Decisive and expansionist, learn how to play as a Human with our optimisation guide
What are Humans?
Humans in the D&D universe are a relatively new race, certainly among the common races. While Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes have been around for a long time, Humans are one of the youngest races in Faerun.
Compared to the other common races, Humans are also quite short-lived typically living less than a century compared to the hundreds of years some other of the races live for.
They make up for their short life span with incredible industry, as if they trying to cram as much into their short lives as possible. Humans have always been a playable race in D&D and our guide is here to tell you everything you need to know to play as a Human in D&D 5e.
Is a Human the right race for me?
Dungeons and Dragons lets you take a flexible approach to building a character, but if you’re going to stick to typical culture and the best-optimised build for a Human you might consider the following:
Choose a Human if you like…
- Playing a jack of all trades
- Loads of flexibility in your specialism
- Your fantasy not too fantastical
A Human might not be for you if…
- You want to truly specialise
- Want really unique abilities like flight or innate spellcasting
- Playing your own race just feels too boring
If you think a Human isn’t for you, not to worry, there are dozens of playable races for you to pick from, just check out our races guide to find out about all of them. For an alternative race with broad capabilities, you could consider an Aasimar or an Autognome.
Human racial traits
If you want to play as a Human, the Player’s Handbook gives you 2 options; the standard and variant Human. Their rules are included as part of the D&D 5e SRD so can also reproduce them below. Essentially, the difference is that a standard Human gets an ability score in crease for all 6 abilities while the variant trades in 4 of those ability score increases for a feat and a skill:
Standard Human
| Ability Scores | Your ability scores each increase by 1 |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Medium |
| Speed | 30ft |
| Languages | Common and 1 other |
| Traits | None |
| Proficiencies | None |
| Resistances | None |
| Darkvision | No |
| Innate Spellcasting | None |
| Book found in | Player’s Handbook |
What this means is that standard Humans operate as a kind of jack of all trades, master of none kind of race. The problem with this is most classes rarely use two thirds of their ability scores so there’s a lot of wasted bonuses here.
On the other hand, variant Humans have a lot of flexibility in how they specialise as you can apply 2 ability score increases to any ability and choose from any skill and most available feats so can easily adapt to suit any class.
Variant Human
| Ability Scores | Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1 |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Size | Medium |
| Speed | 30ft |
| Languages | Common and 1 other |
| Traits | Skills and Feat |
| Proficiencies | 1 skill of your choice |
| Resistances | None |
| Darkvision | No |
| Innate Spellcasting | None |
| Book found in | Player’s Handbook |
Ability Score Increase – Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
Skills – You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Feat – You gain one Feat of your choice.
Tactics
Providing tactics for a race with such broad capabilities is difficult. For Standard Humans, it’s worth just playing to your class capabilities.
For a Variant Human however, the best advice I can give is about which feats offer good options for different builds as not all feats have been created equally. This is not a full analysis on the merits of each feat though, just ideas of which ones can work well for various types of builds to give you some ideas:
Versatile feats: If you want a broadly useful feat, lucky is an excellent option making you less likely to fail at crucial rolls. Inspiring leader is great if you’re a high charisma character wanting to buff the whole party. Mobile is both great for being faster while making hit and run tactics possible.
Martial feats: If you want to play a tank (or toughen up a less resilient martial), tough is a straightforward buff that gives you a couple of extra HP per level. Sentinel is great for defenders, keeping enemies close to them while getting off opportunity attacks against even the most slippery of characters. Great weapon master is great for dealing even greater damage while polearm master is a great option for getting opportunity attacks at a greater distance (while dealing a little more damage.
Spellcasting feats: If you need to use a lot of concentration spells, consider war caster. Ritual caster is good for getting free spell uses out of combat on Spellcaster without the ability to cast ritual spells. Fey and shadow touched give you misty step or invisibility (both excellent and versatile spells) plus an extra spell and an ability score increase.
Archery feats: Consider Sharpshooter for greater damage at range and to bypass th benefits of cover. Crossbow expert is great if you want to ignore the restrictions around reloading allowing classes with extra attacks more shots per turn.
Which class should I choose?
As always, I’ve popped a rating for how well each class works with a Human. In short, there are no remarkable or poor classes for a Human and it all comes down to building your options around your chosen class.
As such, every class gets a 4 star rating and I can’t necessarily recommend one class above another for a Human.
Artificer⭐⭐⭐⭐
Barbarian ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Bard ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cleric ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Druid ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Monk ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Paladin ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rogue ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sorcerer ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Warlock ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wizard ⭐⭐⭐⭐
*Star ratings scored out of 5
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 as 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.
