EDIT: Updated some traits including Persistence Hunter, Early Feat, Adrenaline Rush, and Human Resilience.
Hello! I'm working on a homebrew campaign that changes how races work a little bit but otherwise runs just like standard 5e. I'd love for feedback on some of the human traits I have come up with for players to choose from when they create characters.
The idea here is that whenever a player creates a character they choose up to 2 core races and then choose no more than 4 traits from both of those races optional traits lists. For example, a player could choose to be a Human/Elf and choose 1 human trait and 3 elf traits or they could be an Orc/Halfling and choose 2 traits from each. Each trait should therefore be of roughly equal value and that's what I'd like help with. Do these traits feel roughly equal, appropriate to humans, and unique enough to encourage diverse builds?
Optional Traits:
Favored Race: Humans are highly social creatures and often form close relationships and partnerships with members of other races. Choose a Core Race (Other than Human) as your favored race. You gain the ability to speak that Race’s native language and have advantage on Intelligence and Charisma checks pertaining to members of that race.
Jack of All Trades: Humans are often more willing to dabble in a variety of trades rather than focus on a particular specialization the way other races usually do. You gain proficiency in any combination of 4 Tools, Instruments, and Skills of your choice.
Natural Traders: Humans have the largest and most diverse trade network among the core races of the world. You have expertise on Persuasion (Charisma) checks. Additionally, you have picked up enough bits and pieces of other languages to attempt to understand any written or spoken Core Race language.
Persistence Hunter: Humans are known for their seemingly inexhaustible spirit. They chase prey endlessly for days, walk for hundreds of miles without food or water, and even linger on their deathbeds for many days. You have proficiency with the Survival and Athletics skills. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws to resist gaining levels of Exhaustion.
Early Feat (Costs 2): Humans tend to display a wide variety of talents and natural abilities. Other races are fond of saying that no two humans are alike. You gain one feat of your choice.
Adrenaline Rush: When humans are in danger their bodies release adrenaline giving them a powerful but short term boost to their physical and mental capabilities. After becoming Bloodied you may take the Dash action as a bonus action and you gain a bonus 1d4 on all your attack rolls, saving throws, and damage rolls until the end of your next turn. This bonus increases to 1d6 at 5th level, 1d8 at 11th level, and 1d10 at 17th level.
Human Resilience [DISCONTINUED]: Humans are well-known for eating things that are toxic to other races and animals. They even do it for fun! Similarly they are seemingly unphased by the air and water pollution of their cities. Some even use a wide variety of recreational drugs, recovering from the effects in mere hours. You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned.
More specifically, I'm really unsure about Adrenaline Rush. I like the concept, but have reservations about execution. For one, as players gain more and more HP, the Bloodied condition will occur less frequently thus rendering the trait less valuable. If I remove the 1 minute duration, then the trait becomes useful and encourages the player to continue pushing on while injured but makes no sense flavor-wise as an adrenaline rush. Gaining a +1 to every ability is also likely to be of little value because characters rarely utilize more than 2 ability scores to any degree anyway. I could rework it into a temporary speed boost perhaps, but adrenaline is all about fight or flight, not just flight. Would an extra action when bloodied be useful? It will still occur less as players level up but it's a good enough trait to be worth it still, maybe?
Bloodied does not exist in 5e, and choosing a feat as a side bonus is broken af, variant human has it as pretty much the whole race, and their considered overpowered.
Persistence hunter, adrenaline rush, and human resilence are things that humans are not really known for, in fantasy.
The best way to do adrenaline rush is speed boost, speed ain't just flight, it's useful in a flight.
Adrenaline Rush definitely feels counter to the 5e tendency to simplify bonuses. Adding a small flat bonus across the board requires a lot of fiddly math in a lot of places. Something like +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be easier to keep track of.
I'd maybe add Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter since in most games exhaustion isn't going to happen much, and if it is the rest of the party will always want to rest to get rid of it anyway. I also feel like Human Resilience is too much like Dwarven Resilience - you should probably let that remain a dwarf thing.
Bloodied does not exist in 5e, and choosing a feat as a side bonus is broken af, variant human has it as pretty much the whole race, and their considered overpowered.
Persistence hunter, adrenaline rush, and human resilence are things that humans are not really known for, in fantasy.
The best way to do adrenaline rush is speed boost, speed ain't just flight, it's useful in a flight.
Thank you for your feedback!
Bloodied is a pretty common homebrew effect in 5e and easy enough to track that it isn't a problem to include it (Especially for a homebrew campaign).
I do agree though with the bonus feat. Would it be more appropriate if it cost 2 trait choices or is it still OP? I'm going to be doing that for races that have the option to have wings and a flying speed.
Humans in fantasy settings tend to just be vanilla average races. Since I am trying to expand from that a little, I'm not really concerned about whether these traits turn up in fantasy settings as much and looked into actual real world human qualities to come up with some new options.
You make an excellent point about speed being useful in both fight or flight though. I will likely take it in more of that direction.
Adrenaline Rush definitely feels counter to the 5e tendency to simplify bonuses. Adding a small flat bonus across the board requires a lot of fiddly math in a lot of places. Something like +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be easier to keep track of.
I'd maybe add Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter since in most games exhaustion isn't going to happen much, and if it is the rest of the party will always want to rest to get rid of it anyway. I also feel like Human Resilience is too much like Dwarven Resilience - you should probably let that remain a dwarf thing.
Excellent feedback!
I fully agree with your concerns about Adrenaline Rush. I did not love it to begin with. Your version seems like a much better option. I may try to do some combination of both your's and Zenlos2_0's suggestions. I'll update the original post with something a little more appropriate.
I love adding Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter. I think that is a terrific flavor win and you are right that exhaustion isn't often a concern in most campaigns.
I am going to have a few duplicate traits between races (Darkvision for instance) so a duplicate (or similar) trait here and there isn't too awful. Since each race has several traits to choose from, it is not AS important that they be completely distinct from eachother, but it is very similar to Dwarven Resistance. Perhaps I could change it to advantage of saving throws associated with toxic effects, while Dwarven Resistance gives resistance. That way a Human/Dwarf could choose both and gain a benefit for doing so. What do you think?
Adrenaline Rush definitely feels counter to the 5e tendency to simplify bonuses. Adding a small flat bonus across the board requires a lot of fiddly math in a lot of places. Something like +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be easier to keep track of.
I'd maybe add Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter since in most games exhaustion isn't going to happen much, and if it is the rest of the party will always want to rest to get rid of it anyway. I also feel like Human Resilience is too much like Dwarven Resilience - you should probably let that remain a dwarf thing.
I agree with pretty much everything here and have some extra feedback on the abilities.
Favoured Race. Feels very niche, how often will someone actually interact with a certain race if the campaign isn't entirely based around it? I think it'd be fine to keep this as just a language proficiency or have something else in here that can be applied to more situations. It seems like the Jack of All Trades is just this except a bit better. Maybe you could temporarily gain a feature from your chosen race and use it for an hour or so?
Speaking of, Jack of All Trades I'd probably put as 2 tools/languages and 2 skills instead of 4 of any of them, but it's up to you. You could also just have this be something more general, something like "prof/long rest you can add your proficiency bonus to (or maybe gain advantage on?) an attack roll, saving throw or ability check you don't already add it to."
Natural Traders. Similarly feels niche, you could just take persuasion proficiency and apply it to any situation rather than just one. The "any core language with disadvantage" doesn't really make sense. I'm sure you have core languages written down somewhere, but the disadvantage doesn't make sense. I'd probably say something like "You can communicate simple ideas and concepts in any core language (list the languages) you don't already know, however you have disadvantage on checks when interacting socially with a creature in this way." I'm assuming that's what you mean.
