I did not complain when I had to homebrew a lack of ASI into the game and they all seemed content with the status quo--it seems a bit hypocritical for them to complain now that the shoe is on the other foot, and they have to do what the rest of us had been doing for years.
Erm... Assuming you're talking about floating ASIs, it's rather easy to say "they go wherever you want rather than where the book says they go based on race". It's quite a bit harder to homebrew fixed ASIs for races that never got them (especially if the player looking at such a race for their next character is hoping for you to decide on other fixed ASIs than the ones you have in mind). It's not really comparable.
I suppose you are right. It would probably take upwards of a full minute to read the description of the race and maybe two whole seconds to come up with a justification for setting the ASI in your homebrew creation. Adding a whole additional minute to the DM's work, which they would only have to do the first time a new race was released, is a totally different situation than the prior system. After all, it really is not fair to compare a singular minute of work on a one-time basis against the current system, where many DMs require their characters write elaborate, time-consuming backstories to justify a deviation from the ASI.
1 minute per race times 33 races is over a half hour of additional work in 1 book where before all any DM needed to say was “move the ASIs wherever you want.” Before all you needed was 2 seconds once total, but now I need to add 1 minute per race. Yeah, totes fair. 🙄
Take a look at the Tabaxi writeup for instance. There's literally nothing in there that suggests a Dex bonus other than "they're cat's, yo" and an Int bonus seems as apt as one to Cha. For Halflings the only suggested justification for a Dex bonus is that they can blend into crowds well, but Small and Practical is equally suggestive of Wis and Kind and Curious points towards Int; Ghostwise and Wis is as good as anything I suppose, but there's no real connection there. Cha for Yuan-Ti? Hypnotic snakes, I guess, but that's not what the description says (I see better arguments for Dex in their writeup than the Tabaxi's, and arguably better than the Halflings' as well).
As for DMs requiring time-consuming backstories, how is that an argument? First, I don't know any such DM. Second, that's their choice: it's not like there's something missing from the rulebooks that used to be there for them.
I mean...to me, that sounds like an excellent argument for floating ASI points. Halflings being dexy has never once made any damn sense. They only have a Dex bonus because seventy years ago a bunch of dwarves hired one super confused Legally Distinct Halfling on the advice of a maybe-wizard, maybe-bard to steal a giant shiny rock from a dragon's hoard. ever since then halflings have been dexy despite the rest of the species having absolutely no precedent for it; a Wisdom focus with a side order of Int or maybe Cha for their whole homey-hospitality thing makes much more sense for the species overall.
And as a gal who just built up their first serious tabaxi PC and has also spent their entire life around cats, I can say that "they're cats, yo" is all you need to intuit a Dex bonus. And even if, at yourt specific table, you didn't? Who cares? Int-focused tabaxi work as well as Dex-focused ones, save for the fact that nobody ever plays INT-focused species because Intelligence does nothing for anybody if it's not their casting stat.
Everybody having different interpretations of what the write-ups for a species/culture would suggest for "fixed" ASIs tells me that fixed ASIs don't need to be a thing. The Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth; why should they have the exact same stats?
I did not complain when I had to homebrew a lack of ASI into the game and they all seemed content with the status quo--it seems a bit hypocritical for them to complain now that the shoe is on the other foot, and they have to do what the rest of us had been doing for years.
Erm... Assuming you're talking about floating ASIs, it's rather easy to say "they go wherever you want rather than where the book says they go based on race". It's quite a bit harder to homebrew fixed ASIs for races that never got them (especially if the player looking at such a race for their next character is hoping for you to decide on other fixed ASIs than the ones you have in mind). It's not really comparable.
I suppose you are right. It would probably take upwards of a full minute to read the description of the race and maybe two whole seconds to come up with a justification for setting the ASI in your homebrew creation. Adding a whole additional minute to the DM's work, which they would only have to do the first time a new race was released, is a totally different situation than the prior system. After all, it really is not fair to compare a singular minute of work on a one-time basis against the current system, where many DMs require their characters write elaborate, time-consuming backstories to justify a deviation from the ASI.
