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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Votan" data-source="post: 5143665" data-attributes="member: 18680">If you are going to design a massively multiple source book game, like 4E, and have it run without serious tweaks at a table then some common design assumptions are needed.  If Minotaurs had +8 to strength then every strength based power woould need to be re-evaluated relative to PCs being able to start with a 26 (as opposed to a 20).  There are ways around this.  The AD&D (1E and, to some extent, 2E) solution was to make few things dependent on ability scores.  Strength was a partial exception because it scaled so high 9as was constitution for Fighters; dexterity bonuses -- in contrast -- rapidly flattened).  But with strength there were core magic items (guantlets of Ogre Power) that made an 18/00 strength (+3, +6) attainable for a high level fighter.  Another option is to balance the system across a more diverse set of scores; that is a lot easier to do with a small number of books (ideally a single players handbook) where you can work through all of the permutations.  I suspect that is the trick for point systems like Champions.  Or you can restrict options to a narrow set of races.  In the extreme is the "human-only" games like Mage (from White Wolf) or Ars Magica.  Finally, you can make focus very costly.  If the race has a +8 strength and -4 dexterity that could just about even out if the system sets bonuses and penalties appropriately (slow but strong could be evenly matched by fast but weak).  The 4E solution simply assumes that races will ahve either a +0 or +2 in any relevant ability score.  So you baalnce across these two possibilities.  This means that only the racial powers are an avenue to allow power creep and they are much easier to evaluate by comparision (it this nice new ability stronger or weaker than Fey Step?).  It's true that you lose some flavor with these decisions.  But a lesson of games that have tried to allow radically different racial power levels is that balance is very hard to maintain without active DM involvement.  For a very experienced DM, this may not be an issue.  But for a mass market system (intended for many, many books) I tend to agree that this is a feature and not a bug.</blockquote>

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