Standard Human in a no feat game

[dmhelp]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

[prototype00]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

I would have to say in my experience having a couple more skills... isn't going to make or break a character, ditto one or two languages.

For me the name of the game is applicability, can I be sure that this racial skill benefit that I am taking at the cost of some other possible choice is going to come up again and again (and I can be happy with my choice).

Picking up a blade cantrip from either a High Half Elf or a High elf is a CHARACTER DEFINING ability. You will use this from T1 to T4 and it will come up every combat if you build for it. That's what your racial choices have to be compared to, or Resistance to Fire, one of the most common damages in the game or advantage on saves vs all magic affecting you.

Ask yourself, is Knowledge: History and Animal Handling going to be as good as those choices?

[Salmon343]

What could work is by using Variant Human as a chassis, then select a feat that'd look good as a race option, but isn't as unbalancing as others, considering its a featless game. So something like Skill Expert, or Fey/Shadow Touched (plenty of races get bonus spells) - but not something like Sharpshooter, or Resilient. That way you can be sure the race is balanced against all the others, without having the more unique feats in the game.

[quindraco]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

With or without Tasha's? I mean the rules for reassignment - you just made it clear you're not playing with custom lineage.

I appreciate the attempt to emphasize intelligence, but that's not how racial rules are generally written. I suppose Loxodon AC does set some sort of precedent, but still.

Humans are supposed to be versatile, but in practice half-elves are and always have been better than humans at versatility. That's weird, right? Try this on for size, based on custom lineage, the skill expert feat, and the generic background rules:

Ability scores: 3 stat points, just assignable at will - +1/+1/+1, +2/+1, and +3 are all legal. <-- This is functionally the custom lineage ability score if you require it to take a "half feat".
Skills: Choose any two, and humans are not bound by class skill lists - all skills are class skills for all classes a human enters. The two chosen skills can be stacked, picking the same skill twice, giving expertise in the skill.
Languages and Tools: Humans are proficient in Common and have two more proficiencies which can be any language or any tool. These can be stacked for the tool, choosing only one and having expertise in it.

What this makes humans uniquely good at is, generically speaking, any one thing. A clear-cut example, because thieves' tools have the most clear-cut rules of any tool, is that you can make a genuinely competent human rogue by showing up at level 1 with Dex 18 and expertise in stealth and thieves' tools (on top of the rogue expertises!). That's a pretty compelling reason to pick a human, which the race otherwise generally lacks.

[strangebloke]

I like playing as humans because they're blank canvases upon which you can build a character so I'd probably at least consider it, but I still think its weak.

[DwarfFighter]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

So... It's not the standard human, then?

Adding more skill proficiencies like the half elf sounds interesting. I'm not sure why they considered the standard humnan and half elf balanced with each other in that regard.

I would avoid ability-mod powered proficiency traits (in this case it's just languages, sure) since that skews the human race variant towards those ability scores. If you want extra languages for humans, decide on a reasonable number instead and apply that to all.

With regards to the standard human, I feel that race's traits has better opportunity to shine if all PCs are restricted to the standard array of ability scores.

-DF

[Lavaeolus]

It might be fun to e.g. have a Wizard who's a bizarre omniglot, but that's probably a bit of a gimmick I'd only pull off once. This might be somewhat DM/campaign-dependent, but generally languages don't have much of an impact. There are only so many problems that can only be solved with impeccable precision use of Dwarvish, especially in a world where the Tongues spell exists. If I'm not using an INT-based class, of course, this buff isn't really going to apply anyway. Two extra skills is nice, but generally not tempting enough to sway me from picking another race with potentially more interesting (or powerful) features.

Now, there's the usual cases in which a character concept just nebulously 'fits' better as a human or I'm doing some sort of MAD multiclass combination where human's ASIs come in handy, but generally I wouldn't consider this that more attractive than Human as it currently exists.

[heavyfuel]

+1 to all scores is pretty weak. Most characters don't care about a +1 on their 4th most important stat, let alone a +1 in their 6th most important one.

2 skills is nice, but half-elf also gives that, plus darkvision, plus (potentially) a better ability array.

What I do is give an extra skill and an extra language, and change the six +1s to a +2 and two +1s to anything. Makes them very competitive with half-elf. Worse than HE for cha-based characters, but better for literally everyone else.

[LudicSavant]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

It would still be on the unimpressive side.

