Looking at the 5th Edition SRD - part 2 - Racial Abilities

    Last post I looked at the 5th Edition SRD races in general, this time I want to focus on the abilities themselves.  Just what kind of power level should a racial ability be at?  And what kinds of things should racial abilities do?  There isn't a document anywhere from the developers that will tell us that (at least not that I've found) so let's look at what they wrote and see if we can figure something out.
    I'm going to keep using the 5 action types from before: Exploring, Investigating, Manipulating, Talking, Fighting.
   
  Exploring
Darkvision - Within 60 feet treat dim light as bright or darkness as dim, cannot see color in darkness.
Keen Senses - you are proficient in Perception (Wis).
Halfling Nimbleness - you can move through the space of any creature a size larger than you.
Naturally Stealthy - you can attempt to hide even when you are only obscured by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.

  Investigating
Stonecunning - for all History (Int) checks related to stonework you are automatically proficient and double your proficiency bonus.
Artificer's Lore - for History (Int) checks related to magic items, alchemy or technology double your proficiency bonus.

  Manipulating
Tool Proficiency - gain proficiency with choice of: smith's tools, brewer's supplies or mason's tools.
Fey Ancestory - you have Advantage on saving throws against Charm, and magic can't put you to sleep.
Trance - you don't need to sleep, instead meditating 4 hours (remaining semi-conscious) and gaining all the benifits of sleep.
Cantrip - you know 1 cantrip from the wizard spell list, Int is the controlling attribute.
Lucky - when you roll a natural 1 for an attack roll, ability check or saving throw you can re-roll.
Gnome Cunning - you have Advantage on all Int, Wis and Cha saving throws against magic.
Tinker - gain proficiency with tinker's tools; can spend 1 hour and 10 GP to construct a Tiny clockwork device; device ceases to function after 24 hrs, unless you spend 1 hr to repair it, you can also dismantle it to reclaim the materials.  Max of 3 items at any one time, and three examples are given (toy, fire-starter and music box).
Skill Versatility - gain proficiency in two skills of choice.
Infernal Legacy - you know the Thaumaturgy cantrip; at 3rd level you can cast Hellish Rebuke (at 2nd level) once between long rests; at 5th level you can cast Darkness; Cha is controlling attribute.

  Talking
Extra Language - you can read and write one extra language.
Brave - you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Menacing - gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.

  Fighting
Dwarven Resiliance - you have Advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage.
Dwarven Combat Training - you are proficient with: battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, warhammer.
Dwarven Toughness - +1 hit point per level.
Elf Weapon Training - you are proficient with: shortsword, longsword, shorbow, longbow.
Breath Weapon - is either a 30' line of 15' cone; does elemental damage; enemies save at 8 +Con +Proficiency Bonus; 2d6 damage (half on successful save) increasing at 6th, 11th and 16th levels; after used cannot use again until a short or long rest.
Damage Resistance - gain resistance to one elemental type.
Relentless Endurance - whenever you drop to 0 hp but are not killed, can instead drop to 1 hp; cannot use again until after a long rest.
Savage Attacks - when you roll a melee critical you can add one extra weapon's damage die.
Hellish Resistance - you have resistance to fire damage.


    Okay, having listed all the racial abilities (just 27 of them, not a bad sized pool but not great accounting for repeats) I've got a few observations.  Let's look at the general abilities...

