Is Variant Human too good? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Benny89

2019-02-11, 03:58 PM

I noticed that in most Guides, most threads about builds, most optimization threads - the top choices always include Variant Human.

Do you think that this race is little bit too strong?

It's not that Vuman is OP. It's that because of his extra feat and +1 to two abilities- he is good on everything. There is not even one build/class where Variant Human would be "bad choice". He is always one of top, because there is nothing that would not make him one.

The thing is, for example for Paladins: It's always between Half-Elf and Variant Human. Same for other CHA classes.

However: Half-Elf is long-term investment. He comes out on top once build is fully operiational but Variant Human always comes fully operational faster. Because extra feat means skipping 4 levels wait for ASI. 4 levels is HUGE, beginning from level 8 to 16. It can really take a long time to get there.

Also - most people don't see their characters going beyond level 13 on average. What does it mean- Vuman will in 99% cases make that build fully done by then and give player that "aaah, now I am complete!" feeling. Half-Elf can do that, but not always, not with all builds and many times you will finish playing before you got everything you wanted to get.

That is why Vuman is almost an exclusive "PAM race" or "War Caster race" or "Mediu Armor Master race" etc. Because he can grab it faster, benefit longer and get all other stuff quicker. For example of course Half-Elf will at some point have War Caster too, but by that time you already had tons of fun and impact with Vuman who had it since level 1.

Remember that Vuman doesn't have Darkvision and other race bonuses. Darkvision can easly be achieved with magic, magic items, light spells, 2 levels dip in Warlocks etc. But that require some extra work.

So in short: he is no OP or "Too Good". It's just there is not even one instance where extra feat would not match other races bonuses. That is why he is always one of top choices. That and making builds complete by 4 levels faster than other races. Many people tend to theorycraft builds based on level 20 instead of level 12 which more realistic. That is where Vuman wins and is so good pick.

Derpy

2019-02-11, 04:09 PM

Rerem115

2019-02-11, 04:22 PM

It's not that VHumans are too good, it's just that they're never the "wrong" pick. While they don't give a +2 to an attribute, they do give a +1 to the attributes you need. And that's still not the whole picture; you can make them a +2 +1 if you pick the right half-feat.

The precise customizability of VHumans simply makes them a really efficient pick, where you always use all the bonuses they offer. To use Dwarfs as a counterexample, Dwarfs give more overall features, and (generally) better ASIs. But, a lot of those features are situational at best or redundant at worst; any class that wants +2 Str and +2 Con probably doesn't need racial Medium Armor. A class that wants the +2 Dex from elves probably doesn't need Longswords.

Little things like that make VHumans reliable picks that specialize in specialization and speeding build progress.

sophontteks

2019-02-11, 04:32 PM

V.Humans are above average, but half-elves, Aaarakocra, and Yuan-ti are all better for the classes they work with.

The biggest V.human weakness is a lack of dark vision, which can be really annoying.

Half-elves have 2 skills, +4 to stats, dark vision, and charm resist. They also have access to both elvish and human racial feats: Prodigy and elven accuracy.

Yuan-ti have magic resistance, and that is broken enough for me to ban them.

Aaarakocra have flight at-will, and that is brok n enough for me to ban them as well.

Foxhound438

2019-02-11, 04:41 PM

it's really just the most popular because it has the most options baked into it. No matter what you're doing, you can find a feat that'll go well with your build, and any two stats doubles down on that. STR&CHA, DEX&WIS, whatever you need.

But that said, some of the more niche races are also among the more powerful. Yuan ti, for instance, have advantage on saves vs. magic, and that's going to be a much broader and more powerful effect than maybe having an extra one save proficiency as a human with resilient, and as such if you're playing a caster that doesn't plan to be in the front line where the dex and con would matter as much defensively, that'll be better for you. Similarly, drow and tiefling both have an innate spellcasting baked in that scales better than starting out with magic initiate, so for something like a warlock with devil's sight getting an extra cast of darkness as a drow would do more good than having an extra cast of hex as a MI human. This goes on and on, of course, there are some campaigns where starting out with innate swimming speed and water breathing is really good, and sometimes you just want a swashbuckler that can teleport.

Rerem115

2019-02-11, 04:54 PM

I don't count Yuan-Ti. I don't care if it's AL legal, that playable race is a mistake.

ad_hoc

2019-02-11, 05:30 PM

No, but it's customizable. Every other race gets feat like abilities, but those are set. If you have a mountain dwarf fighter then their armor training (med armor prof) isn't the most advantageous. The human feat will, or at least should, always cover something they don't have but want. As in, you probably wont see a human variant take 'moderately armored' feat for a fighter class.

Mountain Dwarf is an interesting case as they have 2 abilities which mostly don't work together.

They have medium armour for classes which don't, and they also have +2/+2. They are the only race (to my knowledge) that can have 2 18s at 4th level.

Variant Human isn't too strong. It is just right. Humans should be the most popular race and the Human being versatile achieves that.

As far as popularity, standard human is most popular followed by variant human (less than half of tables use feats so that shouldn't be surprising). Together they make up around 20-25% of character races which seems a bit low to me. I like tables where at least half of the races are human.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 05:36 PM

I noticed that in most Guides, most threads about builds, most optimization threads - the top choices always include Variant Human.

Do you think that this race is little bit too strong?

I'd say it's less that they're overpowered at something, so much as that they aren't underpowered at anything. Due to their customizability, every class can find something useful as a variant human.

Variant Human is a top choice for most classes, but usually it shares that distinction with other races as well. It doesn't necessarily outshine other things that are competitive for any given role, they just aren't pigeonholed into any specific class/race combo.

Personally I wish that all of the races were designed with a similarly philosophy. Attribute modifiers are the primary culprit for certain races being "right" for certain classes, and that feels all the more vestigial to me now that it doesn't really model any significant flavor difference (for example, a Barbarian Half-Orc and a Barbarian Human are both going to end up with 20 Strength, and will never be more than 1 point apart on stats).

Benny89

2019-02-11, 05:38 PM

V.Humans are above average, but half-elves, Aaarakocra, and Yuan-ti are all better for the classes they work with.

Disagree, it depends on what build you have in mind. For example PAM builds are much better with Vuman because they are fully done much faster.

Example standard PAM Vengeance Paladin:

Vuman. 1- PAM, 4- +2 STR, 8- RES (CON)/War Caster, 12- +2 STR.

Half Elf. 4- PAM 8- Elven Accuracy, 12- RES (CON)/War Caster.

First one has 20 stat, and both feats at level 12, second one 18 Stat and one feat. Once 16 will come- Half Elf comes on top overall, but question is: will you see 16 level? And how elven accuracy will compare vs level 16 where Vuman can take Sentinel for example or Mounted Combatant etc.

But Half-Elf is better choice for Sword n Board builds for example.

It depends on build and level in which you expect to play.

Same is with Xbow Master SS Fighters- Vuman just comes online much faster and has more impact from level 1 (two attacks).

So in my opinion Half-Elf, Aaarakocra, and Yuan-ti are all even with Vuman because it depends what you want to build.

The more feat-hungry build- the better Vuman is, the less feat-hungry build- the better races with stronger passives are. Hence why PAM/Xbow Master builds are almost exclusively Vumans.

Theodoric

2019-02-11, 05:46 PM

It's a bit munchkin-y, but I guess that's why it's an optional variant contingent on another optional rule.

They have medium armour for classes which don't, and they also have +2/+2. They are the only race (to my knowledge) that can have 2 18s at 4th level.
It's decent for Str-based non-hexblade pact warlocks; they can still get two 16s at both Str and Cha at 4th level, and the medium armor helps as well.

GlenSmash!

2019-02-11, 05:59 PM

Anonymouswizard

2019-02-11, 05:59 PM

Variant human and standard human are interesting in that they're the exact opposite.

Standard human is the most popular race because it's very simple (just a straight +1 to all Ability Scores), but it suffers from the curse of versatility. +1 to a stat is good if the stat is A) odd and B) one you care about, but a character with 8 STR and 10 WIS likely doesn't care if that ends up as 9 STR and 11 WIS. Depending on your exact build you might care about as little as two stats. So while it's probably the race to point new players towards just so they're not having to learn their class abilities at the same time as learning their racial abilities, it suffers in optimisation from never giving you something important that you can't get elsewhere.

Variant humans on the other hand are very good because they are specialised but not defined. They only get +1 to two stats instead of +1 to one and +2 to another, but it's always two stats they care about, plus training in any skill (likely Perception), plus a feat. While in practice the feat is the reason that most people pick them you could replace it with another two skills and Vuman would still be an okay pick for everything.

Arguably more balanced than giving them a feat would be to given them four +1s or two +1s and a +2 to arrange as they see fit (like a more versatile Half-elf). Then Vumans would still be really good, but they wouldn't have the insane advantage of access to things like Sharpshooter or Polearm Master at 1st level.

Calimehter

2019-02-11, 06:30 PM

I restrict Variant Human to selecting a half-feat (i.e.one that also grants a bonus to an ability score). The benefits from those feats seem a lot more in line with what other races are getting, and you still get the versatility of the rest of variant human.

I'm not too far into my DMing career, but my group has liked it so far.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 06:56 PM

Let's put it this way.

Clerics? Well, there are three non-human core races with Wisdom bonuses (Hill Dwarf, Wood Elf, and Half-Elf), and all of them are good.

Hill Dwarf for example gets Advantage against a common and nasty status effect, Resistance to one of the most common damage types, Darkvision, half the benefit of the Tough feat, and the ability to dump Strength while wearing Heavy Armor. You can take that right to the bank and cash it. And since you can start with Con 17 with Point Buy, you can bump it up to 18 with the ubiquitous Resilient (Constitution) that Clerics so often want.

Rogues? That SCAG-variant Half-Elf Swashbuckler who got Elven Accuracy and Booming Blade without multiclassing seems to be doing quite well for themselves. And let me tell you, Darkvision is handy when you want to hang out in the shadows all the time. That Lightfoot Halfling and Wood Elf that can bonus action hide while being observed seem to be doing okay too. Or that Tabaxi who is darting across the entire length of the map. Or the winged feral Tieflings.

Wizards? Hobgoblins, Githyanki, Vedalken, Envoys, Deep Gnomes, and Yuan-Ti leap to mind.

Dex Fighters? Elves are great, especially now that they have options like Shadar-Kai, Eladrin, Elven Accuracy, Wood Elf Magic, and Fey Teleportation. Goblins let you get a fair bit of the benefit of a Rogue multiclass without actually needing to multiclass.

