Variant human fix?

[clash]

So I see lots of times where people feel forced into the human variant race because of the starting feat. What do people think of the idea of making Human Determination from http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/RJSJC2017_04UASkillFeats_24v10.pdf the starting feat. Effectively replacing that ability with human determination. So Variant human would look like:

Ability Score Increase.
One ability score of your choice increases by 2(1 normal racial +1 from human determination)
One ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Skills.
You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Human Determination
Advantage on attack roll ability check or saving throw 1/short rest to paraphrase.

Would it still be on equal footing with other races. would it be too weak or unappealing or still too versatile?

[ZorroGames]

So I see lots of times where people feel forced into the human variant race because of the starting feat. What do people think of the idea of making Human Determination from http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/RJSJC2017_04UASkillFeats_24v10.pdf the starting feat. Effectively replacing that ability with human determination. So Variant human would look like:

Ability Score Increase.
One ability score of your choice increases by 2(1 normal racial +1 from human determination)
One ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Skills.
You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Human Determination
Advantage on attack roll ability check or saving throw 1/short rest to paraphrase.

Would it still be on equal footing with other races. would it be too weak or unappealing or still too versatile?

I like Variant human the way it is.

But then I almost excusively play Mountain Dwarf or Variant Human Fighters, Monks, Clerics.

Open to Hill Dwarf or even Gnome but those have not seen play in 5e yet.

[Chronos Flame]

I've lightly rewritten many of the races for my setting and did something similar with variant human. Pretty much as per the book but the only feat choice is Resilient.

[Kryx]

Here are my human traits:

Ability Score Increase. Your ability scores each increase by 1.
Determined. When you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can do so with advantage. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Varied. You gain an additional trait (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxGh_mU9ihaPNGQ3NkdQZnNKOEk) and proficiency in a skill of your choice.

Assuming you don't use traits either allow a second skill, another language, or half of a feat as your discretion.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Feels kind of weak, still. The problem with humans in D&D tends to be blandness-- because they don't have a homogenous default culture like elves or dwarves, and they don't have exotic features or heritage like dragonborn or tieflings, you don't have really have a good place to hang special abilities. You either get dull stuff like "+1 to all ability scores" or overly-strong "generic" options like bonus feats.

So, my suggestion would be to create human subraces for different major cultures or backgrounds. Maybe you have a Mariner Human, an Urban Human, and a Rural Human? A Starport Human, an Imperial Human, a Winterlands Human? (I don't know your setting)

-------

Also, if people feel forced into being vHumans because of the feat, have you tried letting everyone start with a feat?

[Saiga]

Feels kind of weak, still. The problem with humans in D&D tends to be blandness-- because they don't have a homogenous default culture like elves or dwarves, and they don't have exotic features or heritage like dragonborn or tieflings, you don't have really have a good place to hang special abilities. You either get dull stuff like "+1 to all ability scores" or overly-strong "generic" options like bonus feats.

So, my suggestion would be to create human subraces for different major cultures or backgrounds. Maybe you have a Mariner Human, an Urban Human, and a Rural Human? A Starport Human, an Imperial Human, a Winterlands Human? (I don't know your setting)

-------

Also, if people feel forced into being vHumans because of the feat, have you tried letting everyone start with a feat?

Planeshift: Innstrahd did that by having the subraces be variant humans with their stats/feat/skill determined by the region said human was from. I think that's the quickest way to do it while still being balanced (if you pick flavourful feats over GWM/SS that is).

[Tanarii]

Allow a different ability array of Humans. 15/15/13/11/9/8 is a good Humans-only array.

Obviously this only works if you're using standard array. (If you're rolling ability score after choosing Race & Class, per the PHB, non-variant Humans are already a good 'safe' bet for Race.)

[ZorroGames]

Allow a different ability array of Humans. 15/15/13/11/9/8 is a good Humans-only array.

Obviously this only works if you're using standard array. (If you're rolling ability score after choosing Race & Class, per the PHB, non-variant Humans are already a good 'safe' bet for Race.)

Interesting design. Hmm.

[Pex]

I like Variant human the way it is.

But then I almost excusively play Mountain Dwarf or Variant Human Fighters, Monks, Clerics.

Open to Hill Dwarf or even Gnome but those have not seen play in 5e yet.

This.

Let players play what they want to play, not what the DM wants them to play.

It's not just the feat that's important for the Variant Human. The extra skill proficiency is nice to have too. Skill and Feat are nice compensation for not having +2 to an ability score, nor darkvision, nor resistances, nor immunities, nor lots of nice things that other races get.

[Magikeeper]

Hrm, well for another system I went the route of magic resistance. Making humans the tough-against-magic race gives you something to hang special abilities on and doesn't contradict RL humans (who knows, maybe we're all resistant).

Granted, not sure how good an idea that is for the 5E system, but the general concept of "give humans something cool that RL humans would never notice they have on mundane Earth" could yield fruit.

[Specter]

They don't need fixing.

The only reason why this keeps being brought up is because people play mostly at low levels. At levels 1, 2 and 3, having a feat is what separates you from mortalkind. At 4, other races get a feat too and stop feeling left behind. At levels 12+, where everybody's boosted the stats they wanted to, VHumans are at best tying with most races and definitely losing to Mountain Dwarves and Half-Elves where they matter.

