Hi Unearthed Arcana!

I need some help polishing the base racial traits of a race I am making.

The intent of this player race is to give my DM an alternative to the broken yuan-ti PC race for assembling a few baddies for us due to certain campaign setting tweaks.

In some cases, the DM builds the foes like player characters, some with normal monsters, and some with a bit of both normal monsters and enemies set up like player characters.

TL;DR flavor wise, one of the yuan-ti gods is drafting up a replacement for yuan-ti they can trust. Why? Yuan-ti are obsessed with killing and abusing their own gods. Most of the other racial fluff still needs to be polished since I need to make it make sense to those outside of our campaign.

My main concern, however, is how well the race stands up with the PHB options. While some of the racial features are pretty powerful, a few of the point buy builds that I drafted shows Haustians growing statwise at a slower rate than all the other races.

Why?

Because of the missing +1 ABI that I didn't give them, because I'd worry that'd push them near the 31 mark if I did that.

The Detect Balance Guide calculations I made are at the end of the post. I linked the post for reference since my target cost is 27. Why? To show that the race IS a terrifying threat (by being viable mechanically without their racial feats).

I am also aiming for the Detect Balance cost of 27 in case I need to run a player character or two to assist telling the story.

Haustian base racial traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.

Age. Haustians mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years.

Alignment. While Haustians are naturally empathic and sympathetic, their sapient prey diet forces them to make hard life choices. They are generally chaotic, with most leaning towards chaotic evil.

Size. Haustians are about 7 to 9 feet tall. They have muscular, but slender bodies that weight between 240 and 300 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft.

Silver Tongued. You have proficiency in the Persuasion skill.

Gape of the Serpent. You can swallow creatures the same size as you. However, when you are at maximum stomach capacity, you are considered grappling the creatures inside you.

You can hold one creature your size, two creatures one size category smaller than you, or four creatures two size categories smaller than you. You can regurgitate all creatures inside you without using an action.

In addition, while your stomach has creatures in it, you weigh an additional 15 pounds regardless of how much the creatures weigh. You also do not have additional volume from the creatures inside you. You can alter the volume your stomach occupies without using an action. These effects are nonmagical. A creature with truesight can see your stomach's unaltered volume.

Magic Jaws. You can use an action to tug on a creature's existence with a lick of your lips. The target must be a creature within 10 ft of you. The target must then succeed a Dexterity saving throw or be swallowed by you.

The DC is set by your first spellcasting class, Magic Initiate's casting ability, or the Monk's Ki feature. If you cannot cast or use ki, you cannot use this ability.

No matter mow much I look at this, I keep thinking that it should instead be tied to a +1 ASI for setting the mental score instead of class copying. While it'd still allow for optimal building as intended, it felt weird for me to lock this feature behind a class. However, that might be a powergamer's dream to have a mental +1 ASI of choice.

At the 5th level, this also inflicts 1d4 magical piercing damage. The damage increases to 2d4 at the 11th level, and 3d4 at the 17th level.

Iron Gut. When you receive (minimum is equal to your level + your Constitution modifier) damage from a creature inside you on a single turn, make a Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + (5 - your Wisdom modifier) + (8 - your proficiency bonus).

If you fail, regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 5 feet of you. If you die, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by you and can escape from the corpse by using 5 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Caustic Embrace. Creatures swallowed by you are blinded and restrained and have total cover against all attacks and effects outside of you. At the start of each of your turns, inflict 1d4 acid damage to all creatures swallowed by you. The damage increases to 2d4 at the 6th level, 3d4 at the 11th level, and 4d4 at the 16th level.

Iron Gut DC Lookup Table

Prof Bonus Wis 8-9 Wis 10-11 Wis 12-13 Wis 14-15 Wis 16-17 Wis 18-19 Wis 20
+2 20 19 18 17 16 15 14
+3 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
+4 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
+5 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
+6 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

What about physical eating methods?

For reference, the race also has these two alternate eating methods. However, they're currently locked in as feats vs as subraces since a skill contest is much harder to dodge than a Dex save.

