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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7167871" data-attributes="member: 6775031">This reminds me of the last two editions of GURPS, and the huge difference that sort of change can make.In the previous edition of GURPS, stats were purchased on a bell curve, so it was cheap to buy +1 or +2 (above racial starting average) and more expensive to get +3 or +4, with +5 or greater being prohibitive. The cost for playing a race was also designed on a bell curve, so it would only cost a couple of points to play a race that had a racial average that was slightly above human average. Exact numbers escape me, but it worked out something like playing +2 above racial average for a race that was naturally +2 above human average meant that you could effectively start with a +4 to a stat for a lower cost than a human starting with a +3. The net effect was that you saw a lot of elven archers, dwarf fighters, and goblin wizards.With the more recent edition, they got rid of the bell curve, and all stats are a flat cost. Whether you wanted +1 or +5 to a stat, it cost the same flat rate per point. An elf might still start at Dex +2, but it would cost you 40 points to play an elf, and a human could just spend those 40 points to buy Dex +2 without being an elf. Except not really, because being an elf also meant that you were pretty and aged more slowly, so it would actually cost you 47 points to play an elf compared to the 40 points to just be a better human. The net effect was that non-human races became exceptionally rare, because they were causally less powerful; an elf archer was always less skilled than a human archer, because the elf archer was loaded down with racial benefits that didn't actually help them in any way, where the human could just spend all of those points on being good with a bow.It's a similar situation here. If both humans and elves have to pay the same point cost to start with a 15 in Dex, then the major reason to make your archer an elf rather than a human - the major reason why a serious party would bring an elf along, rather than a human - is because they have better non-stat racial benefits. You know, like automatic proficiency with the bow and the perception skill, which are meaningless in the context of a character who would have both of those things anyway. (The higher maximum Dex would be the real reason that so many amazing archers were elves, but that is a non-factor until you're super high-level, and balancing characters so that they're bad at low level and good at high levels is another trend that's been out of fashion since the late eighties.)</blockquote>

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