This is a follow-up to my post of earlier today regarding strength differences in AD&D males and female humans. This one looks at the strength limitations imposed on the different character races in AD&D.

There is a famous table on page 15 of the Player’s Handbook. From this table we can see that some races have a greater minimum strength than humans (dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and half orcs). For males, only the halfling male has an upper limit to strength, preventing any extraordinary strength. All the females of the races have a limitation to maximum strength preventing them from gaining extraordinary strength. Well, except the humans. Human females have their strength capped at 18/50, but this is not shown on the table.

So clearly dwarves have the least sexual dimorphism. The range of potential values is the narrowest. From least to most it’s dwarves, half-orcs, gnome, halfling, elf, half-elf, human.

If you run the statistics the average strength values are shown below.

Ranked from the strongest average it’s:

Males: Half-orc, Dwarf, Gnome, Elf/Half-elf/Human, Halfling

Females: Half-orc, Dwarf,Gnome/Human, Half-elf, Elf, Halfling

But, really, what do those fractions mean? Characters do not have fractional strength. Using standard rounding the values look like this.

For males, Half-orcs have a step up and Halflings have a step down. For females, the Elf, Half-elf, and Halflings get a step down while the Half-orcs get a step up. Overall, the variation spread is small.

So, the half-orc is the strongest, right? Well, sort of yes, sort of no. Their average is higher. But they can get no greater than 18.

What about that 18? For fighters, there remains the possibility of exceptional strength. Halflings are the only race that has no option for exceptional strength. All males, except halfling, of the other races have the potential for exceptional strength. For females, only half-orcs and humans may have exceptional strength. In regard to exceptional strength, half-orcs have to the least variation between the sexes. Humans coming in second. Generally speaking, the differences between the sexes is greater than between the races. But, only human males can reach that coveted 18/00.