[RPG] Is this Ursine player race balanced

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I'm mostly concerned about the balance of Frenzy and Shaman's Sense. Using detect balance though, the race seems balanced.

  • Ability Score Increase.
    Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

  • Age. Ursine mature at around the age of 15 and can live up to 60 years

  • Size. Ursine are very large and tall, with an imposing frame of around 6-7 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

  • Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

  • Nature's Weaponry. 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.

  • Overwhelming Strength. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

  • Shaman's Sense. You can cast the beast sense spell once and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

  • Frenzy. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can make a bite attack as a bonus action. In addition, the next melee weapon attack you make until the end of your next turn is made with advantage.

  • Thick Fur. Due to your thick fur, you have resistance to cold damage.

  • Language. You can speak, read and write Common and Ursine.

Lore: The Ursine are a proud bearfolk race that were created by a ritual performed by a druid of the first druidic circle. This ritual involved the sacrifice of a large cave bear and the ceremonial wearing of bear skins. As a result of the ritual, his followers transformed into bear-like creatures themselves, though they kept their intelligence and magics. After a few centuries, the Ursine became their own true-breeding race that still possessed an innate druidic spark. Ursine are known to enter a battle frenzy while in the throes of combat, lashing out with their teeth and claws.

Best Answer

This is on the strong side

I am using the Detect Balance sheet to score this. This assigns point values to features. The published races range from 17 to 33 using this, average 25. The recommended score for new homebrew races is 24 to 27.

  • Ability Score Increase. Standard +2/+1, 12 points.

  • Age. Normal, 0 points.

  • Size. Medium, 0 points.

  • Speed. 30 feet, 0 points.

  • Nature's Weaponry. 1d6 natural weapon, 2 points.

  • Overwhelming Strength. Powerful build, 2 points.

  • Shaman's Sense. Level 2 spell 1/day, 4 points.

  • Frenzy. This is the only tricky one. The closest is Savage Attacks, which gives extra die on a critical hit, worth 3 points (see detail analysis below).

  • Thick Fur. 1 common Resistance, 4 points.

  • Language. Common and one other language, 0 points.

In sum this would be 27 points, just within the recommended range on the strong side. I would likely defang the Frenzy option a bit, which is the most unusual one, maybe remove the extra advantage.

To quantify expected contribution from Frenzy (sorry, lots of boring minutiae ahead): Savage attacker adds one of the weapon die on a critical. Best case is the Greataxe, so lets say Savage Attacker is worth 6.5 points of expected damage. Frenzy gives one bite attack, at typical chance to hit of about 65%, this can be best case deliver 8.5 raw average damage (1d6+5) or about 5.5 expected damage. Early on it will be only about 4 points of expected damage. To this comes the cost of using up your bonus action, which I will ignore, although there can be builds that find regular use for it. You gain advantage for the next attack. At typical to hit rates, advantage adds about 23% to hit chance, at about 10 points per attack that connects. This again depends on build, it could be far higher with feats like Great Weapon Master or ongoing spell effects like hunter's mark. This adds another 2.3 points of expected damage, plus an improved crit chance of about 5% (9.75% total) for attacking with advantage, for double damage die and another Frenzy bonus attack worth altoghether about 10 raw or 0.5 expected damage. In total Frenzy is worth 8.3 points expected damage. Early on it would be only 6.8. So, early on it is on par with Savage Attacker, from level 4 on it will get better, but a lot depends on the build. I therefore use the same point buy value.

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