1. The preponderance of passive abilities like poison immune, +1 in armors, +1 to weapon die types. It's ok to have abilities that are just there kind of things, but neither human or dwarves have active abilities, and calling the elf's extra spell an active ability is kind of a stretch, especially if you play a mage or mystic on top of that the spell just kind of blends into the background. 4e races had encounter powers and special abilities that triggered off things, it made your race memorable and something that came into play even at higher levels, where as in 3e forgetting your race for a few sessions was not unheard of. I've seen people run 3e characters through multiple dungeon levels and not realize they were playing a gnome.
2. Lowlight vision for everyone, anoying thing in 3e was that lowlight and darkvision didn't even count as abilities after a while. If everyone besides humans are gonna get them anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to just give humans a penalty in low and no light situations and save ink? (not a major gripe I'll admit but it makes me wonder why elves and dwarves take humans anywhere)
3. The incredibly lame bonuses they do get are stupid crap like +1 in medium or better armors, or +1 to weapon die types, not only are half the abilities useless to non-warrior classes but they take up design space that could be going to more generally applicable abilities.
4. Over reliance on the advantage mechanic, it's cute the first time, but give it a rest once in a while.
5. Imbalance between races, which leads into your Original Post so we'll do that.
Given how poorly designed the demi-humans are currently written I'd rather they become more like humans. At least then they'd all be merely boring, and uncreatively designed instead of boring and poorly designed. I despise the weapon training abilities, and think they need to die in a fire. Humans are incredibly dull in 5e but at least they are an appealing choice for every class. The other races don't even have that, they're incredibly dull, poor choices for any class baring weapon based ones, and as long as humans exist as is, they'll be inferior there too.
Basically if I had to choose one of the two right now, I'd say make the other races more like humans, however what really needs ot happen is the race write ups need a complete overhaul.
I really wish they didn't make backgrounds and Specialities optional, since my recomendation would be to go back to 3.5/4e and say "Choose a skill that your background does not give a bonus to. You gain a +3 bonus to that skill" and "Choose a Specialty you don't have. You gain that specialty's first level feat".
1. The preponderance of passive abilities like poison immune, +1 in armors, +1 to weapon die types. It's ok to have abilities that are just there kind of things, but neither human or dwarves have active abilities, and calling the elf's extra spell an active ability is kind of a stretch, especially if you play a mage or mystic on top of that the spell just kind of blends into the background. 4e races had encounter powers and special abilities that triggered off things, it made your race memorable and something that came into play even at higher levels, where as in 3e forgetting your race for a few sessions was not unheard of. I've seen people run 3e characters through multiple dungeon levels and not realize they were playing a gnome.
While I don't think I ever forgot what race I was in 3e (though we had fairly few dungeon crawl games, so this type of stuff came up more in RP than in mechanics) I remember feeling like my race choice seemed more meaningless. Maybe that's a good thing, so you get people playing a race because of the flavor, rather than the crunch, but there's also the flip-side where, if the only thing that distinguishes two races, mechanically, is a stat bonus and some passive boosts, races begin to feel all to much the same.
2. Lowlight vision for everyone, anoying thing in 3e was that lowlight and darkvision didn't even count as abilities after a while. If everyone besides humans are gonna get them anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to just give humans a penalty in low and no light situations and save ink? (not a major gripe I'll admit but it makes me wonder why elves and dwarves take humans anywhere)
YMMV, but at least, when I DM, if I want something to be hidden, it'll be hidden, and if I want something to be seen, it will be seen. The only times I ever invoke the Normal, vs low-light vision thing tends to be with ambushes and more trivial stuff. And I don't have any drow, so I don't have to deal with darkvision.
3. The incredibly lame bonuses they do get are stupid crap like +1 in medium or better armors, or +1 to weapon die types, not only are half the abilities useless to non-warrior classes but they take up design space that could be going to more generally applicable abilities.
I'm probably a bit kinder towards them than you are on the "lame bonuses" front, but I'm right with you on them being useless on certain classes.
With 4e, one of the things I liked was that if I wanted to play a dwarven rogue (for example) I wouldn't feel like my racial abilities were wasted. Sure I wouldn't be optimized, by a long shot, but Second Wind as a minor action is obviously best for defenders, but it's still pretty great for everybody, and likewise not being force-moved would be great for staying in flanking positions. The only thing that probably would never be used would be the heavy armor speed penalty, but that wouldn't be completely wasted, since as a theif, I'd want to carry all the loot I could possibly get my hands on, and the negated speed penalty works for carrying a heavy load, too. So there's still the feeling that you get to play a fun character, even if it's not optimized, rather than feeling your race choice does nothing for you.
4. Over reliance on the advantage mechanic, it's cute the first time, but give it a rest once in a while.
Never really liked the mechanic. Too big a statistical boost, and it doesn't stack, so one instance of advantage is just as good as 17.
5. Imbalance between races, which leads into your Original Post so we'll do that.
Didn't seem to mind this as much as races being shoe-horned into a specific class/flavor. I like balance and all, but it's more important that I get to play a certain concept, and have that choice be mechanically fulfilling, if unoptimized.
