Whenever I have players pick Human I always have this little thought in my head going, "Oh, how exciting..." cue eye-roll.
So I have been thinking of ways to make the race more interesting besides being strictly about "dat bonus feat," and to allow some of the other optional racial traits to actually be used. One idea I came up with yesterday is replacing the bonus feat with a Weapon Focus feat of their choice (with an optional trait to replace Weapon Focus with a Spell Focus feat of the player's choice) and the Bond to the Land racial trait.
My reasoning for this is the traits still allow for customization, but in a less ridiculously optimized way. Of course, if the players would prefer to have a Bonus Feat I would defer to them, but I don't think they would mind and could probably understand my qualms with the current trait.
What are your thoughts or suggestions?
Edit: I just realized that Weapon Focus doesn't give weapon proficiency, so I would house-rule it that the Human also gains Weapon Proficiency for that weapon.
Boosting the human's 1 bonus feat with a second (proficiency as well) is really bad. Now more people will play that dull human race.
What you could do is expect a much more detailed backstory to each character to get a more exciting feel. Or dont allow them to play humans. All Dwarf party ftw!
That's the thing though, I'm not letting them have the bonus feat. I'm replacing it with basically a bonus to a weapon of their choosing.
Although the detailed back-story would work too, unfortunately a lot of my players are still new to the whole non-dice-rolling concept of Role-Playing, they usually let the dice do the talking.
This was my solution to that quandry to make them more interesting, but to be fair I gave all the other races a racial ability too...listed in another thread.
Human Ingenuity – Humans are known for their adaptability and so once per day any human may make use of any feat so long as they meet all prerequisites.
Humans always seem the most interesting choice to me in a fantasy setting. Regular people trying to cope with extraordinary situations and tasks.
I'd pick them for flavour even if they didn't have a bonus feat.
I just made a bunch of new, more monstrous or mystical or fantastical races available to my players. Gave them more options. Haven't seen more than one human at the table at a time since.
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Ban humans, they kinda suck anyway.
Or go after human players. Fudge dice rolls as necessary to kill them off. Get a rep as a human killer. Make it seem like 'bad luck' to play a human at the table.
Take away the bonus feat. They don't deserve it in the first place.
Let the other races take one of their +2s and move it, including to cancel their -2.
Give XP penalties to human players as 'they don't roleplay a human very well'.
Give XP bonuses to non-human players for 'Awesome roleplaying skill'.
Combine the previous two.
Give humans one less trait since they get the bonus feat. If you've taken the bonus feat away, give them one less trait for blandness.
Establish canon that human meat is tasty to non-humans, and nearly hunted to extinction. Form a society of warrior chefs that hunt humans as a sport.
Give human players less ability points due to their versatility.
Disallow magic to humans as it was founded by another race. This includes all characters that get any magic, spell-like, or supernatural abilities.
Just ban humans.
I just made a bunch of new, more monstrous or mystical or fantastical races available to my players. Gave them more options. Haven't seen more than one human at the table at a time since.
We used to have nothing but human parties. Did the same thing you did and had the same results, which is saying something with 8 players.
Six here, soon to be seven or possibly eight =)
Well, I'll let you know when I get to the next campaign =) I'm less than halfway through my current one I'm DMing, and the one I'm playerside in less than that.
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my two most recent games. I started a game core book only and out of 6 players only 2 where not human that I DMed, One was a gnome the other a dwarf. Those where the races these two players always play. Now one of my players is dming and he used the advanced race guide to make a 3 new races for his world. His 3 new races, each one 9 RP races same as human, we still end up with 1 human. I was going to do human my self, but did not want one his is races to go to waste. Everyone that picked a new race did so just to try something new, because it was competely different. So if you make a bunch something that no one has never been or seen before are going to try it over the old. Does not mean they will stick with it.
I've got over 30 race choices, including subtypes and have for over a decade now, with slight tweaks over the years from system changes. The trick is to make the players feel like they're not picking a sub-optimal race, which is difficult since humans are so versatile.