Take a look at the Tabaxi writeup for instance. There's literally nothing in there that suggests a Dex bonus other than "they're cat's, yo" and an Int bonus seems as apt as one to Cha. For Halflings the only suggested justification for a Dex bonus is that they can blend into crowds well, but Small and Practical is equally suggestive of Wis and Kind and Curious points towards Int; Ghostwise and Wis is as good as anything I suppose, but there's no real connection there. Cha for Yuan-Ti? Hypnotic snakes, I guess, but that's not what the description says (I see better arguments for Dex in their writeup than the Tabaxi's, and arguably better than the Halflings' as well).
As for DMs requiring time-consuming backstories, how is that an argument? First, I don't know any such DM. Second, that's their choice: it's not like there's something missing from the rulebooks that used to be there for them.
Halflings had high Dex because they were also supposed to be super stealthy and have really good aim in previous editions. Too bad they don’t even include name suggestions for races anymore, let alone general descriptions for them as a culture or anything.
(To be fair, a Tabaxi doesn’t really need any more justification for having high Dex other than “they’re cats.”)
Everybody having different interpretations of what the write-ups for a species/culture would suggest for "fixed" ASIs tells me that fixed ASIs don't need to be a thing. The Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth; why should they have the exact same stats?
They would only have the “exact same stats” if the players put the same numbers in the same spots. Them both being genetically dexterous is not “the exact same stats.” The differences between one individual and another comes from the other 27 points in the buy.
Take a look at the Tabaxi writeup for instance. There's literally nothing in there that suggests a Dex bonus other than "they're cat's, yo" and an Int bonus seems as apt as one to Cha. For Halflings the only suggested justification for a Dex bonus is that they can blend into crowds well, but Small and Practical is equally suggestive of Wis and Kind and Curious points towards Int; Ghostwise and Wis is as good as anything I suppose, but there's no real connection there. Cha for Yuan-Ti? Hypnotic snakes, I guess, but that's not what the description says (I see better arguments for Dex in their writeup than the Tabaxi's, and arguably better than the Halflings' as well).
As for DMs requiring time-consuming backstories, how is that an argument? First, I don't know any such DM. Second, that's their choice: it's not like there's something missing from the rulebooks that used to be there for them.
I mean...to me, that sounds like an excellent argument for floating ASI points. Halflings being dexy has never once made any damn sense. They only have a Dex bonus because seventy years ago a bunch of dwarves hired one super convinced Legally Distinct Halfling on the advice of a maybe-wizard, maybe-bard to steal a giant shiny rock from a dragon's hoard. ever since then halflings have been dexy despite the rest of the species having absolutely no precedent for it; a Wisdom focus with a side order of Int or maybe Cha for their whole homey-hospitality thing makes much more sense for the species overall.
And as a gal who just built up their first serious tabaxi PC and has also spent their entire life around cats, I can say that "they're cats, yo" is all you need to intuit a Dex bonus. And even if, at yourt specific table, you didn't? Who cares? Int-focused tabaxi work as well as Dex-focused ones, save for the fact that nobody ever plays INT-focused species because Intelligence does nothing for anybody if it's not their casting stat.
Everybody having different interpretations of what the write-ups for a species/culture would suggest for "fixed" ASIs tells me that fixed ASIs don't need to be a thing. The Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth; why should they have the exact same stats?
You're - as far as I can tell - not really arguing that floating ASIs aren't a thing. I mean, that's probably what you're trying to argue but what I'm actually hearing is that for a bunch of races WotC never bothered to properly justify the ASIs they assigned and put the cart in front of the horse.
