Ah, so we can only have DnD elves. DnD elves being what? Would they be the incredibly skilled scholars who report to their Deathless councilors on the changing of the world? Maybe the savage and brutal people who tear apart intruders into their forest? Are they the elves who sing songs that can make the stones weep? Or the ones who can navigate the oceans by ancestral memories?
If you want Tolkien elves, play Middle Earth. D&D elves have never been Tolkien elves and 5e has no obligation to give them to you. Tolkien elves can't be made by a floating ASI by the way. They have VERY different abilities than D&D elves and subraces.
You know Max, conversations go faster if you follow "I'm not arguing that" with a "What I am arguing is..." and then tell the other person. Because otherwise that person has to then turn around and ask you to clarify.
Which you generally respond to with a "I already said, so I'm not going to repeat what you clearly don't understand" which generally just leaves the other person shrugging and saying "well, I said what I understood, so if you don't feel like clarifying, I'm just going to go with what I understand"
So, if a +2 dex doesn't define elves, what does it do?
Then I'll repeat it to you one last time. I've never once said +2 dex defines elves. I said it is an important piece to elves. If you have only +2 dex, you don't have ANY race. A stat bonus cannot achieve what is necessary. If you have only the racial abilities minus the +2 dex you do have elves. You just have incomplete elves.
As an analogy, if you have the elven abilities but no dex bonus, you have the Mona Lisa but with a big white hole where her face should be. It's still recognizable as the Mona Lisa, but it's very incomplete. If you have +2 dex and no abilities, it's like just having her face and nothing else. You might recognize it as a piece of the Mona Lisa, but it won't be the Mona Lisa.
No, you said people don't like change. Which is obvious. But not liking anything changing ever doesn't mean that they are right in what is harder to do.
No, that is NOT what I said. I said that taking something away is a change that people dislike and resist, so taking away a floating bonus is harder than adding in a floating bonus. Giving something extra is a change that people do like, making it easier.
Variant human, +1 strength, +1 con, use my racially given feat to take heavy armor master for a +1 strength.
Or are you going to say that using my racial ability to take a feat doesn't count, but the goliath's racial Powerful Build does? Because that smells of a double standard.
The feat is a learned ability. It may or may not get a bonus. This is completely different than inherent traits, and is also something any elf can get.
As a racial stat bonus humans can only achieve +1.
But they don't inform each other. See Loxodon and see Mountain Dwarves. Loxodon have powerful build and no bonus, mountain dwarves have a bonus and no powerful build.
Yes they do. WotC screw-ups due to their slavish devotion to balance don't change the fact that Loxodons SHOULD get a strength bonus for their size and strength. If they weren't going to portray Loxodons correctly, they never should have made the race.
Human average is 5'8" and 165 lbs. Mountain Dwarves are 4'5 and 165 lbs. Goliaths are 6'1" and 277 lbs. And just for giggles, Hill Dwarf 4'1" and 150 lbs
So, the Mountain Dwarf gets a +2 strength while being a foot and quarter shorter, while weighing the same. Hill Dwarves get no bonus while being only a quarter of a foot shorter and 15 lbs lighter. Golaiths are a quarter of foot taller and 112 lbs heaver, and have the +2 strength...
That 100 pounds of extra weight matters. There's a reason why you don't see 100 pound lighty flyweights fighting 200 pound cruiserweights. They'd have no chance due to the strength difference.
So, Dwarves are significantly shorter than humans, far bigger of difference than the difference between goliaths and humans. And they have exactly the same weight, while Goliaths are over one hundred pounds heavier than mountain dwarves.
Size is more than height. Dwarves are the same size as humans. Both are medium and in the same weight ranges.
Meanwhile, the difference between hill dwarves and mountain dwarves are closer to the difference between goliaths and humans.
Dude. The difference between 150 pounds(hill dwarf) and 165 pounds(mountain dwarf) is not close to the difference between humans(165 pounds) and goliaths(277 pounds). 15 pounds is not close to 112 pounds.=
