I, too like the idea of all the different races having ups and downs on ASIs to balance the other perks and detriments that the racial choice brings. I can also see a lot of value in allowing the ASIs to shift to better suit who this character is within their race. I like the notion of the ASI being to show the average of a race and MOST "Adventurer" types are outside this, even before point buy and stuff. Yes, there was a Dwarf in the clan who just oozed Charisma. He had a way with words and a softer voice than most of his kin and a great sense of humor. Dammit, folks just LIKED him.
The ability to have our cake and eat it too is already there, so these changes aren't TOO new. I can also see the point of how Humans are getting the short end of the stick when i comes to perks and incentives to choose them. Sadly, I have no viable ideas on what might keep them interesting as a choice, amid all this shuffling.
Humans are still a very interesting option, +1 to every stat, or variant human, + 1 to 2 stats, a free feat and a skill proficiency no other race gives a free feat option, this can be massive.
I mean, I get the whole, "Nobody's special if everyone is."
Yet, doesn't that only apply across campaigns and not within a single campaign? If we compare Dwarfs in a single campaign, we end up with most of the Dwarfs in the world being standard and player character Dwarfs, if they so choose, being the exceptional. The same goes for another individual campaign—the only exceptional people are the player characters.
I still side with DMs on this, though. All the sources are tools and not weapons, but we seem to have people who feel threatened by them, validated by those few who threaten people with them. Courtesy is a player not trying to crowbar a floating ASI character into a DM's standard ASI campaign by throwing a book with optional rules at the DM.
I’ve used the same evolving setting for almost 30 years, my high school friends’ retired PCs are high level NPCs in that world. My friends PCs now will eventually join that roster too. I don’t use those published, pre-packaged 1 — X campaigns and then wipe the slate clean, I write my own or “curate” from the old (actually modular) modules. Every player I have ever DMed for has left their mark on my world. I don’t see a series of individual, 1-off campaigns. I see 30 years of adventure following hundreds of PCs over more than a dozen campaigns across 4&½ editions. I’m glad players are happy, they’re their campaigns after all, not mine. But its my world being changed against my will. WotC is so concerned about not leaning on any one player’s PC, and that’s fine. The PCs are theirs, the campaigns are theirs (after all, their characters are the stars).
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different? If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different? Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones? If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either. The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
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Lets add a little bit of a long term context here.
Many years ago Elves and Dwarves used to be a class, Humans could level far far higher then either Elf or Dwarf character could, and Humans could be clerics, fighters, wizards etc.
Then changes where made to make them a playable race. I imagine, had that happened at a time when there where many many many people on forums, it might have caused the same amount of anger and disagreement and an insistance that "this is not my DnD"
But the change happened and, I think we can all agree in hindsight the game is far better for it.
Floating ASI's is not a drastic dramatic change to the game system, many of us have been homebrewing it anyway long before Tashas came out and offered it as an optional rule. It makes sense and, as Jeremy Crawford stated, solves a problem many here have long complained of, that the clerics in a party are always Hill Dwarf or Half Elf, a Barbarian is always a Goliath or Half Orc etc, as Jeremy Crawford has intimated this was not the original intention of the game design and, with hindsight I imagine (although he hasn't said it) they wish they had applied floating ASI's at the start.
But perhaps the biggest question regarding the rationale of homogenizing racial stats is why are we now choosing that particular rabbit hole to go down.
“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed. [In Monsters of the Multiverse] people will get the floating bonuses we introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron. If somebody is making a character, and wants to recreate the bonuses that existed previously, the advantage of the floating bonus system is they can do exactly that.”
“Player characters are the beloved creations of our players, and again, we didn’t want to give the impression we were putting our hand on the scale and the personality and values of a player’s personal character. But again, alignment is still in the game, but as it’s always been, it’s the player’s choice and the DM’s choice.”
Anything is possible. But I think his statement regarding the rationale for the switch should be viewed with a healthy bit of skepticism given the timing - if he did make the change in response to the sociopolitical climate, can you imagine the firestorm if he came out and actually said he was doing the change because he wanted the game to be politically correct? Conversely, if the switch really was due to a fan push, why did the fan push to sever this connection not reach critical mass 5 years ago? 10 years ago? What has changed? Call me a skeptic if you will, but it all seems a bit too coincidental to be unrelated.
I don't get it. Why does it matter what the cause is?
But perhaps the biggest question regarding the rationale of homogenizing racial stats is why are we now choosing that particular rabbit hole to go down.
“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed. [In Monsters of the Multiverse] people will get the floating bonuses we introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron. If somebody is making a character, and wants to recreate the bonuses that existed previously, the advantage of the floating bonus system is they can do exactly that.”
“Player characters are the beloved creations of our players, and again, we didn’t want to give the impression we were putting our hand on the scale and the personality and values of a player’s personal character. But again, alignment is still in the game, but as it’s always been, it’s the player’s choice and the DM’s choice.”
Anything is possible. But I think his statement regarding the rationale for the switch should be viewed with a healthy bit of skepticism given the timing - if he did make the change in response to the sociopolitical climate, can you imagine the firestorm if he came out and actually said he was doing the change because he wanted the game to be politically correct? Conversely, if the switch really was due to a fan push, why did the fan push to sever this connection not reach critical mass 5 years ago? 10 years ago? What has changed? Call me a skeptic if you will, but it all seems a bit too coincidental to be unrelated.
Coincidental to what? If you are trying to claim that recent events in the past year or so have led to this let's look at the logic of what you are saying, Tashas came out 18 months ago, I imagine it was being playtested and developed for 2 years before that, so, floating ASI's as a concept was probably actually first discussed internally 5-6 years ago before finally a decision was made to put it in the rules to fix a problem that the designers where seeing was growing.
This is not a sudden thing, it has been talked about for years, long before Tasha's I remember hearing mention that the change was coming, now, I imagine the rules where play tested, checked for balance, brought out as optional in Tasha's and the feedback that the community has given is that more tables are using them than are not, and, over the course of a long term campaign it doesn't break the game. That has now been confirmed and so the rule can switch from being optional to becoming more RAW for the next iteration of DnD.
I have personally been waiting for this change for 8 years which is when I started home brewing floating ASI's but I also understand that it can take that amount of time to conceptualise, test and then implement a change that, as is obvious from the heated responses, is seen as being major (even if it isn't).
But perhaps the biggest question regarding the rationale of homogenizing racial stats is why are we now choosing that particular rabbit hole to go down.
