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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 5937701" data-attributes="member: 9249">No, but you do realize that any racial ability we grant to Humans is-- again by definition-- a departure from the baseline? If Humans get a bonus feat and a bonus skill, that means that all of the non-Humans technically have a 1 feat/skill penalty when compared to the 'baseline'. If Humans get more action points, or refresh them more often, that means that non-humans are simply penalized in action points.The only fashion for which Human can be a 'baseline' against which all other humanoids are measured is for Humans to have absolutely no discernible features whatsoever. While one can argue that it worked well enough for the first twenty-five years of D&D... I would still say that we can, and have, done better in the last thirteen years. Humanty as a real race with its own identity, rather than as the absence of racial characteristics, is more powerful and more interesting-- and thus more attractive to players, resulting in the Human-dominant adventuring parties that most people want to see in standard D&D games.You've got a valid point, as far as ability scores are concerned-- but I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Any argument that can be applied to Human ability scores can be applied to any other Human racial feature; using Human as the 'baseline' means that every other race is operating at a penalty, as in d20 Modern.I think it's just more elegant, mechanically, for each race to have its own distinct bonuses.</blockquote>

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