Better alternative than stat-less races

[Melil12]

I don't follow the UA. But a quick skimming of UA Expert-Classes (I presume you're referring to that?) still says things like primairy ability: dexterity.

What about the rangers & rogues that aren't dexterious? The friendly woodcutter (a strenght axe-wielding ranger), or the muscle bound mafia enforcer (a strength rogue).

Honest question - as, again, I haven't played it - how much does it affect these new UA classes use if

• you happen to play a character where that primairy stat is dumped?
• Or where you go for a more even spread of abilities instead of maximizing one? (realistically. in 5E +2 CON also gives a wizard hit points and concentration - but +2 INT is significatlly better)

Forgive me, I wasnÂ’t following this thread the past few days.

I think your misunderstanding what I was saying. I was not saying that all of a sudden stupid wizards become viable. That is a whole separate discussion.

We were specifically talking about if someone wanted their PC to represent their depiction of a racial stat.

What I was arguing against was the idea that because someone feels all elves should have above average Dex scores shouldnÂ’t effect how I choose to build my PC.

[Jervis]

Personally I do think fantasy species should have their own up and down sides, flaws are more interesting to RP than powers after all and a person playing a mermaid probably shouldn’t expect to have 30 move speed on land unmodified. I don’t think stats are the way to do it though. Statistically averages in a demographic don’t need to apply to individuals, and if you really want to model it from a simulationist point of view then letting orcs Reroll d6s that land on a 2 or lower when determining strength works better. Also doesn’t have the feel bad of knowing that your human fighter will never be equal to a Orc fighter that started on the same place. As an aside thought I really think skills and attributes should be background dependent

[RedWarlock]

Racial stat tendencies are for NPCs. If you want to establish that the average vanilla elf in your world has a higher dex than the average vanilla dwarf, that's totally fine, go ahead and do that. PCs however are not average or vanilla and never have been.

If I'm committing mechanical energy, and story elements, into having a strong/agile/tough character from a race renowned for their physical capabilities, and I go all in on being the paragon of that concept, and someone else brings a character from a race/culture of small, frail, weak creatures, with an entirely different set of cultural values (like knowledge, magic, and community), who just as easily matches every high functional bonus (saves, scores, attack bonuses) I've invested into, I'm going to feel a bit shortchanged.

Barely related: You know my favorite character to build/replicate? Late 3e, a half-ogre warlock. I loved that stat spread, because I could still make it work, in a wide variety of areas (especially if I could convince the DM to use the SS Half-Ogre's +1 LA, not the later +2). The other racial features were Large size, natural armor, and Giant type, and that was about it, but I could work with that. I played him as a gish, Hideous Blow was an early favorite invocation (still miffed we don't have a general counterpart ability for 5e). And I made it work even with a -2 Cha.

[Psyren]

If I'm committing mechanical energy, and story elements, into having a strong/agile/tough character from a race renowned for their physical capabilities, and I go all in on being the paragon of that concept, and someone else brings a character from a race/culture of small, frail, weak creatures, with an entirely different set of cultural values (like knowledge, magic, and community), who just as easily matches every high functional bonus (saves, scores, attack bonuses) I've invested into, I'm going to feel a bit shortchanged.

Barely related: You know my favorite character to build/replicate? Late 3e, a half-ogre warlock. I loved that stat spread, because I could still make it work, in a wide variety of areas (especially if I could convince the DM to use the SS Half-Ogre's +1 LA, not the later +2). The other racial features were Large size, natural armor, and Giant type, and that was about it, but I could work with that. I played him as a gish, Hideous Blow was an early favorite invocation (still miffed we don't have a general counterpart ability for 5e). And I made it work even with a -2 Cha.

Nothing is stopping you from doing that. Declare that half-ogres in your world/at your table have -2 Cha and make bad warlocks, so that your mighty snowflake specimen can rise above his biological shortcomings, or whatever other bohemian narrative apparently hinges on the mechanic in question. But that has no bearing on what WotC and Paizo choose to put in their books.

[RedWarlock]

Nothing is stopping you from doing that. Declare that half-ogres in your world/at your table have -2 Cha and make bad warlocks, so that your mighty snowflake specimen can rise above his biological shortcomings, or whatever other bohemian narrative apparently hinges on the mechanic in question. But that has no bearing on what WotC and Paizo choose to put in their books.

Aww, I said barely related for a reason. I was waxing whimsical on my favorite character who would not work in a system like 5e, or, indeed, in PF2e (or even 4e, as things stood), because the system isn't built to be capable of the kind of statistical variability in expectations that made his experience special. (I should've skipped that entirely, because you did exactly what I feared for posting it, you ignored the first paragraph as my argument, instead following my separate tangent. Please read the first block as my point to you, and not to the conversational thread as a whole.)

