I think if you're a DM who feels very strongly about graceful elves and brawny dwarves, you can fill your world with those creatures and have them frequently point out how weird the dwarven wizard is. One PC can't wreck your entire world (at least not that way).
I mostly dislike it because it's replacing standard ASI's, instead of being optional like it was touted to be in Tasha's. Other than that I almost always turn the toggle on when I absentmindedly make a PC in the character builder whilst I'm bored. I'm a bit of an optimizer player myself and so I use it, but the scrubbing of standard race ASI's is what makes me not like this option.
A character I very nearly ended up playing in the Eberron game my table just started is a Talenta halfling sorceress. A Scale Speaker, gifted with the blood of the dinosaurs her clan is bound to ('Draconic' Bloodline sorcery) and with the ability to communicate with her clan's scaled allies (Eldritch adept: Beast Speech). She was trained for most of her life for that role - a nomadic dinosaur-blooded fire-flinging sorceress, companion to a clawfoot raptor she sees as her sister - and not in a metaphorical, gosh-I-luv-this-dino sense, but as her straight-up spirit sister and the expression of the blessed blood she carries.
Why should that character - a character that looks like this, to boot - be completely and utterly genetically identical in every last single possible way to Bilbo Slackins, sedentary tea-drinking tobacco-smoking rocking-chair-porch-sitting eleventy-one-year-old suburban grampa who went on one adventure in his youth, hated every last minute of it, and couldn't wait to come back home and start putting on a pastry belly in the civilization of the Shire?
I'm a big fan of it. Player Characters are already the outliers of their races, so it makes sense if they don't follow the same general associations that they do (an Orc PC isn't necessarily strong or healthy, a Gnome PC isn't necessarily more intelligent than the average person, an Elf PC isn't necessarily more dexterous than a human, etc).
I like the change, and I have used it ever since TCoE came out.
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If it's identical for all player races, why is it in the race section at all and not the ASI section? Just fold it into an additional point or two for the rolled/point buy/standard array section at the start. (or rather don't, as imo player characters are starting with too high scores anyway).
I was initially hesitant about it, but after playing a few games where that was used for character creation I find that I like it much better than using fixed stats. It makes it much easier to play the class/race combination that I feel like doing instead of feeling like I have to conform to specific combinations or be penalized.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I'm almost certain those points will be folded into statgen, in the Great 2024 Reduxening. They can't do that now though, not without blowing up old books, and they aren't willing to blow up old books yet.
I don't know as I agree that characters are starting with too-high numbers, especially given the fact that by RAW nobody can ever take/acquire feats without giving up ASIs and per convention very few games go much beyond fifth level. Characters, generally, get ONE ASI in their lifetime, and telling players they can't possibly start with a number higher than 13 is a great way to ensure you never see a neat, story-accentuating feat in your game ever again.
I'm almost certain those points will be folded into statgen, in the Great 2024 Reduxening.
I hope not, at least as far as the standard array is concerned (and it can't be folded into a rolling method, so meh on that account). Sometimes you want to go all-in on just two stats, sometimes you want to spread the love around a little bit - having some points to place into attributes separately allows for both when using the standard array.
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It's entirely possible there will still be 'swing' points, but there's no reason to attach them to race/species if the Tasha's Cauldron rules are going to be standardized. They can simply be a "Step B.)" in statgen. "Determine your stats using Method X, Y, or Z, then assign 3 additional points to your scores as you like, provided no more than two are assigned to a single stat." Could be they handle swing stats differently, could be they assign points based on class and background though that seems increasingly unlikely. There's a lot of ways to do it that don't involve one's species, and I figure that'll be the way going forward because Tasha-compliant 'swing stats' are only attached to species currently due to a fluke of fate.
Perhaps different species will offer different numbers of swing stats - a species with fewer qualitative traits would get a bonus swing point or vice versa, though that feels kinda icky and unsure if want. Could work out in the end, could be terrible. Dunno. I'm just reasonably confident those points won't be attached to species in the redux.
