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 I thihnk its a touch of realism. I don't expect alot from fantasy in terms of realism but it makes sense of halflings have a -2 str while half ogres could have a +4.

 A halfling with no penalty and a half ogre with +2 doesn't seem right. They should be very careful with giving a race a +4 and I wouldn't stick it on any core race to start with.

 4th ed could not handle a +4 strength modifier because it would have been broken in that system. 4th ed had a reaosnably converison of Darksun but in 2nd ed Muls and Half Giants had very large strength modifiers. Reskinning a goliath as a half giant did not feel right.

 A half giant would make a bad wizard or cleric from memory (couldn't be a wizard in 2nd ed anyway) but so what?

 THats what I meant earlier when I said the lack of racial penalties kind of limits design space. a Darksun half giant was forced to fit within the restraints of 4th eds bounded accuracy or whater you want to call it.

 Core races should not have a +4 modifier in anything but some play styles and settings have different needs. 4th ed DS was a reasonable sconversion but a medium sized half giant with +2 strength wasn't one of the highlights.

Dec 9, 2012 -- 12:49PM, Plaguescarred wrote:

Dec 9, 2012 -- 11:23AM, Salla wrote:

I've already said it: You already get what you want.  It's right there.  "I can't imagine a halfling with a STR greater than 12."  So you don't give your halflings a STR greater than 12.  You have EXACTLY what you want.

Not really the same. Just like with alignment restriction, ability score penalty is not about what it can be but rather what it cannot be.

Just as the point of a good aligned only restriction is that it cannot be neutral or evil for exemple, the point of a race ability score penality is that it cannot raise as high as without one.

So what happens if instead of giving Halflings a -1 strength penalty we give every medium race a +1 strength bonus. Does that mean we're not saying that Halflings can't be strength-based classes?

Dec 9, 2012 -- 12:13PM, Mithrus wrote:

@Tim: I get what you are saying, in that you want a "legitamate" rule for instituting penalties, not just a net result of the same thing (for group consistancy). The challenge is how that will impact the other parts of the character creation process, specifically with ability score generation. Penalties AND bonuses make havoc with point buy systems, which a good portion of the playerbase uses. IMO, core should NOT include racial ability mods, and have the class give a +2 bonus to a choice of attributes. The races can be given other features that reflect their nature.

No one using point buy would have to use it, I just would like it as an option somewhere.  Sure if it's more popular make the no-penalty method the default, but I see no reason why the other option couldn't be in the official rules as well.  I will have to say I don't think the class provided ability bonuses should be in the alternate method (the one with penalties) because it blurs the differences between the races score-wise, but it would certainly be fine for the other.