D&D 5E Human racial abilty modifiers

[Jester David]

Skills are not so optional... You don't have to use Backgrounds, you don't have to give 4 skills per characters, and you don't even have to use skill dice at all, but the Rogue at least cannot be played without skills, it just wouldn't make any sense. Thus you can play a game without skills only if you don't have a Rogue, or you can play a game where only the Rogue uses the skills mechanics. Without skills, non-Rogues characters may be slightly downgraded (other classes have max 1 bonus skill, some races have 1 bonus skill) but still playable, but not so much the Rogue... However, technically this means skills are not truly optional.

They've already said that in the basic game some classes would get straight bonuses to an ability checks (or 2 or 3 in the case of the rogue). So fighters would just get bonuses to all Strength checks and Wizards all Int checks instead of skills. When you gain skills, you lose that flat bonus and instead gain the more dynamic skill bonus.
There's likely an equally bland straight bonus that replaces feats in the Basic game, which is lost when Specialities are added.

(But we haven't see that as they're not actually interested in having us test the actual game, because then what would they sell us? So we're testing a pre-mixed version of the rules. The "playtest" is really more a reaction test to the classes and presentation of the rules.)

IMHO the best way to handle this, would be that instead of giving humans a fixed set of bonuses e.g. one feat + one skill (even tho they are already flexible because they can choose which), humans could be given a flexible set of bonuses e.g.:

- one bonus feat
- one bonus skill
- one bonus proficiency
- a +1 to one ability score
- one known cantrip (any class)
- 1-2 extra known spells (only if they can already cast spells)
- one extra maneuver (if applicable to the class)
- one extra skill trick (if applicable to the class)
- ...

Which does mean every single time you add a class you need to change the human and add a new option to its list. For example, the paladin might not have maneuvers and only gain spells at high levels.

 

[Klaus]

They've already said that in the basic game some classes would get straight bonuses to an ability checks (or 2 or 3 in the case of the rogue). So fighters would just get bonuses to all Strength checks and Wizards all Int checks instead of skills. When you gain skills, you lose that flat bonus and instead gain the more dynamic skill bonus.
There's likely an equally bland straight bonus that replaces feats in the Basic game, which is lost when Specialities are added.

(But we haven't see that as they're not actually interested in having us test the actual game, because then what would they sell us? So we're testing a pre-mixed version of the rules. The "playtest" is really more a reaction test to the classes and presentation of the rules.)


Which does mean every single time you add a class you need to change the human and add a new option to its list. For example, the paladin might not have maneuvers and only gain spells at high levels.

It seems that the plan for the Basic game right now is to have a pre-selected Background (so every Wizard is a Sage, for instance). This still allows for humans that can choose one skill from a different class/background.