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I think the best alternative to stat-less races would be to make all classes MAD. Make Con even more crucial. Add bonuses to all stats that don't depend on class.
Mostly, design classes like the Paladin. Want to make a Paly that focuses on Chr? Great! Want to make a Paly that focuses on the attack stat? Great! Want to go with Feats? Great! If all these things are in balance then more races are in play.
The Paladins we've had at our table have been the most diverse group both thematically and mechanically for this reason. That's good design.

[Psyren]

Aww, I said barely related for a reason. I was waxing whimsical on my favorite character who would not work in a system like 5e, or, indeed, in PF2e (or even 4e, as things stood), because the system isn't built to be capable of the kind of statistical variability in expectations that made his experience special. (I should've skipped that entirely, because you did exactly what I feared for posting it, you ignored the first paragraph as my argument, instead following my separate tangent. Please read the first block as my point to you, and not to the conversational thread as a whole.)

I did read your first paragraph, and I didn't address it here because it was already addressed on page 1:

You'll notice when people get all up on "certain lineages should just have higher stats than others!" it's always Strength they fall back on. I think this is due to a massive fundamental misunderstanding of the Strength stat, how it's used, and what it means.

People like to whine that a Gnome and a Goliath can both get a 20 in their Strength stat as though that makes them identical, when it absolutely does not. Goliaths, Firbolgs, Orcs, etc. all have Powerful Build. Almost anything you can think of that is a display of raw strength, lifting an iron gate, pushing a boulder aside, carrying the unconscious bodies of all of your allies back to town, are affected by this ability, and they are much better at it than lineages without. On the other hand, Small creatures have reduced capacity in these exact same areas as well as an inability to use the biggest, most damaging weapons.

The STR stat is a measure of application, how good you are at applying your physical strength to achieve an end. Any martial artist will tell you breaking boards/rocks/whatever with a chop is far more about technique than raw muscle power, this is why a lot more of them are built like Jackie Chan than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the same goes for swinging swords effectively (I've seen a lot of good arguments that if we wanted realism, all weapon attacks should be made with Dexterity).

Having the same strength cap does not make "a race renowned for their physical capabilities" in any way identical to (or "easily match" as you said) "a race/culture of small, frail, weak creatures." There are, in fact, other ways to represent that divergence without enshrining it into basic character math via attributes. Just like there are other ways to make a race good at hiding, or good at magic, or good at noticing things etc. Attribute caps or deficiencies are the lazy way out. It's about time the designers realized that.

[Captain Cap]

A question for those advocating for races with fixed small bonuses/maluses (let's say in the range +2/-2 in general), no judgment, just curiosity: how do you feel about sexual dimorphism? Men are on average ~70% stronger than women, do you think it should be somewhat reflected in the game? Would you like to see something in the style of Morrowind/Oblivion, with race and sex both influencing the starting array?

[LudicSavant]

A question for those advocating for races with fixed small bonuses/maluses (let's say in the range +2/-2 in general), no judgment, just curiosity: how do you feel about sexual dimorphism? Men are on average ~70% stronger than women, do you think it should be somewhat reflected in the game?

I'm not one of those advocates, but I wanted to respond to this anyways.

So here's the thing about that. Let's say we want to be a female firefighter. What should we make their strength stat?

The answer is that the character will be strong enough to pass the same strenuous physical test that many men can't pass. They have to in order to get the firefighter job.

The "average woman" isn't relevant to how strong this particular woman is. It may mean that there are fewer female firefighters, but the ones that there are will be strong enough to carry you out of a burning building.

The same principle applies to pretty much anything. For instance, the NBA may have fewer asian players, but the players that are there are so tall that they are visible from space (and Yao Ming is among the tallest to ever play the game).

So how's that apply to games? Fewer orcs may be Wizards, but I'd still expect every orc Wizard I meet to be smart enough to pass the tests to graduate from Wizard school.

But that's not really how racial modifiers in 5e worked. They didn't make the orc Wizard *rare*, they made them *suck.* They didn't even have a different stat cap (20). They just penalized you for having the *same* stat.

In game design, we don't generally cost character features by how rare they are, but how powerful they are. In a superhero game for instance, you might have a very exceptional human and an average member of a powerful alien race on the same team, and they'd cost about the same number of character points (or levels or whatever other resources) to build.

