How does humanity stack up?

[Baphomet]

I've noticed a common opinion amongst several boards that any race besides human is just based on "take a human and change one thing". One side-effect is that, though a human's ability scores are considered "baseline", nearly every other race features some adjustment to ability scores. Just for fun, I've compiled a list of the ability score adjustments to several races. I took all the ones from the player's handbook and the psionics handbook, as well as a handful of others that I see players picking fairly often. The goal is to see what an actual baseline is amongst all the races likely to produce adventurers, and how humans stack up.

{table=head]Race|Str|Con|Dex|Int|Wis|Cha
Aasimar|0|0|0|2|0|2
Dromite|-2|0|0|0|-2|2
Drow|0|-2|2|2|0|2
Duergar|0|2|0|0|0|-4
Dwarf|0|2|0|0|0|-2
Elan|0|0|0|0|0|-2
Elf|0|-2|2|0|0|0
Githyanki|0|2|2|0|-2|0
Githzerai|0|0|6|-2|2|0
Gnome|-2|2|0|0|0|0
Goblin|-2|0|2|0|0|-2
Half-Elf|0|0|0|0|0|0
Half-Giant|2|2|-2|0|0|0
Half-Orc|2|0|0|-2|0|-2
Halfling|-2|0|2|0|0|0
Human|0|0|0|0|0|0
Kobold|-4|-2|2|0|0|0
Lizardfolk|2|2|0|-2|0|0
Maenad|0|0|0|0|0|0
Orc|4|0|0|-2|-2|-2
Thri-Kreen|2|0|4|-2|2|-4
Tiefling|0|0|2|2|0|-2
Warforged|0|2|0|0|-2|-2
Xeph|-2|0|2|0|0|0
Total|-2|8|24|-4|-4|-16
[/table]
So it seems like overall, a human is:
-slightly weaker
-quite a bit less sturdy
-far, far less nimble
-slightly smarter
-slightly wiser
-way more charismatic
...than the average adventuring race. We're likely regarded as clumsy, but easy on the eyes.
Just something I was thinking about and decided to share.

[Righteous Doggy]

You forgot to describe the negatives! Not only are we those things but we're also:
-slightly stronger(Bonus feat + skills is awesome btw)
-quite a bit more sturdy
-far, far more nimble
-slightly less smart
-slightly less wise
-way less charismatic
It all depends on your view:smalltongue:. Orcs and Elves can look at it the same way. Illithid look at their 30 cousins like this. Rakshasa look at their kin like this too.
It helps to think of it as us all being similar to eachother, rather than humans. Or would you rather them stat more super monstrous minus and plus LA races?:smallsmile:

[Baphomet]

What do you mean, I forgot to describe the negatives? I am confused by your post.

What I meant was that, if there was some great big adventurers convention, and a member of any race looked out at the crowd for a prime example of each race, developed a standard based on that, and then compared that standard with a human, they'd find the human to have the traits I listed. The traits you listed would make sense for a human's perspective looking out and judging the sum of everything else. My table was probably confusing, though: A sum positive ability score modifier means that a human's 0 is negative by comparison, and vice versa.

The Illithid would look at his thirty cousins and find them all perfectly normal, then look at a human and find him fairly frail in all physical respects and extremely stupid in every possible way. He would also find him delicious.

[Righteous Doggy]

Delicious? probably not. Planetouched look much more appitizing according to your menu!

I was pointing out that some races may see it differently than others XD. All a matter of perspective.

[Marnath]

So it seems like overall, a human is:
-slightly weaker
-quite a bit less sturdy
-far, far less nimble
-slightly smarter
-slightly wiser
-way more charismatic
...than the average adventuring race. We're likely regarded as clumsy, but easy on the eyes.
Just something I was thinking about and decided to share.

It makes sense too since such a huge percentage of hybrids have human as one parent. :smallamused:

[Qwertystop]

You just added the changes. If you want an average, divide by the number of races.

[Jeraa]

Simply adding up the numbers isn't a great way to compare the other races to humans. Find the average modifiers instead:

Hon-Human scores compared to human
Strength: +0.083
Con: +0.33
Dex: +1
Int: -0.16
Wis: -0.16
Cha: -0.66

So on average, the non-human adventuring races do tend to be slightly stronger and hardier, while having less intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. But the difference is much less then a single ability point (except for Dexterity, which the average non-human 1 higher Dexterity.)

So while your typical non-human adventurer is more nimble then a human, its not "far, far more nimble". Its only a single point difference. Likewise, humans are not "way more charismatic" then the non-humans, as then only have, on average, a charisma score only half a point high then the non-humans.

(Also, removing the Githzerai and Thri-kreen from the calculations [they aren't typical adventuring races anyway], the average dexterity drops down to 0.63. So only little more then half a point above humans.)

[Baphomet]

Good point about the averages! So, that means there might be something to the idea that everything is just human + some extraordinary trait. A human is less than a point away from all the averages all the time, whereas, say, an elf would be 2.33 short on the con (and one higher rather than one lower on the dex)

I think I am gonna go brew up some races without ability score adjustments.

