D&D 5E Humans -- a proposal.

[Jeff Carlsen]

I like, but no growth. Flat d6 or d4, and if there is a class bonus for the same ability, the die grows one step.

Agreed.

 

[Salamandyr]

I'm thinking that they should possibly give humans an Ability Score Adjustment, which they can, just like the ones deriving from character levelling trade for a feat if their game is using them. That would make humans the only characters that could begin the game with a feat.

I think that, and some other small bennie would make them pretty competitive.

I like them having an expertise die of some kind though.

 

[Paraxis]

From what we are getting from the podcasts, I thought they had moved past expertise dice already with the internal playtest and were back to using skills, maybe I am wrong. I do like the idea of humans getting an expertise die though if it stands at no skills like it is now.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm pleased to see the encouragement.

I like, but no growth. Flat d6 or d4, and if there is a class bonus for the same ability, the die grows one step.

The advantage of growth is that it then mimics the ability as it already exists -- if you fix it at a d6, then the character sheet needs also to mark at what level a character has expertise. This way, every expertise die is governed by level -- it's simpler, and there's no variation between expertise rolls for a given character.

Not bad. My only adjustment would be to remove the "doesn't stack with fields of lore" clause.

Thanks - I wasn't sure about that; I was trying to anticipate eventualities, and the implication of very-high lore rolls from humans seemed potentially game-breaking.

I don't think a bonus feat is ever happening, because feats are supposed to be optional.

I only suggested the bonus feat as an option to replace this; not as something on its own.

Thanks for the feedback so far, everybody!

 

[Warbringer]

Well, given that expertise is only from classes, and my suggestion would be if you take expertise in an ability that you also gain as a class treat it as 1 step higher, there is nothing to track.

Going up by level, for a strating benefit, is too powerful, IMO

 

[Kobold Stew]

I like, but no growth. Flat d6 or d4, and if there is a class bonus for the same ability, the die grows one step.

Going up by level, for a strating benefit, is too powerful, IMO

I'm not sure I agree, since the average difference between a d6 and a d12 is only +3 , and such a step (between level 5 and 17) seems fine to me. But I see I was wrong about other expertise dice being constant across the board --

The stealth feat gives a non-growing expertise die (a d4) in certain abilities, and that feat also provides rules for "stacking" benefits. This would then be a partial answer to +Li Shenron 's concern about human thieves possibly having expertise in three abilities. A slightly different rule exists for Knights and their COurtley Graces. These should be made consistent with each other, at least.

Further, By level 15 (with Slippery Mind), the Rogue Thief will be able to apply the expertise die to Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma.

Some tweaking might be necessary, but I still feel the overall idea is sound and preferable to what's in the testpackage for humans currently (and indeed in every iteration so far).