My take on the Succubus/Incubus player race

[fent]

EDIT: New changes!

3/28/2017 Change Log:
-Limited Shapechanger disguise duration to one day.

3/27/2017 Change Log:
-Removed Dexterity score increase, and added an attribute score penalty to Strength. This forces certain classes to take an even heavier Strength score penalty, or choose another dump stat.
-Added True Form. In reality, this is definitely more RP/DM related, but it should always be taken into consideration. This is an attempt to force the player to make careful use of their disguised form, thus forcing restrictions on flight, darkvision, and damage resistance. Again though, it will ultimately fall on the DM.
-Slight changes to Shapechanger. Clarifies what is lost/kept when disguised, as well as other restrictions. Added further wording regarding detection magic. (Considering restricting the disguised form to humans only, thus losing flight, darkvision, and damage resistance entirely, while disguised).
-Three changes to Draining Kiss. It is now locked to a long rest only. Damage has been changed to a flat 2d6 with no scaling. Removed gender specific save condition.
-Removed Infernal from known languages.

Your succubus character has the following traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Strength score is reduced by 2.
Age. Succubi mature at the same rate as humans, but they can live up to 700 years.
Alignment. Succubi are fiends who delight in manipulating mortals with little care for the goals of other creatures. Often ignoring law and chaos, succubi are typically neutral evil. The very few examples of neutral or good succubi are usually the result of a rebellious nature due to abuse or torture at the hands of a more powerful creature.
Size. Succubi are between 5 and 6 feet tall and weigh between 110 to 140 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Flight. You have a flying speed of 30 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor.
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.
Infernal Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.
True Form. Your true form is that of a fiend. Regardless of your alignment, others may attack or flee from you if your true form is revealed to them. The actions of a PC are determined by their player, and the actions of a NPC are determined by the DM.
Shapechanger. You are capable of changing your body to that of your male form, or disguising yourself entirely.
You can use your action to morph your body into an incubus. As an incubus you are still considered to be in your true form. This change is not magical and you must use your shapechange trait again to turn back into a succubus.
Additionally, you can chose to instead use your shapechange trait to disguise your fiendish nature. Using an action, you magically transform yourself into a small or medium humanoid. In your disguised form, your statistics remain the same. If your disguised form does not have wings, you lose your flying speed. You lose your darkvision and damage resistance traits if your disguised form does not also have these traits. Your flying speed cannot exceed 30 feet, and your darkvision cannot exceed 60 feet, regardless of your disguised form. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying isn't transformed. This effect lasts for one day, or until you use an action to revert back to your true form. You maintain your disguise if you use this ability again before its duration ends. This effect ends if it is magically dispelled, or you fall unconscious. While disguised, you will display a faint aura if exposed to magic detection, but only creatures with truesight can see through your disguised form.
Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Fiendish Charmer. You know the friends cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the charm person spell once per day. When you reach 5th level, you can also cast the enthrall spell once per day. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Draining Kiss. You are capable of draining the life essence of a humanoid creature that you kiss.
You can use your action to kiss a single humanoid target within 5 feet of you. The creature must make a Constitution saving throw that equals 8 + your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus. The creature takes 2d6 psychic damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. You gain temporary hit points for 1 hour equal to half of the damage dealt, rounded down.
After you use your draining kiss, you can’t use it again until you complete a long rest.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Abyssal.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Is your intent that it be balanced against other player races?
What you have so far is considerably more powerful: You seem to have added the best abilities of around 4 different races into this.

Its a question of what you are able to prune to balance while still retaining the right concept. Your best bet might be to simply play a Changeling or Tiefling and use class abilities to copy the abilities that you're trying to replicate.
A Tiefling of Succubus descent might be a better bet rather than trying to play the full-out fiend straight from the MM.