So yeah. Old 5e racial modifiers sucked. They didn't actually let you play a half-orc stronger than any man; the half-orc barbarian and an elven one would both end up at 20 str anyways. It just made your character less qualified of being on the team that they're on if they didn't conform to a stereotype. Which, let us be very clear, may superficially seem intuitive but is not actually realistic, for reasons above.

[Anymage]

I'd be more okay with sexual dimorphism if there were enough other ways to add bonuses that the starting difference wound up being negligible, or if the system had enough ways to make other stats beyond your primary one relevant. 5e is by no means that game, with modifiers being deliberately limited and SADness being par for the course. (Mostly in the name of simplicity and playability, which are tradeoffs I largely approve of.) Which largely mimics my take on racial mods.

[Aimeryan]

Race-leaning averages never made sense to me for the PC - the PC is specifically not an average member of the species (or we wouldn't even have the ability to influence the stats in the first place). This would also be the case for sexual-dimorphism.

What makes more sense to me, barring magic butting in, is that the cap would be different. The Gnome average may be low on Strength. The PC is not the average. However, the PC is still restricted by the fact that they are a Gnome. So the Gnome average Str may be for example, 8. The PC Gnome may be Str 14, but they are capped there because they do not have the biology capable of raising it higher. Just like height is capped, just like Gnome do not have wings and thus cannot fly, no matter how hard they try.

We already have caps. The caps are already lower for humanoid species than monstrous species. A Giant can reach into the upper 20s for Str. Should we just cap everything at 20? Or are we in agreeance that Giants should be able to reach a higher Str cap? If so, why can't we accept that a Human could reach a higher Str cap than a Gnome?

Magic changes this. We have magic belts that specificially make you stronger than you could otherwise possibly be. Thats magic.

[LudicSavant]

Race-leaning averages never made sense to me for the PC - the PC is specifically not an average member of the species (or we wouldn't even have the ability to influence the stats in the first place). This would also be the case for sexual-dimorphism.

Yep. There's no reason we should be trying to represent the "raw demographic average orc" in PC-generation rules.

What makes more sense to me, barring magic butting in, is that the cap would be different. The Gnome average may be low on Strength. The PC is not the average. However, the PC is still restricted by the fact that they are a Gnome. So the Gnome average Str may be for example, 8. The PC Gnome may be Str 14, but they are capped there because they do not have the biology capable of raising it higher. Just like height is capped, just like Gnome do not have wings and thus cannot fly, no matter how hard they try.

We already have caps. The caps are already lower for humanoid species than monstrous species. A Giant can reach into the upper 20s for Str. Should we just cap everything at 20? Or are we in agreeance that Giants should be able to reach a higher Str cap? If so, why can't we accept that a Human could reach a higher Str cap than a Gnome?

Magic changes this. We have magic belts that specificially make you stronger than you could otherwise possibly be. Thats magic.

Differing stat *caps* is fine. But that of course isn't what 5e-style racial mods do.

[Blackdrop]

I wonder how effective it would be going back to exclusively rolling for stats and instead of adding flat bonuses, you instead vary the size of the dice pools. For example:

• An Average Stat for your race you roll 3d6
• An Above Average Stat for your race (Lightfoot Charisma, etc) you roll 4d6b3
• An Exceptional Stat for your race (Elven Dexterity, etc) you roll 5d6b3

I feel like that would fix the current "[X]s are always better than [Y]s at [Z], but not really" problem that crops up with the flat bonuses, by definitively switching it to "[X]s are usually better than [Y]s at [Z]." It also addresses that pesky "phantom -1 to your preferred stat" problem that crops up.

The only problem I see with it is it also would require switching to the "Play what you get, rather than what you want" character creation paradigm, but to be honest, as someone who really enjoys roguelikes and related games, the more I think about it the less I'm considering that problem.

[Psyren]

I'm not one of those advocates, but I wanted to respond to this anyways.

So here's the thing about that. Let's say we want to be a female firefighter. What should we make their strength stat?

The answer is that the character will be strong enough to pass the same strenuous physical test that many men can't pass. They have to in order to get the firefighter job.

The "average woman" isn't relevant to how strong this particular woman is. It may mean that there are fewer female firefighters, but the ones that there are will be strong enough to carry you out of a burning building.

The same principle applies to pretty much anything. For instance, the NBA may have fewer asian players, but the players that are there are so tall that they are visible from space (and Yao Ming is among the tallest to ever play the game).

So how's that apply to games? Fewer orcs may be Wizards, but I'd still expect every orc Wizard I meet to be smart enough to pass the tests to graduate from Wizard school.

