Why not add BAB to Init?

[Stegyre]

I'm just going to roll my initiative in a pbp, and the thought occurs to me: your initiative modifier generally does not improve during play.

Yes, you may get a Dex boost. You might pick up Improved Initiative, depending upon whether your build has a feat to spare. You might have spell help or the appropriate weapon enhancement. But all of those are "extras" you must specially acquire.

In contrast, BAB, saves, skill levels (at least, skill points), HP, spells per day, caster level, spell levels -- all of these improve automatically as a matter of leveling up.

I'm thinking, initiative should, too. The rationale being that more experienced fighters have learned to react to danger faster. This is best reflected by adding BAB. This also gives a bump to the full-BAB melee classes, who need all the help they can get as the game reaches rocket-tag levels.

What do others think? What am I, perhaps, missing?

[Necromancy]

Personally I don't see the big lure in going first unless you're a rogue. Never taken improved initiative either

[Xerlith]

Personally I don't see the big lure in going first unless you're a rogue. Never taken improved initiative either

I assume you haven't played enough high level games. At ~9th and above going first sometimes makes a world of a difference.

On topic - yes, I have seen this houserule gain some popularity in some games. Myself I add BAB but only derived from class levels. Racial hit die don't count.

Just so that dragon doesn't smack you with its +23.

[Troacctid]

In 4th edition, you add half your level to initiative, so over time you start going first more often when facing weaker enemies. It works okay.

In 3.5 you have a dynamic where HP is tied to hit dice, so if you want enemies that don't go down in a single surprise round, you have to also inflate their BAB to stupid levels. Tying yet another key combat mechanic to hit dice could cause problems.


Personally I don't see the big lure in going first unless you're a rogue. Never taken improved initiative either

What? You get a whole extra turn! That's great!

I mean, Improved Initiative is a little iffy because of how valuable feats are, but stuff like a Warning weapon or a Ring of Anticipation is an excellent investment.

[sleepyphoenixx]

It's an interesting idea. Making melee generally win initiative would definitely improve the mundane/caster gap, the question is how much. It's something worth testing for a short campaign.


Personally I don't see the big lure in going first unless you're a rogue. Never taken improved initiative either

The value of going first is that you can do something to stop the enemy from attacking you (blind/entangle/stun/daze) or getting a turn at all (sleep/paralysis/etc. or killed).
At higher levels not going first means the enemies will do that to you instead. Or just charge you for massive damage.

[Necromancy]

The value of going first is that you can do something to stop the enemy from attacking you (blind/entangle/stun/daze) or getting a turn at all (sleep/paralysis/etc. or killed).
At higher levels not going first means the enemies will do that to you instead. Or just charge you for massive damage.

I understand what you mean but I would rather invest in design and build a solid character. I don't get playing a glass cannon that could die if he doesn't go first on the first round.

[Grod_The_Giant]

On topic - yes, I have seen this houserule gain some popularity in some games. Myself I add BAB but only derived from class levels. Racial hit die don't count.
Agreed. As Troacctid noted, there are plenty of monsters with way more HD than CR, which could be a problem, but limiting it to class levels is a neat solution.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Conceptually, the problem is that being able to quickly read situations and act is not necessarily just a conventional fighting skill.

A rogue or magus depends upon sharply honed instincts and reaction speeds every bit as much as a fighter. Likewise, a wizard or cleric needs to react quickly to danger in order to live. Their reaction may be casting a spell rather than swinging a sword, but that is still reacting quickly.

Mechanically, one problem with it is numbers. People have more trouble adding 1d20+27 than 1d20+2. It's not an insurmountable obstacle since you only roll init once per combat but it is a problem and addition is one of the reason that higher level games bog down.

Another mechanical problem would be medium BAB martial classes--particularly rogues. Rogues benefit greatly from initiative and are generally considered one of the weakest classes in the game. Handing fighter types a +1 to +5 relative initiative boost would be pretty hard on them. Monks becoming slow to react would be another odd side effect. Usually, the plate armored warrior out-reacting the ninja is now how we expect things to go.

