To me, racial ability score bonuses have a high degree of imbalance, but a low degree of flavor. They’re the opposite of good design.
Completely disagree. A lazy goliath is stronger, or at worst as strong as, than the average human farmer. That is flavorful.
The reason it isn't particularly unbalanced is that +1 mod doesn't make that much of a
mechanical difference. A goliath warlock isn't actually any less effective than a tabaxi warlock, they're just different. But it makes the two peoples feel different to have those bonuses be different.
I feel that their flavour value is pretty high. Legolas is inhumanly agile, Chewbacca is inhumanly strong and Spock is inhumanly smart.
Exactly. And Spock was inhumanly intelligent when he was 10 years old. And would be even if his work put into his intellect was fairly middling and his focus in life was more on being a really good duelist. Now, I'd love it if we could, instead of atribute scores and bonuses to them and classes that are based on a given score, have something like what I will describe at the very end of this post, but in dnd we have what we have, and I'm not in support of completely rewriting the game, or even making a new edition.
So, I feel like you have been arguing both sides of this. On the one hand you say that a 14 or a 15 is just fine and isn’t really a handicap, and on the other you say that the difference between that and a 16 or 17 is vital to playing certain character concepts. Which is it?
Can't speak for them, but for me...both, or neither, depending on how you word it.
So, it's not the difference between 16 and 17 that matters. It's the fact that my gnome paladin is smarter than a paladin needs to be, and the actual fighting didn't come as naturally to him as it did to his elven mentor, and the magic didn't come as naturally to him as it did for his best friend the tiefling. Those subtle differences aren't there without a numberical difference that is technically relevant to success rate with certain types of tasks. My goliath town guard who is the big scary "Soup Dad" who takes care of street kids as best he can without having the funds to adopt them all wouldn't feel the same if the only thing telling me that he is just plain stronger than a human was powerful build. PB doesn't make him more successful (even in a negligible degree that only really matters because it was there when I was making the character and thus is part of the formative process of the character. more on that later) at tasks relating to being strong, it just makes him a better pack-horse. It feels more related to his size, than his muscle power. And feel is what matters. Almost exclusively.
Except it doesn’t accomplish what you are saying. All it accomplishes is that some races get to a 20 a few levels before other races. I’d have more sympathy for the argument if ASIs didn’t exist, but they do.
Most characters don't ever even max out any of their stats, or if they do, it's with the last ASI they ever get before the campaign ends. Because most games don't even reach level 12. So, for most of the time you're playing the character, the difference is there. Visible. Mattering on a level that doesn't especially care about the statistics of how much of a difference it actually makes.
An alternate way to make those ability score bonuses, or rather the concepts behind them, matter.
So, currently, every class needs a fairly specific set of ability scores to be at least 14 or so, in order for the class to function as intended. Some classes have more latitude than others, but at most that is a choice between a couple main scores.
What if, instead, every character had a primary stat, and there were rules within each class for how each score functions as the primary score for a character of that class?
That is, imagine the gnome fighter. Let's say, Rock Gnome, to just make sure that there is no synergy with strength or dex fighter, but also the concept is a sword and shield fighter in medium or heavy armor. Why shouldn't that Rock Gnome Fighter use Intelligence as their main stat, with the Fighter class function in a subtly different way for an Int primary Fighter than for a Strength primary Fighter? For the Figther, this would need to be a very simple difference, perhaps a bonus to critical hits, perhaps an extra skill, perhaps something else. A Charisma fighter might have the ability to apply their short rest abilities to an ally 1/day, as another example. I'm sure the flavor of these options is fairly obvious, but lets look at something less obvious.
A Goliath Wizard is going to be based on Strength, right? So how can Strength make you a better Wizard? How can Strength vs Intelligence make a Goliath and Gnome Wizard feel different?
The Goliath Wizard is understood to be more forceful, be more powerful in abjuration and evocation, perhaps? Perhaps they can push back on someone's magic when they pass a saving throw, potentially pushing the source of the effect or knocking them prone? Perhaps a Dexterous Wizard can move after passing a saving throw, as another example.
Simple features that make each stat feel different in the context of a class, and makes different people feel different in each class, without adding a ton of complexity. We're talking a half-page per class, maybe a full page at most for the more complex classes.
Now, you could also put these in the
races and say that "this is how this race works in each class" but I think that would be much more overwhelming in terms of apparent complexity, for someone reading through the options.
Side benefit; multiclassing works roughly the same for any combination, and is a matter of flavor rather than being restricted based on limited points to put in ability scores. Also, you get characters who just have the scores relevant to the concept.