Persistence Hunter. Agree with scatterbraind point, it's pretty niche. You could add Survival and Animal Handling or more skills here. I think the Exhaustion bit is niche and not super interesting unless you're playing a Berserker Barb or something. You might like to do what Ranger has been doing, something like expertise in a Wisdom skill, additional movement speeds, or some spells. Maybe you have something like, proficiency in survival, perception or animal handling, +5 ft movement speed and climbing or swim speed, and you can add some niche abilities like "you can travel for 2 extra hours" or something, though that is incredibly niche too.
Early Feat. Yeah, I think I agree that this is pretty powerful as like, one ability of multiple and is still pretty powerful as just one ability. Probably best to just drop it. Maybe you could replace this with a specialisation ability, something like expertise and another ability? Maybe a reliable talent sort of ability or an ability that has to do with expertise in skills.
Adrenaline Rush. I agree with scatterbraind here too, +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be a very elegant way to do this. I'd also just have it be an activatable ability for a minute prof times/long rest or something that they can activate as say, a bonus action or any time they take damage as a reaction. You can also call this something like "Hardened Determination" or something.
Human Resilience. I think this doesn't really play into the Human fantasy and would probably just be best to leave to dwarves or other more exotic races. You could try to have this be something about more general Toughness or Determination, maybe something to do with temporary HP as an activatable ability?
For my own Human rework I just split it up into three separate races basically. I said "you're a human, now pick one aspect of humans that your character may embody: Adaptability, Versatility or Determination." I think you should try to make sure your racial abilities might fit into an aspect you want races to embody. Say, elves may be "Graceful and lithe, Elegant, arcane and educated, and Aloof and distant." From what I can see of this, it seems like you have "Friendly, tough and versatile" or something.
Anyway, your idea is really interesting, hope this helps.
Adrenaline Rush definitely feels counter to the 5e tendency to simplify bonuses. Adding a small flat bonus across the board requires a lot of fiddly math in a lot of places. Something like +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be easier to keep track of.
I'd maybe add Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter since in most games exhaustion isn't going to happen much, and if it is the rest of the party will always want to rest to get rid of it anyway. I also feel like Human Resilience is too much like Dwarven Resilience - you should probably let that remain a dwarf thing.
I agree with pretty much everything here and have some extra feedback on the abilities.
Favoured Race. Feels very niche, how often will someone actually interact with a certain race if the campaign isn't entirely based around it? I think it'd be fine to keep this as just a language proficiency or have something else in here that can be applied to more situations. It seems like the Jack of All Trades is just this except a bit better. Maybe you could temporarily gain a feature from your chosen race and use it for an hour or so?
Speaking of, Jack of All Trades I'd probably put as 2 tools/languages and 2 skills instead of 4 of any of them, but it's up to you. You could also just have this be something more general, something like "prof/long rest you can add your proficiency bonus to (or maybe gain advantage on?) an attack roll, saving throw or ability check you don't already add it to."
Natural Traders. Similarly feels niche, you could just take persuasion proficiency and apply it to any situation rather than just one. The "any core language with disadvantage" doesn't really make sense. I'm sure you have core languages written down somewhere, but the disadvantage doesn't make sense. I'd probably say something like "You can communicate simple ideas and concepts in any core language (list the languages) you don't already know, however you have disadvantage on checks when interacting socially with a creature in this way." I'm assuming that's what you mean.
Persistence Hunter. Agree with scatterbraind point, it's pretty niche. You could add Survival and Animal Handling or more skills here. I think the Exhaustion bit is niche and not super interesting unless you're playing a Berserker Barb or something. You might like to do what Ranger has been doing, something like expertise in a Wisdom skill, additional movement speeds, or some spells. Maybe you have something like, proficiency in survival, perception or animal handling, +5 ft movement speed and climbing or swim speed, and you can add some niche abilities like "you can travel for 2 extra hours" or something, though that is incredibly niche too.
Early Feat. Yeah, I think I agree that this is pretty powerful as like, one ability of multiple and is still pretty powerful as just one ability. Probably best to just drop it. Maybe you could replace this with a specialisation ability, something like expertise and another ability? Maybe a reliable talent sort of ability or an ability that has to do with expertise in skills.
Adrenaline Rush. I agree with scatterbraind here too, +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be a very elegant way to do this. I'd also just have it be an activatable ability for a minute prof times/long rest or something that they can activate as say, a bonus action or any time they take damage as a reaction. You can also call this something like "Hardened Determination" or something.
Human Resilience. I think this doesn't really play into the Human fantasy and would probably just be best to leave to dwarves or other more exotic races. You could try to have this be something about more general Toughness or Determination, maybe something to do with temporary HP as an activatable ability?
For my own Human rework I just split it up into three separate races basically. I said "you're a human, now pick one aspect of humans that your character may embody: Adaptability, Versatility or Determination." I think you should try to make sure your racial abilities might fit into an aspect you want races to embody. Say, elves may be "Graceful and lithe, Elegant, arcane and educated, and Aloof and distant." From what I can see of this, it seems like you have "Friendly, tough and versatile" or something.
Anyway, your idea is really interesting, hope this helps.
A lot of feedback! Tons to unpack.
I'm actually ok with niche things. The idea behind my system is that you can more or less build the character you want from available choices so having a few niche traits allows for some more unique builds than standard. SO niche is cool but I still want it to be something viable. People (min-maxers or casual players) should be able to look at any trait and have a reason for it to bounce around in their head at least a little. If it isn't their personal play style no worries, but it should lend itself to something. I like your idea of sort of trying to fit each race into 3 or so general concepts and make sure all the traits fall into those themes. I may try to focus a little more but I do still want variety in each race so you can build an elf, for instance, the way you want your elf to function. Maybe that is an elegant woodland creature and maybe that is more of a old Germanic creature of the darkness.
Favoured Race: I agree it is a bit more niche and definitely fits more of a social pillar of gameplay. I think gaining a language is reasonable and gaining advantage on all of the different checks for intelligence and charisma feels like a good amount but maybe you are right and there is a little room for an extra ribbon feature in here somewhere. Maybe something similar to the Rustic Hospitality benefit gained from the Folk Hero background? "You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among your favored race, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you." I didn't necessary want to dip into background territory but I don't necessarily need backgrounds in my campaign for players to diversify their characters with this system. So maybe it's ok to pilfer them?
Jack of All Trades: I think you might have misread the trait? It doesn't confer languages at all so that cuts down on the perceived overlap with Favoured Race. It's any combination of 4 skills, instruments, and tools. I definitely don't want this one to have anything to do with attack rolls or saving throws. It's more for players who want to be skillful and cover more ground that way rather than focusing on combat. It seems like your feedback is that you think this trait is similar to Favoured Race, but it seems to be distinct to me. This gives some combo of 4 skill, instrument, and tool proficiencies. While Favoured Race gives a language, and advantage on all INT and CHA checks in limited circumstances + maybe an additional small ribbon effect. I'm happy with Jack of All Trades at the moment I think unless I get some more clear reasons to change it. Thank you for the ideas though!
Natural Traders: Persuasion proficiency isn't the same as advantage. I would imagine a lot of people choosing this trait will also have proficiency in Persuasion, but it is a bit limited in scope, I can concede that. I could perhaps have it confer a straight discount when buying non-magical items perhaps? Say 10%. Not a lot but it adds up. Of course, it would likely result in the party having the player do all the purchasing for them which means it's more of a party trait rather than making the player feel unique... Maybe that's ok because it gives the player a clear role in the party? As for the language part of the trait my thinking is that if the human character comes across elvish, for example, writing on a wall, but they don't know elvish, they could still attempt a skill check to decipher it rather than just being told they don't know what it says. I suppose since they are being given the chance to make a skill check when they normally wouldn't need to, I can just drop the disadvantage part. They already are having to try and potentially fail. Good Feedback. I'll make that change.
