Why play human?

[Truth Seeker]

Agreed..

...Er, most of the changes done to other races were done to make them more palpable compared to humans. They were already the top dog

I find humans to still be really good, but other races are good too. They're just more specialized.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I find humans to still be really good, but other races are good too. They're just more specialized.

This. Humans are the ultimate generalists. Elves, ... their ability to overcoming spell resistance is nice ... when you are a wizard. Now play a ranger elf and that spell resistance bonus is kinda worthless. Dwarves make great fighters and clerics. Not slowed down by heavy armor, bonus to certain races. But make that dwarf a wizard and those abilities don't add up to much.

Look at skill points for a fighter 2/rogue 2 for a human and a half elf. The human has fighter as his favored class while the half elf has both. The human has all the class skill points plus 2 for fighter being his favored class and 4 for being human. The half elf has 4 for favored classes. Already the human wins.

Now look at a fighter 4/rogue 2/dualist 8. The human gets 4 for fighter favored class and 14 for being human. The half elf gets 6 for the fighter/rogue favored classes.

 

[gamerprinter]

Wrong question...

The real question, would be aside from flavor, why play non-human?

GP

 

[Grue]

The real question, would be aside from flavor, why play non-human?

GP

Heh...well more feat slots available in the 7th plus range mitigates the bonus feat advantage.

The extra skill point...skill points are a bit rarer. A lot depends on play style (both of the pc and the dm) as well as what sort of character you're playing. Between the party's rogue and wizard, most skill checks should be covered. Leaving skill points for those skills you need for prereqs and 'must-have' skill checks.

In my experience skill boosting magic items are more common rewards at the lower levels, and if you're game allows crafting...not all that hard to get if you feel the need to shore up a skill check. Add in the changes to the headband of intellect and the +1 skill point per level isn't what I'd consider a vastly superior option over certain race and class combos. As pointed out, humans are generalists, IME a half-orc generally makes a better barbarian, a dwarf a better cleric, halfling a rogue, and gnome an illusion based sorceror.

At lower levels low light or darkvision advantage is not insignificant if you are playing with a rat bastard dm. As well as the racial skill bonuses at lower levels I've noticed can be helpful to some builds (the half-orc's intimidate for one). As is, I'd say the races are a bit more equal than they were under 3.5.

 

[Piratecat]

+1 skill point per level is significantly stronger than a feat. A feat of your choice is slightly stronger than a specific feat. +2 to an ability score of your choice is slightly stronger than the usual +2/+2/-2 scheme, unless you raise both the +2's.

I'm a hog for skill points, and I always have trouble saying no to this.

 

[Anguish]

I look at it this way: the abilities the non-human races get might be better or strong than what a human gets... some of the time. A gnome's spell-like abilities might be useful to your character. A dwarf's "issues" with giants might be useful to your character. Halflings are more resistant against fear which might be useful to your character.

The human's feat and skill points will be useful to your character because you select it.

You don't have to contend with the collection of semi-random abilities that the other races represent.

 

[Ryujin]

If I didn't want to go for Arcane Archer, requiring Elf or Half Elf, my Bard would have been Human. Human and Half Elf each have something to recommend them and that extra feat, and skill points can be very useful over the long run.

 

[Chronologist]

Races with minuses to attributes hurt some class choices. You'll seldom see a Dwarf Sorcerer, an elven "tank", or a Halfling/Gnome Barbarian, because the stat minuses make it unattractive to play that kind of character. Being human lets you play any class. In addition, the feat and extra skill point let you flesh out what your character is good at, rather than have that selected for you.

 

[Shadowfoot]

Why not all human?

I'd be happy to play in a world with no elves, dwarfs, halflings, orcs, or gnome; a world where everyone is human, with different races. Barbarian tribesmen and bandits fill to role of orcs and their ilk. Tree-huggers replace elves of the forest. Haughty humans can replace haughty elves.
Many people have preconceived ideas about how elves and dwarfs act and interact, ideas that don't always for the world. Removing long-lived races from play means history becomes history, and not an event lived through a long time ago.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Barbarian tribesmen and bandits fill to role of orcs and their ilk. Tree-huggers replace elves of the forest. Haughty humans can replace haughty elves.

...

Many people have preconceived ideas about how elves and dwarfs act and interact, ideas that don't always for the world.

By "many people" you mean like...you?

Removing long-lived races from play means history becomes history, and not an event lived through a long time ago.

"History" can extend further back than a few hundred years. And even if you want to focus on "human history," where events from just the past century or even several decades are the major "history" shaping the campaign, why does having long-lived races prevent that? Just because they were alive when it happened doesn't mean they were invloved with, knew of, or very much cared about what the silly humans with their fruit fly-like longevity were killing themselves over this time.

EDIT: Wow, you've been on here for 7 years, and that was only your second post? Not trying to be mean about it, I just can't help but...wow.