• Skill Proficiency - Keen Senses and Menacing both give you proficiency with one skill.  But Skill Versatility gives you 2 skills (so, would it essentially be 2 "uses" or "abilities" from a balance standpoint?)
• Double Proficiency Bonus - Stonecunning and Artificer's Lore both double your proficiency bonus with one aspect of a single skill; and grant you proficiency (Artificer's Lore doesn't specify this, but it seems logical to include it).
• Tool Proficiency - the Dwarven Tool Proficiency and Tinker both give a tool proficiency.  Though Tinker then gives you special things you can make with that proficiency.  Is that an ability or just defining a specific tool's effect in the race section and not with the other equipment?  I'm thinking it's defining the tools in the wrong place (though that does mean that only Gnomes know how to use them, which seems a little odd, logically speaking).
• Weapon Proficiency - Dwarven Combat Training and Elf Weapon Training both give you proficiency with 4 weapons. (a useless ability if you become a Fighter, since there are no "exotic weapons" like in earlier D&D games.  Still, this adds quite a bonus to non-fighting classes, since there is no "attack bonus progression" for different classes, everybody just either adds Proficiency or doesn't (so an Elf Wizard at the same level as a Fighter is just as skilled with a longbow, except for their Dex mods).
• Language Proficiency - Extra Language gives you a bonus language, and really you need some kind of secret or ancient languages gives that everybody speaks Common (I don't know, language just seems like a weird part of the game, like it doesn't really matter at all, yet it's mentioned all over the place - maybe it's just me).
• Saving Throw Advantage - Brave gives you advantage on saves vs fear.  But then Dwarven Resiliance gives you adv to save vs poison and also resistance to poison; and Gnome Cunning gives you adv to Int/Wis/Cha saves vs magic only.  Exactly what scale is appropriate?  Is Dwarven Resistance again the equivalent of 2 abilities (1 for the save adv and 1 for the damage resist)?  Gnome Cunning only applies to non-physical magic effects - is that the equivalent of 1, or 2 or 3 abilities?  Exactly how broadly applicable should a save advantage be?  I really wish the designers had dropped at least a few hints on this one.  Oh yeah, I forgot about Fey Ancestry, which gives a bonus to only one type of magic, charms (the 'cannot be magically put to sleep' seems like  it should really be part of another ability, Trance).
• Damage Resistance - the Dragonborn's Damage Resistance and Hellish Resistance both let you resist one type of elemental damage.
• Bonus Spell - Cantrip gives you a spell (cantrips don't use a spell slot or have to be prepared); but then Infernal Legacy gives you a cantrip and two real spells at higher levels -- again, from a balancing standpoint, was that one ability meant to be the equivalent of 2 or 3 abilities then?  Is it really useful enough to count as 2 or 3 abilities? (which is why I ask, if one ability is meant to be the equivalent power of several, then it has to be useful enough to justify that)
• Environmental Alteration - There are 3 types of light: bright, dim and darkness.  The Darkvision ability improves the ambient light by one level (darkness becomes dim, dim become bright).  This could be extrapolated for other environmental effects.  Say that there is Comfortable, Hot (take some skill/roll penalty) and Blazing (take damage/minute) to define temperatures, a theoretical Heat Tolerance ability, patterned off Darkvision, could treat Blazing environments as Hot, and Hot environments as Comfortable.
• Bonus Hit Points - Dwarven Toughness gives you +1hp/lvl.  That's a clear benchmark :)
• Alter Rules - Halfling Nimbleness and Naturally Stealthy both alter the normal rules somehow.  Nimbleness let's you move through occupied spaces, normally forbidden, and Stealthy increases the circumstances when you can attempt a stealth check.  It would really be nice to have some more of an idea what kinds of rules tweaks would be considered appropriate for a racial ability.  And I wonder if Nimbleness shouldn't be part of the Small size? (heck even Stealthy - both seem like they come from you being small and hard to stop or see/keep track of ?)
• Alter Rolls - Lucky, Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks all change how you roll dice.  Lucky doesn't have any limits on it, it says you can re-roll every 1 - which again makes me wonder if it was meant to be "worth" 2 or more abilities (since that's pretty handy, granted only a 5% chance on a d20, but a 1 is an auto-fail).  Endurance let's you keep going (and fighting, risky as that would be) but only once between long rests (8hr sleep or very light activity), pretty handy too.  And Savage adds one more die of damage on a critical, which is again about a 5% chance (and basically triples damage instead of doubling it).
• Bonus Weapon - Breath Weapon actually gives a bonus innate weapon.  It does have the bonuses of being able to hit multiple targets, does decent damage (2-12 or 1-6 on save, compared to a 1-8 sword) and does elemental damage.  It's drawbacks are that it takes a save, and is only usable between rests (and even a "short" rest is 1 hour, a not-inconsiderable length).  That's actually not a terrible template for considering what kinds of special attacks might be appropriate.
• General Change - Trance let's you sleep in half the time, which is not bad, but you have to wonder just what all it's meant to do?  If the rest of the party is still sleeping, then can you use the time to craft?  Read?  What sort of bonus is this supposed to be?  It takes some creative thinking to make this really useful.  Also, even though it isn't listed as an ability, Dwarves can move at their speed even in heavy armor, which is another bonus.

    Looking at the action groups, the majority of abilities are for Manipulating or Fighting (at 9 each), followed by Exploring (4), Talking (3) and Investigating (2).
    In all, there are enough fairly clear kinds of bonuses to make it feel like you can define what sort of power a racial ability should have.  And then there are enough edge-cases and exceptions that make you wonder.  Overall it's not too bad.  I would like to have a more even spread of options, again there seems to be a lot of fighting or working with stuff, but not as much for the other action types.  Of course, that raises the (very important) question of "how many abilities should a race have?"  Which is hard to choose.  The thing is, if a race only has Fighting abilities, then it's predisposed to only fight.  Which sounds great, if a player wants to make a strong fighter then that type of race reinforces that play-style.  But, it reduces the available story options, since that character is useless for anything else, thus every adventure has to focus on fighting (yeah, yeah, there's the whole party and spotlight-sharing that complicates that, but still, you get my point).  Now, I'll tip my hat to the designers that these races are pretty well-balanced overall to avoid that.  Even the stereotypically-fighter-focued Half-Orc has a Talking ability (with the auto-proficiency in Intimidation).  Oddly, the Dragonborn is the only race (at a glance) that is purely one play-style (as their only 2 abilities are both Fighting, and they have the fewest number of abilities of all the races - which means Dragonborn really need to get overhauled).
    Taking a detailed look at these races has given me a feel for some things I like (and a few I dislike), but the game is made up of a lot of components, so let's move on.  I was going to follow the PDF, but I'm changing my mind - next I want to look at Backgrounds.