D&D 5E Homebrewing Humans

[Greg K]

Here are are two well done examples of what others have done and might save you work or provide inspiration:

Ultimate Adaptability: Variant Humans for 5th Edition by Rich Howard (Tribality.com). Provides examples for humans by both environment (e.g., arctic, desert) and culture (e.g., mageocracy, martial)

Alternate Humans-Environmental Variants by AeronDrake, a poster at Reddit.com/r/Unearthed Arcana (The link is to homebrewery.naturalcrit.com). This was chosen to by the reddit Unearthed Arcana moderators to be hosted among the best of 5th edition homebrews.

• The reddit.com/r/boh5e discussion
• The original reddit.com/r/Unearthed Arcana discussion thread

 

[Horwath]

I would go for oposite.

Humans get 2 feats at 1st level.
One skill proficiency.
No ability bonuses.

They can get ability boosts from "half feats"

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[SubDude]

The base human really doesn't excel at anything, getting a nice, evenly distributed +1 to all stats. This doesn't really reflect how humans specialize in real life.

The current solution to this, the Variant Human, becomes almost the only way to play a human, and I'd like to do away with it as an option while still encouraging players to consider playing the human race.

So I come to you, my brain trust, to bounce an idea off. What potential problems and pitfalls am I not thinking of here? What are your thoughts on these house rules? Is it too much?


1. There are no Variant Humans.
2. Humans gain +2 to one trait and +1 to two different traits.
3. Humans may gain +1 to a fourth trait if they take a -1 on one of their last two traits.
4. Humans gain proficiency in a skill of their choice.
5. Humans gain an additional ASI at level 7.

Consensus is that this is too strong, but a wide margin. I'm not surprised and I was kinda aiming high. Point 3 is indeed a min-maxer's dream, so let's kill that. The additional ASI is late, and no race has to wait for any racial abilities, so let's kill that too.

As a thought experiment only, if I delete points 3 and 5, that essentially leaves my humans with +2/+1/+1 and one skill.
A half-elf gets a +2/+1/+1, two skills, darkvision, fey ancestry, an extra language. Plus they live about twice as long. The only negative here is that the +2 is specified to be in Charisma.

I don't think this would be too powerful for the humans. Am I missing something?

Greg K, I've looked at the environmental based humans too; thanks for sharing!

 

[Horwath]

Consensus is that this is too strong, but a wide margin. I'm not surprised and I was kinda aiming high. Point 3 is indeed a min-maxer's dream, so let's kill that. The additional ASI is late, and no race has to wait for any racial abilities, so let's kill that too.

As a thought experiment only, if I delete points 3 and 5, that essentially leaves my humans with +2/+1/+1 and one skill.
A half-elf gets a +2/+1/+1, two skills, darkvision, fey ancestry, an extra language. Plus they live about twice as long. The only negative here is that the +2 is specified to be in Charisma.

I don't think this would be too powerful for the humans. Am I missing something?

Greg K, I've looked at the environmental based humans too; thanks for sharing!

I you go from half elf base to human, then humas is weaker.

You could go for

+2/+1/+1,
Two skills,
common, +2 languages,
+2 tools,

Tools and flexible +2 bonus are here to balance out fey ancestry and darkvision.

But, as humans are average, I would rather give them more extra stuff rather than ANY ability boosts. Versatility over power. But if you choose versatility bonuses right, you get power out of them.

 

[ad_hoc]

...that essentially leaves my humans with +2/+1/+1 and one skill.

...I don't think this would be too powerful for the humans. Am I missing something?

Not too powerful but we're back to the base human problem of being too bland.

I still think the Prodigy feat is the way to go if you don't want players to take them for a free choice feat.

Then you have:

+1/+1
2 skills
1 tool
1 language
Expertise in one skill

If we want the human to be a bit more powerful there is still design space for a background feature level of power that we can add. I suppose the simple thing would be to let the human choose a 2nd background feature.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

There was a pretty good suggestion for a variant human that didn't get any ability score bonuses or feats, but just received +1 proficiency bonus.

I think that that is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure whether it would address the issue of you finding humans too generic and not specialised enough.

3. Humans may gain +1 to a fourth trait if they take a -1 on one of their last two traits.

Just to clarify: The ability score receiving this bonus cannot be one that has already received a bonus from points 1 or 2?

 

[Charlaquin]

Ooops, sorry... Misunderstood title and was looking for recipes.

Carry on.

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Water (35 L), Carbon (20 kg), Ammonia (4 L), Lime (1.5 kg), Phosphorous (800 g), Salt (250 g), Saltpeter (100 g), Sulfur (80 g), Fluorine (7.5 g), Iron (5 g), Silicon (3 g) and fifteen traces of other elements.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’d do +2 to one ability Score, +1 to another ability Score, and you get to choose a second Background.

 

[Hriston]

As a thought experiment only, if I delete points 3 and 5, that essentially leaves my humans with +2/+1/+1 and one skill.
A half-elf gets a +2/+1/+1, two skills, darkvision, fey ancestry, an extra language. Plus they live about twice as long. The only negative here is that the +2 is specified to be in Charisma.

I don't think this would be too powerful for the humans. Am I missing something?

No, that isn't too powerful in my book. The +2 replaces the feat, so it's an even trade. Half-Elves, and every other race beside Variant Humans, have a higher "point" total, which the Variant exchanges for "feat-synergy".

Recently, I did the opposite of that by creating some Variant Human NPCs that have the non-ASI halves of two feats that grant a +1, which may be another way to achieve some variability.

 

[SubDude]

Just to clarify: The ability score receiving this bonus cannot be one that has already received a bonus from points 1 or 2?

That was my thinking, yes.