Paladin/Warlock multiclasses? A Half-Elf gets you +4 stats, all to things you care about, and can bump up a 17 Cha to 18 while simultaneously picking up Elven Accuracy with their first ASI, and use their Charisma for everything thanks to Hexblade 1. By level 8 they've got maximum Charisma, Elven Accuracy, higher stats overall, Darkvision, more skills, Fey Ancestry, and access to SCAG variants. A Yuan-Ti is... well, a Yuan-Ti.
____

I guess what I'm getting at here is that the reason there's a laundry list of races rated low on every class optimization guide is because for any given class, there's a laundry list of races that don't give you synergistic stats or features. But that's more an issue of orcs making subpar wizards, rather than humans making overwhelmingly good ones, IMHO.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 06:56 PM

I'm playing a V Human GWM Barbarian right now, And I'm burning though torches, having to toss them or drop them when I want to attack things. I'm considering multiclassing into gloomstalker.

VTT dynamic lighting really points out an inherent way V Humans are weaker.

Lol, you don't have any caster in team who could cast a simple Light on your necklace? I always have necklace with Light on it from my party caster (he can spam it every hour since it's cantrip) and I keep it under shirt/armor and take it out when combat starts in dark place. It gives 20 feet light and 20 feet dim light. Plenty for melee character as you attack from max 10 feet anyway.

If you keep your sword in sheat, just let caster cast Light on blade every hour and keep sword in sheet. Once combat starts you unsheat sword anyway and have light.

Believe me enemy casters usually won't waste Dispell for cantrip....

Cybren

2019-02-11, 07:29 PM

Mountain Dwarf is an interesting case as they have 2 abilities which mostly don't work together.

They have medium armour for classes which don't, and they also have +2/+2. They are the only race (to my knowledge) that can have 2 18s at 4th level.

Variant Human isn't too strong. It is just right. Humans should be the most popular race and the Human being versatile achieves that.

As far as popularity, standard human is most popular followed by variant human (less than half of tables use feats so that shouldn't be surprising). Together they make up around 20-25% of character races which seems a bit low to me. I like tables where at least half of the races are human.

Any race can have two 18s at level 1, because the default ability generation method is dice rolling :p

Rukelnikov

2019-02-11, 07:31 PM

Disagree, it depends on what build you have in mind. For example PAM builds are much better with Vuman because they are fully done much faster.

Example standard PAM Vengeance Paladin:

Vuman. 1- PAM, 4- +2 STR, 8- RES (CON)/War Caster, 12- +2 CHA.

Half Elf. 4- PAM 8- Elven Accuracy, 12- RES (CON)/War Caster.

First one has 20 stat, and both feats at level 12, second one 18 Stat and one feat. Once 16 will come- Half Elf comes on top overall, but question is: will you see 16 level? And how elven accuracy will compare vs level 16 where Vuman can take Sentinel for example or Mounted Combatant etc.

But Half-Elf is better choice for Sword n Board builds for example.

It depends on build and level in which you expect to play.

Same is with Xbow Master SS Fighters- Vuman just comes online much faster and has more impact from level 1 (two attacks).

So in my opinion Half-Elf, Aaarakocra, and Yuan-ti are all even with Vuman because it depends what you want to build.

The more feat-hungry build- the better Vuman is, the less feat-hungry build- the better races with stronger passives are. Hence why PAM/Xbow Master builds are almost exclusively Vumans.

Neither build you posted has a 20. However, it is still true that Vhuman will usually come only 4 levels faster than anyone else.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 07:41 PM

Neither build you posted has a 20. However, it is still true that Vhuman will usually come only 4 levels faster than anyone else.

Sry I am used to put only CHA in Paladin so that STR got in a way :D. Fixed now, it was suppose to be 2x +2 CHA on Vuman.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 07:52 PM

Paladin/Warlock multiclasses? A Half-Elf gets you +4 stats, all to things you care about, and can bump up a 17 Cha to 18 while simultaneously picking up Elven Accuracy with their first ASI, and use their Charisma for everything thanks to Hexblade 1. By level 8 they've got maximum Charisma, Elven Accuracy, higher stats overall, Darkvision, more skills, Fey Ancestry, and access to SCAG variants. A Yuan-Ti is... well, a Yuan-Ti.
____

Yes, but by level 8 Vuman Has War Caster and 20 in CHA. Or PAM and 20 in CHA. By 12/13 Vuman has 20 CHA, War Caster and PAM. Half-Elf won't have one.

That's the point of Vuman, complete build faster and you can go different builds without worrying about delaying stuff.

For example I would never go for PAM build with Half-Elf. You either get Elven Accuracy super late or PAM super late. One has to wait till level 8. While Vuman doesn't need to worry about and was rocking extra attack from level 1, having much bigger impact in game or already having War Caster since level 1 and spamming that GFB or BB with Shield in other hand.

Vuman is race that makes build strong from level 1-20 as opposed to build that is stronger from level 8 or 12-20 and I think that is their big advantage, especially because most people don't see levels past 13.

It's a question what is stronger: PAM + War Caster on level 4-8 or Elven Accuracy alone from level 4-8? Now vs much later.

And let's be honest - tier 1 and 2 are more challanging that tier 3 in 5E. Lower level impact is in my opinion much stronger than late level impact.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 08:03 PM

Yes, but by level 8 Vuman Has War Caster and 20 in CHA. Or PAM and 20 in CHA. And the Half-Elf will have Elven Accuracy and a 20 in Cha.

...and darkvision, and extra skills, and extra stats, and fey ancestry, and access to SCAG Half-Elf variants.

The Half-Elf is doing fine.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 08:08 PM

And the Half-Elf will have Elven Accuracy and a 20 in Cha.

...and darkvision, and extra skills, and an ASI's worth of extra stats, and fey ancestry, and access to SCAG Half-Elf variants.

The Half-Elf is doing just fine.

I am not saying he is not doing fine. I even admit that once both grab all stuff- Half Elf comes on top.

And Darkvision is really not a problem in 9/10 cases for melee if you have anyone who can cast Light spell in your team... Unless enemies like to waste Dispell Magic on cantrips.

What I try to say is Vuman is much stronger in 1-8 levels, mostly even in 8-12 and start losing on level 16+. But question is: how many levels a party will see and what builds they want to make? Then want PAM build and will play to level 10? Vuman. Want to make GWM Devotion Paladin? Vuman (level 8- 20 CHA + GWM). It depends on build, level, feats-hunger etc.

Of course Half-Elf is fine and very strong. Both races are among best. All I say is: the choice between them is Now vs Later. That's all.

For example for range character I would alsmost always pick Elf because or Darkvision. For melee? Nah, especially not as Hexblade or with caster in party. It all depends.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 08:10 PM

It's a question what is stronger: PAM + War Caster on level 4-8 or Elven Accuracy alone from level 4-8?

If you're using point buy, that level 8 human with PAM+War Caster has 18 Cha. That level 8 Half-Elf with "Elven Accuracy alone" has 20 Cha, and a variety of additional helpful racial features.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 08:16 PM

If you're using point buy, that level 8 human with PAM+War Caster has 18 Cha. That level 8 Half-Elf with "Elven Accuracy alone" has 20 Cha, and a variety of additional helpful racial features.

Yes, but in combat PAM + War Caster will do much more on levels 4-8. Green Flame Blade attack + PAM bonus attack vs 18 CHA + situational better advantage. And PAM OAs with BB attached.

Once level 8 hits you have 20 CHA + optional better advantage vs 18 CHA, War Caster and Extra attack. Booming blade, Green Flam Blade and so on.

As I said- Imapct Now vs Later. That's all. Half-Elf comes on top but later.

Racial features are cool, but extra feat is as good. You can treat that extra feat also as free +2 to any Ability you like. You can chose. That is strength of Vuman. Any build works for him.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 08:29 PM

Green Flame Blade attack + PAM bonus attack

You cannot combine PAM's bonus attack with Green-Flame Blade, actually.

PAM's bonus attack requires you to make the Attack action. Green-Flame Blade technically doesn't involve you taking the Attack action.

You can use GFB, or you can use PAM. Not both.

Racial features are cool, but extra feat is as good.

I agree, they're both good.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 08:32 PM

You cannot combine PAM's bonus attack with Green-Flame Blade, actually

My fault, I wasn't precise. I mean PAM opportunity attack + BB and normal attack as BFB. Sorry for confusion.

LudicSavant

2019-02-11, 08:35 PM

My fault, I wasn't precise. I mean PAM opportunity attack + BB and normal attack as BFB. Sorry for confusion.

Ah, I see.

Tanarii

2019-02-11, 08:51 PM

Depends if your DM allows the most powerful feats to be chosen. Otoh, IMO it's nice for players to have a mechanical incentive to have a predominately human party. I run a featless game and many players still choose human, but many doesn't mean most. But my campaign can easily accommodate it, as it's primarily dungeon and wilderness crawls. Whereas when I run a one shot with feats and variant humans, they're typically mostly human, and I can easily run other kinds of campaigns without incorporating a weirdly diverse party in less diverse localities.

Mountain Dwarf is an interesting case as they have 2 abilities which mostly don't work together.
Yup. That's clearly why they get two strong abilities, +2 Str and Medium Armor, which for many classes they only effectively need one. There are some classes/archetypes where they're both useful, but typically it's one or the other. It's definitely an interesting design choice.

Chronos

2019-02-11, 08:52 PM

The way I see it, most characters will have one feat that they want to get ASAP, before they start on ability scores (what feat that is, of course, will vary). Which means that a straight human will, by level 4, have +3 to their main stat and their feat, while any other race at that point will have +1 or +2 to their main stat and their feat.

The lack of darkvision is definitely a balancing factor. Yes, you can use torches or Light spells or whatever, but that hurts your ability to sneak up in the dark: A light source is visible from further away than it lets you see. On the other hand, though, once you have one human (or halfling) in a party who needs light, you might as well have more, since they can all use the same light.

That said, of the three 5e characters I've played so far, only one has been human. The second was a half-elf (which didn't work quite as well as human would have, but I really wanted that extra skill proficiency), and the third is a gnome (because that was the character concept I had in mind).

sithlordnergal

2019-02-11, 08:53 PM

I noticed that in most Guides, most threads about builds, most optimization threads - the top choices always include Variant Human.

