My love of humans? -aka zomg another racial thread

[Philaenas]

I apologize in advance, but just thought I wanted to share something with the forum.

When I just started my first Temple of Elemental Evil game ever yesterday, I noticed that I had created a party consisting fully of human characters. Then I realized I would choose a human over any other race for any character ever, period. It might be my lack of imagination or xenophobia, but I just gotta love those humans and their extra feat, skill and no downsides . Just thought I'd throw that out there, hope that I don't aggrevate too many people with the umpteenth racial thread.

Edit: Also, I can't stand the fact that all the other races encourage playing those lame stereotypes we've all seen gajillions of times...

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, it's true that Humans are the masters of versatility in D&D. They can fill any role or character concept with ease, and hey that extra feat it pretty nice! I usually default to Human unless another race will fulfill the character concept better. That being said, I tend to think up a good balance between Human and non-Human character concepts. Also, there are a lot of near-Human races out there that can double as Humans, conceptually speaking.

[Yora]

I was quite active in the NWN online community in it's days. Most german RP-server required applications and therefore had complete lists of all the characters. Almost every server I knew had a clear majority of humans, usually 2/3 and more. I'd say most players have a clear preference for human characters.

[Fixer]

I used to play all my characters being human. About three years ago I made an elf wizard and I haven't actually played a human since then.

[Narmoth]

In a world where most commoners are human, but the rest of the group are exotic races, it's kind of nice to play human

[SilverClawShift]

I tend towards playing humans, generally. I suppose I just identify better with something that won't naturally live for a thousand years or more.

If I play a non-human race, I definately usually play something human-ish, like an Illumian or a changeling.

[AstralFire]

I'll play a human if I'm with a group that consistently chooses things that don't look very human.

I'll play a non-human if I'm with a group that consistently chooses humans or human-likes.

[Cyclocone]

While i don't mind playing humans, i usually avoid them if i can. I just have more fun roleplaying someone non-human.
Just like how it's more interesting to roleplay a class that differs from your own lifestyle and/or personality.
(And since, for whatever reason, everyone lives longer than humans, i always somehow feel like a noob when playing one anyway. )


And also, as a dwarf or an elf you won't have to put up with the constant reminders of "oh, you're just a human, blablabla, you won't understand, blablabla, mindless beasts of burden etc." that most generic campaign settings are so woefully stuffed with.

You'd think that with the target demographic for d&d being, you know, humans, the game designers would take care to not belittle and pigeonhole them at every turn.
It would be like if they were trying to marketing the game at women, and then inexplicably chose to absolutely fill the game with fanservicey, scantily clad elf chicks... -oh wait!

Anyway [/rant]

[Xenogears]

I usually play humans. That extra feat always comes in handy for fleshing out a concept I wanted to play.

[#Raptor]

I usually avoid it... I mean, I'm a human 7 days a week, 24 hours each day. During rp games? Its time for something else, unless I absolutely can not imagine a character as anything but human.

Being somewhat of a optimizer, I'll also have to say it annoys me how often humans will be the most optimized race (at least in core/phb [3.5]) for a certain class. I thought humans are supposed to be jacks of all trades, not masters of all trades.

[Drakyn]

While i don't mind playing humans, i usually avoid them if i can. I just have more fun roleplaying someone non-human.
Just like how it's more interesting to roleplay a class that differs from your own lifestyle and/or personality.
(And since, for whatever reason, everyone lives longer than humans, i always somehow feel like a noob when playing one anyway. )


And also, as a dwarf or an elf you won't have to put up with the constant reminders of "oh, you're just a human, blablabla, you won't understand, blablabla, mindless beasts of burden etc." that most generic campaign settings are so woefully stuffed with.

You'd think that with the target demographic for d&d being, you know, humans, the game designers would take care to not belittle and pigeonhole them at every turn.
It would be like if they were trying to marketing the game at women, and then inexplicably chose to absolutely fill the game with fanservicey, scantily clad elf chicks... -oh wait!

Anyway [/rant]

Before you feel like they're TOO hard on humans, remember that in most stock fantasy stories/games the humans are the center of the show, the main event, the big cheese, while the others are being bumped off. The other races tend more towards sidekickdom/mooks for the most part (the less human you look, the more likely you'll be mook'd), while the human's the hero. Elves (which, coincidentally, are most often "humans, but hawter and bettar n perfuct yet declining in an unspecified way so as to allow humans to take over") are slightly less susceptible to this than other nonhumans.