The last problem would be monsters. One poster suggested that only BAB from class levels count in order to avoid the dragon always smacking you first with its +23. That's a legitimate concern. A lot of monsters are effectively spellcasters and handing a balor or dragon a massive initiative boost that means it always beats the party's casters in initiative would be game-changing and not in a good way. But adding only BAB from class levels would be problematic too. In that scenario, the martials win initiative against every monster every time starting around level 6. And that old dragon with the +23 BAB we don't want to add into initiative? He loses to the entire party every time because even the wizard gets a +10 boost relative to him.

Casters constantly losing initiative? That's a mechanical effect of the system, not really a failure. The effect would be most noticeable at high levels and that's where the martial/caster divide is usually thought to be most problematic anyway. However, medium BAB casters like clerics usually beating the low BAB casters like wizards would be a pretty strange side effect and casters searching for full BAB prestige classes to boost their initiative count would be bizarre. Should a wizard/sacred exorcist really be going before a wizard/archmage (an extra 10 to 20% of the time since there's only a +2 difference in BAB with 10 class levels)? How about an abjurant champion? Why should he be going first all the time?

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's really conceptually justified and the mechanics would be wonky. If you want to make magic slow as a means of addressing the martial/caster divide, a scaling "martial initiative bonus" (something like +1 per two class levels with no spellcasting) would be a better way to do it.

[Eloel]

I'm thinking, initiative should, too. The rationale being that more experienced fighters have learned to react to danger faster. This is best reflected by adding BAB. This also gives a bump to the full-BAB melee classes, who need all the help they can get as the game reaches rocket-tag levels.

What do others think? What am I, perhaps, missing?

Fighters have a better initiative than Rogues. Even with the +2/+3 Dexterity bonus difference there will be.

Does that sound like something that should happen?

A variant that was proposed was adding base Reflex save to Init. That is something I can get behind.

[eggynack]

I understand what you mean but I would rather invest in design and build a solid character. I don't get playing a glass cannon that could die if he doesn't go first on the first round.
You don't need to build a glass cannon in order for initiative to be very relevant. If you go first, then your opponent is necessarily taking his first action in a world influenced by your first action. That could mean that they're on the ground, tripped, or it could mean that they're in the middle of a solid fog, or it could mean that they're dead, because you don't need to be a glass cannon to die to big damage builds in one turn. This tends to mean that that first action will be diminished in value, or even that it will necessarily be defensively oriented, to get out of the hole created by the person who went first. If you go second, then of course the exact opposite happens, and your action becomes the one diminished in value. Overall, you can't defend against everything unless you're cheesing like crazy, because the game is oriented around offense primarily, so being on defense tends to be a negative.

[Roderick_BR]

As it was pointed out, in 4e, you add half your class level to a lot of tests. Maybe add half class level as a bonus? It just means you're more likely to move first than lower level challenges.
Armor class gets the same problem, when a full armored 1st level fighter has more AC than a 20th level fighter unarmored.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The last problem would be monsters. One poster suggested that only BAB from class levels count in order to avoid the dragon always smacking you first with its +23. That's a legitimate concern. A lot of monsters are effectively spellcasters and handing a balor or dragon a massive initiative boost that means it always beats the party's casters in initiative would be game-changing and not in a good way. But adding only BAB from class levels would be problematic too. In that scenario, the martials win initiative against every monster every time starting around level 6. And that old dragon with the +23 BAB we don't want to add into initiative? He loses to the entire party every time because even the wizard gets a +10 boost relative to him.


I don't really see a problem with high HD monsters winning initiative. Something like that tends towards being a single enemy encounter, maybe with a few mooks as cannon fodder, so they're already at a massive disadvantage action-wise when compared to the default 4 man party. The disparity only gets greater with bigger parties, familiars, animal companions, summons and cohorts.

Giving the big enemies a high chance to go first lessens that problem at least somewhat, and it adds to the danger a dragon or similar monster poses. They're supposed to be terrifying enemies after all.

[Troacctid]

The problem with 4th edition's method, of course, was that it was kind of a treadmill. Your AC and saves and initiative and attack would go up based on your level, and your enemies' stats would increase at roughly the same rate, so you might as well have not improved at all. In theory, you'd match up better against weaker enemies and worse against stronger ones, but in practice, since the vast majority of encounters are level-appropriate, you would just break even, or even fall behind.

5th edition responded to this issue by saying "To heck with the scaling" and introduced its bounded accuracy paradigm instead. The jury is still out on that, I suppose.

