5e homebrew races- Goblin, Hobgoblin, Lizardfolk, Bullywug, and Yuan-Ti

[GreenTengu]

First off, big thanks for the feedback.
Absolutely not. I looked at the races you made, and think we both have the same kind of idea of [roughly] what the "points" are and how they can be applied. I don't think Weapon Training is great for racial options. It can make sense for lore/background, and from how I've judged it, Weapon Training (ex. Elven/Drow/Dwarven) is ~about equal~ to a Skill or Cantrip as far as the current races are balanced. But you are right; the racial options that get the Weapon Training usually get the weapon proficiency anyways from their class choice per synergy, or at least it doesn't matter much. My issue was giving much more to the Goblin or Hobgoblins were that it might give too many active racial traits.

For the Goblin, I think that Fleeing Instinct (opportunity attacks are at disadv.) could be really powerful, so the Weapon Training being underpowered will help balance it.

Well, weapon training really only helps Warlocks and Sorcerers. Granted, it helps Warlocks to such a degree that most builds insist on sinking a level in Fighter just to get the proficiencies. Rogues and Bards already get all the martial finesse weapons which are all the ones they are going to want to use, Druids usually have better options than weapons available, Wizards get cantrips that do equal or better than weapons could do and I think all other classes get all the martial weapons anyway. Cleric has one subclass that doesn't, so I guess a knowledge Cleric benefits.

I think I had the imposing disadvantage on opportunity attacks on one of my earlier builds. It is an ability that encourages the player to be a bit more reckless with the goblin, but it is also a gamble. It is fitting and encourages a player to use more gobliny tactics. The only issue with it is that opportunity attacks are something that the DM does and so it is an ability that affects how a player other than the one playing the character is going to be rolling their dice. And since it is a passive ability, it isn't like the goblin's player is going to be announcing it as his action for the turn. This means that both the DM and the goblin's player are going to have to keep this in mind... and it is so easy to forget something like that. It has a large potential to be one of those things forcing the round to be done over due to forgetting about it-- which can be particularly labrous in online games, likely not so much when sitting at a table together since opportunity attacks are going to almost certainly be triggering off of actions the goblin player themself is taking.

As for the weapon proficiencies, I think part of what I think is troublesome about it is... well, if this one stat block is going to represent all goblins, from the sewer/alley dwellers living off the refuse of cities just out of sight to the forest dwellers who live up in the treetops and attack anyone who comes trouncing into their homes to the cavern dwellers who seem little more than animals and are likely to devour any foolhardy adventurers exploring their caves to the 'civilized' rabble that make up the workforce and shock troopers for hobgoblin civilizations to shady, sneaky merchant types to the superstitious odd-talking tribal people who have warped concepts of the world and worship anything bigger than a bugbear as a god to well.... every other possible culture that we might associate with the term "goblin"... can you really ultimately pick out a set of weapons and say that every single one of those is going to be trained to use precisely those weapons first and foremost?

It just doesn't seem to me that there is a specific set that you can necessarily say "these are absolutely the weapons most associated with goblins and even the lowliest peon among them should be able to use them with equal skill to a human soldier." It isn't a matter of power, it is more of simply conceptually... are they really about being well trained in weapons? A tool proficiency or some minor ability that would rarely come into play and have little impact like the Dwarf's Stonecunning ability seems like it wouldn't be any stronger and likely be more suitable.

Because 100 year old elves and 60 year old dwarves universally having trained as proper militia and being able to use certain weapons fits their concepts. And certainly Dwarfs have a strong association with axes and hammers and picks (weapons developed from tools of a worker) while Elves have strong association with bows and to only a lesser extent swords (tools of a huntsman). A 12-year old Goblin really doesn't seem as likely to have been trained and I don't think even their most positive and competent portrayals seem like they are too terribly associated with any particular weapon... well, not any weapon that isn't a simple weapon already that nearly every class has proficiency in.

For the Hobgoblin, I really wanted to include the Weapon Training to fit with the race and it's military background. I was almost trying to make the Hobgoblin as to the Human and Half-Orc, compared to the Half-Elf is to Human and Elf. So the Hobgoblin gets a couple choices (+1 ability and any skill) to help be a bit more versatile, but the race is still synergizes best as a Martial class and I'm ok with that (to a point). I couldn't really think of a way to make them decent at ranged fighting and I think there is more support for Dex (and ranged) races than Strength (and melee), so I just chose melee over everything. Please let me know if you have any ideas!

With Martial Advantage, the Hobgoblin has to both hit with a melee attack and have the ally within 5 ft. It might not work great, as it might be a bit overpowered or useless if people use Flanking, but as I focused on melee and saw the MM race it stuck.

But 5e does a great job of no need an optimized character to work, and if a player really wanted to make a Yuan-Ti Barbarian, they'd still be able to do well. But I want to be able to make these races balanced and not pigeon-holed. As you mentioned, the Half-Orc is probably the worst candidate for this, but the PHB races do a pretty good job overall of being able to mix any race with any class and get a solid character.

Hobgoblins do make more sense as having weapon proficiencies automatic. Their concept is one where it is easy to think every single one of them has been drilled on how to use some sort of weapon. Although, again, their portrayals are a bit too wide to really say that there is a very specific set of weapons you can assign to them and say that they are going to always use those ones. To what degree every one of them encountered has used those weapons is easily explained through the fact that one virtually never sees them as any class other than Fighter. And yes, the monster manuals have assigned weapons to them because they had to be given something... but to what degree do those weapons necessarily thematically support them to the point it makes sense to say that the particular set is what every single tribe/clan of them everywhere is going to be using?

As for the ability, your explanation makes me think it is even more problematic. You have basically made it the defining ability for the entire race. And if you are playing a melee character and you have say... two other melee characters in the group, chances are that you are going to be able to the ability a lot. Yes, you need to connect with your attack to use it, but that is true of any active offensive ability-- you need to succeed with your roll. If you are a ranged character or you are the only melee character in your group, the ability becomes functionally useless. A racial ability ought not to be completely dependent upon the class make-up of your party. That isn't something an individual player is going to have any control over.

Also, if the table is using the flanking rules.... the ability basically has no effect because you are already granting your allies advantage by being within 5' of the enemy they are attacking.

It is just so much better if abilities are either passive bonuses to actions your character is going to be taking anyway or making an additional action available that is going to be a nice option to utilize once in a while but is generally not superior to what the average character can do otherwise. And certainly there are some races who are so completely thematically about a particular magical ability that it just isn't possible to do that... but goblins and hobgoblins should be able to be as straight-forward and basic as a race can get rather than having wonky action options that aren't available to other races.