Ability score increase

Your intelligence or wisdom score increases by 2.

Your charisma or strength or onstitution score increases by 1.

Claws

Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Strong minded

You have advantage for being charmed and frightened, and resistant to psychic damage. Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage.

Fey humanoid

You creature type is fey and humanoid

Languages

You can read, speak and write in Common, Sphinx and one other language.

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.

Flight

You have flying speed of 30 when you don't wear medium or heavy armor.

So a lot of people are going to come in here and say it's broken.

It's....not?

Optional Origin makes the +2/+1 a non-argument.  It's feline-based, so claws make sense.  Languages, Darkvision and Flight are whatever.  Some DMs will ban flight.  My stance has always been it just makes you a bigger target.  Enemy spellcasters WILL take Earthbind and WILL use it.  The way you have flight working is that this is not going to be a STR class, and Earthbind is a strength save.

The thing that makes it interesting to talk about are these:

Instructable

You are immune to effects that would sense your emotions or read your thoughts as well for being charmed and frightened, as wll as any divination spell that you refuse. Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage.

Fey humanoid

You creature type is fey and humanoid

 So having multiple creature types in 5e means that if something affects one type, it will affect you even if it doesn't affect the other type.  This is what Crawford said during the UA for the Gothic Lineage races, and it was eventually changed so that they only had single types.  The reason this is important to call out is because when we think about having a monstrous race and a humanoid race, basically it means that all spells work against it.  Even ones that normally you would only consider affecting "enemies".  Protection from Evil and Good is an example as it protects against Fey.

"Instructable", it depends on how common the race is.  If this is a fairly common race, those traits would be well known.  Which means that the advantage they provide really isn't there anymore.  Enemies wouldn't attempt to cast charm effects on them because they know it's a fail.  It's like elves and things that magically put them to sleep.  The Sleep spell on them does not work and enemies would know this, particularly spellcasters since they are versed in how their spells work.  If it's a very uncommon race, it's a very very very strong trait.  Regardless, I think it offers way too much in terms of being in line with other races.    You're essentially giving the race things only offered by very powerful magic items as an innate ability.  Advantage on charm or frighten affects, or the insight thing.  Not both, and definite not full immunity to divination/charm/fear.

I agree with Spideycloned's assessment.  Also, I'm guessing that the intent was to name the power "Inscrutable?"  Calling it "Instructable" doesn't make a lot of sense.

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

I agree with Spideycloned's assessment.  Also, I'm guessing that the intent was to name the power "Inscrutable?"  Calling it "Instructable" doesn't make a lot of sense.

 i was going to point that out, i think its pretty balanced. The flight is something enemy will deal with and target so its not super big. The rest is pretty average stuff, seems like a b+ in power level, appropriate.

Instructable

You are immune to effects that would sense your emotions or read your thoughts as well for being charmed and frightened, as wll as any divination spell that you refuse. Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage.

Maybe this could be handled similarly to how some innate spell casting works for some races by being gained at certain character levels?  

I agree immunity to charmed or frightened is strong. Maybe start with the Insight check against them with disadvantage and Advantage on charm/frightened saves? Or have the charmed or frightened advantage come online at level 3. Then at level 5, Advantage on saves against certain divination, like detect thoughts?

@Spideycloned @6thLyranGuard @ThriKreenWarrior I changed the instructable trait, how is it now? Still offers too much?

Flight and claws work nice.

Mythic odyssey of Theros has Inscrutable as a gift, and that is very thematic for Sphinxes, and worth you having a look.  I don’t think it’s OP.

not sure about the Fey Humanoid bit though.  Why not just stick with Fey Ancestry? Like half elves and half Drow. 

Quote from Spideycloned >>

Some DMs will ban flight.  My stance has always been it just makes you a bigger target.  Enemy spellcasters WILL take Earthbind and WILL use it.  The way you have flight working is that this is not going to be a STR class, and Earthbind is a strength save.

 Just want to say that having spellcasters waste an entire turn casting Earthbind instead of Fireball or whatever is a great example of why people don't like flight. Many casters don't live to see turn 3, so that's a huge chunk of their action economy just to have a chance to remove one trait from one party member. Not that you can't exploit weaknesses of flight - I just think that's a bad way to do it.

At any rate, this does seem a bit strong when looking at other flying races. Compared to Aarakocra, Variant Tiefling, and Fairy, this overall nets more positive features than they do. Inscrutable/Strong-minded seems pretty key to the identity and the dual typing is a double-edged sword, so I'd probably drop darkvision if I was aiming to make this race balanced with the others. At least on paper, as darkvision's usefulness can vary greatly depending on the table.

Quote from Skfma>>

Ability score increase

Your intelligence or wisdom score increases by 2.

Your charisma or strength or onstitution score increases by 1.

This is officially underpowered (all new races let you simply assign ASIs), so you're fine.

Claws

Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

This is a ribbon, albeit one with correct wording to work with both monks and paladins, which not all ribbons are.  Balance-neutral.

Strong minded

You have advantage for being charmed and frightened, and resistant to psychic damage. Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage.

