Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7796336" data-attributes="member: 29398">Simple: because that's what the race is.  Thus, if you want to play an Elf you just have to accept the fact that Elves tend to be more dextrous than Humans and that this is reflected in a stat adjustment after you've assigned your stats, because when you're rolling up an Elf you're rolling up an Elf, not a Human.  It's as much a part of the territory as accepting that the native language of an Elf is 99.9% likely going to be Elvish.Now don't take this to mean I like the way D&D has gone about doing stat adjustments through the various editions; I don't, as IMO there's a better (though slightly more complicated) way to do it.  See below.Yes, but what exactly does "the lower Dex percentile" represent when talking about an Elf?  An Elf might, for example, be Dex 8 in Human (and thus game) terms but be Dex 6 in the eyes of other Elves.Keep in mind that when the player is rolling stats, the stats as rolled (or assigned) are for a Human.  The 3-18 bell curve is based on Humans.  Thus, if you're not rolling up a Human these stats won't be correct.Agreed.  BUT, the end points of those lows and highs will be different for each race.There will be exactly the same number who are better or worse than the racial average for that race: it'll be very slightly less than 50% that are higher, the exact same number that are lower, and the remaining few are bang on it...an average that very well might not be the same as the 10.5 average for a Human. So, here's how to accomplish this:First, as DM decide what the low point and high point for each stat for each race will be, relative to a Human. Carrying on with the same example: Elves are dextrous, so it's simple to assume the clumsiest Elf is still going to be somewhat more dextrous than the clumsiest Human - so in Human terms the low Elf dex is 6.  However, the most dextrous of Elves can reach levels of grace beyond what a Human can do, so let's put their high to 19.So now Elvish dex is on a 6-19 bell curve; and you can either find some combination of dice to roll this or, much easier, just design a table to convert each result on the standard 3-18 bell curve to its corresponding number on 6-19.Like this table <a href="http://www.friendsofgravity.com/games/commons_room/blue_books/decast-blue-book-in-html/decbluebook2.html#conversion" target="_blank">right here</a>. (if you scroll up from where this puts you you'll see the stat adjusts we use for each stat by race)Note that sometimes stats get adjusted down - Part-Orc Charisma, for example, gets hammered.  Hobbit and Gnome Strength doesn't do very well either.  And so on.Players can always do this, but they have to accept that both the system and the setting will more or less gently fight against them when they do.Where instead they should be able to assign an average score to that stat and let the system convert it to whatever the average score would be for that race.Yes I can, to the extent that if that's what the setting demands the player is somewhat obliged to go along with it.  Sure a player can stick a 6 onto a Dwarf's Con score...but that's 6 on the Human bell curve; the same relative-to-average score for a Dwarf might be 9 or 10 in game terms.Within race, sure.  On the objective this-is-how-you-compare-to-a-Human scene, not so much.I think you'd get a lot of characters who played like Humans - even more so than nowIn fairness, you're making an assumption here for which I can't blame you as it's the way 5e is designed, but it's something I really don't like: that all racial abilities are benefits.My philosophy runs more toward no benefit without penalty - it's easier to keep things balanced that way, and cut down on the arms-race aspect.  Thus, if Elves are going to be on average more Dextrous then some other stat (in our game, Wisdom) is going to take a hit to compensate.</blockquote>

Verification