Human Viability

Athelstaine · Jun 18, 2019

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have been running a 5th edition game for a bit now that is going to come to a close in a couple months. I currently use just the core books, with handpicked material from some of the splat books, and some modified/nerfed feats. I have been thinking of a new game after this one ends. I would like to try using the basic, featless game. My problem is this?

How do you make humans viable in a game with out feats, since the variant humans will not be used. I am of the opinion that +1 to all stats will not balance out the demi human perks. I am trying to find a way to make humans a race that is not immediately overlooked. I was thinking of letting them gain extra proficiencies. I just keep knocking my head against a wall trying to come up with a way.

Was wondering if anyone had some ideas on this. I will be using pretty much the core races from the PHB, with a few possibly from Volo's for comparison. Any help would be much appreciated and thank you for your time.

MonkeezOnFire · Jun 18, 2019

I think the most fair thing would be just to add proficiency with 1 skill and 1 tool. I play a basic human in a campaign and it's not bad. Using +1 to all stats I was able to give myself two +3 modifiers without any negative modifiers at level 1 making for a very well rounded character. The only real noticeable downside is the lack of dark vision and not getting free Perception proficiency that the elves have. The other racial perks in the group honestly don't come up very often. I can count on one hand how many times our wood elf has hidden using natural camouflage over 9 levels of play.

BluejayJunior · Jun 18, 2019

I think the +1 to all stats is fine and don't think it really falls behind in power much. But it also depends on the players that you have. If they are more power gamer oriented, then they might skip the normal human in order to pick something that might synergize better with whatever character they want to play. But if they are on the other end of that spectrum, then they will pick whatever sounds cool/fun to them regardless of the synergies. I would assume most players probably fall somewhere in between those two points.
If your players are those that will skip humans because they aren't seen as powerful enough, then maybe adding a skill proficiency or something would be appropriate.
It might be worth it to ask your players what they are thinking of playing, and then, if no one picks a human, getting feedback from them on why they decided to pick another race. Some people just find humans boring because they're humans in real life.

5ekyu · Jun 18, 2019

Athelstaine said:
Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have been running a 5th edition game for a bit now that is going to come to a close in a couple months. I currently use just the core books, with handpicked material from some of the splat books, and some modified/nerfed feats. I have been thinking of a new game after this one ends. I would like to try using the basic, featless game. My problem is this?

How do you make humans viable in a game with out feats, since the variant humans will not be used. I am of the opinion that +1 to all stats will not balance out the demi human perks. I am trying to find a way to make humans a race that is not immediately overlooked. I was thinking of letting them gain extra proficiencies. I just keep knocking my head against a wall trying to come up with a way.

Was wondering if anyone had some ideas on this. I will be using pretty much the core races from the PHB, with a few possibly from Volo's for comparison. Any help would be much appreciated and thank you for your time.

Imo if you use point buy it can make the +1 per better.

But additionally, in practice the balance will more come from the types of threats and situations.

Dont focus overly much on darkness scenarios where the lack of darkvision shows itself. Do show a substantial human or event human-centered group of settlements.

I mean, to me, in fact every aspect of every character doesnt share equally in spotlight or even all get the focus. So, to me, human +1 guys just wind up bring characters ehere more of their spotlight and impact falls on their class and background and not so much on racial traits and edges like trance or savagery.

Athelstaine · Jun 18, 2019

BluejayJunior said:
I think the +1 to all stats is fine and don't think it really falls behind in power much. But it also depends on the players that you have. If they are more power gamer oriented, then they might skip the normal human in order to pick something that might synergize better with whatever character they want to play. But if they are on the other end of that spectrum, then they will pick whatever sounds cool/fun to them regardless of the synergies. I would assume most players probably fall somewhere in between those two points.
If your players are those that will skip humans because they aren't seen as powerful enough, then maybe adding a skill proficiency or something would be appropriate.
It might be worth it to ask your players what they are thinking of playing, and then, if no one picks a human, getting feedback from them on why they decided to pick another race. Some people just find humans boring because they're humans in real life.

They are min/maxers, and i do not mean that as bad connotation. They primarily make characters for tactical combat rather than roleplay and I can work with that. That is what they enjoy, while I go more for the role play aspect. I do not punish them for that playstyle, after all if they are not having fun, why play? Even though as player/dm I prefer humano centric worlds, this new campaign will be set in the Nentir Vale with pretty much any race around. I just wanted humans to not be easily discarded because of mechanics. I am probably overthinking it, I will just do as you suggest and put it before them to hear their opinions and then make any adjustments that could be made based off that.

jaelis · Jun 18, 2019

MonkeezOnFire said:
I think the most fair thing would be just to add proficiency with 1 skill and 1 tool.

I also think this is a fine adjustment.

Another alternative is to use the variant human stats but say the feat has to be the Prodigy feat from XGTE. That is pretty reasonable too.

MechaTarrasque · Jun 18, 2019

You could enforce the multiclass stat score restriction, but not for humans.

Or:

Human Ingenuity: the first time a human multiclasses, he/she gets +1 to one stat in the multiclass restriction for the new class.

Does all this mean humans will multiclass? A lot of them will, but that gives them a little more mechanical identity than just being the baseline.

Satyrn · Jun 18, 2019

I liked a suggestion I saw on EnWorld a little while back: Give the humans a second background.

My memory is a light fuzzy on the details, but I think it would work well if the background cane with everything but the 2 skill proficiencies. So humans would get a couple tool/language proficiencies and a pretty little ribbon feature that cements them more into the setting.

aco175 · Jun 18, 2019

I do not play with feats and half the players choose human each time. I'm not sure they need more

DEFCON 1 · Jun 18, 2019

Using Point Buy, the standard Human bonuses in a "mix-maxy" sort of way will result in a PC that will have one higher bonus in the 4th best ability score over a demihuman (assuming the demihuman selects a class that aligns to their bonuses.)

The arguable "best" Point Buy spread for a standard Human is 15, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8... with a similar matching spread for the demihuman of 15, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8. Thus after bonuses (six +1s vs a +2/+1) you end up with:

Human: +3, +3, +2, +1, +0, -1
Demihuman: +3, +3, +2, +0, +0, -1

The Human can also assign their two +3s to max any class they wish to play... whereas the Demihuman has to follow their bonuses to max out with two 16s in their primary class ability scores. So the numbers are virtually the same... but the Human has more class options.

If you want to get a better chance of more Humans, make only those two point buy spreads available and do not allow anyone to buy a 17 at chargen (because otherwise folks will take demihumans and put the +2 in the 15 slot in order to get to 18 at 4th level.) Whether you think this is enough for your players, I don't know.