Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Originally Posted by ArvGuy
Assigning the bonus to the race's traditional attributes won't really fix anything, though. Because in my game, I'm still walking around in an internally absurd and contradictory world where there's largely no difference between a hafling and a half-orc, and my game will dilligently tell me that every single time I create a character.

Yes, it is a magical fantasy world but even magical fantasy worlds have to stay internally consistent to make sense. Sure, you can point to all kinds of roleplay elements that would make your halfling stronger, but shouldn't half-orcs be able to do the same? Yet at the end of the day, your exceptional half-orc cannot ever be stronger than your exceptional halfling. How does that even begin to make sense?

And yes, I am obviously exaggerating a little bit for effect when comparing D&D races with the differences between humans and bears, as I am trying to make a point regarding variance within a species versus variance between different species. With my point being, even if we decide to be the Usain Bolt, and even if we come up with RP stuff that could boost that even further, we're still nothing at all to a cheetah. Now imagine that you're playing a cheetah instead, and your DM insists that actually you're not really faster than humans. Would that work for you? Because it sure would not work for me.

I'm not sure I jive with this explanation because well, other characters aren't built the way PCs are built. They have a whole different system to construct npcs that have nothing to do with us and where we put our points, racial ASI or not.
I'm not sure we really do know that. We can't really trust anything we've seen in EA, after all. But even if it is only the PC, the logic is well and truly established. Your custom hafling is just as strong as your custom dragonborn. Your custom half-orc is just as dextrous as the most exceptional of elves. And there's no explanation, no rhyme or reason. It's just forced in there, as if it makes total sense.

It won't tank the game for me, but I do find it irksome.