+6 to stats isn’t all that because each stat tends to have sharply decreasing value from the last e.g. primary stat is worth more than secondary, is worth more than tertiary, is worth a lot more than quaternary, is worth more than quinary, is worth more than senary.

And if you don’t have enough odd stats, then some of those might be literally worthless.

Skill proficiencies are nice, but aren’t the sort of thing that make or break a character.

[Bobthewizard]

Even with all odd stats, the last 3 +1's are a waste. I'm not sure 2 skills is enough to take human over half-elf since I love having darkvision, but maybe expertise might be enough to get people to play a straight, featless human and it definitely fits the theme. So let's say

Floating +2,+1,+1
2 skills with expertise in 1
1 language

There are some builds where I'd take this over half-elf - athletics on a grappling barbarian, stealth on a ranger, or deception on a mask of many faces warlock or a subtle social sorcerer.

[loki_ragnarock]

To Emphasize:
+1 to all abilities is pretty garbage if you're using the standard array; it only nets a meaningful bonus to two stats. 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 becomes 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9. That doesn't do much for the character outside of extreme multi-class situations, and other races can accommodate that need just as well by simply being strategic in how they place their stats. Beyond the observation that post tertiary is increasingly severe diminishing returns in a game that rewards specialization... with the standard array, you don't even gain a meaningful tertiary benefit to get diminishing returns from.
Bummer.

Simplest Solution
If you change the standard array to all uneven stats, humans might have an appeal.
If the standard array is 15, 15, 13, 13, 11, 9 then standard humans at least gain an immediate benefit from their stat boost.
It doesn't solve the diminishing returns problem, but it would at least get you to the point where you meaningfully have a diminishing returns problem. It would roughly match other races on the primaries; the mountain dwarf with a 17 str, 17 con would roughly be the same as the human with a 16 str, 16 con at the start of play, but the human would pull away in the areas they aren't specialized in. By 4th level the mountain dwarf could pull away, sure, but I'm okay with that as a delayed reward for specialization; the mountain dwarf gets their primary and secondary covered faster, but once he's done that and has to fill out tertiaries and quaternaries - since there're no feats, that's the inevitable arc - the human's already there. Humans just got started on the second arc of progression a little early.
But for argument, let's say the mountain dwarf wanted to also be a bit spread out: they assign points as 13 (+2 = 15) str, 15 dex, 13 (+2 = 15) Con, 9 int, 11 wis, 15 cha. 4 15s is a well rounded character, but the human still comes out roughly the same with very little adjustment needed: two 16s, and two 14s might be the better trade for someone looking specifically to be well rounded.
For things that aren't mountain dwarves, everyone else stays a little bit closer still in that regard. This also enhances the appeal of half-elves, though, and they were already more appealing than humans in many ways.

That would help to address the odd man out stat bonus that humans get. But there's still a huge appeal problem:

If you are rolling stats or using point buy or an unmodified standard array, fughetaboutit; the stat boost will never be the fetid smell of dead flesh that draws the flies to your corpse flower, and even with the above adjustment things still smell a little too fresh. The human as presented has no appeal. They don't got no darkvision. They don't got no racial abilities. Most of the races in Volo's get proficiency with two skills, and they get a bunch of other stuff, too; this is little more than parity. Being a polyglot ain't enough to push it over the top, especially when every race gets a racial language in addition to their common; being able to choose a bonus language, even a couple, isn't much more than parity for anyone not playing a wizard. This still leaves them behind on things like darkvision, Relentless Endurance, Infernal Legacy, Powerful Build, etc.

Humans need a unique ability to draw people in, beyond what's been proposed, in addition to running an adjusted standard array.

So think about that, find something you think hits the mold.

I'd go with something like:
Power of Diversity
Humans are more varied than other races, and you can never know exactly what to expect when you fling a spell at them. They become proficient with one additional saving throw of their choosing at level 1.

It hits a niche. Particularly a caster niche as everyone that isn't a sorcerer wants to be a human just for proficiency with con saves, but a niche that still helps out any and all classes. That should put just enough stank on it to pull in the flies.

EDIT
It also - and I didn't think to make this explicit until after posting - leans into the theme of humans being extremely well rounded, in addition to being something that would entice people in a featless game. Thematics are as important as mechanics, methinks.

[Angelalex242]

Let's go with something simpler, perhaps.

+1 to all stats.
+2 skills.

Automatic 'Lucky' Feat (instead of Resilient).

Gotta explain why humans tend to be the dominant race. And since Han Solo believes it's better to be lucky than good...

