I much prefer Variant. The normal human is great if you're build is very MAD and you've rolled high - congrats, you have really high stats across the board! But most of the time, it's just really a forced +1 to three stats.
Variant human is something that can have a pretty good flavour with its free feat, not to mention the power boost it gives.
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Having access to a feat makes a much bigger difference than 5 +1’s. As linklite said standard human might be ok for certain builds but usually vHuman is the way to go
It very much depends on what I'm building; being able to take a feat with variant human is great for doubling down on what a class is already good at, or for adding extra capabilities (e.g- throwing Sentinel on a martial, grabbing an Eldritch Invocation on a non-Warlock etc.).
But I do find regular human useful as well when building all-rounders as it can get you better overall ability scores, especially if you use point buy which is what my groups tend to always use.
Personally I'd rate them kind of equal, but with variant having access to your choice of feat it's going to be the more broadly useful. I have like forty human characters in my ridiculous character backlog (around 180, though I do use characters to help me build NPCs) and over a quarter are regular.
Part of the problem though is that depending upon the exact feat choice, variant human can be seriously broken. Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master are powerful feats that are very strong for early level characters (when anything that can give you more attacks is a big damage boost). But for more reasonable feats it's a lot more balanced. It's very much a "race" where the balance is determined by your DM's willingness to veto OP choices.
There's a reason the OneD&D playtests are allowing everyone access to first level feats, but restricting the choices to specific 1st-level feats.
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I much prefer Variant. The normal human is great if you're build is very MAD and you've rolled high - congrats, you have really high stats across the board! But most of the time, it's just really a forced +1 to three stats.
Variant human is something that can have a pretty good flavour with its free feat, not to mention the power boost it gives.
I completely agree that Vhuman is better, and it's a great tool for min-maxing and just having a buffer character as a feat at low levels is absurd powerwise (I mean, just look at the Tough and Lucky feats lol).
But the bland human is actually startlingly powerful: People just dislike it because it's boring. However it has 3 more total ability score points than most species, which I would argue is better than Fey Ancestry and Trance combined and may not beat out species like Elf overall but is still really solid at a bare minimum.
I put 5 for variant human and 4 for the regular one; But maybe that's a bit high.
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Variant human is good because of the free feat, but there are just too many races with great abilities to select before taking the plain vanilla version.
I will add that a base Human is great for a skill monkey build that wants to balance everything. Good for Rogue's. But its usually a waste because they don't excel at anything, so I like Variant Human better. The feat Variant Humans get is amazing.
I much prefer Variant. The normal human is great if you're build is very MAD and you've rolled high - congrats, you have really high stats across the board! But most of the time, it's just really a forced +1 to three stats.
Variant human is something that can have a pretty good flavour with its free feat, not to mention the power boost it gives.
I completely agree that Vhuman is better, and it's a great tool for min-maxing and just having a buffer character as a feat at low levels is absurd powerwise (I mean, just look at the Tough and Lucky feats lol).
But the bland human is actually startlingly powerful: People just dislike it because it's boring. However it has 3 more total ability score points than most species, which I would argue is better than Fey Ancestry and Trance combined and may not beat out species like Elf overall but is still really solid at a bare minimum.
I put 5 for variant human and 4 for the regular one; But maybe that's a bit high.
I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws. A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
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I much prefer Variant. The normal human is great if you're build is very MAD and you've rolled high - congrats, you have really high stats across the board! But most of the time, it's just really a forced +1 to three stats.
Variant human is something that can have a pretty good flavour with its free feat, not to mention the power boost it gives.
I completely agree that Vhuman is better, and it's a great tool for min-maxing and just having a buffer character as a feat at low levels is absurd powerwise (I mean, just look at the Tough and Lucky feats lol).
But the bland human is actually startlingly powerful: People just dislike it because it's boring. However it has 3 more total ability score points than most species, which I would argue is better than Fey Ancestry and Trance combined and may not beat out species like Elf overall but is still really solid at a bare minimum.
I put 5 for variant human and 4 for the regular one; But maybe that's a bit high.
I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws. A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
Agreed. Base Human is almost never a good option. There is a skill monkey build that it's good for, and maybe multiclassing, but that's basically it. No cool features.
I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws. A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
It's not even the best for just being good at everything.
A base human winds up at 15/14/13/12/11/10. Total ability score modifier +6, odds of making a DC 10 check against a random ability is 60%.
A typical (+2/+1) race winds up at 16/14/12/11/10/9. Total ability score modifier +5, odds of making a DC 10 check against a random ability is 58.3%.
A halfling has the same array, but due to luck adds 2.9%, for a total of 61.2%
I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws.