During this time, no more than 1 human in any given campaign.
I'm not sure what you mean by "stick with it," however.
A bonus feat isn't bland. Its juicy.
With stick with it I mean keep playing that new race again or pick another new one. They are more like back to races they like or played before or one of the core races.
Can't speak for everyone, but ever since introducing the new races to my group, we've had one player play a human more than once, everyone else has been something new every time.
Granted this is only speaking for the handful of one-shots we've done since I introduced the new races (a list that continues to grow, btw), but I've seen no eagerness of my group as a whole to head back to core any time soon, and multiple comments by them that "If we'd had these all available at the beginning of our two currently-running games, we'd have picked something from the new lists instead".
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Sand dan Glokta
Matrim Cauthon
Raistlin Majere
Kvothe
Tirion Lannister
Boromir
If you're creating bland human characters, you're doing it wrong...
With stick with it I mean keep playing that new race again or pick another new one. They are more like back to races they like or played before or one of the core races. I am also refering to small selection of races to add on to core. You have 30 race choices that is a lot. It could take players years to even try all those races. Your odd of getting more then 1 of any race is low. I bet your rarely end up with more then 2 of the same race. example of sticking with it is the guy that always plays a dwarf and the other one that plays gnomes.
They are actual the one in the new game that decided to be risky and try the new race. They are also the ones that play non humans before. all the human player stuck with core races this time around. I am sure next camp., We do two to guys will go right back to playing a dwarf and gnome. Does not matter what verson of the game we play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5,4th, pathfinder or even D&D next. These guys will play those race unless unavialbe like the gnome was in 4th. They really stick with it. lol
To a degree, I agree. If something is mechanically superior, players will often gravitate toward it, especially in the case of humans, as the bonus feat allows you advance your prerequisites for many concepts a bit faster.
I still do not have players selecting several of the more monstrous options I have created, but here's the starting race line-up for the last four campaigns I ran, excluding new characters as a result of character deaths and/or rising as undead:
The campaign I'm currently running has: 2 Tieflings, 1 Half-Nymph, 1 Sidhe, 1 Catfolk, 1 Dhampir, 1 Human, and 1 Forlarren.
Line-Up for the Past 3 Campaigns
I. Catfolk (7), 1 Tiefling.
II. 1 Aasimar, 1 Shifter, 2 Dhampir, 1 Catfolk, 1 Half-Orc, 1 Shadeling, and 1 Hobgoblin.
III. All Lolthari (my replacement for Drow)
I fully expect, in the next campaign I run after this, to see either a themed race choice (such as the almost all catfolk & all lolthari) or just as broad a spectrum of choice as I currently see.
2 humans, a half-elf, a halfling and a half-orc IMC. It's largely that way because I didn't want a freakshow.
Arguably, the way to make humans more individual is to make a real split between the various regional types: Vudrani, Ulfen, Chelaxians, etc. As it stands, humans within a small group are more varied than other races, but there's no obvious reason why that should be so. But beyond saying that Erik Bloodthorn has +2 Str, blond hair, a skill point in P:Sailor and Power Attack as his bonus feat because he's an Ulfen, it makes no meaningful crunchy difference.
The online OGC has lots of things you can replace the bonus feat with.
I tend to think that Humans are the default and that choosing a race that has special powers is a feat you pick at 1st.
That said, I ran a game once with regional human subgroups and disallowed nonhumans entirely, the better to really play up the 'otherness' of elves, dwarves, etc. that the party encountered. Racism and other forms of intolerence was a major theme of the campaign (both between human subgroups and other actual races) so it worked really well, especially in making some of the PCs community outsiders for associating with each other and because many of their players really like those other races and it came through in their interactions.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Ban humans, they kinda suck anyway.
Or go after human players. Fudge dice rolls as necessary to kill them off. Get a rep as a human killer. Make it seem like 'bad luck' to play a human at the table.
Take away the bonus feat. They don't deserve it in the first place.
Let the other races take one of their +2s and move it, including to cancel their -2.