But that's not really how racial modifiers in 5e worked. They didn't make the orc Wizard *rare*, they made them *suck.* They didn't even have a different stat cap (20). They just penalized you for having the *same* stat.

In game design, we don't generally cost character features by how rare they are, but how powerful they are. In a superhero game for instance, you might have a very exceptional human and an average member of a powerful alien race on the same team, and they'd cost about the same number of character points (or levels or whatever other resources) to build.

So yeah. Old 5e racial modifiers sucked. They didn't actually let you play a half-orc stronger than any man; the half-orc barbarian and an elven one would both end up at 20 str anyways. It just made your character less qualified of being on the team that they're on if they didn't conform to a stereotype. Which, let us be very clear, may superficially seem intuitive but is not actually realistic, for reasons above.

Yep. There's no reason we should be trying to represent the "raw demographic average orc" in PC-generation rules.

Exactly.

We already have caps. The caps are already lower for humanoid species than monstrous species. A Giant can reach into the upper 20s for Str. Should we just cap everything at 20? Or are we in agreeance that Giants should be able to reach a higher Str cap? If so, why can't we accept that a Human could reach a higher Str cap than a Gnome?

The gnome has a lower cap, it's just expressed in a more interesting way. They can't grapple a Large creature like the human can, nor can they wield a Heavy weapon effectively. It doesn't however mean that their jump distance is shorter, they're worse at climbing, they have a harder time resisting an Entangle or Gust of Wind etc.

[Captain Cap]

they're worse at climbing

Ironically enough, their small size should actually make them better at climbing, according to the square-cube law.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

If I'm committing mechanical energy, and story elements, into having a strong/agile/tough character from a race renowned for their physical capabilities, and I go all in on being the paragon of that concept, and someone else brings a character from a race/culture of small, frail, weak creatures, with an entirely different set of cultural values (like knowledge, magic, and community), who just as easily matches every high functional bonus (saves, scores, attack bonuses) I've invested into, I'm going to feel a bit shortchanged.

Alright, and the Goliath Fighter with 20 Strength has the ability to shrug off mortal blows and carries 600 pounds while being able to lift 1,200 pounds over their head or get moved out of the way. More than half a ton. Meanwhile the halfling who has worked their whole life to achieve the pinnacle of strength 20 can only carry 300 pounds and Lift 600. Meanwhile if you strike the halfling down they go down.

That feels a LOT more like significant differences due to being a race known for strength than the Goliath having an extra +1 over the Halfling for Tier 1 and Tier 2 before ultimately being the same anyway.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Alright, and the Goliath Fighter with 20 Strength has the ability to shrug off mortal blows and carries 600 pounds while being able to lift 1,200 pounds over their head or get moved out of the way. More than half a ton. Meanwhile the halfling who has worked their whole life to achieve the pinnacle of strength 20 can only carry 300 pounds and Lift 600. Meanwhile if you strike the halfling down they go down.

That feels a LOT more like significant differences due to being a race known for strength than the Goliath having an extra +1 over the Halfling for Tier 1 and Tier 2 before ultimately being the same anyway.

Two notes--

If it's so insignificant...why do people make such a big fuss that they can't play a halfling STR-based character because they don't get that starting bonus to STR? Can't have it both ways, either it's insignificant one way or another (and so doesn't need to change at all, since changing it annoys some people and helps no one) or it's significant enough to matter that it's there.

Also, Tier 1 and Tier 2 represent the absolute majority of playtime. Not just because most campaigns end by level 10 or so, but because the leveling process is stretched out more in T2 compared to T3 (T2 takes about as many full adventuring days as T3 + T4 combined at the normal pace).

Bonus--Yeah. Lifting strength is so significant...said just about no one ever. Otherwise the interminable "DEX is God Stat" arguments would note it more than, well, never.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

Two notes--

If it's so insignificant...why do people make such a big fuss that they can't play a halfling STR-based character because they don't get that starting bonus to STR? Can't have it both ways, either it's insignificant one way or another (and so doesn't need to change at all, since changing it annoys some people and helps no one) or it's significant enough to matter that it's there.

Also, Tier 1 and Tier 2 represent the absolute majority of playtime. Not just because most campaigns end by level 10 or so, but because the leveling process is stretched out more in T2 compared to T3 (T2 takes about as many full adventuring days as T3 + T4 combined at the normal pace).

Because I never said it was insignificant, I said it was less flavorful and gave less of a distinction than the other abilities.

People are unhappy because it essentially cheats a "non-optimized" player out of being able to take an interesting feat or do something fun instead of just "I increase my main stat."