Ehhhh... I think even "dump stats" can be shockingly useful. Here's some of the neat stuff that stems from ability scores, not including saving throws:
Strength: 1 skill (Athletics, which is used quite a lot), Most weapon attacks and unarmed strikes
Dexterity: 3 skills (Sleight of hand, Stealth, and Acrobatics), Armor Class, All ranged and finesse weapons attacks
The list isn't ginormous and I'd be shocked if I didn't forget several quintillion things outside of the lame, not-too-far-from-useless ones that I didn't mention (like encumbrance). But essentially, the point is that in addition to saving throws and flat out ability checks, a ton of the skill checks here are pretty important and not necessarily something to be deliberately passed up on as perception, stealth, investigation, and more are often done by the full party.
And obviously, AC, HP, and weapon attacks can be pretty crucial. I mean, why do wizards often fear getting stuck in the fray more than a Tarrasque? Well, the first reason is because Tarrasqes suck when fighting flying targets, but one of the more relevant ones is that they often dump con and strength and don't have enough HP to take a lot of hits or melee damage when ranged spells mostly fail.
Basically, the summary of my infatualingly uninteresting rant is that I believe I rolled high on my perception check and see that people often underestimate the powers of dumped ability scores. Certainly, it's exaggeration to claim they "don't provide anything useful" outside of for saves but I do get your broader point on these stats and personally think they're more important.
A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
I dunno how much the difference'd be quantified at but I absolutely agree that the feat's a more powerful option, hence the reason why I gave vhuman a 5 and the regular one a 4.
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The thing about most skills is that as long as you have one person in the party who has them, you're usually fine. Charisma and Intelligence skills in particular. Everybody benefits from Perception, of course, but I don't even remember the last time I've seen someone make a Medicine check. And as for stuff like Athletics? Yeah, can be important... or depending on your class it might not- Misty Step bypasses the need to make an Athletics check in a lot of situations, for example.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If you're min-max'ing, the correct answer is always Variant Human or Custom Lineage. Free Feat is soooooo much better than any racial ability in the game. Then on the other hand if you're playing for fun, literally anything is more fun than Human or Variant Human so don't pick either
I am so confused as to how Human has a 2.5 as of this very moment. The +1 to all stats is only good if you want to pretend that all Stats for a character are equally important.
I actually think the variant human is pretty trash. It's awful for the simple reason of being so obviously the better choice for most builds (or ... a lot of builds?!). I like human-human. But when it comes down to it, I'm not stupid - I primarily play variant humans.
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I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws.
Ehhhh... I think even "dump stats" can be shockingly useful. Here's some of the neat stuff that stems from ability scores, not including saving throws:
Strength: 1 skill (Athletics, which is used quite a lot), Most weapon attacks and unarmed strikes
Dexterity: 3 skills (Sleight of hand, Stealth, and Acrobatics), Armor Class, All ranged and finesse weapons attacks
The list isn't ginormous and I'd be shocked if I didn't forget several quintillion things outside of the lame, not-too-far-from-useless ones that I didn't mention (like encumbrance). But essentially, the point is that in addition to saving throws and flat out ability checks, a ton of the skill checks here are pretty important and not necessarily something to be deliberately passed up on as perception, stealth, investigation, and more are often done by the full party.
And obviously, AC, HP, and weapon attacks can be pretty crucial. I mean, why do wizards often fear getting stuck in the fray more than a Tarrasque? Well, the first reason is because Tarrasqes suck when fighting flying targets, but one of the more relevant ones is that they often dump con and strength and don't have enough HP to take a lot of hits or melee damage when ranged spells mostly fail.
Basically, the summary of my infatualingly uninteresting rant is that I believe I rolled high on my perception check and see that people often underestimate the powers of dumped ability scores. Certainly, it's exaggeration to claim they "don't provide anything useful" outside of for saves but I do get your broader point on these stats and personally think they're more important.
A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
I dunno how much the difference'd be quantified at but I absolutely agree that the feat's a more powerful option, hence the reason why I gave vhuman a 5 and the regular one a 4.
The thing is, the differences are pretty much minimal in areas of a character you, in most cases, have already decided aren't worth investing in in the first place, and may not have any effect whatsoever.
For example, skills. There is a 2.5% chance that it will make a difference in a roll. Why 2.5%? Because +1 modifier is +5%...but the +1 to the ability score only gives +5% to rolls if it happens to make the ability score even. In fact, if you roll badly and get mostly even numbers, you might not see any benefit at all to any of your stats increasing until L8, until which time you've actually been worse off than having a +2/+1.