Do you think that this race is little bit too strong?

So, I wouldn't call it too strong per say. V-Humans always come up as one of the top choices of any optimization thread because they have a ton of versatility when it comes to specialized roles. The V-Human can fit into nearly every build, with the exception being crazy builds that are super MAD, such as a Paladin/Sorcerer/Druid or a Monk/Barbarian/Paladin.

That isn't to say they'll be the perfect choice for every build. I'd say a Half-Elf or Yuan-Ti is a better choice by far for your average Paladin/Sorcerer. And as someone who plays an aforementioned Paladin/Sorcerer/Druid with AL Point Buy rules, I HAD to be a Half-Elf to make it work. Its just that the V-Human can fit nearly any role you want and work perfectly fine.

To be honest, I feel that the Half-Elf is the most OP in 5e, since you get +2 charisma, +1 to two other abilities, Darkvision, immunity to sleep, advantage against charms, two skills, and an extra language. Yuan-Ti has a close second with racial casting, +2 to charisma and +1 int, immunity to poison, and advantage on saves vs. magical effects.

Benny89

2019-02-11, 09:07 PM

Light spells or whatever, but that hurts your ability to sneak up in the dark:

That is why you keep Light concealed (sword in sheath, amulet behind shirt etc.) till you go into combat. Also if you are heavy melee hitter in plate - you don't sneak anyway ;).

That isn't to say they'll be the perfect choice for every build. I'd say a Half-Elf or Yuan-Ti is a better choice by far for your average Paladin/Sorcerer. And as someone who plays an aforementioned Paladin/Sorcerer/Druid with AL Point Buy rules, I HAD to be a Half-Elf to make it work. Its just that the V-Human can fit nearly any role you want and work perfectly fine.

To be honest, I feel that the Half-Elf is the most OP in 5e, since you get +2 charisma, +1 to two other abilities, Darkvision, immunity to sleep, advantage against charms, two skills, and an extra language. Yuan-Ti has a close second with racial casting, +2 to charisma and +1 int, immunity to poison, and advantage on saves vs. magical effects.

I agree, if you do an average build and don't plan some feat heavy builds (like PAM, Xbow Experts etc. builds) definitelly races with straight +2 racial and other features are better. But more specialized builds will benefit more from extra feat.

As for Half-Elfs being OP- I disagree. They are strong, but not OP. They are top tier on standard builds, but not on specialized ones. They have nice racials, but nothig OP vs other races.

Imo it's Elven Accuracy that is OP on some builds, not Half-Elfs. I housed rules that you can use Elven Accuracy feature once per turn only (you chose when), not on every attack and it's much more balanced now.

But Yuan-Ti I agree whole heartly and I ban this race and everyone I know do the same. This race should have never been allowed to be played by players. It's absolutely out of balance in my opinion.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-11, 09:30 PM

IMO it was Elven Accuracy that evened the ground a bit for HElfs, without that Vhuman would be the only tier 1 PHB race.

2D8HP

2019-02-11, 09:30 PM

I'm pretty underwhelmed by V. Humans and Feats at first level, yes Sharpshooter is great...

....when you have a realy high DEX and Proficiency Bonus, otherwise: meh.

For first level Half Elves, and especially Wood Elves have more "goodies" for what I want my PC's to do.

When I play a human it's just to play a human, and when it's a V. Human it's to get the "Skilled" Feat which just gets me some of what an Elf has but without Darkvision.

Corran

2019-02-11, 09:45 PM

Talionis

2019-02-11, 10:56 PM

No. Even though there aren’t many feats compared to 3rd E, there are more choices for feats than for racial abilities. So it makes sense that if you want one of the feats you would take V Human to get access to it like a racial ability at level one.

Were it me I would’ve made twice as mans feats to choose from and given all characters one feat at level one and V Human access to a second feat. I think that would make the decisions easier and free more people to make more non V Human picks tolerable.

JNAProductions

2019-02-11, 10:57 PM

General thoughts on this:

Most races are worth, say, 100. (Dragonborn might be worth 40, since they suck, but let's assume most races are worth 100.) Variant Humans aren't worth that much-they're only worth, say, 70.

BUT! Variant Humans have absolutely NO set features. Their feat, skill, language and stat boni are all floating. So, take a Mountain Dwarf. They get +2 to two valuable stats, that can be used on the same build. But if you DO get that, chances are, you already get Medium Armor and possibly better from your build in the first place. So, while a Mountain Dwarf is worth, as a whole, 100, its anti-synergistic features make it worth less in practice. Whereas the VHuman gets to use their full 70 on literally any build-you have to INTENTIONALLY choose badly to not get full use out of a VHuman.

In other words, VHuman is never a bad choice. (Okay, one exception-if you need Darkvision, they suck. But that can usually be worked around.) But that doesn't always make them the BEST choice, and they're certainly not TOO good.

sophontteks

2019-02-11, 11:06 PM

Disagree, it depends on what build you have in mind. For example PAM builds are much better with Vuman because they are fully done much faster.

Example standard PAM Vengeance Paladin:

Vuman. 1- PAM, 4- +2 STR, 8- RES (CON)/War Caster, 12- +2 STR.

Half Elf. 4- PAM 8- Elven Accuracy, 12- RES (CON)/War Caster.

First one has 20 stat, and both feats at level 12, second one 18 Stat and one feat. Once 16 will come- Half Elf comes on top overall, but question is: will you see 16 level? And how elven accuracy will compare vs level 16 where Vuman can take Sentinel for example or Mounted Combatant etc.

But Half-Elf is better choice for Sword n Board builds for example.

It depends on build and level in which you expect to play.

Same is with Xbow Master SS Fighters- Vuman just comes online much faster and has more impact from level 1 (two attacks).

So in my opinion Half-Elf, Aaarakocra, and Yuan-ti are all even with Vuman because it depends what you want to build.

The more feat-hungry build- the better Vuman is, the less feat-hungry build- the better races with stronger passives are. Hence why PAM/Xbow Master builds are almost exclusively Vumans.

Well, for builds.
Lets say we want a build that is stronger then other builds. Magic resistance and flight are both just miles away from any of the feats the game offers, so, yeah v.human isn't stacking up so well.

The game has an experience bell curve which puts most our play between levels 5-8. Having an advantage at level 1 is short lived.

And ignoring the utility of darkvision has killed many a character.

Tanarii

2019-02-11, 11:14 PM

I'm pretty underwhelmed by V. Humans and Feats at first level, yes Sharpshooter is great...

....when you have a realy high DEX and Proficiency Bonus, otherwise: meh.
It's a damage improvement against pretty much any target you're likely to encounter at level 1-3. Definitely any target if you're a FS archer.

It's also typically massive overkill. :smallamused: But sometimes a lower chance of hitting with overkill is better than a higher chance but definitely needing to take two shots.

jas61292

2019-02-11, 11:30 PM

Too strong? Probably not. Its close, and merits discussion, but ultimately I'd probably say no.

Badly designed? Absolutely.

Variant humans simply are always good at anything because they are super versatile. A lot of people love that about them, but in my opinion, by allowing them something that is completely unheard of on any other race, they become too easy of a choice. I know a lot of people feel that feats a super defining, and thus something they want to have as soon as possible, which makes the v. human super attractive. While I agree that feats are super defining, I personally feel that this means that no 1st level character is developed or experienced enough to warrant having one, and allowing it thus gives humans a completely different growth feel from every other race, which is a bad thing.

Furthermore, I just think that, in contrast to the base human, it is terrible from a balance perspective. Now, I will not defend the base human either, but the v. human literally removes the worst part of the base human (the bonus to unimportant ability scores), and adds things that are better than the good parts of the base human (feat and skill). That's not a variant, that's just a better version.

Personally, I do not allow v. human in my games. Neither does anyone in the group I play with when they DM. Depending on the game and the world in which it is set, we will sometimes have other custom designed variant humans. Usually this involves taking the base and adding skills or tools or something. But never a feat. Because when humans get feats, other races don't get played.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-11, 11:43 PM

Pex

2019-02-12, 12:46 AM

Aquillion

2019-02-12, 01:02 AM

Not one bit.

Not getting a +2 too a stat is huge. Also other races get cool stuff that sway you to pick them.This. A feat is worth exactly as much as +2 to your primary stat (in fact, you're almost always going to have to sacrifice the chance to get a feat later on in order to take that +2 anyway.)

Compare Variant Human to Half-Elf, say. To anyone who was going to max Charisma anyway, the +2 Charisma is worth as much as a feat, and you also get a bonus skill over Variant Human, plus the minor perks of Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, and Elvish. There's a few other considerations - Variant Human could have put one of their two +1s in their primary stat, whereas a Half-Elf has to put it somewhere else, so whether your Charisma is odd or even makes a difference - but if you, say, rolled 18 Charisma, Half-Elf is pretty unambiguously a better choice for anyone who maxes Charisma.

The advantage to Variant Human is that it is versatile; almost any build can benefit from it, and it will be at least competitive with their best option, especially if your top stat was odd. You see it in so many builds because the two best options for a particular class are often "X or Variant Human" (and this is intentional - the whole point of the flexible human design is to ensure that "Human" is always a mechanically viable choice, since many people prefer them.)

But for any build, there's almost always at least one other race that will be as good as a Variant Human, if not better, and that flexibility doesn't really make them overpowered (since you have to choose one option, at the end of the day.)

Variant humans simply are always good at anything because they are super versatile. A lot of people love that about them, but in my opinion, by allowing them something that is completely unheard of on any other race, they become too easy of a choice. I know a lot of people feel that feats a super defining, and thus something they want to have as soon as possible, which makes the v. human super attractive. While I agree that feats are super defining, I personally feel that this means that no 1st level character is developed or experienced enough to warrant having one, and allowing it thus gives humans a completely different growth feel from every other race, which is a bad thing.I disagree with this. The thing is, most players are human, and the developers know this. They want to ensure that "human" is always a viable option so players don't feel compelled to play a more flavor-heavy race purely for mechanical benefits.

It also ensures that there are always multiple strong choices for any build, even with just the core books. That way, people don't feel pressured to make a Gnome wizard or the like.

Tanarii

2019-02-12, 01:11 AM

If anything they'll complain dragonborn don't have darkvision.
There's always at least one, right?

