Elder-Basilisk
First Post
In 3E, human was the default race - unless you had a specific reason to play some other race, you would generally play a human.
In 4E, this is no longer so. Humans are now one race among many equal options - some builds work well with humans, but far from all.
Depending on the campaign, this might be a good or bad idea. if you want a human-dominated campaign, its probably a good idea to improve humans somewhat - like I did for my Greyhawk game.
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
In 3rd edition, human was a good default race. That is not necessarily the same as saying that they were overpowered, however. Every character had their niche in 3rd edition and level adjustments kept the use of odd monster races to a minimum. Thus, humans were flexible enough to fill nearly every build, for most builds, other races offered a tradeoff rather than a straightforward improvement (a grey-elf wizard, for instance would have slightly more spells and higher DCs but would have to live with a con penalty; a half-orc could manage a higher strength than a human, but had a lot more trouble coming up with the Int for Combat Expertise and Improved Trip and could run into trouble getting the skills to qualify for prestige classes or with multiclassing xp penalties). Most importantly, however, there was a very limited player market for monster races since most of them came with level adjustments that made them difficult to exploit mechanically. Therefore, there were many niches where humans were still the best choice available.
In third edition, with limited racial options, the flexibility to fill any role acceptably was valuable.
In 4th edition on the other hand, the old saying that second place is the first loser comes to mind.
With a new race coming out every month (if not more often) offering a targeted +2/+2 to whatever pair of stats you want and a racial encounter ability that will usually see more use than the third best at-will for your build, nearly every mechanical character concept has a race that is simply better, mechanically speaking than human. Humans may make good balanced clerics, but longtooth shifters are better. Humans may make good brutal scoundrel rogues but elves (and drow) are better. Humans may make good strength/con fighters, but warforged, orcs, and minotaurs are better.
The only niche that humans arguably fill as well as any other race is that of wizard focused on control through status effects, and the only reason that humans have managed to claw a hold on that niche is that there is not yet any race that offers a bonus to both Int and Wisdom. When that race comes out, the only thing humans will have going for them is that they will usually have non-AC defenses one to two points (total of all three) higher than those enjoyed by other races and they provide access to Action Surge for characters who do not like the half-elf racial bonuses.
Humans do need powering up in any setting where humans are supposed to be a dominant race. However, the only option that fourth edition has for doing so is overpowered human racial feats or paragon paths. Given the rest of the 4th edition design philosophy, humans will necessarily be, at best, first loser for any mechanical concept, and, in some cases, they will be the third or fourth loser.