It would be nice to create a variant race from a copy as a base of the normal rave.  As an example I am trying to create a Dragonborn that is exactly like the normal dragonborn except that the breath weapon is a bonus action rather then a standard action.  If I could clone the base it would be much easier to do that.  Not required but would be nice to have.

Hi Thazar, thanks for your suggestion.

I believe there may already be two ways to achieve what you wish:

One way to do this would be to create a new whole race and use Dragonborn as a template.This will clone the entire race. All you would then have to do is edit that one trait and change the trait's description wording and action type. You could potentially name it Dragonborn 2 or Dragonborn (Quick Breath Weapon) or something such to have it display correctly in the character builder.

Alternatively I believe variant are already designed to work as you describe. When making a variant, on using it on the character builder it will include all features of the base race. A feature on the variant editor is that, when making a racial trait, you can select a trait from the base race for it to replace. To achieve what you describe here you can simply add a new trait, copy in the Breath Weapon name, description and modifiers/limited use details, and alter it as described above. You could call this Variant Dragonborn or Swiftbreath Dragonborn to have it to display correctly in the character builder.

Let us know if you need any more help in this thread here!

Awesome and thanks.

I've just seen an update regarding the features I've mentioned here - they're not all showing correctly for everyone right now. Hopefully the D&D staff will have a fix for it soon if it is affecting your homebrew.

More details here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/11390-race-builder-variant-race-q-feedback#c11

This is fixed now.

Thanks!