All your reasons seem to support min maxing and mechanical meta gaming and relegating roleplaying as a secondary goal. Again, I am not disparaging it but that's what I see. If roleplay was the main goal, the player would be willing to play a sub-optimal character. Aren't people always suggesting that our characters have some flaws to create struggles so that their achievements are magnified? Seems people want their cake and eat it too.
Then you aren't understanding what I am saying.
My goal is roleplaying the character I want to roleplay without making a sacrifice in their mechanical effectiveness. I will 100% play a character that isn't mechanically optimized like the Githyanki ranger that is my current avatar, but I would still much prefer to roleplay the same character without having sub-optimal stats and being fundamentally worse than if I had made a wood elf ranger.
You're basically advocating for forcing my roleplay characters to be weaker by virtue of being roleplay characters. You're enforcing a roleplay tax onto me. I want that roleplay tax removed so I can continue to play my roleplay concepts in content with higher difficulty curves without hindering the rest of my party.
No I understand what you are saying. It's just our roleplay philosophy is different. What you see as a tax, I see as an opportunity to overcome a flaw. So in my mind, if I choose to play a sub-optimal race for a class, I do so knowing the character will be sub-optimal because to me, it fits the world and maintains my immersion as part of the world. I generally refuse to play halflings with STR 20 because it doesn't make logical sense to me. My halfling fighters will be agile and quick, looking for precision strikes. But if I for some reason choose to play a halfling who depends on his strength, then I will do so knowing he just won't be as strong as the half orc fighter in the party. I will find a way to overcome that statistical weakness.
