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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 5828969" data-attributes="member: 79401">I voted other, as none of the choices quite fit my views on the matter.Must have Racial ability bonuses, but NO ability penaltiesI'm sympathetic to this position, as I strongly dislike ability penalties. I prefer to play with point-buy rather than rolled stats, and ability penalties can really hurt when it comes to point buy. If one absolutely insists that some race must be at a disadvantage in some stat compared to the baseline, I say give them a racial cap to that ability. Don't charge them any more than the next character to get there.However, I don't insist on ability modifiers existing at all, so it's not quite the right answer for me.Must have Racial ability Bonuses, And Ability penalties, need game balance                       I've already said my bit about ability penalties, but wanted to express my puzzlement about the game balance bit here. There's nothing inherently more balanced about having penalties to ability scores.NO Racial ability changes, but some minor features (ie stone cunning)Like I said, I don't necessarily insist upon racial ability bonuses, but neither do I reject them entirely. They're a viable option. I also like racial features, though some of the things that have been racial features over the years seem much more like cultural features than racial ones.If elves have a bonus to dexterity, for instance, and dexterity is used for archery, then there's a natural inclination already for elves to use archery as it's something they tend to have the ability for. Giving them automatic proficiency in bows is a culture thing, though, not a racial thing. Unless one wants to claim that elves have racial memories (an interesting fluff option, but not traditional), why would simply being born an elf make you proficient in bows?NO Racial ability changes, NO features, just flavor & fluff                       This doesn't appeal to me at all. This option is very easy to achieve even if mechanics abound: you just ignore the mechanics. Removing mechanics is a heck of a lot easier than creating good ones, so I'd much rather WotC did the heavy lifting for me.----I'd like race selection to be an important step in character creation, that has an immediate impact at first level, and remains relevant at the level cap.I want to be able to look at a character sheet, and without looking at the race written down, be able to tell what race the character is.I want to be able to play an human fighter in one campaign, and an elf fighter in another campaign, and know that even if I give them the exact same stats and gear, the mechanics will make them feel different in play.I also want culture divorced from race. Or if not completely divorced, having a trial separation.Do I know how to go about doing all of that? Eh, not really. That's what they pay the designers for.</blockquote>

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