Humans - Most Powerful Race in 3e?

[Warehouse23]

With regards to the notion that diversity and flexibilty are power in D&D, I'd like to suggest that it depends on the group you're in and the style of play that you prefer. Humans are grand for players who want to do it all-- to be a tough combatant, and a skillful utility type with many skills, and still be the character everyone follows because they're so charismatic. That can be a lot of fun, makes the player "the star" a little more often, and is essential in groups with classes/characters that lack certain skills. On the other hand, sometimes playing a snarling brute (with a heart of gold) of a half-orc barbarian, or a slimy, but superbly skilled rogue, or a frail but powerful wizard is the way to go. You might not be in the limelight all the time (my wizard has fantasies about wading into the fray with his quarterstaff spinning like Darth Maul, but he knows it's just not in the cards for him), but when you are, you can do amazing things that a more generalist character could not dream of. Sometimes it's fun to play a charcter who has something to say about everything, and sometimes it's fun to play a character who is largely silent, but when the time comes, has that extra bit of umph that saves the day.

Just my two coppers.

 

[Kast]

Humans do have some front-loading, but that makes them the kings of low-level mediocrity, not a race worthy of a +1LA.

 

[Turanil]

Please let me know if others have the same feeling I do, or if I am out in left field.

I agree with you. I have created many PC races (a dozen), and everytime I was extremely careful to make them balanced with regard to a 7th level human. (7th level I think, can be seen as the average level from most campaign, arbitrarily deciding that most campaign range from 1st to 13th level)

I mean: at 7th level humans have 10 skill points and 1 feat. I consider 1 feat = 4 point (since skill focus is +3 skill points, but then it's a freely chosen feat in the case of humans). So I make all my homebrew PC races get "14 points worth of abilities" (+1 bonus to a skill = 1 point; specific feat is 3 points; low-light vision is 2 points; etc.). The result is that at low level my PC races are more powerful, but at higher levels they are less powerful.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Where combat and dungeoneering are concerned, I would rank dwarves first by a wide margin, humans second, gnomes third, a gaping hole, then halflings, elves, half-elves and half-orcs (in the order) last.

Dwarves are in many ways like druids - not only are they better at one thing, they're better at almost everything. Dwarves have almost no disadvantages and significant advantages as eight of the eleven core classes: barbarians, clerics, druids, fighters, monks, rangers, rogues and wizards. Despite having a disadvantage as paladins (lower Charisma), they end up with better saves, and hit points in place of superior lay on hands - even at worst. Despite a hit to their primary casting stat, Cha, they are passable sorcerers, although much better wizards. About the only class dwarves aren't good for is bard.

In core, the dwarf reigns supreme, but he falls off as you expand into splats, becoming only slightly better than equal to the human at low levels.

A human can get +2 to one save as his bonus feat; a dwarf has, in effect, +2 to all saves almost all the time, +1 to Fort saves all the time, and a stacking +2 to Fort saves some of the time. Compared to saves, hit points and armor class are a total afterthought, and become more so with every passing level.

However, the proliferation of effective feat trees (not the least of which are the more, well, exotic Exotic Weapon Proficiencies) do help humans. Not only are these useful in and of themselves, they also help a human character to quickly gain a good PrC, and to dip multiple PrCs for useful abilities.

Unfortunately, then you get back to the advantages dwarves have in qualifying for PrCs: they're dwarves. Dwarven Defender, Deepwarden, Dwarf Paragon, Runecaster... dwarven racial PrCs are over the top excellent, much better than their elven equivalents.

Moving on to non-core, orcs and warforged are also quite effective, although I would consider them inferior to dwarves and the former to humans as well. Some of the elven subraces are quite good, but most still take a Con hit without getting save bonuses back. Dwarf subraces, of course, add customizability to the extremely effective core dwarf, make for the best paladins, and make dwarven sorcerers and bards viable.

Gnomes have a +2 Con and are small, which makes them defensive powerhouses and superb spellcasters. Other than that, they'd be on the outside looking in, same as the other core races.

