That question is difficult to answer because it will depend on what you consider fun. Asking which races are more powerful it a lot easier to answer. I know you do not care abut power but looking at how a race improves the class can be useful.
Some races have FCB that add abilities to a class. For example, adding to your list of spells know is very useful for a Oracle. Being able to contribute more to the game can make playing the character more enjoyable3. Having a very limited number of spells available can be frustrating.
If you are looking something that plays against stereotypes you might want to consider player a dwarf cleric of a deity that seems to contradict their usual image. A dwarf cleric of Sheyln seems to be strange, but she is the goddess of art. Change out greed for craftsman and focus on love and beauty. Instead of the usual dour, but wise figure your character focuses on happiness and joy.
IN all honesty I enjoy playing effective characters. I play RPG’s because I want to be the Hero and save the day. Playing an ineffective character is not fun for me. Sacrificing power for fun to me detracts from my enjoyment of the character. Not everything has to be about power, but the character must be very effective at his specialty for me to enjoy the character. Part of that is the fact I am an engineer and enjoy building strong characters.
|
I love full blooded orcs for divine casters since they get used as cannon fodder by other races too much. The idea that an orc has to be half human not to take a penalty was pretty hard baked into 3.5, but mechanics wise with a point-buy it’s not impossible but with rolled stats it’s not a bad option when you roll higher than the rest of the party.
There is one or two orc only feats for summoning IIRC.
I usually do enjoy taking casting stat bonuses for my casters. But I find elven druids pretty fun. The flavor matches really well, and you can make surprisingly decent elven druid archers.
I think it’s a shame we don’t see more gnomes. They make really fun oracles.
Kitsune have an option to have a bonus to intelligence instead of charisma, and I think they make a fun option for witch. Not actually a divine caster, but they do feel divine-ish to me
|
One of the funnest characters I've ever played was an Oracle with the Time mystery.
My character was Human, but playing it was an Agathion-blooded Aasimar instead would have probably been more fun as there are all sorts of opportunities for an Outsider-descended character to also claim they are, at times, outside of Time, too.
What you'd be going for power-wise is trying to make one of your mystery spells (Disintegrate) as effective as possible. Invest in feats that make it easier to hit your target (PBS, Precise Shot, IPS if you have the feats for it, etc.) and the feats that make it harder to save against like Spell Focus (transmutation), Greater Spell Focus, and Heighten Spell.
Of course, it will take a while for the character to come into their own, but it's pretty fun zapping enemies into piles of dust. If your game is Mythic, watch the heck out, bad guys!
A Catfolk Oracle of lore would be interesting. Take the VMC bard to get bardic knowledge, some performances and versatile performance.
Lore Keeper allows him to use CHA for knowledge skills, think on it gives him a reroll 1 per day on a failed knowledge skill with a +10-insight bonus. Mental Acuity will give him a bonus to INT for more skill points and Arcane Archivist will give him the ability to use wizard spells one a day from a spell book.
Use your FCB for extra spells known and take a curse that gives you extra spells. The Blacked curse gives you some fire spells to boost your combat ability.
With a few points in each knowledge skill, he will have an incredibly high roll. Take perform oratory as your versatile performance to get a good diplomacy and sense motive. Take a trait to get perform oratory and UMD as class skill. With a high CHA and UMD as a class skill he can use magic items like wands, scrolls, and staves.
Here's a couple of characters I've played and enjoyed who fit the bill:
* Half-orc heavens shaman. Both his skin and clothing were heavily decorated with astrological symbols (including a Sacred Tattoo), so he was spooky-looking but not the clear and preset danger that, say, an orc barbarian would be. He eventually acquired a wyrmling nightmare dragon as a unique spirit guide (through a PFS boon), who was even weirder-looking than he was. His spellcasting was almost entirely party support (buff allies, de-buff enemies), and he avoided melee (but could take a few hits), so rarely had flashy spotlight moments, but he was still fun to play.
* Sylph sky druid. The archetype looked fun, and I decided that a domain would be an interesting change of pace from the animal companion that nearly everyone else's druids took. (It was also less to manage at the table, in person or online.) He was a sailor by profession, the child of a pirate, so was most at home on a ship.
* Halfling lore oracle, with the community guardian archetype and Lore Keeper. I played her in the Legacy of Fire AP (we made it through 4 books before an indefinite hiatus), where she soon became a leader within the Sarenite faith. Because it was an AP rather than PFS, she was able to take the Leadership feat, and most of her followers consisted of people she helped rescue or convert during her adventures. She had a fairly gentle hand when it came to proselytizing, preferring to focus on the material benefits of visiting her temple (food, shelter, employment) more than religious motivations (though the wasn't afraid to bring out the "Sarenrae is a forgiving god" stuff if she thought people needed to hear it).
|
I have two general answers, but the specifics would depend on the particular class you want to play.
