D&D (2024) Human Resourceful needs to be beefier − compare the Lucky feat

[Yaarel]

The original Playtest, UA2022-CharacterOrigins, introduces several concepts relating to the Advantage mechanic.

The Human Resourceful trait that grants Advantage needs a boost in mechanical power.


The Inspiration mechanic allows a player to apply Advantage for an important d20 Test. Success breeds success. A natural 20 grants an Inspiration. A player cant accumulate Inspirations, but can share extras with other players. There is mechanical pressure to use an Inspiration but also to not waste it recklessly. It is a standard reward that the DM can grant when players make the game more fun.


INSPIRATION
When you have Inspiration, you can expend it to give yourself Advantage on a d20 Test.
You must decide to do so before rolling the die.
GAINING INSPIRATION
The main way a character gains Inspiration is by rolling a 20 for a d20 Test.
The DM can also award Inspiration to a character who’s done something that is particularly heroic or amusing.
ONLY ONE AT A TIME
You can never have more than one instance of Inspiration. If something gives you Inspiration and you already have it, you can give Inspiration to a player character in your group who lacks it.
LOSING INSPIRATION
If you still have Inspiration when you start a Long Rest, you lose that Inspiration.


Success breeds success.

Via the Resourceful trait, the Human species always starts each day with an Inspiration. The flavor actualizes the Human "instinct" to succeed, learn, struggle, and inspire. Its possible use in combat signifies the aggressive aspects. Resourceful expresses well many Human connotations.


HUMAN
Resourceful. You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a Long Rest.


A simple description conveys effective flavor and usage.

However, the Resourceful trait seems less than powerful enough. Effectively, it is a free Advantage per Long Rest. In the context of more ways to gain Advantage, the impact of Resourceful may be less impressive.

In the playtest, the design space of each species is about three level-0 feats. (Note, the "level-0" background is gained before taking levels in a class.) In the Human species description, the Versatile trait grants a free feat, and by itself is worth a feat of design space. The remaining design space of two feats is filled up entirely by Resourceful plus a free skill proficiency. (Since reallife humans are notable for being "tool users", the free proficiency should probably be a free choice of any skill or tool.) A single proficiency is only a fraction of a single feat. So the two-feat design space is mainly the Resourceful trait alone.

Compare the Lucky feat: a single level-0 feat that can grant Advantage. Perhaps the Lucky feat is too powerful for a level-0 feat. But the comparison with Human Resourceful remains instructive. Resourceful needs to be more powerful.

The Lucky feat can grant Advantage (or Disadvantage) a proficiency number of times per day. And. The player can decide to apply the Advantage after seeing a poor d20 Test roll, so it wont waste an Advantage the way Inspiration does. (And it can inflict Disadvantage thus apply to more situations.)


LUCKY
[Level-0] Feat

Prerequisite: None

You have inexplicable luck that can kick in at just the right moment,
granting you the following benefits:

Luck Points. You have a number of Luck Points equal to your Proficiency Bonus.
You can spend the points on the benefits below,
and you regain your expended Luck Points when you finish a Long Rest.

Advantage. Immediately after you roll a d20 for a d20 Test, you can spend 1 Luck Point to give yourself Advantage on the roll.
Disadvantage. When a creature rolls a d20 for an attack roll against you, you can spend 1 Luck Point to impose Disadvantage on that roll.


The Lucky feat is strictly better than the Human Resourceful trait. Its Advantage can be used twice as often, even more frequently at higher tiers, and is available even after seeing a bad roll, and only costs a single feat. (Moreover, its Disadvantage applies in more circumstances, such as thwarting the saves of spell targets.) By contrast, the Human Resourceful costs almost two feats of design space, while being worth less than half of the Lucky feat in mechanical power.

The Human Resourceful requires a mechanical boost. Probably also, the Lucky feat needs a nerf.

In any case, the Resourceful trait is fantastic Human flavor. It is worth making Resourceful more impressive.

 

[Yaarel]

Maybe a way to beef up Human Resourceful is:

Resourceful. [Humans thrive when succeeding, struggling, learning, finding hope and inspiring others.] You gain Inspiration whenever you finish a [Short] Rest. [Whenever you apply Inspiration to a d20 test that then fails, you keep the Inspiration for a future d20 Test.]

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Inspiration needs to just be a reroll. Really, all of these "before you know the outcome" timing things need to be rerolls after you know the result, and if they need to be adjusted in frequency do it. It's irritating to run/play, and it's how everyone I've discussed it with thinks they should be anyways. No one has time to go "The orc attacks Bob. Does anyone want to use cutting words, silvery barbs, lucky etc" before each stinkin attack roll.