I wasn't sure if I should actually make these subraces.

Raking Jaws

Prerequisite: Haustian, Strength 13 or higher, and the inability to use Magic Jaws

Your physical strength allows you to swallow prey easily, even without using magic to aid your predatory stunts.

You can initiate a Strength (Athletics) contest against the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) (their choice) as an action. If you win the contest, the target is swallowed by you.

Once you take this feat, you can't take Swift Jaws.

Swift Jaws

Prerequisite: Haustian, Dexterity 13 or higher, and the inability to use Magic Jaws

Your swift maneuvers allows you to get the drop on your prey easily, even without using magic to aid your predatory stunts.

You can initiate a Dexterity (Sleight of Hands) contest against the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) (their choice) as an action. If you win the contest, the target is swallowed by you.

Once you take this feat, you can't take Raking Jaws.

Here's a few stat analyses for what I mean by slow growth rate, using the house rule of allowing both feats and ASIs when a class reaches an ASI notch:

Haustian Warlock Point Buy w/Feats AND ASIs - LV12-14

Name Stat PB Cost Racial Total Base ASI 1 ASI 2 ASI 3
Str 8 0 8
Dex 8 5 13 2
Con 8 4 +2 14
Int 8 2 10
*Wis 8 7 14
*Cha 8 9 15 2 2 *1

My greatest concern right now is that with the way the ASIs are, they can only have a natural 16-17 Constitution with Point Buy. And then... nothing else, really.

Which breaks the flavor of the race since the mechanical intent is that they weave their devouring with their normal training into a deadly art.

Suggested Feats

  1. Tough
  2. War Caster
  3. Spell Sniper / Other Feat
  4. Forced Actor Feat to pad out the ASIs instead of one of the meaningfully flavorful racial feats I've had in the back burner

Haustian Warlock Alt Point Buy w/Feats AND ASIs - LV12-14

Name Stat PB Cost Racial Total Base ASI 1 ASI 2 ASI 3
Str 8 0 8
Dex 8 5 13 1
Con 8 4 +2 14
Int 8 2 10
*Wis 8 7 14
*Cha 8 9 15 1 2 2

Suggested Feats

  1. Tough
  2. War Caster
  3. Spell Sniper / Other Feat
  4. Other Feat / Racial Feat

Tiefling Warlock Point Buy w/Feats AND ASIs - LV12-14

Name Stat PB Cost Racial Total Base ASI 1 ASI 2 ASI 3
Str 8 0 8
Dex 8 5 13 2
Con 8 7 14
Int 8 1 +1 10
*Wis 8 7 14
*Cha 8 7 +2 16 2 2

Tiefling warlock in our party's so far been a pretty good artillery cannon. Having EB and a decent array of save-based cantrips helps.

Suggested Feats

  1. Tough
  2. War Caster
  3. Spell Sniper
  4. Any Feat here

Kenku Warlock Point Buy w/Feats AND ASIs - LV12-14

Name Stat PB Cost Racial Total Base ASI 1 ASI 2 ASI 3
Str 8 0 8
Dex 8 4 +2 14 2
*Con 8 5 13 *1
Int 8 2 10
*Wis 8 7 +1 15 *1
*Cha 8 9 15 *1 2 2

The Kenku warlock doesn't suffer as much from unoptimal traits since the feats here actually fit the character concept and maximise use of the Kenku warlock's racials.

EG: Spamming people telepathically with noises they shouldn't hear.

Suggested Feats

  1. Tough
  2. Actor
  3. Observant - Wis
  4. Resilient - Constitution

Detect Balance Costs

Trait Cost Reason
+2 Con 8
Common and one language 0
30 ft movement 0
Gape of the Serpent 8 Allows swallowing common foes whole and other shenanigans
Iron Gut, Caustic Embrace 6 Racial "cantrip", Iron Gut handles vomit threshold
Magic Jaws 3 Racial "cantrip"
Persuasion Prof 2
-------------------- ------ -------------------------------------------
Total 27  

Detect Balance Guide from /u/jwbjerk