Actually, it's not. If we consider a level 1 fighter vs an AC 12 target (longsword, dueling style)
Str 15: 65% chance to hit, 1d8+4 damage, 5% to crit for +1d8, expected damage 5.75
Str 16: 70% chance to hit, 1d8+5 damage, 5% to crit for +1d8, expected damage 6.875
6.875/5.75 = 1.196
So, 5% is actually 19%. Now, lets look at spellcasters. Assume target has a +0 save
Int 15: save DC 12; target saves 45% of the time. A save negates effect has a 55% chance to apply, a save ends effect lasts an average of 1.22 rounds.
Int 16: save DC 13; target saves 40% of the time. A save negates effect has a 60% chance to apply (+9% to expected effect), a save ends effect lasts an average of 1.5 rounds (+22.7% to expected duration).
Not to mention that a lot of class features utilize ability MOD for the number of times you can use an ability....so having one or two less uses of a feature PLUS hitting on spells/attack more often will undoubtedly have a noticeable effect on the game.
So, 5% is actually 19%. Now, lets look at spellcasters. Assume target has a +0 save
Int 15: save DC 12; target saves 45% of the time. A save negates effect has a 55% chance to apply, a save ends effect lasts an average of 1.22 rounds.
Int 16: save DC 13; target saves 40% of the time. A save negates effect has a 60% chance to apply (+9% to expected effect), a save ends effect lasts an average of 1.5 rounds (+22.7% to expected duration).
With combats balanced around being an average of three rounds long, a concentration spell lasting 1.5 rounds longer can turn the entire combat.
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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!
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
Quite possibly, but that is not the issue in question and bringing it up as if it were relevant is a logical fallacy called The Slippery Slope Fallacy.
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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!
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
Quite possibly, but that is not the issue in question and bringing it up as if it were relevant is a logical fallacy called The Slippery Slope Fallacy.
Basically this....
I fall prey to this myself as I fear that the Small vs. Medium changes (small races get 30ft of movement in MoM) means that eventually the distinction between the sizes will be further diminished....now I have no reason to believe that will occur but I still don't like the idea of there being no differences between a small and medium creature.
If WotC really wanted to do it right they would do what PF2e does and have a multitude of factors play into your character:
Race (mostly ability scores including flaws which some might find problematic)
Background (Bartenders get boosts to CON/CHA and one free choice, Soldiers get boosts to CON/ TR/DEX and one free)
Class (Your class has a base stat you can use: Monks can use DEX/STR, Wizards use INT, Alchemist uses INT or STR for certain subclasses)
So ANY class/race combo can exist as you can start with the highest possible starting stat for your class.....but you may pay for it more with some race/class combos.
Then there are race specific feats you pick up as you progress OR you can do an "Adopted Ancestry" where you can pick up the traits of another race much like you are suggesting....it makes for a much more interesting character.
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities?
A 'design your own "racial" template' system is a perfectly reasonable idea in the abstract, and would be convenient for DMs who want to run homebrew worlds, but is a large amount of work to do in a remotely balanced way. However, if a player came to me with the "goliath halfling" concept I'd certainly consider the concept, though there might be some negotiation (Is Brave a fair trade for Stone's Endurance? I'd have to think about that one for a bit).
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
Slippery slope argument aside, I'd personally love to see that happen. :)
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities?
A 'design your own "racial" template' system is a perfectly reasonable idea in the abstract, and would be convenient for DMs who want to run homebrew worlds, but is a large amount of work to do in a remotely balanced way. However, if a player came to me with the "goliath halfling" concept I'd certainly consider the concept, though there might be some negotiation (Is Brave a fair trade for Stone's Endurance? I'd have to think about that one for a bit).
This is basically what Custom Linage was but it was (IMO at least) a lazy attempt at that.
A feat can generally replicate a lot of racial features but not all of them.
One of my oldest HeroForge builds, from a character I built so long ago she was one of my original six pre-subscriber characters. Some useful information: -Tigerlily is 6'10" tall (a smidge over two meters) and weighs between two hundred and seventy to three hundred pounds (122 to 136 kilos). -Tigerlily is extremely proficient in all of the weapons displayed on her figure -Tigerlily's funky left eye is a subclass thing/bit of background weirdness, and has no bearing on her species/base class
For anyone who guesses correctly (or even incorrectly), which reason would you give for disallowing Tigerlily at your tables?
