I seem to recall older D&D had different racial stat caps no? Items like Belt of Hill Giant Strength could be used to exceed those caps(it bothers me that the Club of Hill Giant Strength in BG3 only raises str to 15).
First edition had different strength caps for each of the races. Half-Orcs could have 19 strength, human males could have 18/00 (which was very close to 19 gameplay wise) and the other races (and human females) had caps at lower d100 levels. I *think* that halflings were capped at 17, but I may be misremembering that.
Some of that remained the same in 2nd edition, but I think the different caps for male and female were removed (they certainly were not present in BG1/2 at least).
EDIT: this is superfluous at this point... but I looked it up just now, and apparently half-orc fighters had a maximum strength of 18/99 (male) or 18/75 (female). They did get a +1 to strength, but it was wasted if they rolled an 18 (in 1rst ed). They could exploit that +1 in second edition to start with a very sexy 19 strength though, regardless of gender.