Persistence Hunter: I've made an update to the trait based on other feedback that gives proficiency with Survival. My games due tend to utilize exhaustion more than most campaigns (though still not very much). Historically, humans hunted by chasing their prey until it just died of exhaustion. They weren't fast, didn't utilize alternative means of travel, etc... they just kept going. So I don't like adding any movement speed, or alternative movement types like swimming or climbing. I do like your idea though of being able to travel for 2 extra hours before needing to make constitution checks to see if they suffer Exhaustion. That is quite thematic. However, travel pace is typically done as a whole party. The rest of the party is unlikely to want to do 2 hours of Forced March just because it isn't a risk at all for the human. They'd still have to roll twice. It gets complicated to have different party members needing to make rolls like that at different points. I am therefore unsure what changes I would make to this trait at the moment.
Early Feat: This trait was inspired by the variant human and since I am going with a general them of flexibility with human builds I'd like to keep it. I agree that a feat is a pretty powerful choice though so based on previous feedback I have changed it so that it requires 2 of the 4 trait choices to take. This will still be an attractive option, gives a lot of versatility, but is more costly so it will not (I hope) be an instant choice for any human player. Let me know if you think it is still too strong of a trait though.
Adrenaline Rush: I made an update to this one as well based on feedback that makes it much stronger and more focused but I still only have it triggering one time. Your feedback seems to suggest removing the Bloodied aspect of it (which is fine if it is still equally thematic). You mention having it be a reaction after taking damage and that would feel appropriate to an adrenaline rush so I am now thinking of handling it that way. If it is a reaction then perhaps something like "Whenever you take damage you may take the Dash action as a reaction. Additionally you have advantage on all saving throws until the start of your next turn. You may use this trait a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier." Something like that? I worry that it is all flight and no fight but as a reaction I'm not sure how best to incorporate an offensive option and still stay flavorful.
Human Resilience: This is another one I made an update to based on other feedback. I really wanted a trait that captured the feel of humans eating things that everything else sees as poison (like every flavorful plant on the planet) but it seems like this one is getting a lot of pushback. Maybe I should just drop it. I'm not taking away Dwarven Resilience from Dwarves so I was trying to capture a different angle on a similar idea but clearly I did not execute it well. I'll need to come up with another 1 or 2 new traits to replace this with since I want plenty of options for each trait.
In regards to your idea about general concepts for races I think Humans would be Versatile, Mercantile, and Resolute. I also want them to focus equally on the Social Interaction Pillar, Combat Pillar, and Exploration Pillar. I think I definitely covered Social Interaction. Combat is covered a little less well but still has options with Adrenaline Rush, Human Resilience (unless I nix it), and depending on what they take with Extra Feat. Exploration has a little coverage with Persistence Hunter. So if I design a couple new traits I definitely see where I need to focus. Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it!
I don't know what Bloodied is, but that Adrenaline Rush ability is amazing if you can become Bloodied, do your action, and then become unBloodied. I'd easily spend a feat on that (again, assuming the Bloodied toggle is easy).
The Feat is OP by normal racial standards, but you might be trying to upgrade all of your races - just make sure you sanity check against TCL for balance (nothing should be stronger than TCL). I can tell you the Feat is more than twice as good as the Poisoned resistance, for sure.
Persistence Hunter is ridiculous. Humans can go forever without sleep without dying? What? How is that a Human racial? The real world ability Humans have for this is *sweating*, which you could interpret as advantage on saves vs exhaustion due to heat. That would be underpowered for this list. Also a possibility: a Human can spend 1 hit die per minute to act as if not exhausted at all.
I can't figure out how to do the fancy separated quotes, so please bear with my jank response structure.
Re: Favoured Race. I was more saying that there are too many ribbon features here and that it'd be good to consolidate it into one more impactful ability, like nabbing a racial ability every few times/rest. I just don't like ribbon features very much and adding more on seems annoying lol (See: niche feature in a niche pillar of play), though that's mainly my personal preference, so your players might like it.
Re: Jack of All Trades. My apologies, I misread the ability and thought it gave you languages. If you're happy with it, that's good enough!
Re: Natural Traders Proficiency is pretty comparable to advantage, mathematically it's about the same (advantage gives +3.32 on average) though I see your point. My main problem was that it felt too limited in scope (see the last sentence in this post), i.e. buying items in town which might not take up a lot of time in an adventure or quest (bar the language bit). I was just suggesting that you have it more applicable to social encounters as a whole, like thinking about what transferable skills a savvy merchant may have in any social encounter, not just being able to get lower prices and haggle. I'm not sure, up to you.
Re: Persistence Hunter Yeah, I was thinking that the +2 hours is pretty crap if you're just going in a group. I suppose it means they could scout one hour ahead after the party stops? I'm not sure, not a great idea. Individual abilities for exploration are hard because you've got a whole party with you too. I do like quindraco's idea of spending hit dice to ignore exhaustion, though they might have been able to express their discontent more tactfully... I will say as someone who didn't know that humans hunted their prey by just walking after them... to me at least it's not a particularly interesting ability that makes me think "oh yeah, humans!" I generally attribute such toughness or resilience to dwarves or something, I generally find 'determination' to be a more thematic fantasy human ability (personally). Maybe you could come up with something like "ingenuity in the wilds" that lets you make some food edible or lets you craft or forage efficiently in the wilderness?
Re: Early Feat Again, I'm still not sure. I feel like it's almost like a "too good to not get" ability even if it costs 2. Run it! See how it goes, I just think that it's so massive (or seems so massive from a player view) that it'll be very difficult to work around. While the other abilities seem to be "niche abilities in mostly non-combat pillars" this is just a "huge ability for the combat pillar" see the last message of the post for this too.
Re: Adrenaline Rush My fondness for +1d4 to attacks and saves remains unchanged. Maybe you could even scale it with level and get a +1d6 or +1d8 at higher levels. If you wanted more 'flight' abilities though maybe you could say that you don't invoke opportunity attacks and your speed increases by 10 feet? It seems like you just don't want it to be an ability with a duration though, so I'd probably say something like as a reaction when you take damage, gain some temp HP (level*con?), advantage on attacks until the end of your next turn and you don't invoke opportunity attacks prof/long rest. If you don't like that offensive ability, maybe you can make an additional (melee?) weapon attack as a bonus action on your turn? One other thing, adrenaline doesn't seem to me like something very unique to humans, I feel like most races would have adrenaline or something, which is why I suggested the name change, but call it whatever you like, just a thought.
Re: Human Resilience Yeah, I'm still not sure that it really captures the "fantasy" of humans and just feels too exotic for the "normal guys." We throw our guts up when we eat slightly pink chicken and pork after all. Maybe you could have an 'antimagic' ability because they're just so normal that magic is too "weird" to work on them, like resistance to force. Or maybe to humans magic is so "weird" that they can sense magic or undead when it's nearby, like when your hairs raise and you get the "gut feeling" that something's wrong or out of place. Oh, maybe that'd be a cool ability. Inspired by Matt Colville.
I will say that since D&D is focused about 90% on combat (see like... literally any class feature apart from a few), it may be difficult to give abilities (especially ribbon abilities) for the other 'pillars' of play that are so significantly underrepresented in the rules. But I suppose that comes down to how you play and how well you can work it in. In any case, I really love this type of racial ability generation, I have so many ideas.
I don't know what Bloodied is, but that Adrenaline Rush ability is amazing if you can become Bloodied, do your action, and then become unBloodied. I'd easily spend a feat on that (again, assuming the Bloodied toggle is easy).
The Feat is OP by normal racial standards, but you might be trying to upgrade all of your races - just make sure you sanity check against TCL for balance (nothing should be stronger than TCL). I can tell you the Feat is more than twice as good as the Poisoned resistance, for sure.
Persistence Hunter is ridiculous. Humans can go forever without sleep without dying? What? How is that a Human racial? The real world ability Humans have for this is *sweating*, which you could interpret as advantage on saves vs exhaustion due to heat. That would be underpowered for this list. Also a possibility: a Human can spend 1 hit die per minute to act as if not exhausted at all.