If it's one of your bottom three stats, it's likely that other PCs will do the rolls. It will benefit you for 1 in 20 rolls...in half your campaigns because there's a 50% chance it won't benefit you at all.
You are correct that there are additional benefits...but are they really all that useful? I mean, Strength gives you 15lbs extra to carry in a game where your limit is explicitly made high to make it not matter? Dex does potentially give +1 to Initiative and AC...so half the time that can be pretty nice. Con has a nice bonus to HP of +1 per level, or about 5% (varies depending on your class and original Con Modifier), again, 50% of the time. Nothing's coming to mind for Wis, Cha or Int.
All three of those together are pretty nice, but statistically you'll only get one or two...assuming all three are your dump stats, which isn't true for the majority of builds, and for martials, it's possible that none of them will be.
Also remember that you don't get a choice of +2. SAD builds hate that.
Don't get me wrong, for some builds, it absolutely can be useful. Paladins can really appreciate it - they want Str, Dex, Con and Cha, so +1 to all of those is pretty sweet (and no one's going to begrudge additional Wis). You just need to roll a lot of odds, and roll high to make the build viable (Pallys less so, but I'm thinking more of MCs).
It's just that those additional three +1s sound really sweet, but there's a reason why people generally don't bother investing ASIs into them...they're often false friends, and are only really good in narrow circumstances, much like natural weapons on certain races. Really good if you use them, most people won't.
Most of the time, you're better off looking for something else.
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Do you like Human or Variant Human better? Fill out the poll.
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I much prefer Variant. The normal human is great if you're build is very MAD and you've rolled high - congrats, you have really high stats across the board! But most of the time, it's just really a forced +1 to three stats.
Variant human is something that can have a pretty good flavour with its free feat, not to mention the power boost it gives.
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Having access to a feat makes a much bigger difference than 5 +1’s. As linklite said standard human might be ok for certain builds but usually vHuman is the way to go
At least in my opinion
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It very much depends on what I'm building; being able to take a feat with variant human is great for doubling down on what a class is already good at, or for adding extra capabilities (e.g- throwing Sentinel on a martial, grabbing an Eldritch Invocation on a non-Warlock etc.).
But I do find regular human useful as well when building all-rounders as it can get you better overall ability scores, especially if you use point buy which is what my groups tend to always use.
Personally I'd rate them kind of equal, but with variant having access to your choice of feat it's going to be the more broadly useful. I have like forty human characters in my ridiculous character backlog (around 180, though I do use characters to help me build NPCs) and over a quarter are regular.
Part of the problem though is that depending upon the exact feat choice, variant human can be seriously broken. Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master are powerful feats that are very strong for early level characters (when anything that can give you more attacks is a big damage boost). But for more reasonable feats it's a lot more balanced. It's very much a "race" where the balance is determined by your DM's willingness to veto OP choices.
There's a reason the OneD&D playtests are allowing everyone access to first level feats, but restricting the choices to specific 1st-level feats.
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I completely agree that Vhuman is better, and it's a great tool for min-maxing and just having a buffer character as a feat at low levels is absurd powerwise (I mean, just look at the Tough and Lucky feats lol).
But the bland human is actually startlingly powerful: People just dislike it because it's boring. However it has 3 more total ability score points than most species, which I would argue is better than Fey Ancestry and Trance combined and may not beat out species like Elf overall but is still really solid at a bare minimum.
I put 5 for variant human and 4 for the regular one; But maybe that's a bit high.
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HERE.Variant human is good because of the free feat, but there are just too many races with great abilities to select before taking the plain vanilla version.
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I will add that a base Human is great for a skill monkey build that wants to balance everything. Good for Rogue's. But its usually a waste because they don't excel at anything, so I like Variant Human better. The feat Variant Humans get is amazing.
But humans are a backup race for me.
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I disagree. Getting +1 to all stats seems powerful, but it's not actually that useful unless you're running a heavily multiclassed character who needs to be good at everything. In general, having high numbers for your class's dump stats don't provide anything useful beyond better saving throws. A feat is going to be worth a lot more than that for most games.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Agreed. Base Human is almost never a good option. There is a skill monkey build that it's good for, and maybe multiclassing, but that's basically it. No cool features.
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It's not even the best for just being good at everything.
