Troll Lord Games

I started an earlier thread about choosing prime attributes for Fighter / Melee Classes, and received interesting thought provoking responses. One thing I noticed was a common choice of three prime attributes. I am wondering if there is a strong preference for choosing Human race Player Characters as they have three prime attributes in the standard rules vs demi-human with only two ?

Demi-humans are often chosen for roll playing purposes (at least in my experience), but am wondering if they are at a disadvantage, perhaps at higher levels, due to only having two prime attributes ?

If only two prime attributes has been a significant deficiency with demi-humans, is this situation alleviated with some sort of house rules (to get a diversity of races, or to foster roll playing, etc) ?

What do you all think ?
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"Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."

Demi-humans get a variety of racial abilities from ability stat bonuses (and penalties) to race/class combo bonuses (see half-elven rangers) to automatic secret passageway detection (see elves and dwarves) to different forms of low-light or no-light vision to daily spell-like abilities (see gnomes). Taken together the bonuses for each race can be pretty substantial.

While opinions differ, many feel that three primes for humans / two for demi-humans is an appropriate balancing mechanic to offset these additional abilities. I'm one of those folks.
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"I don't wanna be remembered as the guy who died because he underestimated the threat posed by a monkey."

I spend a lot of my time in C&C dungeon crawling. Any kind of darkvision is preferable. Torches and lanterns both come with liabilities. Spells are too precious at low levels and easily dismissed at high levels.

So, yeah. I think it is balanced.
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The Rock says ...

Know your roll!

I have to say I am also in the belief that the demi-human races have a stack of bonuses/abilities that offset the lack of a third prime attribute. If you play a character race that aligns well with the bonuses presented (as half-elven rangers were mentioned), these characters become particularly effective, especially at low levels.

This is one of the aspects that C&C does intentionally, very well; in-game mechanics that promote strong archtype characters.

~O
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Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

What Omote said.

There seems to be consensus demi-human's racial abilities are balanced vs. humans by having only two prime attributes and advantageous when the racial stats align with the class (half-elven rangers mentioned). And I agree that deep/dark vision is a real benefit when dungeon crawling.

That said, I think this balance (or advantage) is more so at low levels than at high levels, as some seem to indicate.

Perhaps racial choice is often affected by the campaign (outside the story line), the demi-human's racial abilities come in very handy at low levels while the third prime could be far more important for survival in higher level campaigns. Perhaps some of the strong preference for choosing humans I have seen (in some threads, discussions on this forum and elsewhere) come from campaigns that are running (or intending to run) at higher levels.
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"Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."

Vetterix wrote:
Perhaps racial choice is often affected by the campaign (outside the story line), the demi-human's racial abilities come in very handy at low levels while the third prime could be far more important for survival in higher level campaigns. Perhaps some of the strong preference for choosing humans I have seen (in some threads, discussions on this forum and elsewhere) come from campaigns that are running (or intending to run) at higher levels.

In our 1980/early 1990s games, we used to ask, "Why are these parties of elves, dwarves and halfings always coming in save a human village every other week?"

As compared to earlier editions of the game where it strongly favored demi-humans, I prefer the d20 version that levels the playing field.

I find the notion of playing a human to be boring. It may be a better, long-run, choice but that does not counter the fact that the non-human characters are, for me, more interesting.
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Serl's Corner

serleran wrote:
I find the notion of playing a human to be boring. It may be a better, long-run, choice but that does not counter the fact that the non-human characters are, for me, more interesting.

That makes you a rare bird. Most players gravitate towards what gives them a benefit as compared to pure concept playing.

When a player, the choice of race for me is almost purely a roll playing decision as it is I believe for most of the folks with whom I play (perhaps we are old skool types). While I do like the idea of leveling the playing field, I am a bit concerned that at higher levels, demi-humans may be at a significant "survival" disadvantage that may make the race choice based on roll playing (or less boring ?) a moot point.

That said, I have only very recently started playing with the C&C rule set, so I have not personally experienced the siege mechanics in action at higher levels.
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"Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."

serleran wrote:
I find the notion of playing a human to be boring. It may be a better, long-run, choice but that does not counter the fact that the non-human characters are, for me, more interesting.

Agreed.

R-
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Rigon o' the Lakelands, Baron of The Castles & Crusades Society
The Book of the Mind

I have been running a higher level c&c game for a couple of years now, and the only 2 of the group who have not died are...... Human. (All of the demi-humans have died at least once, some multiple times). And yes, it does all come down to the roll....

I think they balance each other out at low levels, but as you get higher in level (my group are at an average of level 9 now), that 3rd Prime save gives humans the edge over the benefits that the non humans receive.

Most may keep this in mind when rolling up a PC in a game that is starting over say 4th level, and most will lead towards human. I have done it as well in the past.

Lately though, I find myself going towards non-humans and NOT selecting Wisdom as a prime, just to enjoy the thrill of keeping the lad alive when the CL starts to rise.

L.S.
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What prime do you choose instead of Wisdom ?

What primes do you all find increase survivability the most (I asked this question in another thread about Melee PCs, but how about the more general case including casters, etc) ?
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"Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."

Vetterix wrote:
What prime do you choose instead of Wisdom ?

What primes do you all find increase survivability the most (I asked this question in another thread about Melee PCs, but how about the more general case including casters, etc) ?

To avoid trouble, or at least be aware of it, WIS is certainly important. Charisma is a close second for me.

As for me personally, it depends on what type of character and race I am playing. If Wis is a prime for a class, then it gets selected, if not, I try and stay away from it just for the hell of it. If I envision a character to be a certain way, then I will select an attribute to be prime based on that.

The CK's that run games I play in I would say have us make WIS checks easily 3 to 4 times more than any of the other ones.

L.S.
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When All of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed" -- M.Manson (Man That You Fear)

Society Member: http://www.cncsociety.org/

Between "Willpower" style checks and the d20 legacy of using Wisdom for "Perception" skill checks, that makes sense.