Favorite Race

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

jeremiah dodson 812 wrote:

Simple

1. What's your favorite core race and why?
2. What's your favorite race overall and why?
3. What's a race you can't stand as a player and why?

1: Half Orcs. Darkvision, Sacred Tattoo, access to all the human's favored class options in addition to its own, and I get an excuse to play a surly snarling brute.

2: Dragons. Unfortunately most of the time the closest you can get is technicolor lizardfolk aka dragonkin.

3: Halflings. They just seem completely unnecessary, like the only reason they're in is because of LotR and to have child labor without actual children laboring. Gnomes, Kobolds, even Goblins all make much more interesting small races.

[Meshakhad]

1. Human. So much flexibility.
2. Aasimar. I have a real soft spot for holy beings.
3. Gnome. I just don't like them, really.

[Rogar Valertis]

1. Dwarves, mostly for thematical reasons. I loved them in Tolkien (not the Hobbit maybe, but certainly in LotR, I also DETEST Peter Jackson) and Warhammer fantasy. In D&D/PF they are still great although as most races that are not human they are marginalized in Golarion. Somehow I whish Paizo would flesh them out more (we need a 5 kings mountains module!)

2. Dwarves again for the aforementioned reasons.

3. Most non core races as I feel they are unneeded or don't mesh well with the setting. Aasimar & Tieflings get an "honorable mention" as I found most people taking them did so only for the mechanical bonuses and played them as humans (may just be a something that happened to me, but that's my experience).

[Cyrad]

1. Human. Flexible. Fits almost any campaign. Feats are so precious. Plus, almost any character concept I could do with an elf or a dwarf i can also do with a human.

2. Runari is my favorite because it's sadly rare for a race to have an interesting racial trait that ties with their lore. i feel the same with kitsune and skinwalkers, both of which are my favorite official races. Android gets an honorable mention as I find their lifecycle fascinating and it's one of the few ways to play a construct that's feasible as a PC race.

3. Wayangs. I hate wayangs. They're ugly. Their lore is boring. Their personality is meh. They look like a monster, not a PC. And the few players I met that play a wayang do it for the wrong reasons. None of my characters would ever willingly adventure with a Wayang.

[Arutema]

1. What's your favorite core race and why?

Halfling. I do love the image of a humble, pint-sized ass-kicker.

2. What's your favorite race overall and why?

Undine. Water and swimming are some of my favorite things, and Undine is the race for it.

3. What's a race you can't stand as a player and why?

Humans. Bland with a side of bland.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

1. Half-elves, but they only barely edge out Humans in that regard. I love that Pathfinder has fleshed out human ethnicities to such a degree: Ulfen, Varisian, Shoanti, and so on. Half-elves benefit from this, as they pass for humans well enough. Or they can lean more towards their Elven heritage. Plus, they get a lot of nice racial traits and alternatives. I love Elf Blood/Elven Immunities, as I hate ghouls, and I tend to dump WIS in most of my characters.

2. Same as above. I wish I could say Changelings, because I love their lore. But their stat bonuses are just weird.

3. Catfolk make me cringe.

[Blackwaltzomega]

1. Half-Orcs. One, it's nice to give more orcish characters a chance to be heroes, and two, they're just a very cool race with a ton of very appealing traits you can mix and match to make very different characters every time. Probably the best weapon familiarity packages in the game unless you're an archer, tend to get nice offensive racial favored class bonuses...most core classes I look at the alternate racial traits and think "pass," playing each one with what they normally have 90% of the time. With Half-Orcs, I have a lot more to work with just determining what KIND of half-orc I'm gonna play.

2. I like Tieflings a lot, and much like half-orcs they have a very appealing and vary wide array of racial abilities that can make each one feel different. There are so many kinds of fiends out there, which can really influence your traits and backstory, and there's all kinds of directions you can go with it. There is the whole dark, tortured tiefling or the reluctant hero fighting their origins, which are popular (and despite people complaining about that it's as much a classic depiction as basically anything elves or dwarves do, so I find that a bit of a double standard) but it's also fun to play one that doesn't carry the baggage, and makes their own way in life, neither beholden to nor rebelling against their heritage.

