It's been over 2 years since various people created tier ratings for the 5E PHB (sub)classes. After Xanathar's Guide puts its tasty archetypes into official play, I intend to run a new class tier survey. That'll be in 2 weeks, BTW. (Edit: moved forward by a week because some stores & DNDBeyond have released it already.)

In preparation, here's a practice survey comparing the (sub)races. The differences are smaller, but it's clear that some races are more capable or versatile than others. If you'd like to spend about 1d20 minutes clicking a multiple-choice grid, go to https://goo.gl/forms/kRzPtAzzqzxG8Tzv2

Before I launch the class survey, I'll publish race results with numeric totals and pretty graphs.

5E RACIAL BALANCE SURVEY

The results are in. If you've paid any attention to character build & optimization guides, you'll already know that the top and bottom scorers share the same genus. In other words ...

VARIANT HUMAN IS THE PC MASTER RACE! (Yes, I've been planning to use that pun from the beginning.)

And Standard Human is the worst. Wizards of the Coast, are you listening? Humanity needs to be better balanced than this.

Feral Winged Tiefling flew to a close 2nd place, followed by the other two winged options. The power of flight is too damn high, especially in the lower levels. Perhaps WotC could fix it with complicated limits on wings, but I recommend this solution: DMs, be prepared. If first tier unlimited flight screws up your adventures, then tell your players "no winged races". In advance. Done.

RESULTS TABLE & CHARTS: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRUKfrFDawzHcYGZde_rada9MuIes4CVp4yCVjfC3HCSbTOOZ lRCCGpbMzzYc5zwRWwIGeNuMGDC5Sj/pubhtml?oid=1482362775&format=interactive

RATING RESULTS:

For the most part, the results follow conventional wisdom.

"S" median rating: Variant Human, Winged Feral Tiefling.

"A" median rating: Winged Standard Tiefling, Aarakocra, Standard Half-Elf, Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Drow Variant Half-Elf, Cantrip Variant Half-Elf.

"B" median rating: Eladrin UA Elf, Protector Aasimar, Bugbear, Fallen Aasimar, Mountain Dwarf, other variant Half-Elf, Scourge Aasimar, Tabaxi, Feral Tiefling, Hill Dwarf, Half-Orc, Wood Elf, Deep Gnome, Firbolg, Githyanki UA, Eladrin DMG Elf, Ghostwise Halfling, Lightfoot Halfling, Githzerai UA, Lizardfolk, Goliath, Triton, High Elf, standard Tiefling, Stout Halfling, Fire Genasi, Duergar Dwarf, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Water Genasi, Forest Gnome, Air Genasi, Drow Elf, Earth Genasi, Rock Gnome, Kobold, Kenku.

"C" median rating: Orc, Dragonborn, Standard Human.

Dragonborn really surprised me. I personally rate them C-level, but considering how popular they are, I had no idea so many other people think the same. What would be a good fix for them... maybe add a Bite attack? +1 AC when unarmored? something else?

REAL-WORLD PLAY:

I saw one signficant surprise in the actual usage survey. The most-played races are Var Human, Half-Elf, Dwarf x2, and Elf x2... followed by Standard Human. That last one is the surprise. And it isn't even due to "the DM banned Var Human so I had to do it": several people rated them "The Best". Scratching my head.

The least-played races overall are mostly unofficial ones, plus Duergar and Winged Feral Tiefling. I suppose a lot of DMs ban that. The least-played PHB race is Drow, the most-played Volo race is Lizardfolk, and the most-played UA race is Warforged.

OTHER STATISTICS

I tried to come up with a formula to measure how well-balanced a race is. I settled on: percentage of B votes, minus twice the absolute rating from 0 (middle B), minus the variance. This metric says the races at the high and low end of rating spectrum are badly unbalanced (duh), while the most balanced are: High Elf, Stout Halfling, Goliath, Fire Genasi, Lizardfolk, Lightfoot Halfling, Triton.

I was disturbed by the ridiculously large number of voters (21) who ranked Yuan-Ti Pureblood lower than Standard Tiefling. I could understand ranking them the same, but not lower. Same stats & darkvision, Poison Immunity is better than Fire Resistance, and no matter how much Tiefling magic is more useful than Yuan-Ti magic, it cannot outweigh the huge added value of full Magic Resistance. Maybe the voters mistakenly rated on fluff or campaign setting? On the bright side, only a few voters put Orc higher than Half-Orc, or UA Eladrin lower than High Elf.

A brief note about vote counting. One person out there might think I threw out their ballot for disingenuity: a single S and the rest Ds. I did count it, after normalizing it to median B. Similarly, a few other people think they live in Lake Woebegon. If your average rating is "Above Average" and your lowest rating is "Balanced", you are Doing It Wrong.

STAY TUNED

Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you found this interesting. This survey had two purposes. For the world: potentially useful data. For me: practice for the Class Tier Survey, coming tomorrow!​

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