Just out of curiosity, what are some races or classes or even weapon types or spells that you just never play as or use? I was thinking about it as I looked through the Core Rules the other day. I realized I never have played as a Halfling, Gnome, or Half-Orc. I would like to one day uses a Half-Orc but the Halfling and Gnome have no appeal to me, too child like I think.
I also have never desired to be Druid, Bard, Summoner, Witch, Cavalier, Paladin, or Gunslinger (don't have them in our campaigns anyway). Other than the Bard I have no real cause for not liking these classes, they just don't appeal to me as much as others.
When it comes to other ancillary stuff, I am usually a pretty straight up light/medium armor sword/shield/bow guy. I do like a good battle-axe once in a while but any large/long two-handed weapons are usually not my taste.
Looking forward to hearing your opinions!
never played a gnome or halfling. I love martial characters and I love mobility.
I don't particularly care for rouge or monk.
I'd play a ranger but i've never really understood what they do...i could just make a better fighter or barbarian.
I never play evil, i just find it boring.
Usually i end up playing human for the race. the +2 to any stat, extra feat and skill are just so awesome.
After years of playing NWN on Forgotten Realms setting servers, I have long since lost the desire to ever play an Elf, at least a traditional one. I have played them but they're always distinctly non-Elf-like for some reason. But of the Core races they're the ones I've touched least.
Think I've played all of the Core classes at least once, and a few of the newer ones. I'm not much for playing stealthy characters so I'd say Rogue and Ranger here.
Don't like to play evil, but I don't like to play paladins, either.
Gnome illusionists
Of all the core classes I find the Barbarian the least appealing, followed by the Bard.
Race wise I don't play Half-Orcs. All of the others I will play.
I won't play an Evil character and rarely play Neutral. I'm just too much of a nice guy.
When it comes to weapons I like the more common weapons. Long sword, short sword, great sword, a rapier if I am using weapon finesse, bows for ranged, etc. Axes are okay too. I guess I just like the classics.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I detest gnomes. I refuse to play one and I constantly mock them when I play. Why? There's nothing that gnomes bring to the table that another race doesn't do better.
1. Want to be small and sneaky? Play a halfling.
2. Want to be an underground dweller, perhaps with a penchant for things mechanical? Play a dwarf.
3. Want to be in touch with nature and magic? Play an elf.
They're worse than Jawas!
I never play Halflings or Gnomes, even though I've had an idea or two to play the latter. I'd never play an Evil character either, unless he or she had the chance to change towards Good later on, like one of my characters does, since she has quite a few reasons to be Evil in the first place.
I don't play half-orcs, they are too monsterous for my taste. Also pure fighters bore me.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I detest gnomes. I refuse to play one and I constantly mock them when I play. Why? There's nothing that gnomes bring to the table that another race doesn't do better.
1. Want to be small and sneaky? Play a halfling.
2. Want to be an underground dweller, perhaps with a penchant for things mechanical? Play a dwarf.
3. Want to be in touch with nature and magic? Play an elf.They're worse than Jawas!
First of Jawas are awesome ;)
You left off your list of three the best reasons to play a gnome. They are one of the best trickster races. Even your list of three a gnome can do all of those things in a different way than halflings, dwarves and elves do. Lets face it gnomes have a difficult time fitting into little boxes that everyone likes to pigeon hole the other races into and then point out that the gnomes are difficult to pin down. That is the point. The are ironic characters. I get that people don't want all humor all the time at the table but some do.
|
|
First of Jawas are awesome ;)
"I can't abide those Jawas! Disgusting creatures!"
―C-3POClearly some people disagree with you. :D
You left off your list of three the best reasons to play a gnome. They are one of the best trickster races. Even your list of three a gnome can do all of those things in a different way than halflings, dwarves and elves do. Lets face it gnomes have a difficult time fitting into little boxes that everyone likes to pigeon hole the other races into and then point out that the gnomes are difficult to pin down. That is the point.