At Level 1-8 a Fight will get 3 ASi/Feats Assuming Standard array and a desire to get to 20 Str someone with a 15 starting strength has to spend 2 ASI on pure Strength and the last on at best a half feat that gives Str. The 17 starting Strength Must spend 1 ASI and then can either get 1 half feats and one full feat. There's more variety and option to do something interesting.

And let's be clear. The 17 starting str only keeps that +1 edge from level 1-8, then everything's tied up. No one is going to epically remember how that Goliath is stronger than that halfling once you hit that point. If anything legends in that world will speak of the Halfling who was as strong as the Goliath, not that the Goliath was strong.

Heck, my table deliberately rolls stats and gives an option that if you want, after your 4th roll you can just declare the last 2 to be an 18 and 8. Forcing a low stat but guaranteeing a maxed one. Because the game's balance is around getting that primary stat to 20, but everyone at my table wants to be able to grab quirks and themes from feats to do interesting things instead of just forcing into the ASI.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Because I never said it was insignificant, I said it was less flavorful and gave less of a distinction than the other abilities.

People are unhappy because it essentially cheats a "non-optimized" player out of being able to take an interesting feat or do something fun instead of just "I increase my main stat."

At Level 1-8 a Fight will get 3 ASi/Feats Assuming Standard array and a desire to get to 20 Str someone with a 15 starting strength has to spend 2 ASI on pure Strength and the last on at best a half feat that gives Str. The 17 starting Strength Must spend 1 ASI and then can either get 1 half feats and one full feat. There's more variety and option to do something interesting.

And let's be clear. The 17 starting str only keeps that +1 edge from level 1-8, then everything's tied up. No one is going to epically remember how that Goliath is stronger than that halfling once you hit that point. If anything legends in that world will speak of the Halfling who was as strong as the Goliath, not that the Goliath was strong.

Heck, my table deliberately rolls stats and gives an option that if you want, after your 4th roll you can just declare the last 2 to be an 18 and 8. Forcing a low stat but guaranteeing a maxed one. Because the game's balance is around getting that primary stat to 20, but everyone at my table wants to be able to grab quirks and themes from feats to do interesting things instead of just forcing into the ASI.

Except the game's balance isn't around getting that primary stat to 20. The game wants (as has been shown many a many a time):

1. A +2 or better at level 1 and a non-zero, positive CON mod.
2. A +3 or better by level 6-8.
3. A +4 or better by about level 12.

That's it. You're totally fine by the system's standpoint with never getting a +5. So it's totally plausible with rolled stats that you could have a high enough stat from level 1.

So the tradeoff is
* Pick the "suitable" race (one with a + to your primary stat) and get another feat or the ability to broaden your horizons (shore up a weak stat) later.
* Pick a "less suitable" race for different abilities, getting your broadening up front and pay by "having" to use an ASI later.

Again, all of this mess only comes about because people think (wrongly) that not having a 20 by level 8 is some kind of horrible penalty. It isn't. Not at all. Unless, of course, your entire party is chasing "make the numbers big" in all aspects, including encounter design.

[Psyren]

Again, all of this mess only comes about because people think (wrongly) that not having a 20 by level 8 is some kind of horrible penalty. It isn't. Not at all. Unless, of course, your entire party is chasing "make the numbers big" in all aspects, including encounter design.

Not getting 20 primary by 8 should be the player's choice, or at most the table's. It shouldn't be an arbitrary system-wide barricade tied to a specific biology.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not getting 20 primary by 8 should be the player's choice, or at most the table's. It shouldn't be an arbitrary system-wide barricade tied to a specific biology.

That's, like, your opinion man. And you can do it just fine...you just have to roll for stats. Which is the default, not point buy. Or...(horrors) be a fighter who has enough ASIs to go from +2 to +5 by level 8. It's neither arbitrary, system-wide, nor is it tied to a specific biology.

And you could say "being able to breathe fire or fly should be the player's choice or at most the table's. It shouldn't be an arbitrary system-wide barricade tied to a specific biology" with just as much justification. ASIs are not special. They're not different. They're identical to any other feature.

Personally, I don't really care one way or another. I've gone a different direction with races entirely. What I do care about is the transparent double standard and explicit "power is the only thing that matters" and "any limits are bad limits" mentality on display here.

Classes, levels, races, backgrounds--these are supposed to provide limits. Channels. Yes, an orc should be a better barbarian than a wizard. Yes, a high elf should be a better wizard than barbarian. Is the ASI structure the best possible way to do this? Meh, probably not. But it's a darn cheap and effective way of doing it. And removing this doesn't actually do what people says it does--all it does is foster a "must make numbers be as big as possible" mentality which then, in its usual all-devouring fashion, reduces variation and choice by reducing things to "does it make the numbers go up."

