D&D 5E Humans, am I missing something? And what's up with half-elf skill bonus?

[Neonchameleon]

I've looked over the races section and even with the optional rules for humans they don't seem to line up with the other races. What is the benefit to playing human?

Remember that a lot of feats give +1 to a stat and have a bonus. One that stands out here is Heavy Armour Mastery - +1 Strength and DR 3/Non-magical weapons. Which makes humans in heavy armour the toughest.

 

[Zardnaar]

There default human is a little boring but not to bad for classes that have to use medium armor as getting your 2 16s means giving up a 14. Using point buy you can go

11
11
11
13
13
15

Which becomes 12,12,12,14,14,16. 16 strength, con dex for example as a light cleric as you want to buff wisdom for example or if you want to play a skill monkey character or have great saves. That 8 dex dump stat in heavy armor will bite you in the ass eventually.

Also rolling stats could also make the default human very attractive depending on what is rolled. A pair of 17s becomes 2 18s, 3 15's become 3 16'd. They also make good multiclass PCs. The main problems I see are.

1. Variant human is optional
2. Feats are optional
3. Multiclass is optional.
4. Races apart from Human/Dwarf/Elf/Halfling are optional

It also seems you get the choice to roll 4d6 drop the lowest or use the stat array. DMs discretion if you can use point buy.

 

[Dice4Hire]

With point by humans are very nice if you are the kind o\f player who hates negative scores. Buying 9 in 2-3 dump stats and boosting them to 10 with the human ability gives more points to get a nice 2nd or 3rd 14 or 15. Well worth it.

 

[Zardnaar]

With point by humans are very nice if you are the kind o\f player who hates negative scores. Buying 9 in 2-3 dump stats and boosting them to 10 with the human ability gives more points to get a nice 2nd or 3rd 14 or 15. Well worth it.

Point buy options

8
9
11
13
15
15
Becomes 16,16,14,12,8,10 could be good for a gish. One can also have 11,11,11,13,13,15 or 8, 11,13,13,13,15 which becomes 9,12,14,14,14,14,16

 

[transtemporal]

The variant human racial stats are optional; we aren't using them in my game even though we are using feats.

Why not? Why not, I say?!

Is there a boo-boo meanie-head involved?

 

[dbm]

Why not? Why not, I say?!

Is there a boo-boo meanie-head involved?

You'd have to ask my players that

On a serious point, I personally feel that feats are scaled so as to be a worthy pick for a character of level 4 or above; making them a level 1 choice is overpowering in my opinion. I think the variant option is just included as a nod to hard-core 3.x players who would otherwise miss it.

 

[Mandragola]

On a serious point, I personally feel that feats are scaled so as to be a worthy pick for a character of level 4 or above; making them a level 1 choice is overpowering in my opinion. I think the variant option is just included as a nod to hard-core 3.x players who would otherwise miss it.

I see where you're coming from, and feats certainly are powerful at 1st level, but I have some counter-arguments.

First, everyone but humans gets cool stuff at level 1 from their racial abilities. Darkvision, Skills, languages, resistances, firey breath, magic and so on. The effect of all of these is both effective and interesting. Personally, I don't think I'd want to play a human with nothing like this to make him unusual. A feat fills that gap.

It's only a short-term advantage anyway. A human fighter or paladin can start with heavy armour master at 1st, which is very powerful, but a half-orc, mountain dwarf or half-orc can take S17 at creation and the feat at 4th. The non-human will then end up with roughly the same stats, plus all their racial abilities. A human who takes a feat without a stat enhancement actually gets to keep the benefit for longer - at the penalty of having worse stats and no racial abilities.

Overall I think the human variant rules are fun. They do give some good options but are far from game-breaking I think.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's only a short-term advantage anyway. A human fighter or paladin can start with heavy armour master at 1st, which is very powerful, but a half-orc, mountain dwarf or half-orc can take S17 at creation and the feat at 4th.

Meanwhile the Human has better stats. Or another useful feat.

A human who takes a feat without a stat enhancement actually gets to keep the benefit for longer - at the penalty of having worse stats and no racial abilities.

Any feat without a stat enhancement should be huge. (Polearm Mastery for one). The human is only down a single stat point - but it's where they want it. Their primary stat reaches 20 at the same time the non-human's does unless the non-human gets the human's feat - in which case the human reaches 20 in their primary stat first. The human barbarian polearm master is fairly horrific as they manage to get the extra attack from TWF (the best Barbarian option due to the way rage works), with their strength modifier (Polearm Mastery). Also Reckless Attack works really well with reach. It's a nice syngergystic combination. The human's starting stats are 16/14/14 (Str, Dex, Con) - no higher than modifiers of +3/+3/+1 or +3/+2/+2 are possible for any race. So they aren't suffering on their stats at all, and it's going to take a member of another race three feats (which is quite a long time) to get Polearm Mastery while having maximum strength - until they can do this the human outfights them.

 

[transtemporal]

You'd have to ask my players that

LOL!

On a serious point, I personally feel that feats are scaled so as to be a worthy pick for a character of level 4 or above; making them a level 1 choice is overpowering in my opinion. I think the variant option is just included as a nod to hard-core 3.x players who would otherwise miss it.

That's a fair point. If I was still DM, I'd be saying the same thing probably... but as a player I love the dirty thrill of an overpowered option!

 

[dbm]

I think in the medium to longer term the variant human is a wash - you are giving up 2 feats worth of stat advance, but in stats which you might not care about, to get one feat and a skill. It sounds like a fair trade mechanically.

But in the short term I still think a feat is a chunky bit of capability and so out of scale with other first level abilities. I will be sticking with the standard human option for the time being.

Finally, I think this is a campaign decision rather than an individual character decision; I would use one option or the other consistently for all humans. I wouldn't allow players to pick or choose between the two options, it is a racial bonus after all, and the race is the race once it is defined.