[Stegyre]

A variant that was proposed was adding base Reflex save to Init. That is something I can get behind.
That's an interesting idea. Perhaps just use the Ref save, period, for initiative, as that already includes the Dex mod.

This grants scaling with level. It boosts the value of the Ref save (which seems typically viewed as the least important of the saves). It addresses the fighter-vs-rogue issue (although I, personally, am not so troubled by that). And it probably lessens the what-about-monsters issue (although again, I am not as troubled by that as others: I have no problem with a Balor or a Great Wyrm going first in combat: it's part of what should make these monsters the epicly-fearsome creatures they are).

[Necromancy]

Fighters have a better initiative than Rogues. Even with the +2/+3 Dexterity bonus difference there will be.

Does that sound like something that should happen?

A variant that was proposed was adding base Reflex save to Init. That is something I can get behind.

Fighter dex 14 and pumps str, rogue dex 19 and pumps dex

Level 1
Fighter 3
Rogue 4

Level 5
Fighter 7
Rogue 8

Level 10
Fighter 12
Rogue 12

Level 15
Fighter 17
Rogue 17

Level 20
Fighter 22
Rogue 22



If the rogue only has 6 more dex than a str fighter at higher levels, he already fails. Otherwise, when you add magic items it puts the rogue back on top

[Stegyre]

The problem with 4th edition's method, of course, was that it was kind of a treadmill. Your AC and saves and initiative and attack would go up based on your level, and your enemies' stats would increase at roughly the same rate, so you might as well have not improved at all. In theory, you'd match up better against weaker enemies and worse against stronger ones, but in practice, since the vast majority of encounters are level-appropriate, you would just break even, or even fall behind.
This is off-topic, but still an interesting subject, so I'm happy to branch out and discuss it.

I see this "treadmill" issue as being typical of any sort of leveling game. Without it, the challenge of the game quickly disappears.

IMX, it is not simply a treadmill, as while most challenges continue to be level-appropriate, the options for both sides increase. First-level parties battle groups of wolves, or goblins, or kobolds. Fifth-level parties don't just confront wolves, goblins, or kobolds with better BAB and HD; they may fight a couple of owl bears, a necromancer protected by zombies, and they are able to do more than just hit things with pointy sticks.

So, I guess my comment would be, (a) it is not really just a treadmill, and (b) what would you propose instead?

[ZamielVanWeber]

I don't really see a problem with high HD monsters winning initiative. Something like that tends towards being a single enemy encounter, maybe with a few mooks as cannon fodder, so they're already at a massive disadvantage action-wise when compared to the default 4 man party. The disparity only gets greater with bigger parties, familiars, animal companions, summons and cohorts.

The problem becomes that some of these high CR monsters can easily debilitate/kill a person in the first round if they go first.

[Stegyre]

The problem becomes that some of these high CR monsters can easily debilitate/kill a person in the first round if they go first.
I think that for those of us not troubled by this issue, the response is, "Yes, that is exactly what these sort of monsters should be able to do. It's why they should scare the bejeebers out of someone, even a high-level someone."

I personally have never played in a high-level game, so I lack actual experience in it, but judging by discussion on these boards, it seems the more frequent complaint is that high-CR beasties are not the threat they are made out to be. A change to make them more threatening strikes me as "feature-not-bug."

But again, I do not have the actual play experience. I tend to live at E6 levels.

[Spiryt]

I assume you haven't played enough high level games. At ~9th and above going first sometimes makes a world of a difference.

On topic - yes, I have seen this houserule gain some popularity in some games. Myself I add BAB but only derived from class levels. Racial hit die don't count.

Just so that dragon doesn't smack you with its +23.

Sounds like better plan...

Would give poor full BaB classes some needed help.

Would probably swing the balance too much on the other side - not that it would be broken, but just silly when at 15lv warriors would pretty much go first all the time against supposedly 'quick' monsters too...

So perhaps 1/2 BaB would keep the numbers more neat?

[Powerdork]

If you want to make magic slow as a means of addressing the martial/caster divide, a scaling "martial initiative bonus" (something like +1 per two class levels with no spellcasting) would be a better way to do it.

While it's a nice idea in concept, poor paladins.

[Flickerdart]

In order to avoid rendering other initiative bonuses useless, I would recommend subtracting 1/2 level from the bonus. So instead of getting +10 by 20th just for showing up, poor BAB characters get nothing, medium BAB characters end up with +5, and full BAB characters get a nice +10. This also reduces the advantage that high-HD or high-class level enemies get against the PCs.