[KyleG]

Slight aside but I'm happy to be directed to a different resource.
How much does everyone being 20 in main stat by 8 affect the difficulty the dm should be throwing at the table vs say the 18 or even everyone on 16 (players likely taking feats?
I mean let's go basic with fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric L4 and no ones on 18 primary start...does that affect the difficulty the dm should be throwing out there vs the party with 18 or (let's go crazy) 20 in primary stat?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Slight aside but I'm happy to be directed to a different resource.
How much does everyone being 20 in main stat by 8 affect the difficulty the dm should be throwing at the table vs say the 18 or even everyone on 16 (players likely taking feats?
I mean let's go basic with fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric L4 and no ones on 18 primary start...does that affect the difficulty the dm should be throwing out there vs the party with 18 or (let's go crazy) 20 in primary stat?

Not significantly, all by itself. I'd ballpark it as follows (all else being equal, including "medium-low optimization"):

* most/all under 18 in their main stat at level 8: use guidelines as stated, this is "normal state".
* Everyone capped in main stat at level 8: Consider treating the party as about 1 level higher than they are. Roughly.

But it's all fuzzy. Where it gets bad is when everyone's capped early without spending many ASIs to do so and grabbing "potent" combat feats and optimizing their builds.

[Psyren]

And you could say "being able to breathe fire or fly should be the player's choice or at most the table's. It shouldn't be an arbitrary system-wide barricade tied to a specific biology" with just as much justification. ASIs are not special. They're not different. They're identical to any other feature.

No, they're really not. No other feature is such a direct and comparable metric of two characters' mental and physical innate capabilities and potential. Attributes being so general/encompassing in application means that caps and deficiencies related to them are making sweeping statements about the adventurers from those species whether the designers intend to or not.

Personally, I don't really care one way or another. I've gone a different direction with races entirely. What I do care about is the transparent double standard and explicit "power is the only thing that matters" and "any limits are bad limits" mentality on display here.

Strawman. I'm not saying "any limits are bad limits." I'm saying attribute limits are bad limits, for adventurers. And both WotC and Paizo are in agreement on that.

[JackPhoenix]

I'm not one of those advocates, but I wanted to respond to this anyways.

So here's the thing about that. Let's say we want to be a female firefighter. What should we make their strength stat?

The answer is that the character will be strong enough to pass the same strenuous physical test that many men can't pass. They have to in order to get the firefighter job.

The "average woman" isn't relevant to how strong this particular woman is. It may mean that there are fewer female firefighters, but the ones that there are will be strong enough to carry you out of a burning building.

The same principle applies to pretty much anything. For instance, the NBA may have fewer asian players, but the players that are there are so tall that they are visible from space (and Yao Ming is among the tallest to ever play the game).

Every time this come up, it's the same argument, and every time, it's misinterpretating how statistics work, {Scrubbed}. Yes, a strong woman may be stronger than an average man. But a man who's got comparably lucky genetics, or who put the same effort to get stronger... i.e. a strong man... will be stronger than the strong woman.

It's not just averages, it's all across the bell curve.

So how's that apply to games? Fewer orcs may be Wizards, but I'd still expect every orc Wizard I meet to be smart enough to pass the tests to graduate from Wizard school.

Exactly the same way as it would apply to real life. Orc wizard has better intelligence than average orc or gnome by virtue of putting his highest ability score into Int, but that does not mean he's got the same intelligence as a gnome wizard who also put his highest ability score into Int AND got a racial bonus on top of that.

But that's not really how racial modifiers in 5e worked. They didn't make the orc Wizard *rare*, they made them *suck.* They didn't even have a different stat cap (20). They just penalized you for having the *same* stat.

Not really. They made orcs worse than someone with Int bonus... 5% of the time Int mod came up in a roll. Until he catches up thanks to ASI, anyway.. And in exchange, the orc got different abilities the player may or may not be interested in. Wow, that sucks too much.

So yeah. Old 5e racial modifiers sucked. They didn't actually let you play a half-orc stronger than any man; the half-orc barbarian and an elven one would both end up at 20 str anyways. It just made your character less qualified of being on the team that they're on if they didn't conform to a stereotype. Which, let us be very clear, may superficially seem intuitive but is not actually realistic, for reasons above.

So they are somehow "less qualified of being on the team" ({Scrubbed}), but as they can both reach the same bonus eventually, it doesn't matter? Which is it, then?

