[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.

 

[Hussar]

Feats? Some? None? A few? For one?

As always, like in life, playing well with others is learning to respect their rules - in D&D, for our lot a least, its about respecting the rules of the table.

Nobody should be forced to accept someone else's playstyle. And nobody should be forced to play a way they don't want to. If folks aren't happy with a table's rules, they're welcome to find another or even start their own table.

...and if the table is the only one in town? Well, beggars & choosers! Sometimes life doesn't give us the luxury of being fussy - just got to adapt or move on.

And, really, with the numbers of gamers on VTT platforms, the argument of "only game in town" rings pretty hollow. Finding a group that fits your playstyle isn't all that hard anymore.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Question: Should a Human without feats take a speed and or dex penalty? I mean, walking on your ankle stumps has got to be difficult.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I stopped reading this thread 20 pages ago (about the time it started to feel like something out of the worst of the old WotC forums) and I apologize if someone already posted this, but at https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/03/09/a-majority-of-dd-characters-dont-use-feats/, Jeremy says that feats aren't going away and:

"My conclusion is that there's room for characters with feats and there's room for characters without them, and we'll continue to make room for both types of characters." and "My interpretation is this: different players like different things, and we’ll continue to support play styles of various sorts."

 

[MoonSong]

Here's a list of MAD or DAD classes, that thusly discourage taking feats:
Barbarian
Monk
Paladin

On top of that, here's a list of spellcasters, which also benefit ASIs over feats:
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Sorcerer
Warlock
Wizard

Out of 12 classes, 9 strongly discourage taking a feat before level 12. The other 3 don't exactly dislike an ASI. I wonder if this skews the data at all? [/sarcasm]

Sorcerer really benefits from Magic Initiate, IMO

I stopped reading this thread 20 pages ago (about the time it started to feel like something out of the worst of the old WotC forums) and I apologize if someone already posted this, but at https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/03/09/a-majority-of-dd-characters-dont-use-feats/, Jeremy says that feats aren't going away and:

"My conclusion is that there's room for characters with feats and there's room for characters without them, and we'll continue to make room for both types of characters." and "My interpretation is this: different players like different things, and we’ll continue to support play styles of various sorts."

But this is page 13!!, T-Tcould it be that too many people have me on their blocklist?

 

[Sunseeker]

But this is page 13!!, T-Tcould it be that too many people have me on their blocklist?

I'm sure it won't make you feel better, but it's page 26 for me.

 

[Yunru]

Page 27 forme. Pretty sure it varies on more than just hidden posts.

 

[Leatherhead]

But this is page 13!!, T-Tcould it be that too many people have me on their blocklist?

It's page 14 for me. but I have 20 posts per page instead of 10.

 

[Starfox]

I've skimmed the thread, not read it.

My subjective stance on this: If I played 5E and feats was an option, I'd be likely to pick one the first chance I had and then go for ability score increases (that't the other option, right?). Feats are great for distinguishing characters, giving them identity. But feats that grant micro bonuses, like Weapon Focus in 3E/Pathfinder, are mostly an annoyance. To have an opt-out replacement for feats is a good idea.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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 seems like an interesting point but I do wonder if they have good enough data to really support it, especially given how circumstantial "powerful" can be with a race, and how many people play the non-"big three" races (all of which, I would argue, are in fact fairly solid-to-powerful races, especially when combined with stereotypical class selections) relative to the others.

I mean, just look at any guide to classes - which races are at the top for that class or subclass varies wildly. So how can one say "X race is powerful but no-one picks it!", really?

I think there are issues which make this more complex than it's being represented as.

1) 5E does not have the insanely huge power variations between races that previous editions often had. It's hard to think of any 5E races so strong that they're head and shoulders ahead of other alternatives. Instead they're just slightly better. This is good work in most senses - people should be choosing what they want to choose, but equally it calls into question strong assertions re: power.

2) Aesthetics is indeed the dominant factor, but that doesn't mean that power doesn't factor in significantly. It's just that it will be secondary and purely negative. As discussed, 5E largely lacks "OMG I MUST PLAY THIS"-type races in terms of power (even post-Xanathar, most racial feats are niche and non-humans are less likely to have feats anyway). In 2E, for example, you saw people picking "uncool" races because they had +1 STR and a 19 max, for example, because having 19 strength was completely insane compared to even 18/XX, let alone for classes with no access to 18/XX. Or a dubious 2E race would have a ton of spells or abilities built in, which would make way more people keen on it than otherwise. Again 5E has nothing like that (you have to pay a feat to access cool spells, and they're still usually toned-down from 2E).

Anyway point is, because of the power-differential being lower, the value of aesthetics is relatively higher. But decent aesthetics are easy to get, and it's easy to find races which combine decent aesthetics with strong relevance for your class. Thus I would argue any race with good aesthetics but poor mechanics is likely getting shoved to the bottom of the barrel.

3) The vast differential in terms of access to races probably really limits the data on anything not in the PHB. What I'd be interested to know, really, is are there, say, more halflings or gnomes out there than races which are only in paid books? Because I have a suspicion that there may be, say, more variant-Tieflings or non-PHB variant-elves out there than gnomes, at all, for example. And if only 1% or 5% of D&D players even have access to a race or race-variant, would you even be able to statistically determine if power factored in? Especially trying to factor in class suitability.

I guess what I'm saying is, in the end, it's probably true to say they can't see a correlation between power and popularity, but I think that's because such a correlation would be tremendously hard to detect in 5E, not because it isn't there at all. Further, I think jumping from "we can't see a correlation" to "people are all about literary and cinematic models" and so on is not something you could even support with data. I am incredibly skeptical that dwarves are popular because they have good literary or cinematic models, or even great aesthetics. I'm pretty sure they're popular because they have decent aesthetics, and abilities which whilst not necessarily actually that great, tend to leap off the page at people (it's pretty hard to say no to +2 STR and CON as a Fighter, for example, even if the armour and weapon proficiencies are irrelevant to you).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One does wonder about the validity of the research. If this was science, the research methods would have to be published and peer reviewed, for good reason.

Of the two active groups I play in currently, the racial breakdown of the player characters is this:

2 halflings (can't remember subraces)
2 genasi (one air, one fire)
1 half orc
1 half elf
1 gnome
1 goliath
1 kenku
1 human (standard)