[UPDATED] Most D&D Players Prefer Humans - Without Feats!

I've played in games that don't allow multiclassing, but never games that don't allow feats. Go figure.

 

[Horwath]

Feats are not popular with players simply because 9 out of 10 times ASI for primary ability is better.

After you boost primary to 20, you can talk about feats, but that is 12th level and vast majority of campaigns end well before that.

One thing what bothers me is that ASI and feats share resources.

They should be on separate counter.


I even thought about idea of removing ASIs and racial ability bonuses(little bit of tweaking will be done to some races) and use bumped up default array and having only feats for ASIs.

Array would be for all characters: 18,16,14,14,12,10. No later ability increases(except through magic items)

 

[abirdcall]

This is the same forum that argued against 5e doing well despite having Amazon sales rankings available.

So it is no surprise that people continue in this vein.

Something to keep in mind - there are over 10 million active 5e players.

 

[Hussar]

I'm of the opposite opinion.

Take a feat (AND an extra skill), where the extra feat is perfect for your PC (because you chose it to be) and may even give you a +1 to your primary, secondary or tertiary stat...

OR

...at the cost of a feat and a skill, add +1 to each of the 3 or 4 stats that you don't care about?

No contest. Variant human wins (almost) every time. In fact, the only time I would consider a non-variant human is if I want a barbarian, and forced to use point-buy, and want three 16s at first level, so my stats are 16/16/16/9/9/9.

But even then I would probably choose a feat that added +1 to one of the three physical stats, because 16/16/16/9/9/9 is objectively worse than 16/16/16/8/8/8 with an extra skill and half feat.

What I find curious is that the two claims (humans are the most common PC race, most play without feats) seem to be contradictory (for 5e, anyway) because humans are the only race that can start with a feat.

Some possible explanations:-

* perhaps most D&D players in the world are new to the game and haven't started to read all the game mechanics or realised the possible combinations, so they (foolishly) play non-variant humans

* some DMs don't like feats, so their players aren't allowed to like use them either

* feats are rarely available because they are once every 4 levels (rarer for most multi-class PCs), and there is evolutionary pressure to make your main stat 20 and most games end at low levels

* JC's data includes many/all editions of D&D, so the editions that never had feats dilute the data

In my current campaign my PC is the only human; the rest are: wood elf, tiefling, dragonborn.

In my last campaign, my PC was an aasimar who looked/disguised himself as a human; the rest were: gnome, shield dwarf, tabaxi, kenku.

A friend at work has heard of D&D for a while, and her son just offered to run her first game. She's going to play a tiefling cleric. As you can tell, optimisation is not a factor. Nor are the rest of the game mechanics to be honest. If newer players don't care much about the mechanics then feats won't matter to them.

I ADORE players like you. Three 9's? Hope you like failing skill checks and saving throws regularly. Because, guaranteed, I'm going to beat you like a pinata for that choice. Makes challenging the character ridiculously easy. Oh, you dumped statted Wis? Fantastic, every exploration pillar segment sees you riding the pines and you're guaranteed to see hold person spells coming your way. Makes DMing so easy when you gift wrap characters like that.

Personally, I think I'll go with JC's explanation. Most players play to concept, rather than mechanics, and choose to make their characters without trying to min/max their way into some sort of one trick pony. Or, perhaps, their DM's aren't softballing the campaigns and making every encounter perfectly tailored to the PC's strengths and those other stats that you "don't care about" come up regularly.

The idea that it's "foolish" to play standard humans is hillarious. Hrm, players are making characters with giant holes in their competency? FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

 

[Immoralkickass]

What is JC smoking? I went to a session 0 yesterday, and almost everyone rolled vhuman with Sharpshooter feats.

 

[ccs]

Older editions of D&D had no natural way to increase your ability scores, so if they wanted to appease old school players, ASIs would be optional too.

But they don't need to appease us. Because we were always eager & willing to increase our scores.
As of 3e+ we just don't have* to cheat, invent ever crazier dice rolling methods, or jump though flaming hoops during play to do it. Just gaining XP will suffice.

