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They didn't have proficiency, they had familiarity with dwarven waraxe and urgrosh...and they still do. Dwarves would be my favorite race if there wasn't that 20ft speed, and multiclassing with barbarian gets old fast.
Dwarves have bonuses to Con and Wis (which boost saves) and a boost to save vs. magic (and poison). These guys are tough.
Of course, it's hard to compare anything to the Aasimar. They don't have any penalties. They can eventually fly. That's the Aasimar being above the curve though, and I think everyone should be able to fly.
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Are you kidding? Dwarves are the strongest core race. They get the equivalent of about three bonus feat, and their alternative racial traits can be very good.
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Are you kidding? Dwarves are the strongest core race. They get the equivalent of about three bonus feat, and their alternative racial traits can be very good.
Next to humans. Humans are pretty good at being top dog in 3.x. I'd say dwarves are easily one of the strongest starter races though. Not slowed in armor, bonuses to saves that stat with pretty much everything. Darkvision 60 ft. Stonecunning. Sky sentinel is a pretty awesome racial trait too, because darn near everything flies.
Why are they supposed to be weak again?
One word, Monk.
Still don't get why Aasimar, who obviously have more total bonuses than the core races, don't get some sort of starting penalty.
Because the bonuses aren't really that great, unless you think a +2 without a -2 is really going to break the game.
Also, hyperbole is bad. No one brought up one HD storm giants. The topic isn't about assimar.
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The more I attempt to make a dwarf character the more I keep saying "It could be human" or "It could be aasimar". Dwarves lost EWP with dwarven weapons, the value of con went down substantially with the altered stat cost system and favored class bonus, and their other effects weren't often that important leaving them with a +2 to saves and little else.
I know Dwarven Clerics are insane - at least, ours is.
Dwarves rock both from the fluff and the rules. They are cool and they get some of the best traits and some nice feats.
Apart from glory of old there is defensive strategist and zest for battle.
They get cool alternate race traits like rock stepper, sky sentinel and stonesinger. And they can learn feats like breadth of experience or fight on.
Sure, at first glance the slow and steady trait sounds as if they are not better off than any 30ft race wearing medium armor untill you take a look at the vital guard armor modification.
I really thought this was a troll thread at first. Dwarves are one of the few core races that start with darkvision, and often can take most of the fighter archetypes without the bite of losing armor training (it's unlikely you will use a dex-based build, but it could happen). A dwarven armor master can be pretty beastly, and just a single level of barbarian can even out the movement issue. Barbarian 1/Fighter X is a truly terrifying sight as a dwarf.
I agree humans are not top tier (with few rivals), but dwarves aren't far behind. As people mentioned, being highly resistant to spells is just crazy, and stacking on top of paladin bonuses can be sick (sure the penalty hurts, but already start out with an effective 20 Cha with Glory of Old + Steel Soul).
Everyone wants a +5 to saves that stacks with everything. I don't know a class that wouldn't. The only downside about dwarves imo is the -2 charisma means they don't make very good charisma based casters/paladins.
Dwarves are mechanically superior to every other core race. The only significant negative to being a dwarf is the 20 ft speed, which is easily overcome and generally isn't a problem if you have other heavy armor wearers anyway.
I tend not to play dwarves because I consider them overpowered compared to the other core races.
If you build a caster focused cleric or druid I just don't see how the aasimar or the human are better. And even for melee they are not always better. Aasimar can't have enlarge person cast on them and humans lack any vision enhancement, making them worse in lots of situations.
But for a caster cleric +1 feat dwarfs (No pun intended) dwarven defenses.
+2 to all saves is as good as 3 feats though isn't it?
If you build a caster focused cleric or druid I just don't see how the aasimar or the human are better. And even for melee they are not always better. Aasimar can't have enlarge person cast on them and humans lack any vision enhancement, making them worse in lots of situations.A bonus feat is incredibly powerful on feat starved casters (Ignore things like the wizard especially in PFS where they gain lots of bonus feats). A cleric with +1 feats is far better than +1 con and +3 saves (5 costs a feat). I'll conceed for caster clerics/druids the aasimar equivalent isn't as potent but if you build a battle cleric or sword and board the aasimar just seems better. But for a caster cleric +1 feat dwarfs (No pun intended) dwarven defenses. For a melee cleric/druid aasimar and human both overshadow them by a lot.
