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Message: <blockquote data-quote="katahn" data-source="post: 4188118" data-attributes="member: 65004">Think of starting weaker as the "opportunity cost" of being able to buy more powerful abilities later perhaps?I'm not entirely convinced that any race is crippled in effectiveness compared to the others right out of the gate, or that any apparent weakness/deficiency in starting abilities will even be necessarily noticeable.  I can however certainly imagine some of my players basing their race choice on an analysis of what initial abilities each race gets, its attribute and other bonuses, and what sorts of abilities/feats are available later on.In 3e terms, imagine being a drow elf was not an ECL race but instead via feats or possibly a paragon class one could get the other abilities.  Initially one begins with all the drow disadvantages such as light blindness and a very bad reputation among surface races, and the initial bonuses are roughly on-par with being a normal elf.  If we look only at race balance at "level 0" then clearly the drow in this example is at a disadvantage, but taking into consideration that being a drow gives on access to spell resistance, spell-like abilities, and so forth, the drow is most certainly not at a serious disadvantage.</blockquote>