It's entirely possible there will still be 'swing' points, but there's no reason to attach them to race/species if the Tasha's Cauldron rules are going to be standardized. They can simply be a "Step B.)" in statgen. "Determine your stats using Method X, Y, or Z, then assign 3 additional points to your scores as you like, provided no more than two are assigned to a single stat." Could be they handle swing stats differently, could be they assign points based on class and background though that seems increasingly unlikely. There's a lot of ways to do it that don't involve one's species, and I figure that'll be the way going forward because Tasha-compliant 'swing stats' are only attached to species currently due to a fluke of fate.
Perhaps different species will offer different numbers of swing stats - a species with fewer qualitative traits would get a bonus swing point or vice versa, though that feels kinda icky and unsure if want. Could work out in the end, could be terrible. Dunno. I'm just reasonably confident those points won't be attached to species in the redux.
Sure. I'm just saying, we have three official methods today; folding in ASIs doesn't work with rolled stats, has in practice very little impact on point-buy, and is a downgrade (IMO anyway) for the standard array method. Doesn't seem like something to spend much time on to me.
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Isn't this poll like a year or so behind? Tasha's allowed you to do this a long time ago. Also, why do the MEMEMEMEME folks struggle to understand that different races would obviously have different "averages" so far as their ASI's? If the existing printed ASI's were left, with Tasha's rules to allow you to shuffle them to your desires, it would make a LOT more sense than trying to say the 3' Gnome has the same constitution as the 8' Goliath, to name one example. Allowing folks to shuffle stats, to indicate their HERO isn't the "average" for the race not only makes sense, but was already done. IMO, this is just a $$$ grab by Wizards, to say "Pay me for a book showing what we already did."
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Isn't this poll like a year or so behind? Tasha's allowed you to do this a long time ago. Also, why do the MEMEMEMEME folks struggle to understand that different races would obviously have different "averages" so far as their ASI's? If the existing printed ASI's were left, with Tasha's rules to allow you to shuffle them to your desires, it would make a LOT more sense than trying to say the 3' Gnome has the same constitution as the 8' Goliath, to name one example. Allowing folks to shuffle stats, to indicate their HERO isn't the "average" for the race not only makes sense, but was already done. IMO, this is just a $$$ grab by Wizards, to say "Pay me for a book showing what we already did."
A gnome has always been able to have the same constitution as a goliath in 5e. The only time this may have been impossible was levels 1-3.
If you want something that a goliath gets that a gnome doesn't, you should look at the racial features they get rather than score bonuses. A gnome and a goliath can both have a 20 Con, but only the Goliath will have Stone's Endurance and the ability to use heavy weapons without disadvantage. There is still a considerable difference between a goliath and a gnome even if the numbers in their boxes are the same
The same holds true if youre comparing dwarves and elves, or tritons and tabaxis, or halflings and tieflings, or just about any other comparison. The AS bonuses are probably the least interesting (while simultaneously most restrictive) aspect of a race's kit
I'm almost certain those points will be folded into statgen, in the Great 2024 Reduxening. They can't do that now though, not without blowing up old books, and they aren't willing to blow up old books yet.
I don't know as I agree that characters are starting with too-high numbers, especially given the fact that by RAW nobody can ever take/acquire feats without giving up ASIs and per convention very few games go much beyond fifth level. Characters, generally, get ONE ASI in their lifetime, and telling players they can't possibly start with a number higher than 13 is a great way to ensure you never see a neat, story-accentuating feat in your game ever again.
Yeah ASI's competing with feats is something I really hope changes in a later edition. It just completely kills character customisation as people feel compelled to just pump all the numbers to max.
Not sure how much I care about rolled stats, to be honest. People who're rolling for it are telling RNGsus to take the wheel anyways and accepting what Fate and Chaos decree their numbers to be - or at least they dang well should. If you're rolling, I don't see why you should complain about not getting to stat pad to boot on top of the rolls, though I suppose "rolling plus fixed species modifiers" is ingrained in too many people to cull. It does deeply contribute to the whole "[X] species HAS TO BE [Y] class or the game stops working", since random rolls plus fixed bonuses means an extremely limited pool of options for any given player.
Yeah ASI's competing with feats is something I really hope changes in a later edition. It just completely kills character customisation as people feel compelled to just pump all the numbers to max.
Just requiring 4th edition ASIs (2 points to different attributes, no getting +2 to one attribute) fixes that.
