No. Because by denying a PC a +2 in the stat of their choice, you're denying it across the board.
1st level gnomes can have Int as low as 10 in point-buy, and as low as 5 by rolling. A smart dwarf can certainly start out smarter than that gnome.
Can the smartest 1st level dwarf be as smart as the smartest 1st level gnome? No. Not according to the 5e PHB.
Which is unacceptable. It's a stupid, pointless restriction made by people who have since changed their mind, and enforced by people who mindlessly adhere to archaic rules.
Of course, individual tables might not want to be restricted by the mere rules of the game. But, for me, letting the PCs start with +2 in a random stat (as opposed to +2 in a stat that the rules say they get) is no different than letting them start with a Blessing. Or an Artifact.
Except it's neither of those things, because it's a stat bonus that can be placed anywhere and that doesn't actually take away from the flavor of the race at all.
Sometimes concepts change, but more likely the game mechanics that represent a race's concept get tweaked.
Like they've done with each edition, and like they're doing now, since floating ASIs are the new rule.
The rules are the edict, not me.
The
rules say roll 4d6, drop the lowest, six times, with stat array being a useful quickbuild
option... and point buy being nothing more than a
variant, posted afterwards. So since the rules are the edict, guess you're rolling from now on, right? Ooh, sorry, you might just end up with halflings have
18s in Strength then.
Wait, you ignore the
rules about 4d6 in favor of a variant? Huh, well then I guess the edict is up to you after all.
It's really funny that you prefer point buy, which specifically is designed to let you, quote, "build a character with a set of ability scores you choose individually" and yet are opposed to other people choosing their scores by deciding where to put the +2.
And the principle of racial bonuses applies no matter how ability scores are initially generated. They are different stages of character creation. Your proposal seeks to take racial bonuses out of the game completely and replace them with bonuses that have no relation to race or any other part of character creation.
Yup. Racial bonuses are stupid and inconsistently used.
Example: the loxodon are
elephant-folk and who average 7' 6". They are literally the
tallest race, taller than goliaths by nearly half a foot, and are outweighed only by the centaurs. And they don't get a bonus to Strength. Not even a +1. Con +2, Wis +1. Loxodons get Powerful Build, yes, but no Strength bonus. In fact, they're the only canon race with Powerful Build that
doesn't get a Strength bonus.
Wanna explain that one? Why is it logical to you that, going by racial ASIs, a halfling can't be as strong as an orc but
can be as strong as a much larger elephant-folk?
A logical reason, please. After all, you can't just decide that this particular instance is dumb and should be changed without allowing for other racial ASIs to be changed as well for other reasons.
So yeah. ASIs should be so the player can customize their character, not so one race can have a pointless meta-advantage over another.
Such a halfling is that strong because of where the ability scores were assigned at that stage of character creation (which represents the individual not the race). They are not that strong because they are a halfling!
EXACTLY! That one
particular halfling has a 16 Strength. Not halflings, as a race. That one guy, over there, the one with the muscles--he's one strong halfling dude.
Nobody has said all halflings are strong. I certainly haven't. I don't even
like halflings as a species. What I've said is that there should be an option for someone who wants to make a really strong halfling.
What's really funny is that all the "strong" races get Powerful Build, and halflings and the other small races don't,
and small races take a penalty if they try to use Heavy Weapons. So the strong races are already stronger than halflings no matter their Strength. And what's
extra funny is beyond that, Dex and Strength give the
exact same attack and damage bonuses, so a halfling with Dex 16 and a short sword is going to inflict exactly as much damage as an orc with Strength 16 and a short sword.
What
this means is that every one of your arguments about Strength versus Dexterity either already has an answer or is already moot.
But they are not changing the core race concepts from what they were into races that are physiologically equal. They are not changing the concept,
In several of them they did. Compare 2e, 3e, and 5e firbolgs, for one. Compare 1e and 5e gnomes. I wrote up a huge list of how races changed, sometimes dramatically, over the editions.
they are refusing to acknowledge physiological differences in species because they are afraid of cancel culture in the real world, and then ret-conning a half-baked idea that elephants are only stronger than mice because of their culture!
Nobody has actually done this.
Nobody. Stop with the stupid strawmen. It's seriously pathetic.
And you might want to check yourself, because in the real world, the only people who talk about "cancel culture" like that are the people who gleefully try to "cancel" others and then whine when their own bad actions are called out.