“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed. [In Monsters of the Multiverse] people will get the floating bonuses we introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron. If somebody is making a character, and wants to recreate the bonuses that existed previously, the advantage of the floating bonus system is they can do exactly that.”
“Player characters are the beloved creations of our players, and again, we didn’t want to give the impression we were putting our hand on the scale and the personality and values of a player’s personal character. But again, alignment is still in the game, but as it’s always been, it’s the player’s choice and the DM’s choice.”
Anything is possible. But I think his statement regarding the rationale for the switch should be viewed with a healthy bit of skepticism given the timing - if he did make the change in response to the sociopolitical climate, can you imagine the firestorm if he came out and actually said he was doing the change because he wanted the game to be politically correct? Conversely, if the switch really was due to a fan push, why did the fan push to sever this connection not reach critical mass 5 years ago? 10 years ago? What has changed? Call me a skeptic if you will, but it all seems a bit too coincidental to be unrelated.
Honestly this seems kinda rude. Why are you calling their motivations into question like this? You say skepticism, but it kinda sounds like outright suspicion. What did they do to earn such suspicion?
And what do you mean "sociopolitical climate?" If you're talking about increasing efforts to portray worlds of diversity and inclusion, that's not "political" that's just learning better about their fanbase and doing better to create worlds that welcome everyone. Learn better, do better. And what do you mean IF? Do you remember in June of 2020 when they said this?
Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible has moved to the forefront of our priorities over the last six years. We’d like to share with you what we’ve been doing, and what we plan to do in the future to address legacy D&D content that does not reflect who we are today. We recognize that doing this isn’t about getting to a place where we can rest on our laurels but continuing to head in the right direction. We feel that being transparent about it is the best way to let our community help us to continue to calibrate our efforts.
One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs. We want everyone to feel at home around the game table and to see positive reflections of themselves within our products. “Human” in D&D means everyone, not just fantasy versions of northern Europeans, and the D&D community is now more diverse than it’s ever been.
Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right.
And yes, there were some people who were upset by this, but on the whole I think the increasing fanbase was happy that certain painful tropes that were turning off fans of color, LGBT fans, fans with disabilities, etc. were being curbed and thus opening the doors of D&D to more and more people. So whatever fire was evoked was doused by the increased compassion, unity, and camaraderie the rest of us were getting.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I mean, I get the whole, "Nobody's special if everyone is."
Yet, doesn't that only apply across campaigns and not within a single campaign? If we compare Dwarfs in a single campaign, we end up with most of the Dwarfs in the world being standard and player character Dwarfs, if they so choose, being the exceptional. The same goes for another individual campaign—the only exceptional people are the player characters.
I still side with DMs on this, though. All the sources are tools and not weapons, but we seem to have people who feel threatened by them, validated by those few who threaten people with them. Courtesy is a player not trying to crowbar a floating ASI character into a DM's standard ASI campaign by throwing a book with optional rules at the DM.
I’ve used the same evolving setting for almost 30 years, my high school friends’ retired PCs are high level NPCs in that world. My friends PCs now will eventually join that roster too. I don’t use those published, pre-packaged 1 — X campaigns and then wipe the slate clean, I write my own or “curate” from the old (actually modular) modules. Every player I have ever DMed for has left their mark on my world. I don’t see a series of individual, 1-off campaigns. I see 30 years of adventure following hundreds of PCs over more than a dozen campaigns across 4&½ editions. I’m glad players are happy, they’re their campaigns after all, not mine. But its my world being changed against my will. WotC is so concerned about not leaning on any one player’s PC, and that’s fine. The PCs are theirs, the campaigns are theirs (after all, their characters are the stars).
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different?
If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different?
Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones?
If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either.
The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
I skipped 4e, I went 1e -> 2e -> 3/3.5 —> 5e.
I still use the 1e/2e lore for my version of Mystara, easy since WotC has never supported it. Gnolls in my world are still technically Goblinoids.
WotC is officially putting out an errata to retcon the PHB races and DDB will force it on my table since we don’t have the toxified remains of living creatures with the rules tattooed into the pages.
What do published “adventures” campaigns have to do with sourcebooks?
Again, I will have to add them back in for every PHB race and then address it every time someone makes a new character or just throw up my hands and accept what I don’t want in my world.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think it was something Colville said. I think someone had asked him what D&D was and he didn’t know how to answer at first. After a time he eventually landed upon the answer:
Start taking things away from D&D one at a time and whenever you take away something that makes it not D&D anymore, put it back. Keep doing that until all that’s left are the things that you have specifically put back, and whatever is left in that little pile is D&D.
The very first thing I ever put back was Racial Ability Score Adjustments at character creation. After that was Alignment. Then class levels; spell levels & slots; Attacks, Checks & Saves; the dice, the core 4 Classes, and the 8 schools of Magic. When I decided to skim the 5e PHB to decide if I was gonna buy in or stick with 3/3.5, the very first thing I did was flip to the race section and check for Racial Ability Adjustments (in any form).
It’s barely stil D&D for me anymore. Make sense now?
I mean, I get the whole, "Nobody's special if everyone is."
Yet, doesn't that only apply across campaigns and not within a single campaign? If we compare Dwarfs in a single campaign, we end up with most of the Dwarfs in the world being standard and player character Dwarfs, if they so choose, being the exceptional. The same goes for another individual campaign—the only exceptional people are the player characters.
I still side with DMs on this, though. All the sources are tools and not weapons, but we seem to have people who feel threatened by them, validated by those few who threaten people with them. Courtesy is a player not trying to crowbar a floating ASI character into a DM's standard ASI campaign by throwing a book with optional rules at the DM.
I’ve used the same evolving setting for almost 30 years, my high school friends’ retired PCs are high level NPCs in that world. My friends PCs now will eventually join that roster too. I don’t use those published, pre-packaged 1 — X campaigns and then wipe the slate clean, I write my own or “curate” from the old (actually modular) modules. Every player I have ever DMed for has left their mark on my world. I don’t see a series of individual, 1-off campaigns. I see 30 years of adventure following hundreds of PCs over more than a dozen campaigns across 4&½ editions. I’m glad players are happy, they’re their campaigns after all, not mine. But its my world being changed against my will. WotC is so concerned about not leaning on any one player’s PC, and that’s fine. The PCs are theirs, the campaigns are theirs (after all, their characters are the stars).
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different?
If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different?
Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones?
If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either.
The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
I skipped 4e, I went 1e -> 2e -> 3/3.5 —> 5e.
I still use the 1e/2e lore for my version of Mystara, easy since WotC has never supported it. Gnolls in my world are still technically Goblinoids.