Plus, no darkvision. Yes, it hurts.

[Mjolnirbear]

"I am a kingly elf! I have roamed these woods for 200 years! I know a cantrip!"

"I am a proud dwarf and I have been alive more years than I can count! I can recognise who made this staircase and resist poison."

"I am an 18-year-old human. I have no idea what discipline is but somehow, I can shoot the wings off a fly at 300 feet. Just naturally awesome, I guess."

This is why all characters at my table get a feat at first level and there are no variant humans. There are other reasons, suck as important character concepts and playstyle locked in some feats, but this is enough for me.

[Specter]

"I am a kingly elf! I have roamed these woods for 200 years! I know a cantrip!"

"I am a proud dwarf and I have been alive more years than I can count! I can recognise who made this staircase and resist poison."

"I am an 18-year-old human. I have no idea what discipline is but somehow, I can shoot the wings off a fly at 300 feet. Just naturally awesome, I guess."

This is why all characters at my table get a feat at first level and there are no variant humans. There are other reasons, suck as important character concepts and playstyle locked in some feats, but this is enough for me.

Treantmonk's suggestion comes to mind: have humans get their feat at 4th level, not 1st.

[Easy_Lee]

When feats are rare, and many melee builds depend upon a specific feat (Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, Polearm Mastery), bonus feats become a big deal. And like the others said, low level play is far more common than high level play.

I don't think the variant human needs to be fixed. I think its popularity is a consequence of feats being so important to most melee DPR builds. If you want to fix something, I recommend you look at feats and their impact on melee DPR rather than at the variant human.

[Tanarii]

Let players play what they want to play, not what the DM wants them to play.
Let the DM design a coherent setting, and not have to deal with figuring out to fit in Dragonborn if they don't make sense in their setting. Or whatever. (Applies to classes, races, feats, multi classing, spells, whatever.)

OTOH I recently started a spin-off campaign in a setting that the vast majority are Humans, albeit from several very distinct cultures. I told the players this in the session 0 documents, but also made all humans Variant Humans. Specifically because that's an extremely powerful draw to play them. All but one players chose to be human, even though all races except Dragonborn and Tieflings available.

Edit:
Point being it's important as a DM to give players options, but be aware of what rulings you implement will affect their likely choices. Which is, of course, a general paradigm for DMing

[Pex]

Let the DM design a coherent setting, and not have to deal with figuring out to fit in Dragonborn if they don't make sense in their setting. Or whatever. (Applies to classes, races, feats, multi classing, spells, whatever.)

OTOH I recently started a spin-off campaign in a setting that the vast majority are Humans, albeit from several very distinct cultures. I told the players this in the session 0 documents, but also made all humans Variant Humans. Specifically because that's an extremely powerful draw to play them. All but one players chose to be human, even though all races except Dragonborn and Tieflings available.

Edit:
Point being it's important as a DM to give players options, but be aware of what rulings you implement will affect their likely choices. Which is, of course, a general paradigm for DMing

:smallsigh:

No, the player does not get to play a pirate ninja assassin in a game about the Holy Order Of Goody Two Shoes no matter how much he wants to. That should be obvious. If all the players want to be pirate ninja assassins, then the DM runs that campaign or has someone else do it. If dragonborn don't exist in the world they don't. I'm trying to get my own game going for a gameworld I created back in 2E. There used to be a lizardman nation. I adapted it to dragonborn when 5E came out. I couldn't find a place for tieflings, so tieflings don't exist in the gameworld and thus no PC can be a tiefling, but that doesn't mean I need to change the statistics of tieflings or rant they exist in some other person's game to "fix" them.

Edit Addendum: It's a matter of perspective. To change something because the mechanics is too powerful or too weak is personal taste. To change something because other people like it and it bothers you they do is wanting to make them play what you want them to play.

[Findulidas]

This hasnt been a problem in any of the groups Ive played. I have only played v. human once. If anything the half elves are too good.

[robbie374]

So I see lots of times where people feel forced into the human variant race because of the starting feat. What do people think of the idea of making Human Determination from http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/RJSJC2017_04UASkillFeats_24v10.pdf the starting feat. Effectively replacing that ability with human determination. So Variant human would look like:

Ability Score Increase.
One ability score of your choice increases by 2(1 normal racial +1 from human determination)
One ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Skills.
You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Human Determination
Advantage on attack roll ability check or saving throw 1/short rest to paraphrase.

Would it still be on equal footing with other races. would it be too weak or unappealing or still too versatile?

I think that Human Determination is an option, but I think it actually makes Variant Humans too weak.

Some feats are amazing, making Variant Humans too strong. Others are not so amazing, making Variant Humans rather weak. I would create a list of feats that are acceptable, those less frequently taken and less powerful. Here is an example, including only PHB feats:

Ability Score Increase. You increase four of your ability scores by 1 each.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and two languages of your choice.
Skilled. You are proficient in three skills, tools, or languages of your choice.
Feat. After choosing your class at first level, you may choose one feat from the following list: Actor, Athlete, Charger, Durable, Elemental Adept, Healer, Heavily Armored, Keen Mind, Lightly Armored, Linguist, Mage Slayer, Magic Initiate, Martial Adept, Moderately Armored, Observant, Skilled, Tavern Brawler, Weapon Master.

