This thread is borne out of a couple of discussions that I've had in other threads about the different races in ADOM and their relative merits. Rather than derail other threads with my racist ranting, I thought I'd just make a single thread to deal with the topic.

Okay, for starters, there are a number of different things that a given race combines with your class to add to your character. In particular, you have racial skills, starting stats, starting equipment, lifespan, regeneration rates, shopkeeper prices, deity favored items, leveling rate, alignment special stuff (e.g. acid spit). Most of these overlap with class, but race usually has at least a big of effect as class. My feeling is that people, in general, place too much emphasis on skills and, for a certain contingent of people, lifespan, rather than some other factors that are, IMHO, much more important. While using your race to pick up some skills that your class is lacking, choosing this to the exclusion of these other factors can lead to some poor R/C combinations. Dwarves in particular tend to be underrated for their lack of great skills, despite their many other strengths, while dark elves tend to be overrated because they give good skills, despite their many other weaknesses.

My general philosophy is that the "best" race for a given class is the one that maximizes your chance of winning. If you are playing random characters, or are roleplaying, or are choosing particular combinations to challenge yourself, or just hate short people for some reason, that's great. Have fun. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what is optimal for winning the game.

For the record, here are the top 3 best racial choices for every class (I'm also going to treat HE and GE as the same race... the only real difference is starting alignment, which is a very minor effect):


The breakdown is basically:
Best overall: Drakes. They're especially good for the weaker classes (eg. mindcrafters) that don't really have much going for them in the early game. Drake's high toughness + acid spit + extra food helps propel these guys through the early game, and drakeling's usually bad starting gear doesn't really matter because these classes have bad starting gear anyway. Drakes don't make the best casters due to Low Le and Ma, but they're a top 3 pick for just about every other class.
Runner up: Hurthlings. Hurthlings have a great skillset and good stats, they level quickly and get an extra talent to hit Heir gifts for classes like thieves and bards or for extra missile power/speed/earlier TH for other classes. Like Drakelings, they play best on classes with relatively poor starts normally, being able to take advantage of early missiles and decent to get them through the early game. They aren't the best for the really powerful melee classes or the caster classes, but they are great for almost all of the others. Dwarves round out the top three. They don't have the best skillset, but they make decent casters thanks to high Le, and typically have the best starting gear of any race, which, combined with high To, makes them absolute tanks. For the people who really care about lifespan, Dwarf is the best compromise between lifespan and durability. GE/HE are generally the top caster choice, but are outperformed across the board for basically every other class.

The worst race is, of course, Ratling, which don't seem to play well at anything. Yes, detect item status is nice, and their toughness is decent, but their skillset is otherwise really marginal, their equipment is average-to-poor, their stats are average, and their lifespan is pretty short. Humans are only slightly better. I like them for druids, and I think that they're actually an underrated choice for barbarians, having the best non-heir starting weapon of any R/C, and a starting luck bonus. Other than those, they're really too average to be outstanding at anything. Most of the other races have a few classes that they're decent at, but either have some glaring flaw that makes them terrible at others (eg. troll leveling, mist elf HP) or are just too mediocre across the board to really be that great (gnomes).

Bottom line: With few exceptions, don't play humans, rats, mist elves or gnomes if you want to win games. Play drakelings, hurthlings, and dwarves if you do. Play GE if you like casters, but you knew that already.