It's not that they're hard to pin down (their CMD is crap due to size modifier and Str penalty, after all). It's that they're redundant and pointless. Their racial background feels like it was thrown together at the last minute (and this goes for all games from 0E to WoW, not just Pathfinder). I can imagine designers sitting around:
Designer 1: "Ok, last on the list of races are the gnomes. I'm fresh out of ideas... what can we give them?"
Designer 2: "I dunno, what haven't we done yet?"
Designer 3: "We've been at this for hours, can we just leave them off and go get a beer?"
Designer 1: "No, everyone is expecting gnomes in the game. We have to do something with them."
Designer 2: "What if we made them really attuned to nature, forest-dwellers?"
Designer 3: "Don't elves already do that?"
Designer 1: "Well, what if me make them live underground instead of in trees?"
Designer 2: "Yeah, and we can make them really attuned to magic!"
Designer 3: "So, sort of a cross between elves and dwarves?"
Designer 2: "No, they're different."
And so on...
I get that people don't want all humor all the time at the table but some do.
Humor is cool, humor is awesome. Want short comic relief? Play a halfling.
I've played all of the Pathfinder core races, and all of the core classes (if only briefly). I've almost never played a paladin, though.
I've never seen Halflings as comic relief characters personally, with the exception of Kender.
First of Jawas are awesome ;)"I can't abide those Jawas! Disgusting creatures!"
―C-3POClearly some people disagree with you. :D
You left off your list of three the best reasons to play a gnome. They are one of the best trickster races. Even your list of three a gnome can do all of those things in a different way than halflings, dwarves and elves do. Lets face it gnomes have a difficult time fitting into little boxes that everyone likes to pigeon hole the other races into and then point out that the gnomes are difficult to pin down. That is the point.It's not that they're hard to pin down (their CMD is crap due to size modifier and Str penalty, after all). It's that they're redundant and pointless. Their racial background feels like it was thrown together at the last minute (and this goes for all games from 0E to WoW, not just Pathfinder). I can imagine designers sitting around:
Designer 1: "Ok, last on the list of races are the gnomes. I'm fresh out of ideas... what can we give them?"
Designer 2: "I dunno, what haven't we done yet?"
Designer 3: "We've been at this for hours, can we just leave them off and go get a beer?"
Designer 1: "No, everyone is expecting gnomes in the game. We have to do something with them."
Designer 2: "What if we made them really attuned to nature, forest-dwellers?"
Designer 3: "Don't elves already do that?"
Designer 1: "Well, what if me make them live underground instead of in trees?"
Designer 2: "Yeah, and we can make them really attuned to magic!"
Designer 3: "So, sort of a cross between elves and dwarves?"
Designer 2: "No, they're different."And so on...
I get that people don't want all humor all the time at the table but some do.Humor is cool, humor is awesome. Want short comic relief? Play a halfling.
I have like gnomes for awhile though I have to admit that you have a point to a certain degree. I think that 90% of this has been fixed by PF gnomes. Part of the problems with gnomes is they prior to DND were almost interchangeable with elf or dwarf. In dnd they recieved a lot of fluff based on folk lore that they did not want to saddle on dwarves or elves, so they got burrowing creatures, more fey connections and trickseyness that for dwarves or elves were out of place in DND but very much a part of folk lore.
Oh and I have never played a sorceror.
|
|
Your idea of halflings doesn't sound like the impression I got from reading about them in the Inner Sea World Guide. Reading about Gnomes and Halflings in there really made them seem different.
My distate for gnomes transcends Golarion and Pathfinder. I hate them in WoW. I hated them in 3E/3.5. I hated them in 2E, 1E, 0E. I've hated them in Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, and Azeroth.
I feel that every page printed, every word spoken describing them could have been better used on some other race. Every line of code implementing them could have gone to an improved engine. IMO and YMMV, of course. I know there are people that love gnomes, and that's ok. There are people that love bullfighting, and I disagree with them, too.
|
|
I've never seen Halflings as comic relief characters personally, with the exception of Kender.
Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings were pretty much exclusively comic relief to start out. They evolved into more serious characters by the end of the books, but they never completely lost the humor they started out with.
Oh, and that reminds me, I *really* hated gnomes in Dragonlance.
I never play shapeshifting characters, elves, or anything with a naturalistic flavour (unless it's about controlling the raw elements themselves). I like puppies and baby deers as much as the next guy, but for some reason I really dislike the classic "friend of nature" concept.
Character concepts that involve the use of companions, such as Summoners, are also something I avoid, but mostly because of the mechanical implication rather than flavour-related issues.
Also, psionics. I have never been able to enjoy the concept. I try to keep mind-controlling stuff stricly on the realm of arcane magic.
As for what I disallow in my campaigns: Halflings are never featured as a race choice (I grew up with Dragonlance and thus developed an almost genetical dislike for Kender), unless we are playing something like Warhammer Fantasy, and I never allow Far East stuff like ninjas or samurai (Indian, Middle Eastern or Polynessian stuff is fine, though, and often encouraged. I've always had a soft spot for Middle Eastern culture in general). Psionics are usually prohibited, except for the odd times we play Dark Sun.
|
Haven't played a Thief/Rogue type outside of GURPS and Dark Ages of Camelot. I just don't 'get' the D&D Thief/Rogue.
Haven't played a Monk since 1st edition Oriental Adventures came out.
Haven't done anything with psionics since The Will & the Way (Dark Suns splatbook, which, IMO, vastly improved the 2nd edition Psionicist) came out. 3.X Psionics didn't exactly blow up my skirt.
I'm generally a fan of trying everything once, but the Rogue just never called to me.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a side note: People who dislike Gnomes are inherently bad people and have been proven by at least five international studies of ill-repute to also dislike icecream, which only makes them badder.
This much I know.
I seldom play arcane classes, as others I game with have a leaning towards them.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
[Gnometangent] I kind of like gnomes because they generally seem like more positive upbeat sorts of people. Elves can come off as snooty and superior and angsty. Dwarves can come off as curmudeonly and over-serious and grim. Half-orcs rarely have inspiring background stories to tell around the fire. Humans, well, I have to work with them every day. You know how *they* can get. :)
Sometimes a light-hearted gnome character can be kind of a relief. He doesn't want to tell you how much superior he is to you. He doesn't want to complain about everything. He doesn't have an appalling story about being a halfbreed slave-child raised by abusive orcs, before being thrust into a world of humans who hate and fear him.
Plus, as a gnome, everybody always has the most precious looks of surprise and alarm when you smile a beatific smile and reveal that you were the serial killer mastermind all along... [/Gnometangent]
|
|
As a side note: People who dislike Gnomes are inherently bad people and have been proven by at least five international studies of ill-repute to also dislike icecream, which only makes them badder.
This much I know.
I question the validity of your studies as I personally *love* gnome-flavored ice cream.
It really comes down to the fact gnomes are better with the ladies.
Dwarves- Yeah you think you are bad but that is just the smell.
Elves- Um Fabio when your done with your hair we have an adventure to attend to.
Halflings- Have you though about skipping second breakfast and getting some exercise Chubso.
[Gnometangent] First, I change the Gnomes to have a +2 to Int instead of Cha. Gnomes are Illusionists, not Bards.
Second, my main is a Gnome Mage (Frost) in WoW.[/Gnometangent]
LoL... or pretty much anything that is a direct ripoff from a character in fiction.
I haven't done that since my Ranger named Aragorn back in AD&D, 1st edition. I was 10.
|
|
It really comes down to the fact gnomes are better with the ladies.
Dwarves- Yeah you think you are bad but that is just the smell.
Elves- Um Fabio when your done with your hair we have an adventure to attend to.
Halflings- Have you though about skipping second breakfast and getting some exercise Chubso.