One of my oldest HeroForge builds, from a character I built so long ago she was one of my original six pre-subscriber characters. Some useful information: -Tigerlily is 6'10" tall (a smidge over two meters) and weighs between two hundred and seventy to three hundred pounds (122 to 136 kilos). -Tigerlily is extremely proficient in all of the weapons displayed on her figure -Tigerlily's funky left eye is a subclass thing/bit of background weirdness, and has no bearing on her species/base class
For anyone who guesses correctly (or even incorrectly), which reason would you give for disallowing Tigerlily at your tables?
I would guess Elf Barbarian, but I don't think I would disallow her in any game whether I am right or wrong.
Tigerlily appears to be using custom slider values so about all we can say is 'oversize pointed ears, not furred, fairly dark skin, moderate build'. Could be several races but would be a bit atypical for most of them; possibly earth genasi? As for class, based on not wearing obvious armor and using a two-handed weapon, barbarian is the obvious choice but there's likely other setups where that could make sense.
One of my oldest HeroForge builds, from a character I built so long ago she was one of my original six pre-subscriber characters. Some useful information: -Tigerlily is 6'10" tall (a smidge over two meters) and weighs between two hundred and seventy to three hundred pounds (122 to 136 kilos). -Tigerlily is extremely proficient in all of the weapons displayed on her figure -Tigerlily's funky left eye is a subclass thing/bit of background weirdness, and has no bearing on her species/base class
For anyone who guesses correctly (or even incorrectly), which reason would you give for disallowing Tigerlily at your tables?
She's most likely a half-orc. She's noticeably heavier than any of the weight ranges in the PHB, but she's closest to the one for half-orcs. The art for a half-orc in the PHB has pointy ears and a similar skin tone. Could also be an elf or a half-elf, but I'd expect her to weigh less. These weight ranges get weirder the more of them you observe. I guess they're useful..?
I guess I'm locked into disallowing her at my table. Uh... You need to change her so she either has a bow, or doesn't have arrows. Just having arrows but no bow is silly.
I can't begin to guess where you're going with this.
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
Quite possibly, but that is not the issue in question and bringing it up as if it were relevant is a logical fallacy called The Slippery Slope Fallacy.
Yes, I am aware of logical fallacies and the slippery slope one too. I tried to frame my post more about challenging the logic of "why should my character have to fit into the mold of the rest of their race" argument for flexible ASI rather than about potential subsequent changes.
If the rationale is PCs don't fit the stereotype and its problematic to put fantasy races into boxes, doesn't that also apply to many other racial traits? If so does it mean anything to come from a certain fantasy race at all?
Even if flexible racial traits are allowed for PCs (which I think I'm basically alright with) can't the general population of halflings or goliaths fit into generalizable categories?
Again I think the problem is the use of the word race. If we used species or kind to describe a fantasy race it probably wouldn't be as problematic in as many people's minds. No one has a problem thinking that cheetahs are generally faster than lions or that border collies are generally smarter than bulldogs.
I had no fixed objective in mind, beyond satisfying my curiosity. Three guesses is, frankly, three more than I thought I'd get, so well enough done. Thank you, gentlemen.
Tigerlily is a wood elf barbarian, originally of the Ancestral Guardians path but rebuilt in later times as a Wild Magic path. She is indeed much taller and heavier than the PHB accounts for with elves and was always meant to have a more primal air and aspect to her. Tigerlily leans more into 'barbarian' than 'wood elf'; though her background is very fuzzy as she's never been played, her core concept/identity draws on the idea of 'Nature is a terrifying predatory battle for survival, not a serene little woodsy paradise'. Tigerlily is horrifyingly violent when violence suits the needs of the moment and has little in common with more typical elves. She does not treasure every leaf or spend centuries husbanding a single idyllic natural garden; to her, "living in tune with Nature" is cutting what she needs from the world around her and if the world bleeds? Oh well. It'll scab over, give it a bit and it'll be fine.