WotC is officially putting out an errata to retcon the PHB races and DDB will force it on my table since we don’t have the toxified remains of living creatures with the rules tattooed into the pages.
What do published “adventures” campaigns have to do with sourcebooks?
Again, I will have to add them back in for every PHB race and then address it every time someone makes a new character or just throw up my hands and accept what I don’t want in my world.
1. Which versions exactly is hardly important, and you still did not answer my main query. If your world could survive all of the mechanical changes that came with edition changes, why is the mechanical change of fixed->floating ASIs where you draw the line? Im not overly familiar with the other versions, but from what I have heard how abilities worked has changed drastically throughout D&D history. From your final comments, I see that you value Racial scores over several other things, but I am still unclear on why, especially when you seem to value them more than certain classes or how spellcasting/attacks works.
2. In that case, any errata changes that occur to the lore should not matter to your world. Not sure if that was part of your complaints, but I know it was something that had upset some groups recently, so I wanted to cover my bases
3. Seems like your issue then is with D&D Beyond and not WoTC, but in any case I thought they had stated that MMM races would be part of the sourcebook as a separate entity, not introduced as errata. Here is the relevant quote which Davyd has posted to another concerned thread (emphasis mine)
"But I have a feeling right now that the Call of the Netherdeep is not the book you are staring at on this road map, that you want to gnash your teeth and yell at me about, on our pre-order list, because Monster of the Multiverse also on our pre-order on our marketplace. Here's what I'll tell you about Monster of the Multiverse; one, it's a book that's meant to open up D&D lore a little bit so that you can use anything that you want in your homebrew world or even in the books that Wizards puts out. It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you, it's also gonna be a really cool resource for newer players, like a one stop shop for a ton of monsters, a ton of player races. The big question that people have for us specifically around Monsters of the Multiverse is "Will this replace my previously purchased content?" It will not. This will absolutely not replace your previously purchased at D&D Beyond. We are currently working through with Wizard on the approach, you know, the nuts and bolts approach for making that work. Wizards of the Coast has asked us that they would like to take the lead on message around this book, we're allowing them that, but we did wanna make sure that you all understood that your stuff is not gonna get replaced, you're not gonna lose anything when this book is released. So, wanted to put that rumour, that concern, to bed. Lots more details to come on Monster of the Muliverse, but that's a big one we really wanted to get across in the mean time. That's enough about books, let's get into features....." -Joe Starr, during a developer update
4. My point is that if WoTC uses exclusively floating ASI races and similar mechanics moving forward with the new adventures, it wont affect your world since you dont use them. I do see how it feels like a tangent though, so feel free to ignore that point.
5. See the quote on comment 3. You should not have to add them back at all because they are not getting replaced. That sounds like an issue that could be solved by holding a session zero with your players before they make their characters. If you explain what you are using and your expectations for characters before they make them, you should be able to avoid frustration.
Your experience will vary greatly from mine, as I started in 5e. If this has crossed a line and you would rather go back to 3.5e to get back the "feel" of D&D, then more power to you. To me, this change seems like a relatively small one in the grand scheme of what goes into a character, so it feels like a weird "final straw" for some people to have
But again, my perception will probably be very different as I started in 5e, so we may just have to agree to disagree on the impact
Kaboom, the whole not forcing changes on previously bought content is only applicable to MotM. Other changes are being forced through onto DDB users, which is why there was such a stink about whether or not the changes in MotM were going to be pushed onto Volo's or if itnwould be considered new and separate content - the precedent was that it would be forced onto the original stat blocks. The decision to not do likewise with MotM/VGtM was quite late on - and probably prompted to make the call they did by the upset people were expressing at the idea. It is a valid concern that the changes are being forced onto people if they use DDB. I personally don't own much content here so I'm not personally concerned, but I can understand why others might be upset by it.
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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.
Kaboom, the whole not forcing changes on previously bought content is only applicable to MotM. Other changes are being forced through onto DDB users, which is why there was such a stink about whether or not the changes in MotM were going to be pushed onto Volo's or if itnwould be considered new and separate content - the precedent was that it would be forced onto the original stat blocks. The decision to not do likewise with MotM/VGtM was quite late on - and probably prompted to make the call they did by the upset people were expressing at the idea. It is a valid concern that the changes are being forced onto people if they use DDB. I personally don't own much content here so I'm not personally concerned, but I can understand why others might be upset by it.
As a general concern, I get that for sure. But if the concern is specifically about the floating ASI change to races occurring in MotM and how they will be applied to D&D Beyond, then at this point in time it has been addressed. That is to say, at this point nothing is being replaced or forced on anyone. I agree the team took a long time to actual discuss this issue..
I can see how this could be concerning with new content, but nothing about ASIs in the PHB is getting forcefully changed like some people are making it sound
As someone who started playing D&D with 5e, I don't like the direction WotC is going with player races (and other things in general, tbh). I don't really like how floating ability score bonuses is now the standard (and is now the only supported option) since that and other aspects of this new direction comes off as incredibly lazy on WotC's end to me; they can just apparently no longer be bothered to add a few lines of text per race so they essentially say "I dunno, just make it whatever you want" and it indirectly encourages power creep as a result. It's already not that hard to break the game, do we really need to give players even more ways to break it even further? Honestly, I don't even care about this being an option for people if that's what they like, but those that prefer to have that kind of choice matter a bit more should be allowed to have what they'd like too and not have to put in a bunch of what should've been unnecessary work to do so (same applies towards other similarly done away with things like alignment). It's all fine and dandy to go against the established mold and all that, but with this direction there is no longer any mold to go against to begin with. If anyone can be anything they want just as well as everyone else without putting in any effort, then how can there be any kind of mold by that point? To clarify, I'm not suggesting that all orcs/dwarves/elves/whatever have to be and must always be X, Y, Z; but if there's no baseline to work with at all, then I don't see how you can make a character who really stands out from the rest of their peers, or even fits right in with them at that.
To add my own comments on some of the comments I've seen here and in other similar topics, I've always found it weird and downright bizarre that something like a +2/+1 bonus to an ability score is what holds people back from playing certain character ideas. There's absolutely nothing wrong with diving into and embracing a stereotypical character concept, like an orc barbarian or a high-elf wizard; but nothing in 5e's rules has ever stopped anyone from playing a completely different and more unique character concept as well, like an orc wizard or a high-elf barbarian. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if it were my games and you wanted to play such a character, I would try to work with you to make such a character concept work within the context of my game's world so that everyone wins. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that the only thing that has ever stopped you from playing such character concepts is yourself. Do you really need that one extra point in your modifier(s) to have fun playing a character? Do you really need them to be the very best they can possibly ever be from the very beginning of the game? Do you just not like the idea of your character growing from an absolute nobody to becoming an renowned hero? I honestly don't understand this mindset at all.