As someone who fostered two overweight cats back to normal weights: they could hear me pick up a bag of cat food in the grocery store 5 miles away and have staring contests with the spirit that haunts my attic - I'll give them a Wis bonus first, Dex second. :p
Ands if the Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth, they should have exactly nothing in common in all respects: no Lucky, no Brave, no Halfling Nimbleness, and for sure not the same subrace options. In short, give them a different writeup altogether then. Either you can subscribe to some overarching cosmology so all halflings across all the planes are somehow connected and thus might have something in common, or you don't - in which case they probably shouldn't all be halflings to begin with. Setting books can (and IMO should, or at least should more) overwrite the generic races. Regardless, I don't think you can argue one setting's halfling should have nothing in common with another setting's while simultaneously saying they have a racial moniker in common. ASIs are not where racial commonalities end. If you're arguing against fixed ASIs based on setting differences, that argument should apply to all racial identifiers.
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All of the arguments you are making have been made before. Many, many times before. WotC has sales numbers that appear to show that the majority of the player base disagrees with you and those that don't want things to change.
Do you have an actual, properly vetted survey of the bulk of WotC's DnD customerbase? Just because WotC is still selling brings no insight other than they're still selling. It could be that the majority of the playerbase is just "I don't care, I don't think about it" and the rest of us are in the fringe about whether we really like it or dislike it. It could be that a majority hate it, but that they think that's not worth not buying a book over. Or just that a majority like it. Or that everyone just has so many opinions on it that all the penalties cancel each other out. WotC also has much more money to market now, because 5e is a clear success and much less of a chance gamble to market. More marketing = more sales, this is going to happen regardless of its product. It's just truth.
I really want to see how D&D Beyond does respond to this. The Dev Update this week(assuming it doesn't get cancelled 3 hours prior to its release) will be a ride.
At the end, this is a new book with a lot of changes to things. It's also an errata to everything, just in official published form per Wizards. We've seen some changes on the player race side, not all I would add and that's not including any of the changes on the monster side. We now officially know this book is going to be extremely important to how things go forward in 5th Edition as its setting the table for 5.5.
On a personal note, I LIKE the changes. We're giving mechanical reasons why players would want to play races. I don't need flavor reasons, as a player/DM can figure out why they want to play a gnome, tabaxi, tiefling, kenku, BUT oftentimes by playing those they are overshadowed by other stronger mechanical races. Someone mentioned powercreep, and I can definitely see that but you can see the intent was to bring in balance a lot of the other races with some of the stronger ones.
Floating ASIs makes sense. If people don't think they make sense, then I don't care to hear that argument from them. I don't see ASIs as inheritertance in D&D, I see it as ability development. More so since later on you can choose where your ASIs go. When you start a character, it's already developed to a point, thats why it has levels in a character class.
All of the arguments you are making have been made before. Many, many times before. WotC has sales numbers that appear to show that the majority of the player base disagrees with you and those that don't want things to change.
Do you have an actual, properly vetted survey of the bulk of WotC's DnD customerbase? Just because WotC is still selling brings no insight other than they're still selling. It could be that the majority of the playerbase is just "I don't care, I don't think about it" and the rest of us are in the fringe about whether we really like it or dislike it. It could be that a majority hate it, but that they think that's not worth not buying a book over. Or just that a majority like it. Or that everyone just has so many opinions on it that all the penalties cancel each other out. WotC also has much more money to market now, because 5e is a clear success and much less of a chance gamble to market. More marketing = more sales, this is going to happen regardless of its product. It's just truth.
You don't have such a vetted survey either, I would presume. Why use its absence to scourge anyone who approves of the new direction when that data could just as easily go the other way?
I am awful tired of people arguing "This nebulous survey data that nobody has and which doesn't currently exist has the potential to maybe prove you wrong if it ever actually existed; therefore you are wrong". It's an absolutely nonsensical nothingburger of an argument.
All of the arguments you are making have been made before. Many, many times before. WotC has sales numbers that appear to show that the majority of the player base disagrees with you and those that don't want things to change.