This, of course, makes her outrageously illegal at most of the fixed-ASI tables in this thread. Simply her species/class combination alone - an elven barbarian, of all damnfool things - would disqualify her from most of them. The tale of an elf who sees Holy Nature as simply a place to live and resources to use as she requires would be the next best thing to downright blasphemous. She would be vetoed at most any table in this thread simply because she is a drastic, unwanted, and unwarranted departure from her species' iconic character, and as such she has no place in any game set in Faerun. Or Greyhawk, or Mystara, or any of the other old close-Faerun-analogues. Bit of a shame, I always thought people gave barbarians in general too little credit. The whole 'barely sapient slobbering hooligan' thing is funny, but rarely has any depth or impact. None of y'all are Travis Willingham, anmd not every barbarian needs to be Grog [X].0
There's an official setting with an entire population of halfling barbarians, if not by class then at least by flavour. I don't recall your exact description of what Bilbo-esque halflings are supposed to be like, Yurei, but I'm pretty sure dino-riding frothing at the mouth berserkers don't fit the bill. Going against type is fine in D&D. I don't know a single DM who'd object to a gnome paladin, tiefling cleric, half-orc bard or indeed, wood elf barbarian.
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This, of course, makes her outrageously illegal at most of the fixed-ASI tables in this thread. Simply her species/class combination alone - an elven barbarian, of all damnfool things - would disqualify her from most of them. The tale of an elf who sees Holy Nature as simply a place to live and resources to use as she requires would be the next best thing to downright blasphemous. She would be vetoed at most any table in this thread simply because she is a drastic, unwanted, and unwarranted departure from her species' iconic character, and as such she has no place in any game set in Faerun. Or Greyhawk, or Mystara, or any of the other old close-Faerun-analogues.
There's an official setting with an entire population of halfling barbarians, if not by class then at least by flavour. I don't recall your exact description of what Bilbo-esque halflings are supposed to be like, Yurei, but I'm pretty sure dino-riding frothing at the mouth berserkers don't fit the bill. Going against type is fine in D&D. I don't know a single DM who'd object to a gnome paladin, tiefling cleric, half-orc bard or indeed, wood elf barbarian.
That would be Eberron, which is currently probably my favorite D&D setting. The Talenta halflings are indeed dinosaur-riding nomadic halflings, but they're far from frothing-mouthed berserkers and nothing but barbarians. Keith Baker himself described the Talenta as a "Wide Primal" society, where the Five Nations of Khorvaire are a "Wide Arcane" society. Talenta halflings and their saurian companions can accomplish a great many things the arcane-dominant nations of Khorvaire cannot, and while their societies are not as powerful or influential due to their lack of industrial resource extraction or production, they're not really any less developed than the Five are.
That said. If going against type in D&D was truly fine, then I doubt people would've spent the last two or three years on this forum fighting fang and claw to the bitter bloody death over Wizards making it the slightest bit easier to do, ne? There are plenty of DMs who would allow someone to play against type...if and only if they pay an appropriate penalty for doing so compared to playing an iconic, ensure that their "against type" character is inferior to their iconic party members, and that the iconics will thusly be the stars of the show, ne?
One of the character options I'm thinking of for my next campaign is a Firbolg druid. The +2 to wisdom is great, but I'd rather have the +1 to str go to con. Is moving that str point over to con anything other than optimizing my build? I haven't asked my DM yet if flexible ASI is allowed or not. If he doesn't allow it I'll be a firbolg anyway because that's the flavor I want for the character. I could feel bad about this character, about not being optimized, feel like I'm missing out or being penalized somehow. As a sentient species I have the ability to adjust and modify the way I think and feel about this situation. I have an inborn, evolved reaction, but am able to use reason and awareness to direct my predilections in a different direction.
All that is to say that as a human I'm not a blank slate, I have evolved biological conditioning. But I'm also not a deterministic meat robot, I can direct my state of mind along other paths. Its a flaw of debate when it polarizes into binary positions rather than allow for nuanced discussions.
Biological creatures have genetically hardwired physical traits and mental dispositions, twin studies and evolution science generally says so. At the same time sentience, meta awareness and culture give us a degree of influence over which traits get emphasized and which restricted. So I think it makes perfect sense to say a particular fantasy race generally follows a certain pattern, but individuals of that race can be outliers.
Its better to think of species traits as part of a distribution curve rather than a fixed mold. Some individuals will be far out on the ends of the spectrum while most will be more towards the middle. The problem isn't in thinking that a fantasy race tends to fit a certain pattern, the problem is thinking that individuals that don't fit that pattern are somehow wrong.
