(context: my friend basically wants to play as a tree-man samurai, and uses wooden weapons attatched to his body. Also, I mad another subrace, so my other players can use it if they want)

Is this balanced? 

Treefolk

Treefolk are a race of many shapes and sizes. They come to life from magic, sometimes a powerful druid will enter a forest, causing their magic to create treefolk. In some cases, if a warrior dies in a forest, their fighting spirit will live on within the forest, causing a treefolk to emerge. There are three main kinds.

ASI. +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1

Size. Small

Speed. 25 feet

Photosynthesis. You can get all the nutrients you need to live by staying either an hour in the sun, or an hour in water.

Natural Armor. Due to your strangely shaped body, you are unable to wear armor. However, while unarmored, your AC is 13+your constitution modifier. Wearing a shield works as normal.

Flammable. When you take fire damage, you take an extra xd6 damage, x equaling half your proficiency bonus

Subrace. There are two subraces: Warrior’s Spirit, and Earthly Powers, depending on where your powers came from.

Warrior’s Spirit

Natural Weapon. As a bonus action, you can create a melee weapon out of wood. This weapon cannot be a whip, a Two-Handed weapon(Versatile does not count), or a Heavy weapon. This weapon merges with your hand, whether a part of it, or ‘holding’ it, meaning you can’t use it for somatic components of a spell. This weapon disappears after you die, become incapacitated, or dismiss it as a bonus action. You can also use this to increase your unarmed strike damage to 1d6. At 5th level, if you attune to a magic weapon, you can absorb it as an action. When you summon the weapon, you use the effects of it. You cannot absorb this weapon if it is made of fire/on fire, or one of its skills deals fire damage. Attunement works as normal. You cannot stack the abilities of multiple magic weapons, onto the same weapon. You must choose one at a time.

Earthly Power

Spellcasting. You learn one druid cantrip, and one 1st level druid spell.You can cast any spells you gain from this feature once a day without expending a spell slot. You regain this ability once per long rest. At 5th level, you learn a 2nd level druid spell, and can cast your 1st level spell from this feature, two times a day, instead of casting it once a day.

Quote from BruenorBattlehammer1277>>

Is this balanced?

Short answer: not really, no. You have put a bunch of limitations and nerfs on it, but not a whole lot of beneficial traits to offset them. The current standard is 30’ speed regardless of size, 4 beneficial features (occasionally 5 if one or two of them are ribbons), and no detrimental features at all.

Photosynthesis is okay, but not better than okay since many tables don’t really track either food consumption or carrying capacity. It’s mostly a ribbon feature at best.

Natural armor isn’t bad, but will fall off drastically after Tier-2 and will likely be useless to most martial characters as they would probably do better with actual armor on.

Being Small has some drawbacks to it that can be annoying unless there’s any benefits specifically due to being small as part of the race/species.

Speed 25 is punishing. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up. After 3 rounds of combat that’s 15 or more feet you couldn’t move. Makes a difference more often than people realize until they’re playing a slower PC.

Flammable is harsh, and gets harsher as you level up. Most stuff gets better as you level instead.

Natural Weapon is waayyy too complex for little gain. You could simplify it as flat 1d6 (or maybe d8) bludgeoning w/ reach and call it at that. But again, that would be less beneficial to most Marshals at higher levels.

The Spellcasting trait is okay: but you’d have to change the name, and it’s not anywhere near as good as the current traits that grant spells. Also, you didn’t include anything about spell casting ability.

You could have them be small and 25 speed until lvl 5 at which point they become medium and speed 30. 

Is it possible to also increase their natural armor or make it tied to their proficiency? As they get older, they get more barky.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Is it possible to also increase their natural armor or make it tied to their proficiency? As they get older, they get more barky.

 
Yes, it should be.

• Modifier: Set->Subtype: Unarmored Armor Class->Additional Bonus Type: Proficiency Bonus

Alright, how would I do that? Should I make it 10+Prof. bonus+Con modifier? 

Alright, changes:

Size. Small. At 5th level, you grow to Medium.

Speed. 30 feet

Natural Armor. Due to your strangely shaped body, you are unable to wear armor. However, while unarmored, your AC is 10+your proficiency bonus if your constitution modifier. Wearing a shield works as normal.

Flammable. When you take fire damage, you take an extra xd6 damage, x equaling half your proficiency bonus. At 5th level, the die becomes a d4, and at 10th level, you lose this debuff.

Spellcasting(subrace specific). You learn one druid cantrip, and one 1st level druid spell.You can cast any spells you gain from this feature once a day without expending a spell slot. You regain this ability once per long rest. At 5th level, you learn a 2nd level druid spell, and can cast your 1st level spell from this feature, two times a day, instead of casting it once a day. Your spell casting ability for this is Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom(Choose when you take this race)

Natural Weapon(subrace specific). No ability yet, how should I do this one? I want to keep the flavor, and maybe give a few buffs, while still making it viable to martials.

I think you should do away with the natural weapons. The race already has quite a bit of flavor and 90% of the natural weapons are inconsequential with other races.

For the Natural Armor, just 10+PB, then they will automatically add their Dex mod on top of that. That will be a little light at 1st, level, but average by 5th, and very, very strong by 13th and will only improve again at 17th level.

Keep the Photosynthesis trait, just change it up a little bit so that they simply don’t need food as long as they have water and at least an hour of sunlight.

Just give the Natural Weapon to all of them as a ribbon if you want to keep it. Make it a flat 1d6 with reach and leave it there, most people won’t use it anyway, and the few that do will probably be spellcasters.

I would personally just drop the Flammable trait, or if you want to keep it drop the whole “XdY where X is equal to half your…” part. Just make it a flat 1d6 if you want to keep it at all.

For the “Spellcasting” trait, just change the name to “Woodland Magic” or something and keep it simple. The way you wrote it they can only cast the cantrip once per day too. If it were me I would just lift the trait almost identically from the Fairy race since that’s essentially what you’re going for. (Then just tweak it a little if you’re really, really dead set on that 2 free castings/day of the 1st-level spell at 5th level, but personally I would just skip that part for simplicity’s sake.)

As for a trait for a substance more inclined towards Martial PCs, why not give them a regeneration trait or something? A number of uses real to PB where they can spend a hit die as a bonus action or something. That would fit and be useful.

That should give you a solid race.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

Is it possible to also increase their natural armor or make it tied to their proficiency? As they get older, they get more barky.

 
Yes, it should be.

• Modifier: Set->Subtype: Unarmored Armor Class->Additional Bonus Type: Proficiency Bonus

 How would you do that? 

I hope this is legible:

YAY!

Thanks!!

Happy to help.

I was thinking this: I still want to keep the flavor for the weapons, so get an ability to imbue your weapon with magic, for 1 minute. It gets a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to half your proficiency. You can do this a number of times a day equal to your proficiency bonus. At 5th level, it becomes 2 minutes.

Quote from BruenorBattlehammer1277 >>

I was thinking this: I still want to keep the flavor for the weapons, so get an ability to imbue your weapon with magic, for 1 minute. It gets a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to half your proficiency. You can do this a number of times a day equal to your proficiency bonus. At 5th level, it becomes 2 minutes.

 That is OP for a racial trait. 

how a bout a flat plus one to attack rolls, no increase?

Okay, nvm, got rid of sub-races, and just gave them the ability to cast shillelagh on their unarmed strikes.