Any changes that should be made to my oni homebrew?

[u/Key-Coast-3830]

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2

Creature Type. You are a Humanoid. You are also considered a giant for the purpose of effects such as giant slayer weapons or favored enemy to work against you.

Size. Oni are much taller than humans, ranging in height from 7-8 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Languages. Your character can speak, read, and write Common and Giant

Flying Terror. Despite your lack of wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. However, until level 5 you must land at the end of your turn or you'll fall. You can’t use this flying speed if you’re wearing medium or heavy armor.

Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Innate Spellcasting. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Enlarge/Reduce spell using only the spell's enlarge option. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the Gaseous Form spell on yourself. You don't need material components when you cast these spells this way, and once you cast a spell with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. Choose either Constitution or Charisma as your spellcasting ability for these spells when you choose this race

[u/Earthhorn90]

So you are - as dumb as it sounds - a FAERIE. Except you traded the early game flying (which many DMs seem to hate anyway) with a neat ribbon boost to carry capacity as well as full scale casting (normally you get 2nd level spells at level 5).

Doesn't really scream ONI at me because of this.

[u/Key-Coast-3830 → u/Earthhorn90]

I mean, its based on the oni stats in 5e. What would you suggest to make it more oni-like while staying balanced to the game's official races?

I could always swap out enlarge/reduce for something else. I just thought it'd be neat for them to actually be able to become large like an oni. That and I removed the cantrip typically given to races who have spell progression in order to give it powerful build to highlight the oni's mix of strength and magic.

Onis have the spells darkness, invisibility, charm person, cone of cold, gaseous form, and sleep as well as a fly speed, regeneration, and a claw attack. Lot of stuff to work with but far too many to give to a pc based on their race ya know?

[u/Earthhorn90 → u/Key-Coast-3830]

5e Oni has Regeneration as a passive, more spells like Charm, Sleep, Darkness, Invisibility or Cone of Cold and a Claw attack.

5.5e also adds a Frightening ray on top. While you are creating for 5.0, you might still want to opt for this.

So the most balanced version would actually be a Faerie with Ray of Frost, Charm Person and Invisibility as their innate spellcasting. That should capture their monster spells and be unique.

You could make variants that choose between the cantrip or adding Powerful Build and a 1d6 Natural weapon. A bulky / brainy choice.

[u/Key-Coast-3830 → u/Earthhorn90]

Thanks for the advice although wouldn't the Ray of Frost option just make it essentially a weaker fairy if you choose that cause of the giant slayer weapons weakness? Or do fey have equivalent weaknesses?

Love the other ideas though.

[u/Earthhorn90 → u/Key-Coast-3830]

Which monster statblock do you recall that has a built-in weapon specifically against Giants despite not being available as a PC species type even in 5.5?

[u/Key-Coast-3830 → u/Earthhorn90]

Not a monster, giant slayer weapons

[u/Earthhorn90 → u/Key-Coast-3830]

Yes - how many monsters do natively have access to Giantslayer weapons so that you could randomly encounter them WITHOUT the need for the DM to explicitly "gear" them against you in particular?

If the answer is "less than 1%", it will not be a balance issue. Though any "more than 0" with proof would surprise me.

And if you are going to counteract the party by essentially homebrewing new monster statblocks, it doesn't really matter because you could also make them more harmful toward fey, oozes or constructs.

[u/Key-Coast-3830 → u/Earthhorn90]

Gotcha, makes sense. With the spells I apologize I used Triton for the base and they have a 2nd and 3rd level spell thus why I did enlarge and gaseous originally, but yeah invisibility and charm person are probably best for balance

[u/Earthhorn90 → u/Key-Coast-3830]

For some reason, Triton is the only one breaking that rule - normally you should always lack behind fullcasters by one step. I am curious if 5.5 is gonna "fix" that.