Give XP penalties to human players as 'they don't roleplay a human very well'.
Give XP bonuses to non-human players for 'Awesome roleplaying skill'.
Combine the previous two.
Give humans one less trait since they get the bonus feat. If you've taken the bonus feat away, give them one less trait for blandness.
Establish canon that human meat is tasty to non-humans, and nearly hunted to extinction. Form a society of warrior chefs that hunt humans as a sport.
Give human players less ability points due to their versatility.
Disallow magic to humans as it was founded by another race. This includes all characters that get any magic, spell-like, or supernatural abilities.
Just ban humans.
-.- not sure if trolling or just... je ne sais quois
Edit: I just realized that Weapon Focus doesn't give weapon proficiency, so I would house-rule it that the Human also gains Weapon Proficiency for that weapon.
So you're saying you want to replace my human bonus feat for Exotic Weapon Profiency + Weapon Focus?
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-.- not sure if trolling or just... je ne sais quoisBan humans, they kinda suck anyway.
Or go after human players. Fudge dice rolls as necessary to kill them off. Get a rep as a human killer. Make it seem like 'bad luck' to play a human at the table.
Take away the bonus feat. They don't deserve it in the first place.
Let the other races take one of their +2s and move it, including to cancel their -2.
Give XP penalties to human players as 'they don't roleplay a human very well'.
Give XP bonuses to non-human players for 'Awesome roleplaying skill'.
Combine the previous two.
Give humans one less trait since they get the bonus feat. If you've taken the bonus feat away, give them one less trait for blandness.
Establish canon that human meat is tasty to non-humans, and nearly hunted to extinction. Form a society of warrior chefs that hunt humans as a sport.
Give human players less ability points due to their versatility.
Disallow magic to humans as it was founded by another race. This includes all characters that get any magic, spell-like, or supernatural abilities.
Just ban humans.
I suppose I was being a little trollish on some (ok, most) of those, plus I misread the OP. I was attempting to provide humorous points on how to steer players towards other races rather than making humans more interesting.
That said, human is a ridiculous race as expressed mechanically in Pathfinder. While there are certain niche rolls other races simply fill in better, overall whenever I hear character creation it's "should I go X race, or go human for that bonus feat and/or +2?" Combining that with the extra skill point gives them a pretty good calling towards whatever.
Of course, mechanical benefits doesn't necessarily make a character uninteresting. Someone above listed several great characters as examples of interesting humans. I also point out that none of them are interesting by facet of being human. It's who they are that makes us want to know more about them, not what they are.
So what annoys me is when I see valid character concepts that end up shot down because, "I need that bonus feat" or "I don't have +2 in my primary attribute". Which often defaults down to human as a great choice.
I do understand as well that Golarion itself is humanocentric, and even if not playing in Golarion humans are a nice default race to go to. I simply think the mechanical design to represent the versatility of humanity is far too open. I just don't like it when groups end up like my next home campaign. Opened it up to the entire ARG, and 3PP if I can review it. My group is all humans with their token demi-human Suli.
As a curious point, here's a breakdown of my PBPs. We get 39 humans and 30 demihumans in the mix. I did choose to not count one PBP where the rules required Human to be the chosen race. Of course, I often don't choose human, so if I eliminated my characters from that mix, it would become 36 humans to 21 demihumans. While only a small sampling, it is an example of what I see in games.
Human 39
Elf 6
Half-elf 2
Dwarf 2
Aasimar 4
Tiefling 1
Samsaran 1
Half-orc 3
Halfling 2
Gnome 3
Lizardfolk 1
Half-giant 1
Tengu 1
Goblin 1
Suli 1
Lycanthrope 1
Of course in the end this is all my opinion really. I just find humans bland thematically. I want to bring the fantastic to my game, and I feel non-humans help to do that.
i wouldn't so much nerf the humans or convince them to change
i would show them the interesting races in the Advanced Race guide and open those up
or i would homebrew a series of especially odd races for the PCs to play
because elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are just as mundane and done to death as humans
dwarf players are 99.9 percent Axebeards
elves are 89 percent "i'm better than you" snobbish types
halflings, are usually munchkins who want an intelligent ring of invisibility at level 1, and desire infinite magical wealth
gnomes are usually munchkins who want extreme bonuses for using a drastically superior technological advancement level without the penalties. in other words, i haven't met a gnomish player who didn't want a freaking planet ravaging mecha at level 1.
