What 3E Core Races have you used and LIKED?

[James Heard]

Generally any consideration of the "fluff" in a race gets tossed aside when I'm figuring out the mechanics of what I want to accomplish and find out that I'm almost always better off playing a human than anything else because of the extra feat. When I play a game with a significant level start off point though, sometimes I'll throw in the odd elf or halfling for personality or combination of abilities. I've played a dwarf just once in 3E and it didn't suck, but it didn't do much for me. I've had a lot of fun with gnomes on a lark, but mechanically there's really not much going on for how I end up using them versus what they're really good at. I've never had so little interest in non-combat that I decided that throwing away all of my skill points in exchange for a +1 damage mod was worth playing a Half-Orc. And after watching half-elves become suspiciously rabbit-like during years of nice multiclassing options in AD&D, I've yet to see anyone play a Half-Elf outside of Eberron where they at least can borrow into some nifty Half-Elf only abilities.

 

[Blackrat]

I have played all and liked all but humans.

 

[Li Shenron]

In my groups, it seems the less popular races have been Gnomes and Half-Orcs. I think it had nothing to do with the mechanics, but rather with the coolness factor.

 

[zacharythefirst]

I usually prefer to play humans, but I also dig gnomes. I believe I've also played a dwarf at least once. Not an elf or half-elf fan at all.

 

[MarauderX]

All except gnomes. They fill me with RAGE! Could never play one unless it was to be masochistic/suicidal.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I like all the core races. I have played Humans, Elves, and Gnomes only though. Most of my PCs are Human.

 

[Kaffis]

I mostly play humans, elves, and half-elves. Dwarves are cool, but for some reason all of my dwarf characters tend to be fill-ins or short-term characters. That could be because I've never taken the time to actually flesh out any of my dwarves. They end up being one-dimensional cariactures instead of three-dimensional characters.

I'd love to play a half-orc sometime, but the mood has never struck at the same time as the opportunity.

I've played a halfling once or twice, but the combination of the movement rate and the reduced damage from Small-sized weapons turned me off to doing so.

I've never in my life played a gnome, or felt the urge to play a gnome. Can't stand 'em.

This roughly mirrors my personal gaming. I know half-elves suck, but I'm drawn to them anyways (and if DMs actually enforced multiclass experience penalties, they wouldn't suck as much -- but IME, that's one of the first things to get the axe when it comes to house ruling, just for sheer complexity). As it stands, mostly half elves end up watered down elves without the dex bonus.

When they were talking like racial progression was level-based parallel to class progression, I had hopes that mixed races would simply alternate levels in each race, which would be simple and elegant. Now that it sounds more like races just offer exclusive feats, that doesn't sound quite as attractive a solution.

In any event, humans are likely to get more specific crunch, which can only turn out well for half-humans.