If you have two races. One gets a +1 to STR; the other doesn't. You could easily say that the first race has a STR penalty as much as you could say that the second has a bonus.
In previous editions of D&D an elf might get (for example) +2 DEX, -2 CON. That's essentially as compared to a human who gets no modifiers. Alternatively, you could say that the human gets +2 CON and -2 DEX, and the elf gets no modifiers. Just depends what you arbitrarily decide is your base-line.
So it's supposedly a truism that "players don't like racial ability penalties". I *think* that's true from various conversations I've had here at EN World, but that's anecdotal. Let's assume it is true, for the sake of argument.
I'd argue therefore that what the players don't like is having ability penalties being called penalties. They don't want to feel that their character is "bad" at something, just that they're "especially good" at other things. So a half-orc can be "strong" but an elf can't be "weak".
But let's take Next as an example. Humans get +1 to everything. That's your baseline. So EVERY race except humans has a whole bunch of ability penalties. Each gets a couple of abilities where they don't have a penalty (expressed as a +1 to make it the same as the baseline human), but the rest of the ability scores are at a penalty.
A hill dwarf has -1 DEX, -1 CON, -1 INT, -1 CHA. Hill dwarves are clumsy, sickly, stupid, and boorish compared to humans. But they at least have average STR and WIS.
It's not penalties that seem to be the problem. It's just calling them penalties that seems to be the problem. Simply moving the baseline and calling them a "lack of a bonus" - the exact same thing - seems to solve the issue.
What do you think? Personally - I think penalties are just fine. I like penalties and bonuses to be noticeable, so +/-2 to DEX and CON for an elf feels about right to me. Vary it a bit for subraces, of course.
In previous editions of D&D an elf might get (for example) +2 DEX, -2 CON. That's essentially as compared to a human who gets no modifiers. Alternatively, you could say that the human gets +2 CON and -2 DEX, and the elf gets no modifiers. Just depends what you arbitrarily decide is your base-line.
So it's supposedly a truism that "players don't like racial ability penalties". I *think* that's true from various conversations I've had here at EN World, but that's anecdotal. Let's assume it is true, for the sake of argument.
I'd argue therefore that what the players don't like is having ability penalties being called penalties. They don't want to feel that their character is "bad" at something, just that they're "especially good" at other things. So a half-orc can be "strong" but an elf can't be "weak".
But let's take Next as an example. Humans get +1 to everything. That's your baseline. So EVERY race except humans has a whole bunch of ability penalties. Each gets a couple of abilities where they don't have a penalty (expressed as a +1 to make it the same as the baseline human), but the rest of the ability scores are at a penalty.
A hill dwarf has -1 DEX, -1 CON, -1 INT, -1 CHA. Hill dwarves are clumsy, sickly, stupid, and boorish compared to humans. But they at least have average STR and WIS.
It's not penalties that seem to be the problem. It's just calling them penalties that seems to be the problem. Simply moving the baseline and calling them a "lack of a bonus" - the exact same thing - seems to solve the issue.
What do you think? Personally - I think penalties are just fine. I like penalties and bonuses to be noticeable, so +/-2 to DEX and CON for an elf feels about right to me. Vary it a bit for subraces, of course.
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