[Necromancy]

Yeah 1/2 bab seems less game breaking

And no I would not use reflex. There is no need make a dexterity double dip that favors rogues.

[Troacctid]

I think that for those of us not troubled by this issue, the response is, "Yes, that is exactly what these sort of monsters should be able to do. It's why they should scare the bejeebers out of someone, even a high-level someone."

I personally have never played in a high-level game, so I lack actual experience in it, but judging by discussion on these boards, it seems the more frequent complaint is that high-CR beasties are not the threat they are made out to be. A change to make them more threatening strikes me as "feature-not-bug."

But again, I do not have the actual play experience. I tend to live at E6 levels.

In my experience, fights that are won or lost based on the initiative roll do not make for compelling gameplay. It's better to have fights that last multiple rounds and allow players to gain an advantage through tactical thinking.

Winning initiative should be a big deal, because it's essentially giving you a whole extra turn, but it shouldn't singlehandedly decide the fight, since that undermines player agency. Getting zapped into negative HP by ten shock lizards before you take your first turn is not fun. What were you supposed to do to counter that?

Of course that's not a problem with initiative per se, but if high-level monsters always win initiative, then not only do you have no counterplay on the tactical level, you also have no counterplay on the strategic level, which just makes it worse, doesn't it?

[Necromancy]

In order to avoid rendering other initiative bonuses useless, I would recommend subtracting 1/2 level from the bonus. So instead of getting +10 by 20th just for showing up, poor BAB characters get nothing, medium BAB characters end up with +5, and full BAB characters get a nice +10. This also reduces the advantage that high-HD or high-class level enemies get against the PCs.

I would advise against house rules that play favorites.

Also K.I.S.S.

[Flickerdart]

I would advise against house rules that play favorites.

Also K.I.S.S.
In what way does this play favourites? Instead of saying "everyone gets X bonus" I'm saying "everyone gets Y bonus where Y is uniformly smaller than X." There is no difference between "fighter gets +20 and wizard gets +10" and "fighter gets +10 and wizard gets +0" except that in the latter case, Improved Initiative isn't worthless.

As for keeping it simple, have you seen this system?

[Killer Angel]

I understand what you mean but I would rather invest in design and build a solid character. I don't get playing a glass cannon that could die if he doesn't go first on the first round.

But the glass cannon can be your enemy, and you don't want to be flat footed when he goes nova

[GilesTheCleric]

I think that for those of us not troubled by this issue, the response is, "Yes, that is exactly what these sort of monsters should be able to do. It's why they should scare the bejeebers out of someone, even a high-level someone."

I personally have never played in a high-level game, so I lack actual experience in it, but judging by discussion on these boards, it seems the more frequent complaint is that high-CR beasties are not the threat they are made out to be. A change to make them more threatening strikes me as "feature-not-bug."

But again, I do not have the actual play experience. I tend to live at E6 levels.

In my experience, how difficult the game is at higher levels is based strictly on optimization and decision-making skills. My cleric made it to 17 and one-shot the Hecatoncheires in the final session (The Leviathan was the session before that; again, the party relied on my cleric for victory); our PF alchemist died a few sessions before the last one, and hadn't been doing a whole lot for quite a while (against non-epic encounters, mind you). My cohort rogue at level 14 had been doing better than most of the party as well, again because it was better optimized and played than the rest of the characters at the table. I base the success of my characters on my decisions to rely on my party for most things (letting them take the first actions and seem threatening), but I also made choices to make their lives easier (tanked the most difficult foe in each fight, and removed foes when fights would be overwhelming).

In terms of init, I had a something of like -8 int at level 17; but that doesn't matter when you're scrying and get the surprise round anyway. It does mean you don't get two rounds in a row, but if you've already scryed your foe, two rounds is sometimes more than is necessary. There's always contingent/time stop if you really need more time at the beginning of a fight (never bothered). For characters that can't benefit from scrying or always acting in the surprise round, like the aforementioned alchemist, yes, acting first reduces the number of foes that can try to dismember them, which means that they're less likely to die.

[Necromancy]

I already view improved initiative as worthless. Just use this and phase the feat out.