I mean, I get the whole, "Nobody's special if everyone is."
Yet, doesn't that only apply across campaigns and not within a single campaign? If we compare Dwarfs in a single campaign, we end up with most of the Dwarfs in the world being standard and player character Dwarfs, if they so choose, being the exceptional. The same goes for another individual campaign—the only exceptional people are the player characters.
I still side with DMs on this, though. All the sources are tools and not weapons, but we seem to have people who feel threatened by them, validated by those few who threaten people with them. Courtesy is a player not trying to crowbar a floating ASI character into a DM's standard ASI campaign by throwing a book with optional rules at the DM.
I’ve used the same evolving setting for almost 30 years, my high school friends’ retired PCs are high level NPCs in that world. My friends PCs now will eventually join that roster too. I don’t use those published, pre-packaged 1 — X campaigns and then wipe the slate clean, I write my own or “curate” from the old (actually modular) modules. Every player I have ever DMed for has left their mark on my world. I don’t see a series of individual, 1-off campaigns. I see 30 years of adventure following hundreds of PCs over more than a dozen campaigns across 4&½ editions. I’m glad players are happy, they’re their campaigns after all, not mine. But its my world being changed against my will. WotC is so concerned about not leaning on any one player’s PC, and that’s fine. The PCs are theirs, the campaigns are theirs (after all, their characters are the stars).
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different?
If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different?
Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones?
If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either.
The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
I skipped 4e, I went 1e -> 2e -> 3/3.5 —> 5e.
I still use the 1e/2e lore for my version of Mystara, easy since WotC has never supported it. Gnolls in my world are still technically Goblinoids.
WotC is officially putting out an errata to retcon the PHB races and DDB will force it on my table since we don’t have the toxified remains of living creatures with the rules tattooed into the pages.
What do published “adventures” campaigns have to do with sourcebooks?
Again, I will have to add them back in for every PHB race and then address it every time someone makes a new character or just throw up my hands and accept what I don’t want in my world.
1. Which versions exactly is hardly important, and you still did not answer my main query. If your world could survive all of the mechanical changes that came with edition changes, why is the mechanical change of fixed->floating ASIs where you draw the line? Im not overly familiar with the other versions, but from what I have heard how abilities worked has changed drastically throughout D&D history. From your final comments, I see that you value Racial scores over several other things, but I am still unclear on why, especially when you seem to value them more than certain classes or how spellcasting/attacks works.
2. In that case, any errata changes that occur to the lore should not matter to your world. Not sure if that was part of your complaints, but I know it was something that had upset some groups recently, so I wanted to cover my bases
3. Seems like your issue then is with D&D Beyond and not WoTC, but in any case I thought they had stated that MMM races would be part of the sourcebook as a separate entity, not introduced as errata. Here is the relevant quote which Davyd has posted to another concerned thread (emphasis mine)
"But I have a feeling right now that the Call of the Netherdeep is not the book you are staring at on this road map, that you want to gnash your teeth and yell at me about, on our pre-order list, because Monster of the Multiverse also on our pre-order on our marketplace. Here's what I'll tell you about Monster of the Multiverse; one, it's a book that's meant to open up D&D lore a little bit so that you can use anything that you want in your homebrew world or even in the books that Wizards puts out. It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you, it's also gonna be a really cool resource for newer players, like a one stop shop for a ton of monsters, a ton of player races. The big question that people have for us specifically around Monsters of the Multiverse is "Will this replace my previously purchased content?" It will not. This will absolutely not replace your previously purchased at D&D Beyond. We are currently working through with Wizard on the approach, you know, the nuts and bolts approach for making that work. Wizards of the Coast has asked us that they would like to take the lead on message around this book, we're allowing them that, but we did wanna make sure that you all understood that your stuff is not gonna get replaced, you're not gonna lose anything when this book is released. So, wanted to put that rumour, that concern, to bed. Lots more details to come on Monster of the Muliverse, but that's a big one we really wanted to get across in the mean time. That's enough about books, let's get into features....." -Joe Starr, during a developer update
4. My point is that if WoTC uses exclusively floating ASI races and similar mechanics moving forward with the new adventures, it wont affect your world since you dont use them. I do see how it feels like a tangent though, so feel free to ignore that point.
5.
See the quote on comment 3. You should not have to add them back at all because they are not getting replaced.
That sounds like an issue that could be solved by holding a session zero with your players before they make their characters. If you explain what you are using and your expectations for characters before they make them, you should be able to avoid frustration.
Your experience will vary greatly from mine, as I started in 5e. If this has crossed a line and you would rather go back to 3.5e to get back the "feel" of D&D, then more power to you. To me, this change seems like a relatively small one in the grand scheme of what goes into a character, so it feels like a weird "final straw" for some people to have
But again, my perception will probably be very different as I started in 5e, so we may just have to agree to disagree on the impact
Its not the lore I’m upset about them changing, it’s the fact that they are changing the mechanics too.
No. If you think that WotC isn’t gonna officially errata the current PHB when they release the do-over in ‘24 you’re not noticing which way the wind is blowing. Just like things were “optional” in Tasha’s and now less than a year later they are standard moving forward.
Again, I don’t give a fig about the Adventure content, it’s the sourcebook content that will also have the same changes.
Again, not yet….
And I’ll have to explain it every time.
In conclusion see the two posts I linked in bullet point 1.👆
As someone who started playing D&D with 5e, I don't like the direction WotC is going with player races (and other things in general, tbh). I don't really like how floating ability score bonuses is now the standard (and is now the only supported option) since that and other aspects of this new direction comes off as incredibly lazy on WotC's end to me; they can just apparently no longer be bothered to add a few lines of text per race so they essentially say "I dunno, just make it whatever you want" and it indirectly encourages power creep as a result. It's already not that hard to break the game, do we really need to give players even more ways to break it even further? Honestly, I don't even care about this being an option for people if that's what they like, but those that prefer to have that kind of choice matter a bit more should be allowed to have what they'd like too and not have to put in a bunch of what should've been unnecessary work to do so (same applies towards other similarly done away with things like alignment). It's all fine and dandy to go against the established mold and all that, but with this direction there is no longer any mold to go against to begin with. If anyone can be anything they want just as well as everyone else without putting in any effort, then how can there be any kind of mold by that point? To clarify, I'm not suggesting that all orcs/dwarves/elves/whatever have to be and must always be X, Y, Z; but if there's no baseline to work with at all, then I don't see how you can make a character who really stands out from the rest of their peers, or even fits right in with them at that.
