Hey guys, SkillCheck here.

I recently finished my second race for DnD Beyond! They are the Owl Aarakocra but I call them the Takara. These guys are pretty cool and I made some lore for them if you like that sort of thing. They are pretty strong so they may get a Nerf in the future if there is demand for it. One of the coolest perks they have is their Obsession trait which gives them a system similar to Rangers but with a little extra flair. I am currently giving some thought to expanding this trait to allow more obsessions at higher levels but I honestly feel that it is a little unnecessary and the system for leveled perks hasn't seemed to work for me. Also they're pretty stacked on their kit as you will see. I made this while checking detect balance and it came out to 29 at first then I added more and its currently resting at 32 (original Aarakocra is 33). Anyway, please check these guys out, I think you'll like them a lot and if you have any feedback for the race I am always happy to hear it. You can also check out my previous race the Grikor, (inspire by the Krogan of ME) who are big reptilian hulks who love to be in the fray of battle and don't like to die without a fight.

I like it, but I think that some of the traits would be better off as racial feats padded with a score increase (such as the obsession trait or psychic resistance with a +1 to Intelligence and Wisdom respectively). To balance that back out, maybe give them a +2 to intelligence along with their +1 wisdom and maybe a choice of 2 skill proficiencies out of four that would make sense for a race like this (i'd suggest history, investigation, insight, and maybe arcana for the possible choices).

First off thank you for your feedback. I like your idea of making some of it a racial feat, here's what I'm thinking. The psychic resistance could be part of a racial feat but the obsession trait is sort of part of the race. What I may do is add optional feats instead of leveled bonuses to the obsession perk line. For instance if you chose orcs at first but also wanted dragonborn, you take the feat and get these effects (including language) along with a +1 to intelligence.

I could see that. After looking at the aarakocra and seeing their flying ability took most of the other features they could have simply due to balance (flying can be pretty OP), that I think the same caution should be taken here.

Still, I could take back my thought. I still think the obession trait would be better as a racial feat due to it seeming more useful in conjunction with certain classes and roles rather than a more all encompassing traits. Still, if it's something more ingrained into their being than just what some of a certain proclivity would have, I can see it in lew of my suggestion. Then psychic resistance would swap with the aaracokra talons, you can nix what I suggested with the extra profiencies, and I think you'd be solid without being too OP. It'd basically be the wizard of bird folk to balance the more or less fighter theme of aaracokra and rouge tendancies of kenku.

I think I may be able to swap out the psychic resistance for some sort of proficiency, adding choices would also be cool to allow you to tailor your Takara to your playstyle. I will add it to my list of possible changes and give it some thought. It very well could be in 1.1, but we'll see. I pretty much took away the talons because the Takara aren't really bruisers, I toyed with the idea of a psychic scream for a little bit instead, but thought it would be a little gimmicky. I do like the idea of a proficiency choice instead of resistance though. 

I like the idea of Owl Aarakocra, thematically it's great. However...

Detect Balance scoring for the Aarakocra already puts it as very powerful, although it's understandable you wouldn't want a new variant of it to be weaker. However, I feel like your Takara is far more powerful than the normal Aarakocra, and far above a 32. I make it roughly a 31 without including Obsession. Including Obsession, which a min-max player would certainly choose human, is an additional advantage. More than that, the Takara's features are rather niche - blindvision can be campaign-breaking, or barely useful, depending on the situation. The same goes to Obsession, depending on the main races featured in your campaign.

Generally I would advocate simplifying it/making its traits more balanced (as opposed to several powerful ones) and more widely applicable. Overall I would suggest changing 30 feet of blindsight into 60/120 feet of darkvision, and tweaking both Obsession and Silent Flight. Obsession is effectively a class feature built into a race, and whatever you decide I definitely don't think it needs to scale - as it is, improving your Wisdom already scales it. As for Silent Flight, if it were me I would remove the advantage from stealth and add a flat proficiency in the stealth skill. After this you could consider putting in another ASI, perhaps in Dexterity or Intelligence.

Hey VillainTheory, thanks for your feedback and I have to say I am mirroring most of your feelings on this and here are my thoughts.

-Obsession gives you up-to 5 points extra damage against 1 particular race which seemed pretty situational so I ranked it about the same as a 1d6 natural weapon, I feel that this is probably pretty balanced already. However I am seeing a trend in my thoughts as well as others that adding advantage to anything seems to be taboo so I am currently working on a rework for these systems.

-I actually agree that blindsight needs to go. I have been thinking about it since I put it in that it doesn't make sense for the "owl" race to have echolocation anyway, they aren't bats. I am putting in the 60DV and scrapping BS to be sure. Its op and doesn't make thematic sense.