Would you add UA feats to this list? The skill feats seem appropriate, as do Human Determination and Prodigy.

[Arelai]

Just drop human variant and give everyone a free feat at level 1. Problem solved.

[Gorgo]

IMO, v. humans are so strong because you can get a feat _and_ start with a 16 in the stat or two you care about most. (Assuming point-buy or standard array character generation) Maybe something to address that, like saying that v. humans can't start with more than a 15 in any stat? Taking away all of their stat gains seems like too expensive a price to pay for one feat to me.

[Pex]

IMO, v. humans are so strong because you can get a feat _and_ start with a 16 in the stat or two you care about most. (Assuming point-buy or standard array character generation) Maybe something to address that, like saying that v. humans can't start with more than a 15 in any stat? Taking away all of their stat gains seems like too expensive a price to pay for one feat to me.

Non-humans can have a 17 and 16 if they go with their stereotypical classes. 17 and 15 maybe if their +1 doesn't match, but that becomes 18 and 16 at 4th level, just like a human can have starting with two 16s. This only matters in Point Buy. A lucky player can roll an 18 for a non-human and have a 20 from level 1. Even if he only rolls a 16 he gets the 18. The human player has to roll the harder to get 17. Non-humans get plenty of nice goodies. They really don't have anything to complain about (except maybe dragonborn and their lack of darkvision everyone forgets they don't have).

[imanidiot]

So I see lots of times where people feel forced into the human variant race because of the starting feat. What do people think of the idea of making Human Determination from http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/RJSJC2017_04UASkillFeats_24v10.pdf the starting feat. Effectively replacing that ability with human determination. So Variant human would look like:

Ability Score Increase.
One ability score of your choice increases by 2(1 normal racial +1 from human determination)
One ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Skills.
You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Human Determination
Advantage on attack roll ability check or saving throw 1/short rest to paraphrase.

Would it still be on equal footing with other races. would it be too weak or unappealing or still too versatile?

Give all players an ASI or Feat at CHARACTER levels 1, 4, 8, 12, and 16. Fighters get extra ASI/Feats at CLASS levels 6 and 14. Rogues get an extra ASI/Feat at CLASS level 10.

All characters get their level 19 ASI/Feat at first level, Humans get two. Tier 1 characters are significantly more powerful with the bonus being less and less important the higher level the characters are. With only a minor benefit by Tier 4.

Balancing your game by taking things away, or "nerfing", is never the best way. If you feel that one option is overpowered your response should be to make the weaker options better, not weaken the strong options.

[Tanarii]

Balancing your game by taking things away, or "nerfing", is never the best way. Why? I mean, I get that's how you feel about it. But is that just an opinion, or do you think it's backed up by something other than that's your gut feeling?
Because 'never the best way' isn't just an opinion, it's a judgement.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Balancing your game by taking things away, or "nerfing", is never the best way. If you feel that one option is overpowered your response should be to make the weaker options better, not weaken the strong options.
Well, not necessarily. You need to find or set a baseline and bring everything to around that level-- while some options will fall well below that line, it's quite possible that others will be far enough above that they need reigned in. That being said...


Why? I mean, I get that's how you feel about it. But is that just an opinion, or do you think it's backed up by something other than that's your gut feeling?
Because 'never the best way' isn't just an opinion, it's a judgement.
It's partially a question of human psychology. It's much more palatable to be told that you're getting something extra ("I've made Four Elements powers cost less ki") than it is to be told you're losing something ("I've taken away the -5/+10 part of GWM"). Even if the overall effect is healthier for the game as a whole, and even if you know about it in advance, it's easy for a nerf to feel like something is being taken away from you.

[imanidiot]

Why? I mean, I get that's how you feel about it. But is that just an opinion, or do you think it's backed up by something other than that's your gut feeling?
Because 'never the best way' isn't just an opinion, it's a judgement.

Because when you take away something that I already had I feel like ive been made weaker, even though I'm now just equal to everyone else. If you buff the weak options I dont even notice, even though now I'm equal to everyone else.

Most people want their characters to feel powerful. Whether or not they actually are powerful is irrelevant.

[Tanarii]

Because when you take away something that I already had I feel like ive been made weaker, even though I'm now just equal to everyone else. If you buff the weak options I dont even notice, even though now I'm equal to everyone else.

Most people want their characters to feel powerful. Whether or not they actually are powerful is irrelevant.
Are we talking about changing characters in play? Or setting the rules before a new campaign? Because in the latter case, you never had anything in the first place.

And "most people want their characters to feel powerful" isnt ground to justify stuff that breaks the game, nor power creep. Sometime stuff breaks the game. It needs to be nerfed to be balanced.

I do not believe Variant Humans is one of them. In fact, outside of Unearthed Arcana & SCAG, I think core 5e only has a very few things that. 3 Feats to be specific.

