Thing is, that argument would make sense if the game started out easy and didn't get difficult until later on, where that extra bit of power would be helpful. Unfortunately, that's not actually the case here.

Wizardry 8 starts out relatively easy (Gregor aside), but then the difficulty picks up right when you leave the Monastery. At this point, the Lizardman is still better than the Human in learning those skills, and this remains the case as you start to get the first expert skills. (Note that level 9 and 10 can be pretty difficult, and the Lizardman Fighter already has Power Strike at this point.) However, the difficulty actually decreases from there.

By the time your Human has a significant advantage, the game is no longer difficult, and you no longer need that advantage. Yes, you're more powerful in the long run, but the long run is not the most important part of the game when it comes to builds.

Also, level 28 is effectively "never", in this game, as unless you go out of your way to waste time killing enemies for extra XP (and it takes a long time with XP requirements scaling exponentially), you're going to finish the game before you reach this point.

(Too bad this game doesn't allow you to respec characters; the game I'm playing allows you to easily change both the parameter that has the role of race and the character's stat distribution. If you could do that in Wizardry 8, you could start with a Lizardman Fighter, then later change to Human when Lizardman loses the advantage.)

I got the best Monastery spawn again! Level 14 Flesheater Slimes can spawn in groups of 1-4, start out neutral (until in thrown range), and are huge and cumbersome, which prevents them from pretty much going anywhere. I got 4 this time, and the game played the more exciting "normal combat" theme, even though I outnumber them by 5 levels (the game classifies them as Mediocre). Killing all four gives each party member 40K experience. I had to hunt down the last slime, damaged down to a few HPs, to finish the job. This is why I hate blinding and fear, as I'm being robbed of experience if enemies manage to run away.

I would consider the early game to be reasonable (at least in the Monastery), where enemy spawns match your level. Unless Undead Heads spawn (very rare, thankfully, from which you can always reload and run away, or use the never-used Turn Undead ability), you can usually grind experience and skills, rest to restore mana, and carry on. Note that you have to be able to take on two bosses, King Crab and Gregor.

If you can handle that, completely clearing out the Monastery (except for the Wheel Key/Cierdan's Tomb room), then you are faced with the Arnika Road, a huge spike in difficulty if you're been normally levelling (level 5-7).

If you try the Arnika Road at those levels, you are completely at the mercy of the RNG. I would rather not rely on chance, and rely on my own skill instead (that is the fair way to play, is it not)?

If you can grind in the Monastery to a respectable level (20ish), then the Arnika Road becomes a joke, but you get to Arnika, and are faced with equal-level enemies (great for more experience gains and skill ups). Hanging out in Arnika until level 25-30, you will be dominant everywhere, except the Mountain Wilderness and Ascencion Peak.

So, the middle game becomes a joke, up until the time when you have to finish the game, then the difficulty ramps up significantly (at higher levels, 35-40), magic becomes almost useless, forcing you to rely on physical damage (I hope that your party maxed Senses, and has Eagle Eye).

All due respect, as one longtime W8 gamer to another, but who are you to determine when "end game" is? Some of us love to 100% the game, and grind our skills up. I would argue that somebody like me would consider level 35-40 to be "end game", when you can actually match, and handle, the Mountain Wilderness spawns.

Here I go again, with my rant, against the newer generation, and the "respec". Diablo 2 didn't give us Gen-Xers, "respec", but it gives Gen-Z kids that. Take it with a grain of salt.

Edit: Ascencion Peak has set level 30 or so enemies, and the Dark Savant is level 38, I believe. So, a level 35-40 party would be able to handle said challenges, and be where you're "supposed to be".

Be glad this isn't Wizardry 7 fear.

In Wizardry 7, when a party member is affected by fear status, the character will randomly attempt to run away. If that attempt succeeds, your whole party runs away, which is rather unpleasant for multiple reasons:
* You don't get XP and treasure for the battle, even if you killed some of the enemies. (I don't know whether you can keep skill increases should this happen, as I'm not that familiar with 7.)
* Your party will then run away to a random spot that could be some distance from where the battle occurred.
* And, of course, any resources (like SP and items) and other consequences of the fight (like HP loss and some status ailments) are not restored.
* Don't forget that you don't have control over this happening.

Amen to that!

Actually there's so many veterans here - I doubt there's any actual disagreements. The question seems to be what exactly it is humans are best at. Indeed they might well have the highest potential for a high level monster. As ussnorway pointed out that might not be the one and only criterium.

Personally I used to find them the worst race, since almost all classes are better suited for other races. Human monks are a thing I reckon and human ninjas are only overshadowed by the cane of corpus. Besides that they'll be worse than their peers for all classes for the majority of the game and only get to shine way too late, once the game got easy anyway.