If going against type in D&D was truly fine, then I doubt people would've spent the last two or three years on this forum fighting fang and claw to the bitter bloody death over Wizards making it the slightest bit easier to do, ne? There are plenty of DMs who would allow someone to play against type...if and only if they pay an appropriate penalty for doing so compared to playing an iconic, ensure that their "against type" character is inferior to their iconic party members, and that the iconics will thusly be the stars of the show, ne?
There are plenty of DMs, yours truly included, who like to have certain things be part of the official rules yet don't mind overriding those things if a reasonable request is made (and by reasonable I typically mean phrased as a request rather than a demand).
Since my prep for the weekend is done, I'll expand on the topic ever so slightly° (bear with me, your honor - I promise it's relevant). I'm a let's roll for stats kind of DM. I'm not married to it (see also the not minding mentioned above), but I like it and have used it extensively. It rarely results in equal statlines across the board, but that's not an insurmountable issue. I'm also a two-line-ish campaign descriptor during session zero kind of DM (I'd rather spend that time on making sure everyone's comfy in the group and helping out with characters and how to play). Most of the time this means the players think up characters who have some relevant qualities and are prepared for the obvious challenges ahead, but aren't necessarily experts in anything the campaign ends up focusing on every now and then. Usually the group will try to cover what they feel are the essential bases; this means that they rarely don't have anyone who's good at whatever the situation calls for, but also that there's rarely no-one who's not out of their depth in any given situation. I'm also a let's see how I can work with this kind of DM rather than a the work is done for me DM when I run published adventures. And a not ashamed to fudge when it's really called for DM (even if I do keep it to a minimum).
What all this meandering comes down to is that imbalance is part of the game for me, and managing that so it doesn't spoil the fun is part of being the DM. The classes aren't completely balanced. Neither are the feats, or the spells, or the proficiencies. And neither are the races, whether you use racial ASIs or floating ones. And thus characters aren't balanced. They simply aren't, and by dint of the rules not being completely balanced they simply can't be. It's an illusion people can cling to if they want, but that's a mirage. It's not real. But it's ok, because we have a DM. We have someone who can give the monk as many opportunities to steal the spotlight as the wizard, give the half-orc their due share of time talking with NPCs instead of spending entire sessions knocking on heads and keeping schtum in between, allow the bard to find religion and the paladin to occasionally step out of line and pull that stick out of their ass. We have a DM who can look at a character sheet and figure out what a fun challenge would be for that specific character, instead of rigidly holding on to whatever adventure someone else who never even met the people at the table wrote and running it by the numbers.
That's why this whole penalty malarkey is so bizarrely alien to me. There are drawbacks and disadvantages and actual penalties and imbalances galore in the game. Arguably they're part of what makes it fun and interesting. The stars of the show aren't the characters with the biggest numbers on their sheet. The stars are whoever the DM shines the spotlight on and casts in the starring role for the next fifteen minutes. You'll get your chances, you just have to take them.
Bounded accuracy, at least the core idea of it, is a genius concept. In essence it says that the odds of success should always be within a certain range of probability. There's no real need to pump those numbers as high as you can - if you get them in the ballpark, the game works. That's brilliant. I know, I know, lizard brain says big number better number. It's not possible to always have a big number for everything though, so to keep the game fun and interesting it has to be made to work with not-quite-so-big numbers too. DMs should be doing that anyway. ASIs aren't a switch to flip between 'game bad' and 'game good'. They just are, and they have to be looked at in the moment regardless.
° obviously this is code for "wall of text incoming"
Again I think the problem is the use of the word race. If we used species or kind to describe a fantasy race it probably wouldn't be as problematic in as many people's minds. No one has a problem thinking that cheetahs are generally faster than lions or that border collies are generally smarter than bulldogs.
No. While the nomenclature is problematic, this would be an issue even without the name. The issue being applying the same kind of thinking to people as we would apply to dog breeds. I don't care about anyone's ideas of fictional biological realism, that kind of eugenicist theory applied to anything that counts as a person is just gross.
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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!
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Not to mention that a lot of class features utilize ability MOD for the number of times you can use an ability....so having one or two less uses of a feature PLUS hitting on spells/attack more often will undoubtedly have a noticeable effect on the game.