[Potato_Priest]

Non-humans can have a 17 and 16 if they go with their stereotypical classes. 17 and 15 maybe if their +1 doesn't match, but that becomes 18 and 16 at 4th level, just like a human can have starting with two 16s. This only matters in Point Buy. A lucky player can roll an 18 for a non-human and have a 20 from level 1. Even if he only rolls a 16 he gets the 18. The human player has to roll the harder to get 17. Non-humans get plenty of nice goodies. They really don't have anything to complain about (except maybe dragonborn and their lack of darkvision everyone forgets they don't have).

This is pretty accurate. (Halflings should also complain about their lack of darkvision, especially as the stereotypical rogue race, but that's for another time).

I like the variant human for 2 reasons. The first is that it depicts humans as incredible specialists in a field of their choice, rather than bland bland bland generalists with a single luck point.

The second is that it encourages a realistic party composition. If all your powergamers are playing humans, then humans will be represented by those players who are generally most motivated to succeed and excel. This matches the human fluff focusing on ambition very closely. Additionally, variant human being a powerful race encourages the party to actually have some humans in it, which makes sense in a theoretically human-dominant world.

[PeteNutButter]

Feels kind of weak, still. The problem with humans in D&D tends to be blandness-- because they don't have a homogenous default culture like elves or dwarves, and they don't have exotic features or heritage like dragonborn or tieflings, you don't have really have a good place to hang special abilities. You either get dull stuff like "+1 to all ability scores" or overly-strong "generic" options like bonus feats.

So, my suggestion would be to create human subraces for different major cultures or backgrounds. Maybe you have a Mariner Human, an Urban Human, and a Rural Human? A Starport Human, an Imperial Human, a Winterlands Human? (I don't know your setting)

-------

Also, if people feel forced into being vHumans because of the feat, have you tried letting everyone start with a feat?

This is what I do for my campaign setting.

I have 8 human subraces, which includes one that is still the same as variant human. It doesn't get any more attention than the others though, because I made them all Half Elf quality races, with things like +2 to a mental stat and +1 to two others +1 specified skill, or +2/+1 and a strong racial feature.

[Unoriginal]

So I see lots of times where people feel forced into the human variant race because of the starting feat.

"Help me, I'm being given ice cream for free."



Feels kind of weak, still. The problem with humans in D&D tends to be blandness-- because they don't have a homogenous default culture like elves or dwarves


Personally, I'd rather remove the homogenous default culture.

[Pex]

Are we talking about changing characters in play? Or setting the rules before a new campaign? Because in the latter case, you never had anything in the first place.

And "most people want their characters to feel powerful" isnt ground to justify stuff that breaks the game, nor power creep. Sometime stuff breaks the game. It needs to be nerfed to be balanced.

I do not believe Variant Humans is one of them. In fact, outside of Unearthed Arcana & SCAG, I think core 5e only has a very few things that. 3 Feats to be specific.

They had the expected rules taken away from them. Yes, yes, "variant", but it would be suspect if the only "variant" from the PHB missing is variant human. You are also presuming variant human is something that breaks the game. It doesn't. A lot of people liking something doesn't make it broken. The OP is bothered a lot of people he plays with choose variant human. He's bothered by what other people want to play and wants to punish them for it. With the people I play with there is a large variety of PC races, but I see quite a lot of elves and half-elves. Should I complain they're too powerful and need to be nerfed or banned?

[Tanarii]

You are also presuming variant human is something that breaks the game.
No, I'm not. Reread my post.

Edit: It also might help if you reread it in the context of a reply to the claim that it's always best to increase power, and never nerf it. A statement of universal-ness.

[Tetrasodium]

No, I'm not. Reread my post.

Edit: It also might help if you reread it in the context of a reply to the claim that it's always best to increase power, and never nerf it. A statement of universal-ness.

While I agree & used that tactic (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18233) for my game, the number of people who said things like "no I want to be a human from valenar even though ab elf from there would give much more, I don't want to lose that feat" was high enough that I might have been too generous to humans in some cases.

[Pex]

No, I'm not. Reread my post.

Edit: It also might help if you reread it in the context of a reply to the claim that it's always best to increase power, and never nerf it. A statement of universal-ness.

That is in the context of why one shouldn't fix variant human by taking away the feat.

Follow the line of thinking. It wasn't just one out of the blue posting of commentary.

[thereaper]

Variant Human is popular not because it's good, but because it's customizable. It gets the equivalent of 2.33 feats. When you consider the fact that other races are getting the equivalent of 4 or more feats, the ability to optimize the heck out of Variant Human doesn't make it overpowered; it is the only thing that allows it to be balanced.

[Tetrasodium]

Variant Human is popular not because it's good, but because it's customizable. It gets the equivalent of 2.33 feats. When you consider the fact that other races are getting the equivalent of 4 or more feats, the ability to optimize the heck out of Variant Human doesn't make it overpowered; it is the only thing that allows it to be balanced.

Not sure how you figure "4or more feats", but the problem with variant human is not that it is overpowered. Rather, the problem is that at any given table, you are likely to have more than half variant humans at least.

[Vorpalchicken]

It's about time. Too many half elves, half orcs, half snakes, etc. They just can't seem to keep it in their pants.

[strangebloke]

This is pretty accurate. (Halflings should also complain about their lack of darkvision, especially as the stereotypical rogue race, but that's for another time).

