It is interesting to me how "the strength of humans" on Golarion more or less falls in a fairly narrow band.
Like virtually every 20th level human barbarian (with no magic items) is going to end up with 22 strength. Meanwhile on earth we have a world's strongest man competition (with no magic items) with a whole lot of participants, some of whom consistently do better than others. Sure, you could say the difference is their athletics proficiency, but again a whole lot of 20th level human barbarians are going to have 22 strength and legendary athletics.
Yep this is what an over concern with balance has done to the system.
Everyone is now the same. The stats are not really important any more. But stats were never a big part of D&D. May as well symplify things again and just get rid of them all together.
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Yep this is what an over concern with balance has done to the system.
Everyone is now the same. The stats are not really important any more. But stats were never a big part of D&D. May as well symplify things again and just get rid of them all together.
This is an interesting take. Ability scores matter way more than they used to, because you can't stack items and feats to a 100% chance of success anymore. Every point of ability score between you and someone else is a 5 percentage point difference in chance of success that usually can't be made up for another way. The person with the best bonus in a skill is very often the person with the highest relevant ability modifier, so long as it's trained. None of that is true in 1e. This is all true because of the "over concern with balance" you speak of.
It is interesting to me how "the strength of humans" on Golarion more or less falls in a fairly narrow band.
Like virtually every 20th level human barbarian (with no magic items) is going to end up with 22 strength. Meanwhile on earth we have a world's strongest man competition (with no magic items) with a whole lot of participants, some of whom consistently do better than others. Sure, you could say the difference is their athletics proficiency, but again a whole lot of 20th level human barbarians are going to have 22 strength and legendary athletics.
Yep this is what an over concern with balance has done to the system.
Everyone is now the same. The stats are not really important any more. But stats were never a big part of D&D. May as well simplify things again and just get rid of them all together.
I realized yesterday that two of my characters, Alleunti Delesi and Riva Sarjenka--who were made months apart--had the same exact ability score array. What's more, they're both female elven sorcerers.
It's the same with Galanost Laetalal and Shisio Dafoe. Save for a steep level difference, their base stats are nearly identical too, with both being elven champions with Sorcerer Dedication.
Since then I've found that I have several characters with lots of similarities like that. I was surprised and a little dismayed at first. After all, they're practically cookie-cutter characters, right?
Except they really aren't; I don't honestly believe anyone would EVER mistake these characters for one another.
The character is what you make of it.
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I'll also note that if you were building two characters to do the same job in pf1, you'll probably end up with the same stats there too. Unless your rolling I guess.
Looking through my 24 pfs1 characters... none of them have the same stats.
There was a lot of substitution in pf1 that isn't in pf2 (at least not yet). There might also be more possible variance in point buy than in the ability boost system, the second being linear while the first isn't (that's just a gut reaction, might be wrong there). At any rate, we'll probably see more variance as more options are added to the system.
Halflings and Gnomes are about half the size of a human, but on average have 80% the strength, and Goblins are half the size of a human and have equal strength. They are like ants! That increased strength mass ratio means that they can jump around as though they were on a low gravity world! Using agile, finesse weapons, they can jump up to human neck level, and stab you right in the throat. Do not mess with the small races.
This is an interesting take. Ability scores matter way more than they used to, because you can't stack items and feats to a 100% chance of success anymore. Every point of ability score between you and someone else is a 5 percentage point difference in chance of success that usually can't be made up for another way. The person with the best bonus in a skill is very often the person with the highest relevant ability modifier, so long as it's trained. None of that is true in 1e. This is all true because of the "over concern with balance" you speak of.Yep this is what an over concern with balance has done to the system.
Everyone is now the same. The stats are not really important any more. But stats were never a big part of D&D. May as well symplify things again and just get rid of them all together.
There was a lot of sarcasm in that point. I would like stats to matter but not be overwhleming. But with balance being so tight. 1 point of stat is a major difference just like 1 level.... so the system by default pushes everyone to have almost identical stats.
How is it that small ancestries don't get utterly trashed by the larger ancestries?
Any time I read about the size differences, it doesn't mean much. I merely think about the hobbits from the Lord of the Rings films and things like that.
However, whenever I set their images side by side, the differences are astounding.
Take this image of a 6-foot tall human as compared to a 3-foot tall halfling for example.
One strong kick from most humans should be able to kill that halfling. Heck, he could probably crush him with one of those books. Conversely, how could said halfling ever pose any realistic threat to most humans? Most any knife or weapon he wields is likely going to be laughably small and lack a corresponding amount of mass/force/threat.
If we imagine that the halfling is a human, and the human is an ogre, we get a similar effect.
I understand that the rules are clear in their indication that smallfolk can be as tough as Medium creatures (tougher even in the case of gnomes and sometimes, goblins), but how does one explain that away conceptually?
I mostly wanted to see if others were equally shocked by the apparent proportions as I was, but if we can brainstorm some conceptual ideas to explain it away and re-immerse ourselves in the fun, then that'd be great too.
Given that halflings can be basically the same str as a human being half or less the size tends to indicate their muscles are a lot denser and pound for pound MUCH stronger than humans. If you look at something like a chimp they are even smaller than a halfling but are physically as strong or stronger than a full adult human is. Size does have advantages but halflings/gnomes are hella strong for their size.