Do you have an actual, properly vetted survey of the bulk of WotC's DnD customerbase? Just because WotC is still selling brings no insight other than they're still selling. It could be that the majority of the playerbase is just "I don't care, I don't think about it" and the rest of us are in the fringe about whether we really like it or dislike it. It could be that a majority hate it, but that they think that's not worth not buying a book over. Or just that a majority like it. Or that everyone just has so many opinions on it that all the penalties cancel each other out. WotC also has much more money to market now, because 5e is a clear success and much less of a chance gamble to market. More marketing = more sales, this is going to happen regardless of its product. It's just truth.
Nope. But WotC does. They are the ones doubling down on floating ASI's. Do you think that they are doing that blindly? Do you really think that they have not put any thought or research into this choice?
I like the idea of the floating ASIs. I am just not a fan of its presentation or implementation. IMO it should be a tool/guide for sophont species creation/homebrewing not par for the course.
I have to wonder how much energy has been spent griping on these forums about floating ASIs...they made the system have more options. Therefore, your traditional +2 CON +1 WIS Hill Dwarves? They still freaking exist in canon. So do all the other traditional ASI versions of every race ever published in 5e. If you want to preserve those in your games, open an excel file, three columns (race, First ASI, second ASI) spend 5 minutes copying them down, and hand the printout to your players.
This just seems like the weirdest battle to be fighting...you don't have to change literally anything about how you play, but the thought of someone else being able to play differently is so offensive to you that multiple threads and posts have been made exclaiming the same opinions.
Seems like the other changes are primarily geared towards making some of the more rarely played races more playable. I'm sure some I'll be happy with, others I won't, but the floating ASI thing just seems like a trivial thing, especially when it still allows the old way in canon, just not explicitly.
I haven't seen anyone say that they want floating ASI's to be removed entirely. I'm most of use that object to the current way WotC is going would be gladly on the side of folks who love the floating ASI's if they still gave suggestions for Standard ASI's. Or if they added standard but actually went through with their claim that tasha's was optional and add language like "If you have Tasha's Cauldron of Everything you can choose to use the options for customized ability score increases there instead of the ones granted here." Because what we want is still there in both situations and the others have official support for their floating ASI's. So everyone has their fill. This isn't "the thought of someone else being able to play differently is so offensive to you" as you so condescendingly suggest.
I would not be opposed to 'suggested' scores, though I'd be a little hesitant on it as people already tend to take "suggestion" as "IRONCLAD RULE YOU MUST OBEY FOR ALL TIME OR THE DM WILL BREAK YOUR SPINE LIKE BANE", despite how ridiculous that seems to most of us. I do think 'suggested' scores should be cultural more than genetic, i.e. "the sylvan cultures of Faerunian elves celebrate grace, artistry, and the wisdom of accumulated years. Elven characters in Faerun tend to favor Dexterity, Wisdom, or Charisma, though your character can easily break the mold and favor any attributes that tell the story you'd like to tell."
I suppose my fear is that even that much would sound, to far too many people, like all elves MUST ALWAYS have strong scores in those three attributes and weak scores in everything else. It's the same old tired issue: "DMs, roll a d6 to find out how many of your players' character concepts are gonna be total shit you have to endure instead of Fine, Proper and Upstanding members of the Fellowship of the Ring."
For all the "iT's NoT oPtIoNaL aNyMoRe" folks, I just want to point out that this is a DDB issue, not a WotC issue.
It IS a WotC issue. Because they don't give us standard ASI's anymore, so now the feature that was touted as optional isn't optional.
Everything in D&D is optional. Every single rule is. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you don't want it, don't use it.
My favorite thing about these threads is the first instance of the word "Rule" in D&D 5th Edition is this:
To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game.
The 4th instance:
Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.
What Wizards presents is a very broadstroke of what D&D can be, but it's not what all D&D is.
Whenever I see these threads about how Wizards is ruining the game, Wizards isn't at your table with a gun telling you how to run your table. If you want to run oldschool variants of things? No one is stopping you. Have fun.