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 05:31 AM

The thing is, most players are human, and the developers know this. They want to ensure that "human" is always a viable option so players don't feel compelled to play a more flavor-heavy race purely for mechanical benefits.
This is the reason I most often play VHuman. It's hard for me to put myself in the mindset to play other races. One of the few times I didn't play a human was when I'd played a Warforged who had spent hundreds of years acclimating to human society, it wasn't a very difficult transition.

The feat is nice, but why I tend to pick VHuman more over standard human is to avoid having odd ability scores. Could just be a bit of OCD on my part but I can't stand looking at an odd score that I don't have plans of bumping up to an even.

ad_hoc

2019-02-12, 06:12 AM

This is the reason I most often play VHuman. It's hard for me to put myself in the mindset to play other races. One of the few times I didn't play a human was when I'd played a Warforged who had spent hundreds of years acclimating to human society, it wasn't a very difficult transition.

The feat is nice, but why I tend to pick VHuman more over standard human is to avoid having odd ability scores. Could just be a bit of OCD on my part but I can't stand looking at an odd score that I don't have plans of bumping up to an even.

Standard human would be much stronger if point buy was 26 or 28 points.

LudicSavant

2019-02-12, 07:31 AM

Standard human would be much stronger if point buy was 26 or 28 points.

The way that the point buy rules influence optimal race is an interesting discussion in and of itself. For example, if point buy capped at 16 instead of 15, getting a +2 would likely be more attractive.

Benny89

2019-02-12, 11:24 AM

The way that the point buy rules influence optimal race is an interesting discussion in and of itself. For example, if point buy capped at 16 instead of 15, getting a +2 would likely be more attractive.

Correct, but it would push them in my opinion too much toward "too strong" side. Hence why I think with Point Buy it's pretty even. I never roll stats anyway, so I can't say much more than that. I hate stat rolling :P.

Gtdead

2019-02-12, 12:03 PM

If a class relies on a feat too much, then variant human it is.

Aarakocra, protector aasimar, half elf, are very strong too. But the feat taxes most classes have makes vhuman the most convenient race which every other has to compare against. A half elf and a vhuman have very little differences in a max level build, but having access to a feat at lvl 1 instead of 4 can completely alter the experience for these levels.

Being the most vanilla race, is obviously a boost to the popularity too.

I wouldn't say too good, but it's certainly veery convenient.

Pex

2019-02-12, 01:11 PM

There's always at least one, right?

Yeah, the dragonborn player.

GlenSmash!

2019-02-12, 01:11 PM

Benny89

2019-02-12, 01:27 PM

I love V human for rounding out an odd stat with Resilient. Took Resilient Wisdom at level one on my current barbarian. It's saved my bacon way more than taking GWM at level 1 would have.

Yup, I love Vumans for Resilent feats and other "crucial" feats for some classes. For example Paladins work so well with Vumans as they can catch both PAM and RES (CON) or War Caster so much faster and benefit from it. And Conc saves are so important on Paladins.

Or grabbing that RES (WIS) for Fighters or Barbarians etc.

Really love that fexibility of not having to worry about streching all crucials talents and wondering "will I even see XX level to get that?"

rlc

2019-02-12, 02:30 PM

Not much else to add here, but if a specific feat is really important to your build, then you only benefit from getting it earlier, especially if that "specific feat" is actually "multiple specific feats."

Boci

2019-02-12, 02:37 PM

Variant Human isn't too strong. It is just right. Humans should be the most popular race and the Human being versatile achieves that.

What if someone doesn't think humans should be the most popular race, but rather merely a viable one? Is Varient Human too good then?

PeteNutButter

2019-02-12, 03:08 PM

Mountain Dwarf is an interesting case as they have 2 abilities which mostly don't work together.

They have medium armour for classes which don't, and they also have +2/+2. They are the only race (to my knowledge) that can have 2 18s at 4th level.

I like them as Strength rogues or bards, leaving dex at 14. They can make excellent grapplers with expertise and will have a solid AC ~17. Probably better to MC for the armor, because that way you end up with shields too, but it's a cool option when multiclassing is off the table. 17 str and con barbarian is still going to be more popular.

Lizardfolk are the worst at this IMO. Str based claw attack, but no bonus to str. Dex based scale armor, but no bonus to dex... But they get wisdom!

Personally I wish that all of the races were designed with a similarly philosophy. Attribute modifiers are the primary culprit for certain races being "right" for certain classes, and that feels all the more vestigial to me now that it doesn't really model any significant flavor difference (for example, a Barbarian Half-Orc and a Barbarian Human are both going to end up with 20 Strength, and will never be more than 1 point apart on stats).

This gives me an interesting idea for a house rule: What if the 20 cap on stats were calculated before the racial bonuses were applied? It makes sense that if elves are more dexterous on average that the most dexterous elf would be much more dexterous than the most dexterous human. (Statistically the elf would probably be massively ahead of a human on the extreme end, due to the way bell curves work.)

Variant Humans would still be a very strong early game option, but by level 12 (or 8 for fighters) the other races could have a 22 in their core stat. It'd certainly encourage other races, but might be a bit too strong of a buff.

GlenSmash!

2019-02-12, 03:14 PM

What if someone doesn't think humans should be the most popular race, but rather merely a viable one? Is Varient Human too good then?

I wouldn't say its too good. It is after all still viable, and certainly not better than Half-Elf for Charisma based classes.

rlc

2019-02-12, 03:18 PM

What if someone doesn't think humans should be the most popular race, but rather merely a viable one? Is Varient Human too good then?

Nah. The races are all pretty well-built and have their own strengths and weaknesses. The variant human's strength just happens to be that they're more adaptable, like real world humans. This still fits well even if humans are uncommon in the world, because they'd still need to adapt.

Boci

2019-02-12, 03:27 PM

Nah. The races are all pretty well-built and have their own strengths and weaknesses. The variant human's strength just happens to be that they're more adaptable, like real world humans.

I mean, I kinda get what your saying, but claiming real world humans are adaptable when our only competition is chimapanzees and crows is a little meaningless. For all we know humans are badass warriors, capable of surviving amputation of limbs and staying awake for over 24 hours at a time, and can run for over 10 kilometers without stoping, but continue to be slow and mistake prone when learning new tastes and professions, even after the first year in the field.

ad_hoc

2019-02-12, 03:27 PM

What if someone doesn't think humans should be the most popular race, but rather merely a viable one? Is Varient Human too good then?

They're still well designed for the game.

If you want a non-standard game you are free to change them.

Boci

2019-02-12, 03:34 PM

If you want a non-standard game you are free to change them.

I dom't know if "humans shouldn't automatically be the most popular race" is non-standard, but sure.

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 03:43 PM

I dom't know if "humans shouldn't automatically be the most popular race" is non-standard, but sure.

Even with the benefits that Vhuman give, Standard Human leads in the most played character (sub)race if only slightly and Half-Elf sits nearly 3% lower than that. Here's some analytics on that. (https://www.facebook.com/dndbeyond/videos/2269881693064744/)

Whether or not you like it, playing a human is the most popular. It is the standard, and we can't know for certain whether that's entirely by design or because of our bias as being human.

I myself would wager that it's a human bias, seeing as the top 3 race options on DND Beyond are Human, Human, and Half-Human.

Asmotherion

2019-02-12, 03:45 PM

Nope.

it just allows for a larger flexibility due to it's bonus feat and optimisers love flexibility with their choices.

And this question has been asked far too many times to still be relevant.

Boci

2019-02-12, 03:49 PM

Even with the benefits that Vhuman give, Standard Human leads in the most played character (sub)race if only slightly and Half-Elf sits nearly 3% lower than that. Here's some analytics on that. (https://www.facebook.com/dndbeyond/videos/2269881693064744/)

Whether or not you like it, playing a human is the most popular. It is the standard, and we can't know for certain whether that's entirely by design or because of our bias as being human.

Kinda irrelevant to me if those analytics aren't what my expiriences have been though. Presumably because I tend to play with more expirienced players, and also maybe because I flesh out my worlds to be more racially diverse, but almost no one plays standard human, though V-humans are popular.

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 03:53 PM

Kinda irrelevant to me if those analytics aren't what my expiriences have been though. Presumably because I tend to play with more expirienced players, and also maybe because I flesh out my worlds to be more racially diverse, but almost no one plays standard human, though V-humans are popular.

That just means your experience doesn't match up with the statistics, meaning non-standard. Variables that influence that would predominately include playing in a custom setting or with players who would choose Half Elf or Wood Elf for their strong optimization potential. It's not a bad thing.

I'm not saying this to be rude, but I feel the to point out that if you think that your personal experience should shape the standard, you're probably going to be a bit stressed at seeing how many humans actually end up in a game. You've also come off quite condescending, implying that other people who end up experiencing the standard didn't put in enough effort or are inexperienced.

Boci

2019-02-12, 03:59 PM

That just means your experience doesn't match up with the statistics, meaning non-standard. Variables that influence that would predominately include playing in a custom setting or with players who would choose Half Elf or Wood Elf for their strong optimization potential. It's not a bad thing.

I'm not saying this to be rude, but I feel the to point out that if you think that your personal experience should shape the standard

I don't. I just feel its dilutes non-standard term to apply it to every deviation.

"My world is low magic. Full casters are not allowed, but here's an expanded set of alchemy rules to compensate for that" Sure, call that non-standard.

"In my setting a spaceship crashed and with the help of magic some of the recovered technology was reproduced. Though not common high tech weapons and gear are available in most major cities" Again, pretty non-standard.

"This game involves the party hunting down a dragon to take its treasure. Oh, and humans aren't really treated as the default race but have largely equal prominence with the other common PC races" I mean sure, you can say that's non-standard...but its feels a little weak, especially compared to the above. Technically any game with 1 or more house rules is going to be non-standard, unless 51%+ of all groups adopt that house rule.

You've also come off quite condescending, implying that other people who end up experiencing the standard didn't put in enough effort or are inexperienced.

No, I was providing a potential reason for why my expirience differs from the numbers. "I change the role Race X plays in my setting, which has changed how often players use race X" seems pretty reasonable to me, and not condescending. As for the inexpirience thing, I'm not the first in this thread to suggest inexpirienced players will be drawn to the standard human race more so than veteran players.

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 04:09 PM

"This game involves the party hunting down a dragon to take its treasure. Oh, and humans aren't really treated as the default race but have largely equal prominence with the other common PC races" I mean sure, you can say that's non-standard...but its feels a little weak, especially compared to the above. Technically any game with 1 or more house rules is going to be non-standard, unless 51%+ of all groups adopt that house rule.