That said I still changed my oppinion and do indeed agree that humans are a splendid race! Once again it requires elaborating what for. It's not the super-late game I look at: it's the solo!
In a solo it's really bad to have those glaring weaknesses many races sport. I'd still go for a Lizzy Fighter if I played a Fighter solo, but that's just because I love that totally one-sided powerhouse of awesomeness since forever - a personal favorite. In a party others could compensate, but in a solo I'll be keenly aware of his weaknesses. Insanity isn't a problem in a solo, but those resistances still are an issue. That's not the main issue though (certainly not in regards to this topic): very low attributes are hard to compensate in a solo. Your mage needs strength, your fighter needs senses. With low strength you'll be unable to carry anything, let alone fighting in melee. There's nobody else spotting stuff for the party, so that low-senses fighter can't spot anything. Long before reaching high level these issues already become apparent. In fact more apparent than later, since there are workarounds You won't have available early on.

Finally I tried my hand at the ironman solo (and still didn't play it through) and went for the style I like: grinding a lot. In order to be able to play stupid and utterly blunt, charging even the biggest and most easily to circumvent foes, I went for the most overpowered grind-heavy monster I could imagine. That meant that I played a multi-class character for the first time! Can't recommend it. It is a ridiculous, exploit-oriented morony - something only a very stubborn grinder of an overtaxed player would ever need in order to succeed. It's really superfluous, but it is a tremendously powerful option in a grinder's solo! More importantly I do enjoy playing that way and that's what counts, right? Guess what: humans are the very best at multi-classing! There's an extra exploit to max that out and I sincerely doubt there's any more ridiculous powerplay than the human fighter-rogue-valkyrie-bishop. Perhaps the faerie could be argued to forgive an even greater degree of stupidity due to the cane, but other than that there goes nothing (and even that is highly questionable - humanity certainly doesn't shy away from that comparison and easily beats this only true rival if equipped with the *light* sword).

It is but a fantasy of course. I love it anyway - and it loves humans.

I noticed that too when theorycrafting bishop mix builds.

To summarize: The idea is that, if your party doesn't otherwise have mage and priest spells covered, you can mix some bishop levels into some full caster or hybrid to gain access to them. Basically, the idea is to find a way to mix in a certain number of levels:
* 3 if no Mage, but there's a Gadgeteer (Gadgeteer gets X-Ray)
* 5 if no Priest, and doesn't have both Bard and Gadgeteer (Bard gets Magic Screen, Gadgeteer gets Armorplate)
* 8 if no Mage or Gadgeteer

Thing is, those builds turn out to be less useful for the magic damage parties that I find to be the most fun, as I generally have multiple casters, covering all the spellbooks. Even in other parties, I just like bishops too much to have a use for these builds.

Edit: Side note: The game I'm playing right now, Saviors of Sapphire Wings, actually forbids soloing. So does Wizardry 6 (can't start the game with only 1 character).

Multiclassing is underpowered enough in Wizardry 8 that I wouldn't consider any use of it to be exploiting.

The one exception is when you take a single level of a class to get access to a skill (like Stealth), and then spend hours maxing that skill before taking another level. (This is why, in my post about how I'd change the mechanics for a sequel, I impose a cap on skills; it prevents a single level dip from potentially breaking the game. Then again, I dislike the way stealth works in this game, but that's another story.)

It does, though I have no idea if there's any event that breaks if you have only one character.

Wizardry 8 actually has one event that breaks if you solo without any RPCs, namely the Marten's Idol event. The only member of your singleton party gets kidnapped, and then you get the game over screen.

(Apparently, it's possible to start as a solo, recruit RFS-81, get your character kidnapped, and solo the rest of the game with just RFS-81.)

Saviors of Sapphire Wings, on the other hand, is more hostile to solo attempts:
* Until you get the 7th party member, you must have your whole party on every expedition.
* Even after that, you must have at least the protagonist and one other party member when you form a party.
* Furthermore, when you return to town, dead characters are revived, making carrying around a corpse all the time rather painful. (There's many JRPGs that have this sort of issue. SaGa 2 can't reasonably be soloed because death goes away at the end of battle; SaGa 1 doesn't have this issue (and I've soloed that game).)

Stranger of Sword City, on the other hand, is soloable (if we don't count the guest party member at the very start of the game).

Finally, us Human lovers got some support, and from none other than Zadok_Allen!

I've been playing this game for many years, and have come to see the Humans as overall dominant. Yes, this requires patience, which some players severely lack, but for those of us on a self-imposed challenge of maxing all skills, the Human works very well here.

The level 28 Human Rogue has Strength, Dexterity, Speed, and Senses maxed. He/She will have Intelligence at 50 (from the Trynton Fountain), and Piety and Vitality at 45.

The level 29 Human Fighter has the same attributes maxed, with 50 Intelligence from the Trynton Fountain, 45 Piety, and 50 Vitality (profession requirement).

The other classes will have maxed 4 attributes later, by no later than level 31, when the Human Valkyrie and Human Bishop will have maxed their 4 attributes.

Seriously, how any anybody disagree with the Humans' superiority?

Because, at reasonable levels (ending the game at level 20-25), they're only ideal for some builds, not others, and there are parts of the game (particularly early on) where they're not as good as other races.

