Floating ability bonuses?

[Rechan]

One thing I dislike is that, due to classes' focus on certain attributes, it causes certain races to be a "No brainer" choice for a class when that race's fluff has nothing to do with it. (For instance, the Chaos Sorcerer hinges on Cha and Dex, making halflings a perfect fit, but halfing fluff isn't. Same with dwarf druids). So you suddenly have a lot of people picking a race for a class, purely on the racial ability scores, with no mind for the fluff.

So I was wondering, how much would it mess the game up, or break the math, if you allowed everyone to just attribute the two +2s to the stats of their coice (ala Human)?

It would make humans sub par (thus, requiring their racial stuff to be adjusted).

 

[Nymrohd]

The thing is, the bonus stats fit the races as well. I think the real issue here is the extreme dependence on abilities rather than the bonus its race provides. And you can fix that without much fuss as well.

 

[Rechan]

I think the real issue here is the extreme dependence on abilities rather than the bonus its race provides. And you can fix that without much fuss as well.

How so?

Also, the ability scores might fit the race, yes, but I'm willing to sacrifice that. I think the racial benefits besides the stat boosts are more interesting. Everyone just looks at teh stat boosts when it comes to racial combos anyways.

This would also resolve the issue of certain bonus pairings that don't show up (Con and Int together, for instance).

 

[Revinor]

Be careful with some races like Eladrin, which have two ability bonuses to the same defense - they have certain thing to recompensate for that. Allowing Eladrin to move his Dex bonus to Con or Wis will make him even better choice for wizards than now.

 

[Kzach]

I've been considering this as well because of much the same reasons.

The solution I came up with, however, is part and parcel of the balance of my alternate rules which, when combined, I feel are balanced but may not be so in isolation.

Basically I leave the racial bonuses where they are (except for the half-elf... but that's another matter entirely) but instead of allowing point-buy, I simply have two static arrays that players can choose from.

These arrays get around the problems of some races being left in the cold when it comes to some classes. They do, however, mean that you can make some pretty uber characters, but like I said, I balance that in other ways in my own system.

The stat arrays I use are 18, 16, 12, 10, 10, 8 or 16, 16, 14, 12, 10, 10.

 

[Garthanos]

Stats are good at defining a races nature, but it seems only a part of their natures and that part is nowhere represented with regards to proclivity for classes... ie the classes are agnostic in ways perhaps they shouldn't be... I have trouble envisioning a halfling Warlock, is it a failure of my imagination? maybe or maybe an element of the halfling is left out of the mechanics and an element of the Warlock too is left out.
.. perhaps those bits are up to our imaginations ... if someone can come up with a imaginative reconciliation for halfling warlocks then the game shouldn't prohibit them right?

 

[Kzach]

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

There are some arguments to say that races have been compensated for stats in certain abilities, but if you're giving floating ability bonuses to every race and giving the human an extra +2, then it all sort of becomes moot.

I hate that races are pigeon-holed into certain classes. It's really grating against all my roleplaying sensibilities. To me, any pigeon-holing should be based on the culture of the setting rather than rules. And really, when you think about it, there isn't any real flavour to ability bonuses. All the racial traits are decently represented by their other benefits.

This would also fix (for me) half-elves and half-orcs whom I strongly disagree with their stat allocations. It would open up a plethora of race and class combinations which I really feel wouldn't unbalance the game in anyway real way.

I think I'm going to ditch my stat arrays and go back to point-buy with floaties

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I instituted this house rule for my latest campaign, and it hasn't been a problem yet. (Actually I also HRed that humans get a second +2 and get to double-up one of their racial traits.) This is what my players made:

Eladrin Sword Mage
Halfling Rogue
Tiefling Wizard
Dwarven Cleric

So two players picked combos that wouldn't be optimal by RAW, but are totally appropriate from an in-game PoV. I'm happy and so are my players.

 

[DanmarLOK]

FOr non-humans I give them a +2 in any stat and +2 in one of their 'racial' stats. For humans they get a +2 in any stat and a +1 in any other stat than the one that put the +2 on.

I as well really dislike the push to fit race to class in the RAW. Why can't a PC dwarf be as smart as a PC eladrin? I thought PC's were the exceptions to the rule, the ones that rise above, the cream of the crop. Not stuck in racial monotony like all the rest of their ilk.

Yes this will throw off the balance if used by powergamers to some extent, but in this case it's not a huge imbalance IMO, YMMV as always.

 

[keterys]

I instituted this house rule for my latest campaign, and it hasn't been a problem yet. (Actually I also HRed that humans get a second +2 and get to double-up one of their racial traits.) This is what my players made:

Eladrin Sword Mage
Halfling Rogue
Tiefling Wizard
Dwarven Cleric

So two players picked combos that wouldn't be optimal by RAW, but are totally appropriate from an in-game PoV. I'm happy and so are my players.

Which two? Those all have the primary stat with a bonus from what I can see...

At any rate, I think it might be interesting if you had to keep _1_ of the stat mods for your race, and then got a floating +2. So humans get two floating, Dwarves get either +2 Con & +2 Float or +2 Wis & +2 Float.