Given how poorly designed the demi-humans are currently written I'd rather they become more like humans. At least then they'd all be merely boring, and uncreatively designed instead of boring and poorly designed. I despise the weapon training abilities, and think they need to die in a fire. Humans are incredibly dull in 5e but at least they are an appealing choice for every class. The other races don't even have that, they're incredibly dull, poor choices for any class baring weapon based ones, and as long as humans exist as is, they'll be inferior there too.
Basically if I had to choose one of the two right now, I'd say make the other races more like humans, however what really needs ot happen is the race write ups need a complete overhaul.
This, I have to agree with. Races seem all too bland, as the stand, and feel like they're only meant for a preordaned class/group of classes.
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I really wish they didn't make backgrounds and Specialities optional, since my recomendation would be to go back to 3.5/4e and say "Choose a skill that your background does not give a bonus to. You gain a +3 bonus to that skill" and "Choose a Specialty you don't have. You gain that specialty's first level feat".
This
This again
So, when Backgrounds and Specialties are used, human characters may forgo their ability score boost to all attributes and instead:
Choose one ability score to boost by 2 points. Choose a skill that your background does not give a bonus to. You gain a +3 bonus to that skill. Choose a Specialty you don't have. You gain that specialty's first level feat. (Maybe the extra specialty is too much? Another ability might be more suitable?)
Could we just give humans a prehensile tail or something? Then it wouldn't be so boring. :}
Choose a Specialty you don't have. You gain that specialty's first level feat. (Maybe the extra specialty is too much? Another ability might be more suitable?)
Well, the way it's worked out in the past (read, 3e and especially 4e) is that the bonus feat approximates a good deal of the bonuses that other races get, with the extra skill accounting for the rest (and in 4e, the bonus power and bonus to defenses accounting for what's left). With my plan, this bonus feat is less optimizable, since it doesn't let you speed up along your primary specialty, but the rest of the races don't have great abilities either. Perhaps this is still too much, but I guess I'd argue that that just means the other races should have better bonuses.
I am currently raising funds to run for President in 2016. Too many administrations have overlooked the international menace, that is Carmen Sandiego. I shall devote any and all necessary military resources to bring her to justice.
Would a long term benefit like simpler retraining for humans work? I know most people would just ignore any penalty for retraining anyway.
I fear that that would get too meta, and send wierd signals. It would discourage advanced planning, since humans could just pick a different feat, if they found something later that they liked better, but it would also encourage munchkinism, by picking up on little flaws, that allowa human to essentially maintain viability in order to get to a point where they can swap out feats or spells, in order to get combinations that may not have been viable independantly but together are game-breaking (I couldn't tell you what they'd be, but I can guarentee the CharOp board would find it in a heart beat)
And all in all, it just seems too situational. Some players will hardly use it because they like to stick with their concept, while others might abuse it, going through tons of different combinations to find what they want. I'd prefer something that has more tangible benefits, that (for a human especially) have a usefulness pretty much independant of playstyle. For other races, I'd like to see that too, but it's kind of like my example from 4e, above. A dwarven thief might not get as much benefit from his race as a Dwarven fighter would, but the fact that he's a dwarf should not only have an impact on playstyle, but also provide tangible, if suboptimal, benefits.
I am currently raising funds to run for President in 2016. Too many administrations have overlooked the international menace, that is Carmen Sandiego. I shall devote any and all necessary military resources to bring her to justice.
Or just give 'em a bonus feat and skill? Specialties and backgrounds don't need to be mandatory for that to work.
Anyway I don't see any particular point in carrying on a discussion on subraces where most of the means for creating a subrace in D&D are banned from the discussion, so I hope you guys come up with something really snazzy but I can't see how this can continue in any meaningful way.
To clarify, my concern is not what specific traits Humans should get. In the OP, the one I presented was just a proof-of-concept.
My real concern is that Humans are not presented in a manner equivalent to other Races. This limits and/or complicated future options concerning Race, and specifically, Subrace. If Humans do not have something in their list of Traits that cannot be singled out as equivalents to a Subrace's traits, options like half-parentage and others are made more problematic just because humans exist. Greyhawk, which has Human Subraces, would then be relegated to making these more flavor-based distinctions, which would, I feel confident, disappoint many Greyhawk fans. Greyhawk fans: Am I right or wrong?
My hope is to get Humans over to where everyone else is, and then talk about where they all go from there.
"Our idea of rules modules has a wide range of scope; sometimes, our rules modules might just be small tweaks and variant rules, while other times they could be large-scale changes and entirely new subsystems. We want people to make the game their own, and that means provided a whole array of possibilities based on what you, the players, tell us that you want." -D&DNext Q&A Blog, 8/29/12, Answer #3.
Greyhawk, which has Human Subraces, would then be relegated to making these more flavor-based distinctions, which would, I feel confident, disappoint many Greyhawk fans. Greyhawk fans: Am I right or wrong?
Since you asked, as a long time Greyhawk fan, I'd say you're wrong. The various type of humans in Greyhawk, for me, have always been mechanically identical. They have only ever been different in terms of culture and appearance. If there ever was a mechanical difference between them in any of the printed sourcebooks for Greyhawk, I never noticed.
