Doesnt the Human Race feel lackluster?

[Grimfan]

Well my human party ended up all being 14th level except for my wizard who was 15th and my non-human party were all 12th level (though I think my lizardman farmer might have been 13th).

[any6]

I have to wonder how people are ending up with their Humans being 2 levels higher than everyone else at any point in the game. Early game they'll drop in and out of being 1 level higher than the rest of the party, then at midgame and late game, they'll only have about half a level over others.

It's fine if Humans are kept how they are... it's not a huge deal, but people shouldn't be advertising that Humans are getting a better deal than they actually are. It's only 10%, or 20% with a trait, and it does not put Humans multiple levels higher than other races.

If they ever release a dungeon where the intended maximum level is 20+, then this ability will be much better. But when characters are ending the game at lvl 15 or 16, it ends up being just an extra skillpoint sometimes.

Indeed but in the same vein, humans shouldn't be underestimated. They are squarely in the middle of the road. No negative stats and a 10% xp boost.

For a min-maxer, they're clearly weak and I understand that.

For someone who likes a bit more balance, it is easy to overestimate humans because they don't have any glaring flaws.

The extra food consumption, minus dex/vit, minus str, these can all bite you in the back in later on. Don't forget that the benefits for non-humans are offset by penalties. Can't go wrong with human but it's usually not the best option.

[Belligero]

Humans are perfectly fine where they are.

If you like other racial traits better, then pick those races.

[thufir]

I have to wonder how people are ending up with their Humans being 2 levels higher than everyone else at any point in the game. Early game they'll drop in and out of being 1 level higher than the rest of the party, then at midgame and late game, they'll only have about half a level over others.

It's fine if Humans are kept how they are... it's not a huge deal, but people shouldn't be advertising that Humans are getting a better deal than they actually are. It's only 10%, or 20% with a trait, and it does not put Humans multiple levels higher than other races.

If they ever release a dungeon where the intended maximum level is 20+, then this ability will be much better. But when characters are ending the game at lvl 15 or 16, it ends up being just an extra skillpoint sometimes.

Well, an extra level is a skillpoint + hp + energy + whatever level bonuses the class gets (like protection for knights, or strength for barbarians). Compared to the other racial traits, that sounds at least comparable to me.

[Rithrin]

I have to wonder how people are ending up with their Humans being 2 levels higher than everyone else at any point in the game. Early game they'll drop in and out of being 1 level higher than the rest of the party, then at midgame and late game, they'll only have about half a level over others.

It's fine if Humans are kept how they are... it's not a huge deal, but people shouldn't be advertising that Humans are getting a better deal than they actually are. It's only 10%, or 20% with a trait, and it does not put Humans multiple levels higher than other races.

If they ever release a dungeon where the intended maximum level is 20+, then this ability will be much better. But when characters are ending the game at lvl 15 or 16, it ends up being just an extra skillpoint sometimes.

Well, an extra level is a skillpoint + hp + energy + whatever level bonuses the class gets (like protection for knights, or strength for barbarians). Compared to the other racial traits, that sounds at least comparable to me.

Oh, it probably is. I did mention that it's no a big deal to me if they are kept exactly as is - I played with two humans in my party! But since this is thread is about improving the Human traits/skills, I chimed in and gave my proposal for, not really a fix, but a reworking of the base trait. I just feel like the smidgeon of extra XP humans get at end game ends up being less interesting than the others. Really, it's less about "comparable" and more about "interesting". Mutating, Headhunting, Armored Exoskeletons, etc, are all very flavorful and exciting. Sometimes having a an extra skill point and single digit HP/Energy bonuses is rather bland.

[Jirodyne]

Ok. I am sick of this so I want to point it out to those that might not know this. The game has a 'soft cap' on levels. I want people to remember this, when you kill something your getting very little exp. You end up killing a lot of things to get to end game at around 12-16.

However... Custom dungeons might push the party past this, yes? Well that can't it seems because of the 'soft cap'. Going from 1-18 is fine. But past that, and the exp numbers get massive. From just 18 to 19 is 1,000,000 exp. That is a LOT of exp to grind just for 1 level. So going from 1-18? Humans will get there 10% faster... And then everyone hits the dead end and the Human bonus is no longer useful. I would also like to point out, AGAIN, that the other bonuses from the other races? You can't get those in game incept the Disease immune. The human one tho, I know of at least 2 necklaces that give 25% extra exp, MORE than the human race bonus. You can pick another race and just put that necklace on them instead and benifit from that race bonus too, insted of just picking a human with no bonus...