[GnomeGninjas]

You have it stated that goblins get plus 2 to strength. I think you mean -2.

[Zeikstraal]

Goblins get strength?O_o

[DigoDragon]

It makes sense too since such a huge percentage of hybrids have human as one parent. :smallamused:

Humanity is like vodka? :smallbiggrin:

Or really, humans are like dragons-- mixes with nearly anything else. Like vod-- well you get the idea. Interesting that on average humans are a bit smarter than the average.

[Baphomet]

Dang it, I double-checked the numbers and everything. So that actually makes humans a hair stronger than average! Go figure.

I did make a couple "no ability score adjustment" races, they're the first ones in my sig.

[Chronos]

Dang it, I double-checked the numbers and everything. So that actually makes humans a hair stronger than average! Go figure.
Not surprising, since there are very few adventuring races larger than humans, but a good number smaller, and size tends to correlate with Str mod.

[Jeraa]

The list contains races I rarely see as PCs. If we only use the races that are the most common*, the numbers change:

Average non-human compared to human
Str: -0.4
Dex: +0.8
Con: +0
Int: -0.4
Wis: -0.2
Cha: -0.8

*The Players Handbook races, and the three races from the MM that have LA 0 (orc, goblin, and kobold). Not counting the racial variants, just the base races. (The psionic races only exist in campaigns with psionics, warforged are pretty much Eberron only, and the races with a LA are usually avoided as PCs [at least in my experience].)

So, if we only count what should be the most populous races (the PHB and MM races with a +0 level adjustment), on average humans are better in all scores except Dexterity.

[JoshuaZ]

If these reflect bell-curves then small changes actually matter a lot- the interesting things in many ways occur at the tail end of a bell curve. A species that has +2 int has a lot more members that have an int higher than 18, even if the average one looks pretty similar. If this were more finely graded than even a small bit more like humans have would actually matter. Since the stats are very discretized this effect will be small in the large scale, but should be enough to matter when dealing with species that are common. Orc society shouldn't really look that different than human society, but the number of brilliant people, great inventors or wizards and the like will be smaller.

One problem with using this metric is that not all of these races will be as common in a campaign setting. A campaign setting that has mainly elves and humans, humans will be less smart than the other major race. If humans and orcs are most common you'll have the reverse.

But overall, humans are clearly one of the better races in general. The extra feat and the extra skill points are very helpful, even before one gets to the ability scores. The extra skill points is slightly weaker than humans having a straight +2 int. This comparison is less useful for int based classes like wizards where real int would actually matter, but for classes that don't use int in a lot of class features and don't use int based skill checks often, this matters. This shows up the most with tier 4 and tier 5 or tier 6 classes especially those with few skill points. A human fighter's extra skill points are proportionally quite a bit.

[Invader]

This is pretty interesting, I'd like to see a comparison for all the playable races broke down by LA.

[navar100]

Pre-3E, humans sucked. 3E made them cool. Do not underestimate the bonus skill points. They matter a lot. You can never have enough skill points. The bonus feat is also very strong. If you want to go into a prestige class, you can use it for the garbage feat tax most prestige classes require. You can use it to finish a feat chain three levels earlier than everyone else.

Pathfinder gave them a little boost by giving them a free +2 to put in any ability score. The other races get two +2's and one -2 at fixed ability scores, so it looks like they come out ahead. Perhaps, but putting the +2 anywhere gives you great flexibility. You can get that 18 you want. You might even have a second 18 or a 17 or 16. Perhaps you just want to get rid of a pesky 8.

[caddmus]

Humanity is like vodka? :smallbiggrin:



Some people would point out that this just means that so much of humanity can find the beauty in all races, or that love can conquer anything.

But what it really means is, Every one has a fetish

:amused:

[Baphomet]

The list contains races I rarely see as PCs. If we only use the races that are the most common*, the numbers change:

Average non-human compared to human
Str: -0.4
Dex: +0.8
Con: +0
Int: -0.4
Wis: -0.2
Cha: -0.8

*The Players Handbook races, and the three races from the MM that have LA 0 (orc, goblin, and kobold). Not counting the racial variants, just the base races. (The psionic races only exist in campaigns with psionics, warforged are pretty much Eberron only, and the races with a LA are usually avoided as PCs [at least in my experience].)

So, if we only count what should be the most populous races (the PHB and MM races with a +0 level adjustment), on average humans are better in all scores except Dexterity.

I guess I was just basing it on my experience. I've only played one game that barred psionics (core classes only, core races only, final destination) and I've seen two warforged characters, neither of which were in Eberron (fluffed as a companion created by an NPC artificer and the re-awakened artificial body created to hold the soul of a paralyzed lady from an extinct mage civilization, Avatar-style)

[Zeb]

I think there would be some weighted change based on size, if you put the small races abilities in as if they were medium sized it would probably migrate the dex closer to average or human norm.