D&D 5E Humans: should they have any racial ability bonuses?

[Horwath]

Now humans get +1 to all abilities.

But humans always were starting point in comparison to other races from abilities standpoint.

Yes in 5e you could argue that not getting +1 to an ability is a penalty, +1 is average and +2 is above average.

But, I do not like that everyone has to get +1 or +2.

Also I know that racials penalties(in 99% of cases) will not come back.


So...how to make humans with no racial bonuses to abilities?


Humans are described as adaptive and oportunistic and quick learners.


1; Games with feats

Racial traits: you gain two feats,
Languages: common, plus one extra language.

simple, elegant, and with right feat(s) you can get 16 in one ore two scores at 1st level.


2; games without feats,

Racial traits; 2 bonus skill proficiencies, extra saving throw proficiency, proficiency in death saving throws, 2 bonus proficiencies in tools or weapons,
Languages; common, 2 extra languages,

 

[Shiroiken]

I liked having humans as the baseline, with other races having bonuses and penalties, but that philosophy has fallen out of favor. Of course, I also think the cap on ability scores should have been 18 instead of 20, so what do I know?

It's probably easier to just remove the standard human, using only the variant Human instead. Giving Humans a variable racial bonus still works, or you have human ethnicity with set bonuses (for example, a seafaring folk might have +Dex and Int).

 

[Coroc]

A human is perfect as it is. The attributes allow for any class which is the humans shtick.
The variant with starting feat is the human learning faster also a human speciality.

Do not forget that non human races get all sorts of other goodies like darkvision,luck staelth,prof in perception, charm resistance etc.

You cannot compensate for that by just giving prof in some more skills, heck i would say even if you would give human prof in every skill it will not compensate the loss of atribute boon.

And it also would devalue classes who can get more skills.

The better saving throws were a Thing for other races all the time and never a humans speciality nor is it anywhere reasonably to explain fluffwise why humans should excel in saving throws.

 

[Yama Dai O]

Now humans get +1 to all abilities.

But humans always were starting point in comparison to other races from abilities standpoint.

I agree that for that reason, human should not get racial ability bonuses, or bonus anythings really... but this is from a racial concept point of view. On the other hand, human PCs should probably be balanced with PCs of other races, so as not to penalize those players who want a human character. The problem is that conceptually there is very little there to base human racial benefits on.

I have been brooding on this for a while now and have come up with a few solutions, none of which I am entirely sure I like.

Option one: Grant favorless and flexible bonuses (ability bonuses, bonus skils or feats) to human PCs only, purely for game balance. The non-heroic rest of the human race must do without and are the racial baseline.

Option two: Concept-wise, by picking a race other than human you effectively pick a special sort of background for your character, then you add a Background on top of that. If you pick human, you effectively pick vanilla. So an easy solution is to give humans two backgrounds, the standard one that everyone gets and one that compensates both mechanically and conceptually, giving human PCs a bit of extra flavor.

Option three: Humans are supposed to be fast learners, so give them a bonus level; shift the entire xp row on the character advancement table down by one line. Possibly, have them start at level one and get to level two at 100 xp or so. This benefit might be too powerful and make humans too appealing; a toned down approach could be to rework the xp table for humans so they are about half a level ahead.

Option four: Humans are supposed to be adaptive, so give them a bonus level when they first multiclass; one level goes into their existing class, one level goes into the new class.

 

[Horwath]

hmm, no bonuses and extra level?

That is something to think about...

 

[Caliban]

Humans used to suck because they weren't good at anything. Now they don't suck because they are good at everything.

Don't make humans suck again.

 

[CapnZapp]

The fact humans get +1 to everything can alternatively be described as everyone else getting -1 to everything.

Which is a much more popular way of implementing racial penalties than actual minuses.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I really liked 4e essential humans. They got the ability to take a +3 bonus to every d20 roll once per short rest. A powerful ability that offsets not having a +2 bonus to your main ability.
Chosing when to get +3 to hit is often more reliable than a +1 more to attack. Especially useful if you happen to have more than one attack stat or you are doing a crucial saving theow.
And if I remember correctly, there is a feat in UA to get that racial ability back. A variant human can have that at level 1.

 

[Blue]

Now humans get +1 to all abilities.

But humans always were starting point in comparison to other races from abilities standpoint.

Yes in 5e you could argue that not getting +1 to an ability is a penalty, +1 is average and +2 is above average.

But, I do not like that everyone has to get +1 or +2.

Also I know that racials penalties(in 99% of cases) will not come back.


So...how to make humans with no racial bonuses to abilities?

The 27 points for Point Buy is a number picked because of how it balances with the racial modifiers. In most cases +2/+1 and racial abilities is stronger than +1 to all, but not in all. (I think the variant human does a disservice to the standard human by being noticably stronger so the standard human isn't much of an option.)

Now, removing human +1s will change the expectations of ability mods for humans. It will become less after 12th level in a general sort of way if you assume that normally without feats the first two ASIs bring your primary ability score to 20 and the 3rd helps something else, in this case it would take two plus half of a third. So they'd be behind in ability score mod until then. Not that that helps all of he other ability scores used for skills, AC, HPs, whatever.

Perhaps that's where you could balance - instead of +1 to all ability scores, give humans +1 to Proficiency. Their trained skills and attack are half a point higher, their untrained skills and damage are half a point lower. They have a slightly higher cap then everyone else once they reach a 20 ability score, but it's longer to get there.

 

[The Old Crow]

I think the idea of humans as baseline went out the window decades ago. When I started playing, humans got no bonuses or penalties to stats, and they could be any class and reach high levels. Demihumans got bonuses and minuses to stats, and special abilities, and it was "balanced" by being excluded from various classes and restricted to lower levels in others. It was poor balance, mind you, as humans tended to suck at low levels, but demitihumans sucked after they hit their level limits.

Another problem is there always seems to end up being forty flavors of elf and about a hundred other races to choose from, making any combination of stat adds one wants to shoot for easy to get. Human baseline is pretty pointless when they are just one of a giant collection of races that occupies a world.

I can't say I like either the standard or the variant human. I allowed feats in my newest campaign, and used an all odd stat array for character creation, but still nobody picked standard human. There was one elf and two variant humans. I don't find the variant humans to be overpowered, just interesting enough that they overcome being shorted out of a +1. I expect any nonhuman will eventually outstrip them in mid to high levels. Which is the same bad design from 1e, power early in exchange for less power later.

I would like a third choice for humans, one that gets attribute bonuses comparable to the others, and actual features that are not feats. That is today's baseline.