Which race do you HATE to play?

[kolikeos]

Dwarves -- haven't we had enough of bad Scottish accents?
Elves -- these supercilious tree-huggers need to have their long lifespans shortened.
Gnomes -- they belong in my garden, not in my game.
Half-elves -- the worst of both worlds. And boring to boot.
Half-orcs -- their grunting grates. And the breath!
Halflings -- if we could just call them "Hobbits" they would be okay.
Humans -- I play one in real life, why play one in a game?

couldn't have put it in a better way!

anyway, i mostly hate 1/2 orcs, because they suck at being wizards or sorcerers.

 

[Pbartender]

You know, I've never had a particular hate for any one D&D race, but I think I like the half-elves least. I've played every other race at one point or another, and enjoyed all the characters, so long as ignored the silly stereotypes. Never in all my gaming career, however, have I ever concieved of a half-elf character concept that wouldn't have been better served as either an elf or human.

Now, there is one particular thing that bugs me about practically every race except for humans and half-orcs... CONDITIONAL MODIFIERS! "1 per day gain a morale bonus of +2 to ranged touch attacks against blind kobolds, but only if the moon is full and a pie-holding orc is within sight." They are so troublesome to keep track of, and in the few instances they are useful everyone ends up forgetting about them anyway. Either make it a flat constant bonus, or get rid of it.

Dwarves are without a doubt the worst offenders, with gnomes pulling a close second.

Dwarves

• Stonecunning: This ability grants a dwarf a +2 racial bonus on Search checks to notice unusual stonework, such as sliding walls, stonework traps, new construction (even when built to match the old), unsafe stone surfaces, shaky stone ceilings, and the like. Something that isn’t stone but that is disguised as stone also counts as unusual stonework. A dwarf who merely comes within 10 feet of unusual stonework can make a Search check as if he were actively searching, and a dwarf can use the Search skill to find stonework traps as a rogue can. A dwarf can also intuit depth, sensing his approximate depth underground as naturally as a human can sense which way is up.
• Stability: A dwarf gains a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison.
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against orcs and goblinoids.
• +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the giant type. Any time a creature loses its Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, such as when it’s caught flat-footed, it loses its dodge bonus, too.
• +2 racial bonus on Appraise checks that are related to stone or metal items.
• +2 racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal.

Elves

• Immunity to magic sleep effects, and a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects.
• +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. An elf who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for it.

Gnomes

• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against illusions.
• Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against illusion spells cast by gnomes. This adjustment stacks with those from similar effects.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against kobolds and goblinoids.
• +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the giant type. Any time a creature loses its Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, such as when it’s caught flat-footed, it loses its dodge bonus, too.
• Spell-Like Abilities: 1/day—speak with animals (burrowing mammal only, duration 1 minute).

Half-elf

• Immunity to sleep spells and similar magical effects, and a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against enchantment spells or effects.

Halfling

• +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear: This bonus stacks with the halfling’s +1 bonus on saving throws in general.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls with thrown weapons and slings.

 

[Aeolius]

...I can tolerate wood elves a lot more than Avariel or Aquatic Elves; those two are the stupidest, most pointless elf subraces of all time.

Unless you run an undersea campaign

 

[Pants]

But I will admit that I can tolerate wood elves a lot more than Avariel or Aquatic Elves; those two are the stupidest, most pointless elf subraces of all time.

I can tolerate Aquatic Elves, they fill a niche somewhat.
However, I'm going to throw Ghost Elves in with Wood Elves and Avariel.

 

[Warrior Poet]

I vote gnomes. It's probably not for any rational reason. Just don't strike me as particularly interesting.

I'll add my voice to some of the others here who have said the worst thing is the stereotypes. This I can really agree with.

Ever since Bruenor Battlehammer from Salvatore's Crystal Shard (and maybe before that), they've all been gruff-but-loveable battle wagons that speak in Scottish accents!

Since when?! If I recall correctly, weren't the dwarves (as master craftsmen living in caves/underground) originally from Norse mythology? If so, shouldn't the steretotypical accent be Swedish, or Norweigian, or Danish?

I agree with the derision for the standard elf stereotype, too. I love Tolkien, and always thought Tolkien's elves were really cool (D&D elves are NOT Tolkien's, I would argue. The influence may be there, but something fell WAY short). I'm not sure where the flighty fey idea originated (old stories of the fey and sidhe were definitely NOT like that -- they were pretty grim), but it bugs me.

In my own campaign, I've eliminated gnomes and half-orces (and spelling, evidently. That should be half-orcs. Thanks) entirely, took a cue from Athas/Dark Sun on halflings (tough wilderness-dwelling cannibals {or are they? That's one of the mysteries of the campaign}), made the elves into the world's greatest ruthless spymasters (including extensive secret societies and string-pulling throughout the regions), and added Hobgoblins as a playable race (and not automatically evil) with a society modeled on Imperial Rome.

I guess I just want the races to have personality, not to be assumed a "certain way" because that's the prevailing meme.

But with the gnomes, well, I can't say what it is, ultimately. Short people got no reason? (Only joking, of course, and with apologies to Randy Newman)

Warrior Poet

 

[RFisher]

Half elves.

What I really hate are that I've seen so many parties that have been majority half-elf. (& I'm not talking about worlds in which there's a stable population of half-elves that have basically become a separate race.) Half-elves, IMHO, should be rare.

 

[Orius]

Elves. I can't stand typical D&D elves.

 

[Orius]

Heh. I saw the topic and just knew gnomes were going to be the most hated. Hardly anyone wants their PC to be a gnome. And the people who do want to play a gnome, well...they tend to be a little odd in other ways, too. And their descriptions of their gnome characters don't really sell the race to anyone else, either.

Yeah, I knew the gnome hate would be out in full force in this thread yet again. I used to be a big dwarf fan for a while, until I finally found the courage to admit to myself that I'm much more like a gnome. So, yeah gnomes are pretty high on the list of races I'd play along with human and dwarf.

And BTW, what ever happened to GAGA? They're really needed in this thread.

 

[Orius]

I picked elves (of course). They're the only race that I flat-out refuse to play; they've been permanently ruined for me after witnessing disasters like The Complete Book of Elves and Elves of Evermeet, not to mention that the obnoxiousness of a high number of elf fans makes it so that I wouldn't want to be mistakenly associated with them. No flaky-artistic, tree hugging, holier-than-thou pointy-eared effetes for me.

I hear you. Elves in my campaign are a lot more ruthless towards their enemies than the typical prissy FR elf. Example: In my game, I use the old school D&D rules that anyone who even glances at a cursed scroll suffers the full effect of the curse. Anyway, my players came across a treasure hoard full of cursed items, including three cursed scrolls that inflicted a -2 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha. After getting burned by the Cha and Wis scrolls, the party sorcerer decided to take the last scroll back to the nearest town, which happened to be an elf village, so that the village elder could detewrmine if the scroll was cursed or not. The elder had a simple way of determining whether the scroll was cursed or not: he ordered a goblin prisoner to be brought forth and he opened the scroll in front of the goblin's face. Then when he saw that the scroll was now blank, he handed it back to the party, saying, "Yeah, it was cursed, it's safe now," while the goblin was dragged away snarling and cursing.

My players were shocked. They couldn't believe the elves would do that so casually.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Gnomes.

I've rarely run a campaign where the gnomes actually did anything. Now that they're bards as a favored PrC, the chances of them coming up actually goes down. At least as illusionists they had some odd characteristic to them.

Whisper Gnomes on the other hand...