D&D 5E PHB Humans are the most mechanically boring race. How do we fix this?

[Kobold Stew]

Mechanically? Off the top of my head, give them 2 backgrounds. So you don't just have a Noble, you have a Noble Scholar. You don't just have a Criminal you have a Criminal Sailor (ie a Pirate).

I have no idea if that would work but I can think of a bunch of combos that don't seem overpowered but offer a lot of color.

This is my solution for fixing rogues....

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I figure that humans should be the best at multiclassing. The best way to do that is that the first time a human multiclasses and does not have an ability score that is the minimum needed to multiclass, they get a +2 to that score. Sure that isn't great at level 1, but it is a pretty standard fantasy trope that humans are late bloomers compared to other fantasy races, and suddenly being really dexterous when you add a level of rogue to your paladin at level 5 is pretty cool.

 

[Blue]

All of the races are boring mechanically. There left very little design space for races to have meaningful features. If the races had more they would both be an actual pillar of character design, like touted, and there would be enough that we could have non-standard races like large centaurs or tiny flying pixies and it would be fairly balanced against the opportunity cost of not getting everything a more common race gives.

And this is the problem with the human as well. They gave them a unique ability mod - no other race has +1 to every ability score, fantastic for MAD and some multiclassing. But to do that they had no design space left to give them anything more.

The variant human also had a unqiue ability until Tasha's, that of starting with a feat. That gave them unprecidented flexibility in expressing themselves as well as being quite powerful.

So fix the root cause - not enough design space for any of the races, and the human will naturally follow.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think the "good all arounder" concept would be served by a free choice extra skill or two, but basically I think they're fine. The core "problems" I think are that they are built in a way diametrically opposed to min-maxing and don't interact well with standard array. Naturally internet discussion, which is disproportionately dominated by min-maxers and which disproportionately disfavors rolling for stats, is never going to have a use for standard human, but they play fine.

 

[Lyxen]

Variant humans are too strong, because the feats are really the key to too many of the "builds" out there.

 

[ph0rk]

I am of the opinion that variant humans were probably meant to be humans and they painted themselves into a corner when they decided to make feats an optional rule. Once stuck there, they phoned in non-variant humans, and the result is... not good. How on earth don't they have a few extra proficiencies, at least? Maybe giving them two backgrounds would do the trick and track with a sort of human versatility angle that's pretty old school (the original dual-classers).

Two extra proficiencies and another set of background features wouldn't break the game, but would be pretty cool.

 

[DeviousQuail]

I created a variant human 2.0 for a futuristic game but it works for standard 5e with a couple modifications. Since humans were the only playable species I needed them to be more varied.

Spoiler: Spoiler for length

All humans start with two languages (common and a free pick). Then you choose up to 5 of the following options with a maximum point cost of 4. Cannot choose options that overlap (e.g. Impressive (Strength) and Superior (Strength) or multiple instances of Quick)

• Impressive, +2 to any attribute (2)
• Superior, +1 to any attribute (1)
• Inferior, -1 to any attribute (-1)
• Natural, prof with any skill (1)
• Expert, expertise with any skill (2)
• Incompetent, treat all rolls of 11-20 as a 10 with one skill (-1)
• Adapted eyesight, darkvision 30 feet (1)
• Quick, +5 movement speed (1)
• Responsive, +2 initiative (1)
• Slow, -5 movement speed (-1)
• Dull, -2 initiative (-1)
• Resilience, prof with a saving throw (2)
• Mutlilingual, learn an additional language (1)
• Monolingual, lose extra language from being human (-1)
• Basic Training, prof with two simple and two martial weapons (1)
• Adept, 1 wizard cantrip using Int (1)
• Magical Studies, learn a 1st-level wizard spell you can cast 1/LR (1)
• Devout, 1 cleric cantrip using Wis (1)
• Clerical Training, learn a 1st-level cleric spell you can cast 1/LR (1)

It'd be pretty easy to add or remove options based on the setting.

 

[Greg K]

Persnally, I would look at the following for ideas (I prefer the first two).
Ultimate Adaptability: Variant Humans for 5th Edition by Rich Howard (Tribality website);
Humans Redone by WinRar (Reddit/Unearthed Arcana) (GM Binder LInk);
Alternate Humans by AeronDrake (homebrewary link)
Alternate Humans by Acegiak (originally on Reddit, but his google drive link)

 

[ad_hoc]

I am of the opinion that variant humans were probably meant to be humans and they painted themselves into a corner when they decided to make feats an optional rule. Once stuck there, they phoned in non-variant humans, and the result is... not good. How on earth don't they have a few extra proficiencies, at least? Maybe giving them two backgrounds would do the trick and track with a sort of human versatility angle that's pretty old school (the original dual-classers).

Two extra proficiencies and another set of background features wouldn't break the game, but would be pretty cool.

Maybe someone who followed the play test more closely can chime in but reading the rules I don't get the vibe that it was designed for feats.

The rules are written from the perspective of assuming no optional rules.

I do think it was designed assuming rolling without thinking about the standard array. There was also likely a goal of having all of the stats more useful than they ended up being.

 

[guachi]

Soon after 5e came out I changed the bonuses to +2/+1/+1/+1/+1/+0 instead of 6 +1 for the base human. Also, changed the bonuses for non-humans from +2/+1 in the listed stats to +1/+1 and then add +1 wherever else the player wants. The only outlier is the Dwarf that gets +2/+2 and in that case it's +2/+1 with +1 wherever the player wants to a maximum of +2.