Default Race =/= Most Popular

If you want "default" in Forgotten Realms that would be Elves and Dwarves. Their civilizations are longer standing (Many even destroyed longer than a human civilization has stood) and they know more about the world than a human could hope to learn in their lifetime. You'd have the most luck getting yourself into the broadest social circles as one of the long living races.

You don't get to decide on your own that Human's shouldn't be popular, that's not how popularity works, and they aren't the "default" in 5E.

It's non-standard in the sense that you're going out of your way to tailor the system to a personal bias. Again, to reiterate, not a bad thing.

I'm not the first in this thread to suggest inexpirienced players will be drawn to the standard human race more so than veteran players.
I don't recall anyone saying this at all, I just felt that you pointing out that you "play with an experienced crowd" had little bearing on the discussion of "I don't like that humans are popular/viable"

Kupursk

2019-02-12, 04:15 PM

I noticed that in most Guides, most threads about builds, most optimization threads - the top choices always include Variant Human.

Do you think that this race is little bit too strong?

Well you can have +1 to three attributes with the variant (2 out of the gate, and +1 if you pick a Feat that gives one.)

Most classes don't need you investing in more than three attributes primarily, so I suppose +1 to three attributes plus whatever bonus you gain from the feat should be better than raising the other 3 less useful attributes by 1.

For example, a Fighter could raise Str, Dex and Con by 1 and still benefit from something else from the feat. Which will likely be better than raising Int, Wis and Cha by 1.

----
Also, can you pick a feat that gives +1 to an attribute you already raise by +1 initially? I'm not sure, but if so you could also start with +2/+1 in two main attributes as a human.

Boci

2019-02-12, 04:15 PM

Default Race =/= Most Popular

If you want "default" in Forgotten Realms that would be Elves and Dwarves.

How many dwarven or elven kingdoms are there in forgotten realms? Because there's quite a few human ones. There's Red Wizard land, Pueple Dragon basically good land, ruthless trade empire land, not so ruthless trade land, spanish/italien-inspired land. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure those were all primarily human kingdoms, and dwarves and elves didn't have much variety to offer next to them. I know Tyranny of Dragons had a lot more human NPCs than any other race.

Seems like humans are the default.

You don't get to decide on your own that Human's shouldn't be popular, that's not how popularity works, and they aren't the "default" in 5E.

Never said I did. I do however get to decide whether or not they should be the most popular race in my game. Which I did say.

It's non-standard in the sense that you're going out of your way to tailor the system to a personal bias. Again, to reiterate, not a bad thing.

Yes, in the same way any game with at least 1 house rule is non-standard, sure. Not sure how useful insisting on that is, I feel a player might be a bit dissapointed to find out this was the extend of the non-standardness of my game.

I don't recall anyone saying this at all, I just felt that you pointing out that you "play with an experienced crowd" had little bearing on the discussion of "I don't like that humans are popular/viable"

First page:

Standard human is the most popular race because it's very simple (just a straight +1 to all Ability Scores), but it suffers from the curse of versatility. +1 to a stat is good if the stat is A) odd and B) one you care about, but a character with 8 STR and 10 WIS likely doesn't care if that ends up as 9 STR and 11 WIS. Depending on your exact build you might care about as little as two stats. So while it's probably the race to point new players towards just so they're not having to learn their class abilities at the same time as learning their racial abilities, it suffers in optimisation from never giving you something important that you can't get elsewhere.

And it was to do with why humans aren't as popular in my games as the average is.

JNAProductions

2019-02-12, 04:17 PM

Never said I did. I do however get to decide whether or not they should be the most popular race in my game. Which I did say.

If you're the DM, you can decide that humans are the most populous race, or not the most.

But you can't really decide for your players whether or not humans are gonna show up at your table, unless you want to make it an outright houserule of "No more than X humans allowed in the party."

It's fine if the party is odd, for being majority human. It's fine for them to lose access or have trouble getting into other racial strongholds, for instance, due to their species. But in general, the PLAYERS determine which race is most popular at a table, not the DM.

Boci

2019-02-12, 04:20 PM

If you're the DM, you can decide that humans are the most populous race, or not the most.

But you can't really decide for your players whether or not humans are gonna show up at your table, unless you want to make it an outright houserule of "No more than X humans allowed in the party."

It's fine if the party is odd, for being majority human. It's fine for them to lose access or have trouble getting into other racial strongholds, for instance, due to their species. But in general, the PLAYERS determine which race is most popular at a table, not the DM.

That's very true, but also kinda my point. I never told my players they couldn't be human, but my games have not reflect the metric of "standard humans are the most popular race". I was offering some thoughts on why that might be, and ProsecutorGodot read that as condescending.

Misterwhisper

2019-02-12, 04:26 PM

It is not that they are too good, it is just that they can be any build of any class.

Some builds need so many stats that they are probably not going to see a feat any time soon if ever, so vhuman is the only way they will get one.

Ex most monk builds.

Also it is one of the few ways to start with +2 wis.

Personally I greatly value darkvision too much to play one unless I get it from a class but the 2 classes that gives it are cha based and half elves are pretty broken.

LudicSavant

2019-02-12, 04:31 PM

What is the methodology for those analytics? Is it just tracking the sheets created on D&D Beyond? If so, I'd be very careful about equating the data set "rate at which certain options are clicked on a character sheet program" to "rate at which Player Characters using those options are played in campaigns."

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 04:38 PM

First page:

Standard human is the most popular race because it's very simple (just a straight +1 to all Ability Scores), but it suffers from the curse of versatility. +1 to a stat is good if the stat is A) odd and B) one you care about, but a character with 8 STR and 10 WIS likely doesn't care if that ends up as 9 STR and 11 WIS. Depending on your exact build you might care about as little as two stats. So while it's probably the race to point new players towards just so they're not having to learn their class abilities at the same time as learning their racial abilities, it suffers in optimisation from never giving you something important that you can't get elsewhere.
And it was to do with why humans aren't as popular in my games as the average is.
Well, thank you for pointing this out. I must have glossed over it.

I still think that you're letting a personal bias get in the way, you jumped into this thread arguing against the idea of VHuman being fine as is under the assertion that they "shouldn't be the most popular." and then at being shown evidence as to why people might tend to pick Human over another race your response was more or less "I don't see that at my table so really it doesn't matter, I also play a racial diverse and experienced game."

Which again, having an experience with DND that doesn't feature your players picking humans is fine. I apologize if I've offended you.

What is the methodology for those analytics? Is it just tracking the sheets created on D&D Beyond? If so, I'd be very careful about equating the data set "rate at which certain options are clicked on a character sheet program" to "rate at which Player Characters using those options are played in campaigns."
I'd have to watch the full dev stream to have a concrete answer on what is considered "Active Character's" but I'd assume that it's not purely based on "click this for easy character creation" because race selection is an alphabetized list and you have to scroll pretty far down past Aarakocra and Aasimar to reach Human. Again, I could be mistaken, but you'd have to be pretty deliberate to choose human. Even with just basic rules options it's not the easiest thing to select.

That would explain why Dragonborn rated so highly though, seeing as they're first on the Basic Rules alphabetic list

Misterwhisper

2019-02-12, 04:38 PM

LudicSavant

2019-02-12, 04:46 PM

I'd have to watch the full dev stream to have a concrete answer but I'd assume that it's not purely based on "click this for easy character creation" because race selection is an alphabetized list and you have to scroll pretty far down past Aarakocra and Aasimar to reach Human. Again, I could be mistaken, but you'd have to be pretty deliberate to choose human.

The level of "deliberateness" required to choose an option would be but one concern. I know a lot of people use character sheet programs for all sorts of things other than actually making PCs they intend to play. Test builds, backup copies, NPCs, experimenting with a sheet, leaving a sheet incomplete, having a sheet in progress, or even misclicks (when you can just create a whole build with a click. And copy them with another).

Like, I could easily see someone who is not a statistician seeing something like "I haven't filled in my feat yet" or "I'm going to max my main stat before taking a feat and haven't maxed them at this level" and leaping to the conclusion "X% of people don't play in campaigns that allow feats!"

Also, it takes only a really short time to make a character on D&D Beyond. As in, you can just click "recommended build" and it spits one out. Then you can click it again and it makes another character. I made several humans just when I was messing with the functions of D&D Beyond to see how they worked.

So yeah... I would really want to know the methodology of those analytics before I concluded anything from them.

Boci

2019-02-12, 04:49 PM

Well, thank you for pointing this out. I must have glossed over it.

I still think that you're letting a personal bias get in the way, you jumped into this thread arguing against the idea of VHuman being fine as is under the assertion that they "shouldn't be the most popular."

I wasn't arguing with that. I asked, "Okay, Vhuman is fine because humans should be the most popular race, but are vhumans also fine if humans shouldn't be the most popular race?"

and then at being shown evidence as to why people might tend to pick Human over another race your response was more or less "I don't see that at my table so really it doesn't matter, I also play a racial diverse and experienced game."

I don't understand why this bothers you. I'm not offending, just baffled. Yes, humans are the most popular race, that wasn't something I disputed. Indeed, one of my points was "Humans are the most popular race overall, but not in my games, I wonder why? Here's some ideas I have".

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 04:53 PM

The level of "deliberateness" required to choose an option would be but one concern. I know a lot of people use character sheet programs for all sorts of things other than actually making PCs they intend to play. Test builds, backup copies, NPCs, experimenting with a sheet, leaving a sheet incomplete, having a sheet in progress...

Like, I could easily see someone who is not a statistician seeing something like "I haven't filled in my feat yet" or "I'm going to max my main stat before taking a feat and haven't maxed them at this level" and leaping to the conclusion "X% of people don't play in campaigns that allow feats!"

If I had to guess, "active character's" probably count for those used in a campaign. There are grouped campaigns on DND Beyond. The players in my campaign who hadn't already created the character they were playing using DND Beyond chose Aarakocra because it was at the top of the list and we only needed for them to have a character in the campaign, not the character they were playing for it.

I'm sure the statistics here aren't 100% accurate, maybe not even mostly accurate, but I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that Human being used twice as often than the next race option is more than "this was easiest to click". They're pretty popular.

LudicSavant

2019-02-12, 05:02 PM

I'm sure the statistics here aren't 100% accurate, maybe not even mostly accurate, but I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that Human being used twice as often than the next race option is more than "this was easiest to click". They're pretty popular.

I don't doubt that humans are popular.