The timing isn't even consistent. Inspiration has to be declared before the roll. Lucky is after the roll but before the outcome. Shield is after the outcome is known.

 

[strawbellebelle]

One of several benefits conferred to all characters of a given race does not need to match or exceed the specific specialized benefit granted by one option of feat independent of race/class choices.

 

[Yaarel]

Inspiration needs to just be a reroll. Really, all of these "before you know the outcome" timing things need to be rerolls after you know the result, and if they need to be adjusted in frequency do it. It's irritating to run/play, and it's how everyone I've discussed it with thinks they should be anyways. No one has time to go "The orc attacks Bob. Does anyone want to use cutting words, silvery barbs, lucky etc" before each stinkin attack roll.

The timing isn't even consistent. Inspiration has to be declared before the roll. Lucky is after the roll but before the outcome. Shield is after the outcome is known.

I agree with you about rerolls.

There seems to be a distinction between an unlimited Dis/Advantage versus a limited Dis/Advantage.

The unlimited Dis/Advantage is mechanics like Expertise and Skilled Tool (such as applying the proficiencies of both Thieves Tools and Sleight of Hand to pick a lock). The unlimited Dis/Advantage is available every time one makes a certain kind of d20 Test.

The limited Dis/Advantage has a limited number of uses, thus its use is decided at the instance of a d20 Test. Inspiration, Shield, and other sources for granting Advantage or inflicting Disadvantage fall in the limited category.

It is a pain point to track whether or not to apply a limited Dis/Advantage before a d20 Test. To worry about it actually interferes with the speed of game play. It can be difficult to remember if several are possibly in play, especially if sourcing from the decision of an other player.

Every limited Dis/Advantage works better as a reroll. Namely, the Dis/Advantage applies after seeing a poor result, and knowing that the second attempt is worth the limited resource.


There is a narrative flavor as well. Some sources of limited Advantage are decided after seeing the first d20 roll, while other sources are decided after knowing what the entire outcome would be. To respond after seeing a roll, feels like a reflex, a dodge, perhaps even using a Reaction. But to decide after knowing what the entire outcome would be, feels like foreknowledge, like knowing ahead of time what would happen and consciously circumventing it. Many times, this flavor consideration is important for the concept of the source of Advantage.

With regard to Inspiration and Human Resourcefulness, they might be a kind of foreknowledge, an insight into the effort or threat. Its usage is "in the zone" being in tune with the moment. As such, Inspiration probably deserves to be applied after knowing the entire outcome of a d20 Test.

 

[Yaarel]

One of several benefits conferred to all characters of a given race
does not need to match or exceed
the specific specialized benefit granted
by one option of feat independent of race/class choices.

Heh, I need to parse the sentence to follow it. I am reading it as:
A benefit of a species can be less than a benefit of a feat.

Yes, of course.


However, the Human species fails to fill out its design space.

Every species should have a design space of three feats.

But in the case of the Human:

1 feat = a free choice of a feat
¼ feat = a free choice of a skill proficiency
½ feat = Resourcefulness = an extra Inspiration per Long Rest

So far, the Human species only has about 1¾ feats.

About 1¼ feats are still missing from the design space of the Human.

Compared to other species, the Human feels significantly subpar.


Because the narrative flavor of Resourceful is unique and excellent for the Human species, it is worthwhile to make Resourceful far more powerful in order to fill out the rest of the missing design space.

 

[Mephista]

Why are you comparing Resourceful to a feat? Humans already start with access to a second feat. This is not a valid comparison of power.

Now, if you wanted to compare the 1dnd human to, say, dwarves or another heritage, that's one thing. Is Resourceful + Skillful + Versatile on par with Darkvision + Resistance + more HP + Tool proficency + Tremorsense? Or Darkvision + Resistance + Elven Lineage + Perception prof + Trance. Elven Lineage alone is probably on par with Magic Initiative feat, Perception proficency is on par with Skillful, and Darkvision+Resistance are definitely better than Resourceful.

That's a better direction to take if you want to argue if we need to boost Resourceful. Or, if you really must compare to a feat, bring up how Resourceful is effectively worthless if anyone in the party has the Musician feat, which I imagine will be a fairly common pick for any Bards.

 

[Yaarel]

Why are you comparing Resourceful to a feat? Humans already start with access to a second feat. This is not a valid comparison of power.

Now, if you wanted to compare the 1dnd human to, say, dwarves or another heritage, that's one thing. Is Resourceful + Skillful + Versatile on par with Darkvision + Resistance + more HP + Tool proficency + Tremorsense? Or Darkvision + Resistance + Elven Lineage + Perception prof + Trance. Elven Lineage alone is probably on par with Magic Initiative feat, Perception proficency is on par with Skillful, and Darkvision+Resistance are definitely better than Resourceful.