Now, I agree they could've done it better by having different ability score caps for different races, but that would created an actual inbalance (however slight) and the same people who complain about racial ability modifiers would complain all the louder.

[strangebloke]

Every time this come up, it's the same argument, and every time, it's misinterpretating how statistics work,{scrub the post, scrub the quote}. Yes, a strong woman may be stronger than an average man. But a man who's got comparably lucky genetics, or who put the same effort to get stronger... i.e. a strong man... will be stronger than the strong woman.

It's not just averages, it's all across the bell curve.

No, you're completely misconstruing the argument. The argument is not "at the highest percentile, everyone is equal."

The argument is that at character creation, you are not trying to represent a certain percentile of a certain population segment at all. You're representing a certain sort of person who has done certain sorts of things. You're saying "I am playing a strong warrior" and then picking things like height and gender and age (and yes, race) to suit your preferences. Jaime and Brienne are equally strong fighters. Brienne might be more of a statistical outlier than Jaime, and there might be men who are far stronger than Brienne on the high end, but words like "statistical outlier" have no place in character creation. Jaime and Brienne probably have similar numbers of class levels, and similar overall stats.

If someone wants to play a strong woman, why shouldn't they be allowed to? Because its less statistically probable? What kind of an argument is that? By that logic everyone should roll for race and stats and class on a table that heavily favors "human fighter" as a result. Elves should just get 3 levels for free because of how much more time they have to learn "on average." Picking your height to be on the low end of the curve should have significant stat penalties/bonuses. Picking your age to be higher or lower should also have lots of penalties and bonuses.

But no, we don't do that. If someone wants to play a ripped old man who's 5', they should be able to. People should be able to play freaks! Something like a fallen Aasimar is extremely rare per the lore, but you can play one. The only reason there are capped stats at character creation is for balance/progression reasons. It's not there to simulate a certain percentile of person.

If you want to play a woman and have her be weaker than the average male adventurer go ahead. There's nothing stopping you, in the same vein that people sometimes make wizened old men with 8 CON.

[Witty Username]

So, I was thinking about this and found some interesting numbers, let's compare possible rolled stat ranges for races:
Human
Str 3-20
Dex 3-20
Con 3-20
Int 3-20
Wis 3-20
Cha 3-20

High Elf
Str 3-18
Dex 5-20
Con 3-18
Int 4-19
Wis 3-18
Cha 3-18

Orc
Str 5-20
Dex 3-18
Con 4-19
Int 1-16
Wis 3-18
Cha 3-18

So looking at this sampling of ranges of Race stats, we notice something, human excels in every direction (due to the possibility of a half-feat) while High elf is actually inferior to human as a Int interms of trends. What is also telling is most options are within the ranges of human (orc has a rare int penalty, not reflected in any other race).

This indicates 2 things, races don't trend towards, so much as push away, for no gains, and trend towards a lack of diversity.

An Orc is not stronger than a humanon average. An Orc is weaker, slower, and dumber than a human, on average.

[LudicSavant]

No, you're completely misconstruing the argument. The argument is not "at the highest percentile, everyone is equal."

The argument is that at character creation, you are not trying to represent a certain percentile of a certain population segment at all. You're representing a certain sort of person who has done certain sorts of things. You're saying "I am playing a strong warrior" and then picking things like height and gender and age (and yes, race) to suit your preferences. Jaime and Brienne are equally strong fighters. Brienne might be more of a statistical outlier than Jaime, and there might be men who are far stronger than Brienne on the high end, but words like "statistical outlier" have no place in character creation. Jaime and Brienne probably have similar numbers of class levels, and similar overall stats.

If someone wants to play a strong woman, why shouldn't they be allowed to? Because its less statistically probable? What kind of an argument is that? By that logic everyone should roll for race and stats and class on a table that heavily favors "human fighter" as a result. Elves should just get 3 levels for free because of how much more time they have to learn "on average." Picking your height to be on the low end of the curve should have significant stat penalties/bonuses. Picking your age to be higher or lower should also have lots of penalties and bonuses.

But no, we don't do that. If someone wants to play a ripped old man who's 5', they should be able to. People should be able to play freaks! Something like a fallen Aasimar is extremely rare per the lore, but you can play one. The only reason there are capped stats at character creation is for balance/progression reasons. It's not there to simulate a certain percentile of person.

If you want to play a woman and have her be weaker than the average male adventurer go ahead. There's nothing stopping you, in the same vein that people sometimes make wizened old men with 8 CON.

This, exactly. The Brienne, Jaime, and Fallen Aasimar examples are right on point.

