D&D 5E Half-Elves are taking over my game! (Or are Humans underpowered?)

[Xeviat]

Hi all. Yet again, my wife has made a half-elf character. Looking back, half-elves have been the most picked race in my 5E games. On our vacation, we put together some quick characters for a one-shot and it made me take a long look at the half-elf.

Half-Elf

• Your Charisma score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Skill Versatility. You gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and one extra language of your choice.

Pathfinder 2 did a nifty thing where the half-humans were presented as subraces of Human. And that got me really looking at their differences.

Variant Human

• 2 different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You gain one feat of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice.

If you do a little linguistic math, you get the following differences:

Human

• You gain one feat of your choice

vs Half-Elf

• Your Charisma increases by 2
• Darkvision
• Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Elvish.

That's … clearly a bit much for a feat, especially considering Charisma +2 is already worth a feat.

Even without the +2 Charisma, it might be a worthwhile feat. Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, a skill proficiency, and Elvish might be a bit much. A skill proficiency is 1/3rd of a feat. A language is like 1/8th of a feat. Darkvision and Fey Ancestry are difficult to weigh.

I'm not sure what to do with this view, though. I've long thought Humans should get a bit of a buff. Maybe Half-Elves should get a bit of a nerf too. It might just be because Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks have been popular at my table, but I'm seeing too many Half-Elves and not enough humans.

What do you think?

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure it is a mechanical thing. Half-elves are one of the weakest races mechanically in my homebrew version of 3.0e, and yet I get tons of them.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hi all. Yet again, my wife has made a half-elf character. Looking back, half-elves have been the most picked race in my 5E games. On our vacation, we put together some quick characters for a one-shot and it made me take a long look at the half-elf.

Half-Elf

• Your Charisma score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Skill Versatility. You gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, and one extra language of your choice.

Pathfinder 2 did a nifty thing where the half-humans were presented as subraces of Human. And that got me really looking at their differences.

Variant Human

• 2 different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
• Medium-sized.
• Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You gain one feat of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice.

If you do a little linguistic math, you get the following differences:

Human

• You gain one feat of your choice

vs Half-Elf

• Your Charisma increases by 2
• Darkvision
• Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
• You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
• You can speak, read, and write Elvish.

That's … clearly a bit much for a feat, especially considering Charisma +2 is already worth a feat.

Even without the +2 Charisma, it might be a worthwhile feat. Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, a skill proficiency, and Elvish might be a bit much. A skill proficiency is 1/3rd of a feat. A language is like 1/8th of a feat. Darkvision and Fey Ancestry are difficult to weigh.

I'm not sure what to do with this view, though. I've long thought Humans should get a bit of a buff. Maybe Half-Elves should get a bit of a nerf too. It might just be because Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks have been popular at my table, but I'm seeing too many Half-Elves and not enough humans.

What do you think?

Totally agree that RAW half-elves are the best race overall for features. Sure, the feat at level 1 IS huge, no denying that, but with everything you get a half-elf is easily a contender.

The only change we made to half-elf is to remove Darkvision. Too many races have it IMO. It makes half-elves still appealing, but now elves and other races are more thought of because darkvision is a big deal in our game.

Here is a homebrew/ house-rule hlaf-elf we used for a long time. Basically, the player chooses some features of either human or elf:

At this time, I will explain some options that aren't RAW:

Incredible Determination gave you proficiency in a saving throw.
Shadowsight is a weaker form of Darkvision. You see normally in Dim light, but Darkness is still Darkness.

So, with "Half-Elf Heritage", you picked two of the six options for your character.

 

[Don Durito]

I think variant humans are competitive, but perhaps less obviously so.

I was attracted to half-elves initially but over time have decided that...
The two skill trainings are overvalued. Simple proficiency doesn't do that much and often you get enough skills overall that you cover what you feel is important for your character.
The feat is undervalued. I think feats are more attractive to martial classes, but casters tend to undervalue what they can get from some feats such as 'Lucky'.

They are still obviously very good. One game we played recently was 3 Half-Elves and 2 humans.

Because half-elves can choose two of their stat bumps they can fit a lot of character concepts well. There are also too many classes that use Charisma as a main ability.

Races that are basically human + (something to add a little bit more interest) will always appeal to players who don't have strong preferences to play something non-human.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's because they are good for any charisma based classes. Those classes tend to be good.

Other races often get useless stuff. For example racial weapon and armor proficiency are a bit useless.

 

[Monayuris]

In my experience, if you don't use feats, no one will ever play a human.

Half-Elves are very good. Combine them with a high skill class and they can be proficient in a ton of skills. 5E is built from the ground up to favor non-human / non-traditional classes.

 

[Prakriti]

Half-elves wouldn't be so much of a problem if Charisma weren't so powerful in 5E. Aside from dominating an entire pillar of the game (Socialization), it is also the primary ability score for three classes (Warlock, Sorcerer, and Bard) and relevant to a few others (Paladin most of all). I miss the days when Charisma was more of a tertiary ability, marginally useful in a few areas of the game, but granting few, if any, mechanical benefits.

 

[ccs]

I don't think you really need to redesign the 1/2elf (or the human).
Instead? Just limit access to 1/2elf in the next game you run.
Say that elves rarely, if ever, produce offspring with non-elves. And thus 1/2elves are extremely rare. As in as soon as & as long as you have one 1/2elf in the party, that's it. No more.
If it becomes necessary to replace that character? Roll a dice. 1 = 1/2Elf is available. 2+ = Sorry, no 1/2elves are available at this time. The next time a character needs replacing? If there's no 1/2elf in the party, roll the dice. 1= 2+ =

 

[Xeviat]

I don't think you really need to redesign the 1/2elf (or the human).
Instead? Just limit access to 1/2elf in the next game you run.
Say that elves rarely, if ever, produce offspring with non-elves. And thus 1/2elves are extremely rare. As in as soon as & as long as you have one 1/2elf in the party, that's it. No more.
If it becomes necessary to replace that character? Roll a dice. 1 = 1/2Elf is available. 2+ = Sorry, no 1/2elves are available at this time. The next time a character needs replacing? If there's no 1/2elf in the party, roll the dice. 1= 2+ =

I'd rather rebalance the half elf and human. Maybe the half-elf needs a little nerf. I really feel the human could use a little buff too. We do play with feats and humans are extremely uncommon.