All of the arguments you are making have been made before. Many, many times before. WotC has sales numbers that appear to show that the majority of the player base disagrees with you and those that don't want things to change.
Do you have an actual, properly vetted survey of the bulk of WotC's DnD customerbase? Just because WotC is still selling brings no insight other than they're still selling. It could be that the majority of the playerbase is just "I don't care, I don't think about it" and the rest of us are in the fringe about whether we really like it or dislike it. It could be that a majority hate it, but that they think that's not worth not buying a book over. Or just that a majority like it. Or that everyone just has so many opinions on it that all the penalties cancel each other out. WotC also has much more money to market now, because 5e is a clear success and much less of a chance gamble to market. More marketing = more sales, this is going to happen regardless of its product. It's just truth.
You don't have such a vetted survey either, I would presume. Why use its absence to scourge anyone who approves of the new direction when that data could just as easily go the other way?
I am awful tired of people arguing "This nebulous survey data that nobody has and which doesn't currently exist has the potential to maybe prove you wrong if it ever actually existed; therefore you are wrong". It's an absolutely nonsensical nothingburger of an argument.
Stahppit.
Did I scourge them though? Me pointing out that saying "they're selling, so that means you're wrong" is a bad defense isn't "scourging" someone. What I said was that his point isn't based on anything of substance and strong correlation. Saying "but we're selling! Look at those numbers!" is an often used deflect against criticism which ignores all other possibilities. Such as the fact that increased marketing budgets just naturally leads to more sales. That isn't calling them wrong, that's calling out how their point is shakey.
I would not be opposed to 'suggested' scores, though I'd be a little hesitant on it as people already tend to take "suggestion" as "IRONCLAD RULE YOU MUST OBEY FOR ALL TIME OR THE DM WILL BREAK YOUR SPINE LIKE BANE", despite how ridiculous that seems to most of us. I do think 'suggested' scores should be cultural more than genetic, i.e. "the sylvan cultures of Faerunian elves celebrate grace, artistry, and the wisdom of accumulated years. Elven characters in Faerun tend to favor Dexterity, Wisdom, or Charisma, though your character can easily break the mold and favor any attributes that tell the story you'd like to tell."
I suppose my fear is that even that much would sound, to far too many people, like all elves MUST ALWAYS have strong scores in those three attributes and weak scores in everything else. It's the same old tired issue: "DMs, roll a d6 to find out how many of your players' character concepts are gonna be total shit you have to endure instead of Fine, Proper and Upstanding members of the Fellowship of the Ring."
Bad DMs are going to be bad. Suggested and/or optional rules aren't going to do much about that, if anything at all. Good DMs will encourage creativity, even if they might impose a certain context and limitations that come with that context. WotC should enable and encourage those good DMs, but at some point they have to let the little fledglings fly out on their own and trust that they'll not only spread their wings but truly soar. And if they really want to affect the player base, nothing they try themselves will work half as well as a nudge and a wink to a few influencers with numerous followers. That's how today's cultural evolution flows.
Also, this works both ways: if suggested fixed ASIs could be construed as IRONCLAD RULE, then so could suggested floating ones. I haven't really seen much evidence of Tasha's optional rule creating actual problems in groups - flamey forum fulminations sure, arguments between players and their DM not at all - and I see no reason why a similar policy with regards to fixed ASIs should be different.
They just decided to keep the powercreep going and buffed everything. Ugh. AND they removed the standard ASI's from the already published races! Dislike overall.
The thing I'm concerned with is if I don't buy that book, will those changes get pushed into my campaign. I don't want any of it in my campaign, none of it. I will have to remod races and classes to keep that detritus from my campaign if it gets pushed through automatically.
I believe Golaryn's point was more "if this was the raging, screeching edition-killing dealbreaker folks keep claiming it is, why is the edition not dead yet?"
I believe Golaryn's point was more "if this was the raging, screeching edition-killing dealbreaker folks keep claiming it is, why is the edition not dead yet?"