Note, I said we don't have to, not that we don't.

 

[Lylandra]

Now I wonder if people used more feats if they were not a replacement for a thing characters would have gotten on top of feats: ASIs. Especially in an edition where players tend to default to a standard array.
Now it often feels like only fighters (and rogues) have enough ASIs to buff their ability scores and also take a feat or two without feeling gutted.

 

[Li Shenron]

• With data from more than one edition of D&D, I can confidently say that people play more humans, elves, and dwarves than all other races combined. No matter how powerful we've made other race options, this fact hasn't changed. Story & aesthetics often appeal more than power.
• Want to know which D&D race is played more than any other? Humans, by far.
• The popularity of humans, elves, and dwarves has been true for multiple editions of D&D, regardless of game mechanics, regardless of the rules for organized play, and regardless of what the competing racial options have been.

Speaking from my own little perspective, I have always witnessed the same, but said perspective is of a player/DM who mostly played with friends who are fairly casual gamers, or at least very rarely hardcore gamers, and countless times I've have players at their very first experience.

To me it seems that whenever someone plays D&D for the first time, the choice of race is first of all a matter of "am I going to play a human or something else?", and only afterward it's a question of what else. No surprise that the first question already directs a lot of beginners towards not even looking at the non-human options. And the answer to the second question is of course more frequently a race that people are already familiar with through movies and computer games, LOTR and WOW have certainly gone a long way teaching what "elf" and "dwarf" can mean in a fantasy game.

So these general statistics don't surprise me at all, even if I don't know how much of them are based off beginners rather than long-time players.

• We have never witnessed a correlation between (a) power in the game and (b) which races are most popular. Story, aesthetics, characterization, literary and cinematic models—most often those drive the choice, rather than which options are perceived to be most powerful.

This is also very typical in my own experience. Casual gamers and beginners do not know or understand the rules yet to be able to compare character choices in terms of power, so they choose by rule of cool. It doesn't necessarily mean that they don't want to also learn to make more powerful choices, but simply that they realize there is no time to do that before they start playing.

But also, races aren't exactly the primary source of character power. Some editions encourage "combos" to leverage ability score bonuses, but beyond that, the choice of race has a diminishing importance as the character goes up in level.

• Another piece of D&D data: a majority of D&D characters don't use feats. Many players love the customization possible with feats, but a larger group of players is happy to make characters without feats. Feats are, therefore, not a driving force behind many players' choices.

This is less clear to me. Quite certainly, each feat is a minor element of character design compared to the choice of class, even tho some feats have the potential to steer the character towards certain tactics and so they can really change the PC's behaviour during the adventures. But they still don't suggest to the average player the same level of characterization that the 3 "big" choices provide (even tho my personal belief is that the Background delivers a lot more narrative feel than functional abilities, we have to keep in mind that such 'feel' can be a lot more important to the player).

However, why players would choose ASI instead of feats is complicated for me to summarize, there are lots of possible reasons, and even contraddictive ones (there's always people arguing that ASI are 'obviously' more powerful, and other people arguing that feats are 'obviously' more powerful and even game-breaking, at least if you pick the best ones). The increased character complexity, the added narrative, the fiddly bits, the specialization effect etc. which a feat brings, could all be either wanted or unwanted consequences, depending on the player, so who can speak for everyone?

But we also have to keep in mind that many beginners and casual gamers never play long enough to ever have to make the choice, and this affects the statistics but again, we don't know how much.

• Most D&D players make their primary character-building choices based on a character's fantasy archetype, backstory, personality, appearance, and place in the world. To flesh out those things, players are usually satisfied with choosing race, class/subclass, and background.

Mmm... kind of a self-defining sentence here Their primary choices are of course those "big 3" each one carries plenty of details and abilities already. Choice of spells, equipment, feats and class-specific abilities are secondary by definition because they are individual, smaller choices.

 

[FrogReaver]

I've played a standard human, and liked it.