I like the variant human for 2 reasons. The first is that it depicts humans as incredible specialists in a field of their choice, rather than bland bland bland generalists with a single luck point.

The second is that it encourages a realistic party composition. If all your powergamers are playing humans, then humans will be represented by those players who are generally most motivated to succeed and excel. This matches the human fluff focusing on ambition very closely. Additionally, variant human being a powerful race encourages the party to actually have some humans in it, which makes sense in a theoretically human-dominant world.

This. As a DM, if my players all want to be Tabaxi and Tieflings and Nilbogs or whatever, I am sort of all right with that, so long as those races exist in my setting.

But it makes the whole game seem less contrived if a plurality of my players are of the dominant race in my setting: usually humans.


"I am a kingly elf! I have roamed these woods for 200 years! I know a cantrip!"

"I am a proud dwarf and I have been alive more years than I can count! I can recognise who made this staircase and resist poison."

"I am an 18-year-old human. I have no idea what discipline is but somehow, I can shoot the wings off a fly at 300 feet. Just naturally awesome, I guess."

This is why all characters at my table get a feat at first level and there are no variant humans. There are other reasons, suck as important character concepts and playstyle locked in some feats, but this is enough for me.

I'm all for giving a feat at first level, but I think you're a little off here.

Racial features represent natural proclivities. vHumans are varied, so they can have any natural proclivity.

The issue you're talking about is how a level 1 wizard always knows the same number of spells regardless if he's a 500 year old elf or if he's a 18-year old human. this is separate from racial features. My personal justification is that a human PC represents a 1/10000th sort of person as far as talent is concerned, whereas an elf PC represents a 1/100th sort of person. Additionally, elves are so long-lived, and so generally content that they tend to be much less ambitious.


Variant Human is popular not because it's good, but because it's customizable. It gets the equivalent of 2.33 feats. When you consider the fact that other races are getting the equivalent of 4 or more feats, the ability to optimize the heck out of Variant Human doesn't make it overpowered; it is the only thing that allows it to be balanced.

YES. It isn't that it's the best for every build, just that its better for getting certain feat-heavy builds online more quickly. And while, yes, you can go and make that PAM, GWM, Sentinel build by 8th level as a vHuman, such builds are actually not optimal IMO.

There are things that are broken, like having Heavy Armor Master or sharpshooter at level 1, but such problems are related more to those feats than to the vHuman. Delaying the feat to 4th level (or fixing troublesome feats) is fine in these cases.

[thereaper]

Not sure how you figure "4or more feats", but the problem with variant human is not that it is overpowered. Rather, the problem is that at any given table, you are likely to have more than half variant humans at least.

Well, let's do some math, then.

Variant Human
+1 to 2 scores (1 feat)
1 skill proficiency (1/3 feat, as per skilled feat)
1 feat
Total: 2.33 feats

Anyone can take a good feat (it simply takes longer), so even if one optimizes the hell out of that choose-it-yourself feat, it's highly unlikely that the variant human has more than 3.33 feats worth of stuff. So, in order for variant human to be overpowered, that needs to be more than other races get. Let's find out if such is the case.

Half-Elf
+2 Cha (1 feat)
+1 to 2 scores (1 feat)
Darkvision (at least 1 feat)
Fey Ancestry (1 feat)
2 skills (2/3 feat)
Third language (0 feats)
Total: 4.67 feats

Half-Elf is better than variant human even without the +2 cha. And, like variant human, it's a generalist. Let's move on to a more egregious example:

Wood Elf
+2 Dex (1 feat)
Perception (1/3 feat)
Darkvision (at least 1 feat, if not more)
Fey Ancestry (1 feat)
Trance+Mask of the Wild (let's say 1 feat)
+1 Wis (1/2 feat)
4 weapon proficiencies (1/2 feat, as per weapon master feat)
+5 speed (1/2 a feat, as per Mobile feat)
Total: 5.67 feats

If even 2/3 of the Wood Elf's stuff is relevant to your build, it beats out variant human. The only reason people don't notice how absurdly good Wood Elves are is because they're specialized for Rangers, Druids, and Dex Clerics.

So, no, Variant Human is not overpowered. Not even close.

Variant Human is simply what Standard Human was supposed to be: a generalist race that can work with anything. So, since humans are the default race that most players play and standard human is generally terrible, it's only natural that a large portion of any given party is going to be variant humans, especially when one recalls that variant human brings back the whole character building mini-game of 3.5 and allows people to get their character concepts off the ground at level 1, instead of waiting until level 4 to be able to play the character they want. None of that makes the variant human overpowered or in need of nerfing; it simply makes it more fun.

[Tetrasodium]

This. As a DM, if my players all want to be Tabaxi and Tieflings and Nilbogs or whatever, I am sort of all right with that, so long as those races exist in my setting.

But it makes the whole game seem less contrived if a plurality of my players are of the dominant race in my setting: usually humans.

