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Askorn
2015-07-24, 08:40 AM
I worked on a custom Race similar to Vampires for a while. I'm still working on a backstory but the racial stats are more or less completed.
I'll list their traits and additional thoughts I made while creating them. I know they may be a bit more powerful than the core races so what I need is feedback in terms of balance and power level.

Ability Score Increase. Your constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Although strigoi reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans they are long-lived—around three hundred years on average.
Alignment. Strigoi live in a strictly hierarchical Clan structure but can also become wild through blood hunger. Their dark passions lead them more towards evil.
Size. Strigoi vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft
Darkvision. Accustomed to hunting at night, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Strigoi ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against draining abilities (life, blood, energy, etc.) and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Because of their vampiric origins and the ability to drain lifeforces themselves the Strigoi know how to defend against these types of abilities.
Fast recovery. Strigoi sleep very deep for 4 hours and have disadvantage on waking up during this time. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

I think I need a better name for this but the idea is simple: Deeper sleep means they don't have to rest as long. It's also based on the deep, death like sleep vampires have during the day in the older literature.
Languages. You speak and write Common and Strigoi. Strigoi is an exotic, fluid language including some deep growling sounds but also subtle intonations. Strigoi literature is rich and reaching far into the past.
Blood Hunger. You are proficient with your strong jaws, which are a melee weapon that deals 1d8 piercing damage using either your strenght or your dexterity modifier for attack and damage rolls. You regain Hit points equal to half the damage dealt this way rounded down. A creature hit by this attack is Bloodmarked.
I created the Bloodmarked condition to be used with this race. On itself it does nothing but triggers abilites of the Strigoi subraces.
This condition cannot be applied to creatures without blood like constructs, elementals, different kinds of undead,...

Vampires bite. Maybe the d8 is a bit strong combined with the heal at the beginning. What do you think?
Bloodlines. There are 3 known Stigoi Bloodlines. Choose 1.




The Brutes are the Warrior Caste of the Strigoi. They make good fighters and barbarians but can also make ok paladins, tempest/war clerics and other options relying on strength.

Ability Score Increase. Your strength score increases by 1.
Strigoi weapon training. You have proficiency with warpick, longsword, glaive and trident.

Maybe I will change the chosen weapons. It was more like a gut feeling.
Hardened Skin. bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from non magical weapons is reduced by 1.

Strong at the beginning, less later on, makes them a bit tankier.
Hungry Strikes. Whenever you hit a creature that is Bloodmarked it has to suceed on a constitution saving throw (DC= 8+Proficiency+STR). If it fails, it begins to bleed for 1 min or until healed. A bleeding creature looses 1 Hit point at the end of each of ist turns. This ability stacks.

These Brutes hit so strong the enemy looses health every turn. Maybe I should make a cap on how far this ability stacks.




The Highborn are the highest ranked in society and mostly the political rulers. They make good Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers and Warlocks.

Ability Score Increase. Your charisma score increases by 1
Influential. You have proficiency with the Persuasion skill.
Blood Drain. You gain the Vampiric Drain cantrip.

Necromancy cantrip

Casting time: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

You can siphon lifeforce from others to heal your wounds by drwing the blood out of their body. Make a ranged spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, the target takes 1d4 necrotic damage, and you regain hit points equal to half the amount o f necrotic damage dealt. A creature hit by this spell is Bloodmarked. The drain can target more than one creature when you reach higher levels: two creatures at 5th level, three creatures at 11th level, and four creatures at 17th level. You can direct the drains at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate attack roll for each drain.

Weaken the Blood. The DC of Saving Throws from spells you cast is increased by 1 if the target is Bloodmarked. This bonus is increased to 2 at level 10 and 3 at level 15.

Vampiric Drain and Weaken the Blood are made to work together. I chose low damage so this won't be used as just another Eldritch Blast. The main purpose is to get Bloodmarked on enemies and make them weaker to your spells.



The Lurkers are born in unterground catacombs and make up the rougish part of the Strigoi society. They make good Rogues, Monks and other dexterity based martial classes.

