D&D 5E A tweak for humans?

Quartz said:

So, what is the happy medium?

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Good question. Let's think about it.

Salamandyr said:

I just saw the Half-Elf: +2 to Charisma, +1 to two stats of your choice, Darkvision, advantage against charm and sleep, and two skills.

Darkvision and advantage vs charm and sleep; has got to be worth at least a feat, so yes, I think Humans need a bump. I'm thinking about

+1 to all stats, training in one skill.

A feat or +2 to an ability of your choice, +1 to two other stats of your choice, and training in 2 skills.

It's kind of frustrating that the humans "thing" is good stats, but any race who is able to put a +2 in his primary stat and wants at least a 14 in the stat he gets +1 in, can have practically identical stats to the human.

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I didn't really believe you until I had a peek at the half-elf traits. Holy man, they certainly put the human in his place! Let's compare:

• Ability scores: Variant human gets +1 to two stats; Half-elf gets +2 to Cha, and +1 to two other stats; Winner: Half-elf.
• Skills: Variant human gets proficiency in one skill of your choice; Half-elf gets proficiency in two skills of your choice; Winner: Half-elf.
• Languages: Variant human gets Common and one other language; Half-elf gets Common, Elvish, and one other language; Winner: Half-elf.
• Special features: Variant human gets one feat of your choice; Half-elf gets darkvision (60 ft.), advantage against being charmed, and immunity to magical sleep; Winner: Human (see below).
• Size and speed: Variant human and half-elf both have the same size and speed. Winner: Tie.
• Rarity: Relatively rarity of human and half-elf are too setting-/table-/DM-subjective for useful comparison, so I'm ignoring them.
• Other: Age, height, and alignment are non-binding traits with little game impact, so I'm ignoring them too.

Based on the cursory assessment above, the half-elf seems like the overall better choice, but the catch is that this depends upon the value of the choice of one feat. (Note that we're discussing the value of the choice, not simply the value of the feat.) Each of the three "special features" the half-elf gets are pretty lame by themselves: darkvision is only slightly more useful than casting light (a cantrip) or by spending 1 copper piece on a torch; advantage against being charmed is nice, but only comes up in a small minority of encounters; immunity to magical sleep is neat, but surely only matters in a very tiny minority of encounters. Together, these three features might be worth one feat, but compared to the human's additional ability to choose which feat they get, I'd argue that humans have the better "special feature" by a slim margin.

In terms of trying to balance the human and half-elf against each other, we have to consider that both races might be unbalanced. Without nerfing the half-elf, I'm starting to like the following for variant humans:

• +1 to any four ability scores; and,
• Proficiency in two skills; and,
• One feat.

This arrangement avoids having humans "step on the toes" of other races with a +2 to any score--this was previously a major point of contention. As for non-variant (read: "non-feat" humans), go with +1 to all six ability scores as well as proficiency in two skills and one set of tools.

Critiques?

I do think humans need at least one +2 somewhere.

Quartz said:

I do think humans need at least one +2 somewhere.

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That's a fair position to take, but tell us why.

doctorhook said:

That's a fair position to take, but tell us why.

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Because right now they're not on a par with other races. Other races get a +2 to one stat, a +1 to another, and very useful cool stuff; humans get +1 to all stats. The latter is not as fun or as flavourful and not balanced against the other races. The thing is, classes are focussed specialists so a +2 in a relevant stat gives a far greater benefit than a +1.

Quartz said:

I do think humans need at least one +2 somewhere.

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Depending on feat choice they can get a +2 somewhere.

Quartz said:

Because right now they're not on a par with other races. Other races get a +2 to one stat, a +1 to another, and very useful cool stuff; humans get +1 to all stats. The latter is not as fun or as flavourful and not balanced against the other races. The thing is, classes are focussed specialists so a +2 in a relevant stat gives a far greater benefit than a +1.

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But does it really? Here's my thinking.

1) If you're the type to be concerned about the relative balance of +1 or +2 to a stat as a racial balance, you're almost certainly using point buy, because rolling would give you an aneurysm.

2) The highest stat you can get from point buy is a point buy is a 15.

3) Whether you get a +1 or a +2 to the stat, you're still at +3 to the final modifier. No race can start with an 18 using point buy.

4) Since no race can start with an 18, every race has an equal opportunity to reach a +4 modifier and a +5 modifier at 8th (or 6th level fighter or rogue), using a combination of feats and straight ability score increases.

5) The only benefit to starting with a 17 over a 16 is that you can use one of your first 2 ASIs to get either a +1 to stat feat or do +1/+1 to two stats instead of straight +2 to one stat. In other words, the non-human can get a feat or a bump to a secondary stat, the same bonuses humans get as racial bonuses, just delayed and not as powerful.

I agree that humans need something...

No one considers using the currently useless "sub-races" of humans? You know, make them count.
I mean, you've got 10 entries and zero mechanics to distinguish them, while every other race gets at least one interesting benefit from their sub-races.

So, instead of +1 to six abilities, something like +1 to three or four abilities, plus a nice feature from a sub-culture - which could be something unique, or simply two +1 to the remaining unmodified abilities (the "Basic" human), or a +1 to any other (allowing a +2), a feat (specific or from a list), or a choice of skill (or two predefined skill/tool proficiencies), etc...

erf_beto said:

I agree that humans need something...

No one considers using the currently useless "sub-races" of humans? You know, make them count.
I mean, you've got 10 entries and zero mechanics to distinguish them, while every other race gets at least one interesting benefit from their sub-races.

So, instead of +1 to six abilities, something like +1 to three or four abilities, plus a nice feature from a sub-culture - which could be something unique, or simply two +1 to the remaining unmodified abilities (the "Basic" human), or a +1 to any other (allowing a +2), a feat (specific or from a list), or a choice of skill (or two predefined skill/tool proficiencies), etc...

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That's a dangerous road to go down, partly because those "subraces" are just nationalities and ethnicities exclusive to the Forgotten Realms (which not everybody plays in), and mainly because it comes way too close to real-life problems of racializing different groups of humans along nationalist and ethnic lines. "We're all the same species, we just learn different stuff growing up," is the only approach to humans I want to consider in my game.

I still wouldn't mind some feedback on my variant human suggestion in post #31 upthread.

In summary, I'm suggesting giving humans all of the following:

• +1 to four ability scores;
• Proficiency in two skills;
• One feat.

doctorhook said:

I still wouldn't mind some feedback on my variant human suggestion in post #31 upthread.

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I don't yet have the PHB, but it's better than +1 to all 6 attributes. It means that you can have a human PC with a 3.