Thread below was locked, I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I think humans are pretty good, but there's a discrepancy when you trade human for halfie where you get an extra stat point. Ergo, you lose 1 con, 1 str, but you gain 1 wis/int/dex. To resolve, I'd like to see humans have base of 21 con. Think that's all that's really needed.

Halfies gain a partial metal vuln, as well as quiet movement in natural terrain.

Humans are already way more popular than halfies. There really isn't a need to make humans any better.

From PBFs it's 226 halfies vs 526 humans - for reference, 140 drow and 522 elves (yet more half-drow than half-elves). So not really *that* much more, especially since the XP penalty was a huge reason to go human (for PK range...not for 'time to level').

Honestly I think its because :

Half-drow warriors get an extra dex point over half-elf, which is why there's more half-drow than half-elves.

Many of the humans are going to be human necros and human shaman because of the level range for XP penalty. Without that XP penalty it becomes much better to play a half-drow/half-elf shaman now because of the better mental stats.

Hence, if you don't want to see humans and halfies "flip", mechanically you need to make human a bit more attractive. Now...it's not the *end of the world* if we get more half-drow or half-elves, but if it were me, I'd make a slight tweak...either +1 con, improved learning rates (like learning as if you have +2-3 int), or reduction in edge costs (I don't like that one so much as I feel it might be "too" attractive).

The extra point of strength allows you to wield heavier weapons, or be slightly less vuln to losing a weapon due to strength loss. The extra point of con for being human over halfie allows you to be more resistant to various con based effects, and I am fairly certain that the threshold of taking the edge thick veined is 20 con, not 19. You also have to remember that if you go either h-drow or h-elf that you lose out on the ability to wear mithril or iron gear and you also have given yourself a vuln to one of those said metals as well.

Yeah, I acknowledge that. Personally though if I'm playing let's say a necromancer, with 0 XP penalty on both, I'm going to go half-drow for the extra dex, int and wis. Can always take the edge to reduce my vulnerability to mithril and I gain quiet movement which is very useful from a survival perspective. 21 wis is great for when I'm going to wind up switching to the wis-based HP regen, inevitable unless I can keep my con maxed.

On any mage it'll basically be that way, the vuln just isn't that big of a deal in exchange for quiet movement and better stats. On warrior types, there's generally better races than both human and halfies though half-drow still has a place with the 24 dex...I'm actually pretty hard pressed to find ideal human classes other than druid (for the edge).

On the other hand, something like improved learning rates would be a powerful incentive now that they're no longer the best PK range race. Heck, even something like better starting stat roll for a minor advantage on trains would be worthwhile.

And like I said...totally minor. Not even sure it matters, but I do like to see "human love" from time to time ;).