Except its not just a plurality. Each game I run, I pass around a sheet ro get character name | hp | ac |passive perception | race. Going through a bunch of those just now afterfiltering down/out duplicates. I count 1 elf, 2 tiefling, 1 dragonborn, 1luzardgolk, kenku, 1 kobold, 1 bugbear, 2 tabaxi, and seventeen humans all variant human. Both tabaxi, ko old, &luzardfolk, and the kobold were in one group. A second group had a riefling, elf, & dragomborn both. It's way beyond a plurality and more like "nearly all" so much that it denies practically any possibility of a player having nearly any of the nonhuman cultures that exist in a setting

[strangebloke]

Except its not just a plurality. Each game I run, I pass around a sheet ro get character name | hp | ac |passive perception | race. Going through a bunch of those just now afterfiltering down/out duplicates. I count 1 elf, 2 tiefling, 1 dragonborn, 1luzardgolk, kenku, 1 kobold, 1 bugbear, 2 tabaxi, and seventeen humans all variant human. Both tabaxi, ko old, &luzardfolk, and the kobold were in one group. A second group had a riefling, elf, & dragomborn both. It's way beyond a plurality and more like "nearly all" so much that it denies practically any possibility of a player having nearly any of the nonhuman cultures that exist in a setting

Wow! I am really curious. Variant humans aren't much good as casters or rogues. We should set up a poll: 'what have your players played as?'

For me I've had:

Dragon born:2
Elf: 2
Dwarf:1
Half elf: 2
Gnome: 1
Vhuman: 5
Human: 2
Tiefling: 1

But to be clear, of the dozen players I've had at my table, two of them have picked vhuman twice.

[imanidiot]

I always play humans, Variant in 5e but if they weren't available I'd play a standard human. Most of the people I play with refuse to play without darkvision so I'm usually the only one.

[Talamare]

I typed up a Variant Races in my Signature

Check it out, I actually used the same advantage idea

[Tetrasodium]

Wow! I am really curious. Variant humans aren't much good as casters or rogues. We should set up a poll: 'what have your players played as?'

For me I've had:

Dragon born:2
Elf: 2
Dwarf:1
Half elf: 2
Gnome: 1
Vhuman: 5
Human: 2
Tiefling: 1

But to be clear, of the dozen players I've had at my table, two of them have picked vhuman twice.

level1 with warcaster or something can be a huge bump for a caster. maybe my AL table time is unusual, but the way variant humans seem to kick over the scale & beat it with the other races who dared show up bothers me pretty significantly so I enforce light requirementspretty heavily, enemies attack light sources, etc but there are plenty of ways to avoid those from being a problem in most any level1 group through cantrips & being too anal about light sources is more work than its worth making me cackle whenever people go on about how powerful darkvision is.
For rogues, whip & charger at 1 is a simply & brutally effective combo, add dual wielder or something @4 & it just escalates from there

[Tanarii]

That is in the context of why one shouldn't fix variant human by taking away the feat.

Follow the line of thinking. It wasn't just one out of the blue posting of commentary.
Be that as it may, you misstated my position. You claimed:
"You are also presuming variant human is something that breaks the game. It doesn't."

You said it in response to a post in which I said:
"Sometime stuff breaks the game. It needs to be nerfed to be balanced.

I do not believe Variant Humans is one of them."

Therefore your statement about my presumption was factually wrong, and I was correcting that.

[Beelzebubba]

Our table:

3 regular humans
3 elves
2 variant humans
1 half elf
1 dwarf
1 gnome
1 halfling
1 tiefling
1 tabaxi

Doesn't need fixing here

[ZorroGames]

Not sure how you figure "4or more feats", but the problem with variant human is not that it is overpowered. Rather, the problem is that at any given table, you are likely to have more than half variant humans at least.

Humans are as rare as hen's teeth in the FLGS AL games!

I am drawn towards variant human just for the fact that darkvision (shades of grey) functions fully as well as daylight vision in dungeons when it reality it should function the same as early infrared scopes or early low light vision scopes IMO. Medium sized humanoids could be many creatures not clearly "Orcs" in the distance. Edit: turn up those lanterns and equalize the battle setting!

[ZorroGames]

In order of most common:

Half-elf
Elf
Dwarf (usually me though sometimes a second dwarf)
Variant Human (only can remember one, could have been two.)
Tiefling
One (1!) human (fighter) ever

[FabulousFizban]

don't **** with variant human. variant human is fine. i will kill you over variant human - with votes...

[ZorroGames]

Except its not just a plurality. Each game I run, I pass around a sheet ro get character name | hp | ac |passive perception | race. Going through a bunch of those just now afterfiltering down/out duplicates. I count 1 elf, 2 tiefling, 1 dragonborn, 1luzardgolk, kenku, 1 kobold, 1 bugbear, 2 tabaxi, and seventeen humans all variant human. Both tabaxi, ko old, &luzardfolk, and the kobold were in one group. A second group had a riefling, elf, & dragomborn both. It's way beyond a plurality and more like "nearly all" so much that it denies practically any possibility of a player having nearly any of the nonhuman cultures that exist in a setting

Where the h*ll do you play? Completely 180 degrees difference in my FLGS.

[Saiga]

I WISH I had the issue of "too many humans" in my groups. It's very weird hearing how humans are a prolific and common race but every adventuring party I've seen has a token human at best (if I'm a player). Very jarring.