One: Fun race choices are those that let you do something that particular class can't normally do. Which usually comes down to Alternate Favored Class Bonuses. To use the oracle as an example:
Ganzi can add sorcerer/wizard enchantment spells to the oracle spell list.
Wayang: same, but wizard illusion spells.
Wyrwood: same, but evocation
Shabti adds spells from the psychic list.
Vine Leshys with certain mysteries can add druid spells to the oracle list.
Kobolds can get super-beefy AC bonuses from spells they cast on themselves.
Two: the other thing you can do is choose a race that thematically matches the rest of what you want to do. I really enjoyed my Sylph (elementalist) oracle with the Waves Mystery and the Blackened Curse. Took the Earth Elemental form at level 11 to be a "Master of all elements."
It really depends on what you want to do with the classes, because they are so versetile. All of them can be combat monsters. All of them can be healers, though druid falls a bit behind. All of them can be decent blaster casters. All of them can be great support characters. So the race is going to depend more on the role than the class itself.
For life oracles, there's no race like gnome.
Whatever races you end up choosing, make sure that the druid understands that they can't use wildshape, because that's likely to unfairly increase their speed. I guess woodland stride is allowable, though, depending on what terrain the classes have to race through to get to the finish line.
|
I think Tieflings are interesting for good aligned Clerics because Tieflings are fiend blooded and might be seen as evil by the people of the world, So haivng one be a good aligned cleric is just fun!
Artwork can really get me inspired to play something, and that Tiefling Cleric of Sarenrae in Blood of Fiends (p. 11) which, IIRC, was reused in the Advanced Race Guide, was super-inspiring. I smile every time I see that picture!
I definitely like the dichotomy of someone with what appears to be Infernal ancestry going into worship of Sarenrae, who leans into making room for them in her role as goddess of redemption, but also a devil-blooded person (a people renowned for their trickery and lies) following the goddess of honesty.
There's all sorts of ways to 'play against type' like this. A Dhampir Cleric of Pharasma, half-undead cleric of the god of hating undead. A Skinwalker Cleric of Abadar, pushing down their feral instincts to work in a bank and worship the god of cities. A Gnome that worships a traditionally elven god like Yuelral, or a Halfling that lives in Highhelm and worships a traditionally dwarven god like Magrim.
The Oracle (of Nature?) on Blood of Angels p. 26 was also pretty eye-catching, and in this case, leans a little into the unexpected since he's of a heritage associated with good and the upper planes, but seems to be more earthy and tied to nature, from the appearance, than your typical angelic knightly sort with halo and light-colored or shiny metallic skin / hair / eyes.
I don't immediately recall any Druid or Shaman artwork that made me say, 'I want to play that character!'
But I'd love to see some focus on Druidism among the orcs, even if the 1e orc stats are dire. (Something like +2 Str, +2 Wis (representing both being mule-headedly stubborn, and possessed of more primal instincts and awareness) and -2 Int, giving them the same net +2 of most other PC races, would be cool, IMO.)
Then again, I love the heretical notion that orcs followed Tar-Baphon back in the day because, in life, *he was an orc.* A pale 'black-blooded' orc necromancer, a throwback to some orc offshoot who lived in Orv.
|
|
There's all sorts of ways to 'play against type' like this. A Dhampir Cleric of Pharasma, half-undead cleric of the god of hating undead. A Skinwalker Cleric of Abadar, pushing down their feral instincts to work in a bank and worship the god of cities. A Gnome that worships a traditionally elven god like Yuelral, or a Halfling that lives in Highhelm and worships a traditionally dwarven god like Magrim.
[...]
But I'd love to see some focus on Druidism among the orcs, even if the 1e orc stats are dire. (Something like +2 Str, +2 Wis (representing both being mule-headedly stubborn, and possessed of more primal instincts and awareness) and -2 Int, giving them the same net +2 of most other PC races, would be cool, IMO.)
One of my PFS1 characters is a dhampir warpriest of Pharasma. She was found and raised by Pharasmin priests, who trained her to fight the kinds of monsters responsible for her own existence.
Back in my D&D 3E days, I played a half-orc whose 1st level was barbarian, then he multiclassed into druid. His backstory was that after being wounded in battle, a druid found him and nursed him back to health. Being less bloodthirsty than most of his kin, he stayed with the druid to learn his ways.