3. Munavri. You wanna talk overpowered mary sue races, –2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma, telepathic communication with other Munavri, object reading at will, the ability to "borrow" proficiency with something for a little while, spell resistance, 120 ft darkvision, medium size, all in exchange for the crippling weakness of...light blindness? And their CG bestiary entry suggests these aren't supposed to be a high power villainous race, like Hobgoblins, Duregar/Duregar Tyrants, and Drow/Drow Nobles.

[lock wood]

1 dwarf i love the role play they let me act like the old man i am be coming

2 ratfolk i love this one great stats for wiz but it plays so well to being under handed most people disregard you as in the way not worth paying any mind to. also i played warhammer table top skaven for the win still have 300 rat man the chaos whispers to me (eat warp stone)

3 Dhampyr it band form are group two many rewrites to much debate over its rules (between 3 gms and 15 players) and how they works so yea..
no agreement could be made that would not leave people mad it a long story plz don't ask

[Wei Ji the Learner]

jeremiah dodson 812 wrote:

1. What's your favorite core race and why?
2. What's your favorite race overall and why?
3. What's a race you can't stand as a player and why?

1: I really don't have a favorite core race anymore. I used to dig elves, but they don't do as much for me as...

2: ...Tengu. For some reason they hit the right 'resonant' point for me, and they are my 'elf'.

3: Dhampyr(sp?). I used to play a lot of Vampire, the Masquerade both in LARP and tabletop, and vampirism just leaves me kind of cold, even if the race is only 'half-vampire'-ish.

[Air0r]

Larkos wrote:

As for Drow, don't let them be the brooding race-traitor anti-hero. Let them be so much more interesting.

this is amazing. as a DM, this may be how I portray drow now (if they ever come up).

[Lady Ladile]

Favorite Core Race: - Humans, but largely because there aren't a huge number of character concepts that don't work for humans. Halflings and half-elves are probably tied for second.

Favorite Overall: - Ooh, I'm not sure that I could narrow it down to just one. Aside from humans, halflings, and half-elves, I also like sylphs, changelings, and catfolk.

Least Favorite: - There aren't really any races that I can't stand, but there are some that I'm either 'meh' on or have mixed feelings about. On one hand, I like the general flavor of aasimars and elves but on the other I admit that I tend to see them as 'Mary Sue' races. Like Wei Ji, the idea of dhampir leaves me cold; same for dwarves and half-orcs for some reason.

[Snowblind]

Air0r wrote:

Larkos wrote:

As for Drow, don't let them be the brooding race-traitor anti-hero. Let them be so much more interesting.

this is amazing. as a DM, this may be how I portray drow now (if they ever come up).

Not only is it hilarious, but it actually makes a lot of sense. I would imagine that Drow males would be quite used to the horrific living conditions that they have experienced their entire life (like many ex-soviet-bloc immigrants) and would be rather stoic and fatalistic as a result(like many ex-soviet-bloc immigrants). Throw in some broken English Common and you have a stereotypical fantasy eastern European immigrant.

Anyway...

Favorite Core Race: Humans, I guess. Honestly, none of the core races really do much for me. Humans help facilitate most concepts well and are my go-to when I don't have a specific race in mind. I suppose that would make them my favorite.

Favorite Race: Kitsune. Because Shape-Shifting charismatic trickster. Pathfinder needs more of that.

Least Favorite Race: I don't have any particular race that I dislike. There are a whole bunch which leave me cold, but none I strongly dislike.

No, wait. I know.

Kobolds.

Their terrible mechanical writeup pretty much kills any reasonable chance of seeing them as a PCs. Humans and Metahuman races make the vast majority of races, so any deviation from that should be a valuable addition to the Pathfinder race lineup. Kobolds are one of the least human races available, have social values which push them away from dysfunctional character archetypes that cause conflict in PC parties, and they are quite iconic to boot (remember Deekin?). The fact that they suck is a major dropped ball.

[Bwang]

Small Caveat: last night, the group gathered for other reasons and I brought up this question. The Elf got the most for #1 and Tiefling #2. Neither got over a third.

The closest we got to a consensus was Gnome being the most despised. About 15 people, the least having only 25+ years playing, and not one Gnome played in any of the combined experience of games, and only two had ever played with a gnome in the party played as an actual person, not cohort or NPC!. I'm the closest having NPC Gnomes as shopkeepers (alchemists) and bankers (Zurich, I played a lot of Illuminati). At the behest of the unanimous group, I dropped them from 'common' to 'rare' (among jokes about medium rare and extra crispy!). Several players wanted them removed entirely!