[Tetrasodium]

Where the h*ll do you play? Completely 180 degrees difference in my FLGS.

palm beach county florida... Luckily my game is set in eberron & npc's can be prejudiced towards humans just because they happen to be from one of the regions who was o the other side of bloody warfare (ie practically any region that wasn't too remote to participate)

[MxKit]

FWIW, my current game is also in Florida, and the characters consist of:

1 Fallen Aasimar (Rogue)
2 Dragonborn (Paladin, Warlock)
1 Feral Winged Tiefling (Monk)
1 Yuan-ti Pureblood (Wizard)
1 Variant Human (Cleric)

I think it just depends on the type of people you're playing with, honestly. I mean, even taking the feat at first level out of the equation, some people just really prefer playing humans, being in mostly-human or all-human games, etc. If you happen to get a lot of those in your game, you're going to get a lot of human characters. If you end up getting bored with that and wanting to switch it up, look for a themed game/suggest one to your DM/run one yourself -- maybe one where you only have four players and you all play different genasi, or one where you only allow races from Volo's Guide, or something. Maybe a game world where humans actually disappeared with no warning, and it threw a lot of society a bit out of whack because humans were the most common race (your king and a lot of your neighbors in the city disappearing is bad; the human king whose kingdom you have an alliance with and many of his people disappearing while the orcs you had a united front against is primed to take advantage of the sudden weakness is super bad), and the PCs are trying to figure out what happened.

ETA: Basically, if the problem you're feeling is "too many players want to play variant humans," the best response isn't going to be to try to make them not do so. I mean, I also find humans, especially a majority of humans one of my games, boring. But it isn't really a problem that needs to be solved, at least not in that way. If they feel fenced into being variant humans because they feel they need a feat at first level to be able to build their character properly, then sure, yeah, tell them you'll allow everyone to take a feat at first level no matter what race they play. But there's a good chance they just prefer playing humans period, and in that case you gotta find/run a game where the available races are restricted or just accept that they wanna play humans.

[ZorroGames]

palm beach county florida... Luckily my game is set in eberron & npc's can be prejudiced towards humans just because they happen to be from one of the regions who was o the other side of bloody warfare (ie practically any region that wasn't too remote to participate)

Yeah, for a dominant race/species number wise they certainly seem waaaay underrepresented in the games I have played. Weird how it varies despite the claims/counterclaims of optimized builds exist online. Hmm.

[ZorroGames]

FWIW, my current game is also in Florida, and the characters consist of:

1 Fallen Aasimar (Rogue)
2 Dragonborn (Paladin, Warlock)
1 Feral Winged Tiefling (Monk)
1 Yuan-ti Pureblood (Wizard)
1 Variant Human (Cleric)

I think it just depends on the type of people you're playing with, honestly. I mean, even taking the feat at first level out of the equation, some people just really prefer playing humans, being in mostly-human or all-human games, etc. If you happen to get a lot of those in your game, you're going to get a lot of human characters. If you end up getting bored with that and wanting to switch it up, look for a themed game/suggest one to your DM/run one yourself -- maybe one where you only have four players and you all play different genasi, or one where you only allow races from Volo's Guide, or something. Maybe a game world where humans actually disappeared with no warning, and it threw a lot of society a bit out of whack because humans were the most common race (your king and a lot of your neighbors in the city disappearing is bad; the human king whose kingdom you have an alliance with and many of his people disappearing while the orcs you had a united front against is primed to take advantage of the sudden weakness is super bad), and the PCs are trying to figure out what happened.

Yes.

That scenario seems interesting. :smallsmile:

[Tanarii]

Yeah, for a dominant race/species number wise they certainly seem waaaay underrepresented in the games I have played. Weird how it varies despite the claims/counterclaims of optimized builds exist online. Hmm.My experience is players will play Humans if you stress Humans are the dominant race in the world, and explicitly lay out their various cultures, and the classes and backgrounds common to each, in your Session 0 documentation. And then add like two sentences for each non-human race.

It's all 'bout perception, really. If the players are focusing on the mechanics, they'll pick based on perceived mechanical value. If they're focused on their place in the in-game world, they'll pick based on that.

[ZorroGames]

My experience is players will play Humans if you stress Humans are the dominant race in the world, and explicitly lay out their various cultures, and the classes and backgrounds common to each, in your Session 0 documentation. And then add like two sentences for each non-human race.

It's all 'bout perception, really. If the players are focusing on the mechanics, they'll pick based on perceived mechanical value. If they're focused on their place in the in-game world, they'll pick based on that.

Something, perhaps, like:

Large region or continent sized campaign area with one city at one map edge for dwarfs, one at another map edge for elves, one small town or ghetto in a large city for each minor race (gnomes, halflings, tieflings, dragon-born, maybe also half-elf and half-orc,) and multiple cultures for all the human cities to have spawned from? Maybe make the sub-races such as mountain/hill dwarf or high/wood elf come from spatially separated but margin of the map locations if you feel generous?

And, yes, halflings should be one of the 'minor', races IMO.

Or maybe High Elves are the ruling class oligarchy over feudally oppressed Wood Elves?

Maybe the subraces of the nonhumans have significant "issues" with each other more than with humans?

Maybe trade routes are predominantly human run with other races choosing to be fixed in territory, tradition, or parochial mindset ("The Shire" mindset) and thus rarely go adventuring and are dependent in human traders for commerce beyond their physical/mental/psychological "borders"?

