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Dwarves get 5 bonuses +1 to a stat (Low Light, Resilience, Weapon Training, Stonecunning, Toughness/Armor Mastery)
Elves get 6 bonuses +1 to a stat (Low Light, Weapon Training, Keen Senses, Free Spirit, Trance, Cantrip/Wood Elf Grace)
Halflings get 4 bonuses +1 to a stat (Weapon Training, Lucky, Nimbleness, Naturally Stealth/Fearless)
Humans get +2 to one stat and +1 to everything else.  That's just bad design and lazy.

Working with of my players (who incidentally isn't playing a human but is thinking about it) we've worked up the following.


Humans
+1 to any one Stat (since classes give a bonus now as well, this should be plenty)
Pick one additional skill to be trained in.
Pick one additional 1st level feat.
Pick two weapons as "Cultural Weapons" and increase the damage dealt with them by 1 step.

This puts them at the bottom of the list (3 bonuses and +1 to a stat) BUT balances that out with versatility, which has long been the humans strong suit.  I also like that it easily allows for the creation of human cultures by simply making those choices for the player.

Example - Nomadic desert warriors - +1 to Con, Trained in Survival and Improved Initative and with the Scimitar and Javelin.

The reason they aren't going to do something like that is that it is more complex than what they are going for. It is highly unlikely that humans will ever have more than one choice based on race.

If humans get a racial feature, it will most likely be a single racial feature that is equally valuable to all classes.

The biggest problem with the human racial bonuses is that it spits in the face of traditional lore about the relative ability scores of the races. It's downright offensive, and there aren't a lot of things that actually offend me in Next.

My suggestion is to provide non-humans with two +1s: one based on their race and one based on their subrace. Humans get two +1s assigned where they will, and a really nice racial feature.

It's important in order to preserve traditional lore that says dwarves have the most Con, elves the most Dex, etc. I'm thinking that an action point type of ability might be good for humans. The only problem with that is out-of-combat usefulness.

I applaud the Next crew for trying to fix humans after several blown endeavors; and while I don't think they've nailed it yet, I definitely think they are on the right track.

Obviously level caps for dwaves and elves aren't going to make a comeback; However, I never saw the logic behind humans getting extra skills and feats at level one. The fluff of the matter implies that somehow a 15 year old farm boy has aquired more skills and has learned more tricks than a 120 year old high elf. 

I am currently in favor of the ability bonuses as racial traits because Humans are better all-around racial specimens then the demi-humans. I am likely to alter my opinion with the proposal of a racial trait that doesn't imply superior skill and experience over the longer lived races.

Dec 14, 2012 -- 11:18PM, Jenks wrote:

I could handle a change in the human racials, but going back to the default skill and feat is boring, boring, boring :P

It's a start at least. Well, anything is better than they have now...

Dec 16, 2012 -- 9:53AM, Khadrin wrote:

A dwarf or an elf could improve a skill every 3 levels and a human every 2 levels.

It works, i guess.
The obvious downsides are it makes skills essentially mandatory, and there may be a problem with runaway at high levels.