Leonin
by Prince Phantom
The only race from the Theros campaign setting book yet to receive a reprint or revision (and at this point, it seems unlikely that it ever will), the Leonin feel like a race stuck in the stone ages of 5e design. Powercreep has been none too kind to this race, and it doesn’t help that we’ve already got a wildly popular catfolk race in the Tabaxi. Where the Tabaxi have a niche as the fastest race in the game, Leonin really don’t have anything special to call their own, besides one ability, but that feature has its own problems. It’s not all bad though, so let’s get into the breakdown.
Leonin Features
Speed: 35ft: Having even just a 5ft boost to your movement speed is a huge boon that literally every character build can benefit from. It allows you to outpace many enemies while retreating, and if you have ranged attacks you can just always stay outside of an enemy’s melee range and pepper them with ranged attacks until they are dead, assuming you have the room to pull this off.
Darkvision: Your daily reminder that normal cats don’t have darkvision in 5e. Truly, this is the darkest timeline.
Claws: Whereas all of the recently released races have had their natural weapons upgraded to a d6, the mighty Leonin is still stuck with d4s for its claws. There is no niche for this, not even with the Monk, making this basically a ribbon feature.
Hunter’s Instincts: You’re probably taking Perception with this, and I’m happy to pick it up here. The other options are much less appealing.
Daunting Roar: This is the one unique thing Leonins get, and it isn’t very good. A 10ft AoE fear effect is actually pretty good, and has some real synergies with builds like the Conquest Paladin, but it relying on our Constitution modifier and only being usable once per short or long rest makes this very unreliable. Still, it only costs us a bonus action so feel free to fire it off whenever you see a good opportunity. Frightening even one creature for just your bonus action is an alright trade.
This feels like a skeleton of a race that is desperate for any semblance of meat. If you wanted to upgrade this for the modern day, here’s my recommendation. Bump the claws to a d6. Daunting Roar can be used proficiency times per day, and the DC can be based off of our Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, our choice at character creation. Have Hunter’s Instincts grant another skill proficiency. With all that, I think you’ve got a solid 3/5 race that has its builds that it’s good on. In reality, this race has been forgotten by WOTC, and you should forget about it too.
Final Rating: 2/5
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