In fact, as I understand it, humans have a tendency to be the most popular race in any given game (seriously, go look up statistics for most popular race in any given MMORPG. Go on, try it).

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-12, 05:11 PM

I don't doubt that humans are popular.

In fact, as I understand it, humans have a tendency to be the most popular race in any given game (seriously, go look up statistics for most popular race in any given MMORPG. Go on, try it).

In case you're interested, here (https://youtu.be/OHFDYuBjMu4?t=2387) he explains that the statistics only take into account characters that receive level ups or updated HP after the time of creation. Also noting that the system is not 100% accurate, obviously.

LudicSavant

2019-02-12, 05:13 PM

In case you're interested, here (https://youtu.be/OHFDYuBjMu4?t=2387) he explains that the statistics only take into account characters that receive level ups or updated HP after the time of creation. Also noting that the system is not 100% accurate, obviously.

Thanks for the link. :smallsmile:

thereaper

2019-02-14, 09:17 PM

Let's do some math:

Variant Human = 2.33 feats, because they get +2 to ability scores, 1 feat, and 1 skill (1/3 of the Skilled feat)

Half-Elf = 4.455 feats, because they get +2 cha, +1 to two other ability scores, Fey Ancestry (about half a feat), Darkvision (1 feat), 2 skills (2/3 of a feat), and an extra language (about 1/8 of the Linguist feat)

Wood Elf = 5 feats, because they get +2 Dex, +5 speed (about 1/3 of the Mobile feat), Darkvision (easily worth 1 feat), 1 skill (1/3 of a feat), Trance (about 1/3 of a feat), +1 Wis (half a feat), Proficiency in 4 weapons (half of the Weapon Master feat), Fey Ancestry (about half a feat), and Mask of the Wild (at least half a feat)

Even if the Variant Human takes a feat that is three times better than an ASI, it is still worse than Half-Elf. Half-Elf competes with Variant Human even if its Cha bonus is useless to it. And Wood Elf blows everything else in the PHB out of the water, but no one ever notices because it is specialized for Rangers, Druids, and Dex Clerics.

So, no, Variant Human is not overpowered.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-14, 09:46 PM

How many dwarven or elven kingdoms are there in forgotten realms? Because there's quite a few human ones. There's Red Wizard land, Pueple Dragon basically good land, ruthless trade empire land, not so ruthless trade land, spanish/italien-inspired land. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure those were all primarily human kingdoms, and dwarves and elves didn't have much variety to offer next to them. I know Tyranny of Dragons had a lot more human NPCs than any other race.

Elves are a creator race in everything but name in Faerun, having reshaped the face and magic of it multiple times over 30 millennia.

For kingdoms themselves you have, Evermeet and Cormanthor, and a myriad locations all over Faerun (maybe all over Toril)

KorvinStarmast

2019-02-14, 11:16 PM

I don't count Yuan-Ti. I don't care if it's AL legal, that playable race is a mistake.Agreed.
Too strong? Probably not. Its close, and merits discussion, but ultimately I'd probably say no. You should have stopped there.
Badly designed? Absolutely.
Absolutely not.

Variant humans simply are always good at anything because they are super versatile. Suggest you, and a bunch of others who are complaining about the vHuman, read the PHB.

Humans are the most adaptable and ambitious people among the common races. RTFM.

vHuman does what it is intended to do: highlight this explicit theme that is written as what the human PC is. "vhuman is too good" is a load of pure rubbish.
vHuman is a good choice?
Yeah, it is, for the very reason that is stated there.
Humans are a young race, short lived, don't get extra skills, don't get extra bennies like dark vision or resistance to poison or immunity to sleep.
The get versatility. That is their niche.

It says so right on the tin.

Next topic, I suppose, is complaining that red dragons breath fire.

Potato_Priest

2019-02-15, 12:13 AM

I wasn't arguing with that. I asked, "Okay, Vhuman is fine because humans should be the most popular race, but are vhumans also fine if humans shouldn't be the most popular race?"

I would tend to say that if you want some other race more popular you should
a) Make that race more versatile to encourage a party with diverse ability score needs to pick it- Genasi are a great example of how to do this: with their base score of +2 con and auxilaries of every other stat under the sun, you can make one fit pretty much every class well.
and b) Yeah, probably remove v.human, and maybe some of the other "golden" race picks like half elf.

Sception

2019-02-15, 12:55 AM

Variant humans simply are always good at anything because they are super versatile. A lot of people love that about them, but in my opinion, by allowing them something that is completely unheard of on any other race, they become too easy of a choice. I know a lot of people feel that feats a super defining, and thus something they want to have as soon as possible, which makes the v. human super attractive. While I agree that feats are super defining, I personally feel that this means that no 1st level character is developed or experienced enough to warrant having one, and allowing it thus gives humans a completely different growth feel from every other race, which is a bad thing.

On a narrative level, this all strikes me as more feature than bug. In nearly all settings, humans are the dominant species (ie, the most commonly encountered of the pc races, as adventurers or otherwise), because they're extremely adaptable (ie, highly versatile, not so much in terms of one human doing everything but rather in terms of any given human being able to potentially specialize in a diverse array of possible skillsets), and quick to mature (ie, they "come online" faster than peers of other species).

Vuman's mechanics naturally replicate these narrative traits of ubiquity, versatility, and speed of development, in a way that the regular human rules just don't.

So are vumans overpowered? Maybe a little bit, but in a way that, imo, acts in the overall game's benefit from a narrative perspective, unless you're playing in a rarer, non-human-dominated setting.

DataNinja

2019-02-15, 01:41 AM

Even if the Variant Human takes a feat that is three times better than an ASI, it is still worse than Half-Elf. Half-Elf competes with Variant Human even if its Cha bonus is useless to it. And Wood Elf blows everything else in the PHB out of the water, but no one ever notices because it is specialized for Rangers, Druids, and Dex Clerics.

So, no, Variant Human is not overpowered.

I mean, to be fair, even if you say something isn't as good as the best, that doesn't mean that it's still not overpowered compared to the majority of the options. You can have a handful of outliers that are all overpowered options if the general power level of everything else is much lower.

Aquillion

2019-02-15, 01:43 AM

Let's do some math:

Variant Human = 2.33 feats, because they get +2 to ability scores, 1 feat, and 1 skill (1/3 of the Skilled feat)

Half-Elf = 4.455 feats, because they get +2 cha, +1 to two other ability scores, Fey Ancestry (about half a feat), Darkvision (1 feat), 2 skills (2/3 of a feat), and an extra language (about 1/8 of the Linguist feat)I mentioned the same thing above, and it's broadly true, but I'd argue that the gap isn't quite as lopsided in favor of Half-Elves as all that. One thing to remember is that the more attributes you get to boost, the less each one is worth - it's not correct to count the Half-Elf +1/+1 as worth as much as a feat, because a feat is worth +2 to your primary ability, whereas those +1s are going to be going into your secondary and tertiary abilities (since if you're a Half-Elf, Charisma is obviously your primary.)

Likewise, while Darkvision might notionally be worth as much as a feat in a vacuum, there are very few builds that focus around that. A Variant Human's feat is usually going to be something that helps you more than that.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-15, 03:01 AM

Simple question, would you still pick Vhuman even if it didnt have 2 free +1s?

Boci

2019-02-15, 04:30 AM

Simple question, would you still pick Vhuman even if it didnt have 2 free +1s?

My guess would be almost certainly not, unless your character concept was dependant on a feat that couldn't wait until level 4. But why call them "free"? Every race has stat bonuses.

Elves are a creator race in everything but name in Faerun, having reshaped the face and magic of it multiple times over 30 millennia.

For kingdoms themselves you have, Evermeet and Cormanthor, and a myriad locations all over Faerun (maybe all over Toril)

That doesn't disprove what I said. In fact the creating race is often explicitly not the default race in a setting, because their time has past. Its a fairly common fantasy troupe.

For kingdoms themselves you have, Evermeet and Cormanthor, and a myriad locations all over Faerun (maybe all over Toril)

So 2. Next to the, the how many human kingdoms, each with their own culture and identity?

Benny89

2019-02-15, 07:25 AM

Simple question, would you still pick Vhuman even if it didnt have 2 free +1s?

I wouldn't becuase that would mean starting with 15 at max, which is bad.

Back to Vumans- they are also best for any sort of odd level Gish builds like Sorcadins 6/14 or 7/13 builds etc. Having extra feat means you can get crucial feats at much much faster rate than other races, and most gish builds are really feat heavy and Vuman is almost always best choice for them because of feats. With other races you may not see your main stat maxed + having curical feats before levels so high that you may stop playing already.

There is a lot of theory crafting about builds here and on other forums, and many people theory craft level 20 builds where you have all feats etc. and then in many cases - Vuman falls behind.

However, in 90% of cases, most builds don't even reach level 16, people rarely play to level 13 in most cases. Vumans are extremely good for any builds that you have no guarantee will reach high levels (even you may get bored of character before that happens).

This makes them great because every build is usually maxed out with Vuman on level 12, even faster, making them more realistic race for many builds, especially those who delay ASI progression due to multi-classing.

Everything looks perfect on theory crafted level 20 build posted on forum, but in real gameplay scenario - it's totally different experience. The sole "feeling" of build coming finally online is much better than "ok, just 4 more levels and I will finally unleash full race-build combo potential!". And that can never happen.

Thus making imo Vumans best multiclass race and most safe race to pick for every build.

thereaper

2019-02-15, 12:25 PM

I mentioned the same thing above, and it's broadly true, but I'd argue that the gap isn't quite as lopsided in favor of Half-Elves as all that. One thing to remember is that the more attributes you get to boost, the less each one is worth - it's not correct to count the Half-Elf +1/+1 as worth as much as a feat, because a feat is worth +2 to your primary ability, whereas those +1s are going to be going into your secondary and tertiary abilities (since if you're a Half-Elf, Charisma is obviously your primary.)

Likewise, while Darkvision might notionally be worth as much as a feat in a vacuum, there are very few builds that focus around that. A Variant Human's feat is usually going to be something that helps you more than that.

That would represent the Variant Human taking a feat that is better than an ASI. But even then, it's still not as good as Half-Elf. You can literally ignore the Half-Elf's cha entirely and it still competes with Variant Human.

In a world where everyone has darkvision, being one of the only races that doesn't have it is a major drawback. What I think you're trying to say here is that a feat will synergize with your build. Darkvision does that too, by not forcing you to have disadvantage on everything you do in the dark (or having a light source that gives away your position).