If there was a feat for humans to get a better vision I'd always take it sooner or later. I think being able to see is easily worth a feat. But YMMV.
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naw, the only downside of playing as a dwarf is roleplaying tha accent.
Simple. Drunk pirate who isn't captain Jack Sparrow.
I agree. Dwarves are one of the best races. Humans can do ANY class, which makes them more versatile by far.
I have yet to find a DM that will let us play asimar.
My optimization senses freak out when my friend wants to make a kobold fighter, or an elf druid.
But if someone wanted to play a dwarf? I'll take a dwarf on my team any day.
I played a dwarven wizard in a kingmaker campaign...he rocked :) (pun intended)
I played a dwarven wizard in a kingmaker campaign...he rocked :) (pun intended)
I actually played a pretty great Dwarven Sorcerer once if you can believe it.
One of the things I don't see being debated in the Dwarf vs. Aasimar Cleric debate is the racial favored class options. If you're making use of a potentially game-breaking Clerical ability like Visions of Madness, gaining multiple extra uses of that is pure gold, especially compared to the Channelling bonus Aasimars get.
Also, FWIW, the two aren't supposed to be 'equal'. Aasimar is clearly, generically more powerful as evidenced by the RP's used to create them, which is one of the reason many GM's don't allow them (at least not without a level modification). Having said that, I'd take a Dwarven Cleric over an Aasimar cleric pretty much any day of the week.
I wouldn't use RP as a hard and fast guide as to a race's power. Dwarves' Hardy was undervalued to keep all the Core races a 10 RP. It was a huge deal when ARG came out.
naw, the only downside of playing as a dwarf is roleplaying tha accent.
Yeah. Most people play dwarves with a Scottish accent, but since they come from Norse mythology, they should probably have a Norwegian accent. Yet, the Scottish tradition is so prevalent, anything else just sounds wrong.
To the op, I may be biased (check out my avatar pic.), but I disagree. You can't compare any of the core races to the aasimar, because the
aasimar simply ARE better. I read somewhere (possibly the bestiary, I don't have it with me) that taking the aasimar race is equivalent to roughly 1/2 a level. If I were your DM, I would give you some negative (possibly deny you a starting feat) to ballance out your racial choice.
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The more I attempt to make a dwarf character the more I keep saying "It could be human" or "It could be aasimar". Dwarves lost EWP with dwarven weapons, the value of con went down substantially with the altered stat cost system and favored class bonus, and their other effects weren't often that important leaving them with a +2 to saves and little else.
You have a funny way of saying over powered....
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The more I attempt to make a dwarf character the more I keep saying "It could be human" or "It could be aasimar". Dwarves lost EWP with dwarven weapons, the value of con went down substantially with the altered stat cost system and favored class bonus, and their other effects weren't often that important leaving them with a +2 to saves and little else.
Sounds like you are roll-playing instead of role-playing. Hey, if that is what you like, go for it.
When I play a dwarf character, it's because I want to play a dwarf character.
hyperbole is fine when pointing out a problem
Core races have a net +2. Aasimar and their net +4 and resistances are easily power creep that should be CR+1's. But as you said, dwarves...Are still pretty awesome. Con is never a dump stat and charisma often is, and poison is stronger in Pathfinder than it was in 3.5.
I do agree that it seems weird that they get the +4 when tieflings still get their +2.
There are other ways to deal with the dwarves' speed. Play any cleric or inquisitor with the travel domain, and you can keep up with everyone else while in full plate.
And even if CON is not as desirable as before, the bonus there means that you can spend less with the point buy while getting a decent CON. That means you can put more points in other stats.
The more I attempt to make a dwarf character the more I keep saying "It could be human" or "It could be aasimar". Dwarves lost EWP with dwarven weapons, the value of con went down substantially with the altered stat cost system and favored class bonus, and their other effects weren't often that important leaving them with a +2 to saves and little else.
Dwarves make great druids. You don't really need more than 16 str starting as a druid, unless you are going a full melee build.
A dwarf druid with a 20 point buy is rolling with 16 10 16 10 16 8. The 20ft move speed disappears with wildshape.
Now all you have to do is justify why a dwarf is a druid.
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Now all you have to do is justify why a dwarf is a druid.
I could give you a few.
- Only way for a dwarf to get any hairier.
- His friend told him druids were OP.
- Look at that will save!