[Troacctid]

What about rolling 3d6 or 2d10 instead of 1d20 for initiative? It wouldn't make initiative values change as you level up, but it would make initiative boosts more attractive by improving their consistency. One of the problems with initiative is that it's almost always swung by the die roll rather than the combatants' respective modifiers; reducing the spread of the dice results could make smaller mods relevant.

[Hypername]

We roll d12 for initiative in our games. However initiative is a check that measures your ability to react quickly during combat, something like a combat reflex check. Your reflexes become better as your Dex increases. I don't see why you should get a bonus to Init as you level up.

[Eloel]

We roll d12 for initiative in our games. However initiative is a check that measures your ability to react quickly during combat, something like a combat reflex check. Your reflexes become better as your Dex increases. I don't see why you should get a bonus to Init as you level up.

You get a bonus to Reflex saves as you level up. Your reflexes quite literally get better as you level.

[Hypername]

You get a bonus to Reflex saves as you level up. Your reflexes quite literally get better as you level.
Your general reflexes, not your ability to assert situations and add quickly. If I had to make a change to the way Init works it would be to add either Int or Wis to it in addition to Dex.

[atemu1234]

I don't think numbers are a problem, mostly because skills would use 1d20 +batcrap ridiculous, sometimes. Initiative probably doesn't need to be different.

[sleepyphoenixx]

In my experience, fights that are won or lost based on the initiative roll do not make for compelling gameplay. It's better to have fights that last multiple rounds and allow players to gain an advantage through tactical thinking.

Winning initiative should be a big deal, because it's essentially giving you a whole extra turn, but it shouldn't singlehandedly decide the fight, since that undermines player agency. Getting zapped into negative HP by ten shock lizards before you take your first turn is not fun. What were you supposed to do to counter that?

Of course that's not a problem with initiative per se, but if high-level monsters always win initiative, then not only do you have no counterplay on the tactical level, you also have no counterplay on the strategic level, which just makes it worse, doesn't it?

High level monsters wouldn't always win even with this change. Any PC can get a +10 or more to initiative just by getting a few relatively cheap items. Every high level PC can afford those.
Monsters don't get PC wealth. A lot of them don't get any items at all.

Even a CR 20 dragon has a +0 to initiative, with a lot of supposedly really dangerous enemies being similar. In actual gameplay that means that not only will the players get 4 actions to every one of the dragons (or more, depending on party size), they'll usually all get an action before the dragon even gets to act - which is often enough to end the fight outright or at least cripple the dragon so much that it may as well already be dead.

Now you can get around that (to an extent) by optimizing your monsters and not using single enemy encounters. But i think it takes something away from the game when a monster that supposedly has high-level adventurers shaking in their boots turns out a slowpoke that doesn't get to do anything worthwhile in a fight.

[Stegyre]

Fun stuff. I think I'll work my way bottom-up:

Initiative is a check that measures your ability to react quickly during combat, something like a combat reflex check. Your reflexes become better as your Dex increases. I don't see why you should get a bonus to Init as you level up.
By that line of reasoning, why should BAB, saves, and HP increase as you level up? One could say that HP only get better as your Con increases; accuracy only gets better as (Str or Dex) increases; and so forth. Those are defensible game-design decisions.

In 3.5, however, some things (init) are treated as only increasing when the underlying attribute increases, while a lot of others are treated as improving as part of level-up. (One might say that a 20th level character's Dex 14 is, actually, higher than a 1st level character's Dex 14.)

The choice to scale some things and not others looks arbitrary to me. Yes, one can hypothesize a rationale like you have, but that rationale is non-unique (as I tried to illustrate with my comments).


What about rolling 3d6 or 2d10 instead of 1d20 for initiative?
I'm actually a big fan of the 3d6, for the reasons you identify, among others. FWIW, modifiers on a 3d6 are worth pretty much twice what they are on a 1d20. (Sorry, I haven't done calculations for 2d10.) Certainly, this change, while leaving modifiers the same, would make the modifiers much more important.


In my experience, how difficult the game is at higher levels is based strictly on optimization and decision-making skills.
This strikes me as off-topic in an un-interesting way. (No offense intended.) Relative optimization is important for how one PC performs relative to another against their challenges, but I don't see it as that useful of a consideration on a game-design question, which is really what any sort of houserule is.


As for keeping it simple, have you seen this system?
While that makes me laugh, I think the point still stands. One might even say that, the more complicated the system, the simpler one should strive to make its individual parts.