This is the biggest issue Variant Human has. It is usually the best for white room dpr, but in actual campaigns, it suffers as soon as darkness is introduced.

I mean, to be fair, even if you say something isn't as good as the best, that doesn't mean that it's still not overpowered compared to the majority of the options. You can have a handful of outliers that are all overpowered options if the general power level of everything else is much lower.

Then another data point or two is necessary.

Hill Dwarf = 4.34 feats, because they get +2 Con (1 feat), -5 speed (-1/3 of the mobile feat), 3 weapon proficiencies (3/8 of the weapon master feat), no speed decrease from heavy armor (let's say 1/8 of a feat), a tool proficiency (let's say 1/6 of a feat, since it's not as good as a skill), +1 hp per level (1/2 a feat), Stonecunning (1/2 a feat), Darkvision (1 feat), and +1 Wis (1/2 a feat), and Dwarven Resilience (1/2 a feat)

In other words, if our Variant Human takes a feat that is three times as good as an ASI, then it is exactly as good as the Hill Dwarf.

Let's consider another one.

Drow = 4.045 feats, because they get +2 Dex (1 feat), 1 skill (1/3 of a feat), Fey Ancestry (1/2 a feat), Trance (about 1/3 of a feat), Superior Darkvision (1.5 feats), +1 Cha (1/2 a feat), Sunlight Sensitivity (-1 feat), Drow Magic (1 feat), 3 weapons (3/8 of the weapon master feat)

So, if our Variant Human takes a feat that is three times as good as an ASI, they come out slightly ahead of the Drow, unless it's a primarily subterranean campaign, in which case the Drow becomes much better.

Let's move on.

Stout Halfling = 3.67 feats, because they get +2 Dex (1 feat), Small size (let's say the advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out), -5 speed (-1/3 of the mobile feat), Lucky (at least 1 feat), advantage against Fear (1/2 a feat), Halfling nimbleness (1/2 a feat), +1 con (1/2 a feat), and stout resilience (1/2 a feat)

Hey, we finally found one that is significantly weaker that a Variant Human that takes a feat that is three times better than an ASI. But hold on. Any feat that absurdly powerful is going to be eventually taken by our Halfling as well. Of course, by that point our Variant Human will have another ASI as well, but now they're forced to take a weaker feat, so the advantage is smaller in the long run than the math says.

One more, just for good measure.

Mountain Dwarf = 5.34 feats, because they get +2 Con (1 feat), -5 speed (-1/3 of the mobile feat), 3 weapon proficiencies (3/8 of the weapon master feat), no speed decrease from heavy armor (let's say 1/8 of a feat), a tool proficiency (let's say 1/6 of a feat, since it's not as good as a skill), Stonecunning (1/2 a feat), Darkvision (1 feat), Dwarven Resilience (1/2 a feat), +2 Str (1 feat), and proficiency in two types of armor (2 halves of armor proficiency feats)

If we take it at face value, Mountain Dwarf is the best race in the PHB. Realistically, though, we should probably ignore one of the armor proficiencies on the basis that is unlikely that both are relevant. Even then, it's rocking a whopping 4.84 feats, better than the best case scenario for a Variant Human.

So, from a random picking of races from the PHB, I found a grand total of one that could be argued to be worse than the Variant Human. And that's in the highly unrealistic scenario of a Variant Human picking a feat three times better than an ASI that for some inexplicable reason no one else ever takes. Realistically, the Variant Human will (in the long run) equate to 3.33 feats, not 4.33, which will not be enough to make it an overpowered race.

Sigreid

2019-02-15, 12:30 PM

All of the races basically have the equivalent of a free feat built into them. The difference is VHuman gets to choose what theirs is. In exchange for that little extra freedom they get 2 +1s instead of a +2 and a +1.

Corran

2019-02-15, 12:48 PM

Coffee_Dragon

2019-02-15, 02:40 PM

Badly designed? Absolutely.

I can maybe see an argument that it's questionable design in that it hooks two subsystems together in a way that betrays some perceived premise of one or the other, e.g. that feats should be funky extras that only develop later on and at a significant opportunity cost.

But does it work, and do what I want it to do? Heck yes, favourite race by far, as it should be, and in that way it's brilliant.

Let's do some math:

Variant Human = 2.33 feats, because they get +2 to ability scores, 1 feat, and 1 skill (1/3 of the Skilled feat)

To be extremely specific, humans (standard and variant) also have an extra "hidden" language in any developed setting where Common is a crude trade language and not "the human language", since then humans get a free native language (e.g. commonly Chondathan in FR) in addition to Common and their other language. But that's more of a rounding error since as has been pointed out you can't strictly equate two +1's with an ASI anyway.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-15, 03:45 PM

I wouldn't becuase that would mean starting with 15 at max, which is bad.

You could start with a 16 if you got a relevant half feat, but then you would be spending your "advantage" in catching up, which is not good.

I'm pretty sure that leaving Vhumans and Vhelfs with only 1 free stat boost would put them more in line with the rest of the races.

My guess would be almost certainly not, unless your character concept was dependant on a feat that couldn't wait until level 4. But why call them "free"? Every race has stat bonuses.

I call them free because they aren't tied to a particular stat. And yeah, that would be the only case where one wouldpick them I think.

That doesn't disprove what I said. In fact the creating race is often explicitly not the default race in a setting, because their time has past. Its a fairly common fantasy troupe

So 2. Next to the, the how many human kingdoms, each with their own culture and identity?

There may not be that many elven kingdoms, but there's lots of elven locations covered in official material (Evereska, the high forest, myth drannor, elven court, elven port, tiru tel'quessir, underdark drow cities, most other mythals, the list goes on and on)

And yeah, they each have their own culture, Mythals tend to have a heavy influence on how people live, where in one town everyone can talk to plants and animals, and in another one everyone can fly, mundane life gets pretty distinct.

But anyways, this is OT.

Boci

2019-02-15, 04:02 PM

There may not be that many elven kingdoms, but there's lots of elven locations covered in official material (Evereska, the high forest, myth drannor, elven court, elven port, tiru tel'quessir, underdark drow cities, most other mythals, the list goes on and on)

And yeah, they each have their own culture, Mythals tend to have a heavy influence on how people live, where in one town everyone can talk to plants and animals, and in another one everyone can fly, mundane life gets pretty distinct.

The list goes on, but it still strugglews to overcome the opening fact "There may not be that many elven kingdoms".

And that's....not a very impressive culture. Its really just different varients of "wierd and good at magic", next to different human kingdons being actual kingdoms and having seperate identities and ideologies, not just a gimmick.

But anyways, this is OT.

That is true, I'll save it for another thread.

thereaper

2019-02-15, 04:36 PM

@thereaper: This is a very impractical way of comparing racial boosts. It assumes that all options are equal (and it does not even take into account the limitations of point buy, though this may be intentional on your part?). Using the same standards, the normal human is better than the variant human, since we end up with an ASI's worth of stat bumps vs a skill (which is 1/3 of the skilled feat).

I apologize if I wasn't more clear, but I am not assuming that all options are equal. In fact, I'm specifically assuming that the Variant Human takes a feat that is two (or even three times) better than an ASI. If they do so, then they are indeed better than the standard human. If nothing else, the Variant Human can take +1 to two stats, then get +1 to a third through a feat, effectively giving them what Standard Human would normally get through point buy, plus some feat-specific thing and a skill.

There are technically edge cases where standard human still makes sense in point buy (like a wizard who wants 14 Dex, 16 Con, 16 Int, and 12 Wis at level 1), but usually either Variant Human or Half-Elf is superior. Rolling stats is an entirely different beast.

Tanarii

2019-02-15, 06:07 PM

Let's do some math:
Your math is flawed in two regards:
A) it assumes +2 to a specific fixed ability score = ASI. This is not the case. It varies between 1 ASI and 0 in value, depending on the needs of the given player, character or 'build'.
B) similarly fixed aspect features may have less value to a given player, character, or 'build'.

Flexibility is worth extra value in tra of design. Of course, the power is locked in place when comparing specific decisions as to how its used.

Pex

2019-02-15, 06:34 PM

Your math is flawed in two regards:
A) it assumes +2 to a specific fixed ability score = ASI. This is not the case. It varies between 1 ASI and 0 in value, depending on the needs of the given player, character or 'build'.
B) similarly fixed aspect features may have less value to a given player, character, or 'build'.

Flexibility is worth extra value in tra of design. Of course, the power is locked in place when comparing specific decisions as to how its used.

You'll see the occasional player who wants to play a tiefling barbarian or mountain dwarf sorcerer, but generally players pick the race that improves their class. Dragonborn and mountain dwarves will be warriors. Tieflings and half-elves will be a CH spellcaster. I think you're underrating fixed things.

Mitsu

2019-02-15, 06:40 PM

You'll see the occasional player who wants to play a tiefling barbarian or mountain dwarf sorcerer, but generally players pick the race that improves their class. Dragonborn and mountain dwarves will be warriors. Tieflings and half-elves will be a CH spellcaster. I think you're underrating fixed things.

No necessary. CHA gish casters will actually also prefer Vumans due to being ASI Heavy (Because usually they need fast maxed CHA and War Caster) and ASI delayed as most gish builds are made on odd levels.

Also It's worth to mention that while for example Elven Accuracy is super strong feat for Half Elves- being able to fit into build additional 1 or 2 very strong feats can easly match that in non-combat scenarios. For example not everything is damage based. Feats like Sentinel, Resilent, Mounted Combatant, Inspiring Leader have tons of values that can't be measures with just excel.

Many people are fixed over crits and crits, while igoring fact how many OP feats there are in game and that Vumans have advantage of obtaining more of them and have overall a bigger influence on party gameplay than simple critting one more time during turn.

Aquillion

2019-02-15, 08:31 PM

That would represent the Variant Human taking a feat that is better than an ASI. But even then, it's still not as good as Half-Elf. You can literally ignore the Half-Elf's cha entirely and it still competes with Variant Human.No, that's quite it. What I mean is you counted the two +1s as collectively worth a feat / ASI, and that's wrong. An ASI can (and will) go into your most important stat, which, if you're a Half-Elf, is Charisma. The Half-Elf +1s can't go into Charisma, so they're worth less - boosting your secondary and tertiary stats is not worth as much as boosting your primary one.

