Non-Core Races

[Shar Tahl]

I was wondering, since all the materials have been out for a bit, what races beyond the core would been considered to have significant advantages over the core races? Thinking about this just in case I start a new pathfinder campaign and want to allow most races, but would not want someone that completely overshadow the other players, if that would even happen.

[Klorox]

Methinks they made a ^pretty good balancing act there: no race so powerful it breaks the desire to play any other, though of course, there will be ^preferences...

Myself: I find the Drow a little on the high ^powered side, but the feat tax to make them so is crushing for any build that requires feats.

[Taja the Barbarian]

The issue (if you could call it that) with 'non-core' races is more 'flavor' than 'power': These are typically the more 'alien' races who don't generally have the benefit of decades of appearances in fantasy literature and therefore can make the campaign seem 'odd' (or at the very least, drive the GM crazy trying to fit each of the races into their campaign world).

Personally, I played an Aasimar* Oracle in 'Wrath of the Righteous' with a Galthain gunslinger, a Catfolk Ninja, and a Kitsune Paladin: It was fun, but this was definitely not the group people imagine when you say 'Pathfinder Party' or 'D&D Adventurers'.

*Aasimar are slightly overpowered on stats, but not too badly. My GM initially wasn't going to allow them until he remembered which campaign we were playing...

[deuxhero]

Depends on what exactly you mean.

Most core races aren't all that strong except for Human, Aasimar, Tiefling (these two appear in the original Bestiary which is still core rules even if they aren't core rulebook.), Half-Elf (with alternate racial traits or on charisma based classes base Half-Elf is fairly meh) and (for some classes) Half-Orc/Dwarf. You could answer "most non-core races have significant advantages over core races" since Gnome in particular is one of the weaker races overall.

Human however is the most powerful race for nearly all classes and you could easily say. The only class I would say Human is actually significantly behind another race is Summoner. There Half-Elf reigns supreme since immunity to sleep effects (causes Eidolon to vanish), and the FCB of extra evolution points are much better than what Human gets while free Skill Focus is equal to free feat on most charisma focused classes (since Eldritch Heritage is such a useful feat). In general for Pathfinder the core books have by far the most broken material in the entire game with classes like Wizard and Cleric or spells like simulacrum, gate, color spray, sleep, fabricate, and teleport are the most broken of all.

The only races that are significantly more powerful than human are the following: The races in the ARG that are explicitly labeled as "Monstrous" or "Very Powerful", Syrinx/Wyvaran (at single digit levels only. There at will fly is very powerful, but at double digit levels everyone has it.) and Drow Noble. Don't allow players to pick from "Variant Aasimar/Tiefling Abilities" table freely (let them roll if they want to) as several abilities (ability score boosts in particular) are blatantly better than the default SLA, though the "Variant Aasimar/Tiefling Heritages" are perfectly fine.

[SorrySleeping]

Tiefling and Aasimar always seem high, mainly due to the picking stat thing.

[deuxhero]

Relatively few classes would prefer an extra +2 to a feat. It's powerful, but still worse than human for most things.

[Lelomenia]

deuxhero wrote:

Relatively few classes would prefer an extra +2 to a feat. It's powerful, but still worse than human for most things.

pretty much the only thing better than a human is a human that gets reincarnated.

[blahpers]

A lot of them, but the difference becomes less meaningful as the character advances in levels. The built-in flight that strix and gathlain have is very strong for the first few levels. Unusually high or plentiful ability score bonuses remain useful forever but matter the most at low levels. Built-in spell-like abilities are mostly flavor and have little mechanical effect (though a few can have strong narrative effect).

[Archimedes The Great]

Merfolk..

I am playing a Merfolk Sorcerer, and I almost regret it because it is so ridiculously powerful.

The alternate strong tail trait nullifies a decent amount of the movement penalties, but if you're a caster, then you don't really need to be moving much anyways, especially once past the early levels.

Half-elfs can also be ridiculously powerful characters, but only if paragon surge hasn't been banned at your table.

[Decimus Drake]

I think determining race power is very dependent on how you're defining and measuring it, as well as other factors such as setting, what level you're playing at, class and character build.

A few years back I started a thread asking what race would have the highest gp value if there race traits were translated to magical items. It's crude method but I think it can be informative especially since player wealth is typically a significant factor in overall power.

[https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sck1?What-race-has-the-highest-GP-value#1]What race has the highest GP value?[/url].

At the time I calculated the gp value of a standard aasimar to be 36600gp + the whatever the value of their Daylight spell like ability would be (a stave with the Daylight spell 1 charge per use I think would cost 9600gp or 960gp for 10 changes per use).

A human's gp value would work out something like 4000gp for +2 to a single attribute. Extrapolating from the values of a Scarlet and Green Cabochon Ioun Stone and Dark Blue Rhomboid Ioun Stone the bonus feat would be worth 10000gp (of course not all feats are created equal). The bonus skill is a bit more challenging to calculate since in varies with level but an item that grants a competence bonus costs bonus squared x 100gp; so a +1 at level 1 would be worth 100gp but at level 5 the +5 bonus would cost 2500gp unless the points are spent in 5 different skill which would make it 500gp; assuming all bonus skill points are put in the same skill the gp value of this ability would range from 100gp to 40000gp. Taken together a human could value from 14100gp to 54000gp.

Class choice can make a significant impact on the above calculations. One of the replies in my thread pointed to another thread in which the human (also half-elf and half-orc) sorcerer FCB gp value was calculated.

Cheapy wrote:

Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 4: 1,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 16.6666666666667%.

Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 5: 2,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 19.047619047619%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 6: 6,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 37.5%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 7: 10,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 42.5531914893617%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 8: 19,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 57.5757575757576%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 9: 28,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 60.8695652173913%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 10: 44,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 70.9677419354839%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 11: 60,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 73.1707317073171%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 12: 85,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 78.7037037037037%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 13: 110,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 78.5714285714286%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 14: 146,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 78.9189189189189%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 15: 182,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 75.8333333333333%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 16: 231,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 73.3333333333333%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 17: 280,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 68.2926829268293%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 18: 344,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 64.9056603773585%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 19: 408,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 59.5620437956204%.
Total Value of Human Sorc Bonus at level 20: 472,000.00 gp. Percentage of WBL: 53.6363636363636%.

So if money is power, and in Pathfinder it very much is then we get some idea of the threshold non-core races would have to surpass to be considered to have a significant advantage.

[MrCharisma]

Decimus Drake wrote:

A few years back I started a thread asking what race would have the highest gp value if there race traits were translated to magical items. It's crude method but I think it can be informative especially since player wealth is typically a significant factor in overall power.

What race has the highest GP value?

Link fixed.

[Mysterious Stranger]

For the most part the core races are probably more powerful than any others. The core races have a lot more options available to them from all the splat books. Sure some of the non-core races have a decent amount of material, but none of them can compare to those available to the core races. Overall humans have the advantage over just about any other race. Half Elves are the second place winner because they have the options of three core races. Half Orcs are slightly behind Half Elves because Elves have more options than orcs. Dwarves are solid and have a lot of racial abilities. Gnomes and Halfling are still decent, but tend to be more restricted than the other core races.

Most of the non-core races are kind of niche builds. More often than not a non-core race has a limited number of classes that they synergize well with. Aasimars for example make very good clerics, but as a barbarian they are nothing special. A dwarf barbarian is going to be way tougher than the aasimar.