To add my own comments on some of the comments I've seen here and in other similar topics, I've always found it weird and downright bizarre that something like a +2/+1 bonus to an ability score is what holds people back from playing certain character ideas. There's absolutely nothing wrong with diving into and embracing a stereotypical character concept, like an orc barbarian or a high-elf wizard; but nothing in 5e's rules has ever stopped anyone from playing a completely different and more unique character concept as well, like an orc wizard or a high-elf barbarian. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if it were my games and you wanted to play such a character, I would try to work with you to make such a character concept work within the context of my game's world so that everyone wins. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that the only thing that has ever stopped you from playing such character concepts is yourself. Do you really need that one extra point in your modifier(s) to have fun playing a character? Do you really need them to be the very best they can possibly ever be from the very beginning of the game? Do you just not like the idea of your character growing from an absolute nobody to becoming an renowned hero? I honestly don't understand this mindset at all.
As has been stated numerous times, the problem with that laying a race that is not “optimized” for a class is that you are instantly the week link in a party of characters who are optimized.
I also find this “breaking the game” comment hilarious. In what way is making a half orc with a +2 int game breaking? I mean, if I am going to play wizard what difference does it make to the game if I do that vs make a gnome wizard?
If that is breaking your game then maybe you as a DM need to look at how you balance things? I have been homebrewing floating ASIs for 8 years in that time probably 25 characters have applied the rule and in every case they where better balanced for the party and in no way “broke” the game, but it did give rise to some fantastic characters, like the elf with a dex of 7 (standard array), the tiefling with charisma 8, a half orc who had no muscle and was a great thinker and the warforged built to be a great orator.
I love how people are assuming this thing is dreadful without actually trying it, or without talking to people who have tried it.
Since we're going the route of "race just means what skin the character has" why wouldn't they simply set every stat at 10? Then, at character creation, you can take 2 points from one stat and assign them to another and 1 point from another stat to assign elsewhere. That would give you a 12 and an 11, an 8 and a 9 and the rest left at 10. Wouldn't that be "fairer" or more "balanced"?
13. Not 10.
10 is for commoners. 13 would be for paragon-heroes. Then yes, adjust up and down. I'd imagine they can also add modifiers to specific backgrounds and classes perhaps but they still IMHO should be combinations of + and - that at the end of the day still yields a 30 point array.
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We arent going that route at all. Nearly every racial option in the game still offers an array of features to add to your character. Using floating ASIs does not equal "race just means what skin the character has"
So, to reiterate, moving to a floating ASI system is NOT going the route of "race just means what skin the character has" Each race will have its own unique influence on what your character can do, one way or another.
Yet. But for all we know it is just a dominoe, and reasonable arguments can be made to open generic traits up more too. Like each race gets a skill proficiency. Why have it be so specific and not one off of your class list? Races with weapon proficieny, is a cultural aspect, not like darvision. If you were raised in another community or are a member of a race but raised in the community of another race; i.e. why not make weapon proficiency wider open rather than specific to a race?
Panguran is right in this case, with the exception of definitively biological traits such as darkvision, you can discount any presumably cultural imput of a race description as an irrelivency to character building. Static vs floating ASI's are really about whether or not the focus on one ASI (particularly at the expense of another) is cultural or biological. Did orcs have a +2 in STR because they spend a lot of time working out and lifting heavy things to build their strength like Arnold did, or because they just have more muscle mass than other creatures?
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Static vs floating ASI's are really about whether or not the focus on one ASI (particularly at the expense of another) is cultural or biological. Did orcs have a +2 in STR because they spend a lot of time working out and lifting heavy things to build their strength like Arnold did, or because they just have more muscle mass than other creatures?
Considering there must be orcs who don't work out all the time, it can't be the former. The "cultural" part of a given attribute is primarily which stat gets put there; the racial modifiers are biological (the word "race" should be the first clue there, and if a more accurate term like "species" were used instead that would be even more obvious).
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I use fixed ASIs as the standard. If players ask though, I'm not telling them they can't shift those points around.
No no, I meant things like Alice saying "I'm going to play a dwarf this time!", and the DM saying "Great! I love dwarves! Your stats are 16 | 8 | 17 | 10 | 13 | 12, you're gonna play a Battle Master fighter and your background is Clan Crafter. I'll get you a write-up of how dwarves work and what your clan geneology is like by next session. This is gonna be great!"
Do people really do that in your experience or is that an exageration? I might say: "Great! I love Dwarves! You have 32 points to spend on Stats, and don't forget Dwarves get a +2 to Con, a +1 to Str and/or Wis, and a -2 to Cha." but they still can assign their points however they like; and I'm not going to stingy with the availability of magic that can buff their core concept stat should it turn out to be Dex, Int, or Cha. Again it's not about denying a player what they want; it's about maintaining the structure of the campaign world; typically as relates to the presence of NPC's.
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Again it's not about denying a player what they want; it's about maintaining the structure of the campaign world; typically as relates to the presence of NPC's.
Wrong argument to make. Rules for PCs don't affect NPCs.
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I mean, I get the whole, "Nobody's special if everyone is."
Yet, doesn't that only apply across campaigns and not within a single campaign? If we compare Dwarfs in a single campaign, we end up with most of the Dwarfs in the world being standard and player character Dwarfs, if they so choose, being the exceptional. The same goes for another individual campaign—the only exceptional people are the player characters.
I still side with DMs on this, though. All the sources are tools and not weapons, but we seem to have people who feel threatened by them, validated by those few who threaten people with them. Courtesy is a player not trying to crowbar a floating ASI character into a DM's standard ASI campaign by throwing a book with optional rules at the DM.
I’ve used the same evolving setting for almost 30 years, my high school friends’ retired PCs are high level NPCs in that world. My friends PCs now will eventually join that roster too. I don’t use those published, pre-packaged 1 — X campaigns and then wipe the slate clean, I write my own or “curate” from the old (actually modular) modules. Every player I have ever DMed for has left their mark on my world. I don’t see a series of individual, 1-off campaigns. I see 30 years of adventure following hundreds of PCs over more than a dozen campaigns across 4&½ editions. I’m glad players are happy, they’re their campaigns after all, not mine. But its my world being changed against my will. WotC is so concerned about not leaning on any one player’s PC, and that’s fine. The PCs are theirs, the campaigns are theirs (after all, their characters are the stars).