I am currently playing a PC that chose a feat at 4th level, and I regret it. It's a great feat (Shield Mastery) but it's just not coming up often enough to make it worth it or interesting for me. I thought it would be a common thing that was useful and flavorful, but the reality has been that knocking things down tends to make our ranged attackers pissed that they now get disadvantage to hit that foe, and knocking them back just hasn't been helpful most of the time, and the dex save benefits rarely come up. I wish I had taken the ASI, which would have come up just about every single combat and many non-combat encounters as well.

And the feat I originally was planning to choose (Polearm Master) would have been a disaster despite being considered a "powerful" feat. We've never found a single magical polearm during our adventures, either as treasure or for sale, and the number of creatures resistant to non-magical damage is so high that the feat would have been a real disappointment.

I can see that others may have, over time, come to the conclusion that feats are often just not as good as they look on paper

All I want to say is.... I CALLED THIS. Nothing more. Continue on.

 

[FrogReaver]

I ADORE players like you. Three 9's? Hope you like failing skill checks and saving throws regularly. Because, guaranteed, I'm going to beat you like a pinata for that choice. Makes challenging the character ridiculously easy. Oh, you dumped statted Wis? Fantastic, every exploration pillar segment sees you riding the pines and you're guaranteed to see hold person spells coming your way. Makes DMing so easy when you gift wrap characters like that.

Personally, I think I'll go with JC's explanation. Most players play to concept, rather than mechanics, and choose to make their characters without trying to min/max their way into some sort of one trick pony. Or, perhaps, their DM's aren't softballing the campaigns and making every encounter perfectly tailored to the PC's strengths and those other stats that you "don't care about" come up regularly.

The idea that it's "foolish" to play standard humans is hillarious. Hrm, players are making characters with giant holes in their competency? FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

Not that this is the topic of discussion but it's worth brining up due to your post. I just want to point out that a character is going to have 1 fairly low stat regardless of anything the player does. If you as a DM plan on targeting low character stats then it doesn't really matter if you have 1 low stat or 3 low stats. You are boned either way.

 

[ccs]

Feats are not popular with players simply because 9 out of 10 times ASI for primary ability is better.

Depends upon your age/experience & the character you envision.

After you boost primary to 20, you can talk about feats, but that is 12th level and vast majority of campaigns end well before that.

Oh I disagree 100%+. If feats are allowed, then each time you're eligible you should make the choice that will best represent your character & how you see them developing.
Character =/= class.
So sometimes that'll be an ASI. Other times it might be a feat. And if it's an ASI? That doesn't mean it'll go into whatever your classes primary stat is.

For ex: My 1/2ling Warlock Bree. Her Charisma is not maxed out. This has not proven a problem.
*At 4th lv I took Magic Initiate to represent her patron teaching her some additional tricks . Tricks not found on the warlock spell list but that both help her & further the patrons goals.
The next time she lvs up will be to 8th.
*By your logic I should raise my Cha. And should've raised it at 4th. This however would be the least effective & least interesting thing I could do.
*In her two years of adventuring she's learned a good deal. Not really on the intelligence side, more on the wisdom side. Very much like a child learning not to touch hot stoves, etc. No, wait, it's exactly like that. She's becoming wiser. Not doing (as many) foolish things. Thinking more before acting. Realizing her actions have consequences.
*She's also proven surprisingly adept at Medicine checks to stabilize people. Plenty of natural 20s. You need a combat medic, apparently you want Bree.... Play seems to suggest the Healer feat.

At 8th lv she's going to get one of these: +2 Wis OR the Healer feat.
She'll get the other at 12th - unless 4 more lvs of play reveal/require something else of her....
So the question is; do I feel she's learned enough to warrant that wisdom bump at 8th? Atm I'm thinking no, not yet.

I even thought about idea of removing ASIs and racial ability bonuses(little bit of tweaking will be done to some races) and use bumped up default array and having only feats for ASIs.

Array would be for all characters: 18,16,14,14,12,10. No later ability increases(except through magic items)

Bleh. Forced Array + no racial mods? Could I just roll the dice instead? Or replace some of those scores with lower #s if I thought that'd better represent my character? Because I don't suffer stat envy, & I really don't want to be a clone.