GreenTengu
Adventurer
The issue, as I see it, is not that the average minotaur is stronger-- it is that a Gnomish Fighter could imaginably defeat a Minotaur Fighter due to better battle tactics due to being smarter, being a harder to hit target, having better aim and taking less damage when being knocked about due to their light weight. They could not overpower the Minotaur, but when you reduce things down to "roll to hit, roll to damage, take hit points in damage"-- it is totally imaginable for an equal level Gnomish Fighter to defeat and equal level Minotaur Fighter and the vast difference in the fighting styles between the two is not really expressed well through differences in those mechanics.
The minotaur brushes off all but the most well-aimed shots while the Gnome might be harder to hit and can roll with blows to them more easily due to having less mass and thus hitting with less impact when they hit the ground. Both of those mean "more AC and more hit points". The minotaur may swing a very large weapon which is easier to hit with due to its large surface area and have way more force behind its blows while the Gnome might have better aim and a superior understanding of anatomy as to where to stab the enemy to cause the most damage. Those both equate to "better to-hit roll and higher damage roll".
And then there is the "athletics" ability-- are we really going to assert that the Minotaur is going to be better at jumping and climbing than the Gnome when it has to move 8x as much mass every time it attempts to do those things?
But the D&D system fails to express that at all. It ties absolutely everything to do with the Fighter's ability to fight to this state "Strength" (and in 5E "Dexterity") and absolutely discounts all other ability scores remotely, possibly having any sort of impact whatsoever on the class's ability to actually impact the fight.
So ultimately the "strength" score has less to do with with one's narrative ability to move objects with their body, which only arises occasionally, and is far more often used for "effectiveness in the Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin classes". The result of this is that there are concepts in the game-- for example, in Eberron there are meant to be tribes of Halfling Barbarians, but if you go and try to play a Halfling Barbarian you will find yourself 10% to 20% worse off with every single roll you make related to your actual class abilities, become hopelessly non-functional due to the impact of how ability scores are used in the D&D system.
So-- do you have a better solution as to how to make Gnome Fighters and Halfling Barbarians, things that absolutely should exist in the game and should be functional and viable options without major disadvantages, without making it so that the Gnome and Minotaur have the same ability to lift boulders? Because, as things are now, making Halfling Barbarians and Orc Warlocks options that people can take without being as massive disadvantages compared to having chosen literally any other race is a bigger concern than the break in immersion that it means the small guy will be just as good at bending metal bars or breaking open chests as the big guys.