Which seems valid to me, I think?
Because it's not. Aside from a few vocal people I can probably count on the fingers of one of Leo-the-clumsy-lumberjack's digitally challenged left hand nobody's claiming that. I know you enjoy hyperbole and in general I don't mind at all, but even on a more moderate level this just isn't true. Even those who are willing to abstain from an edition for whatever reason they may have themselves don't believe a policy like this is going to make a dent in 5E's user base, just like any other decision in this regard would be unlikely to move the needle to such an extent that any of us would notice - up to and including dropping the whole floating ASI idea. 99% of the players out there who have an issue with this will houserule it and play on. It's too inconsequential to warrant the proverbial torches and pitchforks. There's going to be a lot of yelling - there's always a lot of yelling - and that'll be it.
Trenches have been dug once again and nobody is going to listen to each other and just rehash what supports their position and this discussion will go nowhere...like every other thread that this gets "discussed" in.
Could we not discuss...I don't know...what other changes people think will come to the PC races in MPMotM? Or what the changes are to the bestiary races? Or something that isn't just rehashing the same arguments while ignoring what others are saying about ASIs?
Or shall I just unsubscribe to this thread and abandon it?
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1 minute per race times 33 races is over a half hour of additional work in 1 book where before all any DM needed to say was “move the ASIs wherever you want.” Before all you needed was 2 seconds once total, but now I need to add 1 minute per race. Yeah, totes fair. 🙄
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I mean...to me, that sounds like an excellent argument for floating ASI points. Halflings being dexy has never once made any damn sense. They only have a Dex bonus because seventy years ago a bunch of dwarves hired one super confused Legally Distinct Halfling on the advice of a maybe-wizard, maybe-bard to steal a giant shiny rock from a dragon's hoard. ever since then halflings have been dexy despite the rest of the species having absolutely no precedent for it; a Wisdom focus with a side order of Int or maybe Cha for their whole homey-hospitality thing makes much more sense for the species overall.
And as a gal who just built up their first serious tabaxi PC and has also spent their entire life around cats, I can say that "they're cats, yo" is all you need to intuit a Dex bonus. And even if, at yourt specific table, you didn't? Who cares? Int-focused tabaxi work as well as Dex-focused ones, save for the fact that nobody ever plays INT-focused species because Intelligence does nothing for anybody if it's not their casting stat.
Everybody having different interpretations of what the write-ups for a species/culture would suggest for "fixed" ASIs tells me that fixed ASIs don't need to be a thing. The Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth; why should they have the exact same stats?
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Halflings had high Dex because they were also supposed to be super stealthy and have really good aim in previous editions. Too bad they don’t even include name suggestions for races anymore, let alone general descriptions for them as a culture or anything.
(To be fair, a Tabaxi doesn’t really need any more justification for having high Dex other than “they’re cats.”)
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They would only have the “exact same stats” if the players put the same numbers in the same spots. Them both being genetically dexterous is not “the exact same stats.” The differences between one individual and another comes from the other 27 points in the buy.
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You're - as far as I can tell - not really arguing that floating ASIs aren't a thing. I mean, that's probably what you're trying to argue but what I'm actually hearing is that for a bunch of races WotC never bothered to properly justify the ASIs they assigned and put the cart in front of the horse.
As someone who fostered two overweight cats back to normal weights: they could hear me pick up a bag of cat food in the grocery store 5 miles away and have staring contests with the spirit that haunts my attic - I'll give them a Wis bonus first, Dex second. :p
Ands if the Talenta dinosaur-riding plains nomad halflings of Eberron have exactly nothing in common with the well-fed burrow-dwelling sedentary Stepford Shorties of Faerun/Middle-Earth, they should have exactly nothing in common in all respects: no Lucky, no Brave, no Halfling Nimbleness, and for sure not the same subrace options. In short, give them a different writeup altogether then. Either you can subscribe to some overarching cosmology so all halflings across all the planes are somehow connected and thus might have something in common, or you don't - in which case they probably shouldn't all be halflings to begin with. Setting books can (and IMO should, or at least should more) overwrite the generic races. Regardless, I don't think you can argue one setting's halfling should have nothing in common with another setting's while simultaneously saying they have a racial moniker in common. ASIs are not where racial commonalities end. If you're arguing against fixed ASIs based on setting differences, that argument should apply to all racial identifiers.