[Talamare]

Everyone posting their group as example of how much or how little which race is used is basically... doing it wrong

Each specific person has different values on character creation

Some may value the fluff, some may use a race regardless, some may power game, some may min max, some may just like the sound of the name of the race, some may have countless of other reasons why they will pick something.


So from the start there will be a mix of races chosen, and let's be honest we don't care about the majority of reasons used. We mostly care about how powerful the races are from a power gaming and/or min maxing point of view.

From there we become divided again, while V.Human has one of the strongest benefit around there are a few other races with incredibly useful benefits as well.

V.Human additional feat may enable a lot of extremely powerful builds, especially early on... but there are some build's it is slightly less powerful in doing than other Race options.

So even when we narrow it down to just P/M.M. we are still divided in population.


Now what is one of the main complaints about V.Human? It's the fact that V.Human enables so many other insanely powerful builds while basically being vanilla as f!
One of the greatest desire is to be able to be different than just a Human, while being able to do the things V.Human is capable of doing.

Which is why, I typed up Variant Races. Let's be honest, having an additional Feat at level 1 is -FUN-. It presents everyone and anyone with a ton of options for character customization!

[ZorroGames]

Snip

So from the start there will be a mix of races chosen, and let's be honest we don't care about the majority of reasons used. We mostly care about how powerful the races are from a power gaming and/or min maxing point of view.

Snip


Like... no, just no.

You do not speak for me in that "we" at all.

Yes I prefer Dwarf and yes, I like human (standard and variant.) I freely admit it is some variant of Gimli or Faramir.

In the past editions I did play Elf (when it was a race and a class) and Gnome (when it was a PC and not just NPC) but it is a niche role for me in 5e.

Power is at best second and a means to play flavor without crippling my character.

Okay, that was a rant. I will stop with that.

[Rogerdodger557]

One of my parties just finished RoT, and we had a Vuman EK(me), Dragonborn Sorcadin, Halfling Cleric, Tiefling Cleric, Dwarf Druid, and a Half-Orc Barb/Wizard. And I play AL. Variant Human doesn't, and shouldn't, be changed.
From a roleplaying perspective, its additional training, or they are some sort of genius. It's that easy to explain.

[jas61292]

I think Talamare hit it perfectly with all the talk about how this is basically a fundamental divide between the populations that like and dislike the variant human. Its not about how common races are, as that is incredibly table dependent, and people on all sides will have all sorts of different groups. It's simply more, at a root level, about what people want from the race, and what their thoughts on proper game design are. There is no right or wrong.

Now, that said, I am very much in the anti-variant human camp. And this is not (mainly) because of balance or anything like that. Rather, I simply believe that feats are huge, powerful, defining features that no level 1 character, of any race, has any business having. I see them as one of the hallmarks of an experienced adventurer, and there is no way a newbie should have one from the start.

Of course, that is not to say I am satisfied with the base human. It especially irks me that half-elves seem to get more from their human heritage than normal humans do. And I have certainly made up my own human variants that fit into my world. But I don't see breaking the general principle of feats being a thing for higher level characters as a good solution to the base humans deficiencies.

[Unoriginal]

Everyone posting their group as example of how much or how little which race is used is basically... doing it wrong

Each specific person has different values on character creation

[...]and let's be honest we don't care about the majority of reasons used. We mostly care about how powerful the races are from a power gaming and/or min maxing point of view.


Uh...what? You're contradicting yourself.

[Talamare]

Uh...what? You're contradicting yourself.

Add value to a response next time, Pat

Everyone posting their group as example of how much or how little which race is used is basically... doing it wrong

^ -- No one cares about your tiny group. It's statistically insignificant.

Each specific person has different values on character creation

^ -- Each person has different values

and let's be honest we don't care about the majority of reasons used. We mostly care about how powerful the races are from a power gaming and/or min maxing point of view.

^ -- We ~the community~ care about what are mathematically strongest options in the book. It doesn't matter if your group goes pure Min/Max or pure fluff, because your group does not matter.


Zero Contradiction found Bateman

[Dudewithknives]

The reason variant human is so common is because feats are only available if you give up stat bonuses.

With variant human you get the feat that your build or class needs and give up almost nothing.

This is especially true for some classes who need a lot of stats, like monk or paladin, it could easily be the only feat they ever get.

Also some classes need more feats than others, ex. There is no such thing as a fighter who does not take at least 1 feat, more likely 2 or 3, however I do not think I have seen a druid yet that has ever taken a feat.

[Talamare]

The reason variant human is so common is back use feats are only available if you give up stat bonuses.

With variant human you get the feat that your build or class needs and give up almost nothing.

This is especially true for some classes who need a lot of stats, like monk or paladin, it could easily be the only feat they ever get.

Also some classes need more feats than others, ex. There is no such thing as a fighter who does not take at least 1 feat, nor eliekly 2 or 3, however I do not think I have seen a druid yet that has ever taken a feat.

I chose V.Human in a Normal Races only campaign on my Land Druid

Ended up choosing the Healer Feat, actually found it useful during gameplay, but definitely agree that every choice felt unneeded.