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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 9189082" data-attributes="member: 6915329">See, my table and I all hate the idea of Always Evil races and therefore see no reason why subterranean elves shouldn't be playable.Hard disagree. There's no point giving an ancestry an ability that's going to be useless a lot of the time. It's incredibly frustrating to have abilities or other character elements that can't be used 90% of the time.Maybe, maybe not. But not all games are travelogues, and not all travelogues are going to go through all terrain types.That's only if you believe in rolling randomly for backgrounds or build them after you roll your stats--which not everybody does. A very large percentage of players come up with their backgrounds before their stats. This isn't like the old days where you rolled 3d6 in order and then resigned yourself to playing whatever it was you rolled the highest in, even if you hated the class.Not end of issue, because there's no reason for a game like D&D to force you to play as a particular gender or to gatekeep an ancestry behind an ability like that; nor should D&D try to go out of its way to make a race uncomfortable for people to play. That's why the gender change thing is listed as an optional trait, not one that you must take if you want to play an elf.Nah, humanity as a baseline is boring and there's not only no reason to have a boring race in the game, it also ignores that humans can actually be really cool. HFY all the way!And, well, IME most disadvantages in a game like D&D are either going to be useless (if your dwarfs have a hard time swimming and the game takes place almost entirely on dry land, your dwarf basically has no disadvantages) or crippling (like D&D races with sunlight sensitivity, which penalizes them during 90% of gameplay). Or filled with Unfortunate Implications, like any sort of stat penalty, especially mental stats.A platonic ideal of Averageness, perhaps.How high do you want the attribute tables to go up to? I looked it up; <a href="https://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/news/11-strongest-humans-ever-walk-earth/" target="_blank">one of the strongest humans in the real world</a> was able to bench something like 535 pounds, which in 5e terms means a Strength of 35 (and could deadlift over a thousand pounds), or 18 if you are playing a Medium race with a Heavy Lifter type trait. But in 5e, you're limited to Strength of 20, or 300 pounds; dragons don't even have Strength 35. Anyway, for an orc to be as strong as you think they should be, they'd have to start out with a Strength of well above 20--which would make them far too OP to allow in a game. The same goes for any stat modifications. You want halflings to be physically weak? They'd have to have a Strength of, like, 4 if you want humans to be the baseline. Want elves to be particularly graceful? They'd all have to start out with Dex scores of at least 18 or 20. It's all going to be either OP or so weak that nobody would ever want to play them.See, the game-standard of a +1 or +2 or even +4 to a stat is no more than a +1 or +2 to a d20 roll, or a 5% o 10% on a d%, and that does next to nothing to make a race feel stronger or smarter (or weaker or more clumsy). It's just an annoying thing that tries to force people into specific race/class combos or penalizes them if they choose to break the mold, which is both boring and highly limiting. And above everything else, those numbers are abstract. A Strength of 6 doesn't really mean all that much. A person with an Intelligence of 5 is fully playable as anything but a wizard, really--but I used to work with developmentally disabled adults, and an actual person with an Intelligence that low wouldn't might not be able to even talk, walk, or use their hands properly, let alone adventure and hold a sword. (The brain controls the body; if you have a very low IQ, your brain is, as one of my old professors put it, basically Swiss cheese and your body simply won't work properly because of it.)So an orc with a Strength of 6 is fine. All it means is that they get a -2 to their Strength-based rolls. They'll still be able lift more than a human with the same Strength, and they'll still do more damage that even an average human on a critical hit. And you know what? That's fun. And that's another thing. Why can't a Strength 6 or exist in the setting? Why can't I have them in my game? Why does the game have to forbid them?And a third thing. Why not? Your game, sure, but everyone's game? They're fictional characters, entirely under our control.</blockquote>

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