I always wondered why the base human sub race exist when the variant one is in all cases superior.
Sometimes its more fun to play worse, but still capable character ... dont damn it til you try it.
For me looking at them, the problem with the base human class isn't so much that it's worse as it is that it's...pretty boring. A flat +1 to everything? There's no flavor to it. Humans are meant to be flexible? Well sure on paper their stat boost does that but well... meh. I honestly think it would feel more interesting if humans got to add +1 to any three ability scores. Sure it's mathematically 'worse' than what humans have now, but you get to make a choice as opposed to just adding one to everything. I think that also reflects the idea of humans being flexible more. Other races get fixed stat bonuses, and one bonus in a thing they're extra good at, but humans, even though they never start off better than any other race in that races 'specialty' can have a jump-start in any ability and still start off with an extra point in any ability. That feels like a more flavorful version of what the idea is meant to be. It also means every human character will start out being that little bit more unique and personalized.
While we're talking about this, I'm kind of annoyed at how differently half-orcs and half-elves were approached. Half-elves get a +2 to charisma and can increase two other abilities by +1. Half orcs get +2 strength and +1 con, fixed, plus a bunch of racial traits. To me it feels like they're too different. It doesn't get across the idea of shared ancestry. If it were me I'd make the half-orc stats be full orc stats. Then I'd take away one or two of the racial traits for Half-orcs and give them +2 strength or con (probably con) and then +1 to any two other abilities to reflect them actually inhereting something from their human ancestry.
