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Introduction I'm sure you know what a race is - it's that species to which you belong - i.e. you Earthlings are "Human", we Poohbears are "Bears", Eeyores are "Donkeys", and Rabbits are... you guessed it, "Rabbits". On Aardwolf, you get to choose your race instead of playing some boring human. There are three main parts to a race: (1)The Roleplaying bit. (2)Racial Stats. (3)Vulns/Resistances/Skills. (1)The Roleplaying bit isn't too well developed on Aard, apart from the spammy racetalk channel some races have. (2)Racial Stats (especially under version 2) are the main thing that people worry about. For example Giants, who we all know are stupid brutes, therefore train Strength more easily, but get a penalty to training Intelligence. This was previously reflected as a high maximum Strength and low maximum Wis in Ver 1. (Under Ver 2, the maximum for everyone is 200.) (3)Resistances/Vulnerabilities and Racial Skills make up the other unique thing about races. For example, Vampires are Resistant to Mental attacks, but Vulnerable to Fire. In addition, they have the skill of Flying and Dark Vision, all in keeping with the vampire mythos. These add a certain individuality and uniqueness to your playing style. Now without further ado, let's take a look at the race summary: |
Race Info Table [Negative means cheaper to train (therefore better)]
| Race | Str | Int | Wis | Dex | Con | Luck | Total | Resist | Vuln | Affect/Skill |
| Centaur | -2 | 2 | = 0 | Kick | ||||||
| Diva | 1 | -2 | 1 | 1 | = 1 | Poison, Disease | Cold, Acid | Detect Good, Detect Evil, Tame | ||
| Drow | 1 | 1 | -2 | = 0 | Charm | Light | Dark Vision, Detect Magic | |||
| Dwarf | 1 | = 1 | MAGIC | Drowning | Infrared, Berserk | |||||
| Eldar | 2 | -1 | -2 | = -1 | MAGIC | SLASH | Lore, Meditation | |||
| Elf | 1 | -2 | 1 | = 0 | Charm | Infrared, Hide, Sneak | ||||
| Giant | -2 | 2 | 1 | -1 | = 0 | Fire, Cold | Mental | Bash, Fast healing | ||
| Half-Griffon | -1 | = -1 | Flying | |||||||
| Halfling | 2 | 1 | -1 | -1 | -1 | = 0 | Poison | Detect Hidden | ||
| Human | = 0 | |||||||||
| Lizard | -2 | 2 | -1 | 1 | = 0 | Cold, Poison | Detect Hidden, Envenom | |||
| Quickling | 2 | -1 | 1 | -2 | -1 | = -1 | MAGIC | Haste, Hide | ||
| Ratling | -1 | 1 | 1 | -1 | = 0 | Poison, Disease | Mental, Negative | Forage, Cure Poison | ||
| Shadow | 2 | -1 | -1 | 2 | = 2 | Energy, Sound | Negative, Light | Fly, Pass Door, Shadow Form | ||
| Sprite | 2 | -1 | -2 | 2 | -2 | = -1 | MAGIC | Poison, Acid | Flying, Invis, Hide | |
| Triton | -1 | 2 | 2 | -2 | = 1 | Cold | Lightning | Underwater breathing, No need boat, Healing changes | ||
| Troll | -1 | 2 | 1 | -2 | 1 | = 1 | PIERCE | Fire, Acid | Detect Hidden, Bash, Kick, Regeneration | |
| Vampire | -1 | 1 | -1 | 1 | = 0 | Poison, Mental, Negative | Fire, Holy, Light | Dark Vision, Detect Invis, Flying, Intimidate, Consume, Faster healing at night | ||
| Wolven | 2 | -2 | -1 | = -1 | Cold, Charm | Fire, Light | Dark Vision, Detect Invis, Sneak, Hunt |
What do all those numbers above mean? (If you know, skip this ;)
Stats: Under Aardwolf Ver 2, there is no longer a maximum stat that a race can reach. Instead, some races will find it easier to train a certain stat than others.
For a more detailed explanation of what each stat does, see The 6 Ver. 2 Statistics. (Use your "back" button to come back)
Total: This is just something I calculated by adding up all the plus and minuses. -1 means this race will spend 1 prac less than normal if it practices every stat once.
Resist/Vulns: There is no change from version 1 in these. Resist means you take less damage, Vuln means you take more. Remember, "Magic" includes all magic damtypes, ie. everything except Pierce, Slash and Blunt.
Resist is not cumulative with("does not add to") Resist spells/Aard breastplate, and Vulns can be cancelled out by Resist spells or the Aard breastplate. Vuln + Resist Spell + Breastplate = normal Resist
Skills: Each race has peculiar unqiue skills that give them an advantage, most are self-explanatory. For gameplay purposes, these skills are treated as practiced to 100%, but without a mastery, and still depend on your stats.
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Deciding on a race The race you choose depends on your playing style (see next). I'll divide this into 4 groups: Weapon Users, Magic Users, Balanced players, and Raiders. If you're looking for the "ultimate" race, I'm sorry, there isn't one - Lasher has balanced it too well. Having said that, there are slightly better ones, and ones that just plain suck. Remorts can choose any of the groups. They can be what I call "specialist multiclassers" (Either weapon or magic heavy), which is good if they like grouping. Those who like to level alone can be "balanced multiclassers" (choose a Balanced race), but they'll never be as good in certain fields as a single classer or specialist remort. Weapon Users (Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Paladin): Focus on stats that affect melee combat. These are Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. Strength lets you hit harder, Dexterity lets you hit more often and also to avoid attacks, while Constitution reduces the damage you take and increases Hp gains. You will also need Wisdom to get more pracs as you level, and Intelligence to practice more effectively. Vulns/Resistances don't matter much. If you're a pure warrior (Warrior or Thief), you'll want a race with magic-type affects like: Fly, Dark Vision and perhaps Detect Invis and Detect Hidden. Here is a table of some suitable races: Warrior types - Con, Str, Dex
Magic Users (Mage, Cleric, Psionicist): Focus on races that have Wisdom and Intelligence bonuses, since these affect spells most. Constitution is still important, both for levelling and reducing damage. Vulns/Resistances: Eldar and Sprite are Magic Resist, although Eldar is vuln Slash. As for the rest, nothing a breastplate or a few resist spells won't fix. You should have access to most of the useful spells like Fly and the Detects, so race affects are less important than if you were a warrior type. Here is a table of some suitable races: Pro-magic user races- Wis, Int, Con
Balanced players (Ranger, Paladin, Remorts): Choosing a balanced race offers flexibility and avoids major disadvantages. Having said that, a balanced race and playing style will never reach as high a stat as if you chose a specialist class/playing style and picked a race to fit it. These races are suited for those who want to train most or all their stats, and good even if you've decided on 2 or 3 primary stats. These tend to be players who level alone, or want to be all-rounders. Do remember that just you don't have to generalise just because you're a multiclasser - you can still choose to specialise in the magic or the weapon aspects of your character! Balanced races
Raiders: While it is still unclear, race changes will probably no longer be allowed in Ver 2. Also, it will be a lot harder to max out now than before, so we won't be seeing SHs who hit 30k then change to a suitable "raiding" race. This means raiders will have to choose a suitable race from the beginning, one that allows both decent levelling, as well being suited for raiding. Part of this depends on which raiding job you'll be doing. I envisage raiders becoming more specialised, with some training "tank" stats (DEX, CON, and a magic-resist race) and other training "breathing" stats and masteries (INT, CON). "Regenners" (INT, WIS) probably won't be trained specially for that job. Unfortunately, there aren't many races which fit these requirements 100%. Here are some of those that fit at least some way:
Plain Sucky: Choosing a good race, as we have seen, is quite difficult. However, some of the races suck quite obviously. You don't want to choose them, unless you want a Hook franchise doing you-know-what. And even then, we probably don't want you, seeing how silly your race choice is. :P
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