Ability Score Increase. Your dexterity score increases by 1
Claws. You are proficient with unarmed strikes and gain +2 to damage rolls attacking unarmed. Even tough you are unarmed your claws are treated as having the Finesse property and deal slashing damage instead of bludgeoning damage.

I wanted to make them a bit more monster like. Very strong, maybe OP for monks, can also benefit from unarmed sneak attacks if using a rogue.
Born in Darkness. Your Darkvision can see through magical Darkness well.

I'm really doubtful about this ability. No other race has something like this but I wanted to improve their darkvision without just using an increase in range. I was playing with the idea to give them a small area of blindsight but this would give them the ability to also hit invisible creatures and make Sunlight sensitivity less crippling as Blindsight is based on hearing.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
Lacerate. Whenever you hit a creature that is Bloodmarked your critical range is increased by 1. If you hit a Bloodmarked creature with your claws you regain 1 Hit Point.

They can hit creatures better if they are Bloodmarked. The Claws part is just an icing on the cake.

Ninja_Prawn
2015-07-24, 09:43 AM
There's a lot to analyse here and I'm at work right now so I can't dig through it all. I'll edit this post when I get home.

Just at first glance, it looks overpowered.


First, a quick-and-dirty points exercise. The target for a balanced race is 5.5 to 6.



Strigoi

ASI 1
Darkvision 0.5
Strigoi ancestry 0.5
Fast recovery 0
Languages 0
D8 natural weapon 1.5 c/w finesse & drain 0.5
SUBTOTAL 4


Brute

ASI 1
Weapon proficiencies 0.5
DR 0.25 ?
Hungry strikes 0.5 ?
TOTAL 6.25 - strong, but probably ok


Highborn

ASI 1
Skill proficiency 0.5
Cantrip 0.5
Weaken the blood 1 ?
TOTAL 7 - very strong. Weaken the blood is a very good ability, probably too much for this chassis.


Lurker

ASI 1
Claws 1 ?
Born in darkness 0.5
Sunlight sensitivity -0.5
Improved critical 0.5 ? c/w extra drainage 0.25
TOTAL 6.75 - quite strong, but I have no idea how to cost a hit bonus.


Quick thoughts:

The cantrip is fine. It's 1d4 with a nice rider, which seems fine. You could stop abuse by stipulating that the victim must be a sentient humanoid to gain the healing.
This might not be as bad as I originally thought. You can make a lot of room for cool stuff by dropping the ASIs a little.
The highborn already has enough going for it without Weaken the Blood. I would repackage that as a racial feat (it'll need to be buffed/expanded if you do that).
There's decent amounts of synergy, and the lurker makes a stupidly good monk. I'd look for ways to rework that.
Although there's a lot of healing scattered around, most of it is small amounts. I don't think it's game-breaking. Healing is pretty cheap in 5e anyway.

JNAProductions
2015-07-24, 11:54 AM
Seconded-this race has far too much natural healing through damage. Tone it down a bit.

Askorn
2015-07-24, 12:34 PM
Seconded-this race has far too much natural healing through damage. Tone it down a bit.

Do you have any suggestions?

I could remove the healing from Lacerate from the Lurker subrace and tone down the damage of Blood Hunger from the main race to 1d6 which would also lower the healing.
Is the Vampiric Drain cantrip also problematic? I already chose 1d4 for damage so you only get a heal for 1 Hit Point most of the time and 2 only if you roll a 4.

JNAProductions
2015-07-24, 12:38 PM
It's something no one else gets, and is wide open for abuse.

Carry around a sack of rats, and attack them for pittances of HP. Full heal in ten minutes, easy.

Ninja_Prawn
2015-07-24, 01:01 PM
Carry around a sack of rats...

Combine with the Friends cantrip and say goodbye to that pesky 'social life'!

Sorry. I'll get onto the proper review now.

Askorn
2015-07-25, 02:02 AM
Thank you for your review. I'll look into it as soon as I can and see what I can do.