 

[Lancelot]

Flight is a formidable racial ability, especially when the race provides ability bonuses best suited to ranged attackers. The aarakocra race gets flight and virtually nothing else, and yet there are threads devoted to whether it's over-powered. Your succubus race gets flight and a whole gamut of other abilities. I'd remove the flight altogether, or place severe restrictions on it.

Fundamentally, compare your succubus race to the current tiefling. Is it significantly more powerful? Then it's probably unbalanced. I see no reason to ever play a tiefling again, if this race was available. Same darkvision, same +2 Cha bonus, same fire resistance, better languages, better +1 ability bonus (most tieflings will be warlocks, bards or sorcerers and will "waste" their +1 Int... by contrast, a +1 Dex bonus would be much more desirable). Sure, they lose hellish rebuke... but they gain flight, shapechanging, charm person and draining kiss. That's huge.

Draining kiss alone is pretty awesome (meaning "unbalanced"). Compare with vampiric touch, a 3rd level offensive spell. Yes, VT can be used every round for a minute (assuming the caster somehow maintains concentration all that time while in melee...). However, VT only does an average of 10 damage per hit (and provides 5 temps). Your proposed draining kiss does double damage and double temp gain for a 7th level character, as a short rest rechargeable action. I'd say the two abilities are equivalent at that level (a caster can realistically expect to hit twice with VT before either the combat ends or they lose concentration). However, VT costs a daily 3rd level slot... draining kiss can be used every short rest. And draining kiss rapidly outstrips VT as the character gains levels. If you were going to implement something like this, I'd hard-cap it to something like 2d6 psychic damage on a kiss, with no temp gain.

Of course, if your goal isn't to create a balanced player race, then have at it! Thematically, I love what you've done with the race. It feels very succubus-like, with a simply and evocative set of powers. If it was for a one-off session, or only permitted under very special circumstances, it might be a lot of fun.

 

[Lancelot]

Oh, one more thing: even if you make no other changes, I'd remove the bit about creatures of the same gender automatically making their saves against the draining kiss. It's unnecessary. Powers that only work on certain genders (or opposite genders) are very 1e... in other words, 30-40 years out of date. It also simplifies the power (which is always good).

 

[fent]

Thanks for the responses so far guys! I've gone back to the drawing board on some things, and I'm working on some changes to bring it in line.

 

[fent]

Have edited the first post with some new changes. Please review and respond with your thoughts!

 

[Lancelot]

I like the edits. I still think it's very potent. Again, if the goal isn't necessarily to have a balanced race, I think it's fine. D&D doesn't always have to be about perfect balance. Theme and story counts for a lot.

The biggest balance problem remains the flight. I like the clarity around True Form (if you sprout wings, you're likely to get hostile reactions from friendly and neutral NPCs), but the challenge is that most D&D action isn't set in a friendly settlement. If the incubus is adventuring through X1 Isle of Dread or I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, he doesn't much care if the local head-hunters / dinosaurs / tasloi / yuan-ti see him in fiendish form. All he cares about is that he's chucking eldritch blasts and fire bolts from 100 feet up in the air, and he only has to worry about the occasional yuan-ti malison with a shortbow. Plus a few wandering pteranodons. To balance it against the aarakocra (for example), you either have to strip all those cool abilities which make it feel like a succubus (bad idea; theme is important), or you need to attack the root cause head-on. In this case, the issue is permanent flight (in most combat situations, where NPC allies aren't present) on a race that is tailor-made for being a ranged warlock or sorcerer. Perhaps limit the flight to X rounds per days, or non-functional wings that permit gliding only, or similar.

The key comparison remains the aarakocra. The aarakocra racial abilities are flight and 1d4 damage with unarmed attacks. That's it. No darkvision, no fire resistance, no spells, no shapechanging, nothing. Yes, the flight is faster than the proposed succubus, but that's moot. Once you're in the air, it usually doesn't matter if you're 30' up or 50' up. Unless the enemy has flight or decent ranged attacks, it's hosed. I know this isn't relevant in every adventure (the ceiling heights in the Caves of Chaos, from B2 Keep on the Borderlands, aren't really of any help to flying races), but it's still a significant design factor. It's a racial ability that makes some enemies completely irrelevant. For the aarakocra, their entire shtick is their flight. If they can't fly, they have nothing. For the proposed succubus, flight is just a by-line. They're still as good as tieflings even without it.