LoL
Dwarves - some chicks dig the strong, silent type (even if the "strong" has more to do with your smell)
Elves - Sparkly and bishonen, like the vampires in Twilight, and apparently that's very popular.
Halflings - Chub chasers. 'nuff said. (Also, 3E and later halflings are not chubby, but that's fairly new.)
I forgot to add I also never play evil. I tend toward Han Solo type Chaotic Good or Neutral Good characters.
I get bored with a Cavalier/Paladin Dudley Do-Right type dude.
Straight casters don't appeal to me either, I like to multi-class if I want to cast, or use a Cleric, Inquisitor, or Magus.
|
|
[Gnometangent]Sometimes a light-hearted gnome character can be kind of a relief. He doesn't want to tell you how much superior he is to you. He doesn't want to complain about everything. He doesn't have an appalling story about being a halfbreed slave-child raised by abusive orcs, before being thrust into a world of humans who hate and fear him.
Plus, as a gnome, everybody always has the most precious looks of surprise and alarm when you smile a beatific smile and reveal that you were the serial killer mastermind all along... [/Gnometangent]
I find that halflings fill this niche very well. :)
|
Race) Gnome, and halfling see almost no use in my groups. I've seen precisely one halfling in my last 5 years of gaming (reincarnation mishaps notwithstanding). Similarly, I've seen exactly 2 gnomes (one of which only saw a couple sessions).
The other races have all seen pretty decent usage in that time-span, with Human being the most popular due to its versatility.
Class) Exactly 0 cavaliers.
No class stands out as most common, with the exception of one humorous game where everyone showed up with a level 1 fighter for the new campaign.
Alignment) No evil. It's just kind-of taboo to play an alignment that tends to eventually tear a group apart. Granted, it doesn't have to do that, but it's best not to tempt it.
I will never play a gnome. In fact, in games I have run, there are no gnomes, except for the pointy-hat statuary kinds that lurk in gardens and help the players make travel plans to get to my games.
I have never played a halfling, a dwarf, or a half-orc. They do exist in my games, but in very different fashion than in most games. Half-orcs are always monsters (or, more likely, the leaders of a band of monsters) and not a playable character race.
I have rarely played an Elf. I love Elves, but for some reason, I just haven't played that many. I am almost always a human or a half-elf. (Probably 30% human, 70% half-elf.)
I have never played a cleric, monk, barbarian, or paladin, except for one convention game where the paladin was thrust upon me. I played a druid, once. I played a ranger, once. I've played a handful of wizards/sorcerers, and never really enjoyed them all that much. That leaves fighters and rogues (or, more commonly, a multi-classed mix of the two). I also played a multi-classed fighter/warlock in D&D that I had a ball with--in my experience a good player and a good GM can work together to minimize any game balance issues. Another favorite character was a Swordsage/Shadowcaster in the last D&D game I ever played in. :(
I've never played a psionic anything, nor will I, ever. It is also very, very rare that I take a prestige class.
My alignments of choice are CG, N, and LE. I'd say the split is probably 45%/45%/10% with respect to those. Alignments are a very minor issue in most games I've been involved with (and I do away with them completely in games I run).
My fighters are almost always light-armored, finesse-weapon specialists. My rogues are almost always sneaky, poison-using gits. My spell casters tend to favor one thematic style of magic (ice magic, shadow magic...even slime magic) and eschew everything else. I have never had a spell casting character who used the fireball spell, a fighter in anything heavier than chain mail, or a rogue with anything other than daggers or short-swords.
Just out of curiosity, what are some races or classes or even weapon types or spells that you just never play as or use? I was thinking about it as I looked through the Core Rules the other day. I realized I never have played as a Halfling, Gnome, or Half-Orc. I would like to one day uses a Half-Orc but the Halfling and Gnome have no appeal to me, too child like I think.
I also have never desired to be Druid, Bard, Summoner, Witch, Cavalier, Paladin, or Gunslinger (don't have them in our campaigns anyway). Other than the Bard I have no real cause for not liking these classes, they just don't appeal to me as much as others.
