Phoenix of Borg:

We have the collective attention span of a ferret on crack.

Really that long huh?

I recall my days in school trying to play D&D. Never worked out really though many all nighters were pulled.

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H-here, b-bunny, bunny, bunny...

Pfsh. It's better than the last session I played with my dad. We were already pissed at each other due to something else, and I ended up almost killing him for enforcing the rule that a female elf can't have a strength greater than 16 (I had rolled an 18, and was damn proud.)

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

Sounds like an axe worthy offence if you ask me. She might have just like to work out.

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H-here, b-bunny, bunny, bunny...

It might even register for a beating to death with a large shoe....

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A Good Deed is its own reward.
That, and getting to go to heaven.

You get a penalty to attacks with an improvised weapon (-4 to attack rolls) and generally anything that can be wielded one handed, a large shoe in this case, does 1d3 plus strength. Thusly, an elf with 18 strength armed with shoe would do 1d3+4 damage unless wielding the shoe two-handed in which case its 1d3+6 (at the -4 to hit).

There is no gender difference to Strength or any other stat. That's a bit of a sore point with me as the first thing a player asked when his male character became female from a curse was 'Does my strength go down?'

Other than favoured classes for a few races (drow for instance have favoured class cleric for females and wizard for males) there are few game differences between the genders in D&D. Most players have characters the same sex as themselves but that's just choice.

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

Morrigan:

That's a bit of a sore point with me as the first thing a player asked when his male character became female from a curse was 'Does my strength go down?'

Yeah, that's daft. My first question would be, "What do I look like?"

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!

There was silence around the table when the player asked that question. There was also a certain amount of pushing back of chairs and holding of breath as the other players awaited my wrath. I didn't smite the daft player, I merely referred to his character as Red Sonya for the rest of her existence. That really got his goat. Particularly when the party's cleric refused to cast 'remove curse' on him/her possibly because the cleric couldn't stop laughing (and worshipped a female god).

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

First edition rules have gender differences. My dad eventually decided to let me keep the 18.

And this is direct from my dad's antique PHB:

3
4
5 Here or lower the character can only be a magic user
6 Minimum strength for a gnome, half orc, or halfling character
7
8 Minimum strength for a dwarf character
9 Minimum strength for a fighter character
10
11
12 Minimum strength for a paladin character
13 Minimum strength for a ranger character
14 Maximum strength for a female hafling character
15 Maximum strength for a female gnome character, minimum strength for a monk character
16 Maximum strength for a female elf character
17 Maximum strength for a female dwarf, female half-elf, or male halfling character
18 Maximum strength for all non-fighter characters
18/01-50 Maximum strength for a female human or male gnome character
18/51-75 Maximum possible strength for a male elf or female half orc character
18/91-99 Maximom possible strength for a male dwarf or male half-orc character
18/00 Maximum human strength

 

None of the other attributes had gender differences.

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

Oh it is so nice to see that table again. I must go and find my copies in the boxes and get them out.

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H-here, b-bunny, bunny, bunny...

You are a brave, brave man, Jwmblade

Seriously though, that sort of table seems daft. Do males get the ability to rage because they have testosterone? Or females get a bonus to Constitution because they are tough enough to have babies? There is such a wide range of abilities, why differentiate between genders? Is there any difference between a woman with 17 str and a man with 17 str? Once you start capping one ability based gender, you have to cap them all then you get into arguments over who is better at what.

In D&D the races already get stat modifiers because of their physiology. Is there so much of a differnce between sexes in the same species? I don't think so therefore in my games, I don't apply any mods to PCs based on gender.

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

Oh I agree that mods to stats based on gender have no place in the RPG world but still the memories of my first characters and those old out of date and out of place tables is dear to me.

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H-here, b-bunny, bunny, bunny...

You seriously need to eradicate that tablet. Its filled with flaws and unlogic. The whole list itself is totally insane since there are alot of differend varieties of female/male characters from small and tall humans, skinny and fat. So there is no minimum or maximum for any attribute.

The only real difference between male and female of differend species (in addtion to reproduction system)  is that the other one is dominant by nature and the other one is recessive. (I think you see my pont.)

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"Everything is run by women, hence making us men just playtoys and slaves. Dont even think of arquing with them since they can make your life a living hell. In the end there will be no need for us men since women can do it by themselves."
- Me, just before I got twacked with an aluminium pipe.

We decided to use the Male maximum as the maximum for the race, and pretend the female max didn't exist. Only time in history a D&D rule has been altered in our house.

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

And female characters can't go above tenth level because of the glass ceiling right?

All depends on who they sleep with.

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H-here, b-bunny, bunny, bunny...