Play Style Gripe!

[rounser]

Of course, it would really hurt to say that people who always choose humans are munchkins.

Well, I think most people would at most shrug at you if you did. There's no stigma attached to choosing human like there is choosing a cheesey half-dragon/half-opossum for "roleplaying purposes".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not to derail the thread, but IMO the whole idea of making a character is to min/max. You min/max your stats to min/max your potential in a party of other min/maxers to min/max your overall potential of survival.

I'll be forced to disagree here- for me, the whole idea of min/maxing is to create a character. I "min/max" in order to realize a character concept, regardless of survivability.

Exhibit A: Hafling Barbarian/PsiWar (or Ftr when Psionics are disallowed) with ExWeapProf: Bladed Gauntlets, fought 2 weapon style. Wore spiked armor. Took feats & powers to increase speed. Used alchemical bombs derived from Troglodyte musk glands. His totem animals were things like wolverines, skunks, porcupines & hedgehogs.

(In case you didn't realize it, it was inspired by the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew, the Marvel Comics character Wolverine and the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog.)

Fun to play? Absolutely! But compared to 99% of other barbarian builds, it wasn't efficient at dealing out damage.

Exhibit B: A PAG (Power Armor Goon) from a HERO game. ALL of the suit's powers required a "Battlesuit Piloting/Programming roll" to activate, as opposed to just working. The idea was essentially that it was the "manual" version of a power armor suit, as opposed to the more common "automatic" version popularized in fiction. An unskilled pilot had as much chance of activating the flight jets as firing a weapon, making risk of theft minimal. OTOH, even the suit's creator/operator occasionally missed a roll...

 

[Hussar]

Well, I think most people would at most shrug at you if you did. There's no stigma attached to choosing human like there is choosing a cheesey half-dragon/half-opossum for "roleplaying purposes".

Which would be my point in a nutshell.

Any munchkin KNOWS that humans and dwarves are the creme of the crop when it comes to races. So, anyone choosing "cheesey half-dragon/half-opossum" characters can't be a munchkin by definition.

If you insist on playing your overpowered humans, at least be honest enough to admit that you're doing it solely for the mechanical benefits, and not for any sort of "roleplaying purposes" and leave true role players to their bizarre concoctions.

 

[rounser]

leave true role players to their bizarre concoctions.

Good point. Any TRUE roleplayer needs least three templates before they can get to "what's my motivation."

 

[Hussar]

Good point. Any TRUE roleplayer needs least three templates before they can get to "what's my motivation."

Well, considering how utterly underpowered and weak such a character would be, it would be in keeping with the "True Roleplayers" out there. After all, if you are a true roleplayer, you should be taking the weakest character you can so that you can explore those deficits and not be able to run through things on brute strength and stock abilities like a dwarf.