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The Ainher are a race of humanoids, crafted by the ancient giants with a spark of divine flames. They were like men, but greater in skill, passion and stature. They were left to live a harsh life in the icy hell of the isle Garðarshólmur. In time they used their great powers to build halls of battle and ale and split into two unique groups: the asa and the vana. The asa aimed to conquer other lands and subjugate them, while the peaceful vana had no use for conquest.

I am curious as to how powerful the race is and whether its level of power is above that of the published races. I am mostly worried about "Blinding Radiance" and "Blood Striker".

  • Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2 and another ability score of your choice increases by 1.
  • Age. The Ainher are a long lived race, becoming mature at the young age of 15 and living up to 1500 years.
  • Size: Ainher are somewhat larger and bulkier than humans, and they range from 5 to well over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
  • Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
  • Incredible Talents. You gain proficiency in one skill and one tool of your choice Additionally, you qualify for taking the Prodigy feat.
  • Brave. You have advantage on saving throws made to avoid or end the frightened condition.
  • Subrace: Choose either the Asa or Vana subrace:

Asa

  • Runic Magics. You know one cantrip of your choice from the sorcerer or cleric spell lists. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this cantrip (choose when you select this race).
  • Blood Striker. Once per turn, when you make a melee attack against a creature that has less than its maximum hit points, you can gain advantage on the attack roll. If the attack hits, the creature takes an additional 1d4 damage. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Vana

  • Seithr Magic. You know one cantrip of your choice from the druid or cleric spell lists. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this cantrip (choose when you select this race).
  • Blinding Radiance. As a bonus action, you emit bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. This light lasts until you are incapacitated or use a bonus action to stop emitting it. Additionally, when you are hit with an attack by a creature within the range of the bright light of this feature, you can use your reaction to force that creature to make a Constitution saving throw, the DC of which is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier. If the creature fails the saving throw, it is blinded until the start of its next turn. You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
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    \$\begingroup\$ rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/q/8121/44723 please read and review to improve your question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Dec 3, 2022 at 15:52
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    \$\begingroup\$ @AldenForlen What work have you done to investigate this yourself? Which features do you think are most likely to present problems at the table? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2022 at 20:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ What do you deem the closest equivalent to your race (which was what I meant earlier)? What classes do you see particularly well stacking with this race or other thoughts... \$\endgroup\$
    – Trish
    Dec 3, 2022 at 20:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ I did say which features I worry about most. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2022 at 20:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ Not really relevant from a balance standpoint (since you've said they're mechanically medium), but what is "well over 6 feet tall" supposed to mean? Up to 7' tall? 10'? 15'? At some point the verisimilitude breaks down, so I'd recommend putting an actual upper bound. \$\endgroup\$
    – Shivers
    Dec 4, 2022 at 1:21

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This looks too strong, especially Blinding Radiance

Outside of Blood Striker or Blinding Radiance, Detect Balance has your race sum up to 21 points based on straightforwardly priced abilities, none of which are problematics. This leaves 4 points or a solid, but not super-powerful feature to get to an "ideally" balanced build of 25 points, and up to 6 points to still be in the acceptable range. Both of your special abilities appear to be pushing that limite.

Vana with Blinding Radiance in particular seem directly better by a good bit than the published Kobold race.

Blood Striker. I think like anything that grants adavantage to attacks, this is powerful just for the advantage without any action cost alone. It delivers a bit of extra damage, probably less releavant. Something like the Lucky feat would give you a comparable number of rolls with an Extra die at least in the tiers where most play happens, and would apply also to saves and skill checks, in exchange for no extra damage. This is one of the strongest feats for the 8 point ASI value, so this is pusing against the limit. Maybe remove the extra damage?

As a comment, advantage on attack rolls is something that the published races normally do not do, they typically grant it on skill checks or saving throws.

Blinding Radiance. The action cost here may not matter much, as you can keep this going without limit, so you do not wait until a fight happens to have it on (and most groups carry light, to not have disadvantage on perception checks, anyways, so no big downside, and a free light source is nice too. If you really must be stealthy, you can leave it off until hositilities ensue.). The Reaction is very low too.

Blindness means both advantage to hit for everyone on your team and disadvantage for them to hit (and they cannot see, so no counterspells either, for example) for a round. Even though it might only happen 60-70% with typical save fail rates, it is extremely powerful. For a typical team of 4, a use of this is worth about 2-3 attacks with advantage, and it can avoid significant damage when the monster misses with their conterattack, saving you considerable healing too. This does as much damage from advantage as blood striker does overall in a day. I think this is too strong.

For a direct comparison to a published race, this has an effect quite similar to the Monsters of the Multiverse's Kobold race Draconic Cry, that similarly can give you and allies advantage on attacks until the start of your next turn proficiency bonus times. That race can pick a single cantrip as their other ability with a point value, equivalent to your Seithr magic. It would lack both Brave and Incredible Talent that together are worth 6 points compared to what you provide here.

As a comment, you probably should bind this to whatever the modifier is that was chosen for the spellcasting ability.

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