Sorry for the delay in response and thanks so much for your feedback!
So Bloodied just means that you have half hitpoints or less. A lot of dms will use that to let players know that a monster is looking pretty beat up without telling them actual HP. I'm interested in trying to find ways to use it for player characters as well but since hitpoints increase with level the frequency with which players become bloodied would be less. That said you bring up a good point and one that I am not necessarily opposed to. A player could consider only healing a single hit dice on a short rest or foregoing a chance to heal because they want to build a character who tries to take advantage of a Bloodied trait. I'm not against that actually. It's a unique build and would make for some interesting choices in the narrative. I'm not sure how best to utilize it though and it seems like most people aren't super into it.
Purely by utilizing this system for character design each race is likely to be a bit stronger. Being able to choose particular traits that work together for your build is going to be strong. I agree getting a feat is a strong choice. I didn't want to cut any of the standard options from the original rules and Variant Humans do have the feat option. Plus it fits with the concept of versatility. I have it costing 2 choices at the moment for that reason. Do you think it is still strong even for that?
I think you may have the wrong idea about how sleep deprivation rules work. As I understand it if your character goes without sleep for 24 hours you have to make a CON check and on a failure gain a level of exhaustion. Then if you still don't sleep for another 24 hours you have to make another check (with an even more difficult DC) taking another level of exhaustion on a failure. With this trait you still have the exhaustion level. Each day without sleep increases your exhaustion, until eventually death. Humans are just better at pulling off an all nighter than the other races. IRL I have had to go for 24 hours without sleep many many times without any major ill effects. (I'm used to doing it so I handle it pretty well.) I've even hit 48 hours on occasion and one memorable summer hit my current record of 73 hours without sleep. It was unpleasant. As for persistence hunting, sweating is a major feature allowing for our ability to do that but it is not the only one. African Wild Dogs and Wolves are also known to engage in persistence hunting and they do not sweat. However, your note is well taken. I had not fully considered the things a human player could ignore (even just for a little while) because they don't have to worry about gaining just 1 level of exhaustion. Perhaps I change it to advantage on all checks to avoid gaining exhaustion?
I can't figure out how to do the fancy separated quotes, so please bear with my jank response structure.
Re: Favoured Race. I was more saying that there are too many ribbon features here and that it'd be good to consolidate it into one more impactful ability, like nabbing a racial ability every few times/rest. I just don't like ribbon features very much and adding more on seems annoying lol (See: niche feature in a niche pillar of play), though that's mainly my personal preference, so your players might like it.
Re: Jack of All Trades. My apologies, I misread the ability and thought it gave you languages. If you're happy with it, that's good enough!
Re: Natural Traders Proficiency is pretty comparable to advantage, mathematically it's about the same (advantage gives +3.32 on average) though I see your point. My main problem was that it felt too limited in scope (see the last sentence in this post), i.e. buying items in town which might not take up a lot of time in an adventure or quest (bar the language bit). I was just suggesting that you have it more applicable to social encounters as a whole, like thinking about what transferable skills a savvy merchant may have in any social encounter, not just being able to get lower prices and haggle. I'm not sure, up to you.
Re: Persistence Hunter Yeah, I was thinking that the +2 hours is pretty crap if you're just going in a group. I suppose it means they could scout one hour ahead after the party stops? I'm not sure, not a great idea. Individual abilities for exploration are hard because you've got a whole party with you too. I do like quindraco's idea of spending hit dice to ignore exhaustion, though they might have been able to express their discontent more tactfully... I will say as someone who didn't know that humans hunted their prey by just walking after them... to me at least it's not a particularly interesting ability that makes me think "oh yeah, humans!" I generally attribute such toughness or resilience to dwarves or something, I generally find 'determination' to be a more thematic fantasy human ability (personally). Maybe you could come up with something like "ingenuity in the wilds" that lets you make some food edible or lets you craft or forage efficiently in the wilderness?
Re: Early Feat Again, I'm still not sure. I feel like it's almost like a "too good to not get" ability even if it costs 2. Run it! See how it goes, I just think that it's so massive (or seems so massive from a player view) that it'll be very difficult to work around. While the other abilities seem to be "niche abilities in mostly non-combat pillars" this is just a "huge ability for the combat pillar" see the last message of the post for this too.
Re: Adrenaline Rush My fondness for +1d4 to attacks and saves remains unchanged. Maybe you could even scale it with level and get a +1d6 or +1d8 at higher levels. If you wanted more 'flight' abilities though maybe you could say that you don't invoke opportunity attacks and your speed increases by 10 feet? It seems like you just don't want it to be an ability with a duration though, so I'd probably say something like as a reaction when you take damage, gain some temp HP (level*con?), advantage on attacks until the end of your next turn and you don't invoke opportunity attacks prof/long rest. If you don't like that offensive ability, maybe you can make an additional (melee?) weapon attack as a bonus action on your turn? One other thing, adrenaline doesn't seem to me like something very unique to humans, I feel like most races would have adrenaline or something, which is why I suggested the name change, but call it whatever you like, just a thought.
Re: Human Resilience Yeah, I'm still not sure that it really captures the "fantasy" of humans and just feels too exotic for the "normal guys." We throw our guts up when we eat slightly pink chicken and pork after all. Maybe you could have an 'antimagic' ability because they're just so normal that magic is too "weird" to work on them, like resistance to force. Or maybe to humans magic is so "weird" that they can sense magic or undead when it's nearby, like when your hairs raise and you get the "gut feeling" that something's wrong or out of place. Oh, maybe that'd be a cool ability. Inspired by Matt Colville.
I will say that since D&D is focused about 90% on combat (see like... literally any class feature apart from a few), it may be difficult to give abilities (especially ribbon abilities) for the other 'pillars' of play that are so significantly underrepresented in the rules. But I suppose that comes down to how you play and how well you can work it in. In any case, I really love this type of racial ability generation, I have so many ideas.
I'm really appreciating your input so please continue!
Favored Race: I definitely don't want to let Humans temporarily "borrow" other racial traits as some of them are going to be physiological. It wouldn't really make a lot of sense for a human to be able to gain darkvision for an hour just because they are friends with elves, you know? I can see your concern about just having a bunch of ribbons, but I think gaining a language is a pretty normal benefit and then a feature that gives advantage in certain conditions is pretty straightforward too. The big thing is that it should be specific to a race you choose for flavor reasons. If I have a favored race but I get proficiency on persuasion with any race I talk to, how is that favoring a race? I'm certainly open to suggestions, but it would need to fit that condition I think.
Jack of all Trades: I think I'm going to try it out where it is out for now. See how it works out.
Natural Traders: Fair enough. I hear you. What about, "Humans have the largest and most diverse trade network among the core races of the world. You have expertise on Persuasion (Charisma) checks. Additionally, you have picked up enough bits and pieces of other languages to attempt to understand any written or spoken Core Race language.
Persistence Hunter: When looking for inspiration for unique Human benefits that aren't just the usual vanilla boring humans are the normal option, persistence hunting was one of the best things I found. Humans are one of only a very small number of creatures that hunt this way even among other primates, making it more likely that it would not be a shared trait with other sentient races. I'd definitely like to find a way to work with it. I think advantage on checks to avoid exhaustion is perhaps better than the original version. Proficiency with Survival feels appropriate and perhaps also Athletics. I'm going to make those changes and we'll try it out.
Early Feat: I definitely want to keep this one. I could perhaps limit which feats you can choose from but I would still prefer it to be as unchanged from the base Variant Human as possible. Its a nice catch all of versatility and is a major choice for players who want to build a combat based character only. The OP nature would also be mitigated somewhat by the fact that ANY player can choose it. Even if you want to play a Dwarf, you can say you are a Half Dwarf who just has dwarven physical features but take the feat option from the Human list. You couldn't be a Dwarf Elf or an Orc Halfling and get it but that would be part of the draw for Human I suppose. I'd still prefer if everything felt fairly equal though (or at least equal to double for the Feat, I guess). I'll try it and see if playtesters just always gravitate towards it.
