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Racial Ability Scores: Default Low Ability Score
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7814692" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Here's the problem I feel with any sort of bonus or penalty to ability scores system you have in the game... once characters are created, <em>none of them matter anymore</em>.</p><p></p><p>The whole point of minimums or maximums or bonuses or penalties is to distinguish how a race <em>on the whole</em> compares to humans. If you take a large swathe of everyday elves... they will more often than not be more dexterous that a similar large swathe of humans because of their bonus. The problem though... is that PCs <em>aren't average</em>. None of these perceptions that elves tend to be more dexterous than humans applies to PCs because once you introduce rolling or point buying ability scores, the bonuses or penalties <em>disappear</em> once the character has been made.</p><p></p><p>Case in point-- a person makes an Elf Bard and after rolling or point buying their Dexterity score and applying their racial bonus... the PC ends up with a 14 DEX. Okay. Fine. Meanwhile, the player of the Human Rogue rolls or point buys their Dexterity score and ends up with a 16. All right then. But now... what does this mean once the game begins? Will the Elf's Dexterity bonus for being an elf have any impact on the character or the game ever again in the game? <em>Nope. Not a single bit. </em>ALL the players are going to know and notice is that the Human is always more dexterous than the Elf, and that fact is going to be true for the entirety of the campaign. The idea of the "average elf" compared to the "average human" is washed away because the Elf and the Human in the game are not average elves and humans and the only comparison is to each other. A comparison where <em>humans are more dexterous than elves</em>.</p><p></p><p>So what exactly did the Elf's Dexterity bonus at character creation get them? Pretty much absolutely nothing. At least nothing they couldn't have been gotten by just re-jiggering the points they bought or the rolls they assigned. So at that point, why even bother? The only time you ever really notice a non-human's racial bonus occurs when that player buys the highest score available for the ability they get their +2 in. Because then and only then are they assured of being "better" than their human counterpart there at the table. But ironically even that usually doesn't mean very much (in point buy especially) because the human PC can still usually acquire the exact same <em>ability modifier</em> as their non-human counterpart. The elf might be able to point buy and racially bump to a 17 DEX compared to a human only getting to 16... but seeing as how they are both playing with +3 DEX modifiers, that's all anyone is really going to care about. Applicable numbers-wise... the elf isn't more dexterous than the human... they both are running around with +5s for their attack bonuses, skills, and saving throws when DEX + proficiency is applied.</p><p></p><p>At the end of the day, it feels like there <em>should</em> be some noticeable difference for non-humans being a bit better or worse than humans in certain abilities... but once you assign or roll random numbers and apply them however you want... those feelings just go away. So its nothing you really should even think about or bother with anymore.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7814692, member: 7006"] Here's the problem I feel with any sort of bonus or penalty to ability scores system you have in the game... once characters are created, [I]none of them matter anymore[/I]. The whole point of minimums or maximums or bonuses or penalties is to distinguish how a race [I]on the whole[/I] compares to humans. If you take a large swathe of everyday elves... they will more often than not be more dexterous that a similar large swathe of humans because of their bonus. The problem though... is that PCs [I]aren't average[/I]. None of these perceptions that elves tend to be more dexterous than humans applies to PCs because once you introduce rolling or point buying ability scores, the bonuses or penalties [I]disappear[/I] once the character has been made. Case in point-- a person makes an Elf Bard and after rolling or point buying their Dexterity score and applying their racial bonus... the PC ends up with a 14 DEX. Okay. Fine. Meanwhile, the player of the Human Rogue rolls or point buys their Dexterity score and ends up with a 16. All right then. But now... what does this mean once the game begins? Will the Elf's Dexterity bonus for being an elf have any impact on the character or the game ever again in the game? [I]Nope. Not a single bit. [/I]ALL the players are going to know and notice is that the Human is always more dexterous than the Elf, and that fact is going to be true for the entirety of the campaign. The idea of the "average elf" compared to the "average human" is washed away because the Elf and the Human in the game are not average elves and humans and the only comparison is to each other. A comparison where [I]humans are more dexterous than elves[/I]. So what exactly did the Elf's Dexterity bonus at character creation get them? Pretty much absolutely nothing. At least nothing they couldn't have been gotten by just re-jiggering the points they bought or the rolls they assigned. So at that point, why even bother? The only time you ever really notice a non-human's racial bonus occurs when that player buys the highest score available for the ability they get their +2 in. Because then and only then are they assured of being "better" than their human counterpart there at the table. But ironically even that usually doesn't mean very much (in point buy especially) because the human PC can still usually acquire the exact same [I]ability modifier[/I] as their non-human counterpart. The elf might be able to point buy and racially bump to a 17 DEX compared to a human only getting to 16... but seeing as how they are both playing with +3 DEX modifiers, that's all anyone is really going to care about. Applicable numbers-wise... the elf isn't more dexterous than the human... they both are running around with +5s for their attack bonuses, skills, and saving throws when DEX + proficiency is applied. At the end of the day, it feels like there [I]should[/I] be some noticeable difference for non-humans being a bit better or worse than humans in certain abilities... but once you assign or roll random numbers and apply them however you want... those feelings just go away. So its nothing you really should even think about or bother with anymore. [/QUOTE]
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