...maybe flight becomes a racial feat? Check out the treatment of svirfneblin in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. They start with fairly modest racial abilities, but can invest in the Svirfneblin Magic feat if they want to "unlock" the more potent magical features exhibited by the MM version of the race. Similarly, you could strip flight and suggestion from the incubus, and create a new feat called Heart of the Fiend (requires incubus/succubus race). Upon taking this feat, you gain the ability to fly for up to 3 rounds + 1 round per point of Con bonus; flight rounds needs not be consecutive (e.g. you can fly for 2 rounds in the first combat, and still have a few rounds left). You also gain the ability to cast suggestion. Both abilities recharge after a long rest. In that case, you could probably keep all the other racial abilities, and even remove the Strength penalty. I've never much liked ability penalties on races anyway, and pushing the more potent powers out to a feat seems like a good way to balance it.

 

[fent]

I don't really see flight as much of an issue. I've seen it in campaigns, and I am currently playing an Aarakocra Rogue in one of the current campaigns I am in. In hindsight, it doesn't provide the many benefits people think, especially if your DM has half a brain. The DM for my rogue's campaign didn't hesitate to allow me use Aarakocra when I asked, and every combat we have been in, it has provided me little benefit outside of being able to cover a greater distance in combat. There have also been several times where I haven't been able to use it period for logical reasons: Too tight of a corridor, too low of a ceiling, I failed a strength check resulting in a waterfall overtaking me, completely soaking my feathers (a bird that has become wet cannot fly until they are dry). Aarakocra is heavily tailored towards classes that gain massive benefit from 50 feet of flying and movement in general (rogues, monks, dex fighters, etc), hence the lack of much else outside of flight. Another example is the Winged Tiefling straight from SCAG. They keep all of their traits, but lose Infernal Legacy to gain 30 feet of flight. They ultimately present the same problem you describe as a race being tailor made for Warlock or Sorcerer with permanent flight. With the succubus... Shapechanger provides no combat benefit. Fiendish Charmer provides minimal combat effect with the exception of suggestion, and possibly charm person if you get lucky and the target roles at advantage poorly. Draining Kiss is arguably weaker than hellish rebuke: action vs reaction, 2d8 vs 3d10, and 5 feet vs 60 feet (The range alone means you have to be in close which largely negates the benefit a spellcaster gets from flying, and you are setting yourself up for attack(s) of opportunity.), and it is limited to humanoids. Lastly we have a hard stat reduction, and the possibility of needing to keep yourself disguised to keep others from outright attacking you.

I guess what I am getting at is, if any more balancing needs to be done, I think it can be done elsewhere. I went ahead and removed the +1 to Dex, changed suggestion to enthrall(ironically, it fits better thematically than suggestion), and reduced Draining Kiss to 2d6. There are other possibilities for changes still, such as limiting the Shapechanger disguise to human only, which removes flying, darkvision, and fire resistance. There is also the possibility of moving Fiendish Charmer to a racial Feat entirely (I feel this is extreme though). While I do realize it will be slightly more powerful than conventional races, it would still be treated like a monstrous race per Volo's guide and balanced against them rather than the non-monstrous races. The Yuan-ti Pureblood is a prime example of being slightly overtuned. Two stat increases, advantage on saving throws against ALL magic (this ability is crazy for a player race), poison damage immunity and poison condition immunity, poison spray, unlimited animal friendship on snakes, suggestion, darkvision, and three languages.

EDIT: Another additional change to Shapechanger. Disguise duration limited to 1 day.