Adrenaline Rush: I sort of imagined that the other races likely still have adrenaline but perhaps did not have the same extreme reaction to it. I've seen and heard of people doing some pretty crazy things when in danger or scared. There are stories of people lifting cars for instance. In our collective fantasy head canon there is no reason why we couldn't decide that elves have adrenaline but it really just makes them more aware that they are in danger rather than triggering a whole crazy fight or flight response. Like, "Oh dear. It appears that I am in some sort of danger. I shall assess the situation, look for an escape route, and - Oh! There is a nice vine hanging down that I can grab. I'll just cartwheel over there and... danger averted." Or maybe it affects everyone the same but it seemed like a solid area to try to set humans apart. Dwarves are going to be more stout and swoll than humans generally, Elves more elegant and skillful than humans generally, but in a pinch, for just a short little while, Humans are just super baller. I'm making another adjustment to make it so that they get a scaling bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws until the end of their next turn after becoming bloodied. As they level up it may not happen as often but it will be a more pronounced effect.
Human Resilience: The "fantasy" of humans is kind of weird concept in general though isn't it? I mean we only KNOW humans. If tomorrow we all became aware of a dozen alien races it could turn out that we are actually the physically strongest of all of them. Or have the best eyes. Or who knows what. We automatically put humans as the standard race we compare everything else to, which is fine, except that I am looking for ways to diversify humans a little for the sake of this system. In real life, this is one feature that sets humans apart from other animals so it makes sense that it might set us apart from other sentient races too. It's perhaps too weak and too similar to other features though so maybe it just really can't be done. I'll put it on the back burner maybe.
5th Edition does tend to favor combat heavy rules a bit, that's true, but there is actually a lot of great room for social encounters and in fact in my current campaign my players will go whole sessions without combat. I'm generally pretty good at giving some solid Social Pillar gameplay and this system I'm developing is in part designed to help allow the other pillars to be a more viable focus. I love when my players find clever and interesting ways around a challenge other than just smashing through it and I know a lot of other DMs who do too. 5e may currently favor combat but that doesn't mean that we just have to accept that a roll with it. (I am still pretty bad at incorporating exploration pillar stuff in my games though. Sadly.)
I'm glad you like the concept at least. When I first came up with it, I was trying to figure out how to let my players be things like Half-Dwarves if they wanted without having to create a whole race for them whenever they wanted to be a little off the beaten path. And then it occurred to me that it is always just Half-Human/Half-Whatever which unless there is some sort of magical trait that only allows for humans to interbreed felt wrong. Why couldn't an Elf and a Halfling fall in love and have children if they wanted? Of course that would means creating a whole new race option for every race combination. This seemed much more elegant for letting players create the race combo they want. And by making it modular, if a DM doesn't want Orcs to exist in their game then they just take away the Orc options and the players can still be whatever they like with what's left. Or if a DM doesn't like a particular trait (like the early feat) they can just say create your characters but you can't take that 1 trait in the human list. I think it has a ton of potential but the balancing is trickier since you aren't just going to get whatever good traits and crappy traits a race has. You get to pick and choose so they all need to be fairly equivalent and viable. Tricky.
Favoured Race. I see your point, if that's how you like it I'm not going to stop you.
Natural Traders. That sounds good, I would word it slightly differently and probably put a set DC on understanding or just word it as you can only understand parts or simple ideas. I think just giving proficiency would be fine, maybe you can give proficiency in one skill from a list, say Insight, Persuasion, Performance, Deception, or something? Expertise on all persuasion checks... I dunno, could work.
Human Resilience. The fantasy of humans is how the collective imagination sees or would expect humans to behave in a fantasy environment (in this case). Your example about aliens isn't really fantasy. Sure, it could be that way, maybe humans if dwarves existed are actually stronger, tougher and better at consuming alcohol than them, but that's not the traditional image of those two races. If you want to shake that up, that's fine but people might not react too well. Up to you.
I wonder if you could do the same sort of thing for background, say you have a few broad categories like "warrior, scholar, wanderer, peasant, politician(?), craftsman/merchant" and let people pick abilities like that? That's just more work for you though, lol. If you have other races done, or even just ideas I'd love to see them!
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EDIT: Updated some traits including Persistence Hunter, Early Feat, Adrenaline Rush, and Human Resilience.
Hello! I'm working on a homebrew campaign that changes how races work a little bit but otherwise runs just like standard 5e. I'd love for feedback on some of the human traits I have come up with for players to choose from when they create characters.
The idea here is that whenever a player creates a character they choose up to 2 core races and then choose no more than 4 traits from both of those races optional traits lists. For example, a player could choose to be a Human/Elf and choose 1 human trait and 3 elf traits or they could be an Orc/Halfling and choose 2 traits from each. Each trait should therefore be of roughly equal value and that's what I'd like help with. Do these traits feel roughly equal, appropriate to humans, and unique enough to encourage diverse builds?
Optional Traits:
Favored Race: Humans are highly social creatures and often form close relationships and partnerships with members of other races. Choose a Core Race (Other than Human) as your favored race. You gain the ability to speak that Race’s native language and have advantage on Intelligence and Charisma checks pertaining to members of that race.
Jack of All Trades: Humans are often more willing to dabble in a variety of trades rather than focus on a particular specialization the way other races usually do. You gain proficiency in any combination of 4 Tools, Instruments, and Skills of your choice.
Natural Traders: Humans have the largest and most diverse trade network among the core races of the world. You have expertise on Persuasion (Charisma) checks. Additionally, you have picked up enough bits and pieces of other languages to attempt to understand any written or spoken Core Race language.
Persistence Hunter: Humans are known for their seemingly inexhaustible spirit. They chase prey endlessly for days, walk for hundreds of miles without food or water, and even linger on their deathbeds for many days. You have proficiency with the Survival and Athletics skills. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws to resist gaining levels of Exhaustion.
Early Feat (Costs 2): Humans tend to display a wide variety of talents and natural abilities. Other races are fond of saying that no two humans are alike. You gain one feat of your choice.
Adrenaline Rush: When humans are in danger their bodies release adrenaline giving them a powerful but short term boost to their physical and mental capabilities. After becoming Bloodied you may take the Dash action as a bonus action and you gain a bonus 1d4 on all your attack rolls, saving throws, and damage rolls until the end of your next turn. This bonus increases to 1d6 at 5th level, 1d8 at 11th level, and 1d10 at 17th level.
Human Resilience [DISCONTINUED]: Humans are well-known for eating things that are toxic to other races and animals. They even do it for fun! Similarly they are seemingly unphased by the air and water pollution of their cities. Some even use a wide variety of recreational drugs, recovering from the effects in mere hours. You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned.
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
More specifically, I'm really unsure about Adrenaline Rush. I like the concept, but have reservations about execution. For one, as players gain more and more HP, the Bloodied condition will occur less frequently thus rendering the trait less valuable. If I remove the 1 minute duration, then the trait becomes useful and encourages the player to continue pushing on while injured but makes no sense flavor-wise as an adrenaline rush. Gaining a +1 to every ability is also likely to be of little value because characters rarely utilize more than 2 ability scores to any degree anyway. I could rework it into a temporary speed boost perhaps, but adrenaline is all about fight or flight, not just flight. Would an extra action when bloodied be useful? It will still occur less as players level up but it's a good enough trait to be worth it still, maybe?
Thoughts? Concerns? Criticisms? Suggestions?
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
Bloodied does not exist in 5e, and choosing a feat as a side bonus is broken af, variant human has it as pretty much the whole race, and their considered overpowered.