 

[Seeten]

First vote for "Most Powerful" to anything other than human. You know, I agree that dwarves are powerful, and some Dwarf only PrC's are just gross. DR can become ridiculous with some of the extra classes around for them, not to mention the other abilities.

I still take humans over dwarves, but I dont think your argument is invalid. I agree with many of your points, if not conclusion. Dwarves get the benefit of discarding cha for con, and as noted above, cha is a potential throwaway, which helps, and they have some good abilities. But their PrC's are admittedly over the top.

I dont personally like Dwarves, but I see them as on roughly to equal footing with a human. Maybe my issue is more that most of the other races seem so weak in comparison, that you can really see the gap?

 

[MacMathan]

Two thoughts:

Humans are very popular because they can get into many PRCs 3 levels ahead of any other race. Quicker gratification for the modern age and all that.

As far as dwarves go it all depends how much you value movement in the game, for some people a 20 move is no big deal for others it is the reason they play humans

 

[kenobi65]

When I have to start a PC at 1st level (for example, when starting characters in various RPGA Living campaigns), I've frequently picked a human, because the bonus feat and skill points (though, mostly the feat) represent such a big incremental bonus at that level.

But, I also remind myself that the racial bonuses for a lot of the races are effectively as powerful as a feat, if not more so (e.g., elves get +2 on Listen, Search, and Spot, which is an upgraded Alertness, and they get other bonuses, too). As I see it, the advantage for humans is that they can choose where to put that "feat", while it's hard-wired into the non-human races.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Speaking as a power gamer, most of my characters have been human, with at least some levels of fighter. The versatility is better, in my munchkinizing, than the specific powers of the other races and classes. I tend to think of this more as a weakness of the other races and classes, rather than as humans and fighters being "too powerful". They're the *right* power level. I'm not here to play "ordinary guy turned hero", I'm here to play a HERO.

That said, you can munchkinize any race if you work at it. Give me a halfling barbarian with an optimized build, and you'll never see him until he chops you in half at the waist. Give me a dwarf cleric. A half-orc druid. I'm still struggling to find some use for elves, though. They suck. Gone from the munchkin race to the also-ran...

 

[ThirdWizard]

This is severe number crunching, but we're already debating "most poweful" so I don't feel bad.

+2/-2 is actually quite the advantage if you use a point buy method of generation. It basically means that the -2 stat probably won't be above 12, whereas the +2 stat will generally be at least 16. As for myself, I like having all 10s in everything, generally. +2/-2 doesn't change the amount of points it takes to get all 10s: 12 points.

Now, unless I was going to raise the -2 stat above 12, I am at an advantage, because of diminishing returns on point buy. Making a dwarf with 14, 12, 16, 12, 12, 10 is possible using a 28 point buy, but a human with those stats is using 30 point buy. Now, up that Con to 18 at the expense of Wis and Int, and its still 28. The human with the same stats is 32. If you're going low power with a 25 point buy, the dwarf is even better off since he can get a 16 much more easily than a human, and if you're going 32, he can get the 18 without sacrificing Int and Wis (if you consider a 10 a sacrifice).

So, if you want high scores, non-human is the way to go. If you weren't going to raise dexterity over 12, then the +2/-2 hampered you not at all. The main disadvantage this causes is missing out on feat lines. Dwarves have a hard time with the Dodge line of feats. But, if you want to go that way, an Elf would make a better candidate anyway (Spring Attack is somewhat wasted on a Dwarf).

Non-humans lend themselves quite wll to specialization, although humans do lend themselves to getting PrCs earlier (extra feat, more skill points, more multclassing freedom), which is, I think, their main benefit. If I were not going for a PrC that had a lot of prerequisites, then I doubt human would be my first choice, power-wise.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I want a good reason to make a tiefling, beyond, they look cool and would be an interesting race to rp. Stat wise, they SUCK. There is nothing good about them. They should give me a level back to play one. It offends my sense of balance just to look at them.

If I could ask a single question of the game designers and get an absolute straight answer, my very first choice would be why Tieflings were given a penalty to Charisma. I simply cannot fathom this decision.

There are other design decisions that I disagree with, and house rule in my own games, but this is the only one my mind simply refuses to wrap itself around.