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different?
If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different?
Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones?
If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either.
The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
I skipped 4e, I went 1e -> 2e -> 3/3.5 —> 5e.
I still use the 1e/2e lore for my version of Mystara, easy since WotC has never supported it. Gnolls in my world are still technically Goblinoids.
WotC is officially putting out an errata to retcon the PHB races and DDB will force it on my table since we don’t have the toxified remains of living creatures with the rules tattooed into the pages.
What do published “adventures” campaigns have to do with sourcebooks?
Again, I will have to add them back in for every PHB race and then address it every time someone makes a new character or just throw up my hands and accept what I don’t want in my world.
1. Which versions exactly is hardly important, and you still did not answer my main query. If your world could survive all of the mechanical changes that came with edition changes, why is the mechanical change of fixed->floating ASIs where you draw the line? Im not overly familiar with the other versions, but from what I have heard how abilities worked has changed drastically throughout D&D history. From your final comments, I see that you value Racial scores over several other things, but I am still unclear on why, especially when you seem to value them more than certain classes or how spellcasting/attacks works.
2. In that case, any errata changes that occur to the lore should not matter to your world. Not sure if that was part of your complaints, but I know it was something that had upset some groups recently, so I wanted to cover my bases
3. Seems like your issue then is with D&D Beyond and not WoTC, but in any case I thought they had stated that MMM races would be part of the sourcebook as a separate entity, not introduced as errata. Here is the relevant quote which Davyd has posted to another concerned thread (emphasis mine)
"But I have a feeling right now that the Call of the Netherdeep is not the book you are staring at on this road map, that you want to gnash your teeth and yell at me about, on our pre-order list, because Monster of the Multiverse also on our pre-order on our marketplace. Here's what I'll tell you about Monster of the Multiverse; one, it's a book that's meant to open up D&D lore a little bit so that you can use anything that you want in your homebrew world or even in the books that Wizards puts out. It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you, it's also gonna be a really cool resource for newer players, like a one stop shop for a ton of monsters, a ton of player races. The big question that people have for us specifically around Monsters of the Multiverse is "Will this replace my previously purchased content?" It will not. This will absolutely not replace your previously purchased at D&D Beyond. We are currently working through with Wizard on the approach, you know, the nuts and bolts approach for making that work. Wizards of the Coast has asked us that they would like to take the lead on message around this book, we're allowing them that, but we did wanna make sure that you all understood that your stuff is not gonna get replaced, you're not gonna lose anything when this book is released. So, wanted to put that rumour, that concern, to bed. Lots more details to come on Monster of the Muliverse, but that's a big one we really wanted to get across in the mean time. That's enough about books, let's get into features....." -Joe Starr, during a developer update
4. My point is that if WoTC uses exclusively floating ASI races and similar mechanics moving forward with the new adventures, it wont affect your world since you dont use them. I do see how it feels like a tangent though, so feel free to ignore that point.
5.
See the quote on comment 3. You should not have to add them back at all because they are not getting replaced.
That sounds like an issue that could be solved by holding a session zero with your players before they make their characters. If you explain what you are using and your expectations for characters before they make them, you should be able to avoid frustration.
Your experience will vary greatly from mine, as I started in 5e. If this has crossed a line and you would rather go back to 3.5e to get back the "feel" of D&D, then more power to you. To me, this change seems like a relatively small one in the grand scheme of what goes into a character, so it feels like a weird "final straw" for some people to have
But again, my perception will probably be very different as I started in 5e, so we may just have to agree to disagree on the impact
Its not the lore I’m upset about them changing, it’s the fact that they are changing the mechanics too.
No. If you think that WotC isn’t gonna officially errata the current PHB when they release the do-over in ‘24 you’re not noticing which way the wind is blowing. Just like things were “optional” in Tasha’s and now less than a year later they are standard moving forward.
Again, I don’t give a fig about the Adventure content, it’s the sourcebook content that will also have the same changes.
Again, not yet….
And I’ll have to explain it every time.
In conclusion see the two posts I linked in bullet point 1.👆
1. Thanks for the links. I havent followed every comment in this thread as it has been going on for several days now. I will look them over at some point.
2. This still confuses me. You have played the same campaign world through multiple different versions of the game (where the mechanics have changed drastically in one aspect or another with each new version). Why is WoTC changing game mechanics now different than every other time the mechanics have changed for your world?
3. My focus really hasnt been on 2024. If thats your primary worry than I understand better. I have been approaching most arguments in this thread in relation to MMM primarily. At this point, I imagine floating ASIs wont even be the most drastic change in 2024 so I wont worry about it too much until I hear more.
5. Yes. Thats how session zero works for campaigns. You are supposed to explain your expectations every time you start a campaign.
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As has been stated numerous times, the problem with that laying a race that is not “optimized” for a class is that you are instantly the week link in a party of characters who are optimized.
No one is "optimized" at level 1. Optimization is a process that takes a few levels to come into full play. It's not all your base numbers either, it includes the acquisition of gear into the mix as well. If the DM is noticing any "weak link-ness" on behalf of any given character relative to the rest of the party and hasn't compensated for it with an appropriate treasure drop by tier 2, then the DM is not 'optimizing' for fun.
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Humans are still a very interesting option, +1 to every stat, or variant human, + 1 to 2 stats, a free feat and a skill proficiency no other race gives a free feat option, this can be massive.
This seems a bit odd to me. You have used the same evolving setting for 30 years, with it presumably changing as it passed through the different rules for 4&1/2 editions. How is this change any different? If your world and setting could survive going from 3.5e to 4e to 5e, why is it moving from fixed ASI to floating ASI any different? Surely alot more in the rules and "general lore" has changed in your setting over 30 years than what is being discussed in this thread.
Also, how is this being changed against your will? Is WOTC forcing you to use MMM races instead of PHB ones? If you dont use any of the prewritten adventures to begin with, it shouldn't matter if any of the new material they print use this new format either. The only thing that might be odd is NEW races, but even then you were already going to have to do the leg work to figure out how they fit into the lore of your custom world, so putting the +2/+1 where you want for your world should practically be an afterthought.
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Lets add a little bit of a long term context here.
Many years ago Elves and Dwarves used to be a class, Humans could level far far higher then either Elf or Dwarf character could, and Humans could be clerics, fighters, wizards etc.