This is powerful, because it's a bundle of 4 abilities.  You're still doing fine, but you've added enough here to basically define the race - we need to start keeping an eye on things.

Fey humanoid

You creature type is fey and humanoid

This is poisonous to gameplay.  There are no dual-typed creatures, and you should not invent them.  The most balanced type you can assign is Humanoid, despite the creature being half Monstrosity.  I have no idea why you'd assign Fey.

Languages

You can read, speak and write in Common, Sphinx and one other language.

The third language amounts to a ribbon, because languages are so weak.  We're still doing fine.

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.

Flight

You have flying speed of 30 when you don't wear medium or heavy armor.

You've overly nerfed Flight for no clear reason - why penalize armor wearers specifically with no way to fix it?  Just because WOTC thinks it's a good idea doesn't actually make it one.  And Sphinxes don't have Darkvision.  Also, this plus Strong-Minded is out-of-band powerful; the combination is functionally a Winged Tiefling But Better.

Here's a highly modified version that imho will work better with other game mechanics and also feel "Sphinxier":

• ASI:  Standard (2/1 or 1/1/1, assigned as you like)
• Type:  Humanoid
• Speed:  30 ft; Fly speed equal to half walking speed while not suffering Disadvantage to Stealth Checks
  • The idea is that Half Plate and Plate will stop the flying but that can be "fixed" with other in-game mechanics, but also any armor the wearer isn't proficient in will stop it, and medium armor that doesn't penalize stealth will also leave the Fly alone.
  • The Fly speed is also deliberately slowed down and then allowed to scale with game mechanics that were written assuming PCs can't Fly.
• Languages: Common, Sphinx, Any 1 your Humanoid parent taught you.
• Senses:  Truesight (5 ft)
  • Thematically more appropriate than 60 foot Darkvision.
• Claws:  Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
• Inscrutable: Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage, and you have advantage on saves against divination spells, as well as any effect that inflicts charmed or frightened or that allows other creatures to sense your emotions or read your thoughts.  You have resistance to psychic damage.
  • Deliberately made powerful to make the character seem Sphinxy, since the other modifications to this race no longer make it feel like we're just making a Tiefling But Different.

Quote from quindraco >>

Quote from Skfma>>

Ability score increase

Your intelligence or wisdom score increases by 2.

Your charisma or strength or onstitution score increases by 1.

 

This is officially underpowered (all new races let you simply assign ASIs), so you're fine.

Claws

Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

This is a ribbon, albeit one with correct wording to work with both monks and paladins, which not all ribbons are.  Balance-neutral.

Strong minded

You have advantage for being charmed and frightened, and resistant to psychic damage. Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage.

This is powerful, because it's a bundle of 4 abilities.  You're still doing fine, but you've added enough here to basically define the race - we need to start keeping an eye on things.

Fey humanoid

You creature type is fey and humanoid

This is poisonous to gameplay.  There are no dual-typed creatures, and you should not invent them.  The most balanced type you can assign is Humanoid, despite the creature being half Monstrosity.  I have no idea why you'd assign Fey.

Languages

You can read, speak and write in Common, Sphinx and one other language.

The third language amounts to a ribbon, because languages are so weak.  We're still doing fine.

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.

Flight

You have flying speed of 30 when you don't wear medium or heavy armor.

 

You've overly nerfed Flight for no clear reason - why penalize armor wearers specifically with no way to fix it?  Just because WOTC thinks it's a good idea doesn't actually make it one.  And Sphinxes don't have Darkvision.  Also, this plus Strong-Minded is out-of-band powerful; the combination is functionally a Winged Tiefling But Better.

Here's a highly modified version that imho will work better with other game mechanics and also feel "Sphinxier":

• ASI:  Standard (2/1 or 1/1/1, assigned as you like)
• Type:  Humanoid
• Speed:  30 ft; Fly speed equal to half walking speed while not suffering Disadvantage to Stealth Checks
  • The idea is that Half Plate and Plate will stop the flying but that can be "fixed" with other in-game mechanics, but also any armor the wearer isn't proficient in will stop it, and medium armor that doesn't penalize stealth will also leave the Fly alone.
  • The Fly speed is also deliberately slowed down and then allowed to scale with game mechanics that were written assuming PCs can't Fly.
• Languages: Common, Sphinx, Any 1 your Humanoid parent taught you.
• Senses:  Truesight (5 ft)
  • Thematically more appropriate than 60 foot Darkvision.
• Claws:  Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
• Inscrutable: Wisdom (Insight) checks made to ascertain your intentions or sincerity have disadvantage, and you have advantage on saves against divination spells, as well as any effect that inflicts charmed or frightened or that allows other creatures to sense your emotions or read your thoughts.  You have resistance to psychic damage.
  • Deliberately made powerful to make the character seem Sphinxy, since the other modifications to this race no longer make it feel like we're just making a Tiefling But Different.

I like it, and honestly, if we're using inscrutable, it means other characters are getting some other god trait more than likely.  My balancing consideration was not with Theros/God traits in mind.