With combats balanced around being an average of three rounds long, a concentration spell lasting 1.5 rounds longer can turn the entire combat.
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!
If allowing for flexible ASI because not every character fits the generalizable average for their race, what about allowing the flexible allocation of other racial abilities? Maybe your halfling grew up in a village of goliaths for some reason (as a diplomat or trade family living "abroad") and they trained to learn how to shrug off damage from attacks like a goliath, should they be able to take Stone's Endurance rather than Brave. If not why doesn't that also fall under the argument against not allowing a player to play the character they want? Isn't that also saying every halfling is the same as every other halfling in being Lucky and Brave?
Should we allow other racial traits to be flexible? Why or why not?
Quite possibly, but that is not the issue in question and bringing it up as if it were relevant is a logical fallacy called The Slippery Slope Fallacy.
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!
Basically this....
I fall prey to this myself as I fear that the Small vs. Medium changes (small races get 30ft of movement in MoM) means that eventually the distinction between the sizes will be further diminished....now I have no reason to believe that will occur but I still don't like the idea of there being no differences between a small and medium creature.
If WotC really wanted to do it right they would do what PF2e does and have a multitude of factors play into your character:
Race (mostly ability scores including flaws which some might find problematic)
Background (Bartenders get boosts to CON/CHA and one free choice, Soldiers get boosts to CON/ TR/DEX and one free)
Class (Your class has a base stat you can use: Monks can use DEX/STR, Wizards use INT, Alchemist uses INT or STR for certain subclasses)
So ANY class/race combo can exist as you can start with the highest possible starting stat for your class.....but you may pay for it more with some race/class combos.
Then there are race specific feats you pick up as you progress OR you can do an "Adopted Ancestry" where you can pick up the traits of another race much like you are suggesting....it makes for a much more interesting character.
A 'design your own "racial" template' system is a perfectly reasonable idea in the abstract, and would be convenient for DMs who want to run homebrew worlds, but is a large amount of work to do in a remotely balanced way. However, if a player came to me with the "goliath halfling" concept I'd certainly consider the concept, though there might be some negotiation (Is Brave a fair trade for Stone's Endurance? I'd have to think about that one for a bit).
Slippery slope argument aside, I'd personally love to see that happen. :)
This is basically what Custom Linage was but it was (IMO at least) a lazy attempt at that.
A feat can generally replicate a lot of racial features but not all of them.
Let's try something. Just because I'm curious.
What species is Tigerlily?
Bonus points: what class is Tigerlily?
One of my oldest HeroForge builds, from a character I built so long ago she was one of my original six pre-subscriber characters. Some useful information:
-Tigerlily is 6'10" tall (a smidge over two meters) and weighs between two hundred and seventy to three hundred pounds (122 to 136 kilos).
-Tigerlily is extremely proficient in all of the weapons displayed on her figure
-Tigerlily's funky left eye is a subclass thing/bit of background weirdness, and has no bearing on her species/base class
For anyone who guesses correctly (or even incorrectly), which reason would you give for disallowing Tigerlily at your tables?
Please do not contact or message me.
I would guess Elf Barbarian, but I don't think I would disallow her in any game whether I am right or wrong.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Tigerlily appears to be using custom slider values so about all we can say is 'oversize pointed ears, not furred, fairly dark skin, moderate build'. Could be several races but would be a bit atypical for most of them; possibly earth genasi? As for class, based on not wearing obvious armor and using a two-handed weapon, barbarian is the obvious choice but there's likely other setups where that could make sense.
She's most likely a half-orc. She's noticeably heavier than any of the weight ranges in the PHB, but she's closest to the one for half-orcs. The art for a half-orc in the PHB has pointy ears and a similar skin tone. Could also be an elf or a half-elf, but I'd expect her to weigh less. These weight ranges get weirder the more of them you observe. I guess they're useful..?
I guess I'm locked into disallowing her at my table. Uh... You need to change her so she either has a bow, or doesn't have arrows. Just having arrows but no bow is silly.
I can't begin to guess where you're going with this.
Yes, I am aware of logical fallacies and the slippery slope one too. I tried to frame my post more about challenging the logic of "why should my character have to fit into the mold of the rest of their race" argument for flexible ASI rather than about potential subsequent changes.
