D&D 5E Ban Variant-Human! Impact?

[Esker]

No, because the cost of the points going into higher stats causes issues. Point on variant lets you deliberately stop lower in more ability scores on an odd number to get higher stats in general. On a character looking for a lot of different ability scores that's useful. Just niche.

With standard human you could buy 15, 15, 13, 9, 9, 9 to get to 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10, with one wasted point leftover.

A CHA or CHA+DEX or CHA+STR class (I'll include Paladin, since you can also get 16 STR here) could be half-elf, buying 15, 14, 13, 10, 10, 10, ending up with the same stats, but with darkvision, more skills, and other abilities.

A STR+CON class could be mountain dwarf and buy 14, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10, again, getting the same stats after racial mods, but also darkvision, and other things.

A DEX+INT or DEX+WIS class could be elf, and buy 15, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8. A -1 in your dump stat compared to standard human, but darkvision, perception proficiency, and other benefits.

A STR+WIS class could be the same as the elf example, but as a hill dwarf.

It's hard to argue standard human isn't weak.

If you were planning a four-stat multiclass build, you could get 15, 13, 13, 13, 9, 9 with point buy as a standard human for 16,14,14,14,10,10. If the 16 were in CHA, a half-elf can get 14,14,13,13,10,8 though, which is almost as good, and are you really going to prioritize a +1 in your least important stat vs darkvision and skills and charm resistance, etc.? If the 16 were in STR, a mountain dwarf could get 14,14,14,12,10,8, which is the same kind of deal. I guess if you need the 16 in something else you might have to have two 8s instead of two 10s. But again, that's a trade I'll take.

It's really hard to argue that standard human isn't really weak.

 

[Ashrym]

It's the niche 5 14's and an 11 that I'm looking at. It's an all around bonus to checks and saves, and still easy for high numbers in primary stats.

 

[Esker]

If I rolled stats and wound up with a 17, two 15s and a 13, I might be tempted to go standard human. But even then, if I just went with a race that gave +2 to my main stat and +1 to a secondary stat, I could start with 19, 16, 15, 13, x, x, and at 4th bump up to 20, 16, 16, 13, x, x, mostly catching up to the human, and still having my other racial features.

Or I might play a half-elf bard and take Actor at 4th.

 

[Esker]

It's the niche 5 14's and an 11 that I'm looking at. It's an all around bonus to checks and saves, and still easy for high numbers in primary stats.

What character would you build that prioritized a +2 in your 5th stat at the cost of not getting a +3 in anything?

 

[Ashrym]

What character would you build that prioritized a +2 in your 5th stat at the cost of not getting a +3 in anything?

Fighter or rogue. The +2 vs +3 is marginal at first and non-existent in the end. Bonuses to more saves isn't exactly a bad of a trade-off, and I take actions that cause ability checks all the time in my playstyle.

 

[Salthorae]

What character would you build that prioritized a +2 in your 5th stat at the cost of not getting a +3 in anything?

I just wrote up a PC whose highest stat is a 15 in Wisdom because his story needed him to be a decent ranger for 1 level before he became a Druid for most/rest of the game life, so he is a Goliath with Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 08 using standard array.

Still not a human, and I was prioritizing a +2 in my 4th stat rather than a +3, but there ARE reasons why people do things like that.

 

[Esker]

Fighter or rogue. The +2 vs +3 is marginal at first and non-existent in the end. Bonuses to more saves isn't exactly a bad of a trade-off, and I take actions that cause ability checks all the time in my playstyle.

Really? Rogues get so much from DEX; you might be reducing your damage output by 10% and increasing the number of hits you take by 20% by being behind there. And you can't have all the skills.

 

[Esker]

I just wrote up a PC whose highest stat is a 15 in Wisdom because his story needed him to be a decent ranger for 1 level before he became a Druid for most/rest of the game life, so he is a Goliath with Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 08 using standard array.

Still not a human, and I was prioritizing a +2 in my 4th stat rather than a +3, but there ARE reasons why people do things like that.

Even in that example, it was the 4th stat, not the 5th one. 14,14,13,12,10,10 is 27 points, and gets you 4 14s with a +2/+1 race, all without a negative modifier.

 

[Salthorae]

Even in that example, it was the 4th stat, not the 5th one. 14,14,13,12,10,10 is 27 points, and gets you 4 14s with a +2/+1 race, all without a negative modifier.

I get that and acknowledge it in my post about +2 o my 4th stat.

I'm just pointing out that there ARE reasons that someone might choose to do that in character creations beyond the optimization of their PC's defense or damage output from a "primary" stat.

 

[Ashrym]

Really? Rogues get so much from DEX; you might be reducing your damage output by 10% and increasing the number of hits you take by 20% by being behind there. And you can't have all the skills.

You don't need all the skills to have a bonus. That's just a way of getting more general bonuses. The damage and AC is lower, at first, but for the actual number of attacks made as opposed to a percentage it becomes rarely noticeable.

Both classes get bonus ASI's and neither really needs to focus on too many attributes. Getting a general bonus to most checks if someone is making a lot of checks is worth it later when DEX is 20 anyway. It depends how often those other checks are being made compared to combat before capping DEX.

We also don't always start at 1st level. I has one DM who liked starting campaigns at high level when the low level growing pains became moot.

I didn't call it niche without a reason.