Then changes where made to make them a playable race. I imagine, had that happened at a time when there where many many many people on forums, it might have caused the same amount of anger and disagreement and an insistance that "this is not my DnD"
But the change happened and, I think we can all agree in hindsight the game is far better for it.
Floating ASI's is not a drastic dramatic change to the game system, many of us have been homebrewing it anyway long before Tashas came out and offered it as an optional rule. It makes sense and, as Jeremy Crawford stated, solves a problem many here have long complained of, that the clerics in a party are always Hill Dwarf or Half Elf, a Barbarian is always a Goliath or Half Orc etc, as Jeremy Crawford has intimated this was not the original intention of the game design and, with hindsight I imagine (although he hasn't said it) they wish they had applied floating ASI's at the start.
I don't get it. Why does it matter what the cause is?
Coincidental to what? If you are trying to claim that recent events in the past year or so have led to this let's look at the logic of what you are saying, Tashas came out 18 months ago, I imagine it was being playtested and developed for 2 years before that, so, floating ASI's as a concept was probably actually first discussed internally 5-6 years ago before finally a decision was made to put it in the rules to fix a problem that the designers where seeing was growing.
This is not a sudden thing, it has been talked about for years, long before Tasha's I remember hearing mention that the change was coming, now, I imagine the rules where play tested, checked for balance, brought out as optional in Tasha's and the feedback that the community has given is that more tables are using them than are not, and, over the course of a long term campaign it doesn't break the game. That has now been confirmed and so the rule can switch from being optional to becoming more RAW for the next iteration of DnD.
I have personally been waiting for this change for 8 years which is when I started home brewing floating ASI's but I also understand that it can take that amount of time to conceptualise, test and then implement a change that, as is obvious from the heated responses, is seen as being major (even if it isn't).
Honestly this seems kinda rude. Why are you calling their motivations into question like this? You say skepticism, but it kinda sounds like outright suspicion. What did they do to earn such suspicion?
And what do you mean "sociopolitical climate?" If you're talking about increasing efforts to portray worlds of diversity and inclusion, that's not "political" that's just learning better about their fanbase and doing better to create worlds that welcome everyone. Learn better, do better. And what do you mean IF? Do you remember in June of 2020 when they said this?
And yes, there were some people who were upset by this, but on the whole I think the increasing fanbase was happy that certain painful tropes that were turning off fans of color, LGBT fans, fans with disabilities, etc. were being curbed and thus opening the doors of D&D to more and more people. So whatever fire was evoked was doused by the increased compassion, unity, and camaraderie the rest of us were getting.
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alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
adventures” campaigns have to do with sourcebooks?I’m not entirely sure, but I think it was something Colville said. I think someone had asked him what D&D was and he didn’t know how to answer at first. After a time he eventually landed upon the answer:
The very first thing I ever put back was Racial Ability Score Adjustments at character creation. After that was Alignment. Then class levels; spell levels & slots; Attacks, Checks & Saves; the dice, the core 4 Classes, and the 8 schools of Magic. When I decided to skim the 5e PHB to decide if I was gonna buy in or stick with 3/3.5, the very first thing I did was flip to the race section and check for Racial Ability Adjustments (in any form).
It’s barely stil D&D for me anymore. Make sense now?
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1. Which versions exactly is hardly important, and you still did not answer my main query. If your world could survive all of the mechanical changes that came with edition changes, why is the mechanical change of fixed->floating ASIs where you draw the line? Im not overly familiar with the other versions, but from what I have heard how abilities worked has changed drastically throughout D&D history. From your final comments, I see that you value Racial scores over several other things, but I am still unclear on why, especially when you seem to value them more than certain classes or how spellcasting/attacks works.
2. In that case, any errata changes that occur to the lore should not matter to your world. Not sure if that was part of your complaints, but I know it was something that had upset some groups recently, so I wanted to cover my bases
3. Seems like your issue then is with D&D Beyond and not WoTC, but in any case I thought they had stated that MMM races would be part of the sourcebook as a separate entity, not introduced as errata. Here is the relevant quote which Davyd has posted to another concerned thread (emphasis mine)
"But I have a feeling right now that the Call of the Netherdeep is not the book you are staring at on this road map, that you want to gnash your teeth and yell at me about, on our pre-order list, because Monster of the Multiverse also on our pre-order on our marketplace. Here's what I'll tell you about Monster of the Multiverse; one, it's a book that's meant to open up D&D lore a little bit so that you can use anything that you want in your homebrew world or even in the books that Wizards puts out. It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you, it's also gonna be a really cool resource for newer players, like a one stop shop for a ton of monsters, a ton of player races. The big question that people have for us specifically around Monsters of the Multiverse is "Will this replace my previously purchased content?" It will not. This will absolutely not replace your previously purchased at D&D Beyond. We are currently working through with Wizard on the approach, you know, the nuts and bolts approach for making that work. Wizards of the Coast has asked us that they would like to take the lead on message around this book, we're allowing them that, but we did wanna make sure that you all understood that your stuff is not gonna get replaced, you're not gonna lose anything when this book is released. So, wanted to put that rumour, that concern, to bed. Lots more details to come on Monster of the Muliverse, but that's a big one we really wanted to get across in the mean time. That's enough about books, let's get into features....." -Joe Starr, during a developer update
4. My point is that if WoTC uses exclusively floating ASI races and similar mechanics moving forward with the new adventures, it wont affect your world since you dont use them. I do see how it feels like a tangent though, so feel free to ignore that point.
5. See the quote on comment 3. You should not have to add them back at all because they are not getting replaced. That sounds like an issue that could be solved by holding a session zero with your players before they make their characters. If you explain what you are using and your expectations for characters before they make them, you should be able to avoid frustration.
Your experience will vary greatly from mine, as I started in 5e. If this has crossed a line and you would rather go back to 3.5e to get back the "feel" of D&D, then more power to you. To me, this change seems like a relatively small one in the grand scheme of what goes into a character, so it feels like a weird "final straw" for some people to have
But again, my perception will probably be very different as I started in 5e, so we may just have to agree to disagree on the impact
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Kaboom, the whole not forcing changes on previously bought content is only applicable to MotM. Other changes are being forced through onto DDB users, which is why there was such a stink about whether or not the changes in MotM were going to be pushed onto Volo's or if itnwould be considered new and separate content - the precedent was that it would be forced onto the original stat blocks. The decision to not do likewise with MotM/VGtM was quite late on - and probably prompted to make the call they did by the upset people were expressing at the idea. It is a valid concern that the changes are being forced onto people if they use DDB. I personally don't own much content here so I'm not personally concerned, but I can understand why others might be upset by 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.
