NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8608756" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I think you mean racial stat modifiers, as your context was AD&D. Regardless, the basic-classic line lasted from 1974 to the second black box edition in 1994. If you start counting AD&D from when the first book came out in '77 and it going the reprint of 2nd edition in '95, it actually has a longer lifespan*. Anyways, yes, the basic-classic line did not have racial attribute modifiers. Smaller races (dwarves and haflings) either couldn't or had big penalties for wielding big weapons, and that was it. Rather similar to what 5e is with floating (or better yet no) starting ASIs. *Although, yeah, they officially discontinued basic-classic, while AD&D could be said to be 'current' right up until 3e.Let's be clear, though, I'm not saying I love this implementation, it just doesn't bother me. A purpose-driven and not-after-the-fact-duct-tape-fix redesign of how both races and attributes work would be preferable (my vote goes for de-emphasizing attributes in general. Minigiant is right that the designers painted themselves into a corner). Yep. That's just plain a spot where we aren't going to agree. Especially in a game where attributes change, PCs aren't representatives of their entire race, and where there are multiple methods of generating those scores, I just can't see it as a major way one distinguishes A from B.Unearthed Arcana is a good parallel to Tasha's and Xanathar's combined. It has some power creep, some lackluster dross (that someone somewhere loved and became part of later editions), and some outright rules changes. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There was the Cavalier, which was the Paladin, but better (and btw, here's some alternate attribute generating methods making sure you can be one if you want). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It also had the Thief-Acrobat. What was their major ability? Well, when they fall, they only take 1d6 damage per 10' fallen. 'But Willie,' you say, 'isn't that what everyone else takes?' Well, my hypothetical audience, that was what everyone else takes when they fall, but if you use these alternate rules, they now take 1d6 per 10' fallen per 10' fallen (so 1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the next 10', etc...), isn't that a fun ability?!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And it had cantrips. Each of which was a separate function (so, like 'Open' to open a door at a distance), required you to memorize it ahead of time, and took up half a 1st level spell slot (so, win an encounter with Sleep or get the ability to open a door at a distance and light a candle with your mind). Good thing they got that out of their system and we'll never see cantrips agai...okay I can't even finish that with a straight face.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And then they had some rules revisions/refinements/stealth reboots. 1E demihuman level limits looked a little more restrictive what with AD&D framing the game as being 1-20-ish compared to oD&D's ~1-10 (despite them both theoretically being open-ended), so they upped those. Someone decided looks would be a good additional attibute and so Comeliness was added. The aforementioned change to falling damage for non-thief-acrobats. </li> </ul>It really was another great example of half hits, half misses, not unlike the 5e splats.</blockquote>

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