Races - how do you choose?

[bricks]

I'm curious to hear how/why others choose their races. I imagine most choose their class before their race, and that they choose the race based upon how well it compliments that class. What do you prioritize? Do you find yourself playing the same race over and over? A secondary purpose for this is getting a feel for what races are neglected or are generally unappealing. I don't have any immediate suggestions for improvement, but I know it's easier to suggest something if others already perceive room for improvement.

TLDR version at the bottom.

Apart from the occasional joke or challenge characters (I'm simply not good enough to play a Yeek Berserker and expect to make it anywhere), I find I choose race primarily upon racial skills based around survivability. Skeletons are vastly preferable here, especially if you are playing a strength- or dexterity-class. Ghouls are also very fun and perhaps the most distinct race. When I started playing TOME, I would pick Highers for their instant regeneration talent, and the willpower dependency made them perfect for my early characters (Summoner and Temporal Warden were my most successful). Dwarves have great life rating and defensive racial talents. I've always preferred them for Wyrmics. Skeleton Archmages, apart from the incredible skill synergy, don't have to go through the stressful Archmage starting zone, so that's a small plus.

Yeeks are very interesting, but the low life rating and the harsh starting zones have prevented me from making one ever since the "air bubbles last one turn" bug. Abusing their racial skill seems really important for getting out of tricky situations.

Shalore seem geared towards increasing damage; their most important survivability racial skill is very good but also very low in their talent trees. Starting with an, in my opinion, useless Phase Door rune is also a problem, and unlike Skeletons/Ghouls they don't have something to counteract early-game damage beyond the quickly outleveled Shielding rune. Picking up a good Regeneration infusion has always been my first goal as a Shalore.

Halflings confuse me; their poor Strength makes them unsuited for, well, almost anything in the very early part of the game, as you need to crawl out of a hole for equipment purposes. The racial talents are interesting but the effects seem minor. Haven't been able to play b35 yet, so perhaps these talents are more useful.

I don't know why I'd ever play Thalore.

TLDR: I choose survivability over damage, every time. I avoid races that make the early-game a hindrance.

[Zonk]

Some quick thoughts from me

1)Ghouls are indeed very distinct, though I still think that -20% global speed is pretty harsh, and that now +2 Con doesn't feel so good. Retch is pretty nice, though.

2)Skeletons are really good, awesome Archers/Fighters and some other things, not needing to breath is also useful if you want to be a Corruptor(Wraithform)

3)Thalore are indeed...not very exciting. I used to play them as Wyrmics, then I realized Dwarf is indeed much better.

4)For classes which end up with leftover generic points(necromancers?), I'd prefer races with especially good racial trees.

[TheRani]

I usually play a human. Cornac if I want the extra category point, Higher if I want the regen. Sometimes if I'm a caster I might play a Shalore. If I am a bow archer, I sometimes play a Thalore, (nice stats, nice little damage boost). If I am a sling archer, I like Halflings. I do not want to play an undead character. I am not currently masochistic enough to enjoy playing Yeeks.

I don't tend to invest generic points in racial trees very much though. I tend to prefer using my generic points for other stuff, so I choose race primarily based on what it gives me at the start (stats, the first racial talent).

[swapoer]

And I have a question here.
Do Leveling fast give you any bonus?I am talking about playing as a normal human,aside from leveling fast i can't see any benefit.

[Zonk]

And I have a question here.
Do Leveling fast give you any bonus?I am talking about playing as a normal human,aside from leveling fast i can't see any benefit.

'normal humans', you mean Cornacs? They get an extra category point.
As for levelling fast...it's not as good as you'd think when you consider that there's a level cap of 50 and the enemies you face will scale(within a range).
So sometimes being lower level can work in your favor, by making you fight weaker foes(though it also means worse loot, items).


If you still want to level fast, you'll want to play a Yeek, they level faster than humans.

[bricks]

The only "bonus" to leveling faster, in my experience, is that you get ganked by the Kryl'Feijan encounter earlier in the game. Given the chance I'd rather attempt it after Dreadfell simply because your equipment and inscriptions will be much better. I think the whole notion of leveling rates could be scrapped. It's really only a pain for Shalore/Thalore, IMO, since they don't get earlier racial access to compensate and they have no additional zones to gain experience in.

I forgot to mention Cornacs... That's a very situational choice. I'd go for Cornac if I felt like the class really needed the category point. Arcane Blades come to mind. My rogues typically rely heavily on inscriptions, and I try to unlock Poisons as soon as possible for the sake of damage/crowd-control, so I could see that working, too.

[swapoer]

Well,the Cornacs seem to have no good at all.
Aside from a category point they have no exp penalty which mean they can level fast but not that fast like Yeek.But as bricks had stated level fast don't get you any bonus but trouble instead.
So why shouldn't i choose a race with a good race talent tree and more hp per level?
For this i mean human is a lesser race and this is no applied well as in ADND.In ADND human get several bonus and most race don't have experience penalty.And when we look to the Dark Elf the level penalty is quit nasty which bring a balance for all race.
So,it is my thinking.The game should make all the race has their pro and con and the choosing meaning-full.

[greycat]

Well,the Cornacs seem to have no good at all.

You're seriously underestimating the importance of an extra category point. Granted, the importance depends on the class.

[Postman]

Dwarves are seriously nerfed in v35. That is unintentional(probably) consequence of new "tiers" saves system. NPC attack values and saves are static, but player's, including dwarves Power in Money talent, are accumulative and suffer form aggressive diminishing return.

[Rectifier]

Dwarven racial did not get nerfed, its the opposite. Saves did ~nothing~ before, and by using that racial well you can easily have +40 to *all* saves, meaning after a certain point, you don't need to worry about saves except for specific cases.

[Frumple]

Dwarven racial did not get nerfed, its the opposite. Saves did ~nothing~ before[...]

Wait, wait, what? That's only half right and terribly incorrect -- low to medium saves did very little before. I haven't played an average save character yet, but I imagine that's not changed terribly much. High saves, however, were capable of almost completely supplanting the need for specific status resistances. The dwarven racial was tremendously powerful because it was one of the best save boosting talents in the game, enabling dwarf builds that were focusing on pumping saves to have a very easy time of it.

Now, however, high saves do considerably less. They've been, in most cases, nerfed in effectiveness by 50% (their max duration reduction, as opposed to the previous total resistance.) and practically they don't do crap. I've been running a dwarven mindslayer, full +50 to all saves, mental save of 60+ (within the new system; old numbers would have it well over 100), and I still get confused by frakking bloated horrors and non-elite wights and crap. b34, the character would have been almost completely inviolate in regards to status effects, particularly mental ones. I guess now the character's "only" dealing with 3-5 turn confusions, as opposed to twice that, but that still means I spend 15-20 turns or more wandering aimlessly if I walk into a room full of confuse-enabled monsters.

High level saves have been massively nerfed. By extension, the dwarven racial, which is one of the few easy sources of high level saves, has been massively nerfed. It's probably easier to keep low-middle level of saves with it, but all that seems to do nowadays is prevent enemies from hitting you with longer duration debuffs (i.e. reduce a penalty), as opposed to giving any actual benefit. Power is Money is definitely weaker in b35.

[Dwarf_Hammer]

My 1st winner, a dwarf zerker, had over 120 to all saves, except mind (90s). It was way more effective than my current saves. Now, it's incredibly hard to get really high saves, and saves have been capped to 100. You need more than 100 to shrug off status effects from the strongest enemies.

So yeah, the new system is effectively a nerf.

[tiger_eye]

Well said, Frumple. Saves got a gigantic nerf with the new system. The only reason to increase saves at all, in my opinion, is the save-based talent the player receives in the far east (which is asymmetry w.r.t. PCs and NPCs), and also maybe to prevent cross-tier effects.

In the old system, low saves still had a chance to prevent an effect. In the new system, players are actually penalized for having low saves (via cross-tier effects).

Let me show a few examples comparing the old system with the new system using equivalent values:

Old save system

Code: Select all

power   save    effect
90      40      15% chance to save
90      60      22% chance to save
90      90      50% chance to save
90      120     80% chance to save

New save system

Code: Select all

power   save    effect
50      30      afflicted by cross-tier effect
50      40      nothing (almost susceptible to cross-teir effect)
50      50      nothing
50      60      reduced duration of effect by 2

[onyhow]

So what should be done then? Petition DG to return to old save system?

[Mithril]

So what should be done then? Petition DG to return to old save system?

DG has already made some changes:
http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=com ... 6ceb58e87d