That's a better direction to take if you want to argue if we need to boost Resourceful. Or, if you really must compare to a feat, bring up how Resourceful is effectively worthless if anyone in the party has the Musician feat, which I imagine will be a fairly common pick for any Bards.

Every playtest species has a design space equal to three level-0 feats.

Example.

ELF
Feat 1: Trance, Charmed Resistance, cantrip
Feat 2: slot-1 spell per Long Rest, slot-2 spell per Long Rest
Feat 3: Darkvision, Perception proficiency

Every species has three feats worth of design space.


But Human is significantly subpar compared to other species. The Human is missing almost half of its design space.

To fill out this missing design space, I would rather have a Resourceful trait that is very impressive, instead of having an extra five skill proficiencies.

 

[Mephista]

Every playtest species has a design space equal to three level-0 feats.

No, no, they do not.

By your own analysis of the Elf, darkvision and the resistance aren't worth a full feat on their own. Now, lets bring up the dragonborn. They have elemental resistance, darkvision, breath attack, and Draconic language. At BEST, we're looking at "two feats" worth of traits here, and that's if you count the breath attack as a feat.

Tieflings are similar to dragonborn - they have resistance, darkvision, and magic spells instead of a breath attack. That's certainly not filling out the "three feats" like the elves do.

Halflings get a crappy resistance (Frightened is a relatively rare condition, and not really effective on casters), Nimbleness, Luck, and stealth proficency. None of these are worth a full feat on their own, and at least one is objectively worse than a half feat (Stealth vs Skilled feat). I'd argue Halfling is worse than "two feats," let alone three.

Gnomes are just hard to categorize. They do have Gnomish Cunning for insane resistance to all forms of mental effects, which is worth more than a feat tbh, but effectively a pair of utility cantrips for Rock isn't that great.

Dwarven Resisistance and Dwarven Toughness are worth half a feat each; DT is literally half as effective as the Tough feat. But Tool proficiency is worth far less than a skill proficiency, especially if you can still learn them during downtime. Darkvision is good, but Stonecunning is... very good IF it comes in play. Possibly worth more than two feats, but not three on its own.

Trying to say everyone gets three feats worth of stuff isn't true. Honestly, the power level of every choice is all over the board. And that's before we get to the fact that the power level of feats is all over the place - Crafter (20% discount on buying armor, 20% faster crafting speed) is a great example of something that isn't a big deal. Savage Attacker generally gets low reception. Tavern Brawler is currently a feat tax, mainly adding a bit of damage and Weapon Mastery to fists and codifying improvised weapon rules - things that should be the default rules.
I would certainly not put any of those three on par with Lucky, Magic Initiate or Alert.

 

[Yaarel]

No, no, they do not.

By your own analysis of the Elf, darkvision and the resistance aren't worth a full feat on their own. Now, lets bring up the dragonborn. They have elemental resistance, darkvision, breath attack, and Draconic language. At BEST, we're looking at "two feats" worth of traits here, and that's if you count the breath attack as a feat.

Tieflings are similar to dragonborn - they have resistance, darkvision, and magic spells instead of a breath attack. That's certainly not filling out the "three feats" like the elves do.

Halflings get a crappy resistance (Frightened is a relatively rare condition, and not really effective on casters), Nimbleness, Luck, and stealth proficency. None of these are worth a full feat on their own, and at least one is objectively worse than a half feat (Stealth vs Skilled feat). I'd argue Halfling is worse than "two feats," let alone three.

Gnomes are just hard to categorize. They do have Gnomish Cunning for insane resistance to all forms of mental effects, which is worth more than a feat tbh, but effectively a pair of utility cantrips for Rock isn't that great.

Dwarven Resisistance and Dwarven Toughness are worth half a feat each; DT is literally half as effective as the Tough feat. But Tool proficiency is worth far less than a skill proficiency, especially if you can still learn them during downtime. Darkvision is good, but Stonecunning is... very good IF it comes in play. Possibly worth more than two feats, but not three on its own.

Trying to say everyone gets three feats worth of stuff isn't true. Honestly, the power level of every choice is all over the board. And that's before we get to the fact that the power level of feats is all over the place - Crafter (20% discount on buying armor, 20% faster crafting speed) is a great example of something that isn't a big deal. Savage Attacker generally gets low reception. Tavern Brawler is currently a feat tax, mainly adding a bit of damage and Weapon Mastery to fists and codifying improvised weapon rules - things that should be the default rules.
I would certainly not put any of those three on par with Lucky, Magic Initiate or Alert.

Note, a level-4 feat is worth two level-0 feats.

In other words, a level-4 feat can choose a level-0 feat plus gain a +1 ability score improvement.

The species design space is worth three level-0 feats.