Different species have morphological differences, I hope you won't deny that. A comparative analysis of those differences results into a relative attribute spread i.e. racial stats.
The Ability score system doesn't reflect those differences. The actual ability numbers themselves are completely arbitrary. A numerical stat bonus may convey some illusion of representing racial differences, but it just falls apart under scrutiny. The first and strongest point of that scrutiny is that whatever morphological differences there are, we don't know them, and I fail to see why some ability bonuses that have been around as tropes since early DnD editions should be treated as the only source of truth. Are high elves naturally smarter than their wood cousins or do they simply tend to live different livestyles? In the end it's just an abstract game mechanic. It isn't realistic, it was never meant to be realistic and I see no reason to defend it on such grounds.
Originally Posted by Wormerine
I will not argue that the system has issues, especially im computer setting where player has Freedom to modify attributes as they wish. If I understand it correctly it is usually not so free in Table-top - so being able to add +2 to your roll is likely to feel more impactful that it is in game - where either point buy system or infinite roll allows players to create optimal characters no matter what bonuses or maluses they pick. I think a lot of D&D systems just don’t quite work in cRPG.
I'm really glad to see a response that looks at racial ASI as a mechanic in a tactical crpg, which is ultimately what we're all here for. I want to add that removing racial ASI does NOT make it easier to optimize one's character. On the contrary, when playing with racial ASI you don't need to concern yourself with racial features at all because picking the optimal race for your class has been trivialized down to a single number. If we ignore the narrative and lore aspect of racial ASI, what we're left with is a mechanic that invalidates a massive amount of interesting combinations. I'd like to think that in a tactical rpg that matters.
