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Jan 23, 2013 -- 5:04PM, Rastapopoulos wrote:

Giving humans a feat or skill, however, could be a good mechanic to compensate if other races get more benefits than hindrances when compared to humans.
However, since 5ed insists that all that be "optional" on core I'm not sure what to do.

The solution actually isn't all that difficult. Just give the Human its own, unique, generic features. Here's some of what I came up with for a thread of mine from a while ago:

Endeavor: When you have advantage on any roll and you roll the same number on both d20, you can reroll one of the d20.
Flexibility: When a class grants you an ability adjustment, you can apply the adjustment to any ability of your choice.
Heroism: When you make an attack roll, you can always reroll a natural 1. When you force a target to make a saving throw, you can always force it to reroll a natural 20.
Humanity: When you help another creature, the creature can instead gain advantage for the next relevant attack roll or saving throw that it makes before your next turn.
Human Spirit: Once per encounter, you can help another creature as part of another action.

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:20PM, kezzek wrote:

Endeavor - chance of this happening is only about 5% on any advantage roll.  The benefit would therefore be about 2.5% on an advantage roll.
Flexibility - don't get this. Why would it help to apply an ability adjustment to an ability that is not suggested.
Heroism - another 3% bonus on attacks or 3% bonus against saves.
Humanity - is this an action? If so it is of dubious value. Most actions are more useful than helping another.
Human Spirit - I personally don't like encounter abilities. The idea of an encounter is too subjective to me.

Endeavor - Although the odds of endeavor triggering are relatively low, remember that this is just a racial feature. Most racial features that grant combat bonuses are situational and won't come up most encounters (except for weapon die bonuses, but those are terrible, so I don't count those), so while this one may have a somewhat less powerful effect than other racial features, realize that this is the case because it is less situational, something that can come up far more often than racial features usually do. I remember being told that this Endeavor, particularly combined with Heroism, was actually overpowered, though I don't know that I agree.
Flexibility - Multi-classing.
Heroism - I can't tell whether that's a criticism.
Humanity - Helping another creature is an action by default. This modifies how it can be used and is intended to be most useful when combined with the Human Spirit encounter power, which effectively removes the action requirement.
Human Spirit - I personally love encounter abilities, and I can only hope that Next brings them back. If you'll check the original link, though, this feature was part of a list of optional features (as were the encounter powers for all of the other races) so that those that weren't into that sort of thing could pick up something else instead.

Anyway, my point in posting that wasn't to say that these are the only right answers. I happen to think they're very good answers, certainly much better than most other suggestions out there, but that's not really the context in which I'm using them here. Here, I'm just using them as examples of how it's not difficult to come up with unique features for Humans, as opposed to repeating bonus skills and bonus feats again, particularly problematic in this edition considering that those mechanics are supposed to be optional.

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:36PM, Crimson_Concerto wrote:

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:20PM, kezzek wrote:

Endeavor - chance of this happening is only about 5% on any advantage roll.  The benefit would therefore be about 2.5% on an advantage roll.
Flexibility - don't get this. Why would it help to apply an ability adjustment to an ability that is not suggested.
Heroism - another 3% bonus on attacks or 3% bonus against saves.
Humanity - is this an action? If so it is of dubious value. Most actions are more useful than helping another.
Human Spirit - I personally don't like encounter abilities. The idea of an encounter is too subjective to me.

Endeavor - Although the odds of endeavor triggering are relatively low, remember that this is just a racial feature. Most racial features that grant combat bonuses are situational and won't come up most encounters (except for weapon die bonuses, but those are terrible, so I don't count those), so while this one may have a somewhat less powerful effect than other racial features, realize that this is the case because it is less situational, something that can come up far more often than racial features usually do. I remember being told that this Endeavor, particularly combined with Heroism, was actually overpowered, though I don't know that I agree.
Flexibility - Multi-classing.
Heroism - I can't tell whether that's a criticism.
Humanity - Helping another creature is an action by default. This modifies how it can be used and is intended to be most useful when combined with the Human Spirit encounter power, which effectively removes the action requirement.
Human Spirit - I personally love encounter abilities, and I can only hope that Next brings them back. If you'll check the original link, though, this feature was part of a list of optional features (as were the encounter powers for all of the other races) so that those that weren't into that sort of thing could pick up something else instead.

Anyway, my point in posting that wasn't to say that these are the only right answers. I happen to think they're very good answers, certainly much better than most other suggestions out there, but that's not really the context in which I'm using them here. Here, I'm just using them as examples of how it's not difficult to come up with unique features for Humans, as opposed to repeating bonus skills and bonus feats again, particularly problematic in this edition considering that those mechanics are supposed to be optional.

I certainly appreciate originality.  Whether I like the ideas or not, they are much more original than many others that have been offered.  They give flavor that others do not and flavor is often what is most important.