D&D 5E Half-Elves are taking over my game! (Or are Humans underpowered?)

[jasper]

In my experience, if you don't use feats, no one will ever play a human.

Half-Elves are very good. Combine them with a high skill class and they can be proficient in a ton of skills. 5E is built from the ground up to favor non-human / non-traditional classes.

hahahhahahahahaah
First homebrew campaign I was joined in 5e. We were all human and only 1 of us took feats.
To the OP. Don't worry about it. I had players for take the same character and race.

 

[TwoSix]

Half-elves are popular because half-elves are cool. They're basically Human++, both in terms of mechanics and concept. They get to be both relatable and other at the same time, and that's such a popular fantasy trope that whenever other human++ races got introduced (aasimar, tieflings, genasi, 3e half-dragons) they also became some of the most popular races.

Add that into the fact that half-elves are top-shelf mechanically (they're the 1A option for every Charisma class, especially with point buy and Elven Accuracy), and of course you're going to see a lot of them.

 

[gyor]

When you can pick Tielflings, Goliaths, Aasimar, Bugbears, Gith, Dragonborn, Genasi, Shadar Kai, Tritons, Eladarin, ect...,I find it odd that anyone bothers to play human or half elf.

 

[RSIxidor]

Humans are boring and the game doesn't integrate their culture into how they exist in the world, where for other races their culture is often a part of what makes them what they are. Such as dwarves and elves having weapon training as D&D treats humans as "generic and versatile" which is just not that interesting outside of character optimization.

As far as whether they're underpowered. Maybe, potentially depending on what choices are made? But it doesn't matter. People will play what they find interesting, either mechanically or thematically or some mix of both or for some other reason.

 

[dave2008]

When you can pick Tielflings, Goliaths, Aasimar, Bugbears, Gith, Dragonborn, Genasi, Shadar Kai, Tritons, Eladarin, ect...,I find it odd that anyone bothers to play human or half elf.

IDK, except for Dragonborn there are no other races I would want to play.

EDIT: Other than human

 

[ad_hoc]

How often do people take the skilled feat?

A skill isn't really worth 1/3 of a feat.

Darkvision, fey ancestry, and languages are all ribbons.

They're probably the strongest race but that's also fine. Something has to be strongest.

It is still more fun to play the race that suits the character concept than it is to play Half-Elf just because.

Fun is the real power metric.

 

[Salthorae]

Half-elves are patently more powerful than humans mechanically. Pretty sure that is on purpose to bolster the amount of play they see.

If you look at the stats from DND Beyond, people still predominantly choose humans.

If your home game is seeing a lot of them, I'd drop the Cha +2 to a +1 and lock in the other +1's to like Dex and Int or something like Triton's get +1 to Str/Con/Cha locked in.

 

[GlassJaw]

The short answer is humans are underpowered. Variant human is better but being the only race that gets a feat (in a game with a broken feat system) is clunky design.

Here's my "fix":

D&D 5E - buffing human (and removing variant human)

While I'm not opposed to the variant human, I don't really like that it's the only race that gets a feat. It's a huge outlier across all the races and a big boost in power right out of the gate. I know some people restrict the feats that can be chosen but I prefer a more elegant solution...

www.enworld.org

If you play and/or watch a lot of DND, there's only so many Firbolg druids and Dragonborn barbarians you can take before it gets old. I really want to incentivize players to play something like a Goblin artificer or a Drow Swarmkeeper Druid and not have every roll be 1 worse because of their racial choice.

This +1

The long answer is the racial ability modifiers are too limiting. 5E's strength is that it is extremely modular and very reslient to tweaking because of bounded accuracy. You could simply let every character get 3 "free" ability points to put wherever they want and call it a day.

But the current racial ability mods "force" choices. Yes, I know an ability score that's 1 or 2 points lower isn't going to matter in the long run but it absolutely does in the short term and it will affect the choice for a sizable group of players (myself included to some extent).

I want more choice but I still would like to see racial modifiers preserved in some way. I've been working on some hybrid systems, similar to the "Reimagining" article.

I've been tinkering with giving each race/subrace 1-2 "core" abilities. A player can then spend 3 bonus points among their core racial abilities and an ability of their choice or maybe 1-2 based on class. I think it in theory but still feels a bit clunky.

 

[Hriston]

Hi all. Yet again, my wife has made a half-elf character. Looking back, half-elves have been the most picked race in my 5E games. On our vacation, we put together some quick characters for a one-shot and it made me take a long look at the half-elf.

Half-Elf

• Your Charisma score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Skill Versatility. You gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and one extra language of your choice.

Pathfinder 2 did a nifty thing where the half-humans were presented as subraces of Human. And that got me really looking at their differences.

Variant Human

• 2 different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You gain one feat of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice.

If you do a little linguistic math, you get the following differences:

Human

• You gain one feat of your choice

vs Half-Elf

• Your Charisma increases by 2
• Darkvision
• Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Elvish.

That's … clearly a bit much for a feat, especially considering Charisma +2 is already worth a feat.

Even without the +2 Charisma, it might be a worthwhile feat. Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, a skill proficiency, and Elvish might be a bit much. A skill proficiency is 1/3rd of a feat. A language is like 1/8th of a feat. Darkvision and Fey Ancestry are difficult to weigh.

I'm not sure what to do with this view, though. I've long thought Humans should get a bit of a buff. Maybe Half-Elves should get a bit of a nerf too. It might just be because Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks have been popular at my table, but I'm seeing too many Half-Elves and not enough humans.

What do you think?

I just wanted to echo the opinion that your math is a little off. The variant human’s ASI will always be applied to a character’s two most important abilities, making the half-elf’s ASI only slightly more valuable. I’d value the difference at 2/3 of a bump to an ability score of moderate importance or two bumps that can be applied to one or two abilities of low importance.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I don't know that half-elf needs a nerf, but that's mostly because I prefer to limit nerfs and typically do my rebalancing by buffing other options.

That said, what classes have these individuals played? Are the half-elf characters picking classes that synergize well with Charisma? If so, the comparison may be less about human versus half-elf, and more about half-elf versus other races that grant +2 charisma. If on the other hand the players are using half-elf characters with classes that don't rely heavily on charisma, that may say something about half-elves in comparison to humans (and all other races, but especially humans as the ultimately generalist/blank slate race).

Personally, I give humans an additional proficiency. They can choose one instrument, kit, set of tools, type of armor, weapon, or vehicle.