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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 8201043" data-attributes="member: 6799649">The bonuses you get  from a feat (such as, say, Heavy Armour Master), you get because that feat represents you getting used to moving the weight of heavy armour in combat. +1 Str makes sense, +1 Cha would not.The bonuses you get from your class, say a 20th level barbarian, represent you getting more like an archetypal barbarian, bigger and stronger. You might want to give those +4s to Int and Dex; tough!If you attune to Gauntlets of Ogre Power, that (believe it or not!) gives you 19 Str, not 19 Con.All these bonuses represent in game mechanics the particular concept. You can't just see any bonus and re-assign it to a different ability score because "PCs are special!"And this is also true for racial bonuses.If you are a halfling or a goliath or whatever, those bonuses you get are for being that race, not just for random character building.You say you have no problem with halflings in general being weaker than goliaths in general. Great. We agree. But you say that "PCs are special" as if that were an excuse to abandon the reason behind the things you get for being that race.Anything you get from ANY source represents that source. To get a Str bonus from your chosen race, that race has to be conceptually strong!I've no problem with a halfling getting high Str from rolling or assigning rolls or scores, or point-buy. I've no problem with them getting high Str from ASIs (or appropriate feats) because they DO represent the areas you have chosen to train. I've no problem with a particular halfling being as strong as Superman!What I object to is the idea that they are strong because halflings are strong. Because they are not, conceptually, famous for their strength.Any mechanical bonus a halfling gets from race should be because halflings are like that. Just like goliaths get what they get from their race because goliaths are like that. Even humans get what they get from race because humans are famously adaptable.If you want your halfling to be strong or your goliath to be weak, this is not a consequence of their biology, it is a consequence of what that individual is like, which is where Determine Ability Scores comes in, with rolling/assigning/point-buy.Saying "I want my halfling to be the strongest in the world, for free, at first level, unearned" is no different to saying "I want my 1st level fighter to be the best fighter in the world!", or "I want my 1st level fighter to be the best spell caster in the world!"If you want your character to be better than the rules for race/class/background say you can be, earn it through play.</blockquote>

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