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Do you have an actual, properly vetted survey of the bulk of WotC's DnD customerbase? Just because WotC is still selling brings no insight other than they're still selling. It could be that the majority of the playerbase is just "I don't care, I don't think about it" and the rest of us are in the fringe about whether we really like it or dislike it. It could be that a majority hate it, but that they think that's not worth not buying a book over. Or just that a majority like it. Or that everyone just has so many opinions on it that all the penalties cancel each other out. WotC also has much more money to market now, because 5e is a clear success and much less of a chance gamble to market. More marketing = more sales, this is going to happen regardless of its product. It's just truth.
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I really want to see how D&D Beyond does respond to this. The Dev Update this week(assuming it doesn't get cancelled 3 hours prior to its release) will be a ride.
At the end, this is a new book with a lot of changes to things. It's also an errata to everything, just in official published form per Wizards. We've seen some changes on the player race side, not all I would add and that's not including any of the changes on the monster side. We now officially know this book is going to be extremely important to how things go forward in 5th Edition as its setting the table for 5.5.
On a personal note, I LIKE the changes. We're giving mechanical reasons why players would want to play races. I don't need flavor reasons, as a player/DM can figure out why they want to play a gnome, tabaxi, tiefling, kenku, BUT oftentimes by playing those they are overshadowed by other stronger mechanical races. Someone mentioned powercreep, and I can definitely see that but you can see the intent was to bring in balance a lot of the other races with some of the stronger ones.
Floating ASIs makes sense. If people don't think they make sense, then I don't care to hear that argument from them. I don't see ASIs as inheritertance in D&D, I see it as ability development. More so since later on you can choose where your ASIs go. When you start a character, it's already developed to a point, thats why it has levels in a character class.
You don't have such a vetted survey either, I would presume. Why use its absence to scourge anyone who approves of the new direction when that data could just as easily go the other way?
I am awful tired of people arguing "This nebulous survey data that nobody has and which doesn't currently exist has the potential to maybe prove you wrong if it ever actually existed; therefore you are wrong". It's an absolutely nonsensical nothingburger of an argument.
Stahppit.
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Nope. But WotC does. They are the ones doubling down on floating ASI's. Do you think that they are doing that blindly? Do you really think that they have not put any thought or research into this choice?
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It IS a WotC issue. Because they don't give us standard ASI's anymore, so now the feature that was touted as optional isn't optional.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
I like the idea of the floating ASIs. I am just not a fan of its presentation or implementation. IMO it should be a tool/guide for sophont species creation/homebrewing not par for the course.
I haven't seen anyone say that they want floating ASI's to be removed entirely. I'm most of use that object to the current way WotC is going would be gladly on the side of folks who love the floating ASI's if they still gave suggestions for Standard ASI's. Or if they added standard but actually went through with their claim that tasha's was optional and add language like "If you have Tasha's Cauldron of Everything you can choose to use the options for customized ability score increases there instead of the ones granted here." Because what we want is still there in both situations and the others have official support for their floating ASI's. So everyone has their fill. This isn't "the thought of someone else being able to play differently is so offensive to you" as you so condescendingly suggest.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
I would not be opposed to 'suggested' scores, though I'd be a little hesitant on it as people already tend to take "suggestion" as "IRONCLAD RULE YOU MUST OBEY FOR ALL TIME OR THE DM WILL BREAK YOUR SPINE LIKE BANE", despite how ridiculous that seems to most of us. I do think 'suggested' scores should be cultural more than genetic, i.e. "the sylvan cultures of Faerunian elves celebrate grace, artistry, and the wisdom of accumulated years. Elven characters in Faerun tend to favor Dexterity, Wisdom, or Charisma, though your character can easily break the mold and favor any attributes that tell the story you'd like to tell."
