[Playtest 2] Races: Humans too good?

[Transformer]

Dunno if anyone has pointed it out yet, but even if humans aren't too bad right now, wait until we get some kind of point buy. They're gonna be ridiculous. Throw in standard 3.5 25 point buy, and you're gonna be seeing a whole heck of a lot of 15 13 13 13 9 9 (18 14 14 14 10 10) humans running around.

I'd be fine with most of the suggested fixes around here, e.g. "+2 to any one ability, +1 to any two abilities" or "+2 to any one ability, 1 free skill chosen from the background skill section."

 

[billd91]

Dunno if anyone has pointed it out yet, but even if humans aren't too bad right now, wait until we get some kind of point buy. They're gonna be ridiculous. Throw in standard 3.5 25 point buy, and you're gonna be seeing a whole heck of a lot of 15 13 13 13 9 9 (18 14 14 14 10 10) humans running around.

That's in line with my concerns as well. The +1 bonus to everything (except the one that gets +2) is going to be of variable value depending on the stats the player generates. For rolling dice, about half of the stats will probably benefit (though more could be or fewer). For the standard array, 2 stats benefit. For point buy under previous point buy systems, a player could engineer it so every stat benefits. That seems like a bad idea to me.

This strikes me as another example of mechanics that may balance just fine with rolled stats but doesn't balance with using point buy.

I also wonder about advancement. Will there be ways to raise scores as the character levels or finds magical gear? Will that make the the +1s that happened to be added to even scores matter?

 

[billd91]

And because ability scores used to represent human average, ok so now humans are better than their own average.

I agree, this does present a conceptual friction. It can be hand-waved a way, a bit, by saying that an adventuring human truly is exceptional among his kind. But wouldn't that be true of other races as well? And wouldn't the +1 to one stat and use of a fairly heroic array or the averages generated on 4d6-low pretty much indicate that anyway?

 

[Animal]

Humans didn't strike me as "to good". On the contrary i was more like "that's it?"
Looks more like last resort for those who rolled very low stats.

 

[Herschel]

It does make humans the most versatile in terms of places where they use weapons, for example. Where "demihumans" will need to use their racially-favored weapons to "keep up", humans can use whatever they want.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I would rather see the racially favoured weapons put into backgrounds:

Archetypal Elf or Raised by Elves
- Magical Lore
- Historical Lore
- Nature Lore
- Favour bows and swords

Archetypal Dwarf or Raised by Dwarves
- Craft
- Carouse
- Heraldic Lore
- Favour axes and hammers

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I know it's simple to implement by I don't like the Human ability modifier either. I really think instead Humans should have a more interesting racial ability.

Maybe something that allows them to call advantage on a roll often. Or an effective +1 bonus on a certain type of roll like saves only, but not the ability mods they have.

 

[Chronikoce]

I think one important thing to remember is that if I am reading the playtest correctly you can never raise an ability Score above 20 (through starting stats and leveling bonuses, I am honestly not sure if this applies to magical boosts).

I have no had a chance to play test the Human vs other races yet and I can see where the concern is coming from. My initial concern is that for a Point Buy game you could get way better stats than the other races. I think if you roll your stats then the Human bonus becomes less of an issue.

--EDIT--
That being said I have to agree with a lot of the previous posts that state it feels wrong. I just don't get why they went from Humans are versatile to Humans are physically and mentally superior.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Here's a radical but hardly original suggestion: Is it finally time to get rid of racial adjustments to stats altogether, and move them to class?

Not only does that remove at a stroke a severe source of balancing issues, it makes the characters easier to construct. Pick fighter, you get bonuses useful to fighter (Con and then either Str or Dex at your choice, maybe). If a player is serious about mucking with that, they probably have a character concept so off-beat that they'll be pulling tricks with point buy or a non-standard array, anyway. Then you might still have very modest adjustments for more exotic races. Getting +1 or +2 Str as a minotaur really shines when most races don't get anything like that.

We are almost there. +1 to one stat for all the non-humans? Take that last little leap. Surely we can come up with something better for humans? Come on in. The water's fine.

 

[Chronikoce]

Here's a radical but hardly original suggestion: Is it finally time to get rid of racial adjustments to stats altogether, and move them to class?

Not only does that remove at a stroke a severe source of balancing issues, it makes the characters easier to construct. Pick fighter, you get bonuses useful to fighter (Con and then either Str or Dex at your choice, maybe). If a player is serious about mucking with that, they probably have a character concept so off-beat that they'll be pulling tricks with point buy or a non-standard array, anyway. Then you might still have very modest adjustments for more exotic races. Getting +1 or +2 Str as a minotaur really shines when most races don't get anything like that.

We are almost there. +1 to one stat for all the non-humans? Take that last little leap. Surely we can come up with something better for humans? Come on in. The water's fine.

If they took the time to differentiate the classes through unique abilities and flavor I would be perfectly OK with this. It is always frustrating to have to choose a specific race because you play with power gamers and choosing the race/class combo you want would leave you too weak to be useful.