I think this is a projection of concerns you have, rather than real thing. I'm sure there's a bit of that in the mix, but you've made no clear case that it's the main thrust here.
Not here. But it definitely was a major argument in ASI threads around the release of Tasha's.
You seem to be resorting to a lot of "whataboutery", and the trouble is, you can't do that and also say "different editions are different" and so on.
Pick what? I am talking about 5e, mostly. I'm not some grognard that is in love with old editions of D&D, they were mostly incoherent rubbish.
You need to pick one. It's also not clear Vulcans are "smarter" than humans. They constantly, like absolutely constantly get outsmarted by humans. It's more like, Vulcans think they're smarter than humans, which isn't the same thing.
They absolutely are smarter in the sense D&D intelligence measures. i.e. memory and reasoning. They may not do so well in lateral thinking and creativity, but that's not what we're talking about.
Re: gnomes, yeah, I agree, it's the negative stuff and limits that tend to the problem with mental stats. Especially when combined with races which D&D has a history of combining with unfortunate racial stereotypes. But not just those - really generally having a lot of fixed mental stat mods doesn't feel great.
I fully agree that this is an area where one should be particularly careful. But as gnomes show, it is not impossible to do in non-offensive way.
Okay, but it's literally you who is conflating them, and then claiming others are - that's projection. You haven't made any clear case that others are "conflating" them. You'd need to actually argue that specifically and explain the mechanisms, rather than making the assumption it's "obvious".
Complaints about 'biological essentialism' were a a huge thing in the threads around Tashas'. I am definitely not making this up. But I am also not particularly interested in relitigating that, and if you don't think that it is a sensible angle, then great!
As for "outside this matter", no, that's an irrational and illogical claim. D&D has been far more consistent on stats mattering to classes than to races having consistent stats or stats meaning consistent things. That's not likely to change any time soon. And in D&D, the main place you get stat modifiers from is race.
If that wasn't the case, if race was just one of many stat modifiers, I don't think the discussion would be as centered on it, though I do think we'd see a lot of the same changes to verbiage and probably a move away from physical mental stat mods at the least.
You got max +2 from race, so one point of modifier. With point buy you get a stat from eight to 15, that's going from -1 to +2 modifier, so four points of modifiers. So that that's main source of modifiers, not the race. And where those points go is basically dictated by the class, especially for the main stat.
What does it say on the tin?
Don't you have a PHB?
Every edition has different things written on the tin. And why not complain about 3E, which is where this issue originates?
Why I don't complain about ancient and irrelevant edition I don't play and never intend to? That certainly is a mystery!
This is a funny argument, because virtually every RPG with this kind of stats is susceptible to it, and certainly every edition of D&D is. Wisdom is easily the worst stat in D&D by this standard, because it's pretty much never measured Wisdom.
The rules tell you what it measures.
Sacred cows is why. That's really the only major reason.
Sure. Buti if mechanic cannot be deleted, then it should actually function sensibly. So if ability scores are to remain, they should actually mean something.
We could! The main reason D&D doesn't is because D&D likes balance. Allowing the ASI flexibility doesn't significantly impact balance. In fact, it impacts balance LESS than fixed ASIs, because you can actually more easily predict the stat values of characters of a specific class. So I think that's a pretty clear answer, and you probably need to accept that.
So you think splats like races and classes only exist for balance reason? I don't buy that. They're thematic archetypes with rules that support those themes. And that's how it should be.
That idea was abandoned in, at latest, 3E. You're basically pulling a dead horse through the streets at this point. And I would argue with some stats, it's never meant anything concrete (esp. Wisdom again).
My 5e PHB relatively clearly tells what the ability scores measure. Seems coherent enough.
www.enworld.org