Ehhhh... I think even "dump stats" can be shockingly useful. Here's some of the neat stuff that stems from ability scores, not including saving throws:
Strength: 1 skill (Athletics, which is used quite a lot), Most weapon attacks and unarmed strikes
Dexterity: 3 skills (Sleight of hand, Stealth, and Acrobatics), Armor Class, All ranged and finesse weapons attacks
Constitution: Hit points
Intelligence: 5 skills (Arcana, History, Nature, Investigation, Religion)
Wisdom: 5 skills (Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, Survival)
Charisma: 4 skills (Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion, Performance)
The list isn't ginormous and I'd be shocked if I didn't forget several quintillion things outside of the lame, not-too-far-from-useless ones that I didn't mention (like encumbrance). But essentially, the point is that in addition to saving throws and flat out ability checks, a ton of the skill checks here are pretty important and not necessarily something to be deliberately passed up on as perception, stealth, investigation, and more are often done by the full party.
And obviously, AC, HP, and weapon attacks can be pretty crucial. I mean, why do wizards often fear getting stuck in the fray more than a Tarrasque? Well, the first reason is because Tarrasqes suck when fighting flying targets, but one of the more relevant ones is that they often dump con and strength and don't have enough HP to take a lot of hits or melee damage when ranged spells mostly fail.
Basically, the summary of my infatualingly uninteresting rant is that I believe I rolled high on my perception check and see that people often underestimate the powers of dumped ability scores. Certainly, it's exaggeration to claim they "don't provide anything useful" outside of for saves but I do get your broader point on these stats and personally think they're more important.
I dunno how much the difference'd be quantified at but I absolutely agree that the feat's a more powerful option, hence the reason why I gave vhuman a 5 and the regular one a 4.
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HERE.The thing about most skills is that as long as you have one person in the party who has them, you're usually fine. Charisma and Intelligence skills in particular. Everybody benefits from Perception, of course, but I don't even remember the last time I've seen someone make a Medicine check. And as for stuff like Athletics? Yeah, can be important... or depending on your class it might not- Misty Step bypasses the need to make an Athletics check in a lot of situations, for example.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Vuman is better and it's not even close.
But 2024 Human is going to be my favorite, for the toned down bonus feat, +2/+1, and floating inspiration.
Yeah, I’ve never even considered going normal human if variants are allowed.
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To be honest, I only made this thread to see if anyone still plays Base Human. I'm way on the Variant team.
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I haven't played a human character in D&D since 3.5 Edition.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If you're min-max'ing, the correct answer is always Variant Human or Custom Lineage. Free Feat is soooooo much better than any racial ability in the game. Then on the other hand if you're playing for fun, literally anything is more fun than Human or Variant Human so don't pick either
I am so confused as to how Human has a 2.5 as of this very moment. The +1 to all stats is only good if you want to pretend that all Stats for a character are equally important.
I actually think the variant human is pretty trash. It's awful for the simple reason of being so obviously the better choice for most builds (or ... a lot of builds?!). I like human-human. But when it comes down to it, I'm not stupid - I primarily play variant humans.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The thing is, the differences are pretty much minimal in areas of a character you, in most cases, have already decided aren't worth investing in in the first place, and may not have any effect whatsoever.
For example, skills. There is a 2.5% chance that it will make a difference in a roll. Why 2.5%? Because +1 modifier is +5%...but the +1 to the ability score only gives +5% to rolls if it happens to make the ability score even. In fact, if you roll badly and get mostly even numbers, you might not see any benefit at all to any of your stats increasing until L8, until which time you've actually been worse off than having a +2/+1.
If it's one of your bottom three stats, it's likely that other PCs will do the rolls. It will benefit you for 1 in 20 rolls...in half your campaigns because there's a 50% chance it won't benefit you at all.
You are correct that there are additional benefits...but are they really all that useful? I mean, Strength gives you 15lbs extra to carry in a game where your limit is explicitly made high to make it not matter? Dex does potentially give +1 to Initiative and AC...so half the time that can be pretty nice. Con has a nice bonus to HP of +1 per level, or about 5% (varies depending on your class and original Con Modifier), again, 50% of the time. Nothing's coming to mind for Wis, Cha or Int.
All three of those together are pretty nice, but statistically you'll only get one or two...assuming all three are your dump stats, which isn't true for the majority of builds, and for martials, it's possible that none of them will be.
Also remember that you don't get a choice of +2. SAD builds hate that.
Don't get me wrong, for some builds, it absolutely can be useful. Paladins can really appreciate it - they want Str, Dex, Con and Cha, so +1 to all of those is pretty sweet (and no one's going to begrudge additional Wis). You just need to roll a lot of odds, and roll high to make the build viable (Pallys less so, but I'm thinking more of MCs).
It's just that those additional three +1s sound really sweet, but there's a reason why people generally don't bother investing ASIs into them...they're often false friends, and are only really good in narrow circumstances, much like natural weapons on certain races. Really good if you use them, most people won't.
Most of the time, you're better off looking for something else.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.