I'm going to throw one out there right now — Yuuzhan Vong. They don't get weapon proficiencies at 1st level (except simple), they can't take Use the Force, and worst of all, they never get Force Points — so they can never enhance their own rolls, or save themselves from death. And in return, what do they get? They're immune to Force effects that target Will, and they treat amphistaffs as simple weapons. And they get the Shaper prestige class, which isn't that outstanding.
To make them playable, I'd say at least give them an ability like "Use the Force checks against Yuuzhan Vong take a -5 penalty" to give them some significant resistance on top of the Will immunity.
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Posted by proxy from Jake:
Worst race? Gungans. Because... Well, their GUNGANS! Kidding Milky. In all fairness, I think there are no real "worthless" races to play. They put races out there so people can play any of the very (sometimes overly) diverse options of the SW universe. The Vong are in there with "bad" stats (in my opinion) to discourage people from playing them. They are the MAIN villains of an entire series and not meant to be played often. If someone really wants to play a vong they are doing it for the fact that they ARE playing a vong. I say this because I have noticed many of the emerging races have very similar stats. This leads me to believe many of them are out there "just so people can play them."
In closing: Gungans still suck.
Hutts.
Without the completely out of character and supposedly exceedingly rare ancient Hutt battle armor, they're practically unplayable. The massive dex penalty makes them easy to hit, stacking with their size penalty to defense. The dex penalty pretty much rules out ranged combat, and their extremely slow speed makes them laughable as melee fighters. That speed also makes them less than useful even in noncombat roles like medic or mechanic; it takes them forever to cross a relatively small battlefield, or go from the bridge to the engine room of even a small ship. Since they need to avoid any and all combat encounters to keep from getting killed, they don't even make great nobles--you can offer leadership bonuses to your allies in combat, but you're a huge target and you can't be of much help if you're unconscious or dying. Plus, there isn't a being in the galaxy who doesn't know about Hutts and their reputation, so unless the GM is being extremely generous, nearly every NPC you encounter is going to automatically loathe and distrust you (unless the game takes place on the planet Vodran).
So, to recap: big, clumsy, slow, and universally reviled. You might conceivably make a Hutt character who wields an autofire weapon to good effect (their large size could help) but you could almost certainly do better with a more dextrous species if you're going that route.
Actually, that sounds sort of like a challenge...
(I suppose that ties into Jake's theory about nerfing "villainous" species with intentionally bad stats in order to discourage players from picking them.)
What would you do to make Hutts more playable as a species?
I'm not sure I buy the "make villainous races less playable" argument. Aqualish are presented as thugs, but they're about as good (or better, depending on your build) than Quarren, one of the core book species. Neimoidians are masters of Deception (I'm not sure I agree with their stats, but that is how they are written). Rodians are playable. Gamorreans are playable. They're not always ideal, and as a rule they don't suffer an abundance of brains, but I think they are playable.
Aqualish and Gamorreans are presented as brutish, but never evil. Similarly, the Neimoidians of the Trade Federation may have been petty, but they were duped into doing evil. The examples of villainous individuals can be dismissed as individual bad apples, just as humans are not considered an inherently evil race despite the worst villains of Star Wars being human (it helps that the greatest heroes are human as well).
The Hutts, however, are greedy, amoral gangsters without a word for gratitude. We see exactly one Hutt develop a seemingly sincere sense of moral rectitude in the NJO series, and he promptly dies. The Yuuzhan Vong are extragalactic invaders that worship pain and act together to destroy the galaxy, hating all infidels and their technologies and philosophies (at least until the very end of the NJO era). Neither Hutts nor Yuuzhan Vong player characters would realistically mesh well with other PCs.
It would be interesting to see how Saga Edition deals with the stats of other outright evil races, such as the Charon.
As for making Hutts more playable, I'm not sure if there's much you can do without violating canon. You could perhaps reinforce their strengths in the hopes that it would balance out their weaknesses (increasing the Int or Wis bonuses, for example), and maybe give them a hitpoint bonus, but you don't necessarily want to unbalance them with built-in min-maxing.
A more modest approach might be reducing the dexterity penalty to -2, rather than -4, but then imposing an added penalty to reflex defense. After all, Hutts may be big and sluggish when it comes to moving their massive bulk and dodging bullets, but their hands should still work reasonably well; they could conceivably be decent pilots and marksmen. Then they could effectively use ranged weapons, or pilot repulsor sleds, and accordingly become that much more useful in both combat and non-combat situations.
Actually, Yuuzhan Vong would mesh well in a Legacy-era party, given that they are portrayed as allies of the Jedi in this time period (the Jedi teaming up with them for the Ossus Project, and then sticking up for them when the project is sabotaged and the Vong are blamed).
There is one Hutt Jedi in a novel (one of the crappy ones, Planet of Twilight), though he has turned to the dark side by the time the book starts. He could definitely get a lot out of the Block and Deflect talents, given his low Reflex Defense.
I think with Hutts, part of the low Dexterity has to do with their size, and part of it is that they are so used to having other people do things for them, so they don't really expend any energy other than shouting orders and pushing buttons.
But if I were to play a Hutt, I'd definitely grab one level of Scout for Long Stride (doubles your speed right there), as well as invest in the Martial Arts feats to take advantage of their Large size and Strength bonus, and boost their Reflex Defense significantly.
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