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We all know a thing or two about humans, at least in real life. And inDungeons & Dragons, they’ve been a powerful part of the game’s Fifth Edition. Although they have changed in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, they’re still a powerful bunch of humanoids to consider when picking your species.
Is it the right choice for you? A human playing as a fantasy human? It certainly could be, especially with the traits they have access to. This guide will go over what humans are in the D&D multiverse, what they do, as well as the changes they’ve undergone in the 2024 update.
What Are Humans?
The loredoesn’t give a very clear answerwhen it comes to the origins of the humans. However, it does providethe city of Sigilas a potential birthplacefor this species. This is because it was also the birthplace of Common.
Common is themost widely used languagein D&D.
Then, it’s explained that theycontinued to spread across theD&D multiverse. Now,they can be found inevery corner of the many worlds and planes.
Beyond that, it talks about howdiverse and varied humankind can be, a truth in-game that reflects real life. However, it does take a bit of a stab athow short human lives are. And it’s true when stacked up against the other species that can live as many as 750 years.
Human Traits
Humans havethree traits. That may make them sound like you should pass them over when considering which species to play. But don’t be fooled, even thoughtheir traits are few, they are mighty.
Versatile
You choose an origin feat.
Resourceful powers your human upafter every long restby giving youa heroic inspiration. UnlikeBardic Inspiration,this doesn’t expireafter a certain set of minutes.
However, if you were to gain another heroic inspiration before you use the last one,you don’t get to hold onto two, meaning that one of the pointswill be wasted. So roll ‘em if you got ‘em.
Heroic inspiration allows you toreroll any d20 as soon as you roll it. The catch is that youhave to keep the new roll, even if it’s lower than the first.
Skillful lets you pickany ofthe skillson your character sheettogive yourself proficiency in. Naturally, this is incredibly helpful as, since you can choose any, you can eitherbolster a skillwith a higher modifier or youcan strengthen a weak skill.
It also lets you go off-script, so to speak.If you’re a cleric, for example, you can choose two proficiencies, but you can only pick fromHistory, Insight, Medicine, Persuasion, or Religion.
What happens if you have a backstory in mind that would make it so you aren’t above lying to people? Doesn’t matter if they are innocent white lies or big ones. With Skillful, you can choose to also be proficient in Deception.
You can also take into consideration that if you have azero or negative modifier, you can add proficiency to the roll and give yourself a bit of a boost.
Let’s say you have a negative score in Strength, you don’t want to fail every Athletics check a Dungeon Master (DM) has you roll. So, you may pick that up and make things at least a bit easier for you and your poor muscles.
ThenVersatilelets youstart out withone of the origin featsof your choice. The sourcebook suggests that you pick Skilled. This lets you choosethree more skills to gain proficiency in. Beyond that, you can pick this featmultiple times as you level up.
Naturally, everyone is going to have their favored feats, and they might not be the most powerful or meta ones, but what’s important is youpick what feels right for youor what fits best with your party.
However, Skilled is very powerful. Especially if your DM likes having youroll your skill checks often and with a great deal of variety.
Lucky and Toughare some other great options to allow you togain advantage on rollsorgive you more healtheach time you level up.
What Class Should You Consider?
There really isno wrong or right choice. This is specificallythanks to both Skillful and Versatile. Skillful is the easiest one to picture being useful as choosing a skill thatfalls outside of the realm of your character’s class and backgroundlets you wear many different hats.
you’re able to alsopick one of the skill options youwould have had to leave behind. Are you a druid that wants to be good with animals, but also a survivalist, but you don’t want to sacrifice a proficiency with medicine? Now, you don’t have to pick.
Then, again, there is Versatile. As abarbarian, you canpick the Savage Attacker or Toughfeats depending onwhether you want to be anoffensive machine ora tankfor your party. For abard, you can pick upthe Musician featthat lets you awardheroic inspiration to allieswho listen.
The number of allies you may pick to give heroic inspiration to isequal to your proficiency bonus.
Every class can pick a feat that eitherharmonizes with what they do alreadyorbolsters them in another way. Not to mention again thatLucky and Tough just help out everyonein the same ways as described above.
Differences In The 2024 Player’s Handbook
Before, humans were pretty drab when it came totheir standard trait set. The only thing listed besides their age, alignment, size, speed, and languages wasan increase in all ability scoresby one point. Which, was strong, but bland.
In that regard, everything humans getin the 2024 ruleset is shiny and new, trait-wise. But, when youlook at their variant rulesas listed in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, you’ll seehow familiar humans are now.
A lot of that has to do with justhow much stronger variant humans werethan the standard version of the species. The traitsare renamed in the 2024 sourcebook, and there’sno ability score increase, butSkillful and Versatilearethe variant human with a different name.
Beyond that, the 2014 sourcebook listed a number ofname ideas and ethnicities to choose from. However, the 2024 Player’s Handbook ditched that, and honestly, it makes the human sectionmuch shorter. It also matches everyone else in the 2024 rules becausenone of the species havesections with name ideasanymore.
