Is +2/-2 really enough?

[Snoweel]

I've been thinking.

Given races as different from each other as humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings, does it make sense to you that the ability scores of the average specimen are identical to each other, except for a +2 to one attribute and -2 to another?

(Note that I'm ignoring the issues of balance or playability at the moment.)

And on top of that, is a +2 modifier really much different from a +0 modifier? This isn't a rhetorical question - I wanna know what you really think.

Given your personal view of these races, what sort of ability mods would you give them, balance notwithstanding?

e.g. I'd do dwarves this way:

STR +2
DEX -2
CON +4
INT -2

I'd probably leave CHA umodified, given my personal view of what the CHA stat represents (and yes, I believe INT, WIS and CHA are open to interpretation, much like alignment).

But let's not argue that in this thread, eh?

Gimme your Uber elves...

 

[Gez]

The demihumans are supposed to be close to humans.

 

[S'mon]

If you're generating characters by roll-six-stats-in-order, and keep, then it's not enough. If you're using roll-six-stats and assign as desired, it encourages the placing of low to mediocre rolls in penalised stats, while allowing for high-ish stats in penalised areas if desired, so works ok.

However in point-buy there's a cascade approach, because it costs more points to buy points above 16, creating eg a viable halfling fighter, half-orc wizard or dwarf sorcerer is heavily penalised. To get a dwarf sorcerer with CHA 14 I have to pay 10 points, where it costs a human only 6. This makes high-stat in penalised areas characters highly sub-optimal and exaggerates the racial differences.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I, on the other hand, think that there should be less difference in ability scores from one race to the next. 3d6 for all races (of EL1 at least).

Then special cases are made to bring out the differences such as vision, stockyness, alertness or what have you.

I find it silly that there is right now one elven (or even non-elven) sub-race for every conceivable character concept. If you play an elf you can get your boni where-ever you want them just by picking sub-race.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I find it silly that there is right now one elven (or even non-elven) sub-race for every conceivable character concept. If you play an elf you can get your boni where-ever you want them just by picking sub-race.

You know, I've often wondered if an elf clan moved to an urban area and remained there for a few generations, would a new "city elf" subrace be born?

 

[rkanodia]

You know, I've often wondered if an elf clan moved to an urban area and remained there for a few generations, would a new "city elf" subrace be born?

Maybe, but only until I introduced whatever splatbook they came from to my Iconic Paper Shredder.

 

[Reprisal]

You know, I've often wondered if an elf clan moved to an urban area and remained there for a few generations, would a new "city elf" subrace be born?

Realistically? Probably, heh.

Still, the races' rules information seems to be a mish-mash of both biological and cultural traits. It would be nice if there was some semi-official, and well thought out, way of separating the two. That way, you could have a City Elf and a Forest Elf, but the only differences they might have would be cultural -- so the same stats, biological abilities, but maybe different skill bonuses and weapon proficiencies.

*shrug*

Just a thought,

- Rep.

 

[Kweezil]

I find it silly that there is right now one elven (or even non-elven) sub-race for every conceivable character concept. If you play an elf you can get your boni where-ever you want them just by picking sub-race.

It's a gawdawful foolish concept. I have to admit I have subraces for dwarves and elves in my homebrew. They're mostly a hold-over from when I was but a young and foolish DM and FR's ideas like different races of elves seemed bright and interesting. Since then I've bodged them properly into the campaign world - only the four Firstborn races (dwarves, elves, dragons and an unknown fourth race that devolved into sahuagin, kuotoa etc) who were born from the elements have sub-races, these are based on types and divisions within the element itself.

As for ability modifiers, I think in some cases they should be more than just the +2/-2, or should include modifiers to more than one pair of stats. For example, halflings and gnomes IMC have -4 Str because it's frankly ridiculous that they can carry several times their own body weight (BTW: halflings get +2 Dex, +2 Cha and gnomes get +2 Dex and +2 Con). On the other hand, most of my elven races (there aren't that many, honest) have secondary stat modifiers eg. grey elves who are highly personable but rather rash get -2 Wis/+2 Cha in addition to the Dex/Con modifiers.

 

[Buttercup]

I agree that +2/-2 isn't really enough of a difference in some cases, but perhaps not in others. The idea that even the strongest halfling could have a strength ability higher than about 12 is just silly. I guess that, if I start a new campaign that includes the halfling race, I'll give them -4 to strength and +4 to dexterity. I'm not as unhappy with the dwarf bonus/penalty as written, though I think dex would be a better penalty stat than cha. It seems to me that any culture would have individuals who had high charisma, and since I love the idea of dwarf sorcerers, I don't really want to penalize that stat.

Human, halfling and dwarf are the only playable races in my campaign, so I've never spent much time thinking about the others.

 

[Gez]

If you look at it, halflings and gnomes are, for their size, as strong as half-orcs are for theirs.

I'm not sure it's a problem they may carry more than their own weight. Human can too. And an ant may carry something like 70 times its own weight. The smaller you are, the most proportionally impressive the physical prowess. My cats may make standing high jumps higher than mine (more than 1.5 meters).