many times can they be used? Check out Tieflings and Drow for appropriate spell levels, progression, and availability.

Languages: You can speak read and write Common and Abyssal and have telepathy at up to 150ft.

Excessive - No race has innate telepathy at that kind of distance. Ghostwise halflings get 30'.

Summary

Most of these abilities are drastically overpowered on an individual basis, and in this quantity make for an utterly unbalanced race. You need to go look at some existing races, see what they can do, and find fitting, flavorful abilities that aren't all raw power.

So you're aware (and not totally discouraged), one of the reasons for downvoting is "does not show any research effort". There are plenty of resources on homebrewing, some on this very site, that can provide guidance. It's clear you've slapped some ideas down without really thinking about how they compare to anything else in the game system.

Further Reading

How do I evaluate whether my homebrew race is balanced?

How can I ask a good homebrew review question?

What rules/guidance do we want to give for homebrew review questions, if any?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ so what should i do to change it, also, to answer the holy guard question, you basically teleport there. and the arokrata or what ever if I remember has a flying speed of 50ft \$\endgroup\$
    – user60170
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion Have a look at: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/127783/… \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion Also: rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8121/… \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:34
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Vchampion Individual line-by-line help isn't really how Stack Exchange operates. It's single questions (even complex ones) and single answers. Stack Exchange is not designed for back-and-forth conversation. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Nov 11, 2019 at 21:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Hey @Vchampion. Just a clarification as to why your edit was undone. I'm sure it's a good improvement to the class and adds clarity, but in this forum we tend to try to ask new questions rather than editing old ones. We figure that editing questions can make them "moving targets," and make previous answers no longer make sense, so it would discourage people from answering questions as they were initially written. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 11, 2019 at 21:51

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