If the rationale is PCs don't fit the stereotype and its problematic to put fantasy races into boxes, doesn't that also apply to many other racial traits? If so does it mean anything to come from a certain fantasy race at all?
Even if flexible racial traits are allowed for PCs (which I think I'm basically alright with) can't the general population of halflings or goliaths fit into generalizable categories?
Again I think the problem is the use of the word race. If we used species or kind to describe a fantasy race it probably wouldn't be as problematic in as many people's minds. No one has a problem thinking that cheetahs are generally faster than lions or that border collies are generally smarter than bulldogs.
I had no fixed objective in mind, beyond satisfying my curiosity. Three guesses is, frankly, three more than I thought I'd get, so well enough done. Thank you, gentlemen.
Tigerlily is a wood elf barbarian, originally of the Ancestral Guardians path but rebuilt in later times as a Wild Magic path. She is indeed much taller and heavier than the PHB accounts for with elves and was always meant to have a more primal air and aspect to her. Tigerlily leans more into 'barbarian' than 'wood elf'; though her background is very fuzzy as she's never been played, her core concept/identity draws on the idea of 'Nature is a terrifying predatory battle for survival, not a serene little woodsy paradise'. Tigerlily is horrifyingly violent when violence suits the needs of the moment and has little in common with more typical elves. She does not treasure every leaf or spend centuries husbanding a single idyllic natural garden; to her, "living in tune with Nature" is cutting what she needs from the world around her and if the world bleeds? Oh well. It'll scab over, give it a bit and it'll be fine.
This, of course, makes her outrageously illegal at most of the fixed-ASI tables in this thread. Simply her species/class combination alone - an elven barbarian, of all damnfool things - would disqualify her from most of them. The tale of an elf who sees Holy Nature as simply a place to live and resources to use as she requires would be the next best thing to downright blasphemous. She would be vetoed at most any table in this thread simply because she is a drastic, unwanted, and unwarranted departure from her species' iconic character, and as such she has no place in any game set in Faerun. Or Greyhawk, or Mystara, or any of the other old close-Faerun-analogues. Bit of a shame, I always thought people gave barbarians in general too little credit. The whole 'barely sapient slobbering hooligan' thing is funny, but rarely has any depth or impact. None of y'all are Travis Willingham, anmd not every barbarian needs to be Grog [X].0
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There's an official setting with an entire population of halfling barbarians, if not by class then at least by flavour. I don't recall your exact description of what Bilbo-esque halflings are supposed to be like, Yurei, but I'm pretty sure dino-riding frothing at the mouth berserkers don't fit the bill. Going against type is fine in D&D. I don't know a single DM who'd object to a gnome paladin, tiefling cleric, half-orc bard or indeed, wood elf barbarian.
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If you say so.
That would be Eberron, which is currently probably my favorite D&D setting. The Talenta halflings are indeed dinosaur-riding nomadic halflings, but they're far from frothing-mouthed berserkers and nothing but barbarians. Keith Baker himself described the Talenta as a "Wide Primal" society, where the Five Nations of Khorvaire are a "Wide Arcane" society. Talenta halflings and their saurian companions can accomplish a great many things the arcane-dominant nations of Khorvaire cannot, and while their societies are not as powerful or influential due to their lack of industrial resource extraction or production, they're not really any less developed than the Five are.
That said. If going against type in D&D was truly fine, then I doubt people would've spent the last two or three years on this forum fighting fang and claw to the bitter bloody death over Wizards making it the slightest bit easier to do, ne? There are plenty of DMs who would allow someone to play against type...if and only if they pay an appropriate penalty for doing so compared to playing an iconic, ensure that their "against type" character is inferior to their iconic party members, and that the iconics will thusly be the stars of the show, ne?
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One of the character options I'm thinking of for my next campaign is a Firbolg druid. The +2 to wisdom is great, but I'd rather have the +1 to str go to con. Is moving that str point over to con anything other than optimizing my build? I haven't asked my DM yet if flexible ASI is allowed or not. If he doesn't allow it I'll be a firbolg anyway because that's the flavor I want for the character. I could feel bad about this character, about not being optimized, feel like I'm missing out or being penalized somehow. As a sentient species I have the ability to adjust and modify the way I think and feel about this situation. I have an inborn, evolved reaction, but am able to use reason and awareness to direct my predilections in a different direction.