[RedWarlock]

Oh, I think the ability cap is part of the problem, personally.

As I keep trying to type this paragraph, I keep getting neck-deep in how my own houserules would do it better, I'm in too deep on my own fantasy heartbreaker system.

I'll spare you all, and simply say that the stat system, between the racial modifier system (and its permutations), innate growth, and the stat-boosting gear, has been a factor in my disappointment in 5e, with every change ongoing ruffling my feathers worse and worse.

Spoiler: As an aside to that..

Show

A big portion of that discomfort is because one of my major points of enjoyment in 3e was playing that stats game. Like my half-ogre warlock, I enjoyed making characters to extreme levels of stats, and seeing to what cost that would be elsewhere. Lycanthrope templates, monster classes, level adjustment systems.. I remember in college, having my character die while we were doing a camping trip to wrap up the campaign before the DM's graduation, and so I made, in a tearing rush because I'd brought all my best books in a milk crate, an epic level replacement, a feral centaur barbarian frenzied berserker, and seeing what else came of it. Large and tiny characters have such interesting potential in the playspace, as do flying and merfolk and so on, if you give yourself room to explore it in mechanics and playstyle expectations.

And then 4e comes along, and it has the potential to explore those kinds of spaces, and I think was primed to, in what it inherited from 3e and the DDM-trained generation of players. (My group was founded and maintained through its connection to comic shop organized play.) And it drops the ball, locking the modifiers very low, and failing to explore wider options in playable creatures outside the humanoid norm.

Then, 5e comes along, and in the course of its run, we've gone from a very flattened curve in overall growth (and no wonder games don't last, when the upper levels just get boring) to the point where even the idea that biological and biomechanical differences can have effect on core capabilities becomes offensive to someone enough that the game must be changed to strip out those possibilities.

So, yeah, when I see the very thing that most engaged me as a gaming youth (amputee disabled, highly intelligent, neurodivergent, and built like a linebacker), chipped away at, piece by piece, and even demonized, cast off as sacrilege, it pushes me away from the game. And I'm a big fan of the game, the community it has fostered has been my major support network in my life.

[qube]

PCs however are not average or vanilla and never have been.

I 100% agree with you.

I've been playing D&D now over 20 years, and PCs were never average. ... yet they did have racial modifiers (unless I played human. not all editions had humans with racial modifiers ... but like other PCs they were also not average)

Clearly the proof is in the eating of the pudding: racial modifiers have nothing to do with PCs being average.

I think your misunderstanding what I was saying. I was not saying that all of a sudden stupid wizards become viable. That is a whole separate discussion.

to quote post 1

Imagine you want to make Auroth, a brutal Orc Sorcerer.
Orcs don't get the sorcerer casting stat? too bad for you.

high elf fighter, orc fighter, gnome fighter ... STR20 the lot of them

What I was arguing against was the idea that because someone feels all elves should have above average Dex scores shouldnÂ’t effect how I choose to build my PC.

So, what you're saying is that because someone feels all wizards elves should have above average Int Dex scores shouldnÂ’t effect how I choose to build my PC.

'casue that's the entire point.
If you want to get away from (in a nutshell) "only high elves have int + wizards need int ---> only high elves make good wizards" the most natural way to do this is to point out other races / people will have invented their ways become wizards.

You know my favorite character to build/replicate? Late 3e, a half-ogre warlock. ... And I made it work even with a -2 Cha.

Another great character concept!

I recall reading my old MtG Kamigawa books, where the oni (the ogres) spellcasters made deals with demons. No charisma, wisdom or even intelligence - they provided "blood for the blood gods".

The fact you were able to make it work, is great ... But I'd like everyone to be able to play such a character.
And as such, you could make such a character using the proposed system (You could play a high STR/CON ogre ((if there's an ogre race)) - yet max out mystecism).

A question for those advocating for races with fixed small bonuses/maluses (let's say in the range +2/-2 in general), no judgment, just curiosity: how do you feel about sexual dimorphism?

As someone who, IRL, does HEMA & reenactment, I can tell you that two of the most dangerous fighters of our club are women. Oh, yeah, sure, I could overpower them in grappling no problem, but they both are darn quick and precise (and this isn't epee fencing. We're talking longswords and/or spears)

So, I have no problem with it - if it doesn't impact that most important parts of the game.

Horic, the male orc fighter: Str 16 (+3) Weapon 16(+3) : attack +5 damage +1d8+3
Ellisandra, the female elvish fighter: Str 8 (-1) Weapon 16(+3) : attack +5 damage +1d8+3