D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Chaosmancer]

Well, as I said, I feel D&D has way too many races, or at least too many for one setting. If you use them as toolbox and just choose some to populate your setting then that's fine. But there still is a massive difference between there being several species that are good at the same thing and everyone being equally good at the thing. I don't even understand how this can be weird to you. Gorillas, bears and lions are all stronger than humans. That's pretty different situation to all animals being equally strong!

Sure, but just because bears, lions and gorillas are strong doesn't mean I'm going to say that horses, Reindeer and dolphins can't be strong, they have to be fast. They can be strong too.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but just because bears, lions and gorillas are strong doesn't mean I'm going to say that horses, Reindeer and dolphins can't be strong, they have to be fast. They can be strong too.

Literally nobody has argued otherwise.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Based on the conversations in this thread, I think it's obvious that some of us only care about the pc goliaths, but some of us very much do care about the rest of the population and how it is represented by the rules in game.

Can you tell me why? Because honestly, I have entire worlds full of PCs who I have never once written a stat for, so I don't see why those stats being floating and me being able to write them wherever I want changes that.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you tell me why? Because honestly, I have entire worlds full of PCs who I have never once written a stat for, so I don't see why those stats being floating and me being able to write them wherever I want changes that.

It doesn't matter whether you have stats for them. In a game where elven stats aren't human stats, those elves for which you don't have stats for are still on average more dexterous than humans.

 

[Yaarel]

I'm going with 5e right now. Yes, some elven subtypes were stronger. I know that. Those were still racial bonuses, though.

That is why I mentioned the grugach elf.

The 5e Players Handbook wood elf description explicitly mentions that it is the 1e grugach elf.

Therefore, for a 5e wood elf to be superhumanly strong, is appropriate for 5e.

Wood elf is already +2 dex, +1 wisdom. That subrace is set for 5e already.

The grugach is a Strength archetype that is part of the 5e wood elf.

The 5e game represents the D&D traditions more accurately, when allowing a diversity wood elf archetypes, especially +2 to Strength, in addition to other possibilities.

 

[Scribe]

hich halfling might be stronger than which goliath, such that it would bother you?

The fact that the rules would not represent that as an anomaly is the issue.

I want with the basic presentation a default assumption that what makes logical sense is reflected in the crunch.

A halfling default should literally never be presented as stronger than a Goliath default.

It makes no sense for what is a child's body to get a bonus to strength, when what we would see as absolute mountain of a being not be reflecting that I. Their stats.

That another table wants to represent an exceptional halfling isn't the issue.

It's a question of world building and logic (in before 'but dragons and elephants) that is easy to account for, as the game has done so for decades.

That's it. If I cannot explain it with that and the dozens of not hundreds of other posts, then I'm afraid if any explain it further.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The fact that the rules would not represent that as an anomaly is the issue.

I want with the basic presentation a default assumption that what makes logical sense is reflected in the crunch.

A halfling default should literally never be presented as stronger than a Goliath default.

It makes no sense for what is a child's body to get a bonus to strength, when what we would see as absolute mountain of a being not be reflecting that I. Their stats.

That another table wants to represent an exceptional halfling isn't the issue.

It's a question of world building and logic (in before 'but dragons and elephants) that is easy to account for, as the game has done so for decades.

That's it. If I cannot explain it with that and the dozens of not hundreds of other posts, then I'm afraid if any explain it further.

Ok. I think I get it now. Sorry if I'm being slow. Is it correct to say that you are agreeing with @Maxperson? That is, the rules for character creation are not limited to PCs, but also say something about the entire population of NPCs? And thus if those rules don't make goliaths stronger than halflings, it means that goliaths are not stronger than halfings?

And so it's not really about any actual impact on anybody's character and how it plays at the table, but rather in how the rules evoke the larger game world?

 

[Scribe]

Is it correct to say that you are agreeing with @Maxperson? That is, the rules for character creation are not limited to PCs, but also say something about the entire population of NPCs? And thus if those rules don't make goliaths stronger than halflings, it means that goliaths are not stronger than halfings?

Yes, to some degree.

And so it's not really about any actual impact on anybody's character and how it plays at the table, but rather in how the rules evoke the larger game world?

Absolutely the bolded section.

 

[Maxperson]

That is why I mentioned the grugach elf.

The 5e Players Handbook wood elf description explicitly mentions that it is the 1e grugach elf.

Therefore, for a 5e wood elf to be superhumanly strong, is appropriate for 5e.


The grugach is a Strength archetype that is part of the 5e wood elf.

The 5e game represents the D&D traditions more accurately, when allowing a diversity wood elf archetypes, especially +2 to Strength, in addition to other possibilities.

Wood elves and Grugach elves were very different. I would prefer to carve out another elven subtype for the Grugach, than to mix the wood elf into something it isn't. 5e got it wrong and the fix isn't to add strength to wood elves.

 

[mrpopstar]

So? Are you really saying that it's impossible for there to be a strong but clumsy elf? That out of all the presumably millions of elves on a world, there can't be one or a few who aren't particularly dextrous?

We cull those elves by forcing them to walk the plank off our elven tree forts before they reach adulthood.