- He was a pretty wild guy.
- Animals don't have to talk, and that 5 charisma wasn't doing much talking...
- So he could kill people with his bear hands.
Dwarf is a good defensive race. The game favors offense by a wide margin. That's ultimately the problem.
In a sense, the game is utterly built against you for AC and CMD. The big bad guys who use CMB checks are likely really big and have racial+size bonuses, and similarly AC scales awkwardly and many creatures spam natural attacks at higher levels with a high strength modifier. Because of this its smart to build ways out of a grapple or look for alternative defenses such concealment, DR, or a bulk of HP. Preferably all at once with a backup plan.
Saves however you can't go wrong with. Failing a save can get you killed outright and there are few defences beyond outright immunity, which isn't common for PCs, and jacking your saves up. SOmetimes you luck out with a class feature, but many of those help for partial saves, save for half, or give a second saving throw after you've lost a turn.
While stopping a bad guy outright is a great idea, and far more effective than recovery, you still don't want to neglect your defenses entirely. Especially if its cheap and reasonable, and in dwarves case, pretty close to free.
Beyond all those facts about system mastery, you also in a quick glance at the PC races won't find much in the way of offence. Most of them give minor bonuses to defences, with a few exceptional perks such as Vishkanya's poison or planetouched having spell casting. You really won't find much that is exceedingly defensive beyond trying to pick based on offensive racial modifiers, and not many races with static modifiers have a bonus to what you need anyway.
Dwarves come with good perks. Dwarves have +5 saves pretty cheaply, which is very nice, and some of the best racial abilities. Built in trapspotter while in most dungeon environments and sky sentinel, as I said earlier, is good against pretty much everything because darn near everything flies. The movement loss isn't major because many abilities over ride your movement, and if your wearing medium/heavy armor you didn't care to begin with. That's all good and nice things.
*face palm* I hate you :-)
So he could kill people with his bear hands.[/list]
I think you mean you can bearly stand me... Some things just have to be said.
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I think you mean you can bearly stand me... Some things just have to be said.*face palm* I hate you :-)
So he could kill people with his bear hands.[/list]
whoah those puns are grizzly, but also a kind of a kodiak moment. He must be your polar opposite.
While somewhat true all races with +2 str or +2 dex can provide additional offense. Human provides this bonus and a feat which makes human better at offense. Aasimar can get +2 str and an SLA that gives them +2 str. That's by far better at offense than dwarf.
Yeah probably. If you want to hit something hard, Dwarf is probably something in the middle of the list unless you're going to be a Cleric or a Druid. But why are you so caught up all over offensive bonuses? I mean, one can't simply spend a feat to gain a +2 bonus on saving throws vs ALL spells and spell-like abilities.
Simple. Drunk pirate who isn't captain Jack Sparrow.
I agree. Dwarves are one of the best races. Humans can do ANY class, which makes them more versatile by far.
I have yet to find a DM that will let us play asimar.
I DM regularly with my Game Group I have allowed, Aasimar, Drow, and Tiefling in my games with no problem at all.
What is not awesome about Dwarves... really, I probably would not play a Dwarven Sorcerer but thaty is about it. +2 Con and Wis and -2 Cha is too sweet to give up throw in Darkvision and +2 to Saves vs Poisons, Spells and Spell-Like Abilities... pure win for just about any class.
Dwarven Wizards rock :) while true I don't have a +2 Int. The +2 to Con and Wis mean I don't have to buff them near as much and can spend more points on Dex and Int.
Clerics +2 Con and Wis I don't have to spend as much on I can upgrade my Cha easy enough and can invest a bit in Str...
Fighters heh, +2 to Con and Wis means I don't have to spend much I can readily spend most of my point buy in Str and Dex and be very playable, not being slowed by Encumbrance, Dark Vision and +2 to saves vs Poisons, Spells and Spell-Like Abilities...Yes Please. whats my down-side -2 to a stat I'm unlikely to use...
Dwarves are far from being a weak race.
Yeah....I gotta tell you- dwarves are pretty awesome. The movement speed is a downer but hey, they can't all be winners, right? That said, throw 'em in some heavy armor and it's a wash! Due to their -2CHA, they make pretty poor Sorcerers (unless sage or *Empyrial!*) and Oracles, and not the best Paladins.
Con, Wis, Darkvision, and Saves at the cost of some Cha? Count me in.