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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 3954017" data-attributes="member: 5143">Never seen any clear statement that abilities always give positive modifiers.  There was a poster who said that was true and that he read it in Races and Classes about a month ago but then when asked he said that he was just guessing based on the stats listed for the Spined Devil.Races and Class on the other hand DOES say that all classes get to add half their level as a bonus to all their skills and defenses(AC, Reflex, Fort, and Will) and that the BAB of all the classes is equal to half their level as well.I doubt that it is a coincidence that if you take all the stats listed on the Spined Devil card and add half its level to the modifiers you get from having those stats in 3rd Ed that you get the modifiers listed on the card.  My guess is that modifiers due to stats stay exactly the same.It's possible to make up for small disadvantages, true.  However, stats appear to be even more important in 4th Ed.Currently in 3.5 if you are using point buy and you are playing a half-orc wizard while someone else plays a grey elf wizard and you both put enough points into int to get an 18, the half-orc ends up with a 16 and the grey elf ends up with a 20.  Assuming that they both can get the same magic items, feats, classes, etc.  The difference will always be 4 points.  Which is a 10 percent chance to affect enemies with spells.  Plus the elf can cast another couple spells per day(and they are the higher level ones).  Which is a fairly big deal.  It's not impossible to play that half-orc wizard but you will always be (at least)10% worse than the grey elf.This is made even worse in 4e, since there appears to be spells and abilities that do things like 2d6+(2 x Int bonus) in damage.  Meaning that you are MORE than 10% worse than a more efficient build.  Also, in 3e you can get around some of the disadvantage of having a low stat by casting spells with no save.  From everything I've seen of 4e, you need to make an attack roll with ALL spells, none of them appear to be no save.This is all assuming two optimal builds(for their race).  If you get someone in your group who decides to play a half-orc wizard and only put a 14 into their int and have it lowered to a 12, they will soon discover just how much difference there is between them and the optimal 20 int build.Now, of course, you can't eliminate human error(or people choosing suboptimal choices) entirely.  But you want to minimize it because most people really hate feeling that their character is useless or close to it.  I know, I've felt that way when I played a character who was suboptimal and I've had players in my games come to me and ask me to switch characters when they realized that they were not powerful enough to feel like they were equals of the rest of the group.One way you can minimize this is by recommending classes based on race choice (like they show in the elf description) so that people who don't know any better can be more likely to choose a class that their race works well with.  Another way is by minimizing the effect of a bad choice.  You do this by not giving races negative modifiers to reduce the difference between the best at something and the worst at something.</blockquote>

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