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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 9724549" data-attributes="member: 42856">When elves, dwarves and humans were described as races, I could understand the reasoning. But if they are defined as species, they can be as different as chimanzees or fruit fly. Saying "race X is inherently stronger and stupider than the average human" may evoke bad things to some people whose ancestry was described by racists as a race inherently stronger and stupider, but we're speaking of species. I don't think it applies. When we speak of species, saying "Adult gorillas are stronger and less intelligent than humans (despite their young developping quicker)" isn't associated IMHO with the kind of racist propaganda you're refering to.That's a good question, but all the culture we're dealing with are the product of our biological limitations. I am not certain our architecture would be the same if we were able to fly, for example. Or our most common cultural trait, around funeral and death, would be widely different if we were immortal outside of being violently killed and had just a craving to go the West.Most of the tool we use are adapted to human use. We never developped 4-weapons fighting style, and barely developped 2-weapon fighting because we mostly lack the coordination to use two weapons effectively. Having a penalty for using two weapons is a human bioessentialism. There is no reason a fantasy species of octopi couldn't be able to use its eight tentatcles effectively simultaneously and have a natural trait "You don't have penalty for multiweapon fighting, have your 8 attacks per round at level 1 or carry 7 shields for +14 AC". I don't have a problem with human having a handedness as a genetic limitation, and two-weapon fighting incurring a penalty.It would need to be treated appropriately within the rules, of course. To use D&D as an example, if humans are 10 and gorilla are 16, that means that 16 (+3) is 10 times the strength of a regular human, something Samson-like. 18 is Heraklès holding, although briefly, the weight of the sky on his shoulder (though one could argue that Heraklès was no longer level 1 at this point and had the opportunity to get an ASI to 20). If your average blacksmith has STR 16, you can't really stat a gorilla-like species.[A problem I have with INT for villain. I see Einstein as INT 12 or maybe INT 14, and I absolutely am unable to imagine how an INT 20 creature would think. They'd be as removed to humans as a fruit fly trying to understand our thought process. But that's more of a problem of the stat's definition].</blockquote>

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