All that is to say that as a human I'm not a blank slate, I have evolved biological conditioning. But I'm also not a deterministic meat robot, I can direct my state of mind along other paths. Its a flaw of debate when it polarizes into binary positions rather than allow for nuanced discussions.
Biological creatures have genetically hardwired physical traits and mental dispositions, twin studies and evolution science generally says so. At the same time sentience, meta awareness and culture give us a degree of influence over which traits get emphasized and which restricted. So I think it makes perfect sense to say a particular fantasy race generally follows a certain pattern, but individuals of that race can be outliers.
Its better to think of species traits as part of a distribution curve rather than a fixed mold. Some individuals will be far out on the ends of the spectrum while most will be more towards the middle. The problem isn't in thinking that a fantasy race tends to fit a certain pattern, the problem is thinking that individuals that don't fit that pattern are somehow wrong.
There are plenty of DMs, yours truly included, who like to have certain things be part of the official rules yet don't mind overriding those things if a reasonable request is made (and by reasonable I typically mean phrased as a request rather than a demand).
Since my prep for the weekend is done, I'll expand on the topic ever so slightly° (bear with me, your honor - I promise it's relevant). I'm a let's roll for stats kind of DM. I'm not married to it (see also the not minding mentioned above), but I like it and have used it extensively. It rarely results in equal statlines across the board, but that's not an insurmountable issue. I'm also a two-line-ish campaign descriptor during session zero kind of DM (I'd rather spend that time on making sure everyone's comfy in the group and helping out with characters and how to play). Most of the time this means the players think up characters who have some relevant qualities and are prepared for the obvious challenges ahead, but aren't necessarily experts in anything the campaign ends up focusing on every now and then. Usually the group will try to cover what they feel are the essential bases; this means that they rarely don't have anyone who's good at whatever the situation calls for, but also that there's rarely no-one who's not out of their depth in any given situation. I'm also a let's see how I can work with this kind of DM rather than a the work is done for me DM when I run published adventures. And a not ashamed to fudge when it's really called for DM (even if I do keep it to a minimum).
What all this meandering comes down to is that imbalance is part of the game for me, and managing that so it doesn't spoil the fun is part of being the DM. The classes aren't completely balanced. Neither are the feats, or the spells, or the proficiencies. And neither are the races, whether you use racial ASIs or floating ones. And thus characters aren't balanced. They simply aren't, and by dint of the rules not being completely balanced they simply can't be. It's an illusion people can cling to if they want, but that's a mirage. It's not real. But it's ok, because we have a DM. We have someone who can give the monk as many opportunities to steal the spotlight as the wizard, give the half-orc their due share of time talking with NPCs instead of spending entire sessions knocking on heads and keeping schtum in between, allow the bard to find religion and the paladin to occasionally step out of line and pull that stick out of their ass. We have a DM who can look at a character sheet and figure out what a fun challenge would be for that specific character, instead of rigidly holding on to whatever adventure someone else who never even met the people at the table wrote and running it by the numbers.
That's why this whole penalty malarkey is so bizarrely alien to me. There are drawbacks and disadvantages and actual penalties and imbalances galore in the game. Arguably they're part of what makes it fun and interesting. The stars of the show aren't the characters with the biggest numbers on their sheet. The stars are whoever the DM shines the spotlight on and casts in the starring role for the next fifteen minutes. You'll get your chances, you just have to take them.
Bounded accuracy, at least the core idea of it, is a genius concept. In essence it says that the odds of success should always be within a certain range of probability. There's no real need to pump those numbers as high as you can - if you get them in the ballpark, the game works. That's brilliant. I know, I know, lizard brain says big number better number. It's not possible to always have a big number for everything though, so to keep the game fun and interesting it has to be made to work with not-quite-so-big numbers too. DMs should be doing that anyway. ASIs aren't a switch to flip between 'game bad' and 'game good'. They just are, and they have to be looked at in the moment regardless.
° obviously this is code for "wall of text incoming"
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No. While the nomenclature is problematic, this would be an issue even without the name. The issue being applying the same kind of thinking to people as we would apply to dog breeds. I don't care about anyone's ideas of fictional biological realism, that kind of eugenicist theory applied to anything that counts as a person is just gross.
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!