Human D&D 2024: Species/Race Optimisation Guide

Versatile and industrious. Learn how you can optimise this common and diverse species for D&D 2024.

What are Humans?

Hopefully you already know, because you are one (I think)! But in the fantasy worlds of Dungeons and Dragons, Humans are one of the most prevalent species of the planes.

As natural explorers, settlers and innovators, Humans have made all sorts of places their home. From the fertile lands of Faerun’s Sword Coast, to the sun-baked realms of Amn and the frigid wastelands of Icewind Dale. You’ll even find Humans in more surprising places like the lush forests of the Feywild, the shadowy demi-planes of Ravenloft and Interstellar colonies like the rock of Bral.

As beings of relatively short lives (at least compared to the likes of Dwarves and Elves), Humans often feel they have no time to waste. While longer-lived species might choose to wait patiently for times to change, or to slowly build a city in intricate detail, Humans instead tend to work quickly, making decisions with assurity and expanding rapidly. Human cities may not have the same intricacies of Elven cities or the incredible scale of Dwarven settlements, but they are practical and functional, as many Humans are.

Humans are also incredibly versatile and while many species might find they have more defined traits, Humans are much more varied, excelling in a vast range of disciplines; and this is reflected in their traits.

The 2024 Player’s Handbook has updated Humans to make them a little better and continue leaning into that signature versatility they’re known for. My guide below will take you through how all this works and how you can optimise for this species.

Is Human the right species for me?

Choose a Human if you like…

Playing a versatile race
A lot of customisability in your species
Being reliable at crucial rolls
Playing something familiar

A Human might not be for you if…

You want more defined strengths and weaknesses
You want to play something more exotic and fantastical
Don’t want to have to choose your trait options

Human traits

Creature Type	Humanoid
Size	Medium
Speed	30ft
Traits	Resourceful, skilled, versatile
Resistances	None
Proficiencies	One of your choice
Darkvision	No
Innate spellcasting	No
Book found in	Player’s Handbook 2024

Resourceful: Gain a single use of heroic inspiration every time they take a long rest (a guaranteed reroll each day is very useful).

Skillful: Gain proficiency in any one skill you want.

Versatile: Get an extra origin feat on top of the one you already gain at 1st level making Humans the masters of feats.

Where are the ability score increases?

You may have noticed that there are no ability score increases associated with your species any more. This is because these increases are now linked to your background. This gives you more flexibility to play the species you want and optimise more easily for a broader range of classes.

Check out our guide to backgrounds in D&D 2024 to find out more.

Tactics

Now that ability score increases are no longer tied to your species, Humans don’t get more ability score increases than other species. Instead, the 2024 Human follows more closely to the variant Human traits by gaining an extra origin feat (meaning they get 2 feats at level 1). They also receive a skill of their choice and daily uses of heroic inspiration making them incredibly versatile.

Inspired to greatness: Humans get a use of heroic inspiration each day which is incredibly useful. The new rules for heroic inspiration allow you to reroll any die roll with your inspiration. And while this is mostly going to be best for crucial saving throws and attack rolls, it could also be great for critical hit damage rolls for example or a boost from bardic inspiration.

I’d suggest making sure you do use this daily, but your best opportunities are going to be for saves against nasty spells like hold person and fireball, or when you need to land a crucial hit against a tough enemy. Make sure you use these and don’t just hoard them though, or they’ll become wasted!

Skilled: Coordinate with your party to determine which skills need filling in the party. You can choose any, but you may also want to lean into the strengths of your build too.

Not all skills have been made equally either. The likes of survival, animal handling and performance are needed much less than things like perception, insight, persuasion and stealth, so keep this in mind too.

Feat machine: Not all feats are built equally either. Grab feats that fit your class and your role in the party (more on that below). Because you’ll be grabbing 2 origin feats at level 1, you can combine them a bit for extra effectiveness. For instance, if you’re playing a martial, you can take savage attacker and tough to become more resilient and deal more damage.

An assassin might take alert and lucky for really reliable opportunities to land your sneak attack and assassinate features.

Optimising a Human for your class and build

Normally I’d rate all the classes for how well they work with a Human, but Humans work well for any class. Mainly it depends on how you build your Human with their origin feats. Below I’ve provided some guidance on how to pick complimentary feats to go with your build.

Alert: Great for characters that want to ensure they go first in combat. Particularly those that gain a tactical advantage. Spellcasters with AoE spells may want to ensure they go early in combat so they can blast a fireball without any allies in the way.

Crafter: Crafting now has some much clearer use cases and the ability to craft scrolls and weapons on the cheap is particularly useful. A thief in your party may enjoy access to scrolls you craft for instance.

Healer: Decent enough if you don’t have a healer in the party, but it takes a whole action and has a range of touch. Magic is much better for this if you have it.

Lucky: Universally great. Extra rerolls can benefit everyone.

Magic initiate: Good for anyone with a decent intelligence, wisdom or charisma score. Consider handing it to a half or third caster like a paladin or eldritch knight to give them cantrip access and expand their spell list. Or you could hand it to a charismatic rogue for some extra utility. And remember that not all spells require a good ability score to be effective. The likes of guidance, mending and magic missile are entirely un-reliant on your ability score and offer good utility and a ranged attack option.

Musician: Great for anyone, but only if you want to do some team work. But it’s easy to dole out lots of heroic inspiration regularly with this feat.

Savage attacker: OK for classes doing lots of attacks and that might want to have another shot at rolling damage dice. Statistically doesn’t do a lot of extra damage though.

Skilled: Good if you need access to more skill proficiencies. You can consider this for some high charisma classes that lack enough skill proficiencies to make themselves an effective face like a sorcerer, warlock or paladin. Parties lacking skill monkeys like bards or rogues might want to consider this feat to compensate.

Tavern brawler: Useless! Your unarmed strikes won’t do as much damage as weapons and push is easy to access now with weapon masteries.

Tough: Great for frontline martials that need some extra resilience. Particularly useful for less resilient martial classes like monks, artificers, Valor bards and some cleric builds for instance.

About Humans

Due to their short life span, Humans tend to be quick to act. To some races, this can come off as brash or unthoughtful but others will recognise their decisiveness and their ability to develop rapidly. Of particular note here are their cities and nations that expand continuously, outlasting their founders by many generations.

Many Humans seek to build a legacy for themselves whether it be through the organisations and structures they create or the legendary tales told of their epic adventures. Beyond this though, Humans are so varied in nature that there’s little that ties them to certain norms or trends.

How to roleplay a Human

In reality, this is entirely up to you. Humans can be played in many different ways and it’s down to you to consider what experiences have shaped your character and how their personality is manifest. Think about your character’s motivations and background and how this might have shaped their personality.

You might also want to consider the culture they’re from. Humans from cities on the Sword Coast like Waterdeep and Neverwinter are far more accepting of other races than Humans from Thay for example.

Its also worth considering how your cosmopolitan and decisive nature might affect your relationship with other races. Your desire to act quickly may create conflict with the likes of Dwarves and Elves who likely want to take a more ponderous route to a decision.