Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 echelon_house May 09, 2009 16:51:16	I've heard various complaints at various times on this board to the effect that humans have difficulty in keeping up with the other races. Their prime selling point right now is apparently the extra feat and the choice of ability bonus. While that's all well and good, I decided to buff them up a bit and (hopefully) make them able to compete better. Here's what I ended up with: THE HUMAN + Ability Bonus: +2 to any one ability score of your choice. + Skill Bonus: +2 to any one skill of your choice. + Languages: Choice of any two + Size: Medium + Speed: 6 squares + Vision: Normal + Dilettante: Humans like to dabble in everything, keeping their options open. When you create your character, choose a level 1 at-will power from any class. You can use it as an encounter power. + Open Mind: You're naturally more curious and inquisitive than others. You can multiclass freely between any number of classes. + Quick Study: Humans are fast and determined learners. You gain a bonus feat at 1st level. + Stubborn Survivor: You may not be as fast or as strong as your allies, but you've learned to keep your guard up. You gain a +1 racial bonus to all defenses. I decided to take their theme of versatility and run with it. The extra at-will ability the current humans have is fairly universally viewed as the weakest power, so I replaced it. I'm pretty comfortable with stealing Dilettante from the Half-Elves as, I've never been a fan of the "Half" races ... Halflings excluded. I also stole Multiclass Versatility from the Bard, as it doesn't make much sense imho to have to start as a Bard if you want to be a Fighter/Swordsage/Wizard. Finally, I also increased their +1 bonus to all NADs by just making it all defenses, which I think makes them quite strong. Any thoughts?
#2 pigknight May 09, 2009 17:22:46	I've heard various complaints at various times on this board to the effect that humans have difficulty in keeping up with the other races. I heard humans were one of the best races? Their prime selling point right now is apparently the extra feat and the choice of ability bonus. While that's all well and good, I decided to buff them up a bit and (hopefully) make them able to compete better. Here's what I ended up with: I'll go step by step. THE HUMAN + Ability Bonus: +2 to any one ability score of your choice. + Skill Bonus: +2 to any one skill of your choice. This looks fine. + Languages: Choice of any two Change it so that they know Common, and one other. + Size: Medium + Speed: 6 squares + Vision: Normal Looks fine. + Dilettante: Humans like to dabble in everything, keeping their options open. When you create your character, choose a level 1 at-will power from any class. You can use it as an encounter power. If you want this why don't you play a half-elf? + Open Mind: You're naturally more curious and inquisitive than others. You can multiclass freely between any number of classes. This is potentially unbalancing, it's a Bard only thing. + Quick Study: Humans are fast and determined learners. You gain a bonus feat at 1st level. Looks fine. + Stubborn Survivor: You may not be as fast or as strong as your allies, but you've learned to keep your guard up. You gain a +1 racial bonus to all defenses. +1 to all defenses? Yes please! I decided to take their theme of versatility and run with it. The extra at-will ability the current humans have is fairly universally viewed as the weakest power, so I replaced it. I'm pretty comfortable with stealing Dilettante from the Half-Elves as, I've never been a fan of the "Half" races ... Halflings excluded. I also stole Multiclass Versatility from the Bard, as it doesn't make much sense imho to have to start as a Bard if you want to be a Fighter/Swordsage/Wizard. Finally, I also increased their +1 bonus to all NADs by just making it all defenses, which I think makes them quite strong. Any thoughts? You personally don't like Half-Elves so you gave humans their shtick? Humans are able to be anything =! the versatile multiclass race.
#3 doneisi May 09, 2009 20:06:54	Your Home brew human sort of kicks the half-elf bard in the stones and steals his stuff. If you want to give humans a power boost I suggest either giving them action surge for free or perhaps instead of +2 to a stat of choice, you give +1 to all stats.
#4 echelon_house May 10, 2009 11:54:13	Yeah, that's ... kind of the point, you guys. I explicitly stated in the original post that it was my intention to give the humans some of the half-elf and bard's stuff. I'd be running this version of the race in a setting without half-elves and with a modified version of the bard that lacks Multiclass Versatility. What I want to know is whether this version is too powerful or potentially unbalanced.
#5 eldritch_lord May 10, 2009 15:35:15	What I want to know is whether this version is too powerful or potentially unbalanced. Looks good to me. I disagree with the notion that you have to be a bard to do what anyone's been able to do since 1e (namely, be a fighter/thief/wizard or any other combination of 3), so in my games I usually waive the one-multiclass-only rule. I haven't run into any problems with it, so I doubt you'll find opening up multiclassing to be an issue.
#6 bone_naga May 11, 2009 16:57:27	Looks good to me. I disagree with the notion that you have to be a bard to do what anyone's been able to do since 1e (namely, be a fighter/thief/wizard or any other combination of 3), so in my games I usually waive the one-multiclass-only rule. I haven't run into any problems with it, so I doubt you'll find opening up multiclassing to be an issue. Did you actually play 1e? Not everyone was able to do that. Not to mention your multiclass had to be chosen from character creation. As far as the race, I don't see any balance issues with it.
#7 eldritch_lord May 12, 2009 15:24:46	Did you actually play 1e? Not everyone was able to do that. Not to mention your multiclass had to be chosen from character creation. I did indeed play 1e. I didn't mean "everyone" in the sense of every race, I meant "everyone" in the sense of every player. If you wanted to be a magic-user/fighter/thief, or a mage/fighter/thief, or a wizard/fighter/rogue, you could do it, even it you might have to have been a particular race to do so. Letting only humans multi-multiclass in 4e is a bit backwards from that...but then again, demi-humans having several classes was called "multi-classing" even though most only could have 2, and humans having as many as they wanted was called "dual classing," so I suppose it makes sense. ;)
#8 Lawolf May 12, 2009 15:58:30	Personally, I would remove the bonus feat from this version. +1 AC all the time is worth than most other racial features (see shifter racial power), and puts the human the best possible AC in the game. The ability to multiclass freely is also very potent. This opens the human up to taking powerful feat combinations because they can all count as 3 or more classes. The human is essentially gaining too much from this. I feel a better fix is let humans choose an extra at-will or dilettante, and make a human feat that gives them an extra multiclass feat. If a human wanted to have 2 multiclass feats it costs 2 feats, but 2 is the max they could have.
#9 bone_naga May 12, 2009 16:52:25	I did indeed play 1e. I didn't mean "everyone" in the sense of every race, I meant "everyone" in the sense of every player. If you wanted to be a magic-user/fighter/thief, or a mage/fighter/thief, or a wizard/fighter/rogue, you could do it, even it you might have to have been a particular race to do so. Letting only humans multi-multiclass in 4e is a bit backwards from that...but then again, demi-humans having several classes was called "multi-classing" even though most only could have 2, and humans having as many as they wanted was called "dual classing," so I suppose it makes sense. ;) Ok fair enough, I misunderstood what you were saying there.