-I am also thinking of an asi and haven't decided yet. 

There is a lot here that needs extra work and it is going to effect lore as well, this will be a jump to 2.0 release and I will be updating this forum in a moment with the exact changes I'm making to stats, the full update should be up by tomorrow. Thank you again.

Changes coming in 2.0 include the following as well as lore changes which will become apparent in the release.

1) Obsession. Change to the wording of the trait to say. "You may add your proficiency bonus to insight checks (even if you are proficient in insight already, does not stack with expertise)  regarding a creature of _____ race. You may also add your wisdom modifier to damage rolls against the race"

2) Silent Flight. Change to wording and perk system of this trait. Flight speed remains at 30ft. "Your wing structure as well as your demeanor make you difficult to notice, you gain expertise in the stealth skill."

3) Blindsight. Removing the blindsight perk and replacing it with elf darkvision. This will impose lore changes to the race as well. "You have excellent 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 remain able to discern color in darkness.

4) Fortress of the mind. Removing this perk entirely

5) ASI. Increase ASI from +2 wisdom to +2 wisdom and +1 intelligence.

6) Proficiency. I am not adding more proficiency in other areas for 2 reasons. The race is already very stacked on abilities. You have the ability to tailor the Takara you want to play using BGs and classes already, the obsession trait is a starting point for this as you explore the character you're making.

I hope these changes help and I will be posting an update as soon as the new version is done for moderation and posted. Thank you, SkillCheck. 

 My Detect Balance scoring for the Takara is:

• 8 = WIS +2
• -1 = speed 25' (not -2 because you still have fly 30')
• 8 = fly 30' with no medium/heavy armor or hover
• 2 = advantage on stealth while flying (I could also see this being 3)
• 8 = blindsight 30' (if this is echolocation like a bat, you should probably also have  the "Echolocation. You can't use your blindsight while deafened." trait, which I would put at -1.)
• 1 = advantage on Wisdom (Insight) vs. chosen humanoid race.
• 7 = +WIS modifier damage on all attacks vs chosen humanoid race. I could see this as being worth more, but I went with: +5 to hit & damage is about the same as +10 to an ability score, which is worth 40 (or a little less since it doesn't apply to saves and skills). Half value for only damage bonus = 20, and half value again for being situational = 10. Finally, this depends on an ability score instead of being a flat +5, but you probably aren't going to play this race and go to 20 Wisdom, so I bumped it down to 7 for the level delay.
• 2 = psychic resistance
• 1 = extra language

Coming out to 35 total (or 34 with echolocation), which is both too strong in general and noticeably more powerful than base Aarakocra.

I do agree that you should switch out blindsight for darkvision 60/120 (3/4BP), especially since owls don't actually use echolocation. (BP -4 or -3)

If you want to keep Obsession in the racial traits instead of just being a racial feat, I suggest specifically making the damage bonus a racial feat and getting advantage to history checks dealing with the chosen race instead (BP -6).

While I agree that psychic resistance doesn't seem particularly important to the race, a choice of skill proficiency is technically worth more (3 instead of 2). Of course, reducing the BP value of the race elsewhere would make up for that.

Making these changes would bump them down to 27, which is still higher than average but weaker than base Aarakocra.

Alright, out of work and able to really focus on this.

Aaracokra have flight, talons, and a +2 DEX/+1 WIS to your scores. Again, it bares repeating that flight is awesome and gives many advantages, which is why they have almost no other special traits and 5ft less walking speed.  Compare this race to the kenku, their estranged cousins (as evidenced in their own ability score increases). They have three traits compared to the aarakocra's two, and while flight has much more utility and use overall you're left with a one trick pony compared to their earthbound kin (or any other race with several traits limited to a once-per-long-rest rule).

Taking this forward, I like to use the comparison between aarakocra and kenku as a template for what you can make your subrace after. As such, first you have to determine if your guy will fly. If so, for the sake of balance, sacrifices must be made (especially if you add to flight by giving it a stealth boost). Some ways to circumvent this would be to give them less flight speed (30 instead of 50) or maybe less of an ability score.

Assuming you're keeping flight, you really need to pick the rest of your perks carefully. Aarakocra only get talons in addition to flight, and a d4 slash for unarmed strikes doesn't hold much water compared to other traits. The extra trait to pair with your 50ft of flight will have to be equally meager (darkvision, for instance). Lower the speed to 30, perhaps you could warrant the psychic resistance. So on and so forth.