When it comes to other ancillary stuff, I am usually a pretty straight up light/medium armor sword/shield/bow guy. I do like a good battle-axe once in a while but any large/long two-handed weapons are usually not my taste.
Looking forward to hearing your opinions!
I've not played a cleric in several editions. Never done a paladin at all, ever. Ditto for the druid.
Out of the APG I've played the witch alot, and a one-shot oracle. otherwise none of those classes.Never going to do the samurai or ninja- unless we do some oriental themed campaign, which seems unlikely.
never playing a gunslinger unless we play an old west style campaign- which seems unlikely.
I also haven't played a barbarian though I'm not against it- there've just always been reasons to play other things.
May do one next campaign.. or a cleric (or oracle) or something like that.
-S
I won't be evil nor chaotic neutral (i.e. stupid) nor true/lawful neutral (i.e. I can be a DOUCHEBAG!). Of course, I rarely let them be played in my home campaigns either.
So Good only then? I had a player in my old group that was like that. Drove the rest of us nuts. Thankfully he didn't hold that rule the one time we let him DM.
Never going to do the samurai or ninja- unless we do some oriental themed campaign, which seems unlikely.
Fair enough, but you can always ignore the Oriental fluff and re-skin the samurai and ninja classes to Western source material.
|
I'm kind of stunned by all the Gnome-hate. I have always enjoyed playing a Gnome, but that's more the enjoyment of a big surprise in a small package kind of deal.
Gnomish Illusionists were always a favorite.
As for things I have not played, I'd say about the only thing I haven't tried is the PF Witch. Man, I just don't get the attraction, I really don't. I haven't played a Barbarian, mostly because I think they are misnamed and misrepresented. I'd prefer a sort of blood-letting/tasting Berserker moniker instead. I have yet to play a Druid, but mostly that's because of 3.0 and 3.5 druid/shape-changing cheese builds more than anything. PF has made them a lot better, but still. I have never played a half-orc, but again, part of that is my belief that its cheesey meta-gaming min/maxing at its best, but that's just me.
Personally, most of my prejudices come from gamist/minmaxers who have ruined something about a class/race/combo for me because of munchkinism. I know that I'm prejudiced, but come on.
This also gets into the cross-threaded "why I prefer dice-rolling to point buy" crap, but basically I am tired of seeing 6,7,8 and 9 stats just to get better points in the twink stats.
As I said recently to someone that argued with me about the "reality" of his dwarf barbarian with a 6 CHA... "are you more pissed off because I called you on it, or because I'm right?"
Give me a player with a character with all 10's across the board and a hoe and backpack over some juiced out munchkin 18 str/dex/con 6 int/wis/cha 2hand fighting barbarian any day.
|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
As I said recently to someone that argued with me about the "reality" of his dwarf barbarian with a 6 CHA...
Were you not aware that fully one-sixth of Golarion dwarves do have 6 CHA? Every NPC stat array includes an 8, so if we assume random distribution, one sixth will have it in CHA, which then gets racially reduced to 6.
In a similar vein, dwarves with a double-digit CHA are in the minority. That's right, more than half the dwarves on the planet have less than 10 CHA.
You should probably do your homework before declaring doing your "are you mad because I'm right?" gloating.
Never played a Gnome or Elf, although tomorrow I will be playing an Elf Rogue in a Skull and Shackles game. No hate on them, I just really liked playing humans because of the bonus feat. It's only really been in the last year that I've gotten over the need for a bonus feat and an 18 at all costs. One day I'll try a Gnome. Maybe a Gnome Ranger of some kind.
I'll pile on the Gnome bandwagon - I have never played one either and would rather play either a Dwarf or Halfling; Gnomes just seem to fall in the middle there so I'd rather not bother.
As far as classes go, never played a Druid or Bard. Much like the OP said, they just never appealed to me all that much.