As a general concern, I get that for sure. But if the concern is specifically about the floating ASI change to races occurring in MotM and how they will be applied to D&D Beyond, then at this point in time it has been addressed. That is to say, at this point nothing is being replaced or forced on anyone. I agree the team took a long time to actual discuss this issue..
I can see how this could be concerning with new content, but nothing about ASIs in the PHB is getting forcefully changed like some people are making it sound
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As someone who started playing D&D with 5e, I don't like the direction WotC is going with player races (and other things in general, tbh). I don't really like how floating ability score bonuses is now the standard (and is now the only supported option) since that and other aspects of this new direction comes off as incredibly lazy on WotC's end to me; they can just apparently no longer be bothered to add a few lines of text per race so they essentially say "I dunno, just make it whatever you want" and it indirectly encourages power creep as a result. It's already not that hard to break the game, do we really need to give players even more ways to break it even further? Honestly, I don't even care about this being an option for people if that's what they like, but those that prefer to have that kind of choice matter a bit more should be allowed to have what they'd like too and not have to put in a bunch of what should've been unnecessary work to do so (same applies towards other similarly done away with things like alignment). It's all fine and dandy to go against the established mold and all that, but with this direction there is no longer any mold to go against to begin with. If anyone can be anything they want just as well as everyone else without putting in any effort, then how can there be any kind of mold by that point? To clarify, I'm not suggesting that all orcs/dwarves/elves/whatever have to be and must always be X, Y, Z; but if there's no baseline to work with at all, then I don't see how you can make a character who really stands out from the rest of their peers, or even fits right in with them at that.
To add my own comments on some of the comments I've seen here and in other similar topics, I've always found it weird and downright bizarre that something like a +2/+1 bonus to an ability score is what holds people back from playing certain character ideas. There's absolutely nothing wrong with diving into and embracing a stereotypical character concept, like an orc barbarian or a high-elf wizard; but nothing in 5e's rules has ever stopped anyone from playing a completely different and more unique character concept as well, like an orc wizard or a high-elf barbarian. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if it were my games and you wanted to play such a character, I would try to work with you to make such a character concept work within the context of my game's world so that everyone wins. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that the only thing that has ever stopped you from playing such character concepts is yourself. Do you really need that one extra point in your modifier(s) to have fun playing a character? Do you really need them to be the very best they can possibly ever be from the very beginning of the game? Do you just not like the idea of your character growing from an absolute nobody to becoming an renowned hero? I honestly don't understand this mindset at all.
(https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/130742-opinion-on-2-to-any-ability-score-1-to-any-ability?comment=76)
(https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/130742-opinion-on-2-to-any-ability-score-1-to-any-ability?comment=86)
In conclusion see the two posts I linked in bullet point 1.👆
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
As has been stated numerous times, the problem with that laying a race that is not “optimized” for a class is that you are instantly the week link in a party of characters who are optimized.
I also find this “breaking the game” comment hilarious. In what way is making a half orc with a +2 int game breaking? I mean, if I am going to play wizard what difference does it make to the game if I do that vs make a gnome wizard?
If that is breaking your game then maybe you as a DM need to look at how you balance things? I have been homebrewing floating ASIs for 8 years in that time probably 25 characters have applied the rule and in every case they where better balanced for the party and in no way “broke” the game, but it did give rise to some fantastic characters, like the elf with a dex of 7 (standard array), the tiefling with charisma 8, a half orc who had no muscle and was a great thinker and the warforged built to be a great orator.
I love how people are assuming this thing is dreadful without actually trying it, or without talking to people who have tried it.
13. Not 10.
10 is for commoners. 13 would be for paragon-heroes. Then yes, adjust up and down. I'd imagine they can also add modifiers to specific backgrounds and classes perhaps but they still IMHO should be combinations of + and - that at the end of the day still yields a 30 point array.
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Yet. But for all we know it is just a dominoe, and reasonable arguments can be made to open generic traits up more too. Like each race gets a skill proficiency. Why have it be so specific and not one off of your class list? Races with weapon proficieny, is a cultural aspect, not like darvision. If you were raised in another community or are a member of a race but raised in the community of another race; i.e. why not make weapon proficiency wider open rather than specific to a race?
Panguran is right in this case, with the exception of definitively biological traits such as darkvision, you can discount any presumably cultural imput of a race description as an irrelivency to character building. Static vs floating ASI's are really about whether or not the focus on one ASI (particularly at the expense of another) is cultural or biological. Did orcs have a +2 in STR because they spend a lot of time working out and lifting heavy things to build their strength like Arnold did, or because they just have more muscle mass than other creatures?
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"In this case"? :p
Considering there must be orcs who don't work out all the time, it can't be the former. The "cultural" part of a given attribute is primarily which stat gets put there; the racial modifiers are biological (the word "race" should be the first clue there, and if a more accurate term like "species" were used instead that would be even more obvious).
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Do people really do that in your experience or is that an exageration? I might say: "Great! I love Dwarves! You have 32 points to spend on Stats, and don't forget Dwarves get a +2 to Con, a +1 to Str and/or Wis, and a -2 to Cha." but they still can assign their points however they like; and I'm not going to stingy with the availability of magic that can buff their core concept stat should it turn out to be Dex, Int, or Cha. Again it's not about denying a player what they want; it's about maintaining the structure of the campaign world; typically as relates to the presence of NPC's.
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Wrong argument to make. Rules for PCs don't affect NPCs.
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1. Thanks for the links. I havent followed every comment in this thread as it has been going on for several days now. I will look them over at some point.
2. This still confuses me. You have played the same campaign world through multiple different versions of the game (where the mechanics have changed drastically in one aspect or another with each new version). Why is WoTC changing game mechanics now different than every other time the mechanics have changed for your world?
3. My focus really hasnt been on 2024. If thats your primary worry than I understand better. I have been approaching most arguments in this thread in relation to MMM primarily. At this point, I imagine floating ASIs wont even be the most drastic change in 2024 so I wont worry about it too much until I hear more.
5. Yes. Thats how session zero works for campaigns. You are supposed to explain your expectations every time you start a campaign.
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No one is "optimized" at level 1. Optimization is a process that takes a few levels to come into full play. It's not all your base numbers either, it includes the acquisition of gear into the mix as well. If the DM is noticing any "weak link-ness" on behalf of any given character relative to the rest of the party and hasn't compensated for it with an appropriate treasure drop by tier 2, then the DM is not 'optimizing' for fun.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.