Is this homebrew gnoll race balanced

dnd-5ehomebrew-reviewraces

I've been tinkering with a gnoll race and I've been wondering whether it's balanced or not. I want to hear your thoughts on so I can possible revise it in the future. The traits are mainly based on abilities of real life hyenas.

  • Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
  • Darkvision. 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.
  • Size: Medium
  • Speed: 30 ft.
  • Rampage. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on your turn, you can take a bonus action to move up to half your speed and make a bite attack.
  • Heart of the Hunt. You can add twice your proficiency bonus to any Strength (Athletics) checks related to chases and running.
  • Keen Smell. Thanks to your sensitive nose, you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception), Wisdom (Survival), and Intelligence (Investigation) checks that involve smell.
  • Bite. You have a fanged maw that you can use to make unarmed strikes. When you hit with it, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier piercing damage , instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
  • Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Gnoll.

Best Answer

Some of your verbiage is a little odd, and I have a couple changes, but it should be

Balanced for general play

This feels like you went off of the Lizardfolk as a template (not a criticism, it's where I would have started). I think this is pretty well done and I wouldn't have an issue playing alongside it at my table.

ASI, Speed, Vision, Languages, and Size are all standard - so I'm not going to talk further on it.

  • Bite is fine. It's really not going to get that much use.
  • Rampage I think that rampage being limited to your bite attack is important here.
  • Heart of the Hunt is clunky and I'd recommend it being proficiency instead. Not many traits give expertise (it's usually advantage) and also it's a niche application. Maybe Proficiency in Wisdom (Survival).
  • Keen Senses is also clunky. I know the Loxodon has this, but that's an entire extra appendage and the schtick of the race; the standard way to do for player races it is to give a proficiency in Wisdom (Perception). Advantage on scent checks and the like is more for monsters - and even then it's just "Wisdom (Perception) related to Smell/Hearing".

To reiterate: I don't think that Heart of the Hunt is terribly strong, but it's just not going to get much use as you have it. I have never ever had to roll Strength (Athletics) to run or chase and I haven't seen anyone do it either. Keen Senses is a little stronger than I'd like and I do recommend toning it down, but my issue is that it feels out of place. That's not to say that you can break the mold a little bit when making new things, but there should be some consistency in feeling across abilities across races.