I suppose my fear is that even that much would sound, to far too many people, like all elves MUST ALWAYS have strong scores in those three attributes and weak scores in everything else. It's the same old tired issue: "DMs, roll a d6 to find out how many of your players' character concepts are gonna be total shit you have to endure instead of Fine, Proper and Upstanding members of the Fellowship of the Ring."
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Everything in D&D is optional. Every single rule is. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you don't want it, don't use it.
My favorite thing about these threads is the first instance of the word "Rule" in D&D 5th Edition is this:
The 4th instance:
What Wizards presents is a very broadstroke of what D&D can be, but it's not what all D&D is.
Whenever I see these threads about how Wizards is ruining the game, Wizards isn't at your table with a gun telling you how to run your table. If you want to run oldschool variants of things? No one is stopping you. Have fun.
Did I scourge them though? Me pointing out that saying "they're selling, so that means you're wrong" is a bad defense isn't "scourging" someone. What I said was that his point isn't based on anything of substance and strong correlation. Saying "but we're selling! Look at those numbers!" is an often used deflect against criticism which ignores all other possibilities. Such as the fact that increased marketing budgets just naturally leads to more sales. That isn't calling them wrong, that's calling out how their point is shakey.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
Bad DMs are going to be bad. Suggested and/or optional rules aren't going to do much about that, if anything at all. Good DMs will encourage creativity, even if they might impose a certain context and limitations that come with that context. WotC should enable and encourage those good DMs, but at some point they have to let the little fledglings fly out on their own and trust that they'll not only spread their wings but truly soar. And if they really want to affect the player base, nothing they try themselves will work half as well as a nudge and a wink to a few influencers with numerous followers. That's how today's cultural evolution flows.
Also, this works both ways: if suggested fixed ASIs could be construed as IRONCLAD RULE, then so could suggested floating ones. I haven't really seen much evidence of Tasha's optional rule creating actual problems in groups - flamey forum fulminations sure, arguments between players and their DM not at all - and I see no reason why a similar policy with regards to fixed ASIs should be different.
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The thing I'm concerned with is if I don't buy that book, will those changes get pushed into my campaign. I don't want any of it in my campaign, none of it. I will have to remod races and classes to keep that detritus from my campaign if it gets pushed through automatically.
I believe Golaryn's point was more "if this was the raging, screeching edition-killing dealbreaker folks keep claiming it is, why is the edition not dead yet?"
Which seems valid to me, I think?
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Because it's not. Aside from a few vocal people I can probably count on the fingers of one of Leo-the-clumsy-lumberjack's digitally challenged left hand nobody's claiming that. I know you enjoy hyperbole and in general I don't mind at all, but even on a more moderate level this just isn't true. Even those who are willing to abstain from an edition for whatever reason they may have themselves don't believe a policy like this is going to make a dent in 5E's user base, just like any other decision in this regard would be unlikely to move the needle to such an extent that any of us would notice - up to and including dropping the whole floating ASI idea. 99% of the players out there who have an issue with this will houserule it and play on. It's too inconsequential to warrant the proverbial torches and pitchforks. There's going to be a lot of yelling - there's always a lot of yelling - and that'll be it.
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Sigh.
Trenches have been dug once again and nobody is going to listen to each other and just rehash what supports their position and this discussion will go nowhere...like every other thread that this gets "discussed" in.
Could we not discuss...I don't know...what other changes people think will come to the PC races in MPMotM? Or what the changes are to the bestiary races? Or something that isn't just rehashing the same arguments while ignoring what others are saying about ASIs?
Or shall I just unsubscribe to this thread and abandon it?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.