Why doesn't giving a +2 /+1 work for rolled stats? It has been working just fine for all of 5e.
34 points doesn't work with rolled stats.
No, but Rolling stats and adding +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 is fine. I don't see what needs to be fixed. One stat generation method doesn't really need to impact another.
Why doesn't giving a +2 /+1 work for rolled stats? It has been working just fine for all of 5e.
34 points doesn't work with rolled stats.
No, but Rolling stats and adding +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 is fine. I don't see what needs to be fixed. One stat generation method doesn't really need to impact another.
Absolutely. I'm just saying the notion of folding in the +2/+1 doesn't work when you're rolling. It's rolling, any adjustments de facto happen after the rolls are made unless the rolling method gets adjusted to account for the different average (wouldn't mind seeing that math'ed out, but it seems unlikely there's a more or less straightforward rolling method that'd correspond to the adjusted expected array). Because of that, and folding in stat adjustments into point buy not making a whole lot of difference in practice, and folding in stat adjustments in the standard array being a step in the wrong direction, the whole concept seems like a waste of time to me.
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I think if you're a DM who feels very strongly about graceful elves and brawny dwarves, you can fill your world with those creatures and have them frequently point out how weird the dwarven wizard is. One PC can't wreck your entire world (at least not that way).
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(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I mostly dislike it because it's replacing standard ASI's, instead of being optional like it was touted to be in Tasha's. Other than that I almost always turn the toggle on when I absentmindedly make a PC in the character builder whilst I'm bored. I'm a bit of an optimizer player myself and so I use it, but the scrubbing of standard race ASI's is what makes me not like this option.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
A character I very nearly ended up playing in the Eberron game my table just started is a Talenta halfling sorceress. A Scale Speaker, gifted with the blood of the dinosaurs her clan is bound to ('Draconic' Bloodline sorcery) and with the ability to communicate with her clan's scaled allies (Eldritch adept: Beast Speech). She was trained for most of her life for that role - a nomadic dinosaur-blooded fire-flinging sorceress, companion to a clawfoot raptor she sees as her sister - and not in a metaphorical, gosh-I-luv-this-dino sense, but as her straight-up spirit sister and the expression of the blessed blood she carries.
Why should that character - a character that looks like this, to boot - be completely and utterly genetically identical in every last single possible way to Bilbo Slackins, sedentary tea-drinking tobacco-smoking rocking-chair-porch-sitting eleventy-one-year-old suburban grampa who went on one adventure in his youth, hated every last minute of it, and couldn't wait to come back home and start putting on a pastry belly in the civilization of the Shire?
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I'm a big fan of it. Player Characters are already the outliers of their races, so it makes sense if they don't follow the same general associations that they do (an Orc PC isn't necessarily strong or healthy, a Gnome PC isn't necessarily more intelligent than the average person, an Elf PC isn't necessarily more dexterous than a human, etc).
I like the change, and I have used it ever since TCoE came out.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I don't see the point of it at all.
If it's identical for all player races, why is it in the race section at all and not the ASI section? Just fold it into an additional point or two for the rolled/point buy/standard array section at the start. (or rather don't, as imo player characters are starting with too high scores anyway).
I was initially hesitant about it, but after playing a few games where that was used for character creation I find that I like it much better than using fixed stats. It makes it much easier to play the class/race combination that I feel like doing instead of feeling like I have to conform to specific combinations or be penalized.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I'm almost certain those points will be folded into statgen, in the Great 2024 Reduxening. They can't do that now though, not without blowing up old books, and they aren't willing to blow up old books yet.
I don't know as I agree that characters are starting with too-high numbers, especially given the fact that by RAW nobody can ever take/acquire feats without giving up ASIs and per convention very few games go much beyond fifth level. Characters, generally, get ONE ASI in their lifetime, and telling players they can't possibly start with a number higher than 13 is a great way to ensure you never see a neat, story-accentuating feat in your game ever again.
Please do not contact or message me.