EDIT: Oh, and I agree completely with #Raptor. I'm a human NOW, and although being a human that could shoot fireballs would be neat, how much neater would be being a LIZARDMAN that could shoot fireballs?

[derfenrirwolv]

Humans make good casters, but not much else except at low levels.

T

Barbarian: Power attack and cleave at level 1 is nice. But for raw damage output you can't beat the halforc, and for staying power you can't beat the dwarf.

Bard: Human is a good choice. There's enough skills at feats to spread around to make it worth it, and none of the other classes realy stand out as a good choice

Cleric: Meh. The feat is nice, but a dwarfs con bonus and saving throw bonuses are better than any feet.

Druid: Definite human potential. Since the ability modifiers go away from the other races anyway when you shapeshift, the only thing you can keep from your class is the bonus feat.

Fighter: NO reason to be a human. For a tank, be a dwarf. For a two handed fighter, be a half orc. You're going to hit the end of your feat trees very quickly and have to start over with feats designed for 1st level characters anyway. No point in hastening that.

ranger: The feats you can use are handed to you pretty much pre packaged. For an Archer ranger, go elf or halfling for dex. for a dual wielder go halforc.

Rougue: You've already got enough skillpoints, more don't really help you that much, and rogue feats are kind of limited.

Sorcerer/wizard The extra feat is pretty good. Definitely human for sorcerer. I prefer dwarf for wizard. You also NEED to be able to see things that may be outside of your torch range. Darkvision is great for doing that.

[#Raptor]

Without going into too much detail - Darkvision is a 2th level spell with hour/lvl duration. A Bullseye latern has 60 ft. bright + 60 ft. shadowy illumination and costs 12 gp.
Clerics already have good saves and dwarfes get a cha penality.
Barbarians don't exactly have too many feats.
Rogues certainly don't have too many skillpoints - not with that list (Scouting? 4 skillpoints/lvl Trapfinding&Disabling, Lockpicking? 7 skillpoints/lvl). Feats, mmh. Perhaps the rogue doesn't need alot of them in core, but feats will rarely go wasted.
Btw, you forgot the Paladin and the Monk. For the Monk... perhaps Half-Orcs are even/better. The int and cha penality doesn't really hurt.
Pally - no contest, human.

Its hard to find a class where one could say that humans are definitely the inferior choice. Maybe the Ranger or the Monk. But thats pretty much it.

Outside of core/the PHB this luckily changes, but that feat and the skillpoints are still tasty, and for some classes get even tastier.

[arguskos]

Humans are boring. Yeah, they're the mechanically superior choice most of the time, but I don't want the better choice, I want the FUN choice, so I play neraphs, elves, dwarves, planetouched, anything exotic.

[Froogleyboy]

I've never played as a human. They bore me.

[jguy]

People in my play group call me a specie-ist because I love humans and tend to dislike the other races. My group tends to be a conglomeration of different races while I remain the only human and damn proud of it.

[Samb]

I'd say with the use of flaws that the extra feat given by being human isn't THAT substantial. I mean it's still nice, but having a 20 on the stat your class is better IMO.

Some racial features are worth the lose of the human feat. Racial traits like powerful build, multitask, are hard to replace with feats. As for fantasy steeptypes, I'd say they apply more to the core races. How is a Synad or élan supposed act (my two favorite races)? I still haven't figured out what typical gnome behavior is.

[Choco]

I'd say with the use of flaws that the extra feat given by being human isn't THAT substantial. I mean it's still nice, but having a 20 on the stat your class is better IMO.

Our group has basically outlawed flaws in our games. As such, I almost always play a human because the extra feat and skill points are worth it (yes, skill points are worth it cause our group is more RP than combat focused). On the other hand, I am so sick to death of the 9 billion different types of elves out there that I make sure to never play any of them.

[Devils_Advocate]

It might be my lack of imagination or xenophobia, but I just gotta love those humans and their extra feat, skill and no downsides .

Humans have crap vision and hearing. (They lack the +2 racial Listen bonus that elves, gnomes, and halflings get; they have neither low-light vision nor darkvision.) Their generally inferior senses are their downside. Their saves are relatively poor as well.

Oh, and they also don't live very long, but that's unlikely to matter in play. A few campaigns might skip forward several decades, but that's rare. And, hell, dying just means that you get to roll up a new character.