How should humans be human?

[Gold Roger]

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but it's how much the bonus round on stats for humans messes with the game and the holy cow (well, somebody had to say it^^) of human stats representing the baseline. I'm not very concerned with game balance here.

Now, an individual human can be stronger than an individual orc and more dextrous than individual elf. That was always the case in D&D. But with this, at level 1 the most dextrous human has a higher dex score than the most dextrous elf.

What might be cool, is giving humans the floating +1 and an exceptional talent at first level. What I mean by that is giving the players the choice from multiple benefits that represent various ways by which heroic humans differ from the common riff-raff.

The baseline choice should be some passive bonus, to represent the human without fiddly mechanics of traditional D&D.

One of these could be the (now) classical +1skill and +1 feats, for those groups cool with choosing those freely.

Others could represent lucky humans, courageous humans, inspiring humans and the quickly adapting human.

As individual choices can easily nixed from the game, you can even have the current +1 to all stats. Call it the ace and maybe add a line that he can't boost initial stats over 18.

 

[Blood & Bones]

How so?

How does a +1 to all attribute scores feel over powered? It... just does. We don't have *all* of the rules in front of us yet, so we really don't have much to compare to except previous editions. In terms of previous editions, +1 to all stats is incredibly powerful.

I did say "feels" and not "is" overpowered, to be absolutely clear.

 

[Blood & Bones]

I purposely held back my ideas for the human because I didn't want the thread to become about my ideas, and rather reflect a broad range of views when it comes to humans...

I really like the idea of a +1 to ONE ability score of choice and +1 to all saving throws... and maybe something else, like a reroll once per session. Simple, straight forward, and keeps with the flavor of being human. Another option, which would turn 1st and 2nd edition on it's head, is to give only humans the ability to multi-class - and nothing else.

Because feats and skills are going to be modular, we can't work them in as baseline assumptions for humans. This is unfortunate, as I really liked the way humans worked in 3rd edition. Mattachine mentioned that +1 to all attribute scores could be a place holder; seeing as it was mentioned in the latest Rule of Three article, I very much doubt it.

Again, there is quite a bit we still do not know, and that we have seen is still in flux, so I'm trying to keep an open mind. With that being said, +1 to all attribute scores doesn't sit well with me.

 

[Oni]

How does a +1 to all attribute scores feel over powered? It... just does. We don't have *all* of the rules in front of us yet, so we really don't have much to compare to except previous editions. In terms of previous editions, +1 to all stats is incredibly powerful.

I did say "feels" and not "is" overpowered, to be absolutely clear.

A +1 to all stats means you may, or may not, have a +5% chance on to succeed on d20 roles, and you may, or may not, have a +1 increase to your damage rolls, along with a couple of other very minor perks that having a 1 higher stat might net you. I daresay that next to things like poison immunity, having advantage on perception checks, or getting to re-roll bum rolls it seems a tad underwhelming.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I feel that humans should be the baseline to which other races are compared or from which they deviate.

3-18 has been the baseline for a long time. If the baseline becomes 4-19, my world won't come crashing in around me, but it seems to be more of a concession to the notion that, otherwise, demihumans would have to have some kind of penalty to balance things out with the benefits they'd otherwise enjoy.

Penalties are unpopular in today's world. Which, I think, is a shame.

 

[Trance-Zg]

Humans are considered as jack-off-all-trades, but with +1 to all abilities they are best of all trades.

I would like to see all other races to get +2 to one ability score(no class bonus b.s. here) and -2 to one ability score(total bonus 0).

And for humans +2 to lowest ability score.(total racial bonus; +2)

That would add to the jack of all trades as there would be no bad side in human abilities.

that way the humans get ability bonus overall, but can't be more gracefull than elves, durable than dwarfs and stronger than orcs.

they are just overall more covered.

 

[Salamandyr]

Until we know what benefits the other races are getting, there's no way to know if +1 to every stat is overpowered.

From what we've seen of the playtest characters, I really don't think it is.

 

[KidSnide]

I seriously doubt that the human stat bonuses are overpowered. For most characters, it's a hit point and +1 on 60% of their non-primary ability/skill checks. That's nice. I'd even go so far as to say that it's good. But it's not obviously better than the abilities the other races get. It definitely has a "jack-of-all-trades" aspect to it, and I like the simplicity compared to remembering a broadly applied +1 bonus.

The broad reaction to the human ability bonus strikes me as similar to the reaction that many had when they first looked at the monk in the 3.0 PH. I'm curious if many people still think it is unbalanced after play.

That all said, it is a little odd to think of humans as smarter than dwarves, more charismatic than elves and wiser than halflings. You could also criticize the system for making humans as tough as dwarves, as strong as orcs and as graceful as elves, but I'm not sure it's true. At least in the hill dwarf example, the race gets a significant "toughness" bonus (poison immunity and a higher hit die) that looks superior to the human's +1 con bonus.

Either way, humans should be "top tier" race for every class. 4e generated far too much "cantina effect" because the two-primary-stat system made humans a second best choice for most classes.

-KS

 

[deadwor1d]

Ok, so if humans are the baseline when considering power level for the other races, then they should have no specific modifiers to abilities. I DO like an idea someone posted about a second background, or maybe a modifer to trained skills.

That said, and I can't believe I am saying this, the other races need penalties of various flavors to offset in order to provide balance (not in a gamist sense, but in what races are chosen by the players--or maybe those two work hand in hand? I dunno. I am just flinging thoughts onto my keyboard and hoping they arrange themselves in some cogent fashion.). So with NO modifiers, you have your simplicity. With the other races having penalties, you don't get 'everyone is an elf' syndrome.

Maybe:
Elves are haughty and aloof, providing penalties to social interactions when dealing with non-elves. Maybe also hit them with a -1 Strength penalty or something.

Dwarves come with a speed penalty (though this is somewhat offset by the heavy armor/encumbered thing). Throw in a charisma penalty because they tend to be gruff and grumbly.

Halflings are little, so move slower. Archetypical (read Tolkien) halflings also tend to be naive, so some sort of penalty introduced to reflect their interactions in 'the big city'. Maybe even a -1 penalty to Intelligence? I dunno. See earlier comment about random thoughts.

As far as what race is the most populous in your game world, that's entirely on the DM (with player input if that's your thing). Has very little to do with what should be considered baseline from a design perspective.

End result, there should be a downside to choosing to be special. A trade-off of some sort. Do I want to see a return of level caps? No. At a conceptual level, this just fails. Sorry, Gary.

 

[Zaukrie]

Love the extra die 6 or advantage ideas. Simple, useful, unique. Is it enough? Not sure. I see no reason why humans need to be the standard, btw, but that is another topic.

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