[loki_ragnarock]

I thought Get Lucky was the halfling theme song?

Wouldn't that make humans step on halflings tiny, freaky toes?

[Lupine]

What could work is by using Variant Human as a chassis, then select a feat that'd look good as a race option, but isn't as unbalancing as others, considering its a featless game. So something like Skill Expert, or Fey/Shadow Touched (plenty of races get bonus spells) - but not something like Sharpshooter, or Resilient. That way you can be sure the race is balanced against all the others, without having the more unique feats in the game.

That's not a bad idea. You could also look at some of the racial feats, and give one (not necessarily a normally accesable one) to the human.

[Pex]

I would have to say in my experience having a couple more skills... isn't going to make or break a character, ditto one or two languages.

For me the name of the game is applicability, can I be sure that this racial skill benefit that I am taking at the cost of some other possible choice is going to come up again and again (and I can be happy with my choice).

Picking up a blade cantrip from either a High Half Elf or a High elf is a CHARACTER DEFINING ability. You will use this from T1 to T4 and it will come up every combat if you build for it. That's what your racial choices have to be compared to, or Resistance to Fire, one of the most common damages in the game or advantage on saves vs all magic affecting you.

Ask yourself, is Knowledge: History and Animal Handling going to be as good as those choices?

Not fair. I may choose Perception and Stealth for my bonus Human skills.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

Why not play a class that offers those boosts, or take a background that offers improvements.
Example:
Knowledge Cleric, Noble Background.
You get another language, and two more languages, and you end up with more skills and with some expertise at second level.

It's already in the PHB. And no, Knowledge cleric isn't weak.
If you are using Point Buy:
S 13 D 13 C 13 I 9 W 15 Ch: 8
S 14 D 14 C 14 I 10 W 16 Ch: 9

You are not trying to be the melee combat leader: you are a supporting member of the melee cast, and your maxed out Dex contribution to AC is all you need. You cast Bless, for example, and help
the party.
You have no negative saving throws, and you aren't trying to be the party face but watch this:
For one, you have three languages. Heh, you could have taken Sailor Background and gotten Athletics and Perception ...

Blessings of Knowledge
At 1st level, you learn two Languages of your choice. You also become proficient in your choice of two of the following skills: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. Your Proficiency Bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those Skills.

Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages
Starting at 2nd Level, you can use your Channel Divinity to tap into a divine well of knowledge. As an action, you choose one skill or tool. For 10 minutes, you have proficiency with the chosen skill or tool.

You are proficient in anything, at need.

And if you choose the Enhance Ability spell, guess what you get? Advantage on most skill checks if you need them for a critical task or series of tasks.

Bear’s Endurance. The target has advantage on Constitution Checks. It also gains 2d6 Temporary Hit Points, which are lost when the spell ends.
Bull’s Strength. The target has advantage on Strength Checks, and his or her carrying Capacity doubles.
Cat’s Grace. The target has advantage on Dexterity Checks. It also doesn’t take damage from Falling 20 feet or less if it isn’t Incapacitated.
Eagle’s Splendor. The target has advantage on Charisma Checks.
Fox’s Cunning. The target has advantage on Intelligence Checks.
Owl’s Wisdom. The target has advantage on Wisdom Checks.

[bid]

Not fair. I may choose Perception and Stealth for my bonus Human skills.

If those are your 5th and 6th choice, what the heck did you pick for your background/class skills?

[Protolisk]

If those are your 5th and 6th choice, what the heck did you pick for your background/class skills?

Off the top of my head, Athletics (or Acrobatics), Insight, and at least 1 diplomacy skill (Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion) are skills I'd consider above Perception for most characters. But it'd likely be 4th pick for me. If its that easy to choose those 3 for me, I could see someone choosing something else to fill in for spot 4. Investigation isn't a bad one, either, for instance.

Stealth especially would get left behind on characters that are already using heavy armors.

[Pex]

If those are your 5th and 6th choice, what the heck did you pick for your background/class skills?

Depends on class, background, and roleplaying. Athletics and Acrobatics allow for stunts. Insight, Persuasion, and Deception are good for social gatherings, and I've seen Performance put in play for NPC reactions. Some may prefer Intimidation. The magically inclined like Knowledge Arcana and Knowledge Religion. Not my personal common cup of tea, but Thieves' Tools and Sleight of Hand need some proficiency slots. Survival has its uses.

[Kane0]

If you were playing in a no feat game w phb, vgm, and mtf races would this human be attractive at all or still too weak?