I hope not, at least as far as the standard array is concerned (and it can't be folded into a rolling method, so meh on that account). Sometimes you want to go all-in on just two stats, sometimes you want to spread the love around a little bit - having some points to place into attributes separately allows for both when using the standard array.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It's entirely possible there will still be 'swing' points, but there's no reason to attach them to race/species if the Tasha's Cauldron rules are going to be standardized. They can simply be a "Step B.)" in statgen. "Determine your stats using Method X, Y, or Z, then assign 3 additional points to your scores as you like, provided no more than two are assigned to a single stat." Could be they handle swing stats differently, could be they assign points based on class and background though that seems increasingly unlikely. There's a lot of ways to do it that don't involve one's species, and I figure that'll be the way going forward because Tasha-compliant 'swing stats' are only attached to species currently due to a fluke of fate.
Perhaps different species will offer different numbers of swing stats - a species with fewer qualitative traits would get a bonus swing point or vice versa, though that feels kinda icky and unsure if want. Could work out in the end, could be terrible. Dunno. I'm just reasonably confident those points won't be attached to species in the redux.
Please do not contact or message me.
Sure. I'm just saying, we have three official methods today; folding in ASIs doesn't work with rolled stats, has in practice very little impact on point-buy, and is a downgrade (IMO anyway) for the standard array method. Doesn't seem like something to spend much time on to me.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Isn't this poll like a year or so behind? Tasha's allowed you to do this a long time ago. Also, why do the MEMEMEMEME folks struggle to understand that different races would obviously have different "averages" so far as their ASI's? If the existing printed ASI's were left, with Tasha's rules to allow you to shuffle them to your desires, it would make a LOT more sense than trying to say the 3' Gnome has the same constitution as the 8' Goliath, to name one example. Allowing folks to shuffle stats, to indicate their HERO isn't the "average" for the race not only makes sense, but was already done. IMO, this is just a $$$ grab by Wizards, to say "Pay me for a book showing what we already did."
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
A gnome has always been able to have the same constitution as a goliath in 5e. The only time this may have been impossible was levels 1-3.
If you want something that a goliath gets that a gnome doesn't, you should look at the racial features they get rather than score bonuses. A gnome and a goliath can both have a 20 Con, but only the Goliath will have Stone's Endurance and the ability to use heavy weapons without disadvantage. There is still a considerable difference between a goliath and a gnome even if the numbers in their boxes are the same
The same holds true if youre comparing dwarves and elves, or tritons and tabaxis, or halflings and tieflings, or just about any other comparison. The AS bonuses are probably the least interesting (while simultaneously most restrictive) aspect of a race's kit
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Yeah ASI's competing with feats is something I really hope changes in a later edition. It just completely kills character customisation as people feel compelled to just pump all the numbers to max.
I would probably just give more points (34 points, a score of 16 costs 12) but that doesn't work with rolled stats.
Why doesn't giving a +2 /+1 work for rolled stats? It has been working just fine for all of 5e.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Not sure how much I care about rolled stats, to be honest. People who're rolling for it are telling RNGsus to take the wheel anyways and accepting what Fate and Chaos decree their numbers to be - or at least they dang well should. If you're rolling, I don't see why you should complain about not getting to stat pad to boot on top of the rolls, though I suppose "rolling plus fixed species modifiers" is ingrained in too many people to cull. It does deeply contribute to the whole "[X] species HAS TO BE [Y] class or the game stops working", since random rolls plus fixed bonuses means an extremely limited pool of options for any given player.
Please do not contact or message me.
34 points doesn't work with rolled stats.
Just requiring 4th edition ASIs (2 points to different attributes, no getting +2 to one attribute) fixes that.
No, but Rolling stats and adding +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 is fine. I don't see what needs to be fixed. One stat generation method doesn't really need to impact another.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Just a reminder that this poll exists.
how-do-you-roll-stats
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Absolutely. I'm just saying the notion of folding in the +2/+1 doesn't work when you're rolling. It's rolling, any adjustments de facto happen after the rolls are made unless the rolling method gets adjusted to account for the different average (wouldn't mind seeing that math'ed out, but it seems unlikely there's a more or less straightforward rolling method that'd correspond to the adjusted expected array). Because of that, and folding in stat adjustments into point buy not making a whole lot of difference in practice, and folding in stat adjustments in the standard array being a step in the wrong direction, the whole concept seems like a waste of time to me.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].