This was my initial thought when I read the playtest document. It is one way to reinforce Humans as all-rounders, and it gives them a niche: they become the best race for MAD builds/classes.
[Playtest 2] Races: Humans too good?
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
This was my initial thought when I read the playtest document. It is one way to reinforce Humans as all-rounders, and it gives them a niche: they become the best race for MAD builds/classes.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
We rolled up some characters last night. I had my 5 players roll 2 sets and pick the set they liked best (that's how I usually do it). A strong majority of the sets had no more than 3 stats that started out odd - the sort of stat where the human's +1s generate a bonus to results. I don't think that's outlandish as far as racial benefits go and my players pretty much agreed.
One set had all odd results out of the 10 generated. That character would have benefited significantly from the human's stat bonuses. Of course, they're quite unlikely to be all 17s or 15s. 13s, 11s, and 9s would be more likely - so again, not that big a deal.
But I think most of us agreed that +2 to one stat, +1 to all others would be far too good in a point buy system. The player could probably engineer all (or mostly) odd stats in his array before applying the bonus and have the equivalent of several extra points in stats. It might be possible to set up the point values that this isn't significantly rewarded, but that seems unlikely.
I think this is one instances where a mechanic isn't perceived as unbalanced in a stat rolling world but problematic in a point buy one.
One set had all odd results out of the 10 generated. That character would have benefited significantly from the human's stat bonuses. Of course, they're quite unlikely to be all 17s or 15s. 13s, 11s, and 9s would be more likely - so again, not that big a deal.
But I think most of us agreed that +2 to one stat, +1 to all others would be far too good in a point buy system. The player could probably engineer all (or mostly) odd stats in his array before applying the bonus and have the equivalent of several extra points in stats. It might be possible to set up the point values that this isn't significantly rewarded, but that seems unlikely.
I think this is one instances where a mechanic isn't perceived as unbalanced in a stat rolling world but problematic in a point buy one.
Well, D&D Next is going to need an option for point buy, A large segment of the D&D playing population uses point buy, and sometimes those people play in groups that roll their stats. So if +1 to 5 stats, +2 to primary doesn't work for point buy, then this is the knockout punch. However well it works for the D&D playtest packet, it doesn't work in the long term and the designers have to go back to the drawing board.
I would argue that 3rd edition humans were one of the strongest core races, that extra feat was absolutely huge.
I found that to be situational, which is also how the Human stat bumps in DDN appear unbalancing so far. I dislike poison, for example, and rarely (if ever) use it. Suddenly one of the Dwarf "balancing" features is useless. Should I "have" to start using poisons to keep my game balanced? If I do use a fair amount of poison already, then that's a valuable feature.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
When Races of hit, they became extremely uber, a human with able learner became basically a skill god, double if he started rogue then moved into his main class (triple if said class was wizard and quadruple if said wizard specialized on conjuration)
Crazy Jerome
First Post
In the first playtest, hit points started high. In the second one, they seemed to have gone for the opposite extreme (with the survivor specialty as a big exception). So to split the difference, what about adding an extra hit die by race? Humans can be second to dwarves, in that they are fairly resilient. Maybe this gets better as the character levels? Maybe it doesn't add to the hit point total, only provides extra recovery?
That doesn't solve all the issues, as dwarves are already pretty good. It does shake things up a bit. Perhaps there are similar "scalable" changes that can be introduced to each race that would help? Plus, I just like the flavor of elves and gnomes as getting their toughness by Con and class, but the run-of-the-mill versions flinch when you get a little dirt on them.
That doesn't solve all the issues, as dwarves are already pretty good. It does shake things up a bit. Perhaps there are similar "scalable" changes that can be introduced to each race that would help? Plus, I just like the flavor of elves and gnomes as getting their toughness by Con and class, but the run-of-the-mill versions flinch when you get a little dirt on them.