Or, to put it another way: You're looking at the Half-Elf (which gets +2 / +1 / +1), and saying that that's worth an entire feat more than the Variant Human' stats (+1 / +1.) But that's not quite accurate - if you look at what the Half-Elf gets over the Variant Human in terms of stats, it's +1 to their primary stat (since they're getting a +2 there instead of a +1), and +1 to their tertiary stat. That's not worth quite as much as an ASI.

To see this even more clearly, consider regular Human. +1 to all stats! A total of +6 to stats! Is that worth three ASIs? No, of course not, since you care more about some stats than others and the value decreases as you go down the list.

(Although the true value has to consider whether the stats in question are odd or even, of course, which gets more complex.)

In a world where everyone has darkvision, being one of the only races that doesn't have it is a major drawback. What I think you're trying to say here is that a feat will synergize with your build. Darkvision does that too, by not forcing you to have disadvantage on everything you do in the dark (or having a light source that gives away your position).Darkvision is a second-level spell that lasts eight hours. Like, sure, not having to waste a spell on it is worth something, but I wouldn't rate it that highly.

More importantly, unless you regularly separate from your group (and not all classes do), whether your group needs a light or not is an all-or-nothing proposition. Most of the time there will be someone who lacks Darkvision, so unless you burn the spells on them (which you can do when it's absolutely essential), you're going to be carrying lights anyway. Darkvision might be worth more if you were doing solo adventures, but as soon as there's one race in your group that lacks it, it becomes more of a flavor benefit than something practical.

Pex

2019-02-15, 09:10 PM

No necessary. CHA gish casters will actually also prefer Vumans due to being ASI Heavy (Because usually they need fast maxed CHA and War Caster) and ASI delayed as most gish builds are made on odd levels.

Also It's worth to mention that while for example Elven Accuracy is super strong feat for Half Elves- being able to fit into build additional 1 or 2 very strong feats can easly match that in non-combat scenarios. For example not everything is damage based. Feats like Sentinel, Resilent, Mounted Combatant, Inspiring Leader have tons of values that can't be measures with just excel.

Many people are fixed over crits and crits, while igoring fact how many OP feats there are in game and that Vumans have advantage of obtaining more of them and have overall a bigger influence on party gameplay than simple critting one more time during turn.

Besides the point. The value of fixed things non-humans get is still high because players are willing to take those fixed things races to improve their class stuff. If they care about strength they're not going to care they aren't playing a tiefling.

Mitsu

2019-02-15, 09:24 PM

Besides the point. The value of fixed things non-humans get is still high because players are willing to take those fixed things races to improve their class stuff. If they care about strength they're not going to care they aren't playing a tiefling.

I never said it isn't high, but also I will never say they are better than Vumans.

I actually thing after playing 5e that Half Elf for CHA builds for Elven Accuracy are overrated. Sure it's nice to roll triple advantage, but thats all. While I learnt to appreciate having place for more utility non-damage-number-sheet feats like Mobile, Sentinel or Inspiring Leader (or combinations). Or having access to both War Caster and RES (CON) combo on gishes. Or other stuff.

Darkvision is also single most overrated feature in game, unless you absolutely has no single caster with Light spell in your party. You can easly keep Light spell on for example sword inside sheath (it lasts 1h) and draw it when needed. Bah, have your Sorcerer/Sorcadin cast Extended Darkvision on you before you all take long rest and you can have up to 24h of Darkvision no problem. There are also Googles of Night as only uncommon item that can replicate it for humans.

Sure it's nice to have Darkvision by default, but there are ways around it. The only character that I think almost require Darkvision are: Rogues/Stealth Characters and Range Characters.

Again, I am not saying that Half Elf is worse or better than Vuman. I say both are equally the same, one offering specialized feat for number-crunching and other one faster online builds and more space for utility stuff to take. Elven accuracy is the only advantage for Half Elf for CHA builds as Vumans can have 20 CHA by level 4.

None of those really have bigger value and are equally amazing. One is however more specialized while other is more flexible.

Rukelnikov

2019-02-15, 10:10 PM

Again, I am not saying that Half Elf is worse or better than Vuman. I say both are equally the same, one offering specialized feat for number-crunching and other one faster online builds and more space for utility stuff to take. Elven accuracy is the only advantage for Half Elf for CHA builds as Vumans can have 20 CHA by level 4.

None of those really have bigger value and are equally amazing. One is however more specialized while other is more flexible.

Vhumans cant have Cha 20 by lvl 4, neither can Helfs.

Mitsu

2019-02-15, 10:34 PM

Vhumans cant have Cha 20 by lvl 4, neither can Helfs.

Sorry, mistake. Level 8.

Anyway Vuman can have 20 CHA by level 8 and extra crucial feat already that any build always have- be it War Caster, Resilent, PAM, GWM, whatever.

Hence why I think both races are equally good, even on CHA builds. But Vuman is great for multiclass builds especially.

Coffee_Dragon

2019-02-15, 11:06 PM

Anyway Vuman can have 20 CHA by level 8 and extra crucial feat

Quick, someone homebrew the Extra Crucial feat

Rukelnikov

2019-02-15, 11:28 PM

Quick, someone homebrew the Extra Crucial feat

"Extra Crucial:

You have the willpower to go the extra mile when doing so would be extra crucial.

You can spend HD equal to your half your CL (round up) and take a level of exhaustion to recover a single use of an ability you have that recovers on a short rest. If you have spell slots that recover on short rest you can instead regain one of them.

You can spend HD equal to your CL and take two levels of exhaustion to recover a single use of an ability you have that recovers on a long rest. If you have spell slots that recover on long rest you can instead regain one of them."

Luccan

2019-02-16, 02:45 AM

I noticed that in most Guides, most threads about builds, most optimization threads - the top choices always include Variant Human.

Do you think that this race is little bit too strong?

As others have stated, it's the flexibility. Example: do you want to play a Wizard? High Elves and Gnomes are obvious choices, but a V. Human could get similar bonuses and their feat could be a half feat (Another +1 to Con, Dex, or Int and some abilities) or a full feat (usually, a very useful ability you can't normally get until at least level 4). Meanwhile, Halflings don't provide much for Wizard specifically, something like Dragonborn is completely irrelevant and even the fairly versatile Half-elf is geared more towards Cha builds. But this applies to literally all classes for V. Human, unlike basically any other race. V. Human is never a bad choice unless you deliberately make it bad.

Aquillion

2019-02-16, 03:20 AM

While we're talking about powerful races, don't forget Changeling. Change Appearance, an additional +1 Charisma, Unsettling Visage, an additional skill (from a more constrained list, but they're all skills you're going to want anyway if you're Charisma-focused), and double-proficiency with a tool are, collectively, worth far more than any one feat.

And you can even just look human 100% of the time if you prefer to.

(Notably, unlike the Half-Elf side-benefits, these are all things that clearly point in one direction.)

ProsecutorGodot

2019-02-16, 04:49 AM

While we're talking about powerful races, don't forget Changeling.
Speaking on the Eberron races in particular, Warforged Envoy are essentially VHuman with Prodigy and quite a bit extra. I think all of the Eberron races have some pretty powerful traits.

Mitsu

2019-02-16, 10:09 AM

Quick, someone homebrew the Extra Crucial feat

:D Good one!

For me as player for example it's very important for builds to come online as fast as possible. There are also some builds that are quite feat heavy and any delay is bad. As I said: how many theory crafted level 16-20 builds really got to those levels?

Btw. is there any chart of what is average level people tend to achieve when playing 5E?

Boci

2019-02-16, 10:20 AM

Btw. is there any chart of what is average level people tend to achieve when playing 5E?

Probably not. You can track D&D Beyond character sheets, but data from that is already unreliable, and if you're trying to determine level reached, you also have the additional unknown of did they stop playing, or simply switch to another sheet using service like Orc Pub, or just pencil and paper.

Alucard89

2019-02-16, 11:00 AM

I love Vumans for multiclasses. Imo it's best race for Sorcadin and Hexsorcadins.

For example taking classic Paladin 6/Hexblade 1/13 Sorcerer with Vuman we will have: War Caster, +2 CHA and +2 CHA at level 12. So at level 11 the build is online, 20 in stat, 20 in spells DC, War Caster for Shield, BBs etc. Then at level 15 we can use what even we want. And its has War Caster and 18 CHA at level 5 (because we start abusing War Caster on 2nd level with Hexblade dip). Super strong, lineral growth.

Building same build with Half Elf would give us Elven Accuracy and War Caster at level 11. So we either wouldn't be able to abuse War Caster on lower levels (so no 2nd level as Hexblade to get Shield and Booming Blade/GFB spam) or we wouldn't be able to abuse Elven Accuracy up to level 11. Also if we don't take War Caster first- our concentration spells have really huge problem up to level 4 (if we take War Caster but then we have level 17 CHA), up to level 7 (where Aura will start to help a little with +4 to save) or up to level 11 (we have 18 CHA but poor Conc saves and we can't use Shield spell with Sword n Board till level 11). And then after level 11 we have to wait to level 15 to finally have 20 CHA. While Vuman have everything and he was also able to play with Concentration spells, melee cantrips from level 1, while have +5 Aura from level 11.

This an example where Vumans are best. Elven accuracy is strong but gimmick as it only works if you have advantage and doesn't help keeping your concentration on crucial spells (Bless, Shield of Faith, Haste etc.) for A LOT of levels. And if enemies caused disadvanage on you- you have nothing from Accuracy on normal attacks.

I like Half-Elfs for straight, no multiclass builds as you get 20 stat + feats faster. Straight builds work grat with them.

But for example for Sorcadins or Hexsorcadins I would take Vuman everyday. Elven accuracy while strong- really gimp you heavy without RES (CON) or War Caster from level 1, or you gimp your main stat if you want to have keep strong conc spells because you have to play with CHA 17 longer then.

While Vumans get immidietly best of both worlds.

People tend to focus on overrated Elven Accuracy a lot while igoring a lot of different things- like not have Resilence, War Caster etc. feat for very long time when playing caster/gish, or that enemies can still force disadvantage on them or that feat heavy builds get 4 levels delay in being fully online many times.

I like Vumans for those builds that really delay ASI or require a lof of them.

Half-Elfs are my fav for straight Hexblade, PAM Vengeance Paladins with 1 Hex dip (but no GWM ones, too much feat delay), Straight Rogues (1 level dip) etc. where you don't delay ASI or don't need specific feats as fast as possible.