+1 all abilities (no change)
+2 skills (new)
Common plus int mod (min 1) additional languages (boosted)

Not too weak, but definitely boring. If i’m playing in a featless game i’m going to be lookong at the most interesting class and race options i can get my hands on.

[Theodoxus]

What about:

HUMAN TRAITS
It's hard to make generalizations about humans, but your human character has these traits.
Ability Score Increase. You increase three attributes of your choice by 2.
Age. Humans reach adulthood i n their late teens and live less than a century.
Alignment. Humans tend toward no particular alignment. The best and the worst are found among them.
Size. Humans vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice. Humans typically learn the languages of other peoples they deal with, including obscure dialects. They are fond of sprinkling their speech with words borrowed from other tongues: Ore curses, Elvish musical expressions, Dwarvish military phrases, and so on.

[prototype00]

Depends on class, background, and roleplaying. Athletics and Acrobatics allow for stunts. Insight, Persuasion, and Deception are good for social gatherings, and I've seen Performance put in play for NPC reactions. Some may prefer Intimidation. The magically inclined like Knowledge Arcana and Knowledge Religion. Not my personal common cup of tea, but Thieves' Tools and Sleight of Hand need some proficiency slots. Survival has its uses.

All that said, would you rather pick two of any of those over Magic Resistance, Flight or multiclass-free Booming Blade?

I personally wouldn’t.

[loki_ragnarock]

What about:

HUMAN TRAITS
It's hard to make generalizations about humans, but your human character has these traits.
Ability Score Increase. You increase three attributes of your choice by 2.
Age. Humans reach adulthood i n their late teens and live less than a century.
Alignment. Humans tend toward no particular alignment. The best and the worst are found among them.
Size. Humans vary widely in height and build, from barely 5 feet to well over 6 feet tall. Regardless of your position in that range, your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice. Humans typically learn the languages of other peoples they deal with, including obscure dialects. They are fond of sprinkling their speech with words borrowed from other tongues: Ore curses, Elvish musical expressions, Dwarvish military phrases, and so on.

... well, the diminishing returns with tertiary and further stats thing is still in play, but lets take a closer look.

Using the standard array gets you something like:
This Human has a 17 16 15 12 10 8 vs a mountain dwarf's 17, 16, 13, 12, 10 8

Is that +1 ability modifier on the tertiary stat really going to make up for (darkvision, resistance to poison, advantage on poison saves, weapon proficiencies, tool proficiencies, sort of expertise, and armor proficiencies)?

Maybe so. It does give a little more freedom for stat allocation, but I suspect that outside of some very specific builds you'd see little meaningful utility to getting +2 to three stats with nothing else going on. In a featless game, this is one of the few choices you get to make to pull in something extra.
Not sure. Could be the stank needed to bring certain kind of flies over, I guess.

[Theodoxus]

You're also 5' faster and don't have annoying antisynergies going with a boost to Str, Medium Armor Proficiency and not being slowed in heavy armors... Outside of niche builds, I can't think of a case where you want both strength and not having a class that already has medium armor; or where you have heavy armor proficiency and also want strength for your melee attacks anyway. If you're going caster cleric (say, Life), you're wanting a Wis boost from Hill.

Now, granted, if you're using Tasha's race mods, then it becomes a moot point, and you're really looking at that speed difference...

Of course, dwarves are one of the stronger races in general. (Outside of Yuan-ti and Satyr). Would you pick my human substitute over elf? or Dragonborn?

[loki_ragnarock]

This Human has a 17 16 15 12 10 8 vs a mountain dwarf's 17, 16, 13, 12, 10 8

And elf looking to maximize benefit would probably looks something like 16, 16, 13, 12, 10, 8.

Again, this is roughly on par, minus a slight difference in whatever the tertiary stat is.

So with an elf, is that +1 to a stat with diminishing returns be enough to provide parity with:
Darkvision, Free Proficiency with a (perhaps overrated but also) sought after skill, advantage on charm and immunity to sleep, half required time for sleep (and the extra utility that provides), additional weapon proficiencies, and your choice of:
(1) A wizard Cantrip and a Free Language
(2) An extra 5' of movement and the ability to hide while only lightly obscured.
(3) Even more darkvision, sulight sensitivity, a specific cantrip, a very good level gated first level spell, and a pretty good level gated second level spell. Huh. I appreciate drow alot more now.

