D&D 5E Racial Ability Score Mods

[Mouseferatu]

That does nothing to change the average strength of a world's halflings.

If you're the DM, it does. If you're not, the DM is going to give the halflings whatever average Strength makes sense to him/her regardless of whether the rules list a concrete penalty or not. Most NPCs without class levels (or otherwise built as monsters/combatants) have pretty mediocre stats anyway, and those that don't are supposed to be the exceptions, just like adventurer PCs.

 

[bedir than]

If you're the DM, it does. If you're not, the DM is going to give the halflings whatever average Strength makes sense to him/her regardless of whether the rules list a concrete penalty or not. Most NPCs without class levels (or otherwise built as monsters/combatants) have pretty mediocre stats anyway, and those that don't are supposed to be the exceptions, just like adventurer PCs.

If the worldspace is supposed to have halflings be weaker than average races than they should have the numbers that reflect that. The way to do that is with a negative modifier. This still does not preclude the super-exceptional from maxing out at 20 without magic.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

While I am on record as thinking that the lack of racial penalties is the single worst design choice in fifth edition, I've gotten used to it. I haven't bothered changing the rule in my home game. That said, it's dead simple to add a -1 penalty to each of the races if you want it. Perhaps it would be more useful to assemble a list of those penalties for people to use as an option.

 

[Sunseeker]

While I am on record as thinking that the lack of racial penalties is the single worst design choice in fifth edition, I've gotten used to it. I haven't bothered changing the rule in my home game. That said, it's dead simple to add a -1 penalty to each of the races if you want it. Perhaps it would be more useful to assemble a list of those penalties for people to use as an option.

The problem is of course, the more penalties and bonuses you stack on a race, the more you type-cast them and it reduces table variety and player creativity.

 

[Coredump]

I have house ruled that for skills you are proficient in, you get the stat bump on the odd number. So a 15 gives a +2 normally, and a +3 if you are profiicient.

It makes the odd values mean something.

 

[Paraxis]

I have house ruled that for skills you are proficient in, you get the stat bump on the odd number. So a 15 gives a +2 normally, and a +3 if you are profiicient.

It makes the odd values mean something.

Interesting, I like it. Adds a layer of complexity to things so understand why it or something like it is not the norm but cool house rule.

 

[Unwise]

In my group, we just say that the racial bonuses set the min and max in a stat for each race. So can't start with a dwarf with a con lower than 10, or an int higher than 18. Outside of that though, everybody just puts a +2 and a +1 where they want.

This also gets around issues for groups that don't like really strong halflings etc. You just set the max for that race lower. You don't give a negative to the stat, you just say it can't be above 14 or so.

Generally I don't find the later issue to be a problem though. Unless somebody is purposely choosing a silly character, they tend not to play the tiny bodybuilder anyway. It can happen though, a halfling paladin is an interesting and non-silly character that tends to have high str due to mechanical expectations.

 

[JEB]

Just throwing this in there... the DMG's list of NPC races (page 282) includes many with negative ability modifiers. One (Bullywug) is ALL negative modifiers. Now, these are meant for NPCs rather than PCs - in fact, several seem too powerful or too weak to function as PC races as is - but this still suggests negative modifiers aren't completely off the table. (The ones with the most severe negatives also had some of the best racial abilities, which suggests some balancing was involved.)

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The problem is of course, the more penalties and bonuses you stack on a race, the more you type-cast them and it reduces table variety and player creativity.

It's a side effect, but whether it is a problem is a matter of opinion. I generally prefer rules that reflect the setting, and don't care if playing off-type is viable. I'm not alone in this, nor is my opinion universal.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

I'm currently working on races for my homebrew campaign and have decided, that the players gets a +1 and a +2 that they can place on stats of their choice, regardless of their race (we use standard array). I want them to play a dwarf because they want to play a dwarf, not because a dwarf gets stat boosts in a stat they need for their character concept. I haven't quite figured out how to handle humans yet, as we don't play with the feat variant and I probably want to give different cultures different traits.

I figure that while the racial stat bonuses are there to show the strengths of each race, that doesn't mean that every individual of that race conforms to those strengths and particularly not PCs.