If it is accepted that an Elf (or Halfling, or Lizardfolk) can reach 20 Strength, and that it is seen as representing the fact that they trained, then I don't see why it would be a problem to say that the Elf trained their whole life, hence why they now have 17 Strength.
Feel free to corect me if im wrong, but arent you perfectly able to reach 17 Str in character creation? O_o
Maybe that is the reason ... since then it feels like "Elf trained their whole life, hence they are SINGLE point stronger than this Human who didnt trained a lot, just did basic stuff to keep himself more or less in shape, and added his racial modifier."
//edit:
a) Do you agree that the standard rules allow for the creation of an Elf with Strength 17 and a Half-Orc with Strength 16 ?
Yup.
b) Do you believe that the lore of Elves means they are biologically limited in Strength, and that there should be mechanical limitations to the Strength of an Elf, however exceptional that Elf and their story could be ? (It would work the same with Orc and Intelligence, I'm just sticking to my example. But maybe there's a difference for you. I don't know.)
No.
Here i must admit that i dont play DnD since i dont have party, so feel free to corect me ... but as far as i know, 20 in any stat is cap ... not quite sure if that counts as it is, or before couting racial traits ...
Since if that is working as it is, just 20 and you are done ... you see that mechanical limitations are core of the problem in this debate ...
Since if there werent cap, or if that cap would not include racial traits ... any race that have +stat traits would be able to keep geting better and better in that stats, and no other race at same level would be able to reach their statistic ever.
Problem here isnt that Halfling at level 4 can reach the same Strength as Half-Orc at level 1 ...
Or that Halfling at level 8 can reach the same Strength as Half-Orc at level 4 ...
The problem starts to exists when Half-Orc reaches Strength 20, bcs since then no matter the training, no matter the experience, no matter anything ... he would never ever be stronger, and that is reason why you can use "logic" here
... then all Halfling nedd to do is simply reach him with his next ability score improvement. :-/