Another option, though some may cry munchkin & let slip the posts of flame, is to make one change to your non-human races - core or otherwise.
To explain what I mean mechanically, alter the Ability Modifiers of all your races to the Flexible (2 RP - +2 bonus to any two ability scores). It increases the point value by 2, of course, and gives a little more incentive, particularly for MAD classes, to select non-humans.
We're going to be using our "imagination" to pretend the races are balanced in some form or fashion and that the ARG point values are equally balanced.
Dwarves: +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, and –2 Charisma (11RP) become +2 Con, +2 Wis (13 RP)
Elves: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Constitution (10 RP) become +2 Dex, +2 Int (12 RP)
Gnomes: +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, and –2 Strength (10 RP) become +2 Con, +2 Cha (12 RP)
Halflings: +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and –2 Strength (9 RP) become +2 Dex, +2 Cha (11 RP)
You could leave the races as-is with this or remove something of equal point value. When I designed and re-designed many of the races for my home setting, one thing that had to go on every race was Weapon Familiarity.
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Prior to my redesign, I asked my players, "What prevents you from selecting races other than humans, aside from the bonus feat?"
The top three they responded with were: ability score array, weapon familiarity, and the idea that skill bonus (2 RP for a +2 static in one skill - races are often overloaded with this) was in anyway equal to skilled (4 RP for 20 skill points over the course of 20 levels).
My players posited the following:
Ability Score Array: You may only get one bonus as a human, but you get to pick where it goes and you don't receive a penalty. As a non-human, you get a bonus one mental and one physical, which you cannot choose, and a penalty on top of it.
Weapon familiarity is reflected in your class weapon proficiencies and that many of the "racial weapons" were nothing more than cheesey design to make weapon familiairty useful due to their (often superior) stats compared to other weapons, but not sufficiently useful that he'd play a race with it over a human.
By level 4, skilled has equaled or exceeded skill bonus (assuming 2 racial bonuses to two different skills) and you can select what skills you get your bonus to. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say humans gain a +2 racial bonus on two skills of their choice?
Some of these arguments I agreed with, some not so much, but there you go. Ask your players why they are not interested in other races and use that as a foundation for your design. It is you and your player's table, whether some folks on boards you don't even know agree or disagree with you is not all that important so long as it provides for a more enjoyable experience for you and your pals and it is something everyone can get on board with.
Thank you for all of your responses. Perhaps my initial post was mostly due to the shock of hearing my players say "Maybe I'll go Oread Fighter... nah, I'll stick with Human for that Bonus Feat." Or even having one player say, "I only play Human because all of the races are just so stupid."
Maybe I should just find a new group. :/
It's not just the bonus feat that makes humans so appealing. To non INT based classes +1 skill point per level is just as good as a flat +2 to INT. It means you no longer have to pend as many (if any) points in INT to get the skills you want and can instead put those points somewhere that helps you out.
So to non INT classes humans are functionally +2 to any stat and +2 to INT.
Oh and have any feat you want for free.
If you want to scare the munchkins away from humans cap human starting stats at 18, regardless of where they put their +2. Then listen to the whining.
- Torger
2 humans, a half-elf, a halfling and a half-orc IMC. It's largely that way because I didn't want a freakshow.
I want my games as freaky as I can get them =) The trick is making the weirder races as attractive as the extra feat and skill points Humans get.
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I am literally running a freakshow campaign currently. It's seriously fun.
As am I running a freakshow game, and they're building a freakshow town kinda like the one in The Nightbreed/Cabal. I also gave them templates to more add freak to them, it really is a blast.