I still feel like that tertiary stat has to be a pretty big deal for your build in order for that trade off to make sense. Especially in a featless game where your ASI is just an ASI and your only chance to diversify your character abilities are in the race riders. If anything, looking at elves only makes it seem more stark; their non-ASI abilities are pretty stellar, and they still aren't much behind on ASIs.

That said, this proposed human might have enough stank on it to draw in MAD flies like Monk or Paladin or Ranger for pollination?

EDIT:
Dragonborn is a hard sell in general, already, even without adjusted humans. This human will probably win out over dragonborn.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think the normal Human is fine, as long as you're playing some kind of multiclass character that functions from multiple different stats.

For example, Barbarian/Monk, Druid/Paladin, Barbarian/Warlock, or something along those lines.

[dmhelp]

I think the normal Human is fine, as long as you're playing some kind of multiclass character that functions from multiple different stats.

For example, Barbarian/Monk, Druid/Paladin, Barbarian/Warlock, or something along those lines.

Yes, so this standard human is for my gestalt no feats AD&D style game. So 4d6 rolled stats ordered to taste with no TCE customizing. Everyone is eventually getting all saving throws to simulate AD&D high level save toughness. And people can play an Elf level 11 Fighter/Wizard (gestalt so 11 in both), or simulate the old superior subclasses with slower advancement with Fighter/Paladin, Fighter/Ranger, and Monk/Rogue gestalts (amongst whatever combos people come up with to play).

I don't mind giving them less ability bonuses since they are garbage anyway. I am kind of hesitant about giving them floating +2s and would prefer to give them something else (it gives the flavor of the elf being more dextrous, dwarf being more hardy, etc).

So I was thinking of making the int mod languages a rule anyway (int determines languages known in AD&D), but then thought I'd just give it to humans since everyone else is better to begin with (darkvision, etc).

It is really hard to find a way to balance humans with an AD&D theme since demi-humans had better ability bonuses and racial powers. I definitely don't want demi-human level limits from AD&D and I don't want to bring back class racial restrictions.

Giving humans expertise in a skill is a very intrigueing option. It also kind of goes along with humans having unlimited advancement in something compared to the limited demihuman advancement (at least in whatever you gave them expertise in). It is also more valuable in a no feats game.

So:
2-6 +1s
2 free skills
1 skill or tool expertise
common + int mod languages (for an AD&D feel only... I am not expecting most humans to take advantage of this)

How many +1s should they get with that package?

[x3n0n]

So:
2-6 +1s
2 free skills
1 skill or tool expertise
common + int mod languages (for an AD&D feel only... I am not expecting most humans to take advantage of this)

How many +1s should they get with that package?

The non-ability-score portion basically matches RAW V.Human (Skill Expert). That would be

+1/+1 (v.human)
Stackable +1 (Skill Expert)
Skill proficiency (v.human)
another Skill proficiency (Skill Expert)
Expertise in one proficiency (Skill Expert)
Common + 1 language (v.human)

Since you're forcing them into (the equivalent of) a specific feat and not allowing stacking to make a +2, I am guessing +1/+1/+1 wouldn't be enough to make this a popular choice.

Given that and significant diminishing returns on +1s after the third and the fiddly nature of "which ability score *isn't* bumped", I'd suggest keeping all 6 to test with.

That would leave you with

RAW Standard human
+ 2 skill proficiencies
+ An expertise in a proficiency
+ Language bump

Which is one expertise on top of your original proposal.

[Ryuu Hayato]

I would make this way:

• +1 to all stats
• 1 one skill proficiency
• 1 expertise
• 1 language

[loki_ragnarock]

Yes, so this standard human is for my gestalt no feats AD&D style game. So 4d6 rolled stats ordered to taste with no TCE customizing. Everyone is eventually getting all saving throws to simulate AD&D high level save toughness. And people can play an Elf level 11 Fighter/Wizard (gestalt so 11 in both), or simulate the old superior subclasses with slower advancement with Fighter/Paladin, Fighter/Ranger, and Monk/Rogue gestalts (amongst whatever combos people come up with to play).

Holy cow does that change things. Tertiary and quaternary stats might actually matter a great deal. With a metric boat load of class features to choose from, racial abilities might not be as critical a consideration.

Having a very broad array of stats that you'll be relying on is sort of baked into that sort of dynamic. It's still going to depend on how many uneven stats someone rolls, and whether those uneven stats are coming in high enough to be meaningful, but the +1 to everything has alot more potential impact in that environment. I just rolled an example set for myself to compare against and found I'd be pretty satisfied with that presentation of human.