That's why I said the Obession trait would make a better racial feat. That would allow some to take the race flavoring if they wanted or leave it if they're just in it for the owl motif. Plus, making it a stackable feat rather than a scalable trait helps both balance and the spirit of taking feat aimed towards a specific race in the first place. You could also maybe make flying conditioning and the blindsense feats as well to tack on the additional 20 speed and extras for your darkvision respectively.

Lastly, seeing as these guys are more scholarly than combat based, i'd consider maybe switching the +2 DEX inherent with the other avian races with a +2 INT instead (or the +1 WIS for +1 INT). Really sell the fact that these are the sage versions of this race.

The changes stated in my previous update have been added and I will be publishing shortly.

To be crystal clear: the wisdom modifier is added on damage rolls for an obsession race is for damage ONLY, not to hit. This would be insanely powerful and I do not want it in my race.

I am still thinking about expanding the trait through feats but it will no longer add intelligence bonuses.

The Takara no longer have adv on stealth checks while flying (which I thought was fine) they now have expertise in stealth. With all my changes I still clock the Takara at 32 which is right on par with the Aarakocra while staying in its own realm. Switching the stealth system back to my original idea would lower the score by either 2 or 4 depending on how you rate the perk.

I didn't rate Obsession as highly as SirBlackAxe because I read it as only being the damage, not the To-Hit.

However, I rated the original stealth idea (advantage on stealth whilst flying) as much higher. Since you can fly 1 foot off the ground at all times, it effectively gave you permanent advantage on stealth. This would be an 8 on Detect Balance, in my opinion. It's effectively a +4 or +5 mathematically, and could stack with Stealth proficiency/expertise gained elsewhere, and is granted at level 1.

Just food for thought, I'm not suggesting other changes at the moment! Nice work so far, and speedy updates.

I can see what you mean now villaintheory and it makes sense, I think I will leave it at expertise for now. The update is currently in the pipeline and I will let you all know as soon as it is up so you can check out the changes in full.

Quote from SkillCheck>>

To be crystal clear: the wisdom modifier is added on damage rolls for an obsession race is for damage ONLY, not to hit. This would be insanely powerful and I do not want it in my race.

Quote from VillainTheory>>

I didn't rate Obsession as highly as SirBlackAxe because I read it as only being the damage, not the To-Hit.

Quote from SirBlackAxe >>

• 7 = +WIS modifier damage on all attacks vs chosen humanoid race. I could see this as being worth more, but I went with: +5 to hit & damage is about the same as +10 to an ability score, which is worth 40 (or a little less since it doesn't apply to saves and skills). Half value for only damage bonus = 20, and half value again for being situational = 10. Finally, this depends on an ability score instead of being a flat +5, but you probably aren't going to play this race and go to 20 Wisdom, so I bumped it down to 7 for the level delay.

 I probably would have given it like 15BP for both damage and to-hit. Now, I might be overestimating the power of +5 damage to every damage roll you make (with every weapon, spell, or other ability, and any number of times per round) to the dominant race of the setting, but I didn't include the value of a to-hit bonus in my evaluation.

Quote from VillainTheory>>

However, I rated the original stealth idea (advantage on stealth whilst flying) as much higher. Since you can fly 1 foot off the ground at all times, it effectively gave you permanent advantage on stealth. This would be an 8 on Detect Balance, in my opinion. It's effectively a +4 or +5 mathematically, and could stack with Stealth proficiency/expertise gained elsewhere, and is granted at level 1.

 Oh, I didn't think about how easy it was to always be flying. It might work better if they specifically only get advantage on stealth checks they make to move silently while flying. Just granting proficiency in the Stealth skill is probably the best solution though.

Although I have a wording question - 

2) Silent Flight. Change to wording and perk system of this trait. Flight speed remains at 30ft. "Your wing structure as well as your demeanor make you difficult to notice, you gain expertise in the stealth skill."

Do you mean 'you gain proficiency' or 'you gain proficiency and expertise'? Or is this trait not supposed to do anything unless you gain proficiency with stealth somewhere else? (Expertise doubles your proficiency bonus, so by my understanding expertise without proficiency doubles 0 and gives you nothing.)

Good point, with the right class Obsession allows for a lot of extra damage. Perhaps a limit to the Obsession trait's damage could be 'once per turn'.

You guys raise some great points here. The following changes will be made. 

Silent Flight. Wording will be changed to reflect the gaining of proficiency and expertise. 

Obsession. Wording will change to allow the Wisdom damage to be added once per action (not round) I can see how the previous wording could open up a huge problem in many campaigns so I appreciate the catch.

The changes have been added to 2.1 which is submitted now. As I said previously I will let you know as soon as it is out of moderation.

Takara 2.1is now public, you may check out the changes anytime now. Thank you guys again for the feedback.