GreenTengu
Adventurer
My first suggestion is to get rid of subraces. If you can't make one balanced race, you certainly cannot make 3.
Focus on just one pure out and out race first. Take a good look at how the Goliath and Half-Orc are set up. Just really examine them and remember that what you want to build needs to be EQUAL to them. Not vastly superior as to make using those others laughable-- but equal. That almost certainly means you don't get to give them every single trait and ability and advantage that you think they could possibly warrant or justify.
In fact, the best thing to do would probably be to take one of the two I mentioned earlier and set it down as your template. At that point switch the traits out one for one. In fact, if possible, grab those traits from other races. That might not be possible at this point, but if possible do that.
And when you consider replacing a trait, take a hard look at both the trait you want to replace and what you want to replace it with. Think to yourself "if I were most classes and I had the option between these two abilities, which one would I rather have?" If you can make that decision real easy then-- you know what? It isn't balanced. If the decision is a harder choice because both are good or both have so little impact on the actual game that you aren't even sure you would run into that situation often and when you did it would still be sort of "meh"... well then, you have something swappable.
Once you kind of got the hang of that, you can try creating new traits that should generally be relatively similar to what you could get if you picked the right class but certainly not everything good the class gives you at first level-- more like maybe 1/8th of what you would get for being level 1 in that class or about as good as a third of a feat benefit.
And again, when you think of replacing the trait, again, look at both the traits and consider if you were playing most classes would you really be split on which one you should take.
You should end up with the same number of traits as the race you started with. If you add a real disadvantage to them-- such as small size or slower movement speed or an exploitable vulnerability (though even Genasi don't have damage type vulnerability, so that may be off the table) then you can give them an extra trait or a more expanded power (such as Halflings get to reroll 1s on attack rolls AND saves AND skill rolls without the power ever being expended-- it is basically 3 traits in 1.)
Only after you have gotten the hang of creating the race in its entirety should you even consider tackling the challenge of doing subraces-- which should be created by taking that full race you have created, deciding which traits you have given it should be unique to the "default" type and then offering to allow those being switched out for alternate traits which, again, should be equal enough that playing most class types you would be split on which to take. Subraces should not be super-specialized for different classes-- if it breaks down to "if you are class A, B or C you take subrace 1 and if you are class D or E, you take subrace 2-- otherwise your character is going to be subpar" then you have done it wrong.
In fact, an easy way to avoid this? If it seems like one of your subraces is particularly geared towards a particular class, one of their traits should be something where if you took the class you would get that trait anyway so you more or less lose a trait for matching it up to the obvious class while if you match it up to a different class, you kind of get a tiny little bit of that "favored" class's abilities.
And, yes, I could have written a more balanced version for you in only a little more time than it took me to write this. But this is a "teach a man to fish" moment. I am constantly evolving myself and a lot of things I wrote a few years ago look terrible to me... I don't even tend to agree with my work from 1 year ago and will probably redo it soon. It is a whole thing regarding mechanics development-- you can always do better.
Focus on just one pure out and out race first. Take a good look at how the Goliath and Half-Orc are set up. Just really examine them and remember that what you want to build needs to be EQUAL to them. Not vastly superior as to make using those others laughable-- but equal. That almost certainly means you don't get to give them every single trait and ability and advantage that you think they could possibly warrant or justify.
In fact, the best thing to do would probably be to take one of the two I mentioned earlier and set it down as your template. At that point switch the traits out one for one. In fact, if possible, grab those traits from other races. That might not be possible at this point, but if possible do that.
And when you consider replacing a trait, take a hard look at both the trait you want to replace and what you want to replace it with. Think to yourself "if I were most classes and I had the option between these two abilities, which one would I rather have?" If you can make that decision real easy then-- you know what? It isn't balanced. If the decision is a harder choice because both are good or both have so little impact on the actual game that you aren't even sure you would run into that situation often and when you did it would still be sort of "meh"... well then, you have something swappable.
Once you kind of got the hang of that, you can try creating new traits that should generally be relatively similar to what you could get if you picked the right class but certainly not everything good the class gives you at first level-- more like maybe 1/8th of what you would get for being level 1 in that class or about as good as a third of a feat benefit.
And again, when you think of replacing the trait, again, look at both the traits and consider if you were playing most classes would you really be split on which one you should take.
You should end up with the same number of traits as the race you started with. If you add a real disadvantage to them-- such as small size or slower movement speed or an exploitable vulnerability (though even Genasi don't have damage type vulnerability, so that may be off the table) then you can give them an extra trait or a more expanded power (such as Halflings get to reroll 1s on attack rolls AND saves AND skill rolls without the power ever being expended-- it is basically 3 traits in 1.)
Only after you have gotten the hang of creating the race in its entirety should you even consider tackling the challenge of doing subraces-- which should be created by taking that full race you have created, deciding which traits you have given it should be unique to the "default" type and then offering to allow those being switched out for alternate traits which, again, should be equal enough that playing most class types you would be split on which to take. Subraces should not be super-specialized for different classes-- if it breaks down to "if you are class A, B or C you take subrace 1 and if you are class D or E, you take subrace 2-- otherwise your character is going to be subpar" then you have done it wrong.
In fact, an easy way to avoid this? If it seems like one of your subraces is particularly geared towards a particular class, one of their traits should be something where if you took the class you would get that trait anyway so you more or less lose a trait for matching it up to the obvious class while if you match it up to a different class, you kind of get a tiny little bit of that "favored" class's abilities.
And, yes, I could have written a more balanced version for you in only a little more time than it took me to write this. But this is a "teach a man to fish" moment. I am constantly evolving myself and a lot of things I wrote a few years ago look terrible to me... I don't even tend to agree with my work from 1 year ago and will probably redo it soon. It is a whole thing regarding mechanics development-- you can always do better.
