D&D 5E need to know the balance of a trait.

[Mind of tempest]

between four arms and wings which would be less broken for a player race as I am trying to balance a homebrew race?

 

[MarkB]

It depends on the mechanical implementation. Always-available flight is strong at low levels, but only middling later on - and easily achievable with magic items.

As for four arms, what do they let the character do, aside from not having to juggle items if they're a sword'n'board spellcaster?

Extra attacks? Dual-wielding polearms? Greatsword-and-shield?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Depends on what you allow PCs to do with them.

(MarkB beat me to the punch and illustrated the point well.)

 

[Baron Opal II]

In the past the thri-kreen was a playable race with four arms. The rules were basically you had no more actions, but you could hold more stuff. So, you could in theory fight sword and board one round and then two handed spear the next without sacrificing any actions to draw / stow gear.

For wings, you can look to the aarocroka (?).

 

[Mind of tempest]

It depends on the mechanical implementation. Always-available flight is strong at low levels, but only middling later on - and easily achievable with magic items.

As for four arms, what do they let the character do, aside from not having to juggle items if they're a sword'n'board spellcaster?

Extra attacks? Dual-wielding polearms? Greatsword-and-shield?

Depends on what you allow PCs to do with them.

(MarkB beat me to the punch and illustrated the point well.)

In the past the thri-kreen was a playable race with four arms. The rules were basically you had no more actions, but you could hold more stuff. So, you could in theory fight sword and board one round and then two handed spear the next without sacrificing any actions to draw / stow gear.

For wings, you can look to the aarocroka (?).

okay, assume I take that thri kreen rule what would it be then?

 

[LordEntrails]

I would envision the race. Then balance it. If the race has four arms, then it has four arms. If it has wings, then it has wings. Write it so.

Then figure out how to make it balanced.

 

[LordEntrails]

okay, assume I take that thri kreen rule what would it be then?

They have four hands but only 1 action, 1 move, 1 bonus action.
Two weapon fighting is allowed per twf rules, but they can not then also get the benefit of a shield until their next turn (when they do not then use TWF).

All this advantage gives them is a free object interaction, and unless the race is being built to abuse or break free object interactions, it won't affect play.

 

[LordEntrails]

Or another way to think of it, they have 1 active primary hand and 1 inactive primary hand. Then 1 active primary offhand and 1 inactive offhand. In any given turn, they can use either primary or offhand hand as active, but they can not switch that until the start of their next turn (i.e. reactions must use the active hands). Shields or other items that have effects only have those effects if held in an active hand.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I would envision the race. Then balance it. If the race has four arms, then it has four arms. If it has wings, then it has wings. Write it so.

Then figure out how to make it balanced.

it is more I think both of those things are cool and could use either but which lets me have more stuff to bulk the rest of the race up with is in question as I know both would be interesting.

 

[Blue]

okay, assume I take that thri kreen rule what would it be then?

One of the big real-world uses for Warcaster is to allow casting with hands full. So assume that having four hands that can hold more things is the equivalent of a feat. It's both slightly worse (it's a dedicated feat) and quite a bit better (you can wield a 2H weapon, a Shield, and still Cast or Grapple).

So look at variant Human or Custom Legacy in Tasha's, assume the feat is already used, and use that as a base. Perhaps hardcode some of the more variable choices in order to both give it a stronger theme and redunce flexibility a bit more with 4 arms being so good.

Flight on the other hand is quite good at low levels but only scales moderately. Take a look at the Aarakocra as a base and modify from there.