overpowered races?

[Tibarius]

I just managed to win the game with a dunadan mage. I consider dunadan and high-elf races overpowered compared to other races. The big XP modifier is no drawback in game-mechanics, it just forces the player to do more grinding to compensate the XP requirements. How do others feel/think about it?

[PowerWyrm]

I always thought that the most overpowered race was dwarf. Unless you play a mage, you have good stats, infravision and resistance to blindness. Not mentionning high skill values...

[Derakon]

The best race really depends on what class you want to play as. Half-trolls are so much better at being warriors than everyone else that it's not even funny. Hobbits and kobolds are fantastic rogues. Dwarves are great priests and paladins. And so on.

Dunadan and High-Elf are sort of "generically good" in that they have bonuses to most stats and decent hit dice, but for any given class there's generally a race that will be at least as good at that class as the "super races" are, with a much lower XP penalty and more interesting intrinsic abilities.

If I had to rank the races without giving consideration to class, though, they'd probably go something like this:

Half-troll
Dwarf
Kobold
Hobbit
Human
High-Elf
Gnome
Dunadan
Half-Orc
Half-Elf
Elf

This doesn't say much about any objective ranking; it's more how inclined I am to play as each race. That's why Human ranks so highly; sometimes I just want to play someone who sucks at everything.

[Angrist]

I think that the high elves and dunadans have power more other races, but it corresponds to the way it was in Arda.

[Nick]

I think that the high elves and dunadans have power more other races, but it corresponds to the way it was in Arda.

Indeed. Also, I am fine with races being different difficulty - I think the important thing is to have them all play differently.

[MattB]

I too find Half-Trolls to be the most OP (no, not OP, just 'highly-powered').
I am currently discovering that H-T rogues are surprisingly good. Superb stealth is bizarrely easy to come by as a half-troll.

[Mark]

I think that the high elves and dunadans have power more other races, but it corresponds to the way it was in Arda.

This is true and I like it.

For that reason I wish that Half-elves were awesome. Every half-elf in Arda/Middle earth was awesome, because of their heritages/parents.

Three of these unions occurred between members of the foremost dynasties of Elves and Men, the High Elves and the Edain: They were Lúthien and Beren, Idril and Tuor, and Arwen and Aragorn. From WikiPedia

I guess those are really "Half High-elves". There were no half (regular) elves in Tolkien's universe.

[Derakon]

The current Elf race is basically a D&D elf, and half-elves are D&D half-elves. It's been discussed before that elf could be renamed to "Wood-Elf" so it doesn't just look like a crappy High-Elf. I can't remember if we decided what to do about Half-Elves. Maybe just remove them? Tolkein half-elves, as I understand it, were either High-Elves or Dunadan; they chose which destiny to follow rather than having some kind of hybrid status.

[Mark]

Tolkein half-elves, as I understand it, were either High-Elves or Dunadan; they chose which destiny to follow rather than having some kind of hybrid status.

Really? I thought Dunadan were descendents of the numenoreans (humans), who had their life-span lengthened as a sort of reward for allying against Morgoth; but I didn't know there was anything truly elvish in their blood.

Anyway, removing half-elves seems like an easy solution. Not creative, but perhaps that's ok. Still plenty of races and Half-Elf doesn't meaningful add to the variety imo

[Timo Pietilä]

I always thought that the most overpowered race was dwarf. Unless you play a mage, you have good stats, infravision and resistance to blindness. Not mentionning high skill values...

Dwarf, Dunadan, Hobbit, Gnome, Kobold, Half-Troll, Half-orc, High-Elf and even humans all have distinct advantages over each other making them different, but not much more powerful than each other. Half-elf and elf are weaklings that are not particularly good at anything and have penalty to CON which makes them harder to play than anything else.

[danaris]

Really? I thought Dunadan were descendents of the numenoreans (humans), who had their life-span lengthened as a sort of reward for allying against Morgoth; but I didn't know there was anything truly elvish in their blood.

The half-elves in Middle-Earth are all descendants of Elwing (daughter of Idril Celebrindal, more-or-less princess of Gondolin, and Tuor, son of Huor) and Eärendil (son of Dior, heir to King Thingol, and Nimloth, niece of Celeborn), and were given the choice between the two halves of their heritage.

Since the first king of the Numenoreans was their son Elros (Elrond's brother), it's pretty accurate to say that they're either Dunedain or High-Elves. (In fact, they've even got something in their blood that High-Elves don't have, since Elwing's great-grandmother was a Maia.)

[Mark]

The half-elves in Middle-Earth are all descendants of Elwing (daughter of Idril Celebrindal, more-or-less princess of Gondolin, and Tuor, son of Huor) and Eärendil (son of Dior, heir to King Thingol, and Nimloth, niece of Celeborn), and were given the choice between the two halves of their heritage.

Since the first king of the Numenoreans was their son Elros (Elrond's brother), it's pretty accurate to say that they're either Dunedain or High-Elves. (In fact, they've even got something in their blood that High-Elves don't have, since Elwing's great-grandmother was a Maia.)

Awesome! In that case, we should remove High Elf and Dunedain from the race options at birth and just have half-elf. Half-elves would then gain the 'ability' (forced choice) at level 30 to become either a High Elf or a Dunedain! Perfect!

More seriously - that's good to know. Thanks

[Timo Pietilä]

Awesome! In that case, we should remove High Elf and Dunedain from the race options at birth and just have half-elf. Half-elves would then gain the 'ability' (forced choice) at level 30 to become either a High Elf or a Dunedain! Perfect!

More seriously - that's good to know. Thanks

If we would make angband truly Tolkien, then half-troll and kobold would need to be removed, half-elf and elf boosted quite a lot, and maybe add pure orc as race. (orc as replacement to kobold. Maybe half-giant in place of half-troll?)

Half-elf and dunedain should be about equals to each other. High-elf a bit boosted version of Elf. Elf at least equal to human.

[Mark]

If we would make angband truly Tolkien, then half-troll and kobold would need to be removed, half-elf and elf boosted quite a lot, and maybe add pure orc as race. (orc as replacement to kobold. Maybe half-giant in place of half-troll?)

Half-elf and dunedain should be about equals to each other. High-elf a bit boosted version of Elf. Elf at least equal to human.

And all classes would be HARD. The new 'noob' class would be Maia!

[mewmew]

haradrim and wildmen races

i don't recall giants in lotr but it actually could have half-trolls (not sure what could be the second half though) since it mentions some breed of trolls which could suffer sunlight