I do not think your suggestion is a bad one, but I think it is more complicated. The question, to my mind, then becomes, "Does the degree of improvement over simpler proposals justify the added complexity?"


In my experience, fights that are won or lost based on the initiative roll do not make for compelling gameplay. It's better to have fights that last multiple rounds and allow players to gain an advantage through tactical thinking.
(I'm reading this, particularly, in response to my comment about monsters that should scare the bejeebers out of us.)

I agree with that sentiment. To clarify my own comment (and understanding), the risk of the Balor or Great Wyrm going first is that they have a very good chance of killing someone, not of killing everyone. If the monster can one-shot the entire party, then I think either (a) this is not a level-appropriate encounter, or (b) (if this was intentional) the game design is deeply flawed.

At high levels, where death is a revolving door (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0487.html), the temporary loss of a party member can be an interesting part of the challenge, as OotS alluded to (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0610.html).

[Elder_Basilisk]

What about rolling 3d6 or 2d10 instead of 1d20 for initiative? It wouldn't make initiative values change as you level up, but it would make initiative boosts more attractive by improving their consistency. One of the problems with initiative is that it's almost always swung by the die roll rather than the combatants' respective modifiers; reducing the spread of the dice results could make smaller mods relevant.

The suggestion would generally improve the effectiveness of numerical initiative boosts, but stating that the initiative is almost always swung by the die roll and that bonusses are therefore irrelevant is simply inaccurate.

A simple +4 bonus to initiative vis a vis an opponent translates into a roughly 66-70% chance of acting before that opponent if all other things are equal. That's not irrelevant. Now, there are a few things that might make it appear to be irrelevant.
1. If the bonus is small--a +1 or +2 advantage in init bonus doesn't translate into a significantly greater chance of going first. Then again, that's how it should be. A small advantage should have a small effect.
2. If each enemy rolls separate initiative, you are unlikely to act before all of your enemies--especially not every time. Again, that seems like how it should be. Having one feat and a high dex shouldn't mean that you always go before everyone else. If you usually go before 60-70% of the enemy, that's not bad.
3. If all of the enemies regularly use a small number of initiative rolls, you will still go before them in proportion to your advantage, but you will frequently see situations where despite having a big initiative advantage, all the enemies go before you. That is a problem with putting all the bad guys on one initiative and with small sample sizes, but can easily be changed by not putting all the bad guys on one initiative count. The pass/fail aspect of running all bad guys together and the small sample size allowing individual cases to deviate further from the expected median aspects will continue to generate the same results if you use a less variable rolling system. Only the latter will become somewhat less pronounced since there will be less variability.

Initiative boosts do make a significant difference.

[icefractal]

I think what I'd do is that you either get +1/2 BAB, or +base Reflex, whichever is higher.
Monsters get +1/4 CR to +1/2 CR, depending if they're a 'fast' type or not.

So, before stat bonuses, at 20th level:
Fighter +10, Rogue +12, Cleric +7, Wizard +6, Monster +5 to +10

[JohnDaBarr]

How about just using the Reflex save as Initiative? No adding things up, builds that use high dexterity don't duple up and it progresses as you level up.

[Stegyre]

How about just using the Reflex save as Initiative? No adding things up, builds that use high dexterity don't duple up and it progresses as you level up.
Yes, that observation was made up-thread, and it's not a bad one. (imo)

[StreamOfTheSky]

Why on earth are full plate clad fighters and DMM Persist Divine Might clerics...also in full plate... better at going first than ROGUES and MONKS?

Of course the wizard (with a Skillful weapon to get up to medium BAB if you use this houserule) or Dire Tortoise-shaped Druid is the winner of initiative still. But why do you want to make the supposedly quick classes even further down the totem pole?

[Suzuha]

Why on earth are full plate clad fighters and DMM Persist Divine Might clerics...also in full plate... better at going first than ROGUES and MONKS?

I'm not COMPLETELY behind the idea (though I've found this thread important for my consideration on homebrew rules), but I'd like to play devil's advocate and chalk that up to them being "more impressive physical specimens".

Semi-unrelated: I am reminded of a third-party Pathfinder feat that can be found on the pfsrd. It's called Muscle Reaction (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/combat-feats/muscle-reaction-combat) and it adds one's strength bonus to their initiative.