Humans - Most Powerful Race in 3e?

[Acid_crash]

Humans without a doubt... those extra skill points and bonus feat just add a lot that no other race can overcome.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Yes, Humans are the most powerful LA +0 race. And, as far as I am concerned, they should be.

Why else would they be the predominant race on most game worlds?

 

[MerricB]

Depends how strict your DM is on vision and shields.

If you have a strict DM, then darkvision is invaluable in a dungeon environment, and that bumps the Half-Orc up significantly.

Dwarves, though they have darkvision, have that blasted 20 foot movement speed. Anyone who has used a battlegrid in combat knows how painful that can be.

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

I don't really think humans are the most powerful all around (they are close to the top, tho), but they surely are the most versatile, and through this versatility they are great for almost every concept.

Dwarves from the PHB are very powerful as are gray elves, wood elves, elans and whisper gnomes, just to name some powerful other LA +0 races outside of the PHB. But they are limited to certain concepts, if they want to make use of their "power".

The other races are often better for a given concept, but worse for most others.

Of course, one could say that this versatility is power. If you take the average "power" over all such concepts, humans will win the race by far, for obvious reasons.

What makes human really good as well is the fact, that prestige classes often have feat and skill prerequisites, they can fulfill the easiest without losing too much. And prestige classes are usually simply better than base classes. This is an advantage, that is not to be underestimated.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

This is, btw, something I really like about 3E, that they gave humans a feasible advantage and not just let them be the "average race" with no specials (which, as we all know, usually just means they are the worst race ).

This and the cleric's spontaneous casting of cure spells were really great additions to the game.

Bye
Thanee

 

[schulerta]

If you power game with Prestige Classes then yes the Human is the most powerful simply because they can qualify for those classes earlier and easier than any other race. If the DM takes a strict view on how many Prestige Classes you can take and how many are available (i.e. only the ones in the DMG, or none at all), then I would say the Dwarf tops the list, with Elf being the worst.

I know this is slightly OT, but for the life of me I can't see willingly taking a -2 to Con. The other racial abilities the Elf get fall far short of overcoming that penalty.

Troy

 

[johnsemlak]

What makes human really good as well is the fact, that prestige classes often have feat and skill prerequisites, they can fulfill the easiest without losing too much. And prestige classes are usually simply better than base classes. This is an advantage, that is not to be underestimated.

Bye
Thanee

Some PrCs though, have a race requirement, though I'm not sure if any of the really good ones do.

 

[Thanee]

That dwarven runesmith (?) from Races of Stone is fairly good (in the sense of being fairly powerful).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Numion]

I know this is slightly OT, but for the life of me I can't see willingly taking a -2 to Con. The other racial abilities the Elf get fall far short of overcoming that penalty.

They do, in some specialized cases. Like building an archer cleric. Elfs get weapon proficiency for longbow, and can get the Elf domain in FR. Those make for the best cleric archer cleric build.

Constitution penalty isn't a gamebreaker for all classes. Archers and casters that generally are second-line combatants, protected by the 'tanks', usually can get by with lesser hps. This of course requires tactics in combat, so that the wrong characters don't get reamed in melee.

In our games elfs have been very viable for these reasons. Humans aren't a common choice, since added versatily doesn't make up for diminished tanking skills, nor does it make for better second line characters.

 

[Campbell]

Dwarves, though they have darkvision, have that blasted 20 foot movement speed. Anyone who has used a battlegrid in combat knows how painful that can be.

It can be painful, sure, but a dwarf in platemail suffers just as the same as a human or half-orc in platemail.