D&D 5E Balance in Races

[The Crimson Binome]

Every conversation I've seen has usually stated that the variant human was just not worth it because they were getting short changed, mathematically speaking. The premise is that a variant human only got +2 worth of ability bonuses and one feat. One feat generally being equal to +2 to abilities. So the "normal" human gets +6 worth of bonuses while the "variant" gets only +4 worth.

That premise is mathematically flawed. A feat is worth +2 to your primary stat, which means it's worth more than any other combination of +2 among your non-primary stats.

But in truth I have to agree with your assessment that "variant" human is FAR better than "basic" human simply because +1 to each stat is boring

It's not a matter of what's boring, though. You could give humans +3 to all stats, and in that case it actually would be more powerful, but it would still be boring.

 

[Kikuras]

Torches and pitchforks really shouldn't be an assumption of the core rules one way or the other for the races

Mostly because peasants aren't proficient with either as weapons?

 

[The Grand User]

Yeah, figured he was, yet that sentiment towards dragonborn isn't always a joke and it annoys me a little bit. So figured it was as good a place to express it as anywhere.

Oh, and another thing that annoys me about the Dragonborn: Why'd the tieflings get the big dragonish tails and the Dragonborn get nothing?!

I'll just give Dragonborn a tail slap attack in my games, kill two birds with one stone

 

[Sword of Spirit]

From our experience, variant humans are the obvious choice for a human character, but in some situations (not as rare as you might think) the standard human is better. With random rolls the standard can easily end up as your best option. If your character is heavily multiple attribute sensitive, the standard human is often better also.

So they are more or less balanced in my book.

 

[Dausuul]

A conversation recently came up at my table about the imbalance in the races in 5e. My immediate response was, "there has always been imbalance in characters in D&D. Elves are the golden child of the system." They spoke about the imbalance amongst all the races. Why do half-orcs get so many perks, and dragonborn don't even get darkvision from their ancestors? Tieflings get all these cool spells, and hellish resistance, but gnomes only get gnome cunning.
It turned into this counting game as they tried to make direct comparisons between race abilities. Surely there must be more finesse behind these decisions than this character gets three benefits, this character gets two?
Do you feel as though the races are balanced? Do you feel that they should be?

I think 5E got the balance pretty good. Half-elves, variant humans, and mountain dwarves are definitely the top tier, but each race has its strong points. I think that's the key to doing RPG balance right. You can't ever get them all perfectly balanced, but you can get them pretty well balanced and make sure each race has some distinctive thing that sets it apart from the others.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I think lack of darkvision is the biggest insult to dragonborn, but I also feel that darkvision is WAY too common in 5th edition.

True. Darkvision is the norm, and lack of darkvision seems to be mostly a human flaw.

 

[Sunseeker]

True. Darkvision is the norm, and lack of darkvision seems to be mostly a human flaw.

It has been perhaps, my biggest reason for NOT playing human, and also one of my biggest reasons for being tempted to run a human-only adventure, largely because I can't have scary dark passageways with all that dorkvision!!! DM RAGE!

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Honestly, I'm not sure that Elves (except Drow) and Half-Orcs really need darkvision anyway.

 

[Paraxis]

I am thinking about changing darkvision and adding back in low light vision.

Low light vision: ignores penalties for dim lighting conditions, ie treat dim light as normal light.
Darkvision: treat darkness as dim light.

Some creatures most undead for example would have both, so would treat darkness as normal lighting conditions.

Elves, and other surface races that get darkvision now would get low light, while dwarves and other underground races would get darkvision.

 

[SirAntoine]

They shouldn't have done away with level limits. That is the problem.