[MasterworkStone]

I actually have a hard time NOT making a human, they just feel so good to me.

[steelsoldier]

Actually considering one of the things someone said previously, the strength of the humans doesnt actually come from the racial bonus, its the skilled trait that makes up for everything.
Most races, except the minotaur start off with 10 vitality and 9 vitality for the insectoid.
Now the maximum amount of skill points each race can have is 19, 20 for humans with the skilled ability considering that every race starts off with 2 points and once they reach level 18, they will have 17 extra points.

Now if you consider a standard Tank/Damage Dealer character in the frontline, you would want him to have at his maximum level, considering 19 skill points, 5 in Heavy Weapons, at least 4 in Armor, Possibly 3 points in Dodge in order to get the 10% faster Cooldown, 5 points in atheletics to give you 100HP, this will leave you at 17 points and you could spend the rest of them either all in dodge or 1 in dodge and 1 in accuracy.
However if you did this, and by any change you picked up skilled and invested into dodge, you would be missing out +2 evasion from the evasive trait from the traits available which would be better than the skilled trait, but if you want to get 3% critical hit chance you can get it, which you cant get from any traits.
The other advantage of this is that it would add more diversity in character building.

The skilled trait is very weak in comparison to the other traits if you are thinking of a fully optimized character, the issue comes with a lot of skills only having 1 bones after you invest a certain amount of points in them, if they add more bonuses at certain levels, that extra skill would be great to have, but at a later stage its not that useful, it is only useful if you want more health and more energy if you want to get closer to the levels that they grant bonus things.

I think Humans would be far better if every single skill in the game would have at least 2 bonuses at seperate levels of the skill, like for example if the final level of athletics also granted +1 Vitality, or the final level of dodge, granted a bit more dodge, and so on.

However, the Skilled trait seems to be really good on characters that require a couple more skills in order to work optimally, like the Mage classes and Alchemists, since you will be investing a lot more points into a lot more skills, but Warrior type classes will be at there optimal state much earlier, since they dont have any utility class skills, and they are just there to soak and do damage.

[Jirodyne]

I would agree, steelsoldier, except your forgetting 2 things. 1, is that thinking only works on the Campaign, and min-maxing like that would only be needed on Hard, old school, Ironman, Single use crystal mode. On normal and easy, the game is so easy your level and skills don't matter if you know even a little bit about the game and weren't completely stupid. 2, Custome Dungeons, which might be balanced for much higher level parties and not lower level ones.

Oh, and 3, there are the skillpoint books that give extra skillpoints. Yes books, as in more than one. Just like there are Necklaces that give 25% more exp. And as you pointed out, 1 extra single point is kinda pointless to put into any skills as they usually need 2, 3, or 4 for effects.

[thufir]

Ok. I am sick of this so I want to point it out to those that might not know this. The game has a 'soft cap' on levels. I want people to remember this, when you kill something your getting very little exp. You end up killing a lot of things to get to end game at around 12-16.

However... Custom dungeons might push the party past this, yes? Well that can't it seems because of the 'soft cap'. Going from 1-18 is fine. But past that, and the exp numbers get massive. From just 18 to 19 is 1,000,000 exp. That is a LOT of exp to grind just for 1 level. So going from 1-18? Humans will get there 10% faster... And then everyone hits the dead end and the Human bonus is no longer useful. I would also like to point out, AGAIN, that the other bonuses from the other races? You can't get those in game incept the Disease immune. The human one tho, I know of at least 2 necklaces that give 25% extra exp, MORE than the human race bonus. You can pick another race and just put that necklace on them instead and benifit from that race bonus too, insted of just picking a human with no bonus...

I can accept that it's not as good of a bonus if you want to grind everyone to 18, but I don't think that's a reason to be like "I'm sick of this, it's terrible and here's why" because a lot of people aren't going to grind to 18. It's something to think about if you are going to grind and grind, sure. The question isn't whether or not you can get the bonus in-game or not by other means. Unless the necklaces overwrite (as opposed to add) to the xp bonus, bringing that up is something of a red herring too. More xp is never bad unless you are at the "soft cap".