Queston about races and size...

[Durzanult]

When creating a race, Why does the Large quality only give a race a +2 to Strength and a -2 to Dexterity? Shouldn't it be more, considering the table in the bestiary for size change has much larger bonuses to Strength and Constitution? (+8 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution. Larger creatures are naturally tougher than smaller creatures)

The bonuses to strength and the penalty to Dexterity seem a bit low. What possible reason could they have to justify this in-game? I kinda figured it was due to rule balancing, but what is the fluff reasoning behind this?

[mplindustries]

There is no fluff reason, it's simply to be fair at all. Being Large is hugely powerful, so they tried to cut it back a little. It's still probably too strong to be a real PC option, to be honest.

[Caliban_]

PC races don't have the magical internal bracing a Large or larger creature needs to support its own weight without crushing its internal organs.

They have the fantasy equivalent of a bad back as they have to use a lot of their internal muscles to support and protect their organs and joints, which restricts how much of their strength they can apply to other tasks (such as smashing opponents into red paste).

[Cam James]

The other thing with the race builder is that you dont get your str bonus purely from the large quality. With the advanced str quality and one of the +4 str stat arrays you can quite easilly hit +8 str or more.

Not that the race builder is particularly fair/balanced. It arbratrairly set all core races at 10pb and uses that as its "standard". I believe that even if the core races wernt exactly 10ps it would still be fine, but thats for another discussion :)

[Legowaffles]

Cam James wrote:

The other thing with the race builder is that you dont get your str bonus purely from the large quality. With the advanced str quality and one of the +4 str stat arrays you can quite easilly hit +8 str or more.

Not that the race builder is particularly fair/balanced. It arbratrairly set all core races at 10pb and uses that as its "standard". I believe that even if the core races wernt exactly 10ps it would still be fine, but thats for another discussion :)

It didn't even do that. The average Race Points for the core races is actually ~9.5.

• Half-Orc: 8 Points
  
• Humans and Halflings: 9 Points
  
• Gnomes, Half-Elves, and Elves: 10 Points
  
• Dwarves: 10 Points
  

Even a Goblin is worth more than a Human at 10 points.

But hey, at least we're worth more than Kobolds: 5 Points. The lowest they've got in their examples at the prd.

Although I'd like to use the builder once myself, it is not the slightest bit balanced.

[KahnyaGnorc]

It is the same reason Enlarge Person is only +2 Str and -2 Dex, as opposed to +8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Nat AC