Persistence hunter, adrenaline rush, and human resilence are things that humans are not really known for, in fantasy.
The best way to do adrenaline rush is speed boost, speed ain't just flight, it's useful in a flight.
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
Adrenaline Rush definitely feels counter to the 5e tendency to simplify bonuses. Adding a small flat bonus across the board requires a lot of fiddly math in a lot of places. Something like +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be easier to keep track of.
I'd maybe add Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter since in most games exhaustion isn't going to happen much, and if it is the rest of the party will always want to rest to get rid of it anyway. I also feel like Human Resilience is too much like Dwarven Resilience - you should probably let that remain a dwarf thing.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thank you for your feedback!
Bloodied is a pretty common homebrew effect in 5e and easy enough to track that it isn't a problem to include it (Especially for a homebrew campaign).
I do agree though with the bonus feat. Would it be more appropriate if it cost 2 trait choices or is it still OP? I'm going to be doing that for races that have the option to have wings and a flying speed.
Humans in fantasy settings tend to just be vanilla average races. Since I am trying to expand from that a little, I'm not really concerned about whether these traits turn up in fantasy settings as much and looked into actual real world human qualities to come up with some new options.
You make an excellent point about speed being useful in both fight or flight though. I will likely take it in more of that direction.
Excellent feedback!
I fully agree with your concerns about Adrenaline Rush. I did not love it to begin with. Your version seems like a much better option. I may try to do some combination of both your's and Zenlos2_0's suggestions. I'll update the original post with something a little more appropriate.
I love adding Survival proficiency to Persistence Hunter. I think that is a terrific flavor win and you are right that exhaustion isn't often a concern in most campaigns.
I am going to have a few duplicate traits between races (Darkvision for instance) so a duplicate (or similar) trait here and there isn't too awful. Since each race has several traits to choose from, it is not AS important that they be completely distinct from eachother, but it is very similar to Dwarven Resistance. Perhaps I could change it to advantage of saving throws associated with toxic effects, while Dwarven Resistance gives resistance. That way a Human/Dwarf could choose both and gain a benefit for doing so. What do you think?
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
I agree with pretty much everything here and have some extra feedback on the abilities.
Favoured Race. Feels very niche, how often will someone actually interact with a certain race if the campaign isn't entirely based around it? I think it'd be fine to keep this as just a language proficiency or have something else in here that can be applied to more situations. It seems like the Jack of All Trades is just this except a bit better.
Maybe you could temporarily gain a feature from your chosen race and use it for an hour or so?
Speaking of, Jack of All Trades I'd probably put as 2 tools/languages and 2 skills instead of 4 of any of them, but it's up to you. You could also just have this be something more general, something like "prof/long rest you can add your proficiency bonus to (or maybe gain advantage on?) an attack roll, saving throw or ability check you don't already add it to."
Natural Traders. Similarly feels niche, you could just take persuasion proficiency and apply it to any situation rather than just one. The "any core language with disadvantage" doesn't really make sense. I'm sure you have core languages written down somewhere, but the disadvantage doesn't make sense. I'd probably say something like "You can communicate simple ideas and concepts in any core language (list the languages) you don't already know, however you have disadvantage on checks when interacting socially with a creature in this way." I'm assuming that's what you mean.
Persistence Hunter. Agree with scatterbraind point, it's pretty niche. You could add Survival and Animal Handling or more skills here. I think the Exhaustion bit is niche and not super interesting unless you're playing a Berserker Barb or something. You might like to do what Ranger has been doing, something like expertise in a Wisdom skill, additional movement speeds, or some spells.
Maybe you have something like, proficiency in survival, perception or animal handling, +5 ft movement speed and climbing or swim speed, and you can add some niche abilities like "you can travel for 2 extra hours" or something, though that is incredibly niche too.
Early Feat. Yeah, I think I agree that this is pretty powerful as like, one ability of multiple and is still pretty powerful as just one ability. Probably best to just drop it. Maybe you could replace this with a specialisation ability, something like expertise and another ability? Maybe a reliable talent sort of ability or an ability that has to do with expertise in skills.
Adrenaline Rush. I agree with scatterbraind here too, +1d4 to attacks and saving throws would be a very elegant way to do this. I'd also just have it be an activatable ability for a minute prof times/long rest or something that they can activate as say, a bonus action or any time they take damage as a reaction. You can also call this something like "Hardened Determination" or something.
Human Resilience. I think this doesn't really play into the Human fantasy and would probably just be best to leave to dwarves or other more exotic races. You could try to have this be something about more general Toughness or Determination, maybe something to do with temporary HP as an activatable ability?
For my own Human rework I just split it up into three separate races basically. I said "you're a human, now pick one aspect of humans that your character may embody: Adaptability, Versatility or Determination." I think you should try to make sure your racial abilities might fit into an aspect you want races to embody. Say, elves may be "Graceful and lithe, Elegant, arcane and educated, and Aloof and distant." From what I can see of this, it seems like you have "Friendly, tough and versatile" or something.
Anyway, your idea is really interesting, hope this helps.
A lot of feedback! Tons to unpack.
I'm actually ok with niche things. The idea behind my system is that you can more or less build the character you want from available choices so having a few niche traits allows for some more unique builds than standard. SO niche is cool but I still want it to be something viable. People (min-maxers or casual players) should be able to look at any trait and have a reason for it to bounce around in their head at least a little. If it isn't their personal play style no worries, but it should lend itself to something. I like your idea of sort of trying to fit each race into 3 or so general concepts and make sure all the traits fall into those themes. I may try to focus a little more but I do still want variety in each race so you can build an elf, for instance, the way you want your elf to function. Maybe that is an elegant woodland creature and maybe that is more of a old Germanic creature of the darkness.
Favoured Race: I agree it is a bit more niche and definitely fits more of a social pillar of gameplay. I think gaining a language is reasonable and gaining advantage on all of the different checks for intelligence and charisma feels like a good amount but maybe you are right and there is a little room for an extra ribbon feature in here somewhere. Maybe something similar to the Rustic Hospitality benefit gained from the Folk Hero background? "You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among your favored race, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you." I didn't necessary want to dip into background territory but I don't necessarily need backgrounds in my campaign for players to diversify their characters with this system. So maybe it's ok to pilfer them?
Jack of All Trades: I think you might have misread the trait? It doesn't confer languages at all so that cuts down on the perceived overlap with Favoured Race. It's any combination of 4 skills, instruments, and tools. I definitely don't want this one to have anything to do with attack rolls or saving throws. It's more for players who want to be skillful and cover more ground that way rather than focusing on combat. It seems like your feedback is that you think this trait is similar to Favoured Race, but it seems to be distinct to me. This gives some combo of 4 skill, instrument, and tool proficiencies. While Favoured Race gives a language, and advantage on all INT and CHA checks in limited circumstances + maybe an additional small ribbon effect. I'm happy with Jack of All Trades at the moment I think unless I get some more clear reasons to change it. Thank you for the ideas though!
Natural Traders: Persuasion proficiency isn't the same as advantage. I would imagine a lot of people choosing this trait will also have proficiency in Persuasion, but it is a bit limited in scope, I can concede that. I could perhaps have it confer a straight discount when buying non-magical items perhaps? Say 10%. Not a lot but it adds up. Of course, it would likely result in the party having the player do all the purchasing for them which means it's more of a party trait rather than making the player feel unique... Maybe that's ok because it gives the player a clear role in the party? As for the language part of the trait my thinking is that if the human character comes across elvish, for example, writing on a wall, but they don't know elvish, they could still attempt a skill check to decipher it rather than just being told they don't know what it says. I suppose since they are being given the chance to make a skill check when they normally wouldn't need to, I can just drop the disadvantage part. They already are having to try and potentially fail. Good Feedback. I'll make that change.
Persistence Hunter: I've made an update to the trait based on other feedback that gives proficiency with Survival. My games due tend to utilize exhaustion more than most campaigns (though still not very much). Historically, humans hunted by chasing their prey until it just died of exhaustion. They weren't fast, didn't utilize alternative means of travel, etc... they just kept going. So I don't like adding any movement speed, or alternative movement types like swimming or climbing. I do like your idea though of being able to travel for 2 extra hours before needing to make constitution checks to see if they suffer Exhaustion. That is quite thematic. However, travel pace is typically done as a whole party. The rest of the party is unlikely to want to do 2 hours of Forced March just because it isn't a risk at all for the human. They'd still have to roll twice. It gets complicated to have different party members needing to make rolls like that at different points. I am therefore unsure what changes I would make to this trait at the moment.
Early Feat: This trait was inspired by the variant human and since I am going with a general them of flexibility with human builds I'd like to keep it. I agree that a feat is a pretty powerful choice though so based on previous feedback I have changed it so that it requires 2 of the 4 trait choices to take. This will still be an attractive option, gives a lot of versatility, but is more costly so it will not (I hope) be an instant choice for any human player. Let me know if you think it is still too strong of a trait though.
Adrenaline Rush: I made an update to this one as well based on feedback that makes it much stronger and more focused but I still only have it triggering one time. Your feedback seems to suggest removing the Bloodied aspect of it (which is fine if it is still equally thematic). You mention having it be a reaction after taking damage and that would feel appropriate to an adrenaline rush so I am now thinking of handling it that way. If it is a reaction then perhaps something like "Whenever you take damage you may take the Dash action as a reaction. Additionally you have advantage on all saving throws until the start of your next turn. You may use this trait a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier." Something like that? I worry that it is all flight and no fight but as a reaction I'm not sure how best to incorporate an offensive option and still stay flavorful.
Human Resilience: This is another one I made an update to based on other feedback. I really wanted a trait that captured the feel of humans eating things that everything else sees as poison (like every flavorful plant on the planet) but it seems like this one is getting a lot of pushback. Maybe I should just drop it. I'm not taking away Dwarven Resilience from Dwarves so I was trying to capture a different angle on a similar idea but clearly I did not execute it well. I'll need to come up with another 1 or 2 new traits to replace this with since I want plenty of options for each trait.
In regards to your idea about general concepts for races I think Humans would be Versatile, Mercantile, and Resolute. I also want them to focus equally on the Social Interaction Pillar, Combat Pillar, and Exploration Pillar. I think I definitely covered Social Interaction. Combat is covered a little less well but still has options with Adrenaline Rush, Human Resilience (unless I nix it), and depending on what they take with Extra Feat. Exploration has a little coverage with Persistence Hunter. So if I design a couple new traits I definitely see where I need to focus. Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it!
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
I don't know what Bloodied is, but that Adrenaline Rush ability is amazing if you can become Bloodied, do your action, and then become unBloodied. I'd easily spend a feat on that (again, assuming the Bloodied toggle is easy).
The Feat is OP by normal racial standards, but you might be trying to upgrade all of your races - just make sure you sanity check against TCL for balance (nothing should be stronger than TCL). I can tell you the Feat is more than twice as good as the Poisoned resistance, for sure.
Persistence Hunter is ridiculous. Humans can go forever without sleep without dying? What? How is that a Human racial? The real world ability Humans have for this is *sweating*, which you could interpret as advantage on saves vs exhaustion due to heat. That would be underpowered for this list. Also a possibility: a Human can spend 1 hit die per minute to act as if not exhausted at all.
I can't figure out how to do the fancy separated quotes, so please bear with my jank response structure.
Re: Favoured Race.
I was more saying that there are too many ribbon features here and that it'd be good to consolidate it into one more impactful ability, like nabbing a racial ability every few times/rest. I just don't like ribbon features very much and adding more on seems annoying lol (See: niche feature in a niche pillar of play), though that's mainly my personal preference, so your players might like it.
Re: Jack of All Trades.
My apologies, I misread the ability and thought it gave you languages. If you're happy with it, that's good enough!
Re: Natural Traders
Proficiency is pretty comparable to advantage, mathematically it's about the same (advantage gives +3.32 on average) though I see your point. My main problem was that it felt too limited in scope (see the last sentence in this post), i.e. buying items in town which might not take up a lot of time in an adventure or quest (bar the language bit). I was just suggesting that you have it more applicable to social encounters as a whole, like thinking about what transferable skills a savvy merchant may have in any social encounter, not just being able to get lower prices and haggle. I'm not sure, up to you.
Re: Persistence Hunter
Yeah, I was thinking that the +2 hours is pretty crap if you're just going in a group. I suppose it means they could scout one hour ahead after the party stops? I'm not sure, not a great idea. Individual abilities for exploration are hard because you've got a whole party with you too. I do like quindraco's idea of spending hit dice to ignore exhaustion, though they might have been able to express their discontent more tactfully...
I will say as someone who didn't know that humans hunted their prey by just walking after them... to me at least it's not a particularly interesting ability that makes me think "oh yeah, humans!" I generally attribute such toughness or resilience to dwarves or something, I generally find 'determination' to be a more thematic fantasy human ability (personally).
Maybe you could come up with something like "ingenuity in the wilds" that lets you make some food edible or lets you craft or forage efficiently in the wilderness?
Re: Early Feat
Again, I'm still not sure. I feel like it's almost like a "too good to not get" ability even if it costs 2. Run it! See how it goes, I just think that it's so massive (or seems so massive from a player view) that it'll be very difficult to work around. While the other abilities seem to be "niche abilities in mostly non-combat pillars" this is just a "huge ability for the combat pillar" see the last message of the post for this too.
Re: Adrenaline Rush
My fondness for +1d4 to attacks and saves remains unchanged. Maybe you could even scale it with level and get a +1d6 or +1d8 at higher levels. If you wanted more 'flight' abilities though maybe you could say that you don't invoke opportunity attacks and your speed increases by 10 feet? It seems like you just don't want it to be an ability with a duration though, so I'd probably say something like as a reaction when you take damage, gain some temp HP (level*con?), advantage on attacks until the end of your next turn and you don't invoke opportunity attacks prof/long rest. If you don't like that offensive ability, maybe you can make an additional (melee?) weapon attack as a bonus action on your turn?
One other thing, adrenaline doesn't seem to me like something very unique to humans, I feel like most races would have adrenaline or something, which is why I suggested the name change, but call it whatever you like, just a thought.
Re: Human Resilience
Yeah, I'm still not sure that it really captures the "fantasy" of humans and just feels too exotic for the "normal guys." We throw our guts up when we eat slightly pink chicken and pork after all. Maybe you could have an 'antimagic' ability because they're just so normal that magic is too "weird" to work on them, like resistance to force.
Or maybe to humans magic is so "weird" that they can sense magic or undead when it's nearby, like when your hairs raise and you get the "gut feeling" that something's wrong or out of place. Oh, maybe that'd be a cool ability. Inspired by Matt Colville.
I will say that since D&D is focused about 90% on combat (see like... literally any class feature apart from a few), it may be difficult to give abilities (especially ribbon abilities) for the other 'pillars' of play that are so significantly underrepresented in the rules. But I suppose that comes down to how you play and how well you can work it in. In any case, I really love this type of racial ability generation, I have so many ideas.
Sorry for the delay in response and thanks so much for your feedback!
So Bloodied just means that you have half hitpoints or less. A lot of dms will use that to let players know that a monster is looking pretty beat up without telling them actual HP. I'm interested in trying to find ways to use it for player characters as well but since hitpoints increase with level the frequency with which players become bloodied would be less. That said you bring up a good point and one that I am not necessarily opposed to. A player could consider only healing a single hit dice on a short rest or foregoing a chance to heal because they want to build a character who tries to take advantage of a Bloodied trait. I'm not against that actually. It's a unique build and would make for some interesting choices in the narrative. I'm not sure how best to utilize it though and it seems like most people aren't super into it.
Purely by utilizing this system for character design each race is likely to be a bit stronger. Being able to choose particular traits that work together for your build is going to be strong. I agree getting a feat is a strong choice. I didn't want to cut any of the standard options from the original rules and Variant Humans do have the feat option. Plus it fits with the concept of versatility. I have it costing 2 choices at the moment for that reason. Do you think it is still strong even for that?
I think you may have the wrong idea about how sleep deprivation rules work. As I understand it if your character goes without sleep for 24 hours you have to make a CON check and on a failure gain a level of exhaustion. Then if you still don't sleep for another 24 hours you have to make another check (with an even more difficult DC) taking another level of exhaustion on a failure. With this trait you still have the exhaustion level. Each day without sleep increases your exhaustion, until eventually death. Humans are just better at pulling off an all nighter than the other races. IRL I have had to go for 24 hours without sleep many many times without any major ill effects. (I'm used to doing it so I handle it pretty well.) I've even hit 48 hours on occasion and one memorable summer hit my current record of 73 hours without sleep. It was unpleasant. As for persistence hunting, sweating is a major feature allowing for our ability to do that but it is not the only one. African Wild Dogs and Wolves are also known to engage in persistence hunting and they do not sweat. However, your note is well taken. I had not fully considered the things a human player could ignore (even just for a little while) because they don't have to worry about gaining just 1 level of exhaustion. Perhaps I change it to advantage on all checks to avoid gaining exhaustion?
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
I'm really appreciating your input so please continue!
Favored Race: I definitely don't want to let Humans temporarily "borrow" other racial traits as some of them are going to be physiological. It wouldn't really make a lot of sense for a human to be able to gain darkvision for an hour just because they are friends with elves, you know? I can see your concern about just having a bunch of ribbons, but I think gaining a language is a pretty normal benefit and then a feature that gives advantage in certain conditions is pretty straightforward too. The big thing is that it should be specific to a race you choose for flavor reasons. If I have a favored race but I get proficiency on persuasion with any race I talk to, how is that favoring a race? I'm certainly open to suggestions, but it would need to fit that condition I think.
Jack of all Trades: I think I'm going to try it out where it is out for now. See how it works out.
Natural Traders: Fair enough. I hear you. What about, "Humans have the largest and most diverse trade network among the core races of the world. You have expertise on Persuasion (Charisma) checks. Additionally, you have picked up enough bits and pieces of other languages to attempt to understand any written or spoken Core Race language.
Persistence Hunter: When looking for inspiration for unique Human benefits that aren't just the usual vanilla boring humans are the normal option, persistence hunting was one of the best things I found. Humans are one of only a very small number of creatures that hunt this way even among other primates, making it more likely that it would not be a shared trait with other sentient races. I'd definitely like to find a way to work with it. I think advantage on checks to avoid exhaustion is perhaps better than the original version. Proficiency with Survival feels appropriate and perhaps also Athletics. I'm going to make those changes and we'll try it out.
Early Feat: I definitely want to keep this one. I could perhaps limit which feats you can choose from but I would still prefer it to be as unchanged from the base Variant Human as possible. Its a nice catch all of versatility and is a major choice for players who want to build a combat based character only. The OP nature would also be mitigated somewhat by the fact that ANY player can choose it. Even if you want to play a Dwarf, you can say you are a Half Dwarf who just has dwarven physical features but take the feat option from the Human list. You couldn't be a Dwarf Elf or an Orc Halfling and get it but that would be part of the draw for Human I suppose. I'd still prefer if everything felt fairly equal though (or at least equal to double for the Feat, I guess). I'll try it and see if playtesters just always gravitate towards it.
Adrenaline Rush: I sort of imagined that the other races likely still have adrenaline but perhaps did not have the same extreme reaction to it. I've seen and heard of people doing some pretty crazy things when in danger or scared. There are stories of people lifting cars for instance. In our collective fantasy head canon there is no reason why we couldn't decide that elves have adrenaline but it really just makes them more aware that they are in danger rather than triggering a whole crazy fight or flight response. Like, "Oh dear. It appears that I am in some sort of danger. I shall assess the situation, look for an escape route, and - Oh! There is a nice vine hanging down that I can grab. I'll just cartwheel over there and... danger averted." Or maybe it affects everyone the same but it seemed like a solid area to try to set humans apart. Dwarves are going to be more stout and swoll than humans generally, Elves more elegant and skillful than humans generally, but in a pinch, for just a short little while, Humans are just super baller. I'm making another adjustment to make it so that they get a scaling bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws until the end of their next turn after becoming bloodied. As they level up it may not happen as often but it will be a more pronounced effect.
Human Resilience: The "fantasy" of humans is kind of weird concept in general though isn't it? I mean we only KNOW humans. If tomorrow we all became aware of a dozen alien races it could turn out that we are actually the physically strongest of all of them. Or have the best eyes. Or who knows what. We automatically put humans as the standard race we compare everything else to, which is fine, except that I am looking for ways to diversify humans a little for the sake of this system. In real life, this is one feature that sets humans apart from other animals so it makes sense that it might set us apart from other sentient races too. It's perhaps too weak and too similar to other features though so maybe it just really can't be done. I'll put it on the back burner maybe.
5th Edition does tend to favor combat heavy rules a bit, that's true, but there is actually a lot of great room for social encounters and in fact in my current campaign my players will go whole sessions without combat. I'm generally pretty good at giving some solid Social Pillar gameplay and this system I'm developing is in part designed to help allow the other pillars to be a more viable focus. I love when my players find clever and interesting ways around a challenge other than just smashing through it and I know a lot of other DMs who do too. 5e may currently favor combat but that doesn't mean that we just have to accept that a roll with it. (I am still pretty bad at incorporating exploration pillar stuff in my games though. Sadly.)
I'm glad you like the concept at least. When I first came up with it, I was trying to figure out how to let my players be things like Half-Dwarves if they wanted without having to create a whole race for them whenever they wanted to be a little off the beaten path. And then it occurred to me that it is always just Half-Human/Half-Whatever which unless there is some sort of magical trait that only allows for humans to interbreed felt wrong. Why couldn't an Elf and a Halfling fall in love and have children if they wanted? Of course that would means creating a whole new race option for every race combination. This seemed much more elegant for letting players create the race combo they want. And by making it modular, if a DM doesn't want Orcs to exist in their game then they just take away the Orc options and the players can still be whatever they like with what's left. Or if a DM doesn't like a particular trait (like the early feat) they can just say create your characters but you can't take that 1 trait in the human list. I think it has a ton of potential but the balancing is trickier since you aren't just going to get whatever good traits and crappy traits a race has. You get to pick and choose so they all need to be fairly equivalent and viable. Tricky.
Homebrew Human Traits Feedback Requested
Favoured Race.
I see your point, if that's how you like it I'm not going to stop you.
Natural Traders.
That sounds good, I would word it slightly differently and probably put a set DC on understanding or just word it as you can only understand parts or simple ideas. I think just giving proficiency would be fine, maybe you can give proficiency in one skill from a list, say Insight, Persuasion, Performance, Deception, or something? Expertise on all persuasion checks... I dunno, could work.
Human Resilience.
The fantasy of humans is how the collective imagination sees or would expect humans to behave in a fantasy environment (in this case). Your example about aliens isn't really fantasy. Sure, it could be that way, maybe humans if dwarves existed are actually stronger, tougher and better at consuming alcohol than them, but that's not the traditional image of those two races. If you want to shake that up, that's fine but people might not react too well. Up to you.
I wonder if you could do the same sort of thing for background, say you have a few broad categories like "warrior, scholar, wanderer, peasant, politician(?), craftsman/merchant" and let people pick abilities like that? That's just more work for you though, lol. If you have other races done, or even just ideas I'd love to see them!