For example, Humans can't:
* Breathe acid. (Well, they can, but you need to cast Dracon Breath on them first, which eats up a combat turn for each character you want to be able to breathe.)
* Equip a Giant's Sword. Given that this is one of the best reliably available weapons, this can be a significant disadvantage for some builds. (Ranger and Samurai come to mind.)
* Equip the Cane of Corpus, possibly the strongest weapon in the game, and almost reliably available (provided you kill a certain rather shady NPC merchant).

A new player is not going to figure out to create a Fairy Ninja (it's not the best in anything, stat-wise). To me, it's a gimmock, something weird, an easter egg that no normal player should expect to get. On top of that, the Cane of Corpus is only guaranteed to drop at a 80% chance (tough $h!t to parties that rely on that). Too bad, so sad. You should always whack Rattus Rattus, Milano Calzone, and Don Barlone, on principle (they're all evil, and you've exterminated an entire faction, and got the Astral Dominae for free).

Your argument for "Breathe Acid" is like the argument for the Priest/Bishop using their unique ability, "Turn Undead". Neither gains any skill points from usage.

How about a Fighter with the *Light Sword*, and Diamond Eyes?

How about a Rogue with the *Light Sword*, and Stiletto?

The Valkyrie and Ranger, being flank characters, will have to pick from the best Polearms, but they're Humans, and will have the highest stat totals.

I believe the manual mentions this particular race/class combination.

Also, this weapon also appears in Wizardry 7, with the same race and class restrictions, so a series veteran would likely suspect that this weapon might still exist. (Worth noting that, given the gap between releases, a player might have played through Wizardry 7 multiple times before the release of Wizardry 8.)

Light Sword is rare (much rarer than the CoC), and there's only finitely many opportunities for it to drop. Hence, I do not consider the weapon when theorycrafting builds, as you probably won't get it (whereas you probably will get the CoC if you kill that particular NPC).

Also, in both cases you mention the off-hand weapon uses a different skill, which slows down skill growth.

Regarding factions (that show up on the Faction Screen):

I consider 6 factions as good: Brotherhood of the Ascension, Higardi (plus the hidden Bank Faction), Trynnie, Mook, Umpani, and T'Rang.

There are 4 factions which may be considered as bad:

Rattkin Razuka (only 3 members: Rattus Rattus, Milano Calzone, and Don Barlone). They start out friendly, but you can whack Rattus Rattus early (you'll never see him again, he did set you up for a bank robbery, and you can whack him, so that you get experience and items). This will set Milano Calzone and Don Barlone to hostile, so that you may whack them both seperately, and gain the Astral Dominae for free. This also has a "feel good" mechanic, in that you've exterminated an entire faction, while completely clearing out the Sixth Bough for the Trynnie (why wasn't there a Trynnie quest to whack the Don and Milano)? It seems to me, that whacking the Breeders is only about halfway to the job, while allowing a mob boss and his assistant to live?

Rattkin Common: They start out as neutral, and there is no way to make them friendly. Whacking the Rattkin Breeders sets them to hostile (note that you can farm these Rattkin for decent items, and the map allows enemies to only attack the front lines). Also, the Rattkin Harassment Squads, once you're gotten a few items, are always Neutral (unless you say NO to their threats), while the only good Rattkin is a dead Rattkin.

Rapax Common: There is nothing you can do about that, for a long time. You may, or may not, encounter the Rapax in Trynton. They are always set to Hostile, so killing them is a must (once you do the Al-Sedexus quest, all is forgiven).

Rapax Templar: They are set to Neutral, by default. The only time you will encounter them would be the entrance to the Rapax Away Camp, where they warn you to stay away. Approaching farther would mean that that enemy group would attack you (while attacking with Instant Death magic would assure that you remain neutral with that faction).

The Cane of Corpus has (let's estimate here), an 80% chance to drop.

I remember my last MDP party of a Bard, Gadgeteer, Priest, Alchemist, Psionic, and Mage, only taking a half hour for the Bard and Gadgeteer to get *Light Swords* and *Light Shields*. Farming an enemy is easy, if you know what you're doing.

Regarding the Fighter and Rogue using different weapons:

The Fighter can farm the Buccaneer Ghosts for a *Light Sword*, and is guaranteed the Diamond Eyes in the off-hand.

The Rogue can do the same, while the Stiletto is the best non-cursed Dagger in the off-hand (bought by Crock).

The Human Valkyrie and Ranger can equip the best Polearms that they can use, while attacking from extended range, and having the best stats as a Human.

The two Human Bishops will equip Staves of Doom (one guaranteed, one farmed from Rapax Corpses), as well as Wrist Rockets or Doubleshot Slings, making them godly.

Doing this means that you lose a merchant. (Don Barlone has a few items for sale, including Death Bombs.)

Completely clearing out the Sixth Bough (Rattkin Tree), is clearly the most "feel good" mechanic of the game. Once Rattus Rattus, Milano Calzone, and Don Barlone are dead, you have effectively wiped out an entire faction, with just 3 kills.

Of course, you will want to wipe out the Rattkin Breeders as well, and enjoy the quest rewards upon doing so. Note that this sets up the Rattkin Common Faction as hostile, which is great, allowing you to completely clean out the tree.
Edit: A small merchant; Not crucial to the party.