@Charlaquin , not sure if this is the sort of thing you meant, but I wanted to share this idea.
Instead of a race, you get:
- 3 feats of your choice
- Common and 1 extra language
- Medium size OR Small size and one of the following:
- Darkvision
- 1 tool proficiency
- Trance
- Situational advantage on one type of save
- Resistance to one type of damage
- Immune to sleep magic
- 30’ speed OR 25’ speed and one of the following:
- Two from the above list
- Speed not reduced by heavy armor
- Situational expertise in a skill
- Situational ability to hide (lightly obscured or obscured by a larger creature)
- Ability to move through a larger creature’s space
Taking darkvision twice gives you improved darkvision.
This is similar to what I was talking about, though it’s even more modular than what I had in mind.
My idea started from a desire to separate race and culture. It’s always bothered me that, for example, an elf who grew up an orphan in some human city would somehow naturally know how to use a longbow, shortbow, longsword and shortsword. So, I tried separating the racial traits into inborn vs learned traits, but it was pretty difficult to balance since some races lean more heavily on one category or the other. What I ended up settling on was removing the learned traits from the core races and folding those into Backrounds, and turning subraces into Feats.
So, for example, Dwarves get:
- +2 Constitution
- Medium size
- 25 foot speed (not reduced by heavy armor)
- Darkvision
- Advantage on saves vs. poison and resistance to poison damage
- A Feat
This is the basic template for a race. They give you +2 to one ability score, a size, a speed, a vision type, and one or more additional features, of roughly equivalent value to advantage on a save, resistance to a damage type, and a Feat. Some races that get a lot of inborn features don’t get a Feat.
Dwarven Toughness is a Dwarf-only Feat that gives you +1 Wis and +1 HP/Level. Dwarven Armor Training is a Dwarf-only Feat that gives you +1 Str and proficiency in Light and Medium armor. These replace the Hill Dwarf and Mountain Dwarf subraces (Dwarven armor training is a little weaker than Hill Dwarf, but I’m ok with that. I am considering adding proficiency with shields as well to help compensate), but also gives you more flexibility to take a general Feat instead, which also helps cut back on Variant Human supremacy.
Instead of the standard list of backgrounds, I let players choose any two Skills, two total languages and/or tools (plus Common), and a Feature from one of the sample backgrounds. In addition to this, you can choose one of the cultural backgrounds, which reproduce the missing element of race. So, for example, the Dwarf Clansfolk background gives you Proficiency with the History skill, handaxes, battleaxes, light hammers, warhammers, your choice of artisan’s tools, and the Dwarvish language, as well as the Stonecunning feature (which allows you to double your History Proficiency bonus on